Lead me to the light, O Thou
God of love. Hold in thy spirit, Lord, thou
unto me, That ye may touch my heart and make me see. Show me the truth, my dear, within
my world, and in my book will I see the Lord. Thank you, Jerry. All right,
back to Daniel chapter 10. Daniel chapter 10. The book of Daniel, at first
glance, seems like an impossible book to understand, and it is, apart from a revelation
of God's Spirit, God's Word must be revealed by the Spirit, and
it must be a revelation of Christ. But, as difficult as it may seem,
this was recorded. It was written for our prophet,
and it is primarily a picture of Jesus Christ. The whole book
is. That's what this whole Bible
is about. That's what Christ said. He said,
you search the Scriptures, and in them you think you have life.
But he said, they are they which testify of me. All of the scriptures
from Genesis to Revelation are a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ,
a testimony of Him. To Him give all the prophets
witness. Now we're not going to look too
much at the details. You can get sidetracked by details. But we want to see the whole
picture. I have used this illustration before, but I know you have seen
these pictures of a picture hidden within a
picture, a picture that will contain many of the same things,
like, well, the same objects in this picture, and within that
picture is hidden a big picture, something, a face or whatever
it may be. That's what this book is. The
old saying, you can't see the forest through the trees. Well,
this whole book is a picture, a revelation of Jesus Christ.
I'm talking about the whole Bible, not just Daniel. And if you get
caught up looking at individual things, you'll miss the big picture. Christ Himself. I told you about
going to the dentist, and I guess as something to distract you
from the pain, they had one of these pictures on the wall up
there that you look at. And one where I go, no, it's
another dentist, sorry. Mary, I used to go to another
dentist. Anyway, that picture is a bunch of dolphins all over
that picture. And somebody told me what was
in the picture, and I never could see it. Drove me crazy. That thing drove me crazy. I
wish they'd take it off the wall. I never could see that. All I
saw was dolphins. You know, there are other...
But once you do, here's the point. Once you do see that picture,
once you do see the picture within a picture, it's very clear, isn't
it? And you'll never look at that that you don't see it. Right? Everybody came in and did it.
Don't you see that? No, I don't see that. Well, there
it is. I don't see it. Take it down. That's this book. This whole
book is a picture of Jesus Christ. And you miss the whole picture
if you get caught up too much in the detail. Now, everything
is of importance and relevant and has historical That's significance
and so forth, but the whole picture is of Jesus Christ. That's why
God wrote this book, to point men to His Son, the only hope
of salvation. All right, now, we're going to
see, again, we're going to see quite a different Jesus Christ
here than what's being said about Him today. And I don't mean to
sound negative. I apologize firmly. Well, no,
I don't apologize. As men get more and more flippant
and familiar and blasphemous and comical and all of that,
and they bring Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, down the level
of man, the more blasphemous our generation gets, the more
angry it makes me. And the louder and higher I have
to proclaim true Christ. Salvation is to know true Christ. And we're going to see quite
a different Jesus Christ in this picture than the pitiful weakling
called Jesus that most believe in today. Daniel's vision of
the Lord Jesus Christ here, like Ezekiel in chapter 1 of Ezekiel,
like John in chapter 1 of Revelation, is the same Christ. The same
cry, not a pathetic doorknocker that men talk about today, not a helpless victim lying in
Mary's arms, but a sovereign glorified Lord on the throne
to whom man must bow, not accept, bow and tremble before. That's the Christ of the Scripture,
as He is now. And all of God's people, if they
see Him, they'll see Him the same way. Now, I'm not talking
about a vision. Daniel saw this vision because
the Bible was not completed. And he saw this vision. Ezekiel, the same thing. John
and Revelation, they were writing the Scripture. When our Lord
said, to those who sought a sign. Do you remember? He said an evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. What did he say?
No sign to give. No. Christ is the Son. Christ is
the glory of God. Jesus Christ is what He shows
His people. And He shows them from His Word,
not visions and signs. All right. So the way that we
will see Him, what I'm trying to say, is that the way we will
see Him is not in a vision or a dream at night, like Daniel
did. But we'll see Him from Daniel's
book. This is how we all see the same
vision, you see. We don't see a different vision.
We all see it from the same source. That way we all have the same
Christ, you see. Not like Oral Roberts' 900 foot
Jesus that he saw. That's a phone. And we'll see
this same part. All right, look at verse 1. Daniel
chapter 10, verse 1. The third year of Cyrus, king
of Persia, a thing was revealed unto Daniel. His name was Belteshazzar. That was his Babylonian name.
We don't know what it means. And the thing was true. The thing. Daniel really just saw one thing. He saw a person. The thing was true. Read on. The thing was true.
The time appointed was long, and he, Daniel, understood the
thing and had an understanding of the vision. Go back to chapter
one with me a minute. Chapter one. God gave Daniel
knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Was Daniel the only one, or no? God gives the same knowledge,
the same wisdom, the same understanding to all of God's people. Isn't
that what he said? Isn't that what Christ said?
They shall all be taught of God. All thy children. He's quoting
our Lord and quoting Isaiah. Daniel, remember three other
men with Daniel? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?
They understood the same thing. Look at verse 17 with me. As
for these four children, well, who's children? God's children. These four children, God gave
them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom. And Daniel
had understanding in all visions and dreams. So these four, Daniel,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, have knowledge, wisdom, and understanding,
God's children. The same with all of God's children. He has revealed unto all His
children the thing that is true. The thing that is true. That's what Ephesians 4 says,
is one Lord, one faith. There aren't many faiths. One
faith. It's the only thing that's true. And he went on to say in verse
1 here of chapter 10, as for a long time, you see that? The
time appointed was long. Why, yes, this thing has been
true, and the only thing true from everlasting. There's only been but one covenant,
covenant of grace, that God made with Christ before the foundation
was concerned. I'll speak the deep thing that's
true. The one thing needful. And it's been from everlasting.
That's what Proverbs 8 says, doesn't it? Speaking of Christ. I was set up on every last thing. That's what the angels said,
didn't they? When they announced Christ's coming, what did they
say? That holy thing. So what true thing is John talking
about here? Some hidden doctrine in the person. Jesus Christ. He is the way and
the truth. The salvation. All right. Like
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God's people had the
same understanding in the same world. The worldly wise men of Daniel's
age, Nebuchadnezzar's wise men, you remember? They couldn't tell
division. Like Pharaoh's wise men, when
Joseph was in Egypt, they couldn't tell division either. But God's
children could. And David said in Psalm 119,
he said, I have more understanding than my teachers. You've opened
your Word to my understanding. The Word. You know, the Scripture
says that the world seeks a sign and vision, and they're seeing
them. That's what our Lord said would happen. In 2 Thessalonians
2, he said, Because they receive not the love of the truth, God
himself shall send them strong delusion. God Almighty's sin
is signed and envisioned. They see it, but not on the salvation. God's Word, God's people are
having their eyes open to what this book is saying. This grounds
them, settles them, so that they don't fall for everything that
comes down the pipe. All right. Verse 2. Look at it. So he had an understanding of
the vision. Verse 2. In those days, I, Daniel, was
mourning three full weeks. Daniel was mourning, as all God's
people do. Huh? Blessed are they that mourn
out of all sin, they shall be comforted. What was Daniel mourning
over? Why, his own sin, of course. The state, the condition of the
world that he lived in. Huh? As all of God's people did. Blessed are they that mourn,
they shall be comforted. That's not talking about mourning
over sickness or death or deprivation. That's talking about sin. poor
in spirit. All of God's people mourn over
their sin, and as strangers and pilgrims here, in captivity.
Daniel was in captivity. Daniel was in Babylon. You understand? Daniel was in captivity. And
so were the rest of his friends and kinsmen. They were in captivity,
and he mourned over the state of his own state and the state
of the people. And God's people, they mourn
over their own sinfulness, they mourn over being as strange as
pilgrims here. This is not a continuing city
for God's people. They live for another. So in the meantime, they mourn.
Oh, they're happy. Yeah, God's people are happy.
People are happy because they're blessed in Christ, but they don't
find their happiness in this world. Verse 3, it says, Daniel
said, I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in
my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three more
weeks were fulfilled. Daniel's true desire, his heart's
affection, was not on Babylon's pleasant bread. Daniel's true
desire was not on the pleasant things of Babylon. But as Colossians 3 says, set
your affection on things above. That's where Daniel's affection
was set. And so that's what Daniel was
seeking after. And as Daniel was known to do,
you know the story of how Daniel was always calling upon his God,
the true God. And you remember Nebuchadnezzar
put out an edict or a command and said, anybody that doesn't
bow to my image, will be thrown in the lion's den, remember that,
or the furnace, no, the lion's den. Daniel, oh, he's God, he
wasn't about to, he wasn't about to, but God at the Word was about
him too. No sir, neither were Shadrach,
Nechat and Abed. And that's another story. But
Daniel was seeking his Lord and calling upon his Lord. And just
as our God promised, just as Christ promised, He said, David,
ask, seek, and knock. Ask and you receive. Seek and
you'll find. Knock and it shall be opened.
It doesn't mean a one-time thing. I'd go down to the front, you
know, and go through this emotional thing, and that's it. You sat
and, no sir, it's a continual, lifelong, asking, seeking, not. Daniel called upon and sought
his God. Well, look at verses 4 and 5. In the 40th, 4 and 20th day of
the first month, I was by the side of the great river, which
is Hitticore. In other words, he was by the
waters. The Lord made him I made him
lie down in a green passage beside the water, and he was going to
reveal some more. Verse 5, Then I looked at my
eyes, and looked, and behold, a certain man, a certain Daniel saw a certain man. And
if you have a margin of reference, does it have a number beside
a certain man? I hope it does. If you do, it
says there in the margin, one man. Daniel seeking God, calling
upon his God, mourning over his sin, God heard him. God showed him. Why? God showed him something. Look with me at Matthew 17. Matthew
chapter 17. Very quickly. All right? I have
oh, so much. So much to show you. You know, I know why Paul preached
all night one time. It was all night. People have
never seen the types of Christ through the Scripture. And Paul
began Genesis, you know, and said, oh, you got to see this.
You got to see this. Oh, you got to see this. Smith
and Rock, you got to see this. The Passover Lamb, you got to
see this. The Matthew, you got to see this. And he couldn't
quit. Preached all night. But I'm not
going to do that. But Matthew 17. This is the story
of our Lord's transfiguration. You remember when our Lord took
Peter, James, and John up on the mountain to see something?
What did He take them to see? Himself. To see Christ glorified. Look
at the verse. And after Peter, James, and John,
they heard, we'll look at it. Christ was transfigured before
them. That is, He was shown as He is,
more than just a man named Jesus, more than a flesh and blood man
as we are. The way they saw Him was as He
is, a glorified, sovereign God. Not just a man. They saw him as he is. Read on.
His face possessed a sign. His raiment as white as a white.
And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah, that is,
talking with them. Moses and Elijah. That's the
Law and the Prophets. That's what Christ said. The
Law and the Prophets speak of me. Read on. Don't tell us how they are. The
Law and the Prophets tell us of him. And while he gets faith, well,
now Peter, Peter said this in verse four, Peter got all excited
and Peter just had to say something as he was prone to do. He said,
Jesus, unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. If thou
would, they saw Moses and Elijah and all of this and Christ, it's
good for us to be here. So Peter, kind of like, The average
religionist, you know, he said, let's build something. Let's
build something. Build three tabernacles. Let's
build us a monument here. Let's build us a big religious
monument here, so we can really get religious. Well, we don't.
Verse 5, while he yet spake, while Peter had his big mouth
open, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. Behold, a
voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My Beloved Son. Don't be taken up with Moses
or Elijah or Elisha. Be taken up with Him. This is
My Beloved Son. Read on. In whom I dwell, please. Not Moses, not Elijah, only My
Son. And hear Him. Hear ye Him. He's the one you need to be looking
to. And when the disciples read on, heard it, they fell on their
face. That's what you'll do when you
hear from God. Not stand up and shout and cry
and wave your hands. We're going to see Daniel do
the same thing. He fell on his face. The fear
of the Lord is a beginning and an end. If our generation will
start falling on their face, I'll start believing some of
this nonsense going on today, but not until later. And all this stuff that looks
like the wave at the Super Bowl is not of God then. But this
fall on the face before the Lord in the fear of God is the beginning
of wisdom, saving wisdom. Read on. They fell on their face
and they were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them
and said, Arise and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their
eyes, When they finally looked up from the dust, what did they
see? No man saved Jesus only. One man. They didn't see Moses
or Elijah anymore. They saw one person, Moses. Now that's our wish, to
see him, but him alone. All right, let's go back to the
text. Oh, wow, this is wonderful. So Peter, John saw the same thing
as Daniel did, the same thing as Ezekiel did, the same thing
as John saw Revelation. Brother Sam read, back in the
study, Revelation 1, which is another vision or picture of
Jesus Christ. You know, these are the only
descriptions of Jesus Christ in Scripture. These are the only descriptions
of Jesus Christ in Scripture. I don't know where these people
came up with this picture of Jesus. Where'd it come up with
that? There's absolutely no physical
description of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures save for Daniel
10, Ezekiel 1, and Revelation 4. He sure hit the blue-eyed
Caucasian with long hair on his shoulder. He didn't have long
hair. It's a shame for a man to have
long hair in the Scriptures. Doesn't that say? It's all a
figment of men's imagination. The word idol comes from image.
Men imagine what he looked like. That's an idol. Our Lord said,
don't make any graven image of anything in heaven or on earth. And so all these pictures of
Jesus are not the Jesus Christ of Scripture, plus that they're
an idol. I'm being too hard. I'm just being truthful. If you
could paint a picture of a man with his face as the sun shines
in his frame, and it be this brass burning in the furnace, you might come close to this,
to having the right Jesus Christ. But nobody can paint the sun.
I know Thomas Kincaid thinks he paints lights. You can't look
at the sun without lighting it. So he sure hadn't put it down
on paper. And neither has anybody put an
accurate description of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I've given this illustration
before. What if I got a picture of a
woman, seventy, seven years old, with gray hair, five foot two,
eyes of blue, and a nice looking woman, and put it on my wall,
and began to tell everybody, that's my mother. But it wasn't
my mother, it's just a likeness of her. Do you do that? Do you just find any old picture
anywhere that looks something like your mom and put it on your
wall? That's ridiculous, isn't it? Well, that's Mother. No, it's not. That woman doesn't
look like my mother. Well, that's Jesus. No, it's
not. Let me ask you a question. I've asked you this before. And
this is a very telling thing. When you think in your mind's
eye of Jesus Christ, of God, what do you see? When you think of the man, Jesus
of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, what do you see? Do you see a face
when you, when you, when he comes to mind, do you see something?
You better not. Unless it's this vision. Paul
said that when we get to the Lord, we're going to see him
as he is, not the like men think he is. And God said in Psalm
50, you thought I was altogether such a one as yourself. Now,
he was a man. Jesus Christ was a man. And he
wasn't pretty. He wasn't pretty like this Caucasian
on Sunday vacation Bible school folks. He wasn't pretty. Scripture says there's no comeliness
that we should desire him. When we see him, Isaiah 53 says
there's no beauty about him that we should desire him. In other
words, he was very plain looking, very ordinary looking, brown
skin, long nose, dark eyes, short hair, curly, closely cropped,
Jew. People don't like Jews, so they
don't have pictures of Jews on their wall. But that's what he looked like.
He looked like an ordinary, average man, no beauty. What was his
beauty? The world didn't see anything
in him as a man. The religious world didn't see
anything as a man. There wasn't a halo over his
head as a man. Where was his feet? Where was
his shoulder? What came out of his mouth? What
was on the inside of his heart? And then when he took Peter,
James, and John up on that mountain, he peeled back that plain brown
rubber. He showed Peter, James, and John
how he really looked, and they couldn't bear it. They'd get
the dust. Like Daniel. I've got to get
back to that. Daniel chapter 10. I saw a certain man. I saw one
man only. As all who see him, see him. Verse 5 and 6. I lifted up my
eyes and looked. Behold, a certain man, one man,
clothed in linen. That's what the high priest always
wore, people. The great high priest. God's
orders and exodus were that the high priest wear linen. Read
on. Christ is the great high proof.
Read on. Whose lawns were girded about with the fine gold of Euphats,
a golden girdle. Girt with gold, girt with the
truth, gold. David said thy word is gold.
Read on. Whose body, verse 6. His body
was like the barrel. Now, the barrel, a barrel is
a precious stone. a valuable sum, precious sum,
jewel, and it's blue as thin sky, azure blue, sky blue. In other words, this precious,
this person's body was blue as the sky, and one that came from
heaven itself. Are you seeing the picture here? Are you getting the picture here
of who he's talking about? His eyes as a lamp of fire, or
His appearance as of lightning. Christ is the light, the light
of the world. Read on. His eyes as lamps of
fire. Yes, our God is a consummating
fire. And His arms and His feet like
in color of polished brass, and the voice of His words like the
voice of the Moses. Polished brass. for strength
and brilliance. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Read on. His voice like the voice of a multitude. The voice of
His words. Did it jump out at you all the
way through that you read this? The voice of His words? His words? His words? Did that jump out
at you? It says that. One, two, three,
four, five. The voice of His word, the voice, one voice, of His words, many
words, one voice, is like the voice of a multitude. In other words, our Lord's voice
was a voice of power. John said, as the sound of many
waters. You ever stood on the ocean shore
and heard that mighty, powerful ocean's power? There's nothing
like it. But the thunder, when Scripture said it thundered,
it was God speaking. Well, the voice of a multitude
for strength, for power, for glory. Yet, now, this also man. Now listen carefully. The voice
of His Word, the voice of His Words, were like the voice of
a multitude. In other words, it was like many,
many, many, many people saying the same thing. Are you with
me? That's exactly what this Book
does. And everybody in it is saying
the same thing. Not many different things. They're
all saying, Christ is all. They're all saying, God is God. They're all saying the same thing. All who have spoken for or of
Jesus Christ from the beginning are as a great multitude with
one voice in their declaration of one Lord One faith, one baptism,
one hope of our power. One. One voice, like the voice
of the Lord. And I'll have to contain myself
here. This is Daniel's vision was glorious, too. How do you
think he felt when he saw it? Well, hopefully, like you do
right now. Verse seven. And Daniel said, I, Daniel alone,
saw the vision. There were men with Daniel. They
were with me. They didn't see the vision. They didn't see it. There were
some men with Daniel, but they didn't see it. Why? Why? Because God didn't reveal
it to them. Salvation is a revelation from
God. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, Thou hast hidden these things
from the wise and the prudent, and revealed them unto faith.
This is why the seminary professor can't understand what our four-year-olds
do. Because it's hidden from them.
They'll see the trees, but not the forest. They'll see the dolphins,
but not whatever that picture is that I haven't seen yet. Just find that out on somebody.
Find out what that is. It's over at Dr. Herndon's office. Somebody find
that. That's driving me crazy. I, Daniel, alone, saw the vision. The men that were with me, he
said, they just rang. They rang. A quaking fell on
them. They fled the house, he said.
They rang. About like people do when they come in and hear
this mess up. Honestly. Now, when the quaking men do, usually
when they hear the truth, the true God and the true Christ
and the true gospel, it's quaking with anger. That's what they
did when Christ spoke. Who do you think killed Jesus
Christ? Religion. He didn't like what
he said about himself, what he said about God, what he said
about their religion. And when the apostles got it
up, they didn't like it, what they said either. And they took
them and beat them and finally killed them all. Try to silence
them. So the only quaking most people
do is quaking with anger, and they run. I don't like that.
Like Paul said to Timothy, they'll turn away their ears from the
truth and turn in the Babel. Don't give me this godlike throne.
Don't give me this sovereign Jesus in whose hands I am. Give
me a Jesus I can control. Give me a Jesus that I can accept
or reject. Give me a Jesus that when I'm
getting good and ready, I'll accept it. But don't give me this one who
does all the choosing, this one who does as he will with whom
he will. I don't like that. And I will
do it. Finally, God's people won't leave. They love the sound of the story
about Christ. What makes the world exceedingly
mad makes God's people exceedingly glad. You can't get God high
enough for God's people. and can't put man low enough,
and they found themselves free. I got to get to it. Look at verse
8. I was left alone, and I saw this
vision, and there remained no strength in me. My commonness
was turning me into corruption. Now, Daniel, people, Daniel was
the finest man in this Bible. He wasn't. You won't find one
negative thing written about Daniel in this book. Daniel's
the finest man to walk on two legs, except in Joseph and our
Lord himself, especially. But you won't find one thing
bad about Daniel's character in this scripture. To all appearances,
And to the natural man, Daniel seemed like a fine man, an upstanding
man, a moral man, above reproach. But when Daniel saw the Lord
Jesus Christ, God's holiness personified, the God-man, the
truly holy man, when he saw him, John, he said, And then and then only will self-righteous
religionists, when they see Christ, who alone was truly holy, then
and then only will they see their own sin. Before then, they'll
think they're pretty good people, like you did when you were in
religion, before you heard the true God and the true Christ.
When you heard, oh, how much God loves you, and how much God
needs you, and what all you can do for God, you know, you thought
you were a pretty good person, doing God a big favor. And when
you saw the true God, and the true Christ, and the truth of
the Scripture, you said like Job. Job said, I am God. Job said that in chapter 40,
after he saw the Christ, that he was a God. Like Job said in
chapter 42, Job, he said, I spoke and he said, I am, I said. Like Daniel here fell on his
face. He said, I'm corrupt. Isaiah said, when he saw his
glory in chapter 6 of Isaiah, when he saw the Lord, holy, holy,
holy, not love, love, love, but holy, holy, holy, Isaiah says,
well, he isn't. I'm going to have a little pain
less. I'm a sinner, God's a sinner. Now, now you see the true gospel. Now you see the God description. Now you see it. Something can be done about a
sinner, you see. But Daniel, he said, I, my company,
there's no strength in that. You see that? There's no strength
in that. When someone ever sees the gospel, when someone ever
really sees the truth, I'll tell you what else they'll
see. They'll see that there's nothing they can do. In their hands,
in their eyes, in their heart, there's nothing good in them,
there's nothing they can do to make themselves acceptable to
God Almighty. There's nothing they can do to
save themselves. Not through prayer, not through repentance,
not through fasting, not anything. Nothing they can do. No strength
in them. No strength. For all who see that, all who
confess that, their own corruption, their own lack of it, then what do they see? They see the Christ. They see
their strength in Him. Read on. Verse 9. All right,
so Daniel saw his own corruption, no strength, and he said, Yet,
verse 9, heard out of the voice of his words. I heard his words. When I heard the voice of His
words, then when I had a deep sleep on my face, and my face
toward the ground, they hit the dust, you see? That's what all
of God's people do when they see the true Christ and hear
His Word. They hit the dust. They don't jump and shout, they
hit the dust. You see what God's Word
does to people? Quite a different picture than
you see every day. What did Paul, Saul of Tarsus,
do when he, the Lord Jesus Christ, confronted him on the road to
Damascus? What did he do? Praise Jesus. And again, if I see my generation
start getting the best, This man will I look, God said in
Isaiah 66, this man will I look to him who is poor and of a contrite
spirit and tremble at my word. My generation uses the word of
God to joke with. That's the reason everything
we do here, every time we do it, is a serious matter. It's a matter of life and death.
But men and women and young people hear one thing. God's Word. That's the reason we're not here
for fun and games for our children. We're here interested in them
doing or hearing one thing. God's Word. And you can't hear
the Word in the midst of all this crap. As I said, my generation is making
a laughing stock of the Word of God, of Jesus Christ, and
the God of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, etc. All this talk about
the Holy Spirit is nauseating. The Holy Spirit does one thing,
really. John 14, John 16, He'll take
the things of mine, Christ said, and show them unto you. God's
people will go away when the Holy Spirit is present. God's
people will go away talking about Christ. What do you think Daniel
went away talking about? The choir? What fun he had? Daniel went
away talking about the one he saw. So with all of God's people,
when they come and hear the gospel, if the gospel is truly preached,
they'll hear a person. And they'll go home not talking
about the preacher, not talking about the church building, not
talking about the pictures and all that, but talking about the
Lord Jesus Christ. Because to Him we owe the glory,
both now and forever. Amen. That's what all of God's
people say amen to. That's what we say amen to in
heaven. Why do they walk around on the
streets of gold? Why are the streets of gold in
heaven? To show our utter disdain for gold. captivating the eye and the attention
of everybody in Heaven. Not Moses, not Elijah, not the
Purgatory gates, not the choir singing, but Him! And I'm telling myself, Him!
What is this book about? What's his vision now? If you
ever see him, you'll see the glory of God. You'll see silence. You'll see the true gospel. I hope we do. Well, he said in
verse 12, and I've got to quit. I want to go through the whole
thing. Then he said unto him, and look
at it. Verse 11, Then he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly
beloved. Teresa, do you see that God never
told Daniel he loved him until he was in the dirt, bowing down
to the sovereign glorified Lord, confessing his own corruption,
trembling at the Word of God, then and then only did the Word
of God come to me." Let's see that. Ralph Barnard hit the town of
Idaho, Kentucky, 52 years ago, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Ralph Barnard, traveling evangelist. hit the town of Asheville, Kentucky,
another one of those Bible Belt towns, the town I come from.
Just like any other town. There's a so-called church on
every street corner, you know. Ralph Barnard was a man like
John the Baptist. And he came to Asheville 52 years
ago, and they held a county-wide tent meeting. Back then they
had tent meetings. They erected huge tents. I went
to many of them growing up. And back then there wasn't so
much entertainment today. There's no use computers and
TV and all that stuff. But everybody went to the tent
meeting. Everybody went. And so it was held in Central
Park in the middle of Ashland, Central Park, big tent, and everybody
was there. all the preachers from the various
churches and their church members, and my dad was there. Now, I know this. I wasn't born
in 1950. Anyway, Rothbard a true man,
a man who actually was physically beat for the truth and run out
of town, some towns out west. Kelly, he used to go out to some
old mining camps out west, and they literally beat him up, a
true man, just like the apostles. Well, he stood up in the middle
of Central Park in that tent meeting one Saturday night, and
everybody who was anybody was there. And he stood up, and the
first words out of his mouth were these. Two biggest lies
have ever been told. Two biggest lies have ever been
told. Number one, God loves everybody. Number two, Christ died for everybody. And he said, ain't neither one
of them so. Every preacher, and every church,
and every so-called church member, you could hear their jaws hit
the floor. What do you mean, John Christensen,
John Christensen? Can't you hear the glaring and
growling of the real John Christensen? There are a hundred verses in
Scripture that talk about the hatred of God, and it's not...
it's people. People. See, God is not first
and foremost love. That's not his chief attribute.
It's not a loving God that's going to burn this world up with
fire. Would you do that to people you
love? Neither does God. John 3, 16 must mean something
other than we make it make it, huh? The world. God's love is everlasting. Jeremiah
31 verse 3 says, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.
Therefore, with loving kindness I have drawn thee. Whoever God
loves, he saves. Wouldn't you? If you had the
power and the ability to save people, people you love, would
you do it? What kind of monster would let
his child die? If he has the power to prevent
it. Tell me. They call our God a monster.
I say, there's his. And the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanses us. The blood was payment for the
sins of God's people. Isn't that what it says? He entered
into the Holy Once, had He obtained eternal redemption when He had
by Himself purchased our sin, the blood of Jesus Christ paid
for the sins of all of God's people. Wouldn't God be the most
unjust God to send us to hell for the same sins that Jesus
Christ paid for? Do you go to the store with a
receipt in your hand of something you paid for, only to have the
clerk say, no, you've got to pay for it again? Would God do such a thing? No,
sir. Whoever the blood of Jesus Christ
was shed before, their sins are gone. But ain't. The Holy Spirit now, for everyone
that God loves, everyone that Jesus Christ died for, the Holy
Spirit comes to them through the preaching of the gospel.
This right here tells them of the true God and
the true Christ that you heard tonight. They see themselves
for what they are, not good people, but corrupt. They bow down first. They tremble at the Word of God
as guilty sinners before a holy God. They confess their sins
before Him. They look and see Jesus Christ
as their only hope of salvation. And God says, then, I love you. I love you. Not the world. The love of God,
Romans 8, 29 says, is in Jesus Christ. And whoever's in Jesus
Christ is in the love of Christ. That's right. This gives God's
love of all the glory of sin. This gives God's love. God's
love is not of weak. It's a sovereign bestowal of
mercy, grace, salvation, and all the blessings of God upon
the object of that creature, everyone whom He loves. He's
forsaken them. Now, hell and high water are
going to stop them. Their will is here upon them. All right, that's Daniel's vision,
and that's ours, too. We see the same Christ. We don't
see a vision, a sign of wonder, but we see Him in the face of
this world. All of God's people see one Christ,
a glorified Christ, as He is, as He's revealed in this world. I hope you do. All right, stand
with me. Our Father, we thank you for
this book. Without it, we are in darkness
even as others. We thank you that you have, as
you cause the light to shine in darkness, shine in our hearts
to give the light and the knowledge and the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
it to us, but the Father which is in heaven. And we glorify
You in all, seek, we try to glorify Thee in all things, in everything
we do, every song we sing, the messages we preach, the prayers
we pray, may it be honoring and glorifying to Thee and Thee only.
And then walk away from here, men and women, beholding Thy
glory and thine alone. He must increase, we must decrease,
is our prayer. It's in Christ's name we've met
here. Amen. If you don't see me again, that's
my last message.