face to face, and tell the story
saved by grace. And I shall see him face to face,
and tell the story saved by grace. open your Bibles with me to John
chapter one. It sure is a delight to be here
with you all at any time, any time. Paul talking about being thankful And I suppose that, well, I know
for me, speaking for myself, that the thing that I'm more
thankful for than anything in this world is that God made himself
known to me, revealed himself to me. And he's not like I thought
he was, not like I wanted him to be, not like I would have
made him to be, but like he really truly is. And I delight myself
in him as he is. And I'm thankful that that is
the way he is, even if I come at the end to find out that I'm
not one of his. Because nobody would be one of
his if it wasn't in his heart to do it. And I just delight
in God for being as he is. I really do. And I tell you,
if you ever know him, if you ever know him, that's the thing
to be thankful for. We talk about blessings in this
life. And we sometimes, we don't, we use the word so loosely, you
know. Some people say, well, the Lord sure blessed you with
looks, you know, you're just beautiful, blessed you with beauty.
Well, that means that somebody's not very pretty. That means the
Lord cursed them. Somebody, you know, with lots
and lots of money. The Lord sure blessed you with lots of money.
That means somebody that don't have lots of money, God cursed
them. So you have to look at our blessings in the spiritual
sense. The world, there are lots of people in the world who have
much, much more than I do, and lots have less than I do. It's
the spiritual blessings that we desperately need. You know,
I've been in places where people just didn't hardly have enough
to eat. And when I was growing up myself,
there was times that food was scarce, really, really scarce.
And. And but the people that know
the Lord, it's like that old woman that John Bunyan, she said
he said at her table one time and they sit down to eat and
she had a pitcher of water and a piece of bread. And, boy, she
bowed her head and said, thank you, Lord, for this bread and
water. And she looked up to Mr. Bunyan and said, we've got this
bread and this water in Christ, too. And that's what counts,
ain't it? Having the Lord. having the Lord,
knowing the Lord. Look with me in John 1.14. Now,
we're going to be here as long as we want to be from what Paul
said. And if I was like a lot of preachers, I'd really take
my time. I'd stay with it a long time.
And I might yet, I might yet. And the Word was made flesh,
it said, John 1.14. And dwelt among us, and this
is what I'm talking about, and we beheld His to see the glory
of the Lord, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and full of truth. Of all the things we've ever
seen, it's the greatest sight that an eye has ever beheld,
is the Lord Jesus Christ and His blessed glory. Now, every
book of the Bible has a prominent and dominant theme that's peculiar
to itself. Anybody that reads the Bible
very much figures that out pretty quick. Romans deals with the
gospel of justification. Paul just nails that down, and
Galatians the same way, to deal with legalism and salvation entirely
by the Lord Jesus Christ and his death and his death alone.
Matthew deals with Lord Jesus Christ as the King of kings and
Lord of lords, Mark as the He came to serve, to minister, to
wait. Luke, as the Son of Man, shows us Him as a man as He came,
and all He done as a man. But John's gospel deals with
the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's Godhead, Him as God, and
the deity of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, beloved,
it was who He was, and that's why John deals with this, it
was who He was that gave worth to what he did through his work
of redemption, his work of substitution and satisfaction. You see, if
our Lord Jesus Christ wasn't who he said he was, then he's
not really risen from the dead. God's not been satisfied, the
law's not been fulfilled, and every one of us is still yet
in our sins. We're lost, we're without hope. Is that not right?
But, beloved, he was who he said he was. That's what John's telling
us here in John's the deity, the Godhead of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And the reason that man cannot save himself or commend
himself to God is because of who he is. That's the very reason. He's just the son of Adam. What
can we do? They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. What can we do to please God?
What can the world, what can a man give? What would he give
in exchange for his soul? And God done stated this. He
says that no flesh is going to glory in his presence. Paul said,
I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God, and that's
the reason why a man can't do anything to get anything from
God because of who he is. He's a son of Adam. And the reason
the Lord Jesus Christ could accomplish redemption and satisfaction to
God Almighty is because of who he is. And that's the great difference,
you see. You see, it's who we are as natural
men that makes what we do worthless. Makes it absolutely worthless.
I'm telling you, that's why the Lord said, except a man be born
again, he can't even see the kingdom of God, much less get
in it. He can't understand it, except he's born again, except
the Spirit of God does something for him. He can see church membership. He can see tithe paying. He can
see coming to the front. He can see praying. He can see
Bible study. He can see witnessing, he can
see passing out tracts, he can see lots of things, but he can't
see the kingdom of God. That's why at Christmas time,
you know, down home, a fellow asked me the other day, he said,
did you all have a Christmas plane? I said, no. He said, why? Why? And I said, well, I didn't
say nothing for a while, then he got talking about it, and
I said, well, I said, as long as people are dealing, I said,
this is the most hypocritical time of the world. There's more
sham and hypocrisy put on down home. They actually have people
stand up in town and have live nativity scenes. People dressed
up as Joseph and Mary and bring out donkeys and horses and cows
and stand them up, you know, and all that rigmarole. And I
said, it's easy to deal with a baby in a manger. You can feel
sorry for him, you can pity him, you can talk about how there
wasn't any room for him in the end, how pitiful it was that
the people treated him that way, and he's born in a stable and
all that. But I said, that's not where he's at. I said, when
you have to face him as Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and
he demands absolute submission and obedience, I said, that's
a different story. You see, he's not a baby in a
manger. He's on his throne and he's in
his glory. He's in His glory, and that's what John says that
we see. We've beheld Him in His glory, and that's what I want
to talk about, how thankful I am and how we all are who knows
God that we behold Him as God. Now, beloved, look at Him. That's
what we do. We behold the Lord Jesus Christ not as just a man,
not as a baby in a manger, but first of all, we behold Him as
God. Ain't that right? Look what it says there in verse
1. You see, John's gospel presents
the Lord Jesus Christ not as the Son of David, not as the
Son of Man, but as the Son of God. It says, in the beginning. Look at our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here His Godhead is presented, and look at Him in relation to
time. It says, in the beginning. In the beginning. That's His
relation to time. He is eternal. Our Lord didn't
start existing when He came born of a virgin and came into time,
he always did exist in the beginning. That's his relation to time.
Time is something we have. Time is something we use. God
ain't got a clock. Preachers all the time say, God's
time clock. God ain't got a time clock. He
don't need one. He declared then, time is for
us. Time is for us to show us how brief life is. Time is for
us, we measure it by, now they used to measure it by seconds
and minutes and hours, but now they got it down to where they
can measure it by microseconds. And beloved, time just fleeting,
and it's for us to show us how short and frail it is. But our
Lord Jesus Christ, He's God in relation to time. He was in the
beginning, He's eternal. There was a time when it wasn't.
Look at Him, beloved, in the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God. You see, look at his relationship
to the Godhead. He was with God. He was one of
the Holy Trinity. There's the Father, there's the
Son, there's the Holy Spirit. Is the Father God? Yes, sir. Is the Son God? Yes, he is. Is
the Holy Spirit God? Yes, he is. And so there you
see him in relationship to the Trinity. He was with God. He
was with God. Huh? And look at Him, His relationship
to the God. If He was with God, He was one
of the Holy Trinity, and look at His relationship to the Holy
Trinity. And the Word was God. Was God. Huh? He Himself was
God. He was the divine revealer. It's
the Word. The Word was with God, and all
things that God did, He did it by the Word. And then lookie
there, what His relationship to the universe is. The same
was in the beginning with God, and all things that were made
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that
was made. What's His relationship to this
universe? He created it! He made it! Psalms
33 and 8 said, Let all the world stand in awe of Him, let the
whole earth fear before Him, because He spake, and it was
done, He commanded, and it stood fast. Huh? How in the world do
you know our children won't even pay attention to our word, but
he can speak a word into existence? Then he upholds it by the word
of his power. How do you think this world existed
when our Lord, when the Godhead, when our Lord Jesus Christ hung
there on that cross dead? What kept chaos, what kept Satan,
what kept the powers that be, the spiritual weakness from overcoming
this world and destroying it? Because our Lord Jesus Christ
upheld it and sustained it by the word of His power, even in
His death. Huh? Oh, my soul, look at our
Lord Jesus Christ as God, and we behold His glorious God. Oh,
He's God. It takes—He has to be God. Only
God can save a sinner. Only God can save a soul like
mine. Only God can do something for me. Only God can create—only
God, who exists, who is not no better today than He was yesterday.
There'll be no wiser tomorrow than He is today. That'll never
have to learn anything, never forgot anything. Never does everything
He does without thinking, only God who can look through me like
He's looking through a plate-glass window. Only God can save sinners
like us. And look what He says there.
Look at His relation to men. In Him was life. What's His relation to men? In
Him was life, and the life was the light of men. I mean, beloved,
people can mock Him, make fun of Him, and all that rigmarole. Say happy birthday Jesus and
all that, but I'm telling you something. It's by him that all
men live, move and have their being. He's a relation. And a
man ain't going to live without him. And I tell you, if a man
has any sense at all, if he's not just a raving idiot and a
lunatic, it's because he's the light of them. And then in the
spiritual sense, we don't have any life apart from him. I mean,
our life comes from him. Our spiritual life comes from
him. I mean, He is the vine. We're just nothing but the branches.
And if we have it, it's only in His light that we see light.
Only in Him we see light. And, O beloved, that's what I
mean. In the beginning, in creation, before time, our Lord was not
only from the beginning, but He was in the beginning. He's
without beginning. And we beheld His glory, the glory as God. And then look here. And we beheld
His glory not only as God, but as the Word, and the Word And
the Word, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God.
Now I won't take my time here because we really, I so enjoy
this. A Word is an expression, a vehicle
of thought. Me and you, only way in the world
you're going to know what I'm thinking for me to tell you. Only way in the world you're
going to know what's in my heart for me to speak. And that's the only way in the
world we'd ever know God. what was in the mind of God and
the will of God and the purpose of God and the thoughts of God.
And I know I said that he don't think, and he doesn't, but I'm
accommodating us, because we have to. You know, we have to. But the only way in the world
we'd have never known anything about what God meant toward us
or had any thoughts towards us was through his Word. And we
beheld his glory as the Word. What the Word is, beloved, the
Lord Jesus Christ, what the Word is, is deity expressing itself. That's what it is. The Word is
deity expressing itself in the Godhead. Look in verse 18. In
the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost,
they express themselves through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's
why it's called the Word of God. God has never, ever done anything
apart from his Word. He magnified his word above his
own name. I mean, he's never done in the
vision. There have not been no, he's
not saved people by visions, by dreams, by nothing. He's not
by nature. He's always, everything that
God ever done in this universe, he's done by word, by fiat, by
manifestation of himself. And the creation, he's fake.
And what happened? The word went forth. And when,
beloved, everything, when He chose to reveal Himself to the
world, He was the invisible God. He dwells in a life that no man
can approach unto. And if He ever makes Himself
known to anybody, how does He do that? By His Word. The Word
of the Lord come unto them. So when God Himself was going
to make Himself visible to us, so we could see Him and understand
Him and comprehend Him to some degree and appreciate Him, what
did He do? Look there in verse 18. No man
has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is
in the bosom of the Father. What does it say? He hath declared
Him. That's how we know God. The Word
was made flesh and sent to dwell among us, and we beheld His glory.
Huh? You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
is God's spokesman, final spokesman. He got nothing else to say after
He came. In Hebrews 1, It says that God, who at sundry times
and in divers manners in time past, spake unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken in son, by son. Huh? The Scripture said in Revelation
1 and 8 that, you see, our Lord Jesus is God's alphabet. He's
the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the ending. He
which is, which was, and which is to come. the Almighty. I mean, beloved, you take anything—people
like big numbers, big numbers, zeroes, zeroes, you know. You take all the zeroes, you
can muster up. Everybody wants to win that $10
million thing that's coming up here, what's that, Publisher's
Clearinghouse? Everybody likes to win one of
them. But I'll tell you something,
God is God speaks through his blessed Son, and we, I don't
care how many zeros a fellow has, three, if you put one in
front of it, it's a thousand. You've got six, you put one in
front of it, it's a million. Is that right? You put nine, and
you've got a billion. No, nine, ten, eleven, you've
got a billion. But as long as you don't have
a number in front of them, all you've got is a bunch of zeros.
Ain't that right? And that's all we are, is a bunch
of zeroes. That's all this world is, a bunch of zeroes. And the
only thing that gives any value to the zeroes is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Huh? That's the only thing that
gives any value to the zeroes. And he's, because he's God's
alphabet, he's everything that gives meaning to anything. You
see, and beloved, a word. Let me give you three things
about the word. And that's why you know that rich man in hell,
he said, Father Abraham sent Lazarus. That one that I mistreated,
that one I ignored, that one that I wouldn't help, that one
that I wouldn't do anything for, as he sat by my gate. And I watched
the dogs lick his throat. You send ladders down here to
cool my tongue. Just let him dip his finger in.
No, I ain't going to do that. Well, if you won't do it for
me, will you let him go back and warn my five brothers so
that they won't come to this awful place of torment?" He said,
because if one rose from the dead, he said, And Abraham said
to them, said, They've got Moses and they've got the prophets.
And if they won't hear them, if they won't hear them, they
wouldn't believe if one did rise from the dead and wouldn't tell
them. And beloved, we had Moses, we had the prophets, and now
God speaks by His Son. And there is nothing else to
say. There is nothing else to be done. This is the final revelation
of God. There ain't no new one. There
ain't no Book of Mormon. There ain't no New World Translation
of the Scriptures. I mean, God Almighty spoke one
time in thirty-three years and had it put out on paper, and
everything our Lord said was God speaking. It was God speaking. That's what he told, ain't that
what he told Philip? He said, Philip said, Lord, you
show us the Father and it'll satisfy us. It'll be sufficient.
He said, Philip, have I been such a long time with you and
you've not seen me? Huh? Now, beloved, a word is
a means of manifestation. A word is a mean of communication.
A word is a mean of revelation. And there, beloved, you know,
if you want to manifest something, you want to manifest your emotions,
you want to manifest your thoughts, you want to manifest your intentions. Well, I'll tell you something,
the Word was manifested in the flesh. Our Lord was a manifestation
of the invisible God. That's what he was. God, who
is a spirit, took upon himself flesh, come here to dwell among
us. He was the image of the invisible
God, the express image of his person. I mean, beloved, God
became visible. God came down, and as Paul already
said, we touched Him, we tasted Him, we handled it, the Word
of Life itself. And, beloved, He so veiled Himself
in flesh that He laid aside any sign of deity, any sign of glory,
and the only people that ever saw Him as who He was was those
that He made Himself known to. Huh? Oh, my soul, he was the
image, he is the providence of his glory, the express image
of his person. God, God who dwells in the light,
come down here and manifested God himself. And not only that,
but he communicates. He communicates. Look here in
verse 14. A word is a communication. Well,
what did our Lord communicate? Well, he was, we beheld his glory
as the glory of the Only Forgotten of the Father, full of grace
and full of truth. Huh? And it says in verse 16,
And of his fullness have we all received grace for grace. The
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Our Lord Jesus came to communicate to us the love, the grace, the
mercy, the pity, the power of God does. In fact, our Lord himself
said, God so loved the world that He gave Him, His only begotten
Son. He communicates when He came
into this world, and it wasn't just in words that He communicated.
He communicated in Himself, in His power, and in His glory. When we talk about people being
gracious to us, God not only is gracious to us in His thought,
but He is actually gracious to us and made that grace effectual
through His blessed Son. He made the love of God effectual
to our hearts. He made the mercy of God effectual
to our hearts. He made it alive. He made it
powerful. He made it real. It wasn't just words that He
come and told us, but He actually communicated to us and planted
it in us and infused it in us and worked it in us. It just
wasn't just words. It wasn't just words. And that's
why He said in John 17, 23, He said, Father, you make them to
know. that you love them just like
you love me. And how do we know that God loves
us? It's caused through the Son, the Son that came. And then not
only, beloved, did He manifest the invisible God who communicates
the love, the truth, the mercy, the grace of God to us. That's
the way everything we have would get through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thirdly, beloved, not only is the word a revelation, He
reveals the attributes and the perfections of God. That's the
thing that that people stumble over is that they can believe
that he's a good man, believe he's a prophet, believe he's
a wonderful teacher, great philosophizer and all that, but I'm telling
you, son, he was God. And everything about him showed
that he was God. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, he
was omnipotent. He created all things, had power
over creation. He was laying asleep in that
ship. They got out on the sea and the waves and winds and all
that started blowing. Water got in the thing. They
went to bailing water, just to bail as hard as they could go.
Water just come in faster and faster. Finally went down and
woke the master up. Now God don't sleep. You know
that and I know that. Ain't that what it says? The
keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. God does not sleep. God don't get tired. And here
he was asleep. They went down and they woke
him up. Master, don't you care that we perish?" He rebuked and
walked out to that ship, and there was a wind just raging. We've had the wind tear down
lots of trees out of it. I don't know how many trees have
been torn down right in our very yard. Three? Five? Five out of
nowhere. Six. Winds come through there
just boisterous, and waves just rolling over that ship. And he
walked out there, and here's a man. He said, The wind quit, and that sea laid
at his feet just like a kitten. And man don't calm storms. God
don't sleep, and man don't calm storms. But the God-man can. Huh? Yeah. Yeah, he's God. He reveals the
attributes and perfections. He's omnipresent. He was talking
to Simon Peter and them, and they went and told Nathanael,
said, We found him whom Moses and the Law wrote about, the
Messiah. He said, Well, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? They said, We found Jesus. He said, Is there any good thing
come out of Nazareth? And our Lord went over and met
Nathanael and said, Nathanael said, And Israel, I indeed, in
whom is no doubt. How do you know me? He said, before I saw
you sitting over yonder in that tree. He said, Oh, I'm the Christ. I mean, He's omnipresent, He's
on mission. He knew what men was thinking before they ever
voiced it. And that's one of the greatest things about our
God, our blessed Lord, that He knows us. Ain't you glad He knows
you? He actually sees us. He knows
us, knows what we think. That's what gives us confidence
and boldness to come to Him. We can't hide nothing from Him.
And we'll think, what kind of God would it be that we could
hide something from Him? Huh? You can hide things from
the Pope, you can hide things from the preacher, but you can't
hide nothing from God. Oh, my soul, that's why we love
Him as He is. There we are in all of our nakedness. Oh, come on, I'll take you anyway.
I am with all my vile, wretched thoughts. Come on, I'll take
you anyway. There I am, Lord, with my heart
so hard I can't feel nothing. I'll take you anyway. Huh? Oh, bless His glorious name.
See, He's the very power and wisdom of God. See, it's in the
Lord Jesus Christ that we see God as a just God and a Savior.
It's in Him we see how mercy and truth are met together, how
righteousness and peace catch each other. In Him, in His blessed
name, His blessed person. So He was the Word. He made God
real, alive, and vital to us. There's a multitude of people
on this earth that he never does that for. And God bless him. And then looky here, it says
in John 1.14 again, not only we behold his glory as God, his
glory as the Word, and we're so thankful, but we beheld him
as his glory as the Word made flesh. Made flesh? It says the Word was made flesh. Huh? Of all the mysteries, I
was with Henry Mayhem and Scott Richardson one time, and I asked
Now, if you're going to ask any questions, ask somebody that
should know the answer. And those two fellows ought to
know something. And I asked them one time, I said, what's the
greatest mystery in the universe, in your minds? And without any
hesitation, both of them answered, the mystery of godliness, God
manifest in the flesh. That's the greatest mystery.
There's lots of mysteries in this world, but the greatest
mystery. That's why Paul said, without controversy. I know,
I know we can argue, we can debate it, but he said, I'm not going
to do it. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. God. He is justified in the Spirit. The Spirit proved that he was.
Miracles and signs and wonders prove, justify that he's who
he said he was. He was seen of angels. Angels
announced his birth. Angels waited on him and attended
to him. Angels were waiting in his tomb
when Mary got there after his resurrection. He was priest unto the Gentiles.
Never before had God been priest to the Gentiles. Salvation was
of the Jews, and he was priest unto Gentile dogs like you and
I. And here's the greatest mystery, that he was believed on in the
world. And then he's received up in
the glory! And the same way he went, that's
the way he's coming again. You see, he became, when our
Lord was made flesh, he became what he was not before. He never
had been a man before, so he became a man. But when he became
a man, he didn't cease to be God. And there was God and man
in one undivided person. And yet he was as much man as
if he was not God, as much God as if he was not man, and he
was a split personality as God's man. Oh, what a mystery! As a
man, he lived a sinless life. As a man, he lived perfect before
God. As a man, he obeyed the law.
As a man, he died on a cross. As a man, he knowed what it was
to sweat. As a man, he knew what it was
to be hungry. As a man, he knew what it was
to be tired. As a man, he knew what it was
to live by faith. You see, beloved, in order for
our Lord Jesus Christ to fulfill His work as a Redeemer, as our
surety, and as our mediator, it was necessary that there be
the union of these two natures. You see, man, man, man can't
satisfy God. And if our Lord was just a man,
Though he was a perfect man and a sinless man, all he wanted
he could atone for and God would accept him for was for himself.
Man cannot satisfy God. He can't do it. There's nothing
a human being could ever do to satisfy God. Only God can satisfy
God. Only God can please God. Only
God can honor God. Only God can meet the needs of
God. But then God can't die, and there's
got to be an atonement. And man can't satisfy, so how's
God going to satisfy Himself and die, become one God and man
in the blessed person of His Son? And He offered His humanity,
offered Himself, His soul, as an offering for sin, upon the
altar of Him. Bless His glorious name! My soul,
there was—of all the things our Savior went through, to become
a man was the most humiliating. The cross wasn't the most humiliating
thing, but to become a man, to become identified with us, to
empty himself, to humble himself, that was the greatest humiliation—to
be so identified with us. But, oh, my soul! If you think
God ain't holy, if you think God ain't righteous, if you think
God is not just, all you got to do is look at Him, the Word
made flesh. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man,
He can satisfy, and He can die. He done both for us. Oh, now, since He's a man, once
He ever became a man, He'll never cease to be a man. That's what
I mean, he's in his glory now. And because he's a man, that's
why the Apostle says, seeing that we have such a great high
priest as passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let's
hold fast our profession of faith without wavering because we don't
have a high priest that can't be touched with the feelings
of our infirmity. But he is tempted in all points like as we are
yet without sin. As God, he's able to do something
for us. And we understand as a man, he's able to feel for
us. I tell you, I tell you, there's nobody, nobody in this world
has ever treated me like my Master treats me. Nobody. Nobody feels like I feel or knows
what I feel but my Master. My own wife, my own flesh and
blood right there. Just with her and I, just one.
One. As close as a man or woman, I
guess, can be on this earth. Many people, two people I know.
And yet, my Master feels the things that she never knows,
never feels. My Master loves me. When I can't
even love myself, I'm so deplorable, so loathsome. My Master does
things for me that nobody else knows anything about. Oh, He's
a good Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord. What a wonderful Savior to me.
Oh, ain't our Master good? And Beloved then, it says, not
all that, the Word was made flesh, and what did He do? Dwelt among
us. Come down here and walk among us. Wouldn't that be something? I've often wondered what it'd
been like to have heard our Master's voice, to actually heard Him
speak, to heard Him preach, to watch Him as He walked, to watch
how He carried Himself, to watch as He walked and see how the
people reacted to him. I've often wondered how he'd
carry himself, and what his voice would sound like, and what it'd
be like to sit and hear him as he spoke. I know one thing, even
if his enemies said that never a man spoke like this man before.
I know they said that about him. But, Beloved, there he comes,
and he dwells among us. He dwells among us now. He dwells
among us now. That's what that word means he
tabernacled, tabernacled among us. And that tabernacle in the
wilderness, that tabernacle in the wilderness, and I know Paul
took you all through that study on the tabernacle here two or
three years ago, but in that tabernacle in the wilderness,
that was just a foreshadowing of our Lord Jesus Christ being
incarnate. Almost everything about the tabernacle
pictured our Lord Jesus Christ. He tabernacled. In fact, there
in Revelation 20, it says the tabernacle of God He is among
men. Don't say it, says He. The tabernacle
of God has come down to be with men, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
beloved, that tabernacle in the wilderness, it was humble on
the outside, didn't look like much, but oh, it was glorious
on the inside. And that's why our Lord, He emptied
Himself, emptied and divested Himself of all outward signs
of death. There were no halos around His
head. There was no light following him around shining on him. When
they decided they was going to finally take him, Judas had to
go and point him out by kissing him. He looked like anybody else. The only people that could see
who he was and had an appreciation for who he was was those who
gave eyes to see as they saw his glory as the word manifested
in the flesh. And, oh, beloved, that tabernacle,
that was God's dwelling place. That's where God dwelled. That's
where God revealed His glory. That's where God come down. That's
where, beloved, His Shekinah glory shall be. And if we ever
see the glory of God, only one place we ever see it, and that's
in His blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? You see, in
that tabernacle was the place where God met men. God didn't
meet men on mountainsides, on stumps. He met them in the tabernacle. That's why they had the priest
there, and the people came there. And, beloved, there, there is
the place where God met me. There was the place where the
sin offering was. There is where the atonement
was made. There is where they went into the holiest of holies.
There is where the propitiation was made. There is where the
mercy seat was. And our Lord Jesus Christ That's
where the sin offering is. That's where the glory is. That's
where God meets men. He's the atonement. He's the
mercy seeker. He's the priest, and He's the
author, and He's the God who accepted it. Huh? That's right. You know it so.
You've seen His glory. I know some of you have. And
not only that, but that tabernacle, that was the place of worship.
That's where people worshiped God. They weren't afraid of worship. Oh my! Went up there to adore
and reverence God and stand there. And those priests put on those
white robes. In just a few minutes, there'd be blood splattered,
be blood all over them. You went up to the tabernacle, you'd say,
man, this is an awful looking place. There's blood everywhere.
First thing in the morning, they offered a lamb. Last thing in
the evening, they offered a lamb. Blood all over them white linen
garments. Those priests offered those sacrifices.
Oh, where that blood was, that's where God met me and that's where
worship was. Huh? And oh, beloved, God says,
when I see the blood out in the place of the worship, the only
place that God will accept us and hear us and receive us and
we can speak to God and God can speak to us is through His blessed
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. There, the law was the place,
the place, the tabernacle was the place where the law was kept.
The law is kept in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says, And we beheld
his glory. We beheld his glory. The glory
is the only begotten of the Father. And, beloved, when we talk about
seeing his glory, the things that are essential to him because
of his nature and his character, we've beheld it. You see, grace
and truth is essential to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's just
essential to him. That's his nature. He's so full
of compassion. There we were, we're in darkness,
we didn't know him. And then it says there in verse
16, "...and of his fullness." And I tell you what, if you drop
a... Here's what it amounts to. You
take a bottle, take the biggest bottle you can find, take it
to the ocean, any ocean you want to, dip it in, fill it up with
ocean, and take it out. You reckon it took anything out
of the ocean? The bottle's full of the ocean. It's of the fullness
of the ocean. Well, that's the way we are. We're in Christ,
and we're full of Him. We have His fullness, and yet
we ain't took nothing away from Him, and we ain't add anything
to it. Oh, bless it. You know, we're
just full of His fullness. Whatever he's got is what we've
got, and all he's got, he's got everything. The fullest of the
Godhead dwells in him, the fullest of wisdom, the fullest of power,
fullest of grace, fullest of truth, fullest of pity, fullest
of compassion. Oh, even the fullest of God's
wrath, we've had that in his blessed Son. The fullest of his
justice, we had that in his blessed Son. The fullness of forgiveness
and acceptance. We got that in him, blessed son.
Huh? And then it says there in verse
17, the law was given by Moses, but grace, grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ. That law that was given to man
through Moses, that wasn't Moses' law, that was God's law. It's
God's law, but grace and truth, they weren't given to the Lord
Jesus Christ, they were his. Nobody had to give them to him.
They belonged to him. The law that Moses had, God gave
that to him. He went out and gave it out.
But God didn't give Christ grace. God didn't give Christ truth.
He is grace. He is truth. Huh? They're his
essentially. And the law was given to Moses
by God to show what God justly demanded of men and what men
ought to do and what men ought to be. And boy, it'd be a fine
world. Don't misunderstand me. It'd
be a wonderful world. It'd be a fine place to live
if people kept the law, wouldn't it? You wouldn't need no locks. Wouldn't need no courts. Wouldn't
need no prisons. If people just kept the law.
That's right. It is how man is. Man is so wicked
that he can steal. Steal you blind. Instead, lie
to you about it. And say there ain't nothing wrong
with stealing if you can get by with it until you go steal off of
him. And then you steal off of him, and he says stealing is
one of the awfulest things that anybody could ever do. That's
the way man is, ain't it? As long as he's doing the stealing,
he's in good shape. If you steal off of him, then stealing's awful
wrong. That's the human nature. But you see, beloved, the law,
it demanded perfection, it demanded righteousness, it demanded obedience.
And it was just right that it be that, because God is holy
and just and good, and so is His law. And the only alternative
is that if a man don't continue the things written in the law,
He's cursed. That's it. But you see, beloved,
I heard a preacher say one time that the law reveals the character
of God. Well, no, not all of it. The law didn't reveal all
of God's attributes. It didn't reveal anything about
His love and His grace. No, sir. It revealed His justice,
but didn't say a thing about mercy. The law testified to righteousness. It did not reveal grace. The
law was God's truth. but wasn't the full truth about
God Himself. You see, by the law is the knowledge
of sin, but it doesn't say by the law is the knowledge of God.
You don't even know God by the law. All you know is sin and
the horribleness of sin. Ain't that right? And what the
law could not do in that it was weak. There wasn't anything wrong
with the law, troubles with us. Weak through the flesh. God sent
His own and in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin made
him to be sin, put our sin upon him, and for sin judged sin once
and for all." Where at? In the flesh, in human nature.
Huh? But grace and truth, laws given,
but grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace
that saves a sinner. The grace that saves a sinner,
established upon such a glorious principle that God's law is honored
and justice is satisfied. This is what it amounts to. If
they find me guilty of breaking the law, they take me before
the court and they read the law that I've broken, they give me
ten years in jail, and I go pull the whole ten years, every day
of it. Well, the law has been honored.
The law has been magnified. Justice is satisfied. On the
last day of that tenth year, they come set me free. Law has
no more hold on me. And I, Lord Jesus Christ, beloved,
not only done that, but He came into this world and He obeyed,
honored, and kept the law. And then he faced all of its
penalty. And when he faced his penalty, God's justice demanded
his death. And when he died, beloved, all
whom he represented, all whom he was a substitute for, they
all died in him. Our sins were laid on him. All
of our iniquities were put on him. He is made to be sin in
our room and stair. And all of his righteousness
and all of his Obedience to the law was put on our account, and
now Christ is the end, the fulfillment, the goal of the law. For righteousness
to whom? People that knew? Damn that believer. You see, beloved, he's got grace,
full of grace and truth. Grace to redeem man. Truth to reveal God. And you
don't understand what I'm saying. In the Lord Jesus Christ, But
God's not lopsided. He's not one way. You see Him
full. You see Him glorious. Huh? And do you understand this statement
when I say, I know you do, that when you see Christ as the wisdom
of God, you know the gospel? When you see Christ as the wisdom
of God, what I mean by that, there's God. holy and just and
true. And the question's asked, how
can man be just with God? How can I, how can you, sinful,
rebellious, dead, dark, alienated sinner, be just with God? Well, God just can't come down
and say, you know, and do like a preacher said down home. And
this is a terrible thing that happened. There were seven teenagers
in one car in Cadiz, Kentucky, got killed just like that. Two
weeks before Christmas on a Wednesday night. left their work where
they was working to run, get something to eat. They wasn't
driving too fast. They wasn't drinking. They was just had a wreck and
killed all seven of them just that quick, from 15 to 17. Here's
a sad, sad thing. And I've seen it every day on
the news for several days. And they went and talked to one
of the preachers where a couple of those boys went to church.
And that preacher He said, these people come and ask me, they
say, they come and ask me, you know, how did this happen? Why
did this happen? And how could it happen? How could God do this
to us? And he said, well, he said, there's lots of things
happened we don't know. But he said, I'm sure of this. He said, I'm
sure God is just as confused and distraught as we are over
this situation. That's what he said. That's what
the preacher said. Huh? You see what I'm talking
about? We beheld His glory. They say
nothing about glory. So how can this holy, righteous,
and just God have anything to do with us? Well, infinite wisdom devised
a means whereby God and man could be united. The Word was made
flesh, sent to dwell among us. And we saw His glory, and we
see it now. And I tell you something, it just gets more glorious all
the time. It gets more glorious and glorious. And there, He's
one of a thousand messengers. He reaches up, and He's got His
hand in the very heart of God. And He feels the heartbeat, Rick,
of God towards His people, that heart of love and mercy and compassion.
And He reaches down here, and He touches man. and he made peace
through the blood of his cross, and man and God reconciled."
God's satisfied. Sin's put away once and for all.
God's law's been kept. Justice has been satisfied. And
now we can come with all the confidence in the world because
God said, He that believeth on the Son hath life. Hath life. Ain't that what it
says there in verse twelve? But as many as received him,
and I do, I take him just as he is. I don't, I ain't going
to change him. Oh, bless him. He's the Lord.
He's King. He's the Savior. The only one.
I ain't trying to be saved, plus him, plus me doing something.
My preaching ain't got nothing to do with him. My praying, it's
just him. And I receive him as the sole,
absolute Savior. It's the wisdom and power of
God. To them gave he the right, the ability, the grace to become
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And, beloved,"
and he says, no man's seen God at any time. Would you see God?
There ain't but one place to see Him. As the light shined in darkness, God commanded to shine in darkness.
He shined the light of the knowledge of the glory of God into our
hearts. to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And let me show you this, and I'll quit. Matthew 11. I am so thankful, and I just
can't get over it. I'm thankful for the Lord's people
who have seen Him and who know Him. You see, what have we got
that we didn't receive? What do we have? There was lots
and lots of people who went up to that tabernacle and never
saw the glory of God. There was lots of people who
went up there and kept the law, thought they was keeping the
law, and never saw Him. He came unto His own, His own
received Him not. He was in the world, and the
world was made by Him, but the world didn't even know Him. Well,
how in the world can we know Him? Look here in Matthew 11,
25. Would you see God? At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, O thou
sovereign, eternal God. You've hid these things. Who
hid them? God did. He hid from the wise
and the prudent, those that's got all the answers, those that
know everything there is to know. And what did he do? He took little
babies. People didn't know. Baby don't
know nothing. All they know is that they're hungry. And somebody,
they just cry when they get hungry and they cry when they get in
a mess. All a baby can do is make a mess. They can't do anything
for themselves. They can't even hold their head
up. They can't even put their hand to their mouth until they
get a certain age. They're pitiful. They're helpless. Helpless. As cute as they are, they're
helpless. Huh? But he revealed among the babes,
people who don't know nothing, can't do anything. Can't even
put their hand, all they can do is make a mess. And why did
you do this? Because it seemed good in your
sight. And all things, now watch this, all things are delivered
unto me of my Father. And no man knows the Son, but
the Father. Neither knows any man the Father,
save the Son, and He, to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. You
say, oh, you mean I've got to, if I ever know God, I've got
to know through Christ? Did Christ got to reveal Him
to me? Yep, and that's what he says in the next verse. If you
want to see God and know God, come unto Me. Come unto Me. Come unto Me." Huh? There's where
God's seen at, and that's where we see His glory. That's where
we get our help and our hope. Our Father and our God, bless
You so much. Praise be to You, wondrous Name. Oh, Your Name is so powerful
and so glorious. Oh, and we bless you for the
privilege. Oh, what a privilege it is to meet here tonight with
the saints of God. What a joy it is to be able to
open your word, to sing hymns, to pray, to preach, to enjoy
one another's company, to enjoy your presence. God, how wondrous
and what a blessed privilege it is to know you, to understand
you, to comprehend, to comprehend to some degree. who you are,
what you did, how you saved us, how you've done it to your own
glory and our good. And Father, I pray that you'd
bless this work here and bless this dear pastor and these blessed
saints of God. Thank you for allowing me to
know them and have the joy and enjoy their fellowship and the
joy of knowing them. and enjoying their company down
through the years. I thank you for them. Bring glory
to yourself here tonight. Continue to in our Lord Jesus'
name. Amen. Glad I was here to hear that,
weren't you?