for the eye to heal. And so we
appreciate, I know some of you brought in food for us, and of
course I hung around after the lunch yesterday to get the leftovers
to take home. And it keeps me from cooking,
such as I do. And we appreciate that. But yeah, continue to pray for
her recovery. Alright, Ron's going to read
the scripture for us out of the 21st chapter of Revelation. We'll begin our reading with
verse 9 and read through verse 27. And there came unto me one of
the seven angels, which had the seven vials full of the seven
last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will
show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away
in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me
that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from
God, having the glory of God. And her light was like unto a
stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. and had a wall great and high,
and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and
names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes
of the children of Israel. On the east three gates, on the
north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west
three gates. And the wall of the city had
twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles
of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had
a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof,
and the wall thereof. And the city lieth four square,
and the length is as large as the breadth. And he measured
the city with the reed, 12,000 furlongs. The length and the
breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the
wall thereof, 140 and four cubits, according to the measure of a
man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall
of it was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like unto
clear glass. And the foundations of the wall
of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones.
The first foundation was Jasper. The second, Sapphire. The third,
Chalcedony. The fourth, an Emerald. The fifth,
Sardonyx. The sixth, Sardius. The seventh,
Crystallite. The eighth, Beryl. The ninth,
a Topaz. The tenth, a Chrysoprasus. The eleventh, Adjacent. The twelfth,
an Amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve
pearls. Every several gate was of one
pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, as it was
transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein,
for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it. For the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations
of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and
the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there
shall be no night there. They shall bring the glory and
honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter
into it anything that defileth. neither whatsoever worketh abomination
or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life. Our Father, we stop, give you
thanks this morning in the name of your Son. For in him, the
people you gave him have all the spiritual needs they'll ever
need. We have in Him our redemption. There on a cross one day, 2,000
plus years ago, He hung and bled and died before you to pay for
our sins, the sins of His people that He charged upon Him. And
we've been robed in His righteousness. And we're here today. You brought
us into this room today to hear, once again, the story of the
redemption of our Lord and Savior for His people. clear our minds
of the issues of this world. There's nothing more important
in this moment to hear about our Lord and Savior. Lord, we
do rejoice that you've not left us out of that, that you brought
us here once again. And we do thank you for this
place where the gospel has been preached for so many decades.
Thank you for those men you brought to minister to us. Be with this
one who will be standing here in a few minutes to open your
word and preach Christ to us once again. The story that never
grows old, the story that is constantly new, renewed in us
every time we hear it. And we do bring before you those
who are in trial that have been mentioned here. There's so many
more that we could name, but Lord, you know who they are.
You know the needs of all your people. both their physical needs,
their spiritual needs, their material needs, and their medical
needs. And we know you are a constant
watching father over your children. For there beside you is our big
brother, your son, who intercedes for us. He knows our needs. He was tempted in all points,
such as we are, but he without sin. And we give you thanks. Watch over us as the day progresses.
Thank you for all of our earthly blessings. Teach us to wisely
use them, to care for your word, to keep it near to us. Thank you for preserving, protecting,
and providing for us in all of our earthly things, but more
importantly, our spiritual. It's in Christ's name, for his
sake, that we do give you all the praise, honor, and glory.
Amen. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus,
fast unmeasured, boundless, free, growing as a ocean in its fullness
over me. All around me is the current
of my love, leading onward, to my glorious rest above. ? Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus
? Spread his grace from shore to shore ? How he loved and cared nevermore. How he watches for
his loved ones, died to call them all his own. How for them he intercedeth,
Watcheth for them from the throne. ? Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus
? ? Love of every, love the best ? ? Best of blessing ? ? Desire then
? ? Sweet of rest ? ? O the deep, deep love of Jesus ? ? Tis a
hand of hymns to me ? ? And it lifts me up to glory ? ? For
it lifts me up to glory ? Thank you. Let's go back to the
book of Revelation and I had asked our brother to read the
portion of scripture there out of the 21st chapter. And now
I want to get to the first couple of verses of chapter 22. But
before I do that, let's ask for God's blessings again. Our Father, it is our great desire
to worship this morning. We ask that you would give to
us a real spirit of adoration. Lord, the reason we're to be
here is first and foremost to honor you. Indeed, we ask for blessings
on each of us, but that which we must do is give thanks to
our God and exalt you in all of your perfections. Lord, be with us now as we open
the sacred scriptures. Without the presence of the Spirit
of God, everything we do will be in vain. Oh Lord, be with
us. Use this preacher to speak to
these people who, like myself, are going out into eternity. Lord, wake us up. to see our
neediness of Christ the Savior, and do for us a work of grace
within the heart. We recognize our own weakness. We recognize our own feebleness. And we understand that we need
the mercies of God. We need the Spirit of God. to
be with us to take the things of the Lord Jesus and show them
unto us. And so we come as beggars, O
God, to your throne. Look down with favor on us through
Christ our Savior, and do for us as you would That which we
ask for, though, is for grace and for mercy and for forgiveness. Be with us for Jesus' sake, we
ask. Amen. That portion of scripture
that I had Ron read for us sets forth the people of God, that
is, all of the kingdom of God, all of the children of the Lord,
in our resurrection glory. Here we have in the portion of
scripture that we had read to us, we have a picture of the
saints of God and our perfection and our beauties in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And oh, what a redeemed church
exists of our Lord Jesus. And here we see us in our heavenly
existence, those who know Christ, or rather those who are known
of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we leave this world, we
do indeed go into everlasting bliss. that which John sets before
us is all of the elect of God, all of the redeemed of the Lord
Jesus gathered together finally at last. A wonderful, wonderful
group of people robed in the righteousness of our Lord Jesus,
washed in His sin-atoning blood, made the very, beauty of God
the Son by the grace of God. But this also pictures for us
the, not only our existence in eternity, but also the existence
of that land to which we're going. It is a wonderful land of paradise,
of heaven, And we often speak about heaven. We don't know much
about it. There's much we don't know. I'd
say there's more about heaven we don't know than we know. But
we know that it is a marvelous, marvelous land. It is beautiful. It is a land of bliss. It is a land of happiness. And it is land where everyone
views that one who's seated on the throne, that is the Lamb
of God. He's in the midst of that land
of God we call paradise. As we think of this land of paradise,
I want to speak to you this morning on the subject, the Royal Garden. in preparation for this message. I was doing quite a bit of reading,
as I always do, and I enjoy doing that. I enjoy the preparation
for preaching to you. And as I was reading, one writer
had a unique way of speaking about heaven, of speaking about
paradise, and he labeled it the Royal Garden. And I thought, that's good, I
like that. I like for somebody to refer
to heaven as the royal garden. It is indeed the heavenly paradise. And what was the original paradise? We have studied a little bit
back in Genesis, the second chapter of that garden in which God created. And then he put the man in the
east end of the garden, the Garden of Eden. He put him in the paradise. What do we know about that paradise?
Well, it was beautiful. It was delightful. Everything about it was just
exquisite. And the main thing about that
blissful paradise was this, it was where the king was. Therefore, it is apt to refer
to that heavenly paradise as the royal garden. You see in that original garden
there to the east of Eden, It was a very special, beautiful
place. That was God's abode. The unique thing about that garden
was not so much all the beautiful flowers and trees and fruit trees
and vineyards and all the other beautiful things about it. And
you can only, you can just kind of let your imagination run and
imagine how beautiful that garden was. But the main thing about
it was this, that's where the Lord was. That's where the Lord
fellowshiped with Adam. He put Adam, the scripture says,
he put Adam in that garden, in that royal garden. And he put
Adam there for this specific reason, first of all, to worship
God, to enjoy communion with God. I don't know whether you've
ever picked up a catechism, There are some very good catechisms. There are some that are trash,
but there are some that are very, very good. Mr. Spurgeon had a
wonderful catechism for children. I have written a catechism for
children, wrote it several years ago. And you know, a catechism
asks a question and then gives a biblical answer with a reference
of scripture. And in most of the good catechisms,
in fact, in all of the good catechisms, they begin this way. What is
the chief end of man? Think about that. What is the
chief end of man? And the answer is given, here's
the chief end of man. It is to worship God, glorify
God, and enjoy Him forever. That's our chief end. To worship
God and glorify him, enjoy him forever. That's why we were made. We weren't made to be people
who are caught up with everything about self. That happened as
a result of the fall. But the reason God made us, the
creatures that came forth from his hands, made from the dust
of the ground. The reason he made us was to
worship him, to glorify him, to exalt him and enjoy him forever. And that's what Adam and his
wife did for whatever amount of time that they were in the
garden before they fell. They were in the royal garden. That's where the king was. God
put in that garden a tree of knowledge of good and evil, and
it was to remind Adam and his wife of this one fact. There's
a king in this garden, and it's not you. God's the king. God is the master. God is the
Lord. Thou shalt worship him only. That's why God said when he gave
the law on Mount Sinai, he began this way. Thou shalt have no
other gods beside me. No other gods. There's one God
who reveals himself in the Trinity of his persons as Father, Son,
and Spirit. And this is the God to be worshiped. And that is the reason God put
Adam and his wife in the garden, in this royal garden in the East
of Eden. And though they were certainly
awed by the beauty of the garden, the main object of their awe
and the only object of their worship was God. And I want you to think about
the fact they existed only for this reason, to magnify God. That's why they existed. The garden was beautiful, but
the one who received the worship was the king. But, That garden
became defiled because man sinned. Man transgressed God's law. God gave him one root to keep
and he broke it. Of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, don't eat of it. Is that clear, Adam? Yes. Yes, Lord, it's clear. Don't eat of it, for in the day
you eat thereof, you'll surely die. But Adam, he defied God. Oh, how daring. Oh, how dangerous. Oh, how deadly to defy God. And Adam did what God specifically
told him not to do. The king laid down the law. Don't eat of it. When you do, you'll die. He ate
of it and he died. And God said, now, get out of
my presence. This is the royal garden. You're
not welcome in here anymore. You go out there where there's
thorns and briars and weeds and all manner of evil, where the
animals are now, they're gonna be against you now. Before in
the garden, I'm sure all the wild animals, they'd just come
up to Adam, to his wife, and rub up against him. Of course,
Adam was the one who gave them all names. Then he'd pet them
and kind of play with them and enjoy them. Because the Lord
had already said, Adam, get named all of them. You just name them
all. The Lord brought something in front of him and said, what
do you want to name this? I'll name that an elephant. What
do you want to name this? I'll name that a camel. All along,
God says, name anything you want to. And they were all friends
with Adam and his wife. There was no enmity in the garden. There was no evil in the garden.
There was only perfect bliss. Once Adam transgressed, all of
creation began to turn on man. Turn against man. Because you
see, creation, the scripture says in Romans chapter 8, it
groans. It groans waiting for the redemption
of itself. All of creation has been affected
by Adam's transgression. That's the reason we have the
kind of troubles that we have throughout creation with animals
and diseases and illnesses and you name it, all of these, it's
due to the evil that man did. And God drove out the man. You
must exit the royal garden. That's what God said. And he
put at the gate of the garden two cherubim with flaming swords. You can't come back in here.
There is no access for you into the royal garden. Not on the
basis of something you do. You can't come back in. But God,
through the sacrifice of animals for Adam and Eve, and then the
fact that he robed them in the skins of those animals, God indicated
there was going to be a way, there would be a way, by which
men could again come into the royal garden. Not that liberal
garden, in the east of Eden, but the royal garden of the presence
of God in glory. There's a way. There's a way
to approach God. There's a way to come to God. And the way is foretold throughout
all of the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, would come down here and lay down His life to save
sinners. And by His death, He would redeem
His people and someday take us home to the royal garden above. Wouldn't that be wonderful? And
there won't ever enter in anything up there that defiles or ruins. There won't be any evil, no sinfulness
up there. And it'll be beautiful, but it's not the beauty of the,
of the heavenly paradise or the royal garden. It's not the beauties
of the things around us that we'll be caught up with. We'll
be caught up with the king in his royal garden. And he gives
us a little bit of it, a little foretaste of it, as we read here
in chapter 22. And he showed me He showed me a pure river of
water of life, clear as crystal. Where'd it come from? It came
from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Verse two, and in the
midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was
there the tree of life, which bear 12 manner of fruits, and
yielded her fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations. This is what awaits us who are
the people of God. Now, before man fell, God had already
ordained this royal garden above for us. He had already ordained
a savior for us. And we need to understand that
Adam's transgression in the garden, and we know it was a representative
act. We know that he was the federal
head. And when he sinned, we sinned. But that transgression of Adam
did not catch God off guard. The Lord had already ordained
and implemented his purpose of recovery of the salvation from
the fall of Adam. He had already chosen a people
under salvation, this before he made the world. And obviously,
therefore, before the fall of Adam. God ordained the salvation
of a multitude of sinners, which no man can number. He loved these. He gave these to Christ. He entrusted
their everlasting welfare to the Son of God, the Omnipotent
One. God put a people in Christ. He
joined these people to him. There is the glorious truth of
the eternal union of the Lord Jesus Christ and his people.
If ever we could understand, if we could commence to begin
to start to comprehend the everlasting union of the people of God who
are symbolically referred to there in those verses that Ron
read to us, our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, then we would
understand the significance of this great salvation that we're
as safe as He is. And we will live as long as he
lives. For you see, he is our life. The apostle said, Christ in you,
the hope of glory. And he said, Christ is our life. He's our life. We've always been in him. Before
Adam ever fell, God had already, he had already purposed this
salvation and this union that we have with Christ Jesus. No
wonder the Bible portrays this union as the vine and the branches
or the bride and the bridegroom. We're one with Him. We were betrothed
to Him in old eternity. The reason Christ Jesus came
into this world wasn't to teach us a better way to live. It wasn't
to start a new religion. He came into this world as the
Savior. He came to redeem. He came to
reconcile. He came to make things right. And one of the results of His
work was the restoration of the Royal Garden of Eden, which perished. the restoration, however, of
the royal garden in glory. And he takes his people up there.
That's what he does. Our Savior came to restore us
to God. And he came to restore this wonderful
paradise where we will with our covenant head, Christ Jesus,
worship God and enjoy Him forever. You see, there is a people that
God has loved always. There is a people who will be
with Him and we will realize fully the reason we were made. We will worship God and enjoy
God forever. We'll realize that and we'll
realize that in the Royal Garden. And we'll walk with the Lord
Jesus Christ. We'll spend enormous amounts
of time with him. Look with me in Psalm 69, if
you would. Psalm 60. You see, the reason
the Lord Jesus came was to do a work of, I'll call it this,
restoration. A work of restoration. And this necessarily involved
the restoration of the royal garden, which is above. because we must dwell with God
and enjoy God and worship God forever. That's why we were made. Now, Adam ruined that in his
transgression, but still the purpose for God creating man
still exists. And it hasn't changed. No wonder
the apostle Paul says, whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all
for the glory of God. Doesn't matter what you do. You
sit down to eat, you drink a glass of water, anything you do coming
in here, do it for the glory of God. Let me ask you this.
All of you, why'd you come in here this morning? Now, don't
answer out loud. I don't wanna hear it. It's no
telling what you might say. You might say, well, I came in
here because, you know, it's what's supposed to do on Sunday.
Well, it is certainly a good, I hate to use the word habit,
but it's a good thing to do on the Lord's day, come and honor
the Lord. But maybe you came to make somebody
happy or to, because you just felt it was the right thing to
do. But here's my point. The reason, the real reason you
should be here this morning and the real reason why I should
be here this morning is this, to glorify God, to worship God
and enjoy Him. That's the reason we should be
here. Now, if that wasn't consciously your motive in coming here this
morning to glorify God, you know, you have sinned. Sometimes people say, well, if
I've sinned today, oh, my friend, we don't have any idea how many
times we sinned. Because anything you do that
does not involve God being glorified, then that act or that thought
is sin. Well, now, how many things have
you done this morning? Done a lot of things in preparation.
Did you do them all consciously for the glory of God? Well, no. You better have a Savior, I can
tell you that. You better have a sacrifice before
God, because God's law examines with a magnifying glass every
word, every deed, every thought, every imagination, every dream,
And that which is not done for the glory of God is sin. You know what that means? We're
just a mass of sin. That's all we are. No wonder
somebody said, sin's not so much what we do, it's what we are.
It's what we are. We need forgiveness, we need
righteousness, and we cannot produce that. That's only to
be found in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The reason he came was on a ministry
of restoration. That's right, restoration. Now
look here, Psalm 69, look at verse four. And this is the words
of those of David, but so often in the Psalms, whenever you read
David, you may as well think of the Lord Jesus Christ, David's
son and David's Lord. So look at verse four. The Savior
says, they that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs
of my head. And that is fulfilled, that statement
is fulfilled in John 15, 25. Our Savior said, they hated me
without a cause. Why should anybody have hated
Jesus Christ? He went about doing good. Every
sick person they ever brought to him, he healed them whether
they believed him or not. That's right. Whether they believed
him or not. Anybody they brought to him,
no matter what the illness was, he always gave a restoration
of health to manifest his omnipotence, to manifest his power. He fed them when they were hungry. 5,000 men plus women and children,
two little fish, little sardines, and five little barley cakes.
And he takes them in his hands and he prays. And right before
the eyes of the disciples, it multiplies and multiplies. And he just, they kept, I'll
take another basketful, here's another basketful. He just kept
doing that. Magnificent. Why did they hate him then? Why
did they hate him? They hated him because of who
he said he was. Over in John chapter 10, they
picked up stones to stone him. And he said, why do you stone
me? For which work do you stone me? And they said, for good work,
we don't stone you. But you being a man, you say
you're the son of God. We don't believe that. We don't
believe that. They hated him without a cause.
There's no good reason to hate him. Hate Jesus Christ of Nazareth? Can you imagine anybody hating
him? Well, they did. They surely did. And they should
have recognized him for all of the messianic promises of the
Old Testament. They were all fulfilled in him.
Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Well, where's Jesus born? Born
in Bethlehem. Messiah would be born of a virgin. Well, who's his mother? She's
a virgin, Mary. When he was born, he's gonna
have to go to Egypt, be taken to Egypt for safety. Where was
he taken for safety? Taken to Egypt. The scripture
says in Jeremiah, when that happens, there'll be a great outcry from
Judah and Israel because mothers are gonna be sobbing because
Herod goes on the war path and kills all the babies under two
years old. And that happens. How come I
didn't pick up on that? And a multitude of other prophecies
of Messiah. They were blind to who he was. And they rejected him. The scripture
says he was despised and rejected of men. But now hang on a minute,
that did not frustrate the purpose of God. You can't frustrate the
purpose of God. If your God can get upset and
his, you know, because his will isn't being carried out, you
got the wrong God. That's all it is to it. That's
the long and the short of it. Because the God of heaven and
earth always does his will among all the armies of heaven, all
of the angels, good angels and bad angels, elect angels and
fallen angels. And he rules, he does his will
among all the armies of men, among all the inhabitants of
the earth. And nobody can stop him from
doing what he wants to do. If you have some idea in your
mind that, well, I might decide to let God do something with
me, you've got the wrong idea. You can't let God do anything. One of the most stupidest statements
that's ever come out of the mouths of preachers. And believe me,
lots of stupid things have come out of the mouths of preachers.
What right do you have to say that, preacher? Because I'm a
preacher. So I can criticize other preachers. I've even said
some stupid things myself. But to say that you let the Creator,
who spoke and it was done, who said, let there be lights, and
all of a sudden the sun starts shining and the stars start sparkling. Let God do something? He's the
one who breathed into man the breath of life. You're going
to let God do something? Who do you think you are, you
little peon? We're nobody's. I'll tell you whose life matters.
The Lord's life matters. And nobody else's life matters. And you can quote me on that.
I don't care who you're talking about. We've just exalted men. And in our exaltation of men,
we brought God down. Shame on us. God have mercy on
us. They hated Jesus Christ. Can
you imagine? Well, I can imagine because I'm
around people who hate him today. I hear what religion says about
him. They hate him. Oh, preachers,
not religious people. Who do you think was instrumental
in having the Lord Jesus Christ crucified? Religious people. More devout
than we are. They were so religious, so straight-laced,
so bent on keeping God's law, they went to Pilate and said,
get their bodies off the crosses because tomorrow is church day
for us. We can't defile the Sabbath. That's pretty dedicated. And I'm telling you, if Jesus
Christ, if he had come in our day, if that had been the purpose
of God, for him to come 2,000 years later, he would have received
the same unwelcome reception as he met 2,000 years ago. He
would have been despised and rejected of men because that
which they despised about him was his authority, his sovereignty. Yesterday after the funeral,
and I'm not betraying the confidence, but a person came up to me and
said, I'm glad that you referred to the most hated passage in
the Bible. Well, that took me a little off
guard, because I pretty much know the most hated passage in
the Bible. And I said, well, which one is
that? He said, John 14, six. Jesus saith unto him, that is
to Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. And I said, well, a lot of people
hate that, but I thought he was talking about Romans nine. That's
the most hated passage in the Bible, where God said, I'll be
merciful to whom I'll be merciful. I'll show compassion to whom
I'll show compassion. I said, sovereign grace, that's
what offends men. He said, I'd rather use that
passage in John 14. I know what, I know the problems
that people have with God. As long as God's dishing out
mercies and healings, they don't have any problem with God. Oh,
God bless my garden. My child got sick and God raised
him up. Oh, the Lord is good. Oh, the
Lord is good. Well, what if your child had
died? Would God still be good? I wanna ask people questions
like that. But when you say our God's on
his throne, he shows mercy to whom he wants to. He said, Jacob
have I loved, Esau have I hated. That's pretty clear. I think
that's one of the most hated passages in the Bible. God said
a Pharaoh for this same purpose, I raised you up to make my power
known in you and I used you and then I threw you into hell. That's
what men hate. The God who rules. But let me
tell you something, and I'll tell folks on the internet the
same thing. That's the God you gotta deal
with. That's the only one there is.
He said, I'm the potter, you're the clay. He has power to make
you into a vessel of mercy, of honor, or make you into a vessel
of dishonor and shame. That's who God, we just, you
know what our problem is today? People don't know who God is.
They just don't have any idea of who God is. And we brought
God down to where we can kind of relate to him. Well, God's
kind of like us. No, God's not kind of like us.
And in the process, we've raised us up. When you raise up man,
the scriptures say he's nothing, and you make man to be something,
then you necessarily bring God down and make him to be less
than everything. And that's our problem. Read on. They that would destroy
me being mine enemies wrongfully are mighty. But then he says this, then I
restored that which I took not away. He came on a mission of
restoration. What did he restore? He restored
honor to God's law. We're broken, we dishonored God's
law. All of us in here this morning,
You folks who are watching, we're all a bunch of lawbreakers. That's
just the fact of the matter. We've broken God's law. Break
one law, the Bible says you're guilty of breaking the whole
thing. We're lawbreakers. We've all set ourselves up against
the Lord. Our Lord Jesus came to restore
honor to God's law. He kept it made under the law
to redeem them that were under the law. He said, I always do
those things that please God. He said, I delight to do thy
will, O God. Thy will is my meat. That's what
he said. And that he restored the glory
to God. And not God's essential glory. Man can't lay his hands on God's
essential glory. But man was made to glorify God
and man hadn't done that, but there walked on this earth 2000
years ago, the man who did honor God, he did glorify God. Every
breath that he breathed was for God's glory. That's my savior right there.
That's my Savior. You see His obedience to God's
law, to parental law, to civil law. That's my obedient Savior
right there, living that life for me. He restored the integrity that
belongs to God. And by His death, He restored
us. We're cut off from God. Beautifully
pictured there in Genesis chapter three with the two cherubim and
the flaming sword. You can't come back in here anymore.
But you know what our Lord Jesus did when he died on the cross?
He rent the veil from top to bottom. In other words, he opened
up things for us to come back into God. That's what he did. There's an entrance to God. There's
a way to God. Christ is the new and living
way. He justified his people by his
death. And what has he done? He has
restored the royal garden. So what happens when the people
of God die? We had the funeral yesterday
for our longtime church secretary, Pat Toler. Blessed time of worship. She was fondly remembered, and
then I tried to exalt the Savior she loved. Where has she gone? To the royal garden. That's a
pleasant thought, isn't it? What's gonna happen to you when
you die? Well, if you're in Christ, you're going to the royal garden,
because that's where the king is. That's why it's royal. You're
going to be with the King. Well, when will you go? When
will you go to be with the King? When will that happen? Is it
immediately upon death or do we first of all got to go to
purgatory for a while and pay for our sins? No, that's a lie.
Purgatory is a lie. You just mark that down. The
only purging of our sins happened at the cross of Calvary. It says
of our Lord Jesus, when he had purged us of our sins, he went
to heaven and sat down, work was done. Don't you even think
about purging your sins. That's too big a job for you.
Nobody could do that but God, the God man. That's the reason
he has made flesh to purge our sins by his suffering and his
death. When do we go to this garden
of God, this royal garden? At the moment of death, it's
absent from this body, present with the Lord. Ain't that wonderful? Immediately in His presence,
right into the royal garden. Oh, may the Lord teach us of
the necessity of His saving grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm gonna continue with this tonight, and I'll have some additional
things to say, but my time's about gone, so I'm gonna close
in prayer, and then David's gonna play a song, one stanza of a
song anyway, and then you can be dismissed, and I'll look forward
to greeting you in the garden in the garden, in the best view. Well, I do look forward to seeing
you in the garden one day, right? In the Royal Garden. We'll see
Pat in the Royal Garden, but the one we will enjoy seeing
most of all is our Savior. Well, let's pray. Father, we
ask that you take these things that have been spoken and magnify
your great and glorious name. And we thank you for the great
Redeemer who made restoration for us. He restored peace with
God, he restored fellowship with God for us, and he restored that
garden that we had ruined. And someday we shall enter into
the royal garden, the king's palace, and to heaven above. there to be with our Savior and
worship Him in spirit and in truth throughout the endless
ages of eternity. Give us all a good hope through
grace in Christ. In His name I ask these things. Amen. you