Thank you to this congregation
for this wonderful conference. I begged your pastor for years
to leave me off the schedule, and he just... Actually, I think
it's the barbecue. That's probably what it is. All right, if you have a Bible
with you, the last book in Scripture, the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Chapter 21, verse 27, the last
verse in the chapter. A direct quote from this verse
of Scripture. The Lamb's Book of Life. The Lamb's Book of Life. Now you might not agree with
the way I try to deal with this. I'll probably kick myself before
I even get out of the pulpit. But this is what I think I'm
supposed to be doing. So until I think different, that's
all I can do. But let's look at this verse. This is in eternal glory, the
New Jerusalem. Go back to verse 23 or so and
24 and you'll find that out. Verse 27, and there shall in no wise enter
into it the New Jerusalem. Anything that defiles, neither
whatsoever works abomination or makes a lie. But here it is. Who's going to be there? But they which are written in
the Lamb's book of life. No more and no less. This book
has never had an erasure and it isn't going to begin now. This book has been before time
ever was. Before the foundation of the
world. The Lamb's book of life. Now here it seems to me is what
ought to be the greatest concern for you and me, is my name in this book. And this whole book defines for us who those people
are whose names are in this Lamb's Book of Life. Now my method tonight is a little
bit on the odd side, but if you'll stay with me in just this one
book of Scripture, that ought to be better than going here
and there and everywhere like I usually do. All right, if you'll
turn back to chapter 1. By the way, there are several
other statements to this end in various parts of the Scriptures.
Let's see. Reference to this book in Luke
chapter 10, where the Lord Jesus is talking to his disciples.
They've just returned from this tour that our Lord has sent them
on. And they're rejoicing, excited
that the devil is subject to them. He said, fellows, you've
got this all wrong. He says, rejoice. That's your
names in the book of life. Verses 17 and 18 in Revelation
chapter 1. Now you might say, what connection
has this to what this man has given as his text? And I understand
that. John said, speaking of our Savior,
In this wonderful vision of Christ, this book of Revelation is the
revelation of Jesus Christ. And God gave that revelation
to the Apostle John. And to have been so close to
him and so familiar with him for over three years, look what
happened when John saw our Savior in this vision, or whatever it
was. And when I saw him, I fell at
his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon
me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that lives and was dead,
and behold, I am alive forevermore." And then this statement. and have, amen, and I have the
keys of heaven. You look surprised. Is that not
in your Bible? Well, it's the word Hades, which
means the place of departed spirits, whether good or bad. So it includes
heaven as well as hell. And have the keys of heaven,
hell, and death. One more statement now about
these keys. I want you to see something and
then I'll get back on track. Chapter 3, verse 5. I'm sorry, verse 7. See, I don't
even know what I'm doing. Chapter 3, verse 7, to the angel
or messenger of the church in Philadelphia write, these things
says he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key
of David, he that opens and no mortal man shuts. No man shuts. And when he shuts,
no man can open. And that's true in more ways
than you can possibly imagine. When the Lord sent me to the
church that I now, some people say I'm the pastor, One thing that kept me from throwing
in the towel many times was that statement right there. Now I want you to turn. We're
getting serious now. I want you to turn. Well, in
my Bible I don't have to turn. It's right up the page here.
Chapter 3, verse 5. And he that overcomes, this is
the message to the church at Sardis, he that overcomes shall
be clothed in white raiment, which is the perfect righteousness
of Christ bestowed upon every last single one of his people.
And I will not, I will not blot out his name out of the book
of life. What if he sins? What if he falls? What if anything? I will not
blot his name out of the book of life. If he did so, we all would be
in danger of that happening to us. But I will confess his name,
that is, the names in that book. before my Father and before His
angels." Now the Lord Jesus doesn't seem to be afraid of putting
these words in that form. Another word in this fifth verse
of chapter 3 in the Revelation that many people have difficulty
with is that statement about He that overcomes. He that overcomes. Now listen
carefully. The Lord Jesus is the only overcomer. And everybody who are in Christ
are in Him made overcomers. And that's the only way it can
be. Every one of these seven letters
in the second and third chapter of this book have an address. Every one of them address to
the overcomers. But you remember that. Our overcoming is not in ourselves. It's in our Savior. That's where it should be. It's
the only place it could be. Chapter 13, verse 8. This book is mentioned more than
you would think in our Bibles. The Lamb's Book of Life. Chapter 13, verse 8. And all
that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him Now if you take that
verse, put it over here by itself away from what's around it, you'd
think that's talking about worshiping Christ, wouldn't you? This is
talking about worshiping the devil. All that dwell upon the earth
shall worship him. Who worships the devil? Here
they are. Whose names are not written in
the book of life of the Lamb, slain from before the foundation
of the world. It's kind of important to be
in this book. You forget the who's who. Let's find out that
Christ is the who. And all that belonged to Him,
all that He redeemed, all that God by His Spirit caused, all
those who are born again, Their names are in this book. All right, chapter 17, verse 8. Chapter 17, verse 8. The beast
that you saw was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit and go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth
shall wonder." This is with admiration, shall wonder. And here again, this is very
negative, but there's a wonderful positive statement underneath They that dwell on the earth
shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life
from the foundation of the world when they beheld the beast that
was and is not and is. Now we get real serious. Chapter
20. Beginning at verse 11, I read
these verses deliberately and carefully because we have trouble
with what happened yesterday, let alone how this thing is going
to come to a conclusion. Chapter 20, verse 11, And I saw a great white throne, This is the throne of judgment.
And Him that sat on it, our Lord Jesus Christ. From whose face
the earth and the heaven fled away. No more heaven and no more
earth. A new heaven and a new earth. And there was found no place
for them. Let's find out who the them are. Verse 12. Let me warn you about this word
dead. Dead. When the Bible uses the word
dead, it does not always have the same definition. It does
not always refer to the same persons. When our Lord I forget which gospel account,
seems like it's in more than one. Some people came up to him and
said, Master, we'll follow you whithersoever you goest. But
first, let me go home and bury my father. Which probably means,
you know, give him time to die. I mean, that's my opinion, you
know, it ain't worth a thing, but what did our Lord say? He said, let the dead bury the
dead. Let the spiritually dead bury
the physically dead. So you've got to straighten out
the dead in these verses. I saw the dead, small and great,
Stand before God. And the books were open. You
see that had an S on it, didn't it? This ain't the same book
we've just been talking about, is it? No. There's only one of
those. The books were open. And another
book was open. Singular. Book. Ah, that could be the same book
we've been talking about. The book was opened, and here
the title is shortened, which is the book of life. That ought
to interest us, the book of life. This ain't Life magazine now,
the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books according to their works. The spiritually dead are judged
out of the books. Now, at this point, they're already
dead two times. You know, they're dead physically
and they've always been dead spiritually. But let's read on. Verse 13. And the sea gave up
the dead which was in it, and death and hell delivered up the
dead which were in them. So it doesn't seem to matter
where you died or when you died or how you died. We'll make this
appearance. We're going to be there. I am
and you are. There won't be anybody missing. Not a one. And the dead which were in them,
this is the last part of verse 13, and they were judged every
man according to their works. Now does that seem like to you
that God's going to give every man what he owes him? Yes, indeed. He could not be
just and not do otherwise. But these other people who are
in this Lamb's Book of Life, they do not want what we deserve. We want simply that which our
Savior deserves for us. And there ain't no exceptions
to that rule. None whatsoever. Now we read in verse 14, and
death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is what? The second death. Jump back to verse 6 just for
a second. I've got to throw this in. Same chapter, chapter 20, verse
6. Blessed and holy is he that has
part in the first resurrection. These are those people in that
book that's called the Lamb's Book of Life. On such, the second death has
no power. But they shall be priests of
God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years. Alright, back to the final verse
in chapter 20. If you're a believer, if you're
in Christ, and we're going to come back and figure out if we
are or not, don't worry about the second death. It doesn't
concern you. Verse 15. Whosoever was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
The whole human race is divided before our eyes. There it is. Oh, preacher, that's too simple.
No, it ain't. It's just so. If that ain't true, then throw
away the whole book, because it stands or falls together.
John tells us plainly through the lips of our Savior, the Scriptures
cannot be broken. He said to the Jews, if you don't
believe Moses, you can't believe me. If you don't believe Genesis,
you can't believe Revelation. That's not rocket science. That's
just simple. Let's find out now. Go back to
our text, chapter 21, verse 27. After all that, you wouldn't
know what I was after, but here it is. Here it is. And there shall in no wise enter
into it the new Jerusalem, or whatever term you wish to call
it. Brother Fortner can explain this to you. There shall in no wise enter
into it anything that defiles, neither whatsoever works abomination,
or makes a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life." There is a Lamb's Book of Life. Now let's find out if our names
are in this book. Are we? Let me put it personal. Am I? You ask yourself, am I? Am I the chief of sinners? Linwood quoted one of my verses
for me a while ago. This is a faithful saying worthy
of all acceptation. 1 Timothy 1.15, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. And the apostle said, of whom
I am chief. Every genuine believer considers
themselves to be the worst sinner of all. And where we try to extenuate
sin, make ourselves to be less of a sinner, we're on the wrong
footing. It will not work. We do not know who we are. You should be familiar with Romans
chapter 7, to which we're not turning. Though I wish I had
the luxury. The last half of that chapter
is describing the struggle in the believer's soul between the
old man and the new man. Between what we are in Adam and
what we are in Christ. And Paul writes Romans having
been a follower, a disciple, and an apostle of Christ for
Oh, if I remember right, something like 20 some years. And if that's not so, you can
straighten me out after the meeting. And he gets to verse 25 and he
says, Oh, wretched man that I am. Not that I was. He still is. He sees himself worse now than
he did the day that he met our Savior on the Damascus road.
And so that must be true of us. Am I the chief of sinners? Secondly, Peter has a statement
in 1 Peter 2 verse 7. Unto you therefore who believe,
Christ is precious. So the question is, is Christ
precious to me? And I read somewhere that that
word precious in that verse, just saying it's precious is
not enough. It is preciousness itself. He is the preciousness. Therefore, worshiping, loving,
believing, trusting, and serving Him ought not to be a problem, because He is precious. When Paul writes to the Colossians,
this time in chapter 3, and it's in verse 4, he says about the
Lord Jesus speaking to the Colossian church, who is Christ, who is
our life. He's our life. In the same chapter in verse
11, he describes the Lord Jesus as, I were all and in all. Now I'll throw another little
curve at you. This is coming from Acts chapter 13 and verse
48. The gospel created a little ruckus
there in that town that Paul was in and the Jews who hated
what he was preaching stirred up the locals and the big wigs
and the big shots and they, you know, sort of shut down Paul's
preaching in that town. But the Gentiles, they stuck
to Paul all the more closely. And here's what it says about
them, about those that heard something in that
gospel message. And the Bible describes them
in these exact words. And as many as were ordained
or predestined unto eternal life did what? Believed. And those are the only people
that believe. I can call myself a believer, but that doesn't
make it so. Shoot, I can tell you I'm handsome, but I know
that ain't so. All right, now I've got to ask
you to do something for me that involves leaving the book of
the Revelation. Let's go all the way... Shoot,
I've got plenty of time. Let's go all the way to the Old
Testament. 2 Samuel chapter 9. If you've never
heard of Mephibosheth, you've got to hear this. I used to call
him Mr. Pibb. Now you know, if you know anything
about the Old Testament history and so forth, Saul was the first king in Israel. I'm not talking about Saul of
Tarsus now. This is a different Saul. But
he was their first king. And he sort of went off the deep
end, you know, in the latter part of his reign. And God had
already through the prophet anointed David to be king of Israel. David is now ascended to the
throne. He has the right as king to kill
any descendant of Saul to be found anywhere in his kingdom. David loved Saul's son, Jonathan, and promised to do good to any
of his descendants if he were to ascend the throne. And he finds out there's a fella
way down in the backside of nowhere. That's what we say when we're
talking about where we live, where I live. We live plum nearly,
you know, the backside of nowhere. But David asked one of his servants,
does Saul have any living descendants? And they finally come up with
one. And his name is Mephibosheth. And he lives in a place called
Lodabar. Now look down at verse 4. The king said to his servant,
where is he? Ziba said to the king, behold,
he's in the house of Matre, the son of Amiel in Lodabar. Then King David sent and fetched
him That's how we are brought to
believe and trust Christ. Now, you've heard it a bunch
of ways this weekend. If it ain't this, it ain't grace.
Well, if it doesn't fetch, it isn't grace either. We proudly think we marched our
proud selves right up to Christ and accepted Him. Baloney. Not this Christ. No sirree. He fetches us. We have this all
the way through the Gospel. Luke 19.10, He came to seek and
to save that which was lost. He does the seeking and the saving.
And everything else in between. So Mephibosheth winds up at David's
palace. Verse 7, David said to Mephibosheth,
Don, here's one of those fear nots. Fear not, for I'll surely
show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and shall
restore you all the land of Saul your grandfather, and you shall
eat bread at my table continually." Now here's the kind of person,
here's a character description of the persons whose names are
in what book? the Lamb's Book of Life. Verse
8, Mephibosheth bowed himself. Here's what he said to the king.
What is your cert that you should look upon such a dead dog as
I am? Now that's where Maurice Montgomery
gets this dead dog center that I've heard him use and I've adopted
you know, fairly frequently myself. But that's what we are. That's
what we are. To sit at Christ's table, to
have our names in the Lamb's Book of Life. I read your hymn book to make
sure it was right. Alas, and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? You get a modern hymn book and
find the word worm and I want you to call me, collect. I'd
like to know it. I don't believe you'll find it.
It won't be there. One more text. Let's see, we
got to go to the right. 2 Kings chapter 8. Now here's what I'm trying to do. I've already asked you one time,
am I the chief of sinners? But, you know, we can miss that question on
either side. not necessarily know it. But
when we look at Mephibosheth, we understand more of who those
people are whose names are in the Lamb's Book of Life. And
here's another fellow who is on the exact opposite side. So
we have a negative Here, and a positive that we've already
covered, example to show us who these people are whose names
are in the Lamb's Book of Life. Starting at verse 7, and I'm
not really going to read all the verses, I'm just going to
summarize. The prophet in Israel at this time is Elisha. He's
in Damascus, Syria, the capital of Syria. The king of Syria is
a man by the name of Ben-Hadad. He's very sick. And why he has
any confidence in Elisha, I'm not altogether sure. But he sends
his servant to ask God's prophet if he will recover from this
sickness. He tells that servant to take
40 camels burden of gifts, all that 40
camels can carry. And he makes his way to wherever
Elisha is staying. And he brings this question to
the prophet. My master, King Ben-Hadad, wants to know if you'll
find out from God if he's going to survive this illness. And
Elisha comes back with the answer. Yes, he'll survive, but that's
not the end of the story. Verse 10, Elisha said to the
Ben-Hadad servant, Go say unto him, you may certainly recover.
How be it? And that's the only part of the
message that got back to the king now. But it's not all the
message. How be it? The Lord has showed me that he
shall surely die. He won't die from sickness. Let's
find out now what's going to happen. Verse 11, and Elisha
settled his countenance steadfastly, looking at this servant by the
name of Hazel, until Hazel is ashamed, can no longer look at
the prophet. who's staring him down. And the man of God wept. And Hazel said in verse 12, Why
weep, my Lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that
you, Hazel, will do unto the children of Israel. Their strongholds
will you set on fire, and their young men shall you slay with
the sword. And you will dash their children and rip up their
women with child." And look what Hazel says. But what? Is your servant a dog that he
should do this great thing? Mephibosheth didn't mind calling
himself a dog in David's presence. And this man is offended that
the prophet would speak to him so plainly. He went back home
to his king and the next day he smothered him to death in
his bed. And the remaining part of this prophecy was literally
fulfilled because Hazel became the king of Syria. So what does this mean, this
business of being the chief of sinners? John the Baptist spoke these
words. This is my last line. I'm coming to the end, in the
shortest row. In chapter 3 of John, in verse
30, John the Baptist gave these words. I don't have time to give
you the setting and the context and so forth. But he said of
our Lord Jesus, these Jews thought John was the Messiah. He told
them plainly, I'm not the Christ, I'm not the Messiah. But he said
concerning the Lord Jesus, He must increase and I must decrease. Now here's what that means on
our subject tonight. Our view of ourselves gets, we
look to ourselves worse and worse and worse. And our view of Christ
is greater. He becomes more and more precious. He's more and more our all and
in all. We are complete in Him. There is a false Christianity
in the world today in which I read a sermon title just recently
that says, how to give, this is not verbatim, how to give
yourself a magnificent walk. There ain't no such thing. He must increase. And if he does,
we will decrease.