All right, if you'd open your
Bibles to the 24th Psalm. Psalm 22, 23, and 24 form sort of a group. Psalm 22 deals with our Lord's
crucifixion. There's where you find the words My God, my God, why have you for? No,
it's not exactly the words. I'm sorry, but there's a quote
in there, which our Lord said while on the cross. Yes, it is. Verse one, the very first verse,
my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far
from saving me? Our Lord quoted those words right
there on the cross. Psalm 23 is often associated
with his time in the tomb. Now our Lord did not spend three
days in the region of the dead, that is in the a region of punishment. He said to that thief on his
right hand, today you'll be with me in paradise. And our Lord
from the time that he breathed his last until he came out of
that tomb was in a time of blessedness and rest. And then Psalm 24 deals
with our Lord's ascension. to the right hand of the Father.
Let's read this together. The earth is the Lord's and everything
in it. The world and all who live in
it for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon
the waters. Who may ascend the hill of the
Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a
pure heart does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what
is false. He will receive blessing from
the Lord and vindication from God his Savior, such as the generation
of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob. Lift
up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates,
lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come
in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty, He is the
King of Glory. This past week I was looking on the internet, I can't
remember what I was browsing around for, but I came onto a
webpage that had many hymns that had
been arranged and then performed and recorded probably by college
choirs. That's what it sounds like to
Bonnie and me. Sounds like very well-trained voices in the prime
of their strength, often with nice pipe organs and other orchestral
instruments. Beautiful stuff. And the one
that caught my attention was a hymn somewhat based on this
psalm. Let me read it. to you. Hail the day that sees him rise
to his throne beyond the skies. Christ, the lamb for sinners
given, enters now the highest heaven. There for him the triumph
waits." And by triumph here they're talking about those processionals,
those parades, that, uh, conquering kings. You know, as they came
back to their capital city in Rome, they marched down the main
street and people were on the side cheering them and the soldiers
with them, you know, and all that. They called that a triumph.
And that's what the songwriter here means. Here for Him, for
Christ, high triumph waits. Lift your heads, ye eternal gates. He has conquered death and sin. Take the King of glory in. Highest
heaven its Lord receives, yet he loved the earth he leaves. Though returning to his throne,
still he calls us as his own. Still for us he intercedes, his
atoning death he pleads. Near himself prepares our place,
he the first fruits of our race. There with Him we shall remain,
partners of His endless reign, see Him with unclouded view,
find our heaven of heavens in Him." As I listened to this hymn
being played, it moved me deeply. In fact, the next morning I got
up and I put it on the computer that's hooked to our television,
and therefore hooked our home theater system, sound system,
and I played it over and over and over again as I washed the
dishes. Yes, I occasionally do that. And I bet y'all listened
to it 10 times in a row. And I thought, I've got to preach
on this. The thing is, sometimes when I Sermon is inspired by
an emotional experience. It's hard to preach it if that
same emotion doesn't rise up within you. So I pray that the
Lord God certainly would give me an appreciation for this scripture,
such as I experienced, I think it was Monday morning. Now at
this time of year, it is more common to be speaking of Christ
coming to earth, but we're gonna speak of his leaving the earth
and what that means. Most of the commentators that
I read in studying for this say that this was likely written
by David on the occasion of bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. It had been in the hands of the
Philistines for quite a while, but God punished the Philistines
for having it, so the Philistines had sent it back to the Jews,
and for a long time it just sat in someone's house. And David
said, it's time to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. And so, he arranged for a new
cart, a brand new cart. And this is the way men do things.
They don't consult how God says to do things. They come up with
their own idea of what would be good. And he made a brand
new cart. And he got some oxen, and he
sent them to where the ark was, and they put that ark on that
cart, and they headed for Jerusalem. And as they were going along, the oxen stumbled. I don't know
if they hit a hole or what, but they stumbled. And when they
did so, of course, the ark reacted to that, I mean, the cart reacted
to that, and so the ark shook. And one of the men standing right
by it reacted, like any of us would
have, and put his hand out and steadied that ark so it wouldn't
fall down. And God struck him dead. You know, there is a picture
right there of man's religion. He thinks that a new cart built
by human hands would be pleasing to God. He believes that God can't keep
himself upright when he runs into a bump and he's got to put
out your hand and help God. God will have none of it. One
thing that God has made clear from the very beginning is that
any saving kind of relationship that people have with Him will
be carried out by Him and Him alone, that neither in His works
of providence or His works of grace He does not need nor will
He accept the help of man. One of the points I think is
very interesting that God gave to the Jews is that if they built
an altar for sacrifice by piling up stones to build this altar,
they were not to dress the stones. That is, they were not to cut
them into squares so that they looked pretty, so they made a
nice square thing. They were just to pile them up
just as God made them. There was to be no hand of man
upon the work of God. Now God broke out in anger against
this fellow that touched the ark. And he killed him. And it's written that it made
David angry. It upset him. And also filled him with fear.
He said, how shall we ever get the ark? Back to Jerusalem. He wanted it so bad. It was a mixture probably of
good and false motives. He loved God, David did. He was
called the man after God's own heart. And that ark represented
the presence of God, and so David thought, I want that thing as
close to me as can be. And so he got it in his mind
to bring the ark to Jerusalem. But all that David decided to
do failed. And rather than bringing the
ark to Jerusalem that day, they put it in the house of one named
Obed-Edom. They just stored it in this guy's
house. I'm sure with the shroud over it, because they knew you
weren't supposed to look at the ark. So it was covered, stored
away in some man's house, a man named Obed-Edom. And David and his whole entourage
went back to Jerusalem. But David got news that with
that ark in the house of Obed-Edom, everything about Obed-Edom and
his household prospered. You know, wherever God is among
his people, there's prosperity. Of course, this was symbolized
in the kind of prosperity that Obed-Edom experienced. But you
know something? That ark represents the presence
of God and it represents Christ, the one enthroned between the
cherubim. It represents him with the blood poured out. It would
be on the day of atonement was poured out there on that atonement
cover, the mercy seat as it's traditionally called. It's a
representation of Christ. And brethren, wherever Christ
is, there's blessing. And so David, even more, said,
I've got to have that ark. That ark is the blessing of God.
And so he determined to bring it to Jerusalem. But this time,
he said, we're going to do it like God said you're supposed
to move the ark. You see, God had given careful
instructions how to move this ark. It was only to be moved
by the priests. You don't put it on a cart, new,
old, whatever. You don't put it on
a cart. You don't draw it by oxen. And you don't try to hold
it up with your own hands. There were two poles set in rings
that stuck out of the ark. And the priests were to put that
ark on their shoulders, bearing its weight on the poles, And
the priests of God alone were to transfer that ark. And so
that's what they did. And oh, what a grand day it was. And they come there to the city
of David. David now, he conquered that
city, which in old times had been called Jebus. Now it's called
Jerusalem, the city of peace. David had conquered it, taken
it from the Jebusites, made it his own city, named it the city
of David. But there it stood with its walls and its gates,
and Jerusalem's up on a hill. Most of the time they tried to
build cities up on a hill, it was a good defense. And so here,
they're coming up the hill, and they're approaching the city.
And from what we read in the account of this, there's instruments
playing, there's singers singing. And David is dancing. We don't
know exactly what kind of dance it was, but it talks about him
leaping. This was a day of great joy, a day of triumph. The ark
is coming to Jerusalem. And they come to these gates. And the question rings out. Or the call goes out. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
Be lifted up, ye ancient doors, that the King of glory may come
in. The heads of the gates were probably, well let's say this, these gates
were not likely the kind we think of that open up like doors. These
were the gates that went up and down. And those gates were often
made like that because they gave a military advantage. You can
close them real fast. You just pull the pin and down
they go. And they might have what in construction we would
call a header over top of them. That was the tops of the gates.
And so they'd come there and say, lift up the heads. Take
them off. Get them out of the way. That
the gates might be lifted up. And lifted up high that the King
of Glory represented in that ark. His presence was represented
in that ark. That the King of Glory may come
in. And the answer would come back. Who is the king of glory? And the answer was Jehovah. Strong and mighty, Jehovah. Mighty in battle. And thus the ark was brought
back to Jerusalem. David had pitched a tent for
it. This was not the tabernacle that Moses had commanded in the
wilderness. The tabernacle, if I recall,
was in Gibeon. And I don't understand why they
didn't put the ark there and leave it there. And I don't understand
how they carried out all the sacrifices that were supposed
to be done, particularly the Day of Atonement when the high
priest was supposed to sacrifice there on the altar associated
with the tabernacle and take the blood into the most holy
place where the ark was. I don't know how they did all
that. But here's what history tells us. David had built a special
tent. just to house this Ark of the
Covenant. And so the Ark of the Covenant
is in Jerusalem. The King of Glory, Jehovah, strong
and mighty, is in symbolic form. He's in the holy city among his
people, enthroned. But we realize that this psalm
points to the ascension of our Lord, represented by that ark,
Jesus Christ, as he went back to glory. Let's do a quick exposition of
these verses, applying them to our Lord. It says, the earth
is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who
live in it. For he founded it upon the seas and established
it upon the waters. Of course, David would have been
thinking of the original creation, how God spoken it was, he commanded
it stood firm. And the earth, the habitable
parts, the dry land was upon the seas. And because He created
it, it belongs to Him. You and I are merely tenants
here. We may have a title deed that's down there at the courthouse
that says we own a certain plot of land. The fact is, we don't
own it. My grandfather, who is by no means a believer, that
is, he didn't make any religious profession at all that I know
of, but he says, we don't own anything. We're just renters.
And that's true. The earth is the Lord's. Because
he made it. But here, as we apply it to our
Lord Jesus Christ, it's not talking about this earth so much, though
it could be applied to him, but that's not the point. He is the
creator of the new heavens and the new earth. The new heavens
wherein dwell the righteous, and wherein dwells righteousness.
A new heavens and new earth where things happen like they're supposed
to happen. He is the creator of it. It is His. He owns it
and everything and everyone in it. In the new heavens and new earth,
we are part of it if we are in Christ. He owns us. The Apostle Paul says, you are
not your own. You're bought with a price. And
then we get these questions. Verse 3, who may ascend the hill
of the Lord, who may stand in his holy place, he who has clean
hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false, he will receive blessing from the
Lord and vindication from God his Savior, such as the generation
of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob. Now,
we might look at that and think, well, okay, who then is allowed
to come in God's presence and we've got to keep our hands clean
and we've got to keep our hearts pure and must never engage in
idolatry and all this so that we can ascend to God. Well, good luck with that. Try
doing that for the rest of today. You keep your hands clean if
you can. You keep your heart pure. And I'm just saying for
the rest of today, just try that. Try not to have an idolatrous
thought. Remember, Paul said that covetousness
is idolatry. Anybody here want to claim a
right to ascend the hill of the Lord? Anyone want to claim the
right to stand in His holy place? There is one. There's one. There's one who has the right
and he laid claim to it. That's what we're talking about
here. He went back to glory and he laid claim to it. He indeed
has clean hands. He never did what was wrong.
Never sinned. He has a pure heart. In him is
no sin. He never lifted up his soul to
an idol, but always looked to his father for all things. And
he is worthy of blessing. What do we read there in the
book of Revelation? Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive
power and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. He's worthy. And so he leaves the earth there. The apostles are gathered around
and it says that he began to ascend and a cloud received him
out of their sight. Now most people think, you know,
that they think of the ascension, they think of the Lord Jesus
just going up and up and up until he got to heaven. Well, that'd
be a whole lot of up and up and up. I mean, the universe is pretty
big and the heavens, in some sense, outside of it. It is my personal opinion and
I'll admit it's nothing that I can go to a scripture and say
it because it's not terribly important. I believe heaven exists
right here with everything else. And our Lord went up as a symbol
of going into the heaved up places. And the clouds surrounded him
and then he just translated into that other reality where God
is. And he laid claim to all that
was rightfully his. The new heavens and the new earth,
it's his. Everything and everybody in it, it's his. And as he approaches heaven,
of course this is symbolic, he approaches the gates of heaven
and he cries out, lift up your heads, oh you gates. Be lift
up, you ancient doors. How long have those doors been
shut? How long have they been closed? because none was worthy
to enter them. Nobody with clean hands and a
pure heart had ever approached those gates before. They are
shut up. And he comes and he says, lift
up, lift up those gates that the King of glory may come in.
And from the other side of the wall of that great city comes
a question. Who is this king of glory? You say you have a right to come
in. Who is this that dares to say to the gates of heaven, let
me in? The Lord God Almighty. If there
ever was a proof of the doctrine they call the deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and indeed he is, Jehovah God in human flesh, it's
right here. He approaches the gates of heaven,
that holy city, the New Jerusalem as it were. He approaches those
gates and demands entry. And when they say, who is it
that's demanding entry? He says, it is the Lord Jehovah,
strong in battle, mighty in battle, the Lord of hosts, the King of
glory. So that's a mighty big boast
for a man to make, and you better believe it is. But our Lord Jesus,
the man Christ Jesus, is God in human flesh, and is the one
who is victorious over all the enemies of God, and over all
the enemies of God's people. He has approached the gates of
glory, and he has said, let me in, I've got a right. There's
a throne in there that belongs to me. Let me in. And the gates opened. The heads
of the gates are lifted up, the gate is lifted open, and the
Lord Jesus Christ entered into glory, with great glory, the
triumphant King of the universe. I cannot imagine that there ever was a happier
day in heaven. Remember that while heaven is
God's throne, it is also home to many spiritual beings called
angels, and who knows what else? I mean, the Bible doesn't describe
heaven much to it, but there are beings there. There are beings
there who, like you and me, they're not privy to everything. God hasn't revealed to them everything
he's going to do. He sends them here to do that,
sends them there to do that. It says that angels are sent
to render service to those that'll be heirs of salvation. But when
it speaks of the gospel, the apostle says, and these are things
that the angels want to look into. Do you realize that you
understand things that angels are still scratching their head
about? If you understand the gospel, You're understanding
things that angels are still looking into. They don't understand
it, but they do understand this. That that, as the old timers
used to call it, the darling of heaven, left heaven. They saw Him go. They saw Him
who is the Word and who is with God and who was God, who is clothed
in all the glory of God, possessing all the rights and privileges
of God. One day He covered all that up in the flesh of a man. He laid aside his rights as God
and took on the form of a servant. Oh, what a wonder that was to
them. And they saw what he did and
they saw how man responded to him. And can you imagine how
shocking that was to them? You and I here, we hear the gospel
and we love it and we think it's wonderful and we scratch our
heads and wonder, why did everybody like this? Why doesn't everybody
adore the Lord Jesus Christ? Why doesn't everybody see in
Him everything wonderful? Well, imagine what the angels
felt like as they view men speaking against Him, turning away from
Him, and eventually arresting Him, condemning Him, crowning
Him with thorns, spitting on Him. pulling out his beard, beating
his back with an inch of his life, and then nailing him to
a tree and taking great joy in watching him die in torture. Imagine what that looked like
to them. And if they were not privy to
how this story was going to end, if they had not been told, Just
like the disciples. Well, the disciples kind of had
been told. They just didn't understand. They saw him die. And can you
imagine? And I'm putting this in human
terms, but as they look to each other, what has become of our great king? What shall become of him? I didn't
see this coming. And they watch him laid in a
tomb. And maybe they sat and waited
just as the disciples did until God the Father said to a couple
of them, you're going to need to go to earth. You've got some
good news to tell. And the angels are dispatched
to the tomb, and he rolls the stone away. And as someone rightly
pointed out, I think rightly pointed out, he didn't roll the
stone away so that Christ could get out. He was already gone.
Remember, he entered rooms without opening the door. He can get
out of the tomb without moving the stone. He did not roll the
stone away that Christ might get out. He rolled the stone
away so that the women and the disciples could get in and see
the evidence and the proof. Christ is risen from the dead. And for 40 days he lived among
them, dispensing his final instructions. And then he went back to his
home. And all the joy that greeted him there. He's back! He whom our soul loves has returned
to his place. The King of glory. is back on
His throne. I want to look at four things. First of all, what did this mean
to the Father when the Son ascended to glory? Now here we must speculate
somewhat, though I don't think we're going to be speculating
in any far-fetched manner. But anytime we speculate, We've
got to say, it seems to me. But from what I read in the Scriptures,
what I know of the Father, the very fact that God sets Himself
forward as Father, Son, and Spirit, reveals to us somewhat the relationship
among the persons of the Trinity. And He is called the Father because
He has a Son whom He loves. and a son whom he sent into the
world, and a son whom he delivered up to judgment for the world. Therefore, the return of our
Lord Jesus Christ to his father's house, he says, in my father's
house are many dwelling places. He returns to his father's house
and what joy the father must have experienced when his son
came home. a time of joy, a time of pride. You say, well, God knew everything
that was going to happen. I know, I know. And yet God sets himself forward
to us, often in human terms, that we might understand something,
just a tiny bit of God's works and attitude in all this, While
he was on earth, the Father spoke from heaven and said, this is
my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And the Father
was pleased with him. And he loved him. Think of what
it was like then when he comes back home. And not that he's
just coming back home from a vacation trip, or a business trip. He's returning from battle. He
sent his son to wage war. And now he's come home. Some
of you men have been to war. Imagine what your parents felt
like when you came home. I thank God I didn't have to
send either of my two sons to war. I think of those parents
who send their sons and daughters off to war and they wonder, are
they going to come home? Will I get to receive them back? On one hand, He's God, He knows
the end from the beginning. And on the other hand, He's the
Father. And His Son is doing battle. But now He's come home. Now He's
come home. And what does the Father say
in response to this? On earth He says, This is My
Son, in whom I am well pleased. And he comes back victorious
and the father says, sit here at my right hand until I make
all your enemies a footstool for your feet. You are my glorious son and I'm
going to bring the whole universe into subjection to you. And every
knee is going to bow. All the knees in heaven, all
the knees on earth and all the knees below the earth. all those
who are privileged to be in God's gracious favor, and all those
who are under His judgment, all of them, the Father says to the
Son, I'm going to bring them to You, and they're going to
bow down, and they're going to call You, Lord. You're my Son. You're my victorious Son. I'm
going to show You off to the whole universe. What did this mean for the Son
of God? It meant great joy. Great joy. The book of Hebrews
chapter 12 verse 2, it refers to our Lord who said, Who for
the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame.
And so what joy was set before Him? What was that that He was
looking to? He was looking past the cross
to that joy. What was it? The joy of returning
to His place. the triumphant Savior, and the joy of by His work bringing
all His bride to Himself, that they may be with Him. And so
now He enters the gates. He enters the gates as triumphant.
The labor's over. The fight is done and the fight
is won. All our sins have been put away. All the sins that were laid on
Him, He has suffered all that is required for them, and the
great burden He bore is no longer upon His shoulders. He is filled
with great joy in the satisfaction of a job well done. He had been
sent on a mission, and He had accomplished it. He was full of joy because He
was back home. After He raised from the dead,
He said, to the women, I'm returning to my God and to your God and
to my Father and your Father. I mentioned some of you men have
been off to war, and our Lord had been off to war, and some
of you men, you've been off to war. Wasn't it wonderful coming
home? You see, this world, though it
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, He's an alien here. It was awful for Him to live
here. We read of Lot there in Sodom, and it says,
his righteous soul was vexed by the conduct of the men in
Sodom. Well, if Lot, who you wonder
how they could call him righteous, If Lot, as awful a man as he
was, if he was vexed by the sinful conduct of men, what must it
have been for the Son of God, who is absolutely perfect, to
live among people like you and me? In the King James Version,
it puts it this way, he often groaned in his spirit. Have you ever gone somewhere
and you just couldn't wait till the time was over so you could
go back home? Something had to be done. Some
work had to be accomplished. And so you leave, but the whole
time you're there, your body's there, but your heart's at home.
So it is with the Lord. He says, I'm going there to prepare
a place for you. And I imagine when he got there,
he said, oh, it's so good to be home again. It's so good to
be where they think like I think. It's so good to be as the scriptures
say, in the bosom of the Father, home. For him, it was a vindication
of himself, his person, his word, and his work. On earth, he declared
the truth, and they laughed at him. On earth, he walked and talked
as a solitary creature, abused and rejected and now he returns and he's vindicated and he enters his rest. I doubt
any of us have a real understanding of how hard our Lord worked to
save us. What you and I experience, we
think this is normal. It wasn't our Lord. As I said,
he lived here among a people who vexed his soul. Even his
disciples proved disappointing. He lived here experiencing the
curse that he had pronounced on man for his sin. He worked
for his money, I assume worked for his food until such time
as he went into the ministry. He suffered long with what we
are and then that soul work, unimaginable to us. As God laid
on Him the iniquity of us all and He bore it, the spotless
Son of God being made guilty in the presence of His God. And
bearing within Himself all that an infinite God can do in punishment
of sin. All the work of the Lord. But the Bible says he entered
his rest. Isn't the end of a long day wonderful?
When you just poured out your body into all kinds of labor,
hard, difficult, sweaty labor. And finally, the job's done and
you go home and you rest. The thing is, we rest knowing
we got to get up the next day and do it again. Our Lord went
home to rest, because when he said it was finished, it really
was. It's done. He enters his rest. What did this mean to the Spirit
of God? It meant that he could begin the fullness of his anticipated
work among the people of God. It is written, when the Lord
spoke of the Holy Spirit, And John makes an explanation here,
I believe it's somewhere in John 7, but it says that this he spoke
of the Holy Spirit which was not yet given because Christ
was not yet glorified. And so now Christ has come home,
he's glorified, he's seated at the right hand of God. This means
the Holy Spirit is now free to come and do that which it is
his joy to do. Take the things of Christ and
make them known to God's people. And then lastly, what does this
mean to us? The remarkable thing is it means to us much the same
thing as it meant to the Lord Jesus Christ. His return to the
throne is an occasion of joy for us. I remember being raised
and told, make Jesus Lord of your life. Hard to do something that's already
done. Let me tell you this, everybody here, this is whether you like
it or not, whether you consent to it or not, Jesus is Lord of
your life. That's just a fact. God made
Him Lord. So He's not asking you to make
Him Lord. But I'll tell you one thing,
you don't have to ask a believer. You don't have to argue with
him. You don't have to bribe him. to bow before the Lord and
own Him as Lord. His greatest delight is that
Jesus is Lord. As I was listening to that music,
this thought came to my mind. What would it be? What is it
for me? That Jesus Christ has been ascended
and the gates have opened because He has a right to enter and He's
entered in in glory. He's the King of glory. He's
the Lord strong and mighty. And he's now seated at the right
hand of God. And what was my thought? Wonderful! That's as good as things get. And I began to think, what do
I want the Lord to have? Glory? Yes. Is God giving him
glory? Yes. And my heart says, give
him more. Give him more. Is He praised? Yes, He is. Give
Him more. Is He given authority? Yes. And I would say give Him more,
but God's already given it all to Him. But you see what I mean? I can't think of anything that
I would not rejoice to see put in the hands of Christ and said,
here, this is yours. I ask you, is there anything
you'd hold back from Jesus Christ? Is there anything you think he's
not worthy of? The psalm says, the earth is
the Lord's. I said, good, good. Let it be his. He deserves it.
He made it. He's redeemed it. Let him have
it. The devil's his. And he'll do
with the devil what he wants. You are His. All the angels are
His. The throne is His. I gladly say and pray to the
Father, O Father, lavish upon your son everything that God can. Isn't
that remarkable? Everything God can. And it's
His. Oh, great joy to us. There is
no thought that brings me greater joy than the crowning of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And nothing will give me a greater
experience of that joy than when He returns. And all the earth
shall see Him as He is, and own Him, and vindicate Him for who
He is. I weary of seeing the world still
rejecting Him, still calling Him a fool, even denying that
He existed, calling His miracles into question, denying the need
of Him by claiming nothing sinful. I'm weary like Lot in Sodom. Yes, my soul is vexed by the
things in the world. It's even vexed by what I see
in me. But I'll tell you this, I will rejoice when this world
is made to honor Christ like He deserves to be honored. Our Lord's ascension meant rest
for Him and it means rest for us. Why? Because it says we died
with him and we rose with him and we're seated with him in
the heavenly places. Oh brethren, you can rest as much as he does.
You say, oh, but I keep worrying about my sin. Well, stop. You
stop worrying about it. It's taken care of. But I worry
about whether or not I can hang on. Well, stop. It's not you
hanging on, it's him hanging on that's going to finish this.
Truly, really, I'm being serious here and I'm being serious with
me. Maybe I'm up here trying to convince myself of this. But
brother, we can rest. We can stop worrying about all
these things regarding our soul. And that means that we can begin
to stop worrying about the things that go on in this world. Because
if everything is well with my soul, what does it matter what
happens in the world? Horatio Spassford knew something
of that when he wrote, When peace like a river attends my soul,
When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot, you have
taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. Brethren,
are you in Christ? Rest, everything's all right.
That doesn't mean you won't ever be sad, don't mean you won't
ever suffer, but it's gonna be okay. We can rest. And in as much as our Lord has
returned home, it means we will. The Lord said
in my father's house are many mansions. I'm going there to
prepare a place for you. And if I go and repair, prepare
a place for you, I will come again and get you. I'm going
to get you. There'll be no empty houses in
glory. The Lord prepares a place for
his elect and he'll come and he will get them. And the last
thing. Our Lord's ascension on high
meant He was vindicated. And Paul says, just as our Lord
entered in triumph, he said, He leads us in that triumph. Those Roman generals would come
in, and I suppose they were at the front of the parade. And
all the glory given to them. And behind Him would be His generals
and captains and all that and the army. And brethren, we go
with Christ. in triumph. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors. Let the King of glory
in. Open up to the Lord Jesus. There's
a throne inside that's empty. He's supposed to sit on it. There's
a crown with no head. Put it on him. There's a scepter
laying there, stick it in his hand. We read in Revelation 5 that
they said, who is worthy to take the scroll? And none was found
worthy until they lifted up the gates and Christ came in, the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And I want you
to envision this if you can. He walked right up to the throne
and he said, here, let me have that. And the father said, okay,
it's yours. That scroll written full on the
front and the back, sealed with seven seals. And the authority
to open those seals and to bring to pass everything written in
there is given to Christ. glorious things. I hope the Lord
has maybe given you some sense of them. Eric, if you'll come
close us.