Now let's read again the text
from Revelation 1. Verse 3 says, Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear
the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written
therein, for the time is at hand. Now when John said the time is
at hand, I'm just confident that he refers mainly, primarily,
to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in great glory. All of
the apostles spoke of the last days and the fact that from the
cross to this present day are considered the last days. And this is what he's talking
about when he says, the time is at hand. The time is at hand. That is, for the coming of the
Lord. In Revelation 3, 11, he said, Behold, I come quickly.
Quickly. Hold fast that which thou hast,
that no man take your crown. Hold on to what you have with
the grace of God, that you not let it slip. And then in Revelation
22, 20, he said, surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come, Lord Jesus. He
will come. So when John is saying the time
is at hand, he means that for the closing down of these days
and the end of the world and the coming of Christ in great
glory and power, it may be today, it may be soon, it will be quickly
in comparison to eternity. It is quickly. compared to the
years of eternity. When our Lord was taken up into
heaven, the angels appeared to the disciples and they said,
this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall
so come in like manner as you've seen him go. So the coming of the Lord is
the subject right here, the primary subject, but Scripture is And actually, when a person dies,
now watch this, when a person dies, if I die today, is that
not for me the coming of the Lord? Is that not for me the coming
of the Lord because life here is over? Eternity, far as I'm
concerned, has begun. This is why I don't really make
much of prophecy. and what's going to take place
as far as Russia and Israel and the things that are going to
happen at the coming of the Lord, because every day he comes for
somebody. The coming of the Lord may be,
as far as I'm concerned, this week, Bill, next week, next month. When a person dies, it is for
him the coming of the Lord, and in this sense, It is very near. It is very near. In this sense,
the time for me is at hand. My life is three-fourths gone. Fifteen or twenty years, suppose
I have that long. That's at hand. Behold, I come
quickly. saith the Lord. My reward is
with me. Scripture tells us to be smart
enough to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. It's very near. It's at hand.
Boast not thyself of tomorrow. James says, what is your life?
It is but a vapor. Appears for a little while and
then it's gone. The thing that inspired my message
this morning the crisis, the traumatic experience that led
me to preach on this subject. The time is at hand. Now, I know
right here he's talking about the coming of the Lord. I come
quickly. The time is at hand for his coming. He may come soon,
but he may not come for, as far as this world's concerned, for
a hundred years or who knows a thousand years, but it's still
quickly. But when a man dies, when a person
dies, that for him is the coming of the Lord. That's the end of
life, that's the end of his days, that's the end of the world.
That's the beginning of glory, that's the beginning of eternity,
that's the beginning of sorrow when a man dies. Now I'll be
preaching a funeral here tomorrow afternoon at one o'clock. One,
two days ago I knew nothing about. Now you listen to me. As Brother Ed Ballard said to
me yesterday, he said, we've just lost a good friend. Brother
Buddy Hoffman, he was here in the service last Sunday, wasn't
he? Sitting right here with his wife, younger than I am, in full
health and strength. All week, got along fine, good
health, strength. Went out with Brother Ed Friday
night to eat dinner. George, Eddie, Buddy, Joanne,
went out to eat dinner, came in for dinner, visited a while,
had a good time. Y'all been friends 40 years,
hadn't you? Buddies, talked a while, said,
I'll see you in church Sunday, you know. Bid him goodnight,
went home. In 10 hours, he was dead. The time is at hand, brother.
Let me tell you something. This has happened so many times,
and I keep saying this from this pulpit. Nobody's listening to
me, I'm afraid. I hope I'm listening. And I preached up here for all
these years, and I preached one day to Franklin Barber, and I
preached his funeral the next week. I preached one day to J.B. Moore, and shook hands with him
at the door, and preached his funeral three days later. I just
keep talking about things like that. I preached last Sunday
to Buddy Hoffman, shook hands with him at the door. I'm going
to preach his funeral tomorrow. Now I want you to raise your
hand, anybody here, and tell me whose funeral I'm going to
preach next week. Now you just tell me, which one of you am
I going to preach your funeral next week? So what I'm saying
is, brethren, let's get our act together. That's the reason I have no sympathy
for playing church on Sunday morning or Sunday night. This
may be your last time to hear this message. You do with it
what you want to. Maybe your last time to sing
these hymns. If you want your mind somewhere
else, put it somewhere else. But next Sunday, it's going to
be in God's presence. If you want to stay up all night on
Saturday night so you go to sleep when I'm preaching up here on
Sunday, you do that. You may give me something to
preach at your funeral. See what I'm saying? You say
you're a hard preacher. Well, we want our children, don't
we? The time's at hand, brethren.
The time is at hand. And I tell you, we're like cattle
out here in the field. They're standing around grazing.
They're all kind of cattle, standing around grazing in the field.
And a farmer comes out there and looks around and he puts
a rope around the neck of one of them and he takes it away,
going to the slaughterhouse. And the rest of them, they're
still eating, you know, and they look up and watch him go and go right
back to their eating. Never give it a thought. And
then the next day the farmer comes out and puts the ropes
around the neck of another and leads him away, and they glance
up and keep on eating. Then he comes out and gets another
one and leads him away. They keep on, finally there's
just two left standing out there. And he comes and gets the other
one. And that one that's left there doesn't lift his head and
watch it go and mourn over the fact he just goes back to eat.
Or he may glance up, you know, and give it a fleeting thought.
And here we are, that old song we used to sing going down the
valley, one by one, one by one, one by one. And we need so desperately, so
sincerely to give ourselves to the study of the Word, to the
worship of God. Every prayer ought to be as vital
and as significant as if it were our last prayer, for well it
may be. Every service ought to be as significant As prayerful,
it's just like that song Shirley just delivered. You don't deliver
a song like that by getting up on Sunday morning, opening your
book, figuring out what you're going to sing. You come over
here like she did yesterday and work on it. And work on it for
the glory of God. Work on it. She worked on it
because she knows and I know it may be her last opportunity
to glorify God in singing, right? And to bless these people. It's
important. But the worship of God and the preaching and the
singing to some people is nothing but just another service. It's
another time to get together. It's another time to come to
a place. Well, to me, it's life and death.
It's heaven and hell. It's glory and eternal condemnation. Every service is so important.
I preach as a dying man to dying men, and you hear as dying men. We ought to have our ears like
sponges reaching out to latch hold of any water of life God
might give us. We ought to be just reaching
and grasping for any word of assurance or confidence we might
have of a hope for this time, of life after death. Paul said,
Oh, that I may know Him. Oh, that I may win Christ. I
want to attain unto the resurrection of the dead by any means. any
means, if by any means, I might attain to the resurrection of
the dead. I know there's a time to laugh
and a time to cry. I know there's a time to dance
and a time to mourn. I know there's a time for gaiety
and there's a time for seriousness. And I believe we ought to be
happy people. But I'm telling you this, I'm saying it over
and over again. It's a time to worship God. It's
a time to call on God. It's a time to straighten out
matters between me and God through Christ Jesus. It's a time of
dedication and consecration. There's a time for our minds
and affections to be set on things above, not on the things of this
earth. There's a time to mend the fences.
There's a time to bring spirits together. There's a time for
unity and happiness and harmony in the worship of God Almighty.
Because the time's at hand. It's near at hand. I want to sound a clear note
today one more time. on the subject of grace for the
guilty and peace with God and hope for eternal life. One more
time, we'll tell this congregation one more time. And I tell you,
if you walk out of here this morning without a hope in Christ,
you walk out with your blood on your own head. Paul said,
I'm free, I'm pure from the blood of all men. I've ceased not to
warn you, I've ceased not to pray for you, I've ceased not
to weep over you, I've ceased not to call your attention. away
from the things of this world and its relationship. The fashion
of this world is fading away. I wouldn't wound and hurt. I
told Joanne standing in the study yesterday morning I was going
to do this. She said, fine, didn't she? I said, this, your husband's
death, she's standing right there in the study. I said, he's, I've
changed my message for in the morning, he's motivated by message,
God's taken him, so suddenly I'm going to warn people again,
one more time. I'm sure this, if Buddy had had
any awareness or consciousness that he was hearing this preacher
last Sunday morning for the last time, I believe he'd have turned
the volume up just a little bit more. I believe his job and his family
and friends or whatever would have made no difference whatsoever
if he'd have known that. He'd have tuned in just a little
more accurately, just a little more precisely. He'd have been a little more
interested. Well, okay. I give you again the sum of the
gospel. Listen as a dying man, for that's
what you are. And may I give such an account
that if this is the last time I'll preach to you, and one of
these days I will. One of these days somebody's
going to call you and say, the preacher's dead. Well, don't you believe
it. He's living. He's just moved
his residence. I have that kind of confidence.
Don't you believe it. All right, here's the subject,
verse 4. John, to the seven churches which
are in Asia, here's my subject, grace. My subject's grace. Now brethren, there's no need
for me to spend a lot of time this morning on the subject of
our need for grace. Who needs grace? Guilty me. That's
it. You guilty? Well, you're looking
at a guilty person. The law says I'm guilty. The
law of God says, let every mouth be stopped and all the world
become guilty. You're guilty. I'm guilty. I
don't have to prove that. The law of God's already proved
that. It's already brought in all the evidence that needs to
be brought in. My conscience tells me I'm guilty. I know you're
guilty, but I'm just guilty as you are. I've broken God's law.
I'm a transgressor. I'm a convicted criminal before
God Almighty's throne of righteousness and holiness. The death of Christ
says I'm guilty. If God spared not his own son,
why did he send him to a cross? To die for sins of men. And we're
talking about grace for the guilty. And the man who denies his guilt
is a fool. The woman here who cannot say
before God, guilty, guilty, guilty, is a fool. And then there's another
subject here. We're talking about grace for
the guilty and peace from God. Now the man who is not aware
of the warfare, there's a warfare between heaven and earth. Everything's
not alright. I hear people say, I've made
my peace with God. You're a fool. Christ is our
peace. You can't make peace with God.
You're his enemy. You're his sworn enemy. God's
angry with the wicked. God hates the workers of iniquity.
He that believeth not on the Son, the judgment and wrath of
God abideth on him. There's trouble between heaven
and earth. There's trouble. There's warfare.
And there's warfare between earth and heaven. The natural mind
hates God. The natural mind loves the God
of his imagination. The natural man loves the God
of his religion. The natural man loves the God
of his denomination. The natural man loves the God
that he, with his own Jehoiachin penknife, has carved for an idol
for himself. But the natural man is enmity.
We hate God. Why we hate God? But he says
here there's grace and there's peace. There's possibility for
grace. There's grace. And there's peace,
but watch this, it's from God. See that? John to the seven churches,
verse four, which are in Asia, grace be unto you, not from you,
not among you, but unto you. And peace from, F-R-O-M, from,
it's a gift from somebody, it's given to you, it's from Him. The Heavenly Father, which is,
which was, which is to come. He decreed it. He purposed it. If he hadn't planned it, there'd
be no grace for the guilty and no peace for those at war. Not only from the Father, but
it's from the seven spirits. It's from the Holy Spirit. He
reveals it. The Holy Spirit brings it, and
it's from Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. And that's our
subject, grace. I want grace. I don't want justice. The man who wants justice will
get it. God will do right. I want grace. I want grace not
only to come, but grace now. I want grace for my past and
grace for my present and grace for my future. I want peace from
God. Peace with God. I want the peace
that passeth understanding to reign and rule in my soul. I
want peace with my fellow man. And that's the gift of God. And
that's purchased by the Prince of Peace. All right. Here's the
second subject. Now, second point. Who is this
giver of peace? Who is this giver of peace? Our
subject is grace. Grace for the guilty. Peace with
God. Who is the giver? Well, he's
identified in a threefold way, and this is very noticeable.
He's identified by his offices. Look at it first of all, verse
5. From Jesus Christ, what's his first office we mentioned?
Prophet. He's prophet, priest, and king.
In the Old Testament, he's typified by Moses the prophet, by Aaron
the priest, and David the king. And all of these men had a special
office by which they typified Christ. And not one of these
men ever held all those offices. Only one. David was a king, but
he wasn't a priest, nor was he a prophet. Avan was a priest,
but he was not a king nor a prophet. Moses was a prophet, but he never
offered sacrifices, and he was not a king. But Christ is all
three. Christ is our prophet, priest,
and king. He's all in it all. It says he's
the faithful witness. That's his prophetic office.
Turn to John chapter 1. Our Lord Jesus Christ has come
to reveal the Father to us. Philip said, show us the Father.
Show us God. Show us Him with whom we have
to do. And Christ said, he that has seen me has seen my Father. He is the express image. He is the exact likeness. He
is God in human flesh. Listen to verse 1 of John 1.
In the beginning was the Word. Now Christ is called the Word
for a specific purpose. It's a capital W there. He is
the Word. Words are vehicles of thought. There's no way for you to know
what I'm thinking. unless I put it in words. You
say, we can write it. Well, that's words. I've got
to communicate to you what I'm thinking, what I'm planning,
what my purpose is, what my thoughts are. And in that way, Jesus Christ... See, no man has seen God at any
time. I know the heavens declare the
glory of God. I know we look at the sun and
the moon and the stars and we think, what is man that's not
mindful of him? And then we see life in the trees
and in the fruits and vegetables and we see life in the flowers
and we see the beauty and wisdom and power of God. But nobody
here, not anybody here, has any inkling of what God's going to
do with sinners after this life is over by looking at the stars
in the sky and the seas and the firmament and the things that
are made. The fact that God will forgive
sin, and God will save sinners, and God loves sinners, and God's
merciful to the ungodly like us, we need grace and peace.
That's our subject, grace and peace. Now the heavens and the
creation will tell us something about power and judgment and
even wisdom, but not grace and peace. Grace for the guilty and
peace for those at war. So God's going to have to communicate
that in words that we can hear and understand, or in words that
we can see personified. And that's what Christ did. He
is the word. He's the communication. He is
God telling us, I love sinners. When he got down there beside
the woman found in adultery, that's God saying, I love sinners.
When he looked up at Zacchaeus in a tree and told him, come
down, I'm going to your house. God loving sinners. When he came
to Lazarus' tomb and he wept as the sisters lamented and sorrowed
over the death of their brethren, our Lord wept over the conditions. That's compassion. That's the
Father's compassion. We go right on through the life
of Christ. and see the Father. He said, He that hath seen me
hath seen my Father. He is the Word of God. In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning
with God, and all things were made by Him. Without Him was
not anything made that was made. And verse 14, And the Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld, we saw His glory,
and the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Now I
turn to 1 John. Let me show you something over
here in 1 John. 1 John. Brethren, you don't understand
God's redemptive purpose and God's redemptive will and God's
grace and righteousness by what you think. or by what you feel,
or by what you see in a vision, but by what Christ tells you,
and what Christ reveals to you, and what you see in Christ. He's
the Word of God. He's God's Word, the living Word,
and the written Word is a revelation of the living Word, the incarnate
Word. Look at verse John 5, verse 20,
verse John 5, and we know that the Son of God is come and has
given us an understanding. that we may know God, Him that
is true, and we're in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus
Christ. And my friends, this is the true
God, and this is eternal life. You see that, Jim? That's so
clear to me. If you want to know God, know
Christ. If you want to hear God, listen to Christ. If you want
to understand God's redemptive work and redemptive purpose,
it's Christ. He is the prophet. He is the
true witness. He's the faithful witness. That's
what he says in Revelation 1, verse 5. Grace and peace from
Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness. We're going to have
to put our visions aside and our thoughts and ideas aside
and get back to a revelation of God in His Word, of Christ. Christ and then not only that
he is the prophet verse 5 look at he's the first begotten of
the day that's his priestly office our Lord arose from the day and
ascended to the right hand of God where his blood was put on
the mercy seat of glory where he is seated where he ever lives
to make intercession for us now you turn to Hebrews 10 we have
a high priest Folks get on me because I run down the evils
of Catholicism, but brethren, they need to be exposed. That
we don't go in a confessional booth and confess our sins to
a fella sitting over there that's just as great a sinner as we
are, and ask him to pray for us, that's ridiculous. Or some
fella standing up here claiming by his power to turn wine into
blood and bread into a body of Christ. and giving us signs and
crosses and letting people kneel and kiss his ring, that's idolatry. The apostles, when anybody knelt
before them, they said, get up, they tore their clothes, don't
worship us, we're just men, that's all. The system is evil. But my friends, they're capitalizing
on a little truth. We do have a priest. We do have
an advocate. We do have a lawyer. We do have
a mediator, but he ain't wrong. And he's not down in some temple.
He's at the right hand of the Father. He's the Lord Jesus Christ
as one God and one mediator between God and man. And we're all priests
and we're all saints and we're all coming to the Holy of Holies.
Christ ripped open that veil and said, come in, all of you,
come in. But come by me. Look at Hebrews
10, verse 11. They wanted to try to restore
this today. Every priest stand it daily, ministering, offering
oftentimes the same sacrifices. A sacrament is a sacrifice. That's
what they call it, a sacrament. Which can never take away sin,
but this man, Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for
sin forever, sat down. on the right hand of God, from
henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool,
for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. For of the Holy Ghost is a witness
to us, for after that he said before, this is the covenant
I'll make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I'll put
my law in their heart, not on tables of stone, in their minds
and their thoughts will I write them, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there's no more offering for sin, so brethren, we have
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. That's
me and you! Come in! Call on our father, your father
and my father, Christ said. He is our priest and he ever
lives to make intercession. Look at the next line. And he's
the prince of the kings of this earth. He's the king of kings
and lord of lords. That's his kingly office. Behold
your king coming. Your king coming. That's who
we're talking about. We're talking about grace, forgiveness,
mercy, pardon. We're talking about peace. The
war is over. God has been reconciled. by my
decisions, by my religion, by my turning over a new leaf, no
sir, by Christ's death and sacrifice and His righteousness. God has
been reconciled in the body of His Son. He hath reconciled us
to God. And we have this ministry of
reconciliation. And this one we're talking about,
the giver of this grace and this prince of peace is our prophet. He is our priest. He is our king.
All right, what did he do? Verse five, quickly. First, he
loved us. He loved us. God commended his
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died.
I'm not just preaching a doctrine. I'm preaching a glorious truth.
He loved us. Now you won't find love for God
in the natural heart. Men by nature do not love God. As I said, they love their God,
they love the God of their imagination. Religion is an emotion that comes
as natural to them as fear and hate. But men do not love God. We love him because he first
loved us. Herein is love, not that you
love God, but that he loved you. O love of God, how rich, how
pure, how measureless, how strong, it shall forevermore endure,
the saints' and angels' song. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
where the skies of parchment made, and every stalk on earth
a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of
God above would drain that ocean dry. nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky." He loved us. We
didn't love Him. He loved us. He loved us with
an everlasting love. Now brethren, God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. He said, I've drawn you with an everlasting love.
Love proceeds from God. A love originates with God. God is a fountain of love. God
is the source of love. Outside of God, there is no real
love. There's self-love, but a dog
loves himself. A pig loves himself. That's not
love. That's self-preservation. That's
self-sustenance and provision. Love is from God. God's love
is everlasting. God's love is infinite, indescribable. It's without depth. It's without
measure. It's infinite. Having loved his
own, he loved them to the end. He loved them to death, even
the death of the cross. His love's unchanging. He said,
I'm the Lord, I change not. Yours changes, unfortunately.
But God's love doesn't. And the love of God doesn't.
God's love doesn't change, and the love of God doesn't change.
And then his love is undeserved love. God committed his love
toward us, and that's why we were yet sinners. Christ died
for us. Oh, for some understanding. Oh, for a handle. or to get hold
of, or to embrace, or to have in my heart the love of God,
shed abroad by the Holy Spirit. But I know this, what did He
do? He loved us. He loved us. All right, secondly,
He washed us. He washed us. We didn't wash
ourselves, we didn't help Him wash ourselves, but He washed
us in His own blood. He washed us from our guilt,
cleansed me from its guilt and power, He did it. He did. He washed me from its power,
from its guilt. He washed me from its penalty.
His blood is my atonement. His blood is my cleansing. His
blood is my redemption. His blood, Christ's blood, I'm
saved by the blood of the Lamb. I'm washed in the blood of the
Lamb. I'm cleansed by the blood of Christ. Water could not wash
it away. He washed me. He washed me. Alright, thirdly.
And Hebrews 6 made us. He made us kings. We're seated
with Him. Where is He? He reigns on the
right hand of the Father. And brother, you know something?
By His grace, through faith in Him, because He loved me, because
He washed me, I'm seated with Him on God's right hand. I am
reigning with Christ. He made us kings and he made
us priests. I talk about the privilege of
coming into the presence of God. He gave me that privilege. Turn
to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians the first chapter.
That privilege was in Christ. Now, I'm going to make this clear.
There's no man who has the privilege now to come into the presence
of God or the privilege at death to come except in the presence
of God, except through the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don't know
Him, you die without hope. It doesn't matter how faithful
you've been to church. It doesn't matter how doctrinally
sound you've been. It doesn't matter how many decisions
you've made or how many times you've been baptized. If you
do not know Christ, if you do not believe Christ, if you do
not rest in Christ, if Christ is not your son, son and your
song, your life and your love, then there's no hope. Verse 19,
for Colossians 1, it pleased the Father that in him should
all this dwell. And having made peace through
the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things, and
Schuller and all the rest of these fellas can talk about,
you're okay, I'm okay, we ain't okay, we're in trouble. They can talk about the power
of positive thinking, you're whoever that guy is, and they
can talk about the rules of religion, and the
rituals, and the tithing, and letting Jesus have his way, and
all that foolishness, but having made peace through the blood
of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself, I say
by him, whether they're things in heaven or things in the earth,
and you that were at one time an alien, enemies in your mind
by your wicked works, he hath now reconciled in the body of
his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable, unapprovable
in God's sight if you continue in the faith. That's it. You just take that and circle
it and read it 40 times this week before the undertaker comes
for your body. And pray God that that's where you are. Just pray
God that's where you are. In Christ, that's where it is.
That's totally where it is. He loved us. He washed us from
our sins. I don't care how low you are,
how high you are, how smart you are, how dumb you are, how important
you think you are, how influential. You're just a common place of
fallen flesh in Adam. You need a savior. You need mercy,
just like this preacher here. I need mercy. I need his mercy,
not just mercy. I need his saving mercy, Bill.
I need his forgiving mercy. I need his pleading mercy. I
need his cleansing mercy. I need to be dealt with as any
old common tramp that ever walked. I need washing in the blood. I wish we'd come down. I wish
we could be like Naaman of old, and take off our distinctive
airs, and stand naked before a holy God covered with our leprosy,
and find our way to Christ, the river of life, and wash, and
plunge in, and come out clean, and come out clean. Where is
he now? Well, it says here, it says here. Verse 7, he's coming. He's coming. He's at the right hand of God.
He says, I'm going to prepare a place for you. If I go and
prepare a place, I'll come back. I'll come for you. Oh, it may
be when he comes with clouds and when he comes with glory,
but it may not be. It may be like it was in Buddy's
case. Down there in intensive care,
he may come for you. He knows. He's got abundant interest
through every door. He'll come for you. He's coming
for me. He's coming. Never I was going
to see him. That's his second coming. But
John says when we see him, we'll be like him. Even those that pierced him,
they're going to see him. Those that were ashamed of him, they're
going to see him. Those that had no interest in him, they're
going to see him. Those that rather talk religion than Christ,
they're going to see him. Those that rather talk doctrine
than Christ, they're going to see him. Those that are all wrapped
up in the things of this world with all its trinkets and tinsels,
they're going to see him. All the kindreds of the earth,
they're going to wail because of him. I believe. I believe, I can say. that I'm
going to rejoice because of Him, because He means everything to
me. I don't believe His coming is going to cause me to wagle.
I believe it's going to cause me to rejoice. I can rejoice
in His first coming, therefore I believe I'll rejoice in His
second coming. If you can rejoice in the cross, you can rejoice
in the crown, because the only way to the crown is by way of
the cross. That's right. If you can rejoice
in his exaltation, it's because you rejoice in his humiliation. Because it's because of his humiliation
that he has exaltation. God, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, wherefore the Father hath exalted him and
given him a name above every name. He's coming. All right, here's
the last thing and I'll quit. It says in verse 8, we kept running
into this. You remember when we were reading
a while ago, he kept saying, I'm the first and the last. I'm Alpha
and Omega. I'm the beginning and the end.
I'm the first and the last. I'm the first and the last. What
does he mean? Well, let me give you just two
scriptures. Proverbs 8. Turn to Proverbs 8 first. You remember Colossians, Proverbs
8 is where we're going. Remember Colossians says that
all things were created by him and for him. He is before all
things. He is, I am the first, I am alpha,
I am the beginning. All right, this is speaking of
wisdom, but it's Christ it's speaking of. In Proverbs 8 verse
24, when there were no depths, I was brought forth. when there
were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were
settled, before the hills was I brought forth, while as yet
he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part
of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens,
I was there. When he set a compass on the face of the depth, when
he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains
of the deep, when he gave to the sea his degree, that the
water should not pass his commandment, when he appointed the foundation
of the earth, I was by him as one brought up with him. I was
daily his delight, rejoicing always before. That's Christ.
I was with him. David, that's Christ. Now, all
right, let's look at the end. That's the beginning. Revelation
21. Revelation 21. Revelation 21. And John said,
it's all over now. There ain't no more Armco Steel.
No more Ashland Oil. Ain't no more utilities. No more
presidents and congress and legislatures. Ain't no more Titles brethren
ain't no more prominent places ain't no more high and low rich
and poor male and female old and young black and white Ain't
no races now. There's a new heaven in a newer New heaven in a newer First heaven
the first earth passed away. No more see I John saw the holy
city New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying behold I Tabernacle of God's with me and he'll dwell
with them there be his people God himself shall be with them
and be their God And God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes won't that be something? He no more death either sorrow
or crying Neither shall there be any more pain the former things
have passed away and he that sat on the throne said behold
I make all things new and he said to me right these words
are true and faithful and he said here I am it is done I am
Alpha and Omega I am the beginning and the end. I will give unto
him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely,
and he that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I'll
be his God, and he'll be my son. Christ is the end. Everything
starts with him. Everything ends with him. Brother,
I'm gonna tell you something. You know where your hope is and
my hope of that glory? By God's grace, in the covenant
of mercy, start with him and end with him. If I can't praise
him totally, completely, absolutely, worthy as a lamb now, how will
my voice in those days praise him? Couldn't, in honesty, it
had to be hypocrisy. And there are no hypocrites there.
There's sinners there, but no hypocrites. There's failures
there, but no hypocrites. Everybody there gives him all
the glory. If I know the gospel, that's
it. If I know the way of life, if
I know the grace of God, if I know the peace that passes understanding,
if I know the foundation for sinners, that's the only foundation. That's what it says right there.
And brethren, if a man can walk out of here And it's not just
coming down here, shaking my hand, joining the church. It's
too much of that now. It's too much pretense. It's
too much show. It's too much phoniness. But
I'm talking about it's my soul crying out to God Almighty, Lord,
this is my hope. This is my foundation. Now, what
will you have me do? I want to be identified with
Christ. I want to be crucified with Christ. I want to be like
Christ. Let the beauty of Jesus Christ be seen in me. Let me
forget all of the stumblings and fumblings and failures and
falls and foolishness and fashions of this world and let me be consecrated
and dedicated and separated to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
He's my hope. Now let's get hold of that. Because God's going to honor
the Son. The King gave a feast. Why? To honor the Son. And I
want to be there to honor Him. Well, then the thing just starts
honoring Him right now. Our Father, we do give thanks unto Thee for
the hope that we have in Christ Jesus. We listen to ourselves talk and
our words are such a holler. We listen to ourselves think
and our thoughts are so foolish. We look in our hearts and they're
so corrupt. We can't find in our flesh any
good thing. We can see no reason for redemption
or for mercy, not in us. But Lord, we listened to your
prophet. He came and he told us, come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. We listen
to your priest, and he said, this is my blood which is shed
for the remission of your sins. This is my body broken for you.
And we listen to the king, and he declares unto us that he goes
to prepare a place for us. And if he goes, he'll come again.
And we believe him. And we commit ourselves, this
preacher, this congregation, all who believe your word to When you call and when you come,
enable us from a sincere heart to be able to say, here am I
Lord, here am I.