Thank you for that. Open your
Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 3. The book of 1 Samuel chapter 3. We have been studying in the
book of Revelation of Jesus Christ We're going back there in just
a few minutes. The name of the book that we've
been studying is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the Apocalypse
of Jesus Christ, that is the uncovering, the revealing of
the Savior. He's got to be revealed to us. Such is our spiritual darkness. Such is our blindness. We just can't see the beauties
of the Savior. We can't see His glories. We
really can't see who He is. We can't see nor value all that
He did. unless there is a revelation
of the Lord Jesus to our hearts. I know in religion today, this
is, and it has been for a long time, the age of decisionism. Have you made your decision for
Jesus? I would say to you, we made our
decision in Adam. about 6,000 years ago. And Adam said, no, he's not going
to reign over me. Ever since all who've been born
into this world as a result of a union of a father and a mother,
we've come forth with our fists as it were in the face of God.
And we say, no, you're not going to reign over me. I won't have Jesus to be the
Lord. I'm not going to worship. I'm
a free moral agent. Nobody can tell me what to do.
And in that state we will stay unless the Savior is revealed
to us. He's got to be uncovered to us. There must be a discovery made
of the Savior by the grace and mercy of our God. Let me give you two examples
of that. First, in the Old Testament.
In 1 Samuel chapter 3, we're introduced to a man by the name
of Samuel. He was a child of promise. To his mother who, seeking the
face of God, she said, Lord, if you'll give me a son, I'll
give him back to you. He'll serve you in the temple.
And she did that. Hannah was faithful to her word.
But we read in 1 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 7, at this juncture
of his life, Now Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 3 verse 7, now Samuel
did not yet know the Lord. Neither was the word of the Lord
yet revealed unto him. The word revealed means discovered
or uncovered to him. In other words, God had not made
Himself known to Samuel at this point in his young life. He was in the temple. He was
religious. He knew about religious things.
He was very much acquainted with the high priest, Eli. Therefore,
he knew about the sacrifices. He knew about the annual day
of Passover. He knew all of these things up
here in his head. Because he didn't know the Lord.
That's what the Scripture says. He didn't know the Lord. For
the Word of God, the Word of the Lord hasn't been revealed
to him. And the Word of the Lord is both the written Word and
that One who would be the incarnate Word. He didn't know the Lord. However, the last verse of chapter
3, The Lord appeared again in Shiloh. For the Lord revealed Himself
to Samuel in Shiloh by the Word of the Lord. What is it God uses
to reveal Himself? How does He reveal Christ Jesus? Through the Word of the Lord,
through the written Word. And there is now a discovery
of the coming Messiah. That is, the Lord Jesus, who
He is, what He was going to do, the necessity of His sacrifice,
all that He was and all that He would be and all that He would
do, is now made manifest to this man Samuel. There is a revelation. There is an apocalypse. The Lord
is uncovered to him before the Savior was hidden from His view. He couldn't see. This is the
state of the natural man. We never will see. We won't see
God as He is. We won't see our neediness. We
won't see the Word of God. We won't see the Lord Jesus unless
God in His mercy and in His grace effectually reveals the Word
to us. How does Christ Jesus come to
us? He comes to us through the proclamation
of the Word of God. Now, let me give you a New Testament
example in the book of Galatians. Galatians, the first chapter. Galatians chapter 1. Here we
are reading the epistle of Paul, the apostle to the Galatians. And he has this to say concerning
the gospel. First of all, he speaks about
there's only one Gospel. There isn't another Gospel. There's
just one message of good news. There's just one message of glad
tidings. One message of the sacrifice
for sin that is satisfied divine justice. Just one message that
says to us how God can be just and righteous and holy and yet
justify lost sinners like us. Just one message. It's the good
news of the doing of the dying of the Lord Jesus. So there isn't
another gospel, and this is what he's stressing in this first
chapter. And he says this in verse 11,
but I certify you, brethren. What does certify mean? I want
you to understand. I want you to absolutely comprehend
what I'm saying. But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which I have preached unto you is not after
man." This gospel I preached, it's not after man. Man didn't
come up with this. No man had the wisdom to invent
the means whereby God's banish could be restored to him without
any damage done to his justice or his righteousness. The priest
said, for I neither received it of men, neither was I taught
it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus
Christ, He made a revelation to my soul and to my heart. He enabled me to see. He showed
me the Gospel. We can teach you the Gospel.
up here, goes in the ear to the mind. We can teach you the details
of the gospel. every opportunity that I have
to speak to you and everybody else who speaks to you from this
pulpit. We're always preaching the gospel
to you. We're always setting forth the
good news of reconciliation, of the forgiveness of sins, of
righteousness established by the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice
for sins. But I cannot reveal the gospel
to you. I cannot uncover it for you. I can't take the veil off your
eyes and I can't enable you to see the wisdom of God and the
glory of God and the power of God in the salvation of sinners. But I know who can. The Lord
Himself. He says, by the revelation of
Jesus Christ that this came to me. And then He says this, look
in verse 15. He says, but when it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace to reveal His Son in me, to reveal His Son in me so
that there would be a discovery made so that I could see and
embrace and know and appreciate His Son, the Savior, He was uncovered
to me. And this is our great desire
for you this morning, those of you who don't know the Savior.
And I'm certain in a congregation this size, I would never assume
that everybody in here has seen a revelation of the beauties
and the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Savior had 12 disciples. One of them didn't know Him.
We've got many more than that here this morning. And I'm certain
there's some people here This very morning, some people who
are watching, there's never been a revelation of the beauties
of King Jesus to your soul. Only the Lord can reveal Him
to you and I ask that He would. Oh, children of God, seek God's
face. People won't pray for themselves.
People don't care about their soul's salvation. Aren't you
thankful there's somebody praying for you and God brought you under
the sound of the Gospel? Mainly, the Savior was praying
for you, and He sent the truth to you. Oh, children of God,
ask God to make the Word of God effectual to somebody today,
so that there would be a discovery of the beauties and the glories
of Christ Jesus. It's a revelation of Him. And
so over here in Revelation chapter 6, when we get to the book of
the Revelation, This is an uncovering of the
Son of God. It's making Him known. So, if
somebody asks you, what is the book of the revelation of Jesus
Christ about? It's about God making known His
Son who is the victor and who is the conqueror of all things.
He's the mighty one. He's the sovereign Savior. He's
the one who cannot fail. That's what the book of the revelation
is about. It's about the victor. And His
victory, and in His victory all of His people, we're the ones
who share in the victory with Him. All of His followers, He
has conquered every foe. In fact, in the verse number
2, He went forth conquering and to conquer. He always conquers. That's His victory and that's
our victory. For we're only victorious in
the Savior. Oh, to see Him as the victor. You see, the religious world,
they set Him forth as the needy Savior. The Savior who wants
to. The Savior who would like to.
The Savior who's knocking on your heart's door pleading for
an entrance. The Savior who waits for you.
The Savior who's so disappointed because people won't let Him
have His will. You've got to have a discovery.
There's got to be an unveiling to your eyes, to the eyes of
your mind, to the eyes of your soul, of the glories of King
Jesus, that He's not waiting on you to do anything for Him.
He exercises His will over everything. He always has and He always will. That's the revelation we need.
We need a revelation of King Jesus. In chapter 6, verse 1, the opening
of the first seal. And this is in the second vision
that John saw. He says, I saw the Lamb. I saw
when the Lamb opened one of the seals. And let me just say this
one other thing about this revelation business. There's got to be a
revelation to us of the fact that our Lord Jesus is the one
who is bringing to pass all of the decrees of God. And if ever
that is revealed, if that's ever uncovered to us, the saints of
God will rest easy. We won't worry. We won't murmur. We've talked about this book.
Sealed with seven seals. In there is everything God intends
to do. Everything God has purposed to
do. Well, who's going to bring God's will to pass? Who's going
to execute all of God's eternal decrees? Our Savior! The One who redeemed us! He's
the one who opens the first seal, and He'll open them all. He's
going to bring all of these things to pass. And if that could be
revealed to us, that our God and Savior, our Friend, the Lord
Jesus, He rules and reigns in every single situation in your
life, in this nation, in this world, if we could ever see that,
that's when we'll have some rest in our hearts. We'll stop bickering. We'll stop fretting. We'll stop being the one who
says, oh boy, let me tell you about my week. And then you say,
oh no, because I can top you. We'll stop being like that and
we'll say, how'd your week go? The Lord's been on the throne
and my life is following that purpose that He laid out in old
eternity. And the Savior in opening up
the seal and bringing to pass God's purposes. He has purposed
all the things that happened in my life this last week. I'm
just fine. Thank you very much. That's the
way we'll be. But you know what? That's got
to be revealed to us. It's got to be revealed to us.
That's when we'll stop talking about, oh man, I've had such
bad luck this week. Or I've had good luck this week.
We won't talk that way. And if you use the word luck,
I'm not going to jump on you about that. But we understand
this. There is no such thing as luck.
There's God. There's our Lord and Savior who
reigns from His throne. He's executing God's eternal
counsel. and all those things that have
happened to you in this last week. And all of us are different. We've all walked a different
path this week. Lots of things have happened
to each one of us. But you know, every single thing
that happened in your life It happened just exactly the
way God purposed for them to happen in your life, and for
the person sitting next to you, He had a whole different purpose
for them. And that's the greatness of our God. You take every single
person in the world, I don't know how many billions of people
there are in this world, everybody's life has already been ordained
by God. And they're fulfilling that which
He purposed every day that they live. And for some of those people,
many of those people, they're God's children. They're God's
elect. They're those whom God purposed
to save before the world began. He gave them to His darling son
and He said, I trust you with these. And the Savior said, well,
I'm going to go to earth and save them. I'm going to join
my deity to humanity. I'm going to become like unto
one of them without sin. And I'm going to suffer in their
stead. I'm going to die in their stead. I'm going to redeem them.
I'm going to buy them with my own blood. And Father, I'm going
to bring them all safely home to glory. That's what He purposed
to do. Because it's written in the book. And if we could grasp these things, we'd rest more comfortably. And
I'm preaching to you and I'm preaching to me too. Because
we all forget this needs to be revealed to our hearts all the
time. The Lord our God reigns. He always reigns. John, he saw
when the lamb opened one of the seals, he said, I heard as it
was the voice of thunder, the noise of thunder, and one of
the four beasts saying, come and see. And we learn back in
chapter four that the first beast was a lion. And these beasts
are typical of preachers of the gospel. That's who they picture.
They preach to the people of God, to the elders, 24 elders
to all the children of God, leading the people of God in worship.
This first one is like a beast because God's preachers are bold
as lions. God's preachers are courageous.
God's preachers are valiant for the truth of the gospel. They
speak out for the gospel when others refuse to speak out for
the gospel. They expose error when others
refuse to expose error. I'll tell you something about
God's preachers. They dare to be different. They're different
with their message because they have the message of God. They're different in their methods
because their methods are consistent with the Word of God. And they're
different in their goals because their goal is the glory of God.
The goal of God's preachers who are bold as a lion is not the
glory of the church. It's not to meet at a ministerial
meeting on Monday morning and brag about how many people you
had in attendance the day before. The goal of God's preachers is
to exalt Christ Jesus the Lord. That's our goal. And we're different. But we dare to be different.
Hey, I know in religion we're going upstream. We're fighting
the current. Everybody else is just flowing
along. Boy, religion's fun! Religion's fun! I'm happy in
Jesus, whoopee! Boy, we're healing everybody
and doing this and that and something else. I watched this guy, this
fool, the other morning on television, and he was talking about sending
a seed offering. He said, if you'll send a thousand
dollars, I promise you, God will give you tenfold. And I thought,
people are actually doing that. I dare it to be different. That's
a bunch of garbage. God wants you to be well and
God wants you to be healthy. I dare it to be different. It
may be God's ordained for you to be poor and needy. It may
be that God's ordained for you to be sickly. It may be for you
ordained like the woman who told Mr. Spurgeon, she said, I'm so
sick, all I do is cough all the time. He said, I'm so sorry for
you. She said, well, don't worry.
She said, God's willed for me to cough, so I'll just sit here,
I'll just lay here and cough. I'll lay here and cough. Satisfied
with the will of God? God's preachers are bold. His
lines tell the truth. Tell the truth who God is. Tell the truth about the mess
we're in. We're not good people. We're
bad people. We're not honest people. We're dishonest people.
We're not moral people. We're immoral people. We may
think we're rich and increased with goods like the church at
Laodicea, but we don't know we're poor and miserable and blind
and wretched. There's no good in any of us.
Scoop us all together, get us all together if you could, and
squeeze all the good out of it. It couldn't fill a thimble. There's
no good in any of us. The only one who's good is God.
That's what Christ said. There's nothing good but God.
We need Him. We need His goodness, we need
His righteousness, we need His sacrifice, we need His blood,
we need the blessed Savior. Oh, if there would be a revelation
of Jesus Christ to us. God's preachers are as bold as
lions. Over in the book of Acts, On
one occasion, toward the end of the book, the Apostle Paul
has been arrested. He's opposed by the high priest.
Ananias, everybody, the who's who in religion, they all ganged
up against the Apostle Paul. They accused him of violating
Roman law. They accused him of violating
Jewish law. They accused him of violating
God's law. They said, he's a seditionist.
brought him before Felix, the governor, and they hired Tertullus,
who was a very famous orator, to present their case. And oh,
what a great orator he was, Tertullus, as he set forth the case of the
Jews, the Judaizers, who despised the Apostle Paul. There's all the leaders of religion
ganged up against him. There's all the Sanhedrin, all
71 of them. All sitting there in their piousness,
in their religious garb. All looking as religious as they
could look. Just really holy men in the eyes
of others. And here's one peasant of a preacher,
the Apostle Paul. And he's before the Governor
Felix. And here's this orator speaking
against him. And after that orator spoke,
then Felix said, you got anything to say? He said, yes, sir. And he got up. And he said, I'll
tell you this. After the way they called heresy,
that's the way I worship the God of my fathers. Bold as a
lion. Bold as a lion. Well, I bet you
he didn't get too far after that. Well, you're right. He died.
He died a martyr's death. That's alright. That's alright. That man absent from the body
and present with the Lord. And there were lots of other
saints of God who were bold as well, and they lost their lives
for Christ. In fact, we'll get further down
in chapter 6. Look down at verse number 9.
Chapter 6 of Revelation 9, when He had opened the fifth seal,
I saw under the altar the souls of them. They had been murdered,
slaughtered, they had been slain for the Word of God, for the
testimony which they held. And they cried out with a loud
voice saying, O how long, O Lord, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou
not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
and white robes were given unto them. Every one of them was said
unto them that they should rest yet a little season until their
fellow servants also and their brethren, that they should be
killed as they were should be fulfilled." That's all written
in the book. That's written in the book too. All these hardships
of God's people. You see, that's why we should
never ever complain. against the purpose of God and
the providence. Don't fuss about what God does
because it's in the book. It's written in the book of God.
It's what the Lord Jesus says to them. Just rest. Rest from
your labors. All of these sayings have been
written in the book and they've all got to be fulfilled. Now, we're not quite like that
fatalist He took a step and then fell down the steps and he got
up bloodied and sore and he said, well, I'm glad that's over with.
We're not quite like that. We're not fatalists, but we do
recognize the fact that God rules in every situation. We're responsible
people. The Bible teaches us to be responsible. Say, don't you believe in providence?
Absolutely, I do. Don't you believe the purpose
of God is going to be fulfilled? Yes, I do. And I believe I'm
responsible to always seek the glory of God and to do what's
right. So therefore, if I decide to
go out here to 13th Street, and I'm going to go to the other
side, if I want to go over and talk to folks at the tire shop,
before I go across that busy highway. But even though I believe
the purpose of God, I believe in divine providence, I assure
you I'm going to look this way and that way and this way and
that way again to make sure nothing's coming because I'm responsible.
I know the purpose of God's going to be fulfilled. And I know I'm
responsible to always do what's right. And this is true in this
matter of salvation. Nobody in here believes salvations
of the Lord more than I do. And I also know at the same time,
God says, except you repent, you shall perish likewise. God now commands every man, every
word to repent. That's God's command. Now God's
people going to be saved, there's no question about that. If you're
lost, if you're finally damned, you're not going to have anybody
to blame but yourself. God's given you a Bible. Why
don't you read it? Why don't you read it during
the week? God's given you a preacher to preach to you. Bold as a lion. I hope I'm as very harmless as
a dove, but I think I'm wise. I try to be wise in handling
the Scriptures, and I'm bold. I don't hold anything back. Why
don't you come and listen? Why don't you pick up some CDs?
Why don't you ask Brother Ron? Why don't you give me some more
CDs? Go back and listen to Brother Mahan. I'll go back and listen
to Brother Parker. I'll listen to our pastor now.
I'll listen to these men preach the Gospel. Oh God, would you
teach me? Why don't you do that? Well, preacher, I'm just so busy.
See, it's your fault. It's your fault. Well, I got
a lot of irons in the fire. You better get them all out before
you wind up in the fire. Does that make sense? You better
get them out. You've got one soul. You've got
a life to live. You've got a death to die. You've
got a judgment to face. You've got an eternity to spend.
And I don't know about you, but I don't want to perish. I'm going to seek the Lord while
He may be found. In our Sunday School class this
morning, we were talking about the wise men seeking the newborn
King. They were seeking Him. There's
all those people in Jerusalem, religious people, people who
are experts on the history of the Bible, the geography of the
Bible, the facts of the Bible, but they didn't know Him of whom
the Bible speaks. They were willingly ignorant,
as it says in 2 Peter chapter 3. They just closed their eyes
to the truth. Is that you? Is that you? Oh God, make me like one of the
wise men. One of the wise men. You see,
He's always got a people somewhere. And I know there wasn't anybody
in Jerusalem seeking Him. Wasn't anybody in Bethlehem seeking
Him. But now wait a minute, He's got
a people out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. And
way, way over in the east, over in Persia somewhere, here are
these men, and God sends them a star, that's typical of God's
preachers. And where does that star lead
them? It leads them to Christ Jesus. First of all, it led them
to Jerusalem. And I'll tell you, one of the
reasons it led them to Jerusalem was to show them all those religious
experts didn't have a clue about what was going on. They didn't
have a clue. They didn't know. They didn't
know Him of whom the book speaks. I told my son's school class
this morning, I said, whenever Herod appeared, the star went
away. God didn't send him a preacher. He sends His preachers where
He wants to. And when they left Herod, the star came back out.
This way, this way, this way. Led them to the Lord Jesus. That's
what God's preachers do. Bold as a lion. Doesn't matter
the opposition. That's the Apostle Paul. Yeah,
after the manner they call heresy, that's the way I worship God.
That's the way I worship God. He says, I believe all things
that are written in the Law and the Prophets. You say, what? Not many people are preaching
that message today. Not many, but some are. There
are some. I tell you, every once in a while,
you'll run across a star. And He'll always lead you to
Christ Jesus. Then I thought about these bold
as a lion. I was thinking about Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. Old King Nebuchadnezzar, he built
a statue to himself 90 feet high, 9 feet wide. He said, I want
everybody when they hear the great orchestra play, everybody
bow their knee to me. Some spies saw that when that
happened, it was at the dedication of the statue of the idol. They saw that Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego, they wouldn't bow. They wouldn't worship his gods.
They wouldn't honor Nebuchadnezzar. Some spies told the king about
it. He called Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego in. He said, now, Let me understand
this right. You didn't bow when the orchestra
started playing, all the instruments started playing. No sir. He said,
I'm going to give you another chance. You hear these instruments strike
up a tune. You bow down and worship my gods
and worship my idol or you're going to die. What would you do? What would you do? And it would be easy for me to
say, boy, I'd be just like those guys. I hope I'd do like they
did. But God would have to give us
grace, wouldn't He? That's for sure. You don't ever know what
you'd do and I don't know what I'd do unless we're in the shoes,
unless we face that exact predicament. Don't you agree with that? You
know, don't be bold and say, well, I tell you, I'd never deny
the Lord. That's what Simon Peter said.
Well, he did it three times. Three times. Mr. Spurgeon said, don't ever say
what you won't do because I'll make a liar out of you every
time. Well, Nebuchadnezzar was furious. He said, heat that furnace
up seven times hotter. He threw Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego And before he did, he said, we'll see if your God can
deliver you out of my hand. And they said, he may or he may
not. Don't know. I don't know what
God would be pleased to do. But I know this, I'm not going
to worship your idols. Because there's one God, the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who's to be worshipped by blood
sacrifice. And that's the God I worship.
That's the God I worship. You do what you want. You do
what you've got to do. I've already done what I've got to do. He
was so mad. Heated seven times hotter. Threw
them in there. It was so hot, even the guys
who cast them in, they'd kill them. Boy, the king said, I am
through with those guys. And somebody said, you better
look at that furnace. And he looked and he said, didn't
I throw three of them in there? And they said, yes, sir, you
did. He said, there are four of them in there now. One of
them is like the son of man. He said, cut the fires off. Get
them men out of there. They came out. Their clothes
weren't starched, scorched, weren't scorched. They weren't burnt. They didn't even have the smell
of smoke. They dared to stand before a
heathen king and before all of his army, before all of his authority,
do what's right, even if it cost them death. Bold as a lion. That's the way I want to be.
Bold as a lion. And that's what I want you to
be that way too. I want you to be bold for the gospel. Now that
don't mean be nasty, don't mean to have a bad attitude toward
everybody. But just as it says in Ephesians
chapter 6, having done all to stand, just take a stand. It
was as if Martin Luther said, here I stand, I can do no other. Wherever the battle is raging,
that's where the real soldier is going to be found. And the
battle is raging today over who saves sinners? Is God sovereign? Did the Lord Jesus actually redeem
His people? Or did He make redemption a possibility? And then you have to tie the
knot yourself. What are the issues today? The
issue is salvation by grace. God is sovereign on His throne. Christ Jesus purchased His people. The Spirit of God effectually
calls people unto Himself. I take a stand right here. Will
you stand too? Bold as lions. Bold as lions. And this beast cried out, Come
and see. Come and see. Come and see the
Savior. Well, look at the second verse.
I didn't get near as far as I thought I was going to get this morning.
Which is not unusual for me. And I saw and behold a white
horse. White stands for purity, righteousness,
holiness. What is this white horse? You
know, we see the Savior on this white horse over in Revelation
chapter 19. What is this white horse? I tell you what, I think
it's symbolic of... Remember, we're talking in sign
language here. He's not literally riding a horse. A horse was a creature of fierceness. It's what the soldiers wore.
It's what the warriors rode, rather. He's the warrior. It's a white horse. What is this
white horse symbolic of? I tell you, I think it's symbolic
of the pure gospel of grace. Our Lord Jesus rides throughout
the world. What does He ride on? What does
He go forth conquering? What means does He arrive? Through
the Gospel. Through the Gospel. He doesn't
ride on any kind of other horse except a white horse. And where
His gospel of free grace, gospel of substitution and satisfaction,
where that gospel is not proclaimed, Christ Jesus is not going to
be there because He only rides on a white horse. He just rides
on a white horse. And He that sat upon this white
horse had a bow. He had a bow. And into that bow He puts arrows.
He shoots out arrows of conviction. He shoots out arrows of judgment.
There's a reference, let's see if I can find it. Well, yeah, 1 Chronicles chapter
12, it talks about David's mighty men. It's a really interesting
verse. It says that they could throw
stones and they could shoot with the left or the right hand. Left hand or right hand. That's
pretty good, isn't it? We call it ambidextrous. Is that
what you call it? And I'll tell you what, God can
shoot His arrows with His right hand or His left hand. He can shoot arrows of conviction. They will always find their mark.
And He can shoot arrows of judgment. And they will always find their
mark too. In fact, in the book of Lamentations
chapter 3, it is our Lord Jesus Christ speaking in chapter 1.
He says, All ye that pass by. Is it nothing to you who pass
by and you see my suffering and my pain and my agony? And in
Lamentations chapter 3 and verse number 12, he says, the Lord's
heirs have found me. What heir is that? Heir of judgment.
Or when did God's arrows of judgment shot out of His bow? When did
they find the Lord Jesus? On the cross. On the cross when
He suffered the wrath of God in our stead. The arrows of judgment
found Him. And God will never shoot His
arrows of judgment at us. That which He shoots at us is
not an arrow of judgment from the left hand, but an arrow of
conviction and grace from the right hand. Because we are the
people of His right hand. He shoots these out. And it says, a crown was given
to him. A crown was given to him. Now, this word is an interesting
word in the New Testament. It isn't the word diadem, such
as a king rightfully wears. Though our Lord Jesus does in
fact rightfully wear the crown, the diadem. In fact, over in
Revelation chapter 19, it says, on His head were many crowns.
It's the word diadems. Because He's the rightful King.
But on this it says, a crown was given to Him. A crown was
given to Him. This is for those of you who
like word studies. Get your Strong's Concordance,
look up this word, crown, and then go to Revelation chapter
19 and look up that word, crowns, and you'll find that they're
different. Because that word in Revelation chapter 19 means
the diadem of king wares. But this means the victor's wreath. The victor's wreath. You see,
back in those days, they had the Olympics. The Olympics have
been going on since what, the 6th century B.C. or something
like that. But whenever you won an event
in the Olympics, you didn't get a gold medal. And there were
no silver medals and bronze medals. After all, whoever remembers
who finished second or third, that really doesn't matter. First
place is the only one that matters. Back in those days, in the Olympics,
the one who won, the victor, in a grand presentation, he got
the victor's wreath placed upon his brow. He was crowned. This is our Savior. Now, by virtue
of being the Son of God, He wears the crown of royalty, the crown
of deity, the crown of creation, the crown of providence, and
the crown of salvation, the crown of the church. But by virtue
of His redemption, He was given a crown. You see, this is different. He is given a crown. What is
this? What is this crown that He's
given? It's the victor's crown. Because you see, at the cross,
He won. He won! He defeated all of our
foes and all of His foes at the cross! At the cross. And God the Father has given
to Him the winner's wreath. It's Yours. And with this goes
all the authority and all the power over all things. So therefore we read, He went
forth a conquering and a conquer. Riding on His white horse. And
this great conqueror, He's ridden through here again today on His
white horse. Oh, that He might conquer another
sinner here today. Oh, mighty conqueror, send your
air of salvation, your air of conviction, Send it to me. Send it to you. Send it to each
of us here. Send it to those who are watching.
May your quiver have many airs of conviction and mercy and grace
today. And send them forth in effectual
power. Lord, here's my heart. Take it
as your target. I'm yours. He's the mighty conqueror. Let's
sing a final song glory to his name