Dark and Thorny

revelation again. No better place to look to see Christ in the Bible than the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him. It's a glorious place. And as I said last week, I believe this particular chapter It's kind of like the hinge of the book. It's kind of like the basis of the book.

It sets forth who it is that we're dealing with when we speak of Christ. You don't have to go far in the world, and out here in the religious world especially, and hear people speaking of Christ. There's times of the year that are set apart as holidays and stuff when Christ is mentioned. But I dare say that it is not a usual thing for men to have a proper consideration of who Christ is.

But this book sets him forth as who he is. And you know, we, Men spend a lot of time trying to figure out all the different things that are found here in this book and miss the one thing that the whole book's about, which is the glory of Jesus Christ. And this book's designed to cause us to scratch our head, to fall on our face and say, Lord, I don't know what this even means. I mean, like Ezekiel. when he saw his vision and he said there was a wheel within a wheel and what does all that mean?

He didn't know what it was. He couldn't describe it. Job found out, did he not? He said, I heard all about you. We've heard about him. See, you can go to Sunday school and be raised in church and you can learn all about the Lord. I was in church from time I don't even remember when. I was always there. I was in the Sunbeams and the RAs and all these things. You might not even know what any of that is, but it was organizations in the church for kids and whatnot. And I went to Sunday school and training union and all of those things. And can't say that I didn't learn some things, but I've had to unlearn a lot of the stuff that I learned. But one thing that I didn't ever learn In all of that was the glory of Jesus Christ. And no man can teach you about the glory of Jesus Christ. You can't really get it by reading this book.

But the Lord, if he's pleased to open your mind and heart, he can show you the glory of Christ in this book. Just like John saw. And just like John fell on his face as a dead man before him. That's the place that he brings his people. And he brings us to understand that we just can't stand in his presence. A lot of people talk about that they're gonna ask God this and they're gonna sit down with him. I remember listening years ago, this fellow give a testimony and he said that the Lord came and sat on the edge of his bed.

And I can't say to a fellow what he saw, what he didn't see or whatever. I can't do any of that. If a man says that he saw a UFO in the sky or somebody came down and visited with him or whatever, I can't say that he did and I don't know. And I don't know, I don't have any doubt that something happened to this man that said the Lord came and sat down on his bed. But I don't find anything in the scripture that would indicate that he would be glibly speaking about that.

Because when the Lord's pleased to show somebody his glory, he humbles him before him. and he just takes away all trust or hope or expectation in anything he can do or anybody can do for him. And he's just cast on the mercy of the Lord. He's like Peter when he got out of the boat and he took a few steps and he realized he couldn't walk on water. And he began to sink and he said, Lord save me, I'll perish. See, the Lord shows men his glory and he does it in various ways. Some people think that he does it by men standing in front of other people and preaching to them. Thank God that he gives us men to preach to us, to declare the riches of Christ.

But I'm telling you this, that a man will never understand or come to a grasp of the things of God through preaching. The Spirit of God has to give him ears to hear it and has to apply these things to his mind and heart. There's no power in the preacher. None whatsoever.

The Lord can raise up stones to praise him. What a glorious thing. I want to read a few verses of this book. We keep going over this. I don't know that you could ever, I mean this kind of thing, That fellow told me one, or I heard him, he was speaking, and he said, you know, that he was gonna preach a sausage sermon. And, you know, he said, that's one where you just have to cut it off, because you don't ever get to the end of it. And, you know, you can just, you can just go over and over and over in this, in this whole book, but in this fifth chapter especially, and there's just nothing, there's no place you can say, well, now we got that, let's move on to the next thing. No, we're not going, we can't get it.

I mean, it's just more glorious than we can imagine. And as we read these things, and the language of it is just spectacular. as the Lord uses his spirit to illumine our minds and cause us to see something of Christ revealed here. And we won't ever have a total revelation of Jesus Christ because he's beyond comprehension. We shall see him as he is. as he is what he wants us to see and know.

See, you know, I've heard people say it. I've probably said it myself in times of ignorance. Well, one day we'll know all things. No, you'll never know all things. You can't know all things. Only God can know all things. You can know what he's pleased to let you know, and you will know what he's pleased to let you know. You don't ever have to worry about, well, I needed to know something that I didn't know. No, the Lord will give you what you need to know. And that's not to be satisfied in the flesh, that's just, that's the place where the Lord brings us. And that's what we know. And do we desire to know more? Well, sure. You know, we're constantly desiring to know more. Paul said, oh, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection.

Now you don't think Paul had any understanding of the resurrection of Christ, hadn't ever contemplated it? That the Lord hadn't shown him things about it? Of course he did, but he wanted to know him. What does he mean by that? He wanted, to just dive in. He didn't want to just wade out into the water a little bit. He wanted to be covered with it. He wanted to be inundated with it. See, that's kind of the picture of what baptism is. It's just being inundated in Christ. It's being covered up, not just a little sprinkled on him, but covered. That's the way we want to be. And so as we look at this book, may the Lord help us.

And when he, this is verse eight, when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors or incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof.

For Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. And hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor, glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I say, blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever.

You know, we read, Paul said in the book of Philippians, he said, every eye or every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. Of course, that comes from the Old Testament. But that's the truth that's set before us. Now, does that mean that all men are redeemed? No. But it does mean all creatures will praise him.

I mean everything in the earth. He said here every creature which is in heaven. Now what are the creatures that are in heaven? Do you know all the creatures that are in heaven? I don't have any idea. Do you know how many there are? I don't know. There's a bunch of them though. He said, in heaven and on the earth. Now we can see them, can't we? But you don't even, you can't even see all of them, but you at least know what they are. I mean, people are people. And men are the creatures that God has seen fit to manifest the glory of his grace in their redemption.

He didn't redeem the angels in heaven, and all the other creatures that's out there. I don't know what there are out there. And of course, you know, people think you're crazy if you start thinking that, you know, I don't know, I just don't know. I think, you know, God may have only created men and what we think of as angels that flap their wings and fly around, you know, that may be the extent of it. I don't know what he's created.

But I know that he chose to manifest the glory of his grace in the redemption of his people that he chose from before the foundation of the world through the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that's what the gospel's about. And that's the glory's message that this book is about what Christ has done.

The glory that he has and that every knee It doesn't make any difference if it's from some solar system that we don't know about, or whatever, I don't know what there is out there. But it doesn't make any difference what's out there. Every knee is gonna bow to the glory of Jesus Christ, everyone. and every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth. Now what are the creatures under the earth? You know, when we read about creation, the script says that the Lord made the heavens and the earth, he made a firmament. and he put the earth in the firmament and he separated the waters that were above the firmament from the waters that were below the firmament. Now, can you describe it? Can you think about that? I mean, do you know what that is? Now, I've read a lot of explanations about, oh, well, we know exactly what this means. I don't know.

I know whatever it is, God made it. And I know His purpose as far as what He's revealed to us is the redemption of His people in Jesus Christ. And He said He did it for His glory. And He said that every knee is gonna bow and give praise to Him, confess that He's the Lord of heaven and earth. Every one of them. And such as are in the sea, And all that are in them, heard I say, and the fish, are gonna give praise to God. How can they do it? I don't know.

John Bunyan, he wrote some children's books, or not, I mean he wrote books, and he wrote some books that were specifically for children. And I remember, this sticks in my mind, that he said that a chicken is made so that whenever he goes and drinks water, he cannot swallow that water without looking up to heaven. And if you've ever seen a chicken, we used to raise chickens, so I know, you know, you'll see a chicken go over to the water and he doesn't have any ability to swallow that water. All he can do is scoop it up and then turn his head up and it runs down his throat. But Bunyan said that every time that he does, that he's looking to the heavens and giving him praise.

And you know, men, they think such things as that are foolish. I mean, we drove up this morning, I don't know if some of them, they might have got run over or whatever, but there was a bunch of, Mushrooms, there you go, growing out there. And I thought to myself, you know, those mushrooms, it just seems like just overnight they pop up. Because, in fact, I came by here yesterday afternoon and those mushrooms were not up there.

But they're up there this morning. and they raised right up out of the ground just like the Lord intended for them to. Now I don't know if the plant life and all of that stuff is considered a creature in the sense in which it's speaking about here, but perhaps it has to do.

I know the scripture says that the trees of the field shall clap their hands at the glory of the Lord. So all creation God made for his glory. But he specifically visited the sons of men, his most rebellious and unthankful creation. He visited us with his salvation.

And he hasn't given, we sang that song a moment ago, and I think about it each time we sing it. Dark and Thorny is the Desert, and it speaks about the, well, in fact, I tell you what, let me get that and read it, because I was thinking actually, you know, this is really, this song is kind of like a commentary on this, of these verses. It says here, millions there, Well, let me back up one thing.

It says, there on flowery hills of pleasure, in the fields of endless rest, love and joy and peace shall ever reign and triumph in your breast. Who can paint those scenes of glory where the ransomed dwell on high, where the golden harps forever sound redemption through the sky? Millions there of flaming seraphs fly across the heavenly plain. There they sing immortal praises.

Glory, glory is their strength. Now see, the angelic creation, that's their whole purpose is just praising God, giving him glory. But then he says this, but, Methinks a sweeter concert makes the heavenly arches ring, and a song is heard in Zion which the angels cannot sing.

Now they give glory to God, but they can't know anything about what it is to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Oh, they can view it. And they can desire to look into these things, and it can be a thing that causes them to pause in holy wonder at the whole picture of the thing. But you see, it's only men that are given the privilege of knowing what it is to be delivered from destruction by the blood of the Lamb of God.

See the heavenly host in rapture. Gaze upon the shining band. They're looking. The heavenly host, the angelic creation, they're looking upon this little old rag-tag bunch of no-counts and they're saying, what on earth? Why, I mean, these people, what's the value of them? Gaze upon the shining band. They've been clothed with robes of glory that exceed that. of the angels, wondering at their costly garments and the laurels in their hand. Where did they get all of that?

There upon the golden pavement. What is that golden pavement? It's Christ. There upon that golden pavement, see the ransomed march along. while the splendid courts of glory sweetly echo to their song. Oh, their crowns, how bright they sparkle, such as monarchs never wear. They are gone to heavenly pastures. Jesus is their shepherd there. Hail, ye happy, happy spirits. Welcome to the blissful plane. Glory, honor, and salvation reign sweet shepherds ever reign.

And so while we see all of these, the creation, praising God, it is the sons of God who can sing, thou art worthy to take the book, to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood. out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. What a glorious privilege is given to the sons of men, to those whom the Lord has chosen and loved with an everlasting love, out of all creation, a remnant A small number. And while they alone can sing the song of redemption, all of creation sings the song of praise. What a glorious thing. Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, unto the Lamb forever and ever.

And the four beasts said, amen. And the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped. Because you see, it's the four and 20 elders who I believe represent the elect of God. They are the ones who fall down and worship him because worship. True worship has to do with a recognition of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. A man, a creature can't truly worship God apart from that. And that's the privilege he's given us, that we might praise his name.

And I saw, this is verse chapter one, I mean chapter six, verse one. It says, and I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see. And I saw. And behold, a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.

And so what we see as we begin looking at chapter six is the beginning, the opening of the seals, the manifestation of the purpose of God. and a manifestation of the purpose of God, this is not chronological. In other words, he's not giving us something, this happens, and then this happens, and this happens. Now that's how a lot of people approach the book of the Revelation, but I don't believe that's what it is. I believe it's a panoramic view of what God has done in his creation and in the redemption that he created the world to manifest.

And so we see here the most important character in the whole of that scenario, the one in whose hand the book is, or the scroll, sealed with seven seals, and nobody could open it. And it couldn't be opened until the seals were broken or taken off. And he opened one of the seals. The lamb opened one of the seals. And one of the four beasts said, come and see.

They couldn't. I'm reminded of what the angels, said to those shepherds there in that field. And they said, well, I tell you, today's born in the city of David, the Savior. And they said one to another, hey, let's go see this thing that's come to pass. Oh, what a glorious thing. Come and see, the beast said. And I saw and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. We don't have any doubt as to who that is.

The Lord Jesus Christ. Now there are other horsemen. There are other horses. Not all the horsemen and not all the horses are those of Christ. But this is the first seal spoken. This is the basis. This is the foundation. The first seal that's open. What do we see? Christ. Going forth to conquer. A mighty God. He said he was mighty to save. He looked and none did help him. and his own arm brought to him salvation. And so as we continue to look, may the Lord help us in our understanding and give us a mind and heart to rejoice in the redemption that's in Christ. And the fact that the Lord's seen fit to give us this.

Who knows what the Bible is? And I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of how they chose the books that wound up in the Bible and all of that. I know this, that God ordained it to be so. And why'd they reject this one? Why didn't he include that one and all that? I don't have any idea what men thought. But I know this, the Lord's put it in our hands and here it is.

And there's no other book that's ever been written, no other thing that people say, well that ought to be in the Bible. There's not one word of any of them that can ever exceed or give us more grounds upon which to understand the glory of Jesus Christ than that which has already been given to us here. I'm satisfied with it.

And if there's something else we need to know, you know what, I believe God will show it to us. Do I think he's gonna show us another book that somebody's gonna uncover somewhere? Oh my, we found, we dug up in a cave over in Arabia somewhere and we found these other scriptures and you need them. What's it gonna tell you?

If it tells you anything other than that Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Savior of sinners, then it can't be true. And it can't add to what's already been given to us. A perfect word, John said, Not all the things that the Lord did are recorded. You don't know a lot. We know probably less about what he did and what he has done. Everything he has done is not in this book. But everything needful unto salvation can be discovered by the Spirit's illumination through this book, the truth of God.

Dark and Thorny

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Dark and Thorny

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