O God of angels, O God of angels,
O God of angels, O God of angels, O God of angels, O God of angels,
O God of angels, O God of angels, O God of angels, Now I would have you turn to
the Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon, Chapter 5. I know you've been there before
and not too so long ago. And this may sound a little bit
familiar, but I was greatly impressed with this today. If no one gets anything out of
this tonight, I did. I have already, so it's already
blessed somebody. I hope, though, it's my prayer
that the Lord will bless us. One of
the men at the conference preached from one of my favorite texts.
He preached from Genesis 24, which is the story of Abraham
sending his servant down to look for a bride for his son Isaac.
That's one of my favorite, favorite stories in all of the scripture.
And he told the story of how that servant went down and found
Rebecca and began to woo her with talk of the glory and the
majesty and the beauty of Isaac, all of his glorious person and
his possessions and his power and his authority. He began to
woo that woman, Rebecca, to go and marry a man that she had
never seen before, and to go to a land to visit
and to even live, a land where she had never been before. And
after he told his story to Rebecca, he asked her this question. He
said, Will you go? Will you go marry this man you've
never met before? Go to this land you've never
been to before. And after hearing that story and hearing the parallel
of Isaac and Christ, of hearing Christ described in all of his
beauty, I wanted to holler, shout to the top of my lungs, I'll
go. If she won't go, I'll go. I wanted to shout it out because
I was irresistibly drawn. That's what we mean when we talk
about the irresistible grace of God. There's a sense in which
the Holy Spirit draws a man against his will. He has to make us willing. He has to break our old will,
kill our old will, and give us a new will that desires him. He has to break us and bring
us against our will and make us willing in the day of his
power. But I think a more accurate description of the irresistible
grace of God is God showing us the beauty of Christ in such
a way that we're irresistibly drawn to him. And we say with
Rebecca, I'll go even though I've never seen him. He sounds
too good to be true. Even though I've never been to
that place where he lives now, that's where I want to go. That's
where I want to make my home. I'll go. I'll go. And you're
God will be my God and His people will be my people. I'll go. We're irresistibly drawn to such
a man. If God will be pleased tonight, if God will be pleased by His
Holy Spirit to reveal His Son not only to us but in us, not
just to our head. If this thing, if the love, if
we could know, like Paul said over there in Ephesians 3, the
love of Christ, which passes mere knowledge. It goes beyond
a mere doctrinal knowledge in the head. But if we can know
the love of Christ, if it could truly sink down, if we could
have a heart, a deep heartfelt affection for the Son of God. Then he said, Paul said, we'll
know the fullness of God. A joy unspeakable, full to overflowing. And that's what I want. I want
to fall in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is salvation. I want to fall in love with the
Lord. I want to be married to Christ. I want to be considered
by Him to be His bride. I want to consider Him as my
very husband. I want to be married to another. married to another. To live happily
ever after with him. And you will. You marry Christ,
you'll live happily ever after. In the ever after. And you'll
live, you know, the marriage bond, the marriage vows, say
till death do us part. Not so in this case. Death unites
us. Death won't part us. Well, here
in the Song of Solomon, This is the subject and this is my
title and this is my greatest desire for myself and for you.
To love Christ and to be like Christ. My two greatest desires for me
and for you. To love Christ and to be like
Christ. And I say, look back at chapter
4, look at verse 16. I have to say this, I have to
pray this. Awake, O north wind. O Spirit of God, like the wind,
blow where it lifts us. What a fruitless task this thing
of preaching through this be. If the wind doesn't blow upon
us tonight, blow upon our garden, that the spices may flow thereafter. be a dead, dry sermon to me and
everybody else if the Holy Spirit doesn't make this fragrant to
us. All right. Jesus Christ. Brother Jack Shanks, he threw
up a long time on this. He said, in that slow Texas way,
he, as you know, he said, I just love to hear that name. And then he repeated it over
and over again. Jesus Christ. His chills go up my spine when
I just hear that name. Jesus Christ, the Son of the
Most High God, the Crown Prince of Heaven, is called the Only
Begotten and well Beloved. Son of God. God said, this is
my well beloved son as well, he should say, because everything
about Christ is lovely. He's called the well beloved
by God, loved by God. We're the only man, Terry, who
ever lived who deserved the love of God. And he's well, he's called
the same thing by his church, by his people who see his beauty. who see his glory, who see his
lovely character, they say the same thing. He's my beloved.
I love him. Not like I should, not like I
want to, but I do love him. I do love him. Because of his
beautiful person. Now look at this description,
this glorious description by the church, by his people, by
you. If you know him, it so be that
you have tasted that he's gracious. You can say
this. When people ask you, verse 9
of chapter 5, what is your beloved more than another beloved? Tell me about your Jesus. We
got Jesus over here we worship. Tell us about your Jesus. Now, there's much talk. There's
much talk today of a gospel which Paul called in Galatians 1, another
gospel. It's not another, but it's a
perversion, not the gospel of God. It's perversion, perversion.
And there's much talk of a Jesus who is not the Jesus Christ of
the scriptures. He's another Jesus, a fake, a
forgery. And all of this talk of this
gospel, this another gospel, which is not the gospel, and
all of this talk I hear today of a Jesus who's not Jesus Christ,
who's another Jesus, it generally begins when they talk about Him. They generally begin by describing
Him as, you know, you've heard it, all love and tenderness and
kindness. Now that is Jesus Christ. But
that's not the chief attribute of Jesus Christ. That's not how
a man, Joe, first comes to know Jesus Christ, is it? The Scripture
says over and over again, the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. No man comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ first as
love. No. They see him as Lord. A man's first thoughts of God,
of salvation, Of Christ, the first thing when you talk to
somebody, the first when you ask them about what they believe. When you hear them talk about.
Being saved. Or whatever they believe. The
first thoughts out of their mouth is what's in the abundance of
their heart. The way they talk about Christ. In their first
term is the way they think about Christ. If they start talking
about He is love and this and that and the other first. I venture
to say they don't know Him. I do. You see, love and gentleness
are characteristics of Christ, but they're not the first characteristics
we see in Christ. We have to see like Isaiah saw
the Lord in chapter 6. We have to first see Him high
and lifted up, don't we? Huh? We're not going to worship
Him as Lord unless we see Him high and lifted up. And the first
things Isaiah heard and the first thing we have to hear about Him
is this talk of His holiness. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
what? Love? Glory. That's how a man and a
woman first comes to see and know the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we say this, what is your Jesus more than another? He's holy. How do we differentiate, how
do we distinguish the gospel, the Jesus that we preach from
all the others that are being preached today? He's holy. He's holy. He will by no means
clear the guilt. He's just. He's righteous. He's the Lord Jesus. Barnard
says you can't have Jesus as Jesus until you first bow to
him as Lord. He's the Lord Jesus. Jesus doesn't
save. The Lord Jesus saves. Jesus is
his name of humiliation. Jesus is the name of his manhood. He wasn't a man first. He's the
Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus. And a person has
to first come to see Him as high and lifted up and holy. And this
is what the Beloved says about Him. Look at verse... They ask
Him, What is your Beloved more than another Beloved? And He
says, or we say, verse 10, My Beloved's white. White. Holy. That's what that means. Holy.
Righteous. He's the eternal one who dwells
in light which no mere mortal man can approach unto. He's not some Jesus that you
just run up and accept him as your personal savior. He's the
holy and eternal God who sits on the throne, who dwells in
light, a being of light. When John saw him, He said he
couldn't look on him, couldn't behold him. His countenance was
as the sun that shineth in its strength, Revelation 1. He's not a mere man anymore. He is a man, thank God, but he's
not a mere man anymore. He's white. He's white in his purest
essence and fullness of glory. He's called the Son, S-U-N, of
Righteousness, the Son. And nobody, no mortal man can
look upon the Son without being blinded, can you? He's the Son
of Righteousness who cannot be looked upon by mere human eyes.
He is unspeakably glorious, and He's worthy, now listen, He's
worthy of the greatest and loftiest of language. He's worthy of terms
like this—ineffable effulgence, inexpressible brightness and
glory. He's worthy, yet those terms
don't describe Him. He's indescribable. Yet the Scriptures
sum it up by saying He's white. What's your Lord like? You ever thought about that?
He's white! Not a white man. Oh, white man. We're not even
white. We're pink or something. We're black on the inside. He's white. He's white. And look at this, and he's ruddy,
it says. Ruddy. He's ruddy. You know what that
word means? It means, the word is, the Hebrew
word is adumay. that comes from the word Adam. Adam, meaning red. The first
man who was created was called Adam. His name was Adam, or Autumn. Autumn, ruddy. And although my
beloved, our beloved, although the Lord Jesus Christ is the
bright and glorious Son of God, the high and lofty One who dwells
in light which no man can approach unto, Yet He came to earth, the
Son of Righteousness, came to earth and veiled Himself. Veiled
Himself in a human body, Terry. He became the second Adam. He
became a man automatically. He became a man. He became ruddy.
Just an average looking normal man. But peel away that facade. It's white. the Son of God. And those who can see through
that facade see His glory, but only those. And He came to earth
and veiled His glory from human view. He became like unto the
Son of Man. The Son of God became like unto
the Son of Man, ruddy, white, yet He became ruddy. He became
the second Adam. bone of our bones, flesh of our
flesh, identified with us in the likeness of sinful flesh."
He's ruddy in this sense. He was born a ruddy, red child
in blood. He lived as a man in all the
ruddiness of human life that is flush-faced, sunburned, toiling,
laboring man. You ever been out and worked
real hard and windburn come in? be all red-faced and flushed
and hot with work. He did that. He lived a life,
a ruddy life. He died a blood-red, ruddy sacrifice. The Scripture says his visage
was marred or ruddy or more bloody than any man. A blood-red sacrifice
by walking. The Scripture said, Who is this
who comes from Eden with dyed garments of red? Who is this
man who's glorious in his apparel, red, ruddy? Who is that? That's
the Son of God. He walked the winepress of God's
wrath. He became a bloody sacrifice
so our blood wouldn't have to be shed. And by virtue of that
one bloody sacrifice of His, He's been given a name which
is above every name. Look at this. He's white. He's
ruddy. And by virtue of that ruddy or
bloody sacrifice, he's called the chiefest among ten thousand. A standard bearer. He's our standard. He's the Lord, our righteousness. God has appointed a day in which
he will judge the world in righteousness by who? That man. Terry, we've
been judged in Christ. Thank God. We've been judged
righteous in Christ. But he's going to judge everybody
else by standing them next to Christ and see how they stack
up. See if they meet that holy standard.
Well, we preach. Did you preach like him? We did
many wonderful... Did you do the works of him?
And they're going to pale in comparison. But because of what he did, he's
been given a name which is above every name. the chief among 10,000,
the fairest among 10,000. You know, he's called the chief
here, the cheapest. You know that old saying, too
many chiefs and not enough Indians? We've got a whole lot of Indians,
little red running around Indians, around one chief, one Lord, one
faith. There are many of the The song
talks about the bright and morning star. There are many shining
ones in heaven. There are many glorious, angelic beings. There
are many people who will be bright and shining stars in heaven.
There's only one fairest among ten thousand. Only one bright
and morning star. There are many poor, helpless
Jesuses being preached today. There's only one Lord of glory. He's the chiefest among 10,000.
Look at verse 11. His head is as the most fine
gold. He's very God of very God. That's
His deity. He's dressed in a regal robe
of righteousness and sits in royal splendor. He's seated on
the right hand of the Majesty on high. He's King of kings and
Lord of lords. And don't anybody who puts up
these foolish pictures of Christ And his passion or his death
with that crown upon his head ought to be shot. He no longer
has a crown of thorns upon his head. He's no longer hanging
on a cross. He's seated on his royal throne
in heaven. And the crown that he wears is
his own head. His head is a crown of gold. And Paul talked about him being
our crown of rejoicing. His headship. His lordship is
our crown of rejoicing. His very head is a golden crown. And his locks, look at this,
his locks are bushy and black as a raven. That's his thoughts,
his ways, his wonders, his works. They're deep, black as a raven. They're dark. They're mysterious. The song says, The Lord works
in such mysterious ways his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps
in the seas and rides upon the storm. The disciples, when he
was asleep in that ship, you know, and they woke him up in
the midst of that storm, he came up and said, Be still. And they were all taken aback.
What manner of man is this that even the winds and the seas obey
him? His works, his wonders are mysterious
all of his ways. The Lord of glory. In verse 12,
his eyes, all his eyes, are as the eyes of doves. The eyes of
doves. The old saying is, the eyes have
it. Look into a man's eyes when you
talk to him. The eyes have it. The eyes have it. They say this, the eyes are the
windows of the soul. That's not in the Scripture.
Don't look for it. It's not in there. It's an old saying. But
if that's true, then if you look into the eyes of Christ, what
you'll see within is holiness. Eyes of dove, innocence. Anybody
ever been dove hunting? I'm sure you have, some of you
men. Have you ever looked at the eyes of those doves? You
see innocence, don't you? You see a little, meek, harmless,
undefiled, innocent creature whom you blew away in cold-blooded
murder. Isn't that what we did? The Son of God blew Him away
in cold-blooded murder, Eyes of dung. The eyes of innocence. No guile in his eyes. We'll look
at one another and say, oh, I love you. Eyes of deceit. No deceit in
his eyes. Clean and pure. No lust in his
eyes. Oh, my. No lust. He could look upon a woman and
look with love to her soul, not her body. No lust. No covetous desire. Not one covetous desire within
his eyes for anything that this world has to offer. Think of
it. Think of it. The scripture says
his eyes are pure. Thou art of pure eyes and to
behold evil. He can't even look upon iniquity. He can find nothing in it. He's
got dove's eyes. His eyes cannot be tempted with
sin. Another thing, the eyes of a
dove. You know, they call them morning
doves because the story has it that once a dove You generally
see them in pairs, don't you? Once they lose their mate, they
never find another. And they mourn. You like that? They mourned over their mate
the rest of their life, never finding another. And Christ said,
I'll never leave you. Never. Our wife may leave us, our husband. But if we're married to another,
he said, I'll never leave you. Never. Dove's eyes. One singular eyes. Eyes to the
glory of God and eyes for his lovely bride. His eyes were as
dove's eyes by the rivers of water. He wept. Shortest verse
in the Scripture. But yet, how profound. How mysterious. God cried. Do we dare think about
God as some austere, unfeeling, insensitive one? He wept profusely. He did. He wept. As do all real
men. Sensitive, caring, compassionate,
loving, kind. rivers of water, washed with
milk, washed with milk. His eyes, think about this, His
eyes were nourished all of His human life upon the milk of God's
Word. His eyes were ever toward the
Word of God, obedient to Him. He said, I must fulfill all righteousness. I must do. what the Word of God,
which is written on my heart, says to do. He had an eye to,
a single eye to, the glory of God and faithfulness to the Word
of God. And John, he was perfected as
a man. He grew up, he was nourished
with the sincere milk of God's Word, and he grew in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord. upon the milk of God's Word. Nourished by it. He lived upon
it. He said, I have meat to eat that you don't know of. And if
you ever do know about it, you won't need the meat that you
think you need. You can go into strength and the nourishment
of this meat for many days. Living upon it. Washed with milk,
it says. Pitiless set. Clean, sharp eyes. Perfectly set. Perfect vision.
perfect vision, omniscience. That's how good His eyes are.
He sees all, beholds all. The Scripture says, Thou, Lord,
seest me. If I try to go down into hell,
He's there. If I ascend up into heaven, He's
there. If I take the wings of a dove and fly to the uttermost
parts of the sea, He's there. He sees me. He's everywhere. His eye, the eye of the Lord,
is in all places. Behold, in all things, the omniscient
eyes, the fitness of the Son of God, thou, Lord, seest me. Look at verse 13, his cheeks.
Boy, it gets sweet here. His cheeks are like bed of spices. Stay
with me. Taste with me. The Lord is gracious
here, would you? His cheeks are as a bed of spices. Ask the Lord to make this sweet
to you right now. I have the fondest memories of my grandfather,
of my mother, on my mother's side, granddaddy, that's what
we all called him, Robert Freeze, Robert Lee Freeze, an old southern
gentleman from Alabama. I have the fondest memories of
that man. Do you know what sticks out in my mind when I think about
when his face comes before my mind's eye? The thing that always
stuck out to me that I remember him by was he was a working man. He worked in a steel mill, retired
in a steel mill for 30 some odd years. Hard working man. Yet,
Joe, he was always clean shaven. Always. clean-shaven, smooth
as silk. He used one of those old-fashioned
brushes, you know, in a cup. And clean-shaven. And you know
what he wore? I don't know of anybody else
that wears it. It's my favorite cologne, too.
I'll probably get five bottles for Christmas now. Old Spice. And you know, it made that man
clean-shaven. Old Spice, it made Granddaddy
just huggable. I just loved to kiss on Granddaddy.
All of us grandkids, Granddaddy was the sweetest, sweetest man. He loved Christ
too. Faithful member of the church.
He was kissable, huggable, and smelled so sweet. But what about
the cheeks of the Son of God? A sweet-smelling son and Savior. He doesn't need Old Spice. He
doesn't need cologne. Have you ever thought about this? Sin ravages our bodies. What? Sin, death. Our bodies, you go a day or two
without washing, you've got B.O. Body odor, and it reeks, doesn't
it? It's nothing worse than a human,
an unwashed human being. It smells worse than an animal.
Our feet even stink. Oh, Barbara, you ought to know
this better than anybody. A shoe salesman. From the sole
of our feet to the top of our head is no soundness, and we
stink. We stink. Do you know that's
because of sin? But in him was no sin. Do you ever think about this?
I bet he didn't have bad breath. I challenge you to say that he
did. I bet he didn't have body odor.
smelled sweet to be around. I bet his sweat smelled sweet. His feet didn't stink either.
Dirty, walking that hot and dusty road, Mary didn't think they
stunk, did they? She's kissing on them. Loveliest feet you'll ever smell.
But more completely, And more accurately, his cheeks,
his countenance, that means his countenance is beautiful and
glorious. You know, we like to gaze, I
like to go in and gaze upon my little daughter and look at those
little They're still kind of fat and puffy. They wet me. My, what cheeks. You just like
to kiss them, don't you Terry? You just like to kiss them. Now,
Jonathan David, those cheeks, those sweet, tender little cheeks. We like to sit and we like to
look and gaze upon our children. Well, someday we're going to
see beauty We're going to look at the Holy
Son of God, and we're going to sit there. We're going to stand
there. The Scripture talks about silence. There's going to be
silence in heaven for the space of, what is it, 30 minutes? I
think we're just going to be spellbound. A half has never been. Look at Him. You know, don't
you like to sit and look at your child? You do. Every one of you
do. Like the saying, gaze upon your sleeping child. We're going
to gaze upon the Son of God. Hours, days, years. And never grow tired. And think
about this, those sweet cheeks. Oh, I put my hand on mine and
they feel so rough. Those sweet cheeks. We're beaten into a pulp by men. Let somebody do that to you,
baby. Just take her and beat her to a bloody pulp. It's unthinkable,
isn't it? beat him beyond recognition.
But thank God he was smitten so we won't be. But Joe, we would
deserve to stand before God someday and have him whack us across the face, man.
You shameful, wretched creature. Get out of my sight. And that's
what they did to Christ. He was smitten and afflicted
by God, so that we won't be. He blushed with shame, naked,
so that we won't have to be put to shame. It says, His cheeks were a bed
of spices, as sweet flowers, towers of perfume, the rose of
Sharon, the lily of the valley. I've told you this before, but
perhaps some of you didn't hear it, or maybe you forgot Over
in the Middle East, they have a lily. Nancy would appreciate
that. They have a flower, a lily of
the valley. Not like the one we have, lily
of the valley, but it's a lily, and they tell me that it is,
the fragrance of that flower is unlike any other, that you
can, that the smell wafts through the valley, all through those
valleys, nestled between those hills. And dogs and hounds over
there will get to chasing rabbits like they do here. And those
rabbits know where to go. When the dog, when the predator
is chasing them, those rabbits will run into those valleys where
those lilies are and get and hide in those lilies because
the dog can't smell them. The lilies cover the scent of
those rabbits and the dog can't get and dressed in the robe of
Christ's righteousness." The Lord God can't smell our sin.
You better run to the lily of the valley. Hide in Him. He's
the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the bright and
morning star. And it says His lips are like lilies. Lips like lilies. That would be a good title of
this sermon. Lips like lilies. Lips like lilies
dropping myrrh, grace pours from his lips. Only words, only words
that came out of his mouth were good words, right words, true
words. He had occasional words, harsh
words for the Pharisees, but they had it coming. But it was
right. It was true, wasn't it? It was righteous. It was holy
words. It wasn't words out of a fit of anger or unrighteous
words. It was true. It was righteous.
It was the glory of God for the good of all those that heard
him. But yet, for the most part, holiness, goodness, truth, prophets,
words of prophets, words that edify. came from his mouth—never
cursing or bitterness, never cursing or bitterness. Can you
imagine, as a carpenter, can you imagine pounding his thumbstand
and not a word of cursing or bitterness, not a thought of
it? Thank you, Lord, that I may know
how these people feel and I can be touched with a feeling of
their infirmities, even down to the point of a mashed thumb. Never cursing or bitterness,
never complaint, just lilies, sweet things, grace. Verse fourteen, his hands, all
his hands. You can tell an awful lot about
a man by his hands, whether or not he's a working man or whether
or not he's a little bit effeminate or whatever. He says his hands
are as gold rings set with the barrel. Gold wing, hands like
gold. Gold. I believe this speaks of
his works. He lifted the fallen. He healed
the sick. He raised the dead. He glorified
God in all that he did with his hands. He worked with his hands. And all of it was for the benefit
of others, for the glory of God and the benefit of others. And
it says his belly, his belly, I believe this represents his
innermost being, his heart, his soul, his bowels. are bright
ivory, overlaid with sapphire, bright ivory, pure and sinless,
even his bowels, his innermost being, overlaid with sapphire.
That is, his innermost being was adorned outwardly by his
life. His legs are as pillars of marble. He's the rock of ages, marble. You have to dig deep to get it,
and it's the hardest, the rock hardest of substances. Christ
is the rock of ages, the sure foundation, the chief cornerstone. He's able to keep us from falling. He's able to bear the weight
of the sin of the world of believers upon His back, because His legs
are like pillars, pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine
gold. That's His feet. The Scripture
in Isaiah says, How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet
of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace." And that's
not primarily talking about a gospel preacher. That's talking about
Christ. He's got the prettiest feet, the man labor that laid
eyes on Him. And, Terry, we're going to be
looking for those feet in the Lord. We're going to be looking
for some scars in them, aren't we? Hands and feet. I believe
He's going to be barefooted. So we can see those scars. Set
upon sockets of gold. Beautiful feet. And His countenance
is as Lebanon. Now, I've never seen Lebanon.
I've seen some pictures of it, but they tell me in the height
of its glory, way back when, it was the most glorious and
grandest of all cities upon the earth. Beautiful. Buildings were
made with the cedars of Lebanon. You ever seen a cedar house,
post and beam construction out of pure cedar? Smells good and
it looks red and just beautiful, beautiful. His countenance is
as Lebanon, a tower of strength and of beauty and glory, excellent
as the cedars, sweet-smelling savor and a sight to behold. Joe, he's a sight for sore eyes,
for sin sore eyes. That's what he's going to be
to us, a sight for these old sore eyes to behold. And his
mouth, most sweet, most sweet. That mouth that spoke such tender,
loving, sweet, and gracious words. That mouth that instructed, that
encouraged, that gently rebuked, oh so gently, that spoke forgiveness. Woman, where are thine accusers? That mouth that spoke kind words,
compassionate words, gentle words of love and affection. Peter,
I prayed for you. That mouth. And he kind of ends
this up when they say, they ask him or her, what's your beloved
more than any other beloved? It's kind of like Paul when he
said he went to the third heaven and saw things that are not lawful.
He said, I've done the best I can to describe Him, but when it's
all said and done, what is it, my beloved, more than any other
beloved? Why, He's all together, everything about
Him. from the top of his head, from
the crown of his head, to every hair upon it, to the sole of
his feet. He's altogether lovely. Everything
about him is lovely, pure, spotless, holy, and beautiful. Now look with me over to 1 John
chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. I want you
to look at a few verses here, and then we'll turn over and
read another passage in closing. I hope you were able to see something
of the beauty of Christ in that. Who is sufficient? If ever that
verse, if ever a man could say that with Paul, he'd be after
reading that. Who is sufficient? I can't even
read it. So helpless, so insufficient. But do you know what the beauty,
the wonder, the amazement of all this? Look at 1 John chapter 3. This
is amazing now, folks. Get a hold of this with me. Beloved,
verse 2, now are we the sons of God. We are. And it does not
yet appear. We just, eye hadn't seen, ear
hadn't heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things
that God has prepared for them that love Christ. It does not
yet appear what we shall be, but we know," get a load of this, that when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him. That is my desire. David said it, the man after
God's own heart, he said, I have one desire. I have one desire,
and I won't be satisfied until I have it, until I awake with
what? His likeness. Well, the Scripture
says we're going to be just like that altogether, love them all. I believe it's still
in progress. I looked for it and couldn't
find it, but I believe it was in there. Two pilgrims got over
that celestial city, and they dropped their robes of mortality,
and the angels put on these shining robes upon them, their countenance
changed, and it said they looked at one another. They looked beyond recognition
almost. And one looked at the other and said, Well, you're
beautiful. And the other one looked at him and said, You are
too. You look just like Him. You're beautiful. And we're going
to be like Him. You think about that. And you
know what? I've met some people. I described,
I told you about a man that I spent some time with just this past
week. I've met some people right now who remind me a whole lot
of my Lord. And boy, I like to be around
them. And I wish I could be like them. Christlike. That's the greatest compliment
you can pay to a human being. Christlike. That's a Christlike
man. Oh, Violet, don't you wish somebody would say that about
you? Huh? Don't you wish that's what they
were saying about you behind your back instead of, oh, she's
very right. Don't you wish they would say, oh, she's Christlike?
That's the greatest compliment a human being could ever pay.
And there are some people that are like him, that are like him. They bear his image. You turn
to Ezekiel, chapter 16, with me. Let's read this in closing.
In clothing. I said that exactly the way a
gentleman said it. Let's read this in clothing.
Ezekiel 16. You know, there's a scripture
over in Isaiah 64 that says, we're all as unclean things.
Terry, there's nothing lovely about us. Nothing. Is there? We're all our righteousness.
The best thing about us, he says, is like filthy rags. Filthy rags. But look at what it says about
us here in Ezekiel 16, what God does for us. Let's read it together
in closing. Verse 8, When I passed by thee
and looked upon thee, behold, thy time, God's time, and the
fullness of time, was a time of love. And I spread my skirt,
my robe of righteousness over you, and covered your nakedness,
your filth. Yea, I swear unto thee, I made
a covenant, entered into a covenant with thee, concerning thee, saith
the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I washed you, washed
I thee with water, the water of his word. Yea, I thoroughly
washed you away thy blood from thee, washed you in the blood
of Christ from your pollution, and I anointed thee with oil,
the oil of the Holy Spirit, and I clothed thee with embroidered
that linen ephod of our great high priest, and shod thee with
badger skin, preparation of the gospel, and girded thee about
with fine linen, girt with the truth, covered thee with silk,
royalty, made a joint heir with Christ, a king and a priest. I decked thee also with ornaments,
made you adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, put bracelets
upon your hands, put you to work, a chain on your neck, My word
around in your heart, frontless to your eyes, put a jewel on
your forehead, earrings in thine ear, beautiful crown upon thy
head. Thou wast decked with gold and
silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk, embroidered
work. Ye did eat fine flour, good bread,
honey, oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful. Oh, no, no, not me,
Lord. Yes, you. And you did prosper into a kingdom,
a body, a church. In thy renown, you're known all
over. He went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it
was perfect. Thy beauty was perfect through
my comeliness. This is my work, the Lord said,
which I have put upon thee. Sayeth the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lord our God. Wish your beloved more than any
other to love him and to be like him. That's my desire for you and
for me. May the Lord bless you. Stand with me and I'll dismiss
this. our holy and righteous heavenly
Father. We should have had our shoes
off, Lord. We should have been barefoot before such glory. A mortal man
doesn't have any business taking these things even on his lips. God, forgive us. Forgive us. Oh, forgive us. Forgive us for
our unloveliness. Forgive us for our ingratitude.
Forgive us for not loving You as we ought to love You. Thank
You, God, for loving us first. And we ask that You'd shed abroad
that love in our heart. Make Christ Jesus the Lord more
dear to us than anything under the star and anything in heaven
itself. You're altogether lovely, In
His blessed name we pray, and I cease saying, Amen.