Turn with me, if you will, here
this morning to the book of Revelation, chapter 4. It's a song, S-O-N-G. It's the song of heaven. It's the song of heaven. It's
the glory of the angels and redeemed sinners. Verse 11 of the fourth chapter. It says, Thou art worthy, O Lord,
to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created
all things, and for thy pleasure they are
and were created. To know and to believe in, to love and to follow him constitutes
heaven on earth for the believer. Sin is our hell, but our heaven on earth is the
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the song of the angels.
That's what they say. is the Lamb. You see, this Lamb
taketh away our sin. That's one reason why He's deemed
so worthy, is that He taketh away our sin, the sin of His
people. All manner and all sorts of sin. All blasphemy and disrespect. rejection, all of our crimes, sin of every color and taste,
He takes them away. And for sinners like we are here
this morning, most of us are believing sinners. We believe in Him. We trust in his person alone
for our salvation. We are believing sinners. And this is our song, as well
as the angels in heaven, Worthy is the Lamb. Because this Lamb,
this Lamb who is worthy, he takes away our sins. And that makes heaven on earth. for the believer, he hath no
sins. No wonder that it is said here, Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive honor and glory and power, because
he taketh away our sins. He is heaven's wonder and heaven's
glory. And he's the chief subject in
heaven, adoring angels, constantly gathering and saying, Worthy
is the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of his people. Worthy. Worthy. He's so worthy. He's so worthy. wonderfully worthy, that we ought
not to ascribe that word to any other except
Him, because He only is worthy. The very thought of being ashamed
of the Lamb of God, who alone is worthy, is like a sharp, piercing
dagger to the heart of a believer. Just the thought of being ashamed
to identify with Him. You remember Peter at one time
was ashamed to be identified with the Lord Jesus. this little
Jewish girl there as Peter warmed himself by the fire of the enemy. Why, she pointed him out. And
she said, You're one of them. You're one of his followers.
You're one with him. I've seen you with him. I know
who you are. Peter said, Not me. I don't know
him. Peter was ashamed of him. about to be crucified. And Peter was afraid for his
own skin. He didn't want to identify himself
too closely with this one who called himself King of Kings. And he crawled back into his
betrayal, his shelter, to escape it by saying, I never I don't
know him now. I never knew him. I don't know
where he came from. Oh, the thought of being
ashamed of him has penetrated our hearts, I
know, many times. When we had occasion and opportunity
to let it be known whose we were, that we'd been bought with a
price, And the price that we've been bought with is the precious
blood of the Lamb of God. And we've backed out of situations
like that and not done what we ought to have done, not done
our duty, so to speak, not let it be known that the Lamb is
our only hope. Why in this verse is our dear
Savior called worthy? Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honor. Well, one reason why the Lamb
is called worthy is because He immaculate. The word immaculate is used considerably
more by the Roman Catholic Church than it is by those that are
not Roman Catholic. It is in reference to Mary the Virgin. They talk much
about the immaculate conception. But our Lord Jesus Christ, whose
name is worthy and who is called worthy, it's because he's immaculate. That's purity, a hundred percent purity. not
ninety-nine and nine-tenths pure. He is a hundred percent immaculate. He is pure. The Bible says He
is holy. Holy! That cannot be said about
anyone else, that they are immaculate, they are pure, they are free
from sin, They are holy. He is holy. The Bible says He
is holy, He is harmless, and He is undefiled. He is separate
from sinners. He is without sin, and He is
even without stain or without spot or without wrinkle or without
blemish. Worthy is the Lamb. because of
his purity. The only pure one that was ever born of a woman who ever walked the face of this
earth is the Lamb. No stain of impurity. He's like a lamb, inoffensive,
like a lamb. A lamb, I think I said this not
too long ago, a lamb has no weapon of hostility in their nature. A lamb never hurts anyone. There are two reasons why he's
called Lamb. No hostility in him. He never
hurts anyone. Never has, never will hurt anyone,
this blessed Lamb of God. A lamb cannot defend itself. Our Lord hung on that tree, abandoned
by God, by his disciples, alone like a sparrow on the rooftop. And they railed upon him and
said, Save thyself! Save your king, the king of the
Jews! Save yourself! Come down! Then he said he can save others,
but he can't save himself. Oh, my son. He could have come down. He said,
thinkest not I could not call 10,000 legions of angels. They
could come armed with their swords, and they could do these people
in, in a second. Not hostile. defend itself against
assaults and attacks. A lamb is an easy prey. A dog can
kill a lamb. Jeff, he raises lambs. Jared and Jeff, they raise lambs
and sheep. You've got to watch. If you're
raising sheep, you've got to watch the flock. You've got to
be out there all the time, tending the flock. A dog, a house dog, doesn't have
to be a wild dog to come into the flock and attack the sheep. And the sheep's an easy prey.
It will not defend itself. It won't hurt anybody. Let's
run and get in a corner and lay down. All this the Lord Jesus Christ
was in this life. That's one reason why in the
book of Revelation it says, Worthy is the Lamb. He's that Lamb that
John the Baptist talked about. John was there preaching to these
people. And all at once he stopped and he'd seen a man coming yonder.
And he turned to these people and he said, Behold, the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Lamb. All this was the Lord Jesus Christ in
this life. Like a lamb, it says, he was
taken and slain. He was the Passover lamb. He
was the lamb. in the book of Exodus when God
said, I've had enough of Pharaoh and his rebellion. He said, I'm
going to send the death angel over after midnight hour and
I'm going to kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt. I'm going
to kill them outright, every firstborn from Pharaoh down to
the least servant in the kingdom. And he said, You Israelites,
my people, chosen nation, chosen people, you are mine, my covenant. I called you from Abraham, who
was nothing, a nation of people that was not a nation. And he said, you take a lamb,
a paschal lamb, you catch a lamb up, all of them sheepherders,
you catch a lamb and fence him up for ten days. And observe the lamb with scrutiny. Be careful! in your scrutiny
of the lamb if there is a defect or a blemish or a stain on that
lamb, rejecting and get you another lamb. Why? Because this lamb, this paschal lamb was a type
of the lamb These Jews knew what John the Baptist was talking
about. They understood what he said. But with stiff, stout, rebellious
hearts of unbelief, they wouldn't believe him. When he said, Behold,
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. They knew
that he was the Paschal Lamb. He was the fulfillment of the
time. of that lamb that was to be taken
up and then to be slain. They led that lamb to the slaughter. No, no rejection by the lamb. The lamb just slaughtered alone. And they led that lamb to the
slaughter and cut that lamb's throat. and caught the blood
of that blessed lamb in a basin and took the hyssop and dipped
it in the blood and painted the uppermost parts of the door and
the sides of the door. And when the death angel comes
over, he said, When I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And every party in that house
was safe, and not a hand or a hair was touched of those Israelites
that were sheltered under the blood." That is one reason why
he is called a lamb. Worthy is that lamb that God
sent to take away our sins. A lamb slain is precious. Precious for food. You can eat
lamb. Very expensive, isn't it, Pat?
Pat's our... He can tell you what's good to
eat and what's not good to eat. There's a word for that, but
I can't think of it. Gourmet. That's it. A lamb, a slain lamb, good for
food, lamb chops. A lamb is useful in the making
of clothes, to keep us warm and to cover our nakedness. Oh, it's
good for food and useful for clothing, and indeed the lamb's
blood is drink indeed. Whosoever drinketh of this blood, his righteousness is the clothing
for our souls. We are justified by his righteousness
and cleansed by his blood. Our sins are washed away in his
precious Can you say here this morning,
can I say here this morning, in the inmost depths of my soul,
can I say, worthy is the Lamb that was slain? Worthy, worthy
of honor and glory. Worthy to be esteemed. Worthy to be recognized. Worthy to be pointed out. Over in one of the Psalms, it says, Hold and reverend is
his name because he is worthy. There's nobody else worthy. of the name Reverend. And I wish
preachers and holy men and women would recognize by what the psalmist
said, Holy and Reverend is thy name, that he is the only holy
and reverend one. No one else is holy. He is worthy,
worthy and holy, and Reverend is His name. No one else has
the right and title to that. And that is one reason why it
says, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honor and glory and
power. I am not worthy to receive honor
and glory and power. Reverend and holy is not. My
name is a sinner, a sinner as black as hell and as deep and
dark as hell itself. Oh, listen. Let me tell you this. Our souls
are made perfect before God in the glorious righteousness imputed
to us. Can you say here this morning,
worthy is the Lamb? If you can, if you can say in
the inmost part of your soul, worthy is the Lamb of God, worthy
of honor and glory and praise, if you can, then you have the
grace of heaven in your hearts, because you cannot say that with
meaning and say it to be meaningful unless you have the grace of
heaven in your hearts. So we ought to proclaim it aloud,
proclaim it with our lips and show it with faith in our lives
that word is his name. Look at yourself here this morning.
I'll look at myself along with you. Look at ourselves as sinners,
undone. Our nature is as black as hell
itself. Our nature is as deformed as
a devil. Can the Ethiopian change his
color? Can the leopard change his spots? Ye that are accustomed to do
evil, can you do good? No. I'm a sinner, as black as
hell and deformed as the devil. Nothing you can do. Nothing I
can do. The man and woman bore a girl
who was saved by the grace of God, put their trust, which we
call faith, which is God-given, it's given to His people. He
finds His sheep and brings them on home. And in the finding of
that sheep, salvation deliverance is. And so the man who is able to
say worthy is the Lamb, he trusts in the Son of God as his Lamb. As my sacrifice, this is my offering,
as the Jews in olden times, they took the Lamb and they took it
to the priest. They took it to the place where
they sacrificed, to the altar. And they identified themselves
with that Lamb. This is my offering which shows
forth that great eternal offering which shall come. I'm one with
Him. They put their hand on His head
by way of identification that This lamb stands for me, stands
in my place, it represents me. That lamb slaughtered in the
place of he who offers it. As the Lord Jesus Christ stood
in the center of the place, offered himself unto God in our behalf, so a
man, A woman, a boy or a girl. He does not trust. He does not
trust in a set of rules. You're not saved by trusting
in a set of rules, what you do and what you don't do. That's a self-righteousness that
you're dependent on. I trust that I won't do this
and I trust that I won't do that. I'm trusting in a set of rules. You can't trust in a doctrine
as a means of your salvation. You can't trust in a set of rules
or a doctrine or a statement of faith or giving yourself to
another, such as a priest or a preacher. These that can sing
worthy They trust alone in each person. They say, this person
lived for me, represented me, I in him and he in me. And he stood in my stead and
gave himself, his sinless self, as an offering in my behalf.
And God hath accepted me on the basis of this offering. And I am able to say, worthy
is the Lamb that was slain. Worthy is His blessed Name. Look, we sang, to the Lamb of
God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to Him to redeem you by
His blood and His righteousness. Look to Him as presenting you
in his righteousness, making you one with God by the grace
of God. Look to him. Look on yourself
as a saved sinner, saved by the Lamb and the Lamb alone. I will say this, clear as can
be. Having done this, having looked
upon the Lamb and the Lamb alone, and trusting in the Lamb and
the Lamb alone, trusting in the person and the person of Christ
alone, have nothing to do with any other name under heaven for
salvation from sin, from death, and from hell, except that worthy
name, nor the name given under heaven among men, whereby we
shall be saved, except the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, worthy
is the Lamb of God." Worthy, that's His name. Oh, glorify
Him with all the faith in your soul. and glory in your life. Daily rejoice that you are a
vile, far-off sinner. Shall one day soon join the redeemed
around the throne and eternally sing,