in your Bibles with me to John
chapter 10. I'd like to open our service
reading from John chapter 10. Beginning in verse 1, verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into
the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a
thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the
door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and
the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own sheep
by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them. And the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto them, But they understood
not what things they were which he spake unto them. Then said
Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am
the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me
are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. The
sheep cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I
am come that they might have life, and that they might have
it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd, and the
good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He that is an
hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not,
seeeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth, and the
wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth,
because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am
the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
As the father knoweth me, even so know I the father, and I lay
down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
Therefore, doth my father love me, because I lay down my life
that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down on myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my father." We'll end our reading there. All right, Jonathan. Let's turn and sing together
page 158. 158, Come Holy Spirit Heavenly Dove.
? Come Holy Spirit Heavenly Dove
? ? With all thy quickening powers ? ? Kindle a flame of sacred
love ? ? In this cold hearts of ours ? Look how we grovel
here below, fond of these earthly toys. Our souls, how heavily
they go to reach eternal joys. In vain we tune our formal songs. In vain we strive to rise. Hosannas languish on our tongues,
and our devotion dies. Dear Lord, and shall we ever
live at this poor dying rate? Our love so faint, so cold to
Thee, and Thine to us so great. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove,
with all thy quickening powers, come shed abroad a Savior's love,
and that shall candle ours. Turn back a few pages, if you
would, to page 39. Page 39, This Is My Father's
World. This is my father's world, and
to my listening ears, All nature sings and round me rings the
music of the spheres. This is my Father's world, I
rest me in the thought Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas,
His hand the wonders wrought. This is my Father's world, The
birds their carols raise, The morning light, the lily white,
declare their Maker's praise. This is my Father's world. He shines in all that's fair. In the rustling grass, I hear
him pass. He speaks to me everywhere. This is my father's world. Oh, let me ne'er forget. That though the wrong seems oft
so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father's world, ?
The battle is not done ? Jesus who died shall be satisfied ?
And earth and heaven be one Turn with me now, if you would,
to Exodus chapter 26. have a very short text this evening,
but very rich in blessing for us if the Lord let us see Christ
in it. Exodus 26 verse 36. And thou
shalt make a hanging for the door of the tent of blue and
purple and scarlet and fine twine linen wrought with needlework.
And thou shalt make for the hanging five pillars of shidom wood and
overlay them with gold. and their hooks shall be of gold,
and thou shalt cast five sockets of brass for them. We'll end
our reading there. Let's bow before our Lord together. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverend, is your precious name. And Lord, we reverently
and thankfully, joyfully, come into your presence this evening
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. So thankful, awed at
your mercy and grace that sinful men and women like we are can
come into your presence confident that we'll be accepted because
of the Lord Jesus Christ, not because of anything that we've
done or anything we haven't done or anything about us in the least,
but purely because of the Lord Jesus Christ. How thankful we
are that his obedience to the law is our righteousness without
us adding anything to it. How thankful we are that all
of our redemption price has been paid with his precious blood.
Father, we're so thankful. And it is our earnest plea this
evening that you enable the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to be
lifted up, magnified, and extolled. And Father, that we might see
him with the eye of faith. that we might have our hearts
thrilled one more time to hear of Christ and him crucified and
what he has accomplished for his people, that he is everything
that we need. Father, bless us as we look into
your word and attempt to worship you. Without your spirit, we
can do nothing. Father, don't let us meet here
in vain. I beg of you, but that you would Meet with us in the
person of your spirit and enable us in this hour to truly hear
of Christ and to worship his precious name. And what we ask
for ourselves, Father, we ask for your people wherever they're
meeting together tonight. Father, bless your word as it
goes forth. Cause it to go forth in power,
to bring glory to your name, to bring faith and comfort and
confidence to your people. Father, we dare not forget to
pray for those that you brought in the time of trouble and trial.
We've had good reports on many, and Father, we pray that you
continue to be with them, be with our brother Gary as he continues
to heal. And Father, help him get through
this little setback that he's had and restore him to full health
as soon as it could be thy will. Young Novy, Father, we pray for
her. We're thankful for the good report and that you would cause
her to heal well and quickly and alleviate so much of this
suffering that she's been going through. And others, Father,
you know where all your sheep are at. You know what we need,
what we're going through. We pray that you'd meet every
need richly according to your mercy and grace. All these things
we ask and we give thanks to that name which is above every
name. the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, it'll be no
surprise to you after what we've, scriptures that we've read this
evening, I've titled the message, Christ the door. And, uh, I thought,
I think about this tabernacle and I think what it was like
for the Israelites in the wilderness to, to take this tabernacle,
you know, they take it all down, they pack it up, they carry it
to the next place. They put it all back up. And there it was
in the center of the camp. I mean, this, it dominated the
camp of Israel, the life and activity of everything that's
going on in Israel. And me being me, it would have
killed me not to be able to look inside that thing. I would have
wanted to know what is in that, especially when you told me I
can't go unless I'm one of the priests, you know what I mean?
It would have just killed me not to know what is in that tent.
I want to see it, you know, And I don't just want to hear about
it from the priest who's been in there. I would want to see
it for myself. I really would. I'd want to touch
the table of showbread. I'd taste the bread. I'd want
to taste it. I'd want to put incense on those
coals and see the smoke and smell the smoke. I'd want to put oil
in the lamp and see the light of that thing. I'd want to touch
it myself. Well, you know what that desire
is a picture of? It's the beginnings of saving
faith. You know, I don't just want to know about Christ. I don't want to know details
and facts and figures, you know, that people come up with and
even theories about Christ. I want to know Christ. Our Savior
said that's life eternal to know him. I want to know him. I want to have union with him. And I know we can't handle the
body. of our Lord Jesus, like John said they did. We've seen
Him. We've touched Him. We've handled Him. We can't do
that physically. But more than anything else,
I want to lay hold on Christ by faith. That union with Him,
to lay hold on Him, that's my heart's desire. And so tonight
we're going to look at the door of the tabernacle, and thankfully,
for people who maybe saw past the tabernacle, saw there's someone
coming, this door gave them some hope that one day I'm going to
be able to enter into these things, these spiritual truths, not just
the physical, but actually to enter in to Christ. And it would
give you some hope because here's what this hanging says. It's
called the door, the hanging. God intends for somebody to come
in. Now if you built a house and you never intended for anybody
to come in, maybe you wouldn't put a door in it. But you put
a door in a house because you intend for somebody to go in
that thing. The Lord had instructions made
for this door because he fully intended somebody to come in. Somebody's gonna come in. And
our Lord, we read it in John chapter 10, calls himself the
door. Now he wouldn't have called himself
the door. unless God intended for us to enter into salvation
through Christ the door. That's what a curious person
like me would want to hear. There's a way I can come in.
There's a way I can come and see the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the materials of this door
are very, very familiar to us. They're the colors that we've
seen so many times throughout this study in the tabernacle.
This door is preaching the same message that all the rest of
the tabernacle keeps preaching over and over and over again.
It keeps preaching Christ and Him crucified. This one who's
coming is gonna be crucified to put away the sin of His people.
It tells us that over and over and over again in every detail
of the tabernacle. It's like the door is saying
the same thing that Paul said. To write the same things to you,
to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it's safe. This door
is telling us the same thing all the rest of this tabernacle's
coming There's somebody coming in our flesh who's gonna put
away sin. This door was made out of white
linen. That linen came from flax that
grew from the ground. It's a picture of a man, a man
growing from the ground, but it's white, it's holy, it's fine
twined linen, telling us about the holiness of Christ, the holiness
of his humanity. This man is holy. Now here's where we're getting
into knowing something more than the facts about Christ and entering
into him by faith. Christ's holiness is the holiness,
the righteousness of his people. Remember in John, he saw in Revelation,
those who are dressed in white linen, what was that white linen
called? It's the righteousness of the
saints. It's Christ's righteousness, but it's theirs. It belongs to
them because he gave it to them. as Christ our righteousness.
This one is coming, he's gonna make his people righteous. Then there were blue threads
in it, blue the color from heaven. Our Redeemer is coming from heaven. He's coming to earth from heaven.
Now he's not gonna stay here, he's gonna go back there. And
one day, he's gonna bring all of his people where he is, to
be with him there and see him as he is. He's coming from heaven
to earth so he can bring his people to heaven. Then there's
purple, the color of royalty. This one who's coming, the redeemer
who's coming, is king. And if he's king, you know, Americans
don't know a lot about a king, and even countries today that
have kings, they're just figureheads. You know, at the time, the king,
I mean his word, was absolutely law. And you catch the guy on
a bad day, he says off with your head. There's no appeal. His word's gonna happen. Our
Redeemer is king and his word is law. What everything that
he does, he's gonna do it successfully because nobody's got the power
to stand in the way of our king. And it gives me such peace to
be able to trust the king. who cannot fail to save everybody
he came to save. And then purple's also a mixture
of blue and red. You mix blue and red, you get
purple. Two colors mixed in to cause one color. That's a picture
of Christ, the God-man. Two distinct natures, the nature
of God and the nature of man, but one man, one God. And he's
coming as the God-man. to be the representative of his
people. As a man, he can be our representative. As a man, he
can be our sacrifice. He can be our substitute. And
as God, he's got the power and the right to redeem. That's who's
coming. It just gives me such peace in
trusting him. And then there's red threads.
Red, the color of blood. The Redeemer's coming. and he's
gonna shed his blood. This is Christ and him crucified.
He's gonna shed his sinless blood to redeem his people from their
sins. And even where they got this
red color, isn't such a good picture of Christ. They got it
from a worm and they took that worm and they crushed it and
got this red dye. And that's what they use to dye
these things red. In Psalm 22, Psalm of the cross,
our savior said, I'm a worm. and no man. He was crushed on
Calvary's tree. Even way back when Moses gave
the instructions for this threat, even back then it was saying
Christ is gonna be crushed at Calvary's tree. He's gonna shed
his blood and his blood is gonna fully redeem his people and enable
his people to come to God through him. See this door tells us who
Christ is and how he's coming to bring his people to God. And
here's this tabernacle, and we've looked at the things in the tabernacle,
the mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant, the table of showbread,
the ark, the golden ark of incense, the lampstand, all this gold,
gold, gold, the post covered with gold. I mean, the riches
of this, what from the outside looks like such a humble thing
just covered with badger skin. The riches in there, the glory
of it, is all covered up by these coverings. So you can't see it
until you go through the door. You got to go through the door.
And that's why Christ said, I'm the door. In him, you find all
the riches of God's glory, the riches of his mercy, the riches
of his grace, his wisdom in providing a salvation that's both merciful
and just, They're all in Christ, and if I'm going to see them,
if I'm going to lay hold on those things by faith, I've got to
enter Christ the door. Now, I'll give you just some
examples of the things that's here in the holy place. If I
want to come to that table of showbread, and I'd want to eat
that bread, I mean, I couldn't help it. You know, I'd break
a little piece off of it and taste it, you know. If I want
to eat that bread, which is a picture of Christ, the bread of life,
I've got to come through the door. I've got to come through
this door that's a picture of the person of Christ. I've got
to come through His humanity, His body. The Father prepared for Him a
body to be broken, to be sacrificed for the sin of His people. Well,
if I want to eat that bread of life, I've got to come through
the door, the door of His broken body. And if I want to have Christ
the light of the world that the lampstand is a picture of, I
can't see it outside the tabernacle. I've got to go through the door
to see it. And the only way any of us can have spiritual light
is to come through the person of Christ. The son came from
heaven and was made a man so that he could suffer and die
in the place of his people. Now, the one and only way that
I can see how God saves sinners, the only way I can have the light
to see that and understand that, is by seeing Christ crucified.
It's got to be him crucified. The only way God can satisfy
his justice and still be merciful to sinners is if he fully punishes
his son as our substitute in our place. The only way I can
see my sin, I mean, when scripture says that you and I are born
blind, I mean, it means that we're born blind. We can't even
see the most obvious thing. that we're sinners in need of
a savior. We still think we can do something
good enough to please God. But the only way I can see my
sin is to come to Christ. When I see him and his holiness
and his righteousness, I know I'm a sinner. I see myself in
comparison to Christ, and I say with Job, oh, I've heard of you,
but now I see you. Wherefore I abhor myself. I repent
in dust and ashes. But the only way I can have that
light to see how sinful I really am is to come to Christ. I'll tell you something else
that sheds a whole lot of light on how sinful we are. The father
had to slaughter his son in order to put away our sin and redeem
us. Now you think of that. The father
never would have put his son through all that. if we could
have been redeemed any other way, but we couldn't. So that
tells you a whole lot about how sinful we are. The father slaughtered
his son. He made his son to be sin for
us and he slaughtered him for it so that his justice would
be satisfied and enable him to show mercy to us. See, the only
way we get light to see the glory of Christ is seeing him crucified
as a substitute for his people. Then I can see how God is both
just and justifier. Now I see, I see it in Christ. I see how God is merciful to
his people. His mercy is just an endless
river of mercy to his people, but he never once lets sin go
unpunished. I see the glory of that, the
wisdom of that in Christ crucified. And then if I'm ever gonna understand,
have any understanding at all, how can Christ make intercession
for me? That's what the golden altar
of incense is a picture of. Christ making intercession for
his people. Now, how can we see that? You
gotta come through Christ the door. You gotta come to Christ
crucified. Now that Christ is crucified,
he's got something to plead, doesn't he? Now he's got blood
to plead. He's got a sacrifice to plead.
He can plead his blood for the forgiveness of our sin. And I
know that blood's effectual. It gives my soul such comfort
to think of Christ interceding for me and pleading his blood
for my sin. Here's why that gives me such
comfort, because the blood's effectual. His blood is effectual. I know it is, because after he
died, he rose again from the grave. Proof that He put away
all the sin that had been laid on Him. His death justified His
people from all of their sin. Now if this one who died, who
rose again, and is ascended back to the Father, if He's pleading
His sacrifice for me, my soul can be at complete comfort, complete
ease. I cannot perish. And that makes
me want to worship Him. That makes me want to trust Him
more fully. But the only way I can see that
is to come through Christ the door. You've got to come through
Christ. Now, this tabernacle just had
one entrance. Only one entrance. And somebody
might say, well, you know, that's kind of narrow. I mean, we've
got a front door, side door, and a back door. We've got three
doors in our little house. There's just one door. And somebody
might say, that's too narrow. But you know what? The door is
as wide as the whole tabernacle. 15 feet by 15 feet. It's as wide as the whole tabernacle.
Now, the one and only way a sinner can come to Christ, or can come
to the Father, can enter into salvation, is coming through
Christ, right? The Father, the Savior said,
no man cometh to the Father but by me. And men say, you know,
that's pretty narrow. I mean, I thought, well, we were
all coming to God different ways. Doesn't that sound so good to
the human logic, you know, we're all going different ways, we're
gonna wind up in the same place, but that's not what the Savior
said. He said, there's one way, there's one way, there's one
door, it's him, it's him. And men might say that's narrow,
but let me tell you what, Christ the door is plenty wide enough
for every sinner that wants to be saved. wants to be saved on
God's terms, a door is plenty wide enough. It's wide enough
for any sinner. I don't care how great of a sinner
you think you are. Christ is plenty wide enough
for you to come through it. But here's the thing about this
door. It's the narrow way. That's what the Savior called
the narrow way. It is narrow. It's plenty wide enough if you
come empty handed. It's wide enough for a naked,
empty handed sinner who needs Christ to do everything. is wide
enough for a sinner who's naked, who has no righteousness of his
own to come through. Now, you can't come through with
a little loincloth of your own righteousness and expect Christ
to finish the job when you come through the door. This door is
so narrow. You can't bring your little loincloth
of righteousness. You can't bring your little rags
of righteousness. You can't bring your little good
works that you've done. You've got to come empty-handed. See, this door is too narrow
for you to bring any of your own righteousnesses, your own
works with you, because Christ's not gonna share his glory. But
this door is plenty wide enough for any sinner that wants to
come to Christ and be saved on God's terms. And I have to tell you this,
if there's anybody here listening to this, and you haven't come
to Christ, it's your own fault. It's your own fault. You can't
blame God. This door is wide enough for
you to come through as long as you come through naked and empty.
If you haven't come through, it's because you want some glory
for yourself. That's all there is to it. If you're a sinner,
let me tell you again, come to Christ. He made this door for
sinners to come to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ and be
accepted. And this door, this, I mean,
this had to be such a beautiful piece of work, you know, that
they did, was hanging on pillars made of gold. Verse 37 says,
and thou shalt make for the hanging five pillars of shittum wood,
and overlay them with gold. And their hooks shall be of gold,
and they shall have five sockets of brass for them. They made
these sockets of brass set the poles in them, and there they
stayed, and then they hung the door on those things. Now here
again, it's the God-man, isn't it? The incorruptible wood is
a picture of the sinless humanity of Christ. And the gold is his
deity. You put them together, you have
two elements, but you got one pillar. One pillar, one piece
of furniture. It's the God-man. There's two
natures, but one man. And these pillars hold this covering
up so that everybody can see it. It's not just laying down
there on a crumple on the floor, you know, ground, and nobody
can really see it. The pillars hold it up so everybody can see
what a glorious tapestry that this is. When this thing is hung
on the pillars, you can see the beauty of it. You can see the
colors of it. It's like Christ holding up both
His humanity and his deity. He's holding up all the attributes
of God, his holiness, his righteousness, his kingship, his mercy, his
grace, the blood of his sacrifice. The pillars are preaching, come
to Christ. Here he is, look at him. He's
here for everyone to see. If you don't see him, it's because
you're closing your eyes and you refuse to see. Here he is,
come to Christ. This thing, it was just so beautiful.
You'd think that would just naturally draw people to the tabernacle,
wouldn't you? And I know that they weren't
allowed to go in unless they're the priest, but I'd want to get
as close to it as I could, wouldn't you? Oh, this thing is so beautiful. It's drawing me to Christ. One of the worst things about
trying to preach Christ is as you're preaching, and after
you preach, and before you preach, and when you go home, this is
the thing that dominates your mind. I can't do him justice. I wish I could tell you how glorious
the Lord Jesus Christ really is. But as much as these pillars
will enable us to hold him up, now look, look to him, look. These pillars, weren't just pillars
that they drove down in the sand and tried to, you know, to make
stand up so they could hang this thing on there. When Jan and
I first started going to the beach, I said, I can just, we'll
have this umbrella, I can just drive that stick down in the
sand, you know, and I'm strong enough. It never did help. Now
I got these big anchors and all this stuff. They made anchors. for these poles, for these pillars,
so that they would not move. They were made of brass. Brass. And brass is a symbol of strength,
the ability to withstand the fire. And again, here it is. Here's the god man in these sockets
of brass, the foundation for these pillars. Brass is an alloy
of copper and zinc. And brass has such strength,
it stands up to fire and it stands up to time, it's so strong. The
foundation of these pillars is this, Christ cannot fail to save
everybody he came to save. This foundation cannot be moved. I think it's very appropriate
that the Apostle John in Revelation, remember he got that picture
of Christ And he said, when I saw him, his feet were like undefined
brass, as if they'd burned in a fire. Well, you know why they
looked that way? Because they had. He had walked
through the furnace of the fire of God's judgment. He walked
through it so that his people never will. And he had the strength
to stand up to it. He had the strength to go through
the fire of God's wrath and it not consuming. As I've said so
many times, the Lord Jesus Christ is such a sacrifice. His power,
His strength to endure. He's the only sacrifice that
ever consumed the fire. Every other sacrifice, an animal
sacrifice, they burned the body and the fire went out when there
was no more fuel left. It burned up the animal, burned
up the carcass, there's no more fuel left, and that's why the
fire went out. But Christ, with these feet of
brass, offered himself to God. He made his soul an offering
for sin, and the father kept pouring the fire of his wrath
upon his son, and he kept pouring it on, and he kept pouring it
on, and finally the father said, it's enough. Sin has been purged. Sin has been paid for. The fire
went out, and there hung the sacrifice. He's still there.
And then he had to give up the ghost. He gave up the ghost because
the work was done. The price was paid. And he obeyed
the law's last demand, there's got to be death for sin. He gave
up the ghost, not because somebody took it from him. He gave it
up willingly because the price had been paid. He had the strength
to do that. Now, these pillars, and I don't
want to get in a lot of architecture here and talk about building
stuff and stuff I really don't know anything about. What I know
about this is what I've read. These pillars were topped with
a crown of gold. Some people call it a capital,
and it's just like the decorative thing you see on top of a pillar
that kind of finishes it off and makes it look decorative
and pretty or whatever. Well, these pillars being topped
with gold, They're a picture of the kingship of Christ. He's
crowned with glory and honor. This is the Christ who finished
the work. He's not hanging on a tree any
longer. He's not in the hands of men
to mistreat him and spit in his face and pluck his beard out
any longer. No, he was there once. He suffered
and died once. He appeared humiliated in human
flesh once, but now he's finished the work. and he's the king. He's the king of glory. And I
tell you what he's doing right now. He's ruling everything in
his creation to bring about his purpose, to save all of his people
from their sins. See these pillars holding up
the veil are saying, you come to Christ. He's finished the
work. Now these pillars, are very different. I didn't get into the pillars
that hold up the veil between the holy place and the holy of
holies last week because I ran out of time. But let me tell
you about them now. They're different than the pillars
that hold up the door. Those pillars, they're made of
incorruptible wood, covered with gold, same way, except their
foundation, their sockets, are silver. And the silver, you remember,
is the money that the children of Israel gave is the atonement
Remember when Israel was counted, God's gonna send a plague in
the land unless you took up the atonement money. And everybody
paid half a shekel of atonement money. The rich didn't pay more,
the poor didn't pay less. Everybody had the same atonement
money. And that's what they used as
the sockets, as the foundation to hold those pillars up that
held that veil up between the holy place and the holy of holies. And I would just venture a guess.
Somebody better take very good care when they're making those
sockets to be the foundation for these pillars. Wouldn't you
say? Nobody can go into the Holy Folies.
If you go in there and you're not the high priest on the day
of Atonement, just one day a year without blood, you're gonna die.
Those pillars can't be fallen down. If they fall down, somebody's
gonna die. They're gonna be looking into
the holy of holies. This foundation for those pillars
was made from the atonement money. It can't fall down. It can't
fail because that atonement money is a picture of the blood of
Christ. His sacrifice, his blood atoned
for the sin of his people. It covered up, it put it away
so that sin, is no more. Now here's something you men
who build and understand things about this might understand something
more about this than I do, but these pillars, the pillars that
held up the veil between the holy place and the holy of holies,
they didn't have capitals. They didn't have crowns on them.
It was just a pole, just cut off. There was nothing decorative
on the top of it, showing us that Christ is going to be cut
off. He's going to be cut off in the
prime of his life as a sacrifice for the sin of his people. And
that's how he's going to redeem his people. So when you put these
two hangings together, the door and the veil, you get the commandment
of the gospel. This is the commandment of the
gospel. You come to Christ crucified. This one who's going to be cut
off. That's the, that's the second veil there. That's going to be
cut off in the prime of his life. Come to Christ crucified. The one who finished the work
of redemption. That's what the first one represents.
He finished the work, but because he was cut off in the prime of
his life. Now come to him. Come. This is the safe here.
You can trust. This is the savior that the father
has promised all throughout the old Testament scriptures. You
come to Christ, you come to God by Him, and you'll be accepted
every single time. And it's because of who He is. And I'll go back to what I said
when I began the service. More than anything, I want to
lay hold on Him by faith. I want to learn more of Him.
I want to see more of Him. I've asked God every day to show
me more of Him. Because the more I see of Him,
the more delighted I am to trust my soul to Him. I think about the different people
that come to a service to hear me preach. Some of them are believers. Some of them, oh, they know Christ.
Some of them know what I'm going to say, but before I start saying
them, when I talked about the veil, the true beauty of the
veil being when it was rending to, a bunch of you start smiling. You knew where I was going before
I even said anything. Then there's some who are unbelievers,
who have no interest in Christ. They're here for whatever reason.
They have to be. Who knows why they're here, but
they're here. And I think about both of them. What do both of
those people need? They need somebody to hold up
Christ to them. Somebody to hold up this door
and say, come in. It's the cry of the spirit and
the bride, come. The cry of the gospel is never
stay away. It's always come. May God help
us to come to God by this door, the Lord Jesus Christ. All right,
well, I hope that'll be a blessing to you. Let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank you
for this time to look into your word and to see, by faith, our
Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, I beg of you that
you would enable us to lay hold on him, that you laid hold on
us and enable us to lay hold on him. Father, give us the faith
to believe him and cling to him. Father, we say with our brother
of old, we believe. Lord, help our unbelief, forgive
our unbelief, and cause us to learn more of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that we might cling more to him. Father, show us your
glory. Tonight and as we go through
these services until you return, use these times, Father, to show
us your glory. the glory of your son and how
he came to redeem his people from their sin. Father, in his
name, for his sake and his glory, we pray. Amen. All right, Jonathan. Let's stand together and sing
page 63. Take the name of Jesus with you. Page 63. Take the name of Jesus with you,
child of sorrow and of woe. It will joy and comfort give
you. Take it, then, where'er you go. Precious name, oh, how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Take the name of Jesus ever as
a shield from every snare. If temptations round you gather,
breathe that holy name in prayer. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. O the precious name of Jesus,
how it thrills our souls with joy when His loving arms receive
us. and his songs our tongues employ. Precious name, oh how sweet,
hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. At the name of Jesus bowing,
falling prostrate at his feet, King of kings in heaven will
crown him, when our journey is complete. Precious name, oh how
sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven. Precious name, oh how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven.