We're in the book of Esther.
If you'd like to turn with me there, the book of Esther. Esther is a continuation and
around the same time as Ezra and Nehemiah. As you know, Ezra
went and he rebuilt the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem by the
permission of the king at that time. Then you have Nehemiah
who has on his heart to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem.
And he does the same thing as we saw last Sunday and even Wednesday
night. So we have Esther here that I
find interesting because the command has already been given
that they can leave and go back to Jerusalem. They are choosing
to remain in Persian captivity or they're choosing to remain
in Persia. They're not going back to Jerusalem.
Esther is written about the Jews that are still remaining in Persia,
even though they have been given permission to leave. They didn't
depart. Now, thankfully, this didn't
take our Lord by surprise. He knew exactly what was in their
heart. He knew exactly what they would do, and he knows exactly
what you and I would do if left to ourself. Our hope is that
he would call us and make us come into here, and he would
draw us with cords of love. He would give us No choice in
the matter. That's our hope, isn't it? That
we are called, not by our own choice, but He chose us. We see
throughout Esther, we see His hand. We see the Lord working. We can rejoice greatly when we
see the Lord's hand at work in our lives and in the lives of
others. Most of the time, when something is happening in our
lives, we're not rejoicing over the trials and struggles. Scripture
says the tribulation of our faith worketh patience. I don't know
about you, but I don't like patience very much. I'm not a very patient
person a lot of times. I should be. We should strive
to be more patient, but we see that the patience is what causes
us to look unto the Lord. The tribulation of our faith,
worketh patience. And patience, experience, and
experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed of the gospel. So
the Lord's allowing all these things to happen. He's working
with his hand according to what he has purposed before the foundation
of the world, and it's coming to pass, whatever he has purposed.
That's exactly what we find Here in Esther chapter one, it starts
by saying, and it came to pass. That's throughout scripture,
isn't it? Every time something happens, it's always, and it
came to pass. And that is the Lord's way of informing us or
communicating to us that it's all of him. It's all by him.
It's all through him. It's his choice. And it came
to pass. And it came to pass. And this morning we're sitting
here because it's coming to pass. That's the way the Lord has ordained
it. So we see that this could be just a book of humanitarianism. A lot of people in religion have
taken this book and talked about the strong woman that's in this
chapter. Somebody might have accused me at one time of being
sexist. I am not sexist in regards to
the way men and women of today apply that. I have three daughters.
I'm very for women's rights. Don't misunderstand. I'm all
for it. But this is not about just a strong woman in the flesh
that did something for her people. This is about the salvation of
the Lord's people. This is about his gospel coming
to fruition by a woman named Esther. This is a type and a
picture of our Lord Jesus Christ interceding for his people throughout
this entire book. And so we find it interesting
that it's hidden. It's a hidden thing in this book.
I can explain that by telling you that the word God is not
mentioned in Esther. Some men and philosophers have
said, well, maybe it wasn't an inspired book. Brethren, the
reason that the word God is not mentioned is because the Lord
tells us in Ezra, you remember whenever the Lord spoke and he
said, If you hide your face from me, I will remove my face from
you. And that's the reason we can't physically see his face
here. The entire volume of the book
is Jesus Christ, and he is hidden to the natural man. But I'm here
to declare unto you, Esther is a divinely inspired book. The book Song of Solomon didn't
have the word God written in it either. We know that that's
a inspired book, don't we? Men will try to take the word
of God and discredit it. but it's forever settled in heaven.
So we see that it's all spiritually discerned. And we know that this
book is spiritually inspired because we see him ruling. We
see him reigning. We see everything coming to pass
in your life. You can look back and you can
see everything that has come to pass that leads you to this
moment right now. Would you have designed it that
way? Would you have purposed it to be thus? Certainly not.
All the minute things that we don't even, that we can't even
fathom that the Lord hath done to bring us under the sound of
his gospel, to save his people, everything is under his purpose. It's under his authority. And
he moves according to his will. And we rest in that. Now, I've titled this message,
What Pleases the King? What pleases the king? That's
what I hope to see this morning, is what pleases the king? If
you look in verse one of chapter one, it says, now it came to
pass in the days of Ahasuerus. Thus is Ahasuerus, which reigned
from India, even the Ethiopia, over 170 and 20 provinces. Now, King Ahasuerus was the king
that immediately followed Artaxerxes. You remember me naming that name
in the book of Ezra, in the book of Nehemiah? That was the king
at the time, Artaxerxes. And now his reign is over, and
Ahasuerus has been made the king. It starts out by telling us that
he had a wife named Vashti. And it tells us that he was having
a great feast. They were drinking wine in abundance,
the scripture says. They were enjoying their self
in their abilities of celebration. They were celebrating life, perhaps.
They were just enjoying the things that they had acquired. It was
a time of peace in the kingdom. There was no war to be waged.
They had conquered the known world at this time, the king
before him. So we have a time of peace in the land of Persia.
And so they're eating, they're drinking, they're marrying, giving
him marriage, as the scripture talks about, and Noah's time.
And we see that he had a wife named Vashti. And he says in
his heart, my wife is beautiful. and I'm going to parade her in
front of all these princes and all these men. I want them to
see my wife." And Vashti said, it ain't happening. I'm not gonna
be paraded. I'm not going to be brought in
before everyone and viewed as your toy or your possession. She had a very bad attitude towards
the king, didn't she? She said, no, that was her answer,
no. Well, you can imagine, The counselors, it says that it displeased
the king greatly, but you could imagine the counselors and the
princes, what are they going to say? What was their thoughts
of this? Lord, you're going to have to
do something because they're going to go and start marching down Main
Street for women's rights. That's pretty much his attitude
that they took. He said, you're going to have to stop this. We're going
to have to put them in their place. You're going to have to make
a decision to do something about this. And so they gave different
solutions. And the solution was put her
away, divorce her. Take everything that she has
away from her. Don't allow her to come before the king ever
again. And it pleased. It pleased the
king. It pleased Ahasuerus. She was
cut off. She was excommunicated. She was
stripped of all of her glory. Her crown was taken away. Her
crown. Her position, her power, her
popularity, everything that she had was taken away from her.
She was nothing. She became a nobody. from being
the queen of the known world to a nothing, to a nobody, empty,
desolate. This is what happened. She was
left husbandless. She was left alone without hope.
And it says Ahasuerus' wrath was appeased. Now in chapter
two, we find the decree was made, a decree that all virgins, the
young fair virgins would be gathered together unto the king for a
replacement for Vashti, a replacement. We see great designs of grace
in the fact that the king chose a Jewish woman named Esther to
be his wife. See, the Jews were outcasts.
They were not part of, they had intermingled with the Persians,
don't misunderstand, but they still was frowned upon as we're
gonna find out in the next hour. They were despised by several.
They were people that were prejudiced against them. They were racist
against them. And yet by great designs of grace, Ahasuerus chose
Esther. Esther had no mother or father.
Esther's father's nephew raised her. Esther's father's nephew
raised her. His name was Mordecai. Esther
was very fair, the scripture says. And at the time to be presented
before the king, they had to go through a purification process. They had to go through a ritual
of bathing themselves a certain way and putting on certain oils
and putting on certain things that smell good. And you know
how long it took for that to happen? One year. One year they
went through the purification process before they entered into
the king's presence. She did so and the king delighted
in her, as we're going to read in just a second. But if the
king did not delight in the virgin that came forth, he sent her
away and she was not to go into his presence ever again. It was
the end of it. So this was all about them getting dressed up
to impress the king, wasn't it? It was all about them trying
to be selected. If you can, that's exactly what's
happening. That's exactly what's taking place is they are trying
to put on apparel. They are trying to smell the
best. They are trying to look the best in order to win the
king's favor, to win his affection. That's what they're trying to
do. Now read with me in chapter two of Esther, verse 15. Chapter 2, verse 15. Now when
the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai,
who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go unto the king,
she required nothing. She required nothing. Pay attention
to that. But what Haggai, the king's chamberlain,
the keeper of the women, appointed? And Esther obtained favor in
the sight of all them that looked upon her. So Esther was taken
unto King Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month,
which is in the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.
And the king loved Esther above all the women. And she obtained
grace and favor in his sight more than the other virgins,
so that he set the royal crown upon her head and made her queen
instead of Vashti. Then the king made a great feast
unto all the princes, all his princes and his servants, even
Esther's feast. And he made a release to the
provinces and gave gifts according to the state of the king. And
when the virgins were gathered together the second time, then
Mordecai sat at the king's gate. Esther had not yet showed her
kindred nor her people as Mordecai had charged her. For Esther did
the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought
up with him. She required nothing. when she
went before the king. She required nothing. She didn't
try to spruce up whatever the Chamberlain keeper gave to her.
Whatever the king supplied, that's what she put on. And she pleased
the king, the scripture says. She pleased the king. He loved
her. He was well pleased with her, insomuch that he gave her
the crown, crowned her with the crown of the queen. She became
his queen. We can see the beauty of grace in this, can't we? We
can see the picture of what the Lord has done for his people.
What do you approach the king with? Nothing other than what
the king's provided. Is that not true? We approach
the king with nothing but what he's provided. And for the remainder
of our time, I would like to look at three things. Number
one, Vashti being our old man, Vashti being our flesh, Vashti
being that which cannot please the king. I would like to look
number two at Esther, being our new man, that which pleases the
King, that which the Lord is pleased with, that which the
Lord loves. And I would like to see the King Ahasuerus as
being the Lord. Vashti would not and could not
go before the King. She would not. She would not
bow because she could not. She was not willing. She was
not able. Just as you and I are born dead
and trespasses and in sin, we can't even approach the King,
can we? Even if he said, come, unless
he makes us alive first, we can't come. He has to make us alive
first, and then we come. Now, why did the Lord design
it this way? So that no flesh would glory
in his presence. And what did the Lord, what did
the King say? Because Vashti wouldn't come
for him. He excommunicated her, didn't he? Did we not die in
our father, Adam, in the garden? Were we not excommunicated from
the grace of God at that time? As far as it's viewed by the
physical, we died, didn't we? We died in the flesh. Our flesh
is now excommunicated from God. We died in our father Adam, and
that's exactly what happened to Vashti. She was excommunicated
because of her failure to do what? Obey the commandment of
the king. You and I cannot keep the commandment
of the king. Our flesh is going to die. We are dead men walking. Our
flesh has been cut off from the land of the living. We're going
to die. It's going to be buried. It's going to go back to the
dust from which it came, but yet The Lord never lost any of
his sheep because of a decision that we make. Isn't that glorious?
The Lord saved his people. The Lord redeemed his people.
And in time, the Lord quickens our spirit and makes us know,
makes us to know that he did save us from our sin. The scripture
says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Do you know
why? because they mind the things of the flesh. To be spiritually
minded is life, but to be carnally minded is death, the scripture
says. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. You and I
cannot become spiritually minded because we've made a decision.
We're dead in trespasses and in sin. We are excommunicated. We are put away from the King's
presence because of our sin. Our sin is what separates us
from God. Our sin must be punished. It
must be put away in order for us to enter in the presence of
the King. Paul said, I die daily. Crucify the flesh that I may
live. Nevertheless, it's not I that
live, but Christ that liveth in me. That's the spiritual life,
isn't it? Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's how he
reveals that you're alive, is he reveals Christ to you. Paul said, oh, wretched man that
I am. Not that I was, but I am. Oh, wretched man that I am right
now. Not that I used to be. In religion,
men say, well, I used to be a sinner. Well, then they've never been
saved, if they used to be. We're sinners right now, aren't
we, brethren, in our own eyes, in our own sight. But the way
we see things, we see the sin and the weight that does so easily
beset us. We see that we're wretched. We see that we're vile and we
need a substitute. Lord, I can't come into your
presence unless you do something, unless you make me alive, unless
you, everything that's required, you're going to have to provide
it if I am going to come into your presence. If I'm going to
please you, you can't look at me. You must look at my substitute,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not what we cry out?
That's what we pray. The most amazing thing about
the Lord's amazing grace is that he only saves the wretched. He only saves the sinners. He only saves the outcasts. He only saves those who are dead
in trespasses and in sin. That's the glorious news of the
gospel. The qualification is you must be wretched. You must
be vile. You must be the chief of sinners. And that's what he does in revealing
his son as he shows us our substitute. That we are nothing and he is
everything. That we are Vashti and he is Esther. He is good. He is pure. He is perfect. Because
of Adam, we died just like Vashti. According to the flesh, judgment
came. Judgment came by one man's disobedience,
all were made sinners. And what was the judgment of
that sin? Death by sin. Death, that's the judgment. That
is our judgment placed upon us when our father Adam died, or
our father Adam sinned, we died. We can no longer enter into the
presence of the King because of what we are. We need a substitute. We need a substitute or we're
gonna just be cut off, excommunicated. We were stripped of all glory.
Was not Adam made in the image and the likeness of the Lord,
the scripture says? Think about that. He used to commune with
God. The scripture tells us he walked with God in the cool of
the evening. What other, what's something
other than that that's more glorious than walking with the Lord in
the cool of the evening? Yet he lost it. He lost it because
of his sin. He was cut off from the Lord
because of his sin. He was separated from God because
of his sin. Aren't you thankful? Aren't you
thankful when David's confession was, as I have sinned, that Nathan
said, the Lord hath put away your sin. Is that your hope?
Is that whenever you see yourself as Vashti, whenever you see that
you can't come into the King's presence because of what you
are, that you're unwilling and unable, that you hear, is your
desire is that you hear, fear not, for I have put away your
sin. You are perfectly righteous. You are holy in my sight. You
are good. You are just. Is that not what
we hope to hear from our Lord? Vashti, when she was cut off,
what could she have done to fix it at that point? She's no longer
allowed to go in the king's presence. And understand at this time,
and remember this for next hour too, if you were to enter into
the king's presence without his permission, the penalty was death.
The penalty was death unless unless he raised a golden scepter
unto you to give you permission. If he didn't raise that golden
scepter unto you, then you were to die. Is that not the same
as our Lord? No man can look upon him and
live. We can't enter. He told Moses, think about the
man Moses. The Lord raised him up to be
the prophet of Israel. He couldn't look upon the Lord's
face because he was still in the flesh. He was in sin. He was born in sin, shape, and
iniquity, the same as we are. The Lord said, you can't look
upon my face and live, Moses, but there is a place. There is
a place nigh unto me that I can put you in. And when I pass by,
I can show you my glory. I can show you my honder parts.
I'll remind you that it's goodness and mercy that'll follow you
all the days of your life. The cleft of the rock. That's where
he put him, wasn't it? He put him in Christ. That's
the only way that we can see God is being in Christ. There's
nothing that we can do to fix our state, just like Vashti could
do nothing to fix what she had done. It would have done no good
for her to say, okay, now I've decided I'm going to come into
the king's presence. No, you'd die. She would die if she would
have done that, wouldn't she? Well, what about doing this? Or what
about doing that? There was nothing that she could do to fix what
had happened. Nothing. The king's decree had
went forth and it was settled. The king's decree had went forth
and it was settled that she was to be excommunicated. This is
a picture of us being born, being excommunicated, if you will.
This is a picture of us not able to fix it, no matter what we
do. But the very instance of us fixing it as iniquity, the
literal attempt to fix it, the judgment is death. Do we see
that? In trying to fix it, we're making it worse. That's exactly
what I'm trying to get across to us this morning. It's the
same as giving glasses to a blind man, giving glasses to a blind
man. That's not going to do any good,
is it? And yet in religion, that's what men are doing. They're preaching
that you must do something to please God. And all they're doing
is giving glasses to a blind man or giving a blanket to a
man that's dead. Well, this will warm him up,
right? Let's give him a blanket. No, he's dead. He has no heat.
He has no life. The same as giving shoes to a
lame man. Well, shoes ain't going to do
any good if he can't walk, is it? No good whatsoever. What
do we need? We need the Lord to open our
eyes, don't we? We don't need a physical repair done. We need a spiritual life in Christ
to be revealed. We need to be born again. We
need life in Him to be revealed in us. We need feet to run to
Him. Without this, we have no hope.
We have no hope. The good news of the gospel is
this, the interjection. God always interjects when he's
revealing his gospel. Did you know that? You're dead
and he interjects, I'm dead, he interjects and says, but God,
who is rich in mercy, but God, and it came to pass. Do we see
that? That's the good news of the gospel.
The Lord does that which pleases him and gives life unto his people
at the appointed time. By Christ, we have peace and
we can enter into the King's presence. His wrath has been
appeased. That's what it said, wasn't it?
Whenever Ahasuerus, after he said, okay, I'm going to put
her away. And then it says in his wrath was appeased. Turn
with me, if you will, to Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter
two. This is what the Lord's done
for us. He's taken us as Vashti, and
he's made us into Esther, his queen. That's what he's done.
He's made us, the scripture, he's made us kings and queens
by his precious blood. Ephesians chapter two, verse
14 says, for he is our peace, Christ. Christ is our peace. And this is what he's done. He
hath made both one and broken down the middle wall of partition
between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even
the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in
himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he
might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby." There's the substitution, brethren. He
has slain the enmity, that which separated us from God, The Vashti
part of us, he no longer sees sin. He no longer sees us
as wretched, as vile. He sees the blood of Christ. He sees that Christ put away
our sin. Christ destroyed the enmity. The middle wall of partition,
the veil that separated us from God has been rent in two from
top to bottom. And we can enter boldly now into
the throne of grace as Esther. as his precious bride that he
loves, as perfect, as sinless, as holy. He took our sin and
became excommunicated from his father. He took our sin and was
forsaken of his father. He took what you are and what
I am. This is our hope. He took our
sin into his body and was cut off from the land of the living.
He was cut off from his father. Why? That we might be made the
righteousness of God in him, that we might be made Esther.
That's our only hope. Everything required, he provided
in our salvation. All the purification process,
He did that for us. We're presented as pure. The
stars are not even pure in His sight, and yet the Lord's people
are pure in the Lord's sight. Isn't that glorious? We are perfect
in His sight. We are precious in His sight. He was alone in His exile, yet
He never lost faith in His God. He never lost faith in the Father,
that the Father would complete that which He promised that He
would do. Christ was never wavering. That's our hope, is that He's
given us that faith, because we waver, don't we? You and I
are tossed about with every weight, with the wind. The wind blows
and we get upset, don't we? But yet the Lord never wavered.
I need the faith of Christ, don't you? I need His faith to be bestowed
upon me, to be revealed in me. And He died in our stead. And by his death, he abolished
the enmity. He reconciled us back to God.
He's given us oneness with the Father. As he was praying in
John 17, he talked about that, didn't he? He said, I in you
and them in me, we're literally in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do
we see that? He said, my sheep hear my voice and I know them. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of my Father's
hand." So the picture we have here is us in Christ with a closed
fist, and then the Christ and the Father with a closed fist.
Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus is what Paul said. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. The
Lord is the one that did it. The Lord is the one that saved
us. He's the one that called us. He's the one that keeps us
all the way to him. All the way to being revealed in Christ.
So what pleases the king? What pleases the king coming
to him with what he's provided that pleases the king? You and
I can't please the king, can we? No matter what we do, no
matter what we say, no matter what we think, we cannot please
the king in ourself. In my hand, no price I bring,
simply to Christ I cling. This is what we come to Him with.
This is what pleases Him as His darling Son, and the substitution
for wretched sinners such as I that's found in Christ. The
glorious gospel, that's what He's pleased with, is His Son.
This is our hope that He hath put us in Him before the foundation
of the world. This is what He's done for His
people. You know what He says after that? If we approach Him
with that, He says, He hath loved her with an everlasting love. I love the word everlasting.
It means it never had a beginning and it never had an end. If he
loves you right now, he's always loved you and there's nothing
that you can do to get out of his love. Isn't that glorious?
I can't mess it up. I get in my own way so many times
and so often in this life, but yet when it comes to salvation,
I have nothing to do with it. It's just bestowed. It's just
revealed that it is finished. I need that to be revealed so
often, don't you? Every day, I need the Lord to
reveal, it is finished, stop, rest. And that's what the queen
did. Esther came into his presence,
the crown was placed upon her, the robe was placed upon her,
and she was seated. That was the end of it, wasn't it? That's
what the Lord did for his people. Everything required in order
to make her perfect, he provided. All the purification, all the
garments, everything needed. The robe of righteousness was
bestowed upon her. And you and I, just as her, we
don't require anything else, do we? We don't try to get something
else. That's what men are doing. They're
saying, okay, well, maybe if I smell this way, the Lord will
be accepted by me. Maybe if I wear this outfit because
I look different than they do, or I'm not doing this, or I'm
doing that. See, that's the law of our works, isn't it? That's
what men are doing. They're trying to come before
God They're declaring their virginity before the Lord is what they're
doing, and they're dressing themselves up to try to look appeasing to
the Lord. And the Lord said, I'll disannul your covenant.
There's only one that pleases me, and that's his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is no substitution. There
is no other except the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I cannot approach
the king, but the good news of the gospel, everything required
for our salvation, God provided in his darling son. And it's
given to us. What did Esther require more
than that? It says nothing. She required nothing but what
was given to her by the chamberlain keeper, the one that gave her
the garment. This is what you wear before
the king. Do you need anything else to go before the king? No, this
is what he provided. This is what I'm wearing. Is
that not what we do? We wear what the Lord's given us, the
robe of righteousness, nothing more, nothing less. He's crowned us with his righteousness,
made us perfect, made us alive in Christ. Now, in closing, I
wanna turn to Revelation 14. I wanna read a few verses there. This is what he's done for his
people. Now, Revelation is an interesting book. Anytime that
you ever read Revelation, remember the heading of chapter one, verse
one. Right above it, it says, the revelation of Jesus Christ. So we have to start right there.
Every time we ever read revelation, I had somebody ask me recently,
what do I believe in? Tribulation or am I pre-millennial,
post-millennial and all this? And I said, listen, we preach
Christ. We preach Christ. I'm not going to debate with
you on whether you're right or I'm right or not. It doesn't matter. It's
the revelation of Jesus Christ, isn't it? That's what we preach.
That's the only hope that Esther had in approaching the king is
what he provided. That's our only hope is that whatever he
provided, we're declaring and the Lord will call his people
accordingly. So here we are in Revelation 14. Now it can be
futuristic and it can be present at the same time because we're
already seated in him in the heaven. These aren't we, according
to the scripture. We've already been made glorified. I don't
understand that, but that's what the scripture tells us. We are
literally in glory right now with him. We've always been in
him. I can't wrap my tiny pea brain around that. I just can't,
but I believe it because he said it. Now here's the glorious news
of what he did for us. Look here and for his people,
Revelation chapter 14, verse one. And I looked and lo, a lamb
stood on the Mount Zion and with him 144,000 having the father's
name written in their foreheads. Now, brethren, there's been religions
that take this 144,000. Jehovah Witness believe that
that that's as many as going to be there is 144,000. That's
it. They've since changed the number because they said, well,
we need it to be a little bit bigger because we're thinking that maybe
there's, I might not be able to make it because I think 144,000
has already went, you know, that kind of attitude. 144,000 is
a number given to us to represent the Lord's people. That's all
that it is. It's all of the Lord's people
saved in the covenant of grace, brought to the Lord as perfectly
righteous. That's what 144,000 represent. Verse two says, and I heard a
voice from heaven as the voice of many waters and as the voice
of a great thunder. And I heard the voice of harpers
harping with their harps. And they sung as it were a new
song before the throne and before the four beasts and the elders.
And no man could learn that song, but the 144,000, which were redeemed
from the earth. These are they which were not
defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are they which
follow the lamb, whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed
from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And
in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before
the throne of God. Brethren, if you are in Christ,
you are without fault before the throne of God. Can we wrap
our mind around that? I can't. I see myself as faulty. I see myself as false and full
of sin. He doesn't. He sees us, his people,
as faultless before the throne of God, singing a new song, a
song that can't be taught, not of man. It has to be revealed
of the Lord. What is that song? Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the
lamb. That's the song, isn't it? That's the song we'll be
singing for eternity. We'll be singing glory and honor
unto him. He hath redeemed us. Angels can't sing that song,
can they? They've never been redeemed. They've never been
bought by his blood. We can sing, we've been redeemed
because of what he's done. We follow him because of that,
don't we? Wherever he goes, wherever he leads, we follow. We don't
have a choice in the matter, and I love that. Because if I
was left to myself, me and Mac were talking the other day about
going, wavering to and fro, and all the time up and down, and
you're, Lord, don't leave me to myself, cause me to follow
you, cause me to follow you. And that's exactly what the Lord's
people does in Revelation 14, and that's exactly what we do
right now. In this life, we follow after the Lord. We cannot not
believe. We have to believe the Lord because
he has given us the faith to do so, and his faith cannot fail. We walk. upright in his eyes
as Queen Esther, we please the Lord. We are pleasing unto the
Lord. Why? Because we are in Christ. He's pleased with his son and
all those that are in Christ, he is pleased with. He is literally
pleased with you because you are in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I find such comfort in that. I find such comfort in knowing
I am faultless before the throne of God because of what Christ
did. He didn't try to put away my sin. He put away my sin. He
saved me. He saved his people from their
sin, and we are faultless before his throne. What pleases the king, his sons
finish work. His sons finish work in redeeming
his bride, his elect, his chosen from the foundation of the world.
When he sees his bride, he sees the blood and he's pleased with
her. She's pleasing to the king. She's pleasing to the king. He
loves her. Isn't that glorious? Father, thank you that you are
pleased with your son and you have put us in your son and you
see the blood when you see us and therefore you are pleased. Save us, we pray. call us according
to your precious will. In Christ's name we pray, amen.