Thank you, Jan, for replacing John Broadhead this
morning.
John's gone to Japan for a week or
two, and thank you for standing in like
that.
We appreciate so much what the worship team
does for us, just causing us to open
up our hearts to God.
Thank you, John.
I wonder if I can ask you to
pray what they've just sung.
I'm going to read this, You Are My
Strength When I Am Weak, and I want
to ask you if you'd close your eyes
and ask the Lord that this truly would
be your prayer this morning.
Lord, you are my strength when I am
weak.
You are the treasure that I seek.
You are my all in all.
Seeking you as a precious jewel, Lord, to
give up, I'd be a fool.
You, you, Lord, are my all in all.
Lord, may that be so in each of
our lives today.
Well, it's wonderful to see you here on
this first Sunday of John's Gospel.
Now, we've been on John's Gospel for so
many weeks now, but we haven't started it
yet.
I did give an introduction, however, some weeks
ago.
I was intending to get through chapter one,
but somehow or other, the time went by.
Isn't that marvelous?
When you're in the Word, you don't realize
it.
You've been going for, I mean, you think
it's 10 minutes, and you've been talking for
an hour and 10 minutes, and you say,
my, these people are going to sleep.
I need a cup of coffee to keep
me awake, but how wonderful that you're here.
What we've done is we have taken various
parts of John, but because of the nature
of the day, it was some special day
or other, we've gone on to certain parts
of John, but really, we didn't start, but
we're going to have a look at John
chapter one this morning.
If you have a Bible with you, and
if you don't, there's one in the pew
rack, then I'd like you to turn to
John's gospel, one gospel by four writers, and
this is the last one, the youngest one,
the one who wrote probably 50 or 60
or more, 70 years, maybe, after the others
had written, or at least after the Lord
Jesus had been with them, and he looks
back, and he can understand a lot of
the things that Jesus was saying.
Isn't that wonderful?
As we can look back 2,000 years,
and we can look back and understand all
that the Old Testament was about, and we
say, well, I can understand what Jesus is
getting at.
So what I want to do is to
take three beautiful picture words, all from John
chapter one, and if this morning you don't
know the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've never
been personally introduced to him, if he's never
become that special person, the treasure that you
seek and find in your life, then this
morning, I think you're going to understand who
he is and which way he came to
earth and why he came there.
Because what I'm going to do is take
these pictures, and a picture is worth a
thousand words, you know, that won't cut my
sermon any shorter, but at least they're pictures.
And what I want to do is think
about the topic, God has spoken.
And I want to ask ourselves three questions.
What did God speak?
Secondly, how did God speak?
And thirdly, why did God speak?
And I want to answer each one of
those with a picture word.
The first question, what did God speak, is
answered in the first verse.
What did God speak?
He spoke the word, a word.
I speak thousands of them, don't get anywhere
near what he does with one.
In the beginning was the word, and the
word was with God, and the word was
God.
What did he speak?
A word.
Secondly, how did he speak?
Verse 14, he spoke by pitching his tent
among us, for where it says the word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us,
that literally means he pitched his tent.
He put it up there overnight.
Well, more than overnight, he came and lived
among us for those 30 years.
And as he did, he pitched his tent.
That's how he spoke.
But thirdly, not only what did God speak
and how did God speak, but why did
God speak?
I mean, there's got to be a purpose
if you're saying something.
I've got a purpose this morning.
That purpose is that you may understand fully
what it is that God did for us
in becoming man and going to that cross
and dying for us.
And I hope if you're a Christian this
morning, you will not only grasp more of
this, but it will send you further into
the word to long for God, to thirst
for God, as we've been saying more and
more.
So the third thing is, why did God
speak?
Here it is, verse 29.
Look, says John the Baptist, the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the
world.
So why did God speak?
To become a lamb for us, and we'll
find out what that means.
So let me start at the beginning, carry
on till we get to the end and
then stop.
I hope I may not get to the
end, but we're going to try it anyway,
all right?
You don't mind five minutes more.
I'm a little bit running a little bit
late this morning, but that's fine.
I promise if you yawn more than twice,
I'll stop right there.
So just stand up and yawn a couple
of times and you know that's the end,
all right?
But I won't be very long.
So let's have a look at the first
one.
First, what did God speak?
And we're going to just look at the
first few verses.
God spoke what he calls the Word.
Jesus is the Word.
The second person of what we call the
Trinity, not a biblical term, but very much
a biblical concept.
And the second person is God the Son,
Jesus.
Now he is called the Word, and John
looks back now all these years and says,
oh my, to think I spent those three
years with Jesus, walking those same roads, meeting
people, listening to all those wonderful words of
teaching.
And he says, in the beginning was the
Word.
Now any Jew would grasp that or the
first words of the Torah, in the beginning.
But when it comes to Genesis, in the
beginning the Lord God created the heavens and
the earth, it starts at the beginning of
creation and goes on through what God did
after he created.
When John writes in the beginning, he starts
at the same point, but he goes back,
back beyond time, back before time ever was.
As I often say, here's the circle of
eternity.
Time is a dot on the circle.
Eternity doesn't stop because time happens to come
in.
Time doesn't even make a dent on it.
But Jesus already was, the Word already was.
And so his eternity is spoken of here.
He was uncreated.
He's the everlasting Word, the hymn says.
Thou art the everlasting Word, the Father's only
Son.
So here's Jesus with his eternity.
Not only that, in the beginning was the
Word, but secondly, the Word was with God.
That means that God the Son was with
God the Father, God the Holy Spirit too,
but he isn't mentioned here.
Now, when we read the word God in
the Bible, usually it means God the Father.
Sometimes it means all three persons of the
Godhead, who is one God.
We don't have more than one God.
And similarly, when we read the word Adam,
sometimes it means the man and sometimes it
means both.
For instance, Genesis chapter five and verse two
said, male and female, God created them and
called their name Adam.
Oh, you ladies say that's not fair.
Why did he call it by a man's
name?
Well, Adam just means humankind.
That's all it means.
So that happened to be his name.
Sometimes the word Adam is mentioned and usually
it means the man, but here it means
both the man and the woman.
Similarly, when we mention God, sometimes it means
only God the Father.
Other times it means God the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit.
Here it means God the Father.
And this one who was the word, what
God was speaking, and he already has spoken
before Jesus came to earth in the New
Testament.
He spoke in the beginning, didn't he?
He spoke at the beginning.
He said, let there be light.
That was God the word.
That was the word speaking.
And the word and the Father speak together
in Genesis and they say, let us make
man in our image.
Of course, that's God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit there too.
Let us make man in our image.
But the word was with God.
It means he was facing towards God.
I don't know whether I've got the computer
term right.
Is that what you mean by interface?
Is that what you mean, Ken?
You're the expert on that.
It is, it's all right.
He's sort of grudgingly agreeing there, but I
think he's probably is okay.
All right.
Well, it means you're really close and you're
looking at one another far more than even
a mirror because there's more than just an
image.
The other side is the reality.
Jesus is God.
The word is God, but the word was
with God.
And there was that intimacy of communion there.
So in the beginning, his eternity, and he
was with God, which means that he has
personality and identity apart from God the Father.
Thirdly, not only that, but the word was
God.
So he has deity.
He is God.
Now we can't, we always find all kinds
of terms we try to use to explain
that.
We talk about H2O being, you know, ice
and steam and water, and it's all H2O.
We talk about the sun saying, well, the
rays of the sun, the light and the
heat from the sun, you know, light and
heat, but nobody has seen the sun ever.
Oh yes, the sun's in my eyes.
No, it's not, that's the rays.
Oh, but I can feel the sun in
my arm.
No, you can't anymore.
You can feel the Holy Spirit in your
life maybe.
But similarly, Jesus is the light rays, as
it were.
He expressed God.
The Holy Spirit sort of gives us that
warmth, the fellowship, as he bonds us one
to the other, but nobody's seen God at
any time.
We have these images we use, but nothing
is like God.
Dr. Tozer, who, it's because of Dr. Tozer,
of course I wrote that book, and because
of what he taught me on this, but
I remember him saying to me on more
than one occasion, young man, and by the
way, young people, did you believe I ever
was a young man?
I was a young man.
Do you know, you'll actually grow into an
old person if Jesus doesn't come, but I
was.
Young man, if you want to know God,
look at Jesus Christ.
There is nothing and nobody like God.
God is like nothing.
God is like nobody.
All the little expressions and analogies and images
and pictures we use to express God, they
fall far short.
99% of it isn't mentioned.
And nothing is like God, he would say.
So here is God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit.
And throughout the scriptures, Old Testament and New,
we can see that, although the word Trinity
is a word we've put to it, triunity.
And three in one, that's exactly what it
means, isn't it?
But God is three in one.
And he's put that stamp on all of
his creation.
For it comes the next statement, look, he
was with God in the beginning.
By the way, that's really saying verse one
all over again, but back to front.
See, the first part of it is like
the last part of verse one.
The same was, or he was, that's exactly
what it means in the language it was
written, the word was God.
But he was with God, there we are,
going back in verse one in the middle.
And he was with God in the beginning,
going back to the beginning of verse one.
This is what we call chiastic arrangement.
And oftentimes in the Psalms you'll find that.
This is the way the Hebrews used to
write, and this is the way John wrote
here.
But notice, this Jesus, who was eternal, who
had a personality separate from the Father, this
one who is God himself also was the
creator.
It says in verse three, through him.
And that doesn't mean to say he was
an instrument or a tool in that sense.
Well, he was a kind of an agent,
one step below the real thing.
No, no, no.
This actually means that here is the Godhead
and here is Jesus, who is the word.
And the word actually brings things into being.
It's through him.
The Bible says, God, the Father did that.
The Bible says, God, the Holy Spirit moved
upon the waters.
The Bible says that Jesus, the word, was
the creator.
It's one God, three in one, but here,
Christ, the word, is creator.
All things were made by him, and without
him nothing was made that has been made.
Have you noticed everything that he made has
the stamp of Trinity, triunity upon it, three
in one.
So everything that we've got around us now,
here it is.
It's all time, space, or matter, three in
one.
Everything falls into those categories.
But time, here's time, you want the stamp
of triunity on it, all right?
Time is past, present, and future.
And time comes out of the future, moves
into the present, and disappears into the past.
But here it is, time is three in
one.
What about space, time, space, and matter?
Well, space, length, and breadth, and height.
What about matter, energy, motion, and phenomena?
Not only that, but when God made you
and made me, he made us spirit, and
soul, and body.
We're three in one.
We're an image in the image of God,
although that's not the primary meaning of that.
Yet nevertheless, we are three in one.
His stamp of Trinity is upon us.
You read Dr. Nathan Wood's book, The Secret
of the Universe, which Dr. Billy Graham, and
F.B. Meyer, and Campbell Morgan, and several
others say it's the most outstanding book they've
ever read in their lives.
It's all about this stamp of Trinity in
God's universe.
Wherever you turn, there's the three in one.
This is our God, and he created everything,
and he created you, and created me in
his image, so we could talk to him,
interface with him, we could commune with him.
I've got a spirit, and so have you,
and God wants to dwell in that spirit,
and have that intimate communion.
Not only that, but he was the life
giver, verse four.
In him was life.
That doesn't mean to say, well, you know,
guess what?
He was alive.
No, no, no.
Somebody who received life would be alive, but
this one was the source and spring of
life.
This one was the fountain of all life.
This one was the life giver.
Whatever he touched sprang to life.
I wonder this morning if you have got
the life for the capital L, for the
primary meaning of the word that's translated life
here that isn't a normal meaning, the word
for biological life.
The primary meaning of this is spiritual life,
heavenly life.
It's the life from above.
When Jesus said in John chapter 10 and
verse 10, I am come that you might
have life, and that you might have it
more abundantly.
You know the King James.
You're older than you look.
More abundantly, or have it to the full,
or something like that.
That's life for the capital L.
Life that has the vertical dimension.
It's from God to you.
You then start to worship and have intimate
communion with God.
And it's this part of the L that
goes out and causes, as the Holy Spirit
sheds his love abroad in your heart, causes
you to love others.
This is the life for the capital L.
Jesus brought that.
It's the word that did that.
Don't forget the word didn't just come into
existence when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
He's the everlasting word.
He's the uncreated word.
And he'll keep on going to be the
word forever and ever.
He's always the word.
God speaks.
What do you say, Lord?
One word.
What is it?
Jesus.
He's everything.
He's my all in all.
He's the treasure that I seek, as we've
been singing about.
Not only was he the life giver, but
notice, he was the light bringer.
For in him was life, and that life
was the light of men.
Normally in the Bible, light means some truth
that will illuminate your mind.
That's what the Bible is.
Your word is a lamp to my feet,
a light unto my path.
Jesus is the living word.
This book is the written word.
This calls him the word.
He calls this the word.
So both of them tell us about God,
except we'll see that in a moment, except
that we don't worship this, so we're a
bibliolater.
We worship him, but this tells us all
about him, so we can worship him in
spirit and in truth.
Now then, he says, he brings light.
And when Jesus came, all light broke loose.
And when people saw him and he touched
them and they had life, they immediately saw
the light.
They could see everything.
I've seen the light, they used to say.
I don't think they use that expression much
these days.
He's seen the light, you know, they used
to say, derogatively of somebody or other.
But guess what happens?
He brings that light into our life.
I tell you, this is where you find
your purpose for living.
This is where we find that there's meaning
to life.
God didn't just dump us down here for
70 years arbitrarily.
He says, well, I may as well dump
something down there.
No, no, no.
God put us down here for a purpose,
to glorify him and to enjoy him forever.
And if you're not enjoying him, you haven't
had the light to illuminate your mind.
Read about it in here.
Come to him, the real living word, and
he will tell you, he will show you,
you'll see in him what light is.
Not only that, but this light shines in
the darkness, but the darkness has not understood
it.
It shines in the darkness of my life
when there's sin, in things I fail to
do that I should have done, or things
I've done I ought not to have done.
When I speak a word in a wrong
way, when I think a wrong thought about
somebody or something that's, something I'm glad they
didn't hear me think.
When I do those things, it shows that
there's darkness in us.
Well, what Jesus came for was to dispel
the darkness.
And those who invite Jesus to come into
their lives, he's the light of the world.
And he who follows me shall not walk
in darkness, says John's gospel, but shall have
the light of life.
So when he comes in, he dispels the
darkness.
Where does it go?
Says the little boy.
Can't tell you, I don't know where it
went, but it just went somewhere because, well,
I guess the light swallowed it.
Well, does the darkness ever swallow the light?
Uh-uh.
Whenever there's light there, it always wins.
And whenever Jesus is there, you're on the
winning side.
I've told you six times already.
I've read the last page.
We're on the winning side.
He's the light of the world.
And the darkness is dispelled.
This is what he wants to do in
our lives.
So he's the word.
He's what God speaks.
God says, everything I've ever said in the
Old Testament are all words.
And they're good because they all pointed to
the one word.
So when I come to the New Testament,
I want to tell you now about the
word.
The word is Jesus.
Do you know what I speak, says God?
Listen in Hebrews chapter one.
In the past, God spoke to our forefathers
through the prophets at many times and in
various ways.
How did God speak?
Through the prophets, through the words.
But, verse two, in these last days, he
has spoken to us in his Son.
In his Son, whom he appointed heir of
all things.
That Son is the radiance of God's glory,
the exact representation of his being.
He's God himself.
And God spoke first in all those words,
and they're wonderful words, but they all point
to the Son, to the word that would
come in the New Testament.
So there's the first thing.
And I've taken half my time on it,
meaning I won't be able to finish, but
there we are.
Let's go on to something else.
The first thing is then the word.
What does God speak?
God speaks a word.
Look secondly with me.
How does God speak?
Well, what is the form in which his
words come?
How will we hear them?
How will we recognize them?
Things like that.
So here it is, look, verse 14.
Now, obviously I'm not going to do an
exposition of this passage.
I'm just selecting these three little expressions.
And next Sunday, I'm going to have the
great joy of listening to my colleague, John
Imbo, as he's going to get into chapter
two on, I think, the wedding of Cain.
Now, we're just going to take one part
from each section there.
I'm going to listen to that and be
fed.
Do you know preachers need to be fed?
Do you know that?
And he feeds my soul.
And I want to thank God for that.
He touches my spirit.
And he's going to tell us about chapter
two, but here, chapter one, I'm only skipping
these three things.
Verse one, then.
Then verse 14, the word became flesh and
made his dwelling among us.
So what did God speak?
The word.
How did God speak it?
By pitching his tent among us.
For if you translate this very literally, it's,
as many of you know, the word became
flesh and tabernacled, pitched his tent among us.
Now, a tabernacle is a temporary dwelling place.
It's related to the word tavern.
Now, that's blown it, hasn't it?
That's messed it up for some of you.
Why can you relate tavern to the Bible?
Well, because a tavern was very simply a
temporary dwelling place.
It was an inn.
It was a motel.
Why is it ever quiet now?
That's all right.
There's nothing wrong with that.
God comes to where we are and he
comes to the ordinary places of life.
God said, all right, in the Old Testament,
I'm going to set a temporary dwelling place
while you're passing through the desert.
I'll call it a tent, tent of meeting,
until you build the real one.
All right, there's the real one, but you're
going to have to pick it up and
carry it.
It'll only be here for a few days
and you move on.
So it's a temporary dwelling place.
It's a taverna, tabernacle.
B and V are the same in many
languages.
As you know, if you've got a good
background in some of the Romance languages, it
says the B and the V.
So as a result, it's the tabernacle.
Now, that tabernacle in the wilderness, here were
all the tribes of Israel in a square
all around the central tabernacle.
And this was the place where God would
dwell.
He told them exactly how to build it
with his altar, burnt offering, with his labor,
with that place where the priests ministered undercover.
And then the very holy of holies that
only the high priest went into once a
year to atone for the sins of the
people.
Now, God said, you can see my glories
there.
Before the tabernacle was built, God's glory was
outside the tent of meeting.
And the pillar of cloud and fire would
move on and say, come on guys, this
is the way I'm doing it.
You can follow me.
And so it would move on.
But when the tabernacle was built, then God's
glory, the Shekinah glory was seen above the
Ark of the Covenant, between the cherubim and
the holiest place of all.
And there was the presence, the glory of
God.
Therefore, when now God says, I want to
have another temporary dwelling place.
I'm going to come in the person of
the word.
The word is going to be made flesh.
He's going to be enfleshed and skinned.
He's going to come in a body, a
body you have prepared me, says Jesus in
the Psalms prophetically.
And as he does, he comes in that
body and it's a temporary dwelling place for
30, 33 years on earth.
So he calls it a tabernacle and it
says, the word became flesh and pitched his
tent among us.
So if it's a tabernacle, where's the Shekinah
glory?
Like we saw in the wilderness.
Here it is, John says, I'm not going
to miss it.
The word became flesh, made his dwelling among
us.
And we have seen his glory, the glory
of the one and only who came from
the father full of grace and truth.
Oh, I love preaching at Christmas time on
verse one and verse 14 put together.
Do you know what they say?
If you take the three things in verse
one, in the beginning was the word, the
word was with God and the word was
God.
And apart from the parenthesis, you take the
three things in verse 14, the word became
flesh, pitched his tent among us, full of
grace and truth.
You put those together in pairs, the first
with the first, the second with the second,
the third with the third.
It goes like this, listen to this.
Oh, it's not original, don't worry.
He got it from lots of people who
preached it 200 years ago.
We think everything's new in this generation.
We don't read history, but listen to what
they say.
Put these together, get the breadth of this.
In the beginning was the word and the
word became flesh.
The word was with God and pitched his
tent among us.
The word was God, full of grace and
truth.
Isn't that wonderful?
Now, do you get excited about scripture?
If you're excited about that, say amen.
How many didn't want to say amen, but
did say amen?
No, you've got it.
This is the word of God, this is
exciting for us.
And he pitched, we saw his glory.
And as we look at Jesus Christ, we
see the glory of God, the standard of
God.
This is what God wants, this is his
glory.
And it just came out all the time
from Jesus, except that we couldn't look upon
it just as the glory without any cover.
So he took a body which veiled the
glory.
And once in a while, like on the
Mount of Transfiguration, Peter and James and John,
the favored three, saw the glory break through.
And they said, we beheld his glory.
They beheld his glory.
Jesus is the tabernacle, he's the dwelling place.
So not only is he taking the place
of all the words, he summed up in
the word, but now he's taking the place
of the tabernacle or the temple, which was
the permanent form while Israel was on earth.
They're the permanent form of the tabernacle.
And you know, in the next chapter, the
passage about the temple, Jesus went in the
temple and he said, destroy this temple.
Now, what did he say?
Destroy this temple and in three days, I
will rise it up, raise it up.
And they said, well, wait a minute.
What do you mean destroy?
It took us 46 years to build this.
You're gonna do this in three days and
you're gonna destroy it?
But he spoke of the temple of his
body, it said.
And the disciples didn't understand that until he
was raised from the dead.
And he said, that's right, his body is
the temple.
It replaced, it replaced the other temple.
So the place we go to worship now
isn't to the temple, we go to Jesus.
For those that worship him must worship in
spirit and in truth.
But our father's worshiped in this mountain.
You say Jerusalem's the place you should go
to worship, said the woman at the well
in chapter four.
Jesus said, the time is coming when neither
in this mountain nor Jerusalem you'll worship, but
in spirit and truth, because I'm the temple.
I'm the tabernacle.
I'm the tent that's pitched among you for
these few years.
And you come through me to the father.
And later he shows us how he is
actually the curtain that the high priest passed
through once a year to get into God's
presence.
And when Jesus, his body was torn on
the cross and he died in Matthew 27,
verse 50, 51, it said at that moment,
the veil of the temple was torn in
two.
Because Jesus is the temple, Jesus is the
veil.
We go through him to worship.
Oh, I tell you, there's so much in
this.
If you really want to understand this more,
you have to study, there's so much in
it.
I tell you what, I can't explain it
all here, but I've got a wonderful voicemail
I've just learned to handle three weeks ago.
This is wonderful.
And it means everybody can dump their stuff
on that, except when it runs out.
You should make that a little longer, I
think.
But when it runs out there, but I
get there and I pick it up, I'm
at my desk, I've got my diary.
You want to discuss this more?
Okay, how about half past 10?
Or how about tonight or next week?
And I'd love to get together with you.
I don't know very much, but as I
say in that book out there, in the
land of the blind, the one-eyed man
is king.
If I know a little bit, I can
share something.
So that's what I'm trying to do, all
right?
So this is wonderful all about the tabernacle.
Okay, now I'm out of breath.
Where was I?
All right, we're on the third and final
point and my time has just gone one
minute ago.
So let me just quickly get through this.
Here we have it then.
God, John says, I want you to understand
Jesus.
Matthew may quote the Old Testament a lot
more than I do, but I tell you,
the images you're going to get from my
gospel, John, are going to be far more
Old Testament-ish than you ever imagined.
And he makes us realize that all these
marvelous pictures, the hieroglyphics in the Old Testament,
he builds them into alphabetical words.
So all the hieroglyphics about Jesus was made
into a word.
And John says, let me take the temple
and the tabernacle and let me take, hey,
the lamb.
What about the lamb?
And that's our third one.
Here it is, John chapter one, verse 29.
The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward
him and said, look, the lamb of God
that takes away the sin of the world.
This is the third image, the word, the
tabernacle, but the lamb.
Now, as soon as he said the word
lamb to those Jewish people, they know exactly
what he was talking about.
They say, you just sent me back to
Exodus thinking about that tent, that tabernacle.
Hey, do you know what else is in
Exodus?
Do you know how they even got into
that wilderness that they built that tabernacle in?
They got into that wilderness because of an
animal.
An animal?
I said, what was that?
They say, a lamb.
A lamb.
You mean to say that Exodus talks about,
oh yes, if you're Jewish, immediately your mind
will go back to the first Passover.
Why?
Because they'd been over 400 years in captivity,
these Jews had in Egypt.
God said, I want to free you.
And if I'm going to free you, I'm
going to free you by the blood of
the lamb.
So I want you on the 10th day
of the first month, take the lamb.
I want you to make sure, first of
all, he's a lamb in the prime of
life, a year old.
Jesus was in the prime of life when
he was taken, crucified and slain.
Secondly, this lamb must be without spot or
defect.
You better get a perfect one.
Jesus was the perfect lamb of God without
spot or defect.
Then after a while, after several days, I
want you to slay that lamb.
Jesus was put upon the cross according to
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, but
he was by wicked hands crucified and slain
upon the cross as the lamb.
Then it says in Exodus 12 now, I
want you to take some of the blood
of that lamb and I want you to
put it on the doorposts and the lintel
of your home.
And when the angel comes over, he will
pass over, he will hover over you.
He will make sure that you don't get
destroyed because he'll see the blood.
And so it is with Jesus.
He was the lamb of God.
And when he died on the cross, he
shed his blood.
And it's through that life blood, which speaks
of his death for us, that we are
saved, that we are reconciled to God.
He brings us to him.
And then it says in Exodus 12 now,
I want you now to feast on this
lamb.
And that's what we do, not just at
the Lord's table, the bread, which symbolizes his
body, but inwardly we feed on Christ.
I did this morning.
That's what that book is all about.
My feeding on God, my thirsting of him,
my drinking at the fountainhead.
It's like taking the little thimble of my
life and putting it into the ocean of
God's love and say, ha, my thimble's full.
I've got all the ocean in my thimble.
No, you haven't, there's plenty more there.
Always go back because there's so much more.
It's like milking a cow.
You know, you milk the cow dry.
Two or three hours later, you go half
a dozen hours later.
No, 10 hours later, you go back and
you find plenty more there.
This is what it is in the scriptures.
So God says, I want you to know
that I want you to feed on Christ
inwardly in your mind and spirit.
So Jesus is the lamb of God.
Therefore, Jesus is the sacrifice.
He's the sacrifice for all mankind.
And John the Baptist made it extremely clear.
And let me, as I just come to
a close here, read you what it says
about that lamb.
Listen to this.
It says in Revelation chapter five, as now
this can happen at any time when we'll
be caught up like the apostle John was.
And there we are in the day of
the Lord in heaven with the Lord God
almighty and the lamb and the sevenfold spirit
of God.
And the elders seated on thrones, the four
living creatures and the elders, and then a
hundred million angels and all creatures in heaven
and earth.
And we'll be gathered there, be looking in
from the outside, but we'll be on the
inside if we're saved by the blood of
the lamb.
And it says this.
I couldn't find anyone to open the book.
It says, John looked and saw the one
who sat on the throne.
And I saw an angel proclaiming who is
worthy to open the scroll.
Then I saw a lamb.
This is the word, my brother and sister.
This is the one who pitched his tent
among us.
This is the one that saved you and
me, the one I talked with this morning
and you did.
Then I saw the lamb looking as if
it had been slain, standing in the center
of the throne and circled by the four
living creatures and the elders.
Then it says, and the four living creatures
and 24 elders fell down before the lamb.
Each one had a harp and they were
holding golden bowls full of incense, which is
the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song.
You are worthy to take the scroll, they
said to Jesus, the word of the lamb.
You are worthy to take the scroll and
to open its seals because you were slain.
And with your blood, you purchased men for
God from every tribe and language and people
and nation.
Oh God, give us that vision that we
will get out there and not keep this
as a holy club to ourselves.
You've made them to be a kingdom of
priests to serve our God.
Then I looked and heard the voice of
many angels numbering thousands upon thousands, 10,000
times 10,000.
They encircled the throne.
Imagine this can happen, my brother and sister
very soon.
And the living creatures and the elders and
in a loud voice they sang, worthy is
the lamb who was slain to receive power
and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor
and glory and praise.
Then I heard every creature in heaven and
on earth and under the earth and on
the sea and all that is in them
singing.
Imagine that, Lord, it would drown out everything
here.
To him who sits on the throne and
to the lamb, to the father and the
son, to the word, be praise and honor
and glory and power forever and ever.
And the four living creatures said, amen.
The elders and all the people at South
Delta Baptist Church fell down and worshiped.
My brother and sister, these are three glorious
pictures.
There's enough for a whole series of messages
in any one of them.
So forgive me if I've skimmed the surface
this morning, but some of you maybe would
like to go deeper into that.
Do please call me.
And now I'm still only seven minutes late.
That's not too bad, is it?
Where's Jan?
You still there, Jan?
What time do you get in this morning
in here?
Eight o'clock.
And you're leaving here at one o'clock.
That's wonderful, thank you.
I do appreciate it.
And Paul, thank you for all your efforts
on the piano.
Let's have a closing gig.