How should we think about Worship — Fred Tomlinson

Well, if you would like to take your Bibles, please turn with me to the book of Revelation and to the fourth chapter, Revelation chapter 4. I don't have a passage of Scripture which will occupy the entire time this morning, but I will just dip into several different sections of Scripture as you will discover and trust that the Lord will be able to speak to each one of our hearts exactly that which he wants to say and needs to say to us individually.

The Heavenly Vision of Worship in Revelation 4

So I'm reading the first four verses of this chapter, Revelation chapter 4. After these things I looked and behold a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I had heard like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.

Immediately I was in the spirit and behold a throne was standing in heaven and one sitting on the throne. And he who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne like an emerald in appearance.

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones. And upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting clothed with white garments and golden crowns on their heads. Amen. The the title, if you will, the theme that I would like to speak around is around this question.

The Central Question: How Should We Think About Worship?

How should we think about worship? How should we think about worship? Many of you know that I was raised in a conservative evangelical home and the name under which our assembly gathered was the, at that time, was the Plymouth Brethren.

I've said this many times before, I'll say it again, but I am very grateful to God for that background. Among the features that were so important to the teaching in the assembly was the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there was such a passion and desire to give him the proper place, the place that Holy Scripture gives to him. And that he should be recognized for who he was and indeed who he is at this point in time.

And I'm grateful for that because in so many ways, although I may have adjusted my thinking about some things that I was taught in those days, this great fact, and others also that were very much a part of the ministry, have established a foundation for me in my heart and in my faith in God.

They also imparted to me a passion for the scriptures themselves and inspired me with other young people that I was part of in those days with a desire to read and indeed to memorize passages of scripture.

And again, all that was very important to me. Having said that, when I was in my middle 20s, as a result of a number of circumstances which I will not describe, I found myself in a gathering of men and women who loved the Lord with a passion and among whom the Spirit of God was moving.

And it was in those early meetings, I'm looking back to 1966, it was at that time and in those meetings where I became aware of a level of worship for God that I had not known before that time. And that adjusted the direction of my life in many ways.

And as the next few years moved on, I then found myself in a conference. It was actually an elders conference in Devon in the UK and I was there with other men. There were 66 of us all together. I remember that number for some reason and we spent three days together at the Rora Christian Fellowship, as it's now known.

We were in a building outside of the main buildings of the house and so on. We were in an area which was then known almost affectionately as The Hut. It's been demolished since then. But it was in that Hut, meeting with that group of men in those days, that my understanding and my experience of worship was elevated to a new level and I can't take time, nor is it my intention to take time to describe the various things that were part and parcel of those days.

Perhaps I'll just pause long enough to say that there were some young people who were part of the household who had to do with chores and whatnot in the property and I'm now related to one of those then young people who is now part of the same family as a result of my daughter's marriage.

But I know from him directly that a group of those young people, when they heard the men worshipping, they left their chores and came outside of the main building and came and were peering through the windows because they wanted to see what was happening and hear the men there as they were worshipping God and I'm very grateful for that indeed.

And in those next years there were other events that I could take more time to talk about. I'm thinking of some conferences that I was part of where during the corporate worship, the worship was so holy and so strong, if I may use that word to describe worship, that the Satan himself, demonic spirits, were actually uncloaked in that huge gathering and were manifesting themselves.

They're stirred up in the context of holy worship of holy God and praise God for that. I never became really part of the so-called charismatic movement, but clearly I was impacted personally by the transforming, the life-transforming power of God, the Holy Spirit.

And memories of those early days, they have been etched into my memory and will be there till my dying day, I'm sure, because they were the days when God was opening something up to me that was brand new and life-transforming and indeed set a course and a trajectory for my life and what would end up becoming a ministry.

I never assumed such a thing would happen back in those days, but there you have the fact. My purpose here this morning in sharing these things is not just to tell stories, but I want to emphasize to you that spiritual God-inspiring worship is not something that is static.

Worship is not static because the God whom we worship is not static, that is, so far as He's moving in our lives is concerned. For every one of us, wherever we are on this journey of faith, there's always, as I quote from the Old Testament, there's always very much more land to be possessed.

And it must be one of the great tragedies within the Christian community that so many people have an initial experience and it may have altered or transformed the course of their lives at that point in time, but so far as the depth and understanding and experience of God is concerned, they stall very quickly and the inevitable result of that is we become religious, we become set in the particular form that was somehow part of that initial experience, and we lose all sight of the fact that God is moving on, He wants to move us on and change us from glory to glory and continue to reveal Himself to us ever more clearly, and as the result of that, completely alter and change what is our worship of Him.

Moving Beyond Initial Religious Experience

I suppose a further comment regarding that progression that God intends us to be making is simply this, that this progress that God has ordained to be our experience becomes stalled primarily when we are not prepared to leave what we've already experienced, whatever that may apply to.

To move on in the things of God inevitably presupposes that there will be that which we are leaving. Sadly, we find a kind of security in what we have experienced and who we are at that time, and we never allow God to break us out of that form and move us on into deeper and richer things.

The, some folk who know me very well and have listened to me for a lot over the years will have heard so many of my stories, but as I'm saying this, I'm thinking of a woman who has gone to glory now, but she was a very precious relative of mine and she also was part of the Brethren movement and when God began to change my heart and my understanding about spiritual things, I was anxious to share it with other people and I was attempting to share this with her and her response, very sadly, was this, and this is a verbatim quote which I've repeated several times, so it's there in my mind clear, she said, Fred, if what I have was good enough for Bill Kendrick, it's good enough for me.

Bill Kendrick was one of the elders in the assembly and a very lovely and wonderful man of God, I'm sure, but right there lies the kind of snare that we find ourselves facing where we reach a stage, wherever that is, whether it's early in the journey or midway in the journey, we reach a stage where we just dig in and settle down and this is an issue that's a very real issue for those of us who are older, of course, to whom change comes very much more reluctantly and that, of course, it comes at a great price.

Worship as Humanity's Chief End

If we're going to follow through the opening question, how should we think about worship? I think the first and most important thing is that we should have some sense of its importance and many of us, probably most of us here, were not brought up in this particular branch of the Christian Church, but I went to a church of England or an Anglican school, that was my first school and on church holidays, our school was attached to a church, so we went to the Anglican Church and were in their meetings and I became aware of the Westminster Catechism, something which was written in 1647, as a matter of fact, and I could talk more about catechisms, but I shall not do that, but one of the features of a catechism is that it's presented in the form of questions and answers and the minister may ask a question.

These are doctrinal questions and there are set replies, which are prescribed in the Catechism, which the congregation give. They respond to the question offered by the leader and so on and here is one of them.

The question is, what is the chief end of man? And the congregation would respond and say, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Think about that. This is exactly why the catechisms were ever put together, to indoctrinate the members of the churches on the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, as understood by those who drew up the catechisms.

Man's chief end, your chief end, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Rightful worship of God will always be according to his Word, according to the Scriptures, according to the Word of God. And we know that as we look back, all the way back in the Bible, that as God created that area known as Eden, he did that for a very special purpose and we know also that God himself came into that garden.

In fact, you will find, although it's not in the opening part of the Bible, it's all the way up in Ezekiel chapter 28 actually, you'll find that the garden is referred to as the garden of God. There's another reference that refers to the garden of Eden as the mountain of God and God came there and we know that God formed man.

It's interesting because if we take the read carefully, God created man somewhere and because the next statement I find is he brought him to the garden. He brought him and he placed him in paradise and we believe that God's intention at that point was that man should glorify God.

This is why God created him and the glorifying of God is another way of describing worship, that he may be a worshipper of God. And I believe we could say that God's intention was that he, who was established, although it doesn't specify this specifically, but clearly there's an implied fact, I think, that his function was priestly in the original intent.

He would have responsibility for others who would come and indeed for all of creation. He was, in a sense, he was ordained to be the worship leader in that context, that all creation should worship the God that he himself was worshipping as the head who was formally established and so on.

And what we do know is that Adam, of course, fell desperately because based on temptation that came to him, he turned his preoccupation and his worship of God in on himself. He became self-pleasing. He did what he wanted to do.

It's interesting, isn't it, as we remind ourselves how in the process of time, we're all descendants of the first Adam and today we talk about the me generation. Well, me first. It's all about ourselves.

It's somehow inbred into us to be taken up with and preoccupied with ourselves, which if we track it all the way back it was the original issue. But I'm thinking of this in the context of worship. He turned his focus away from worshipping God to worship himself.

He made himself as though he was God and disregarded what God had said and so on. Such was the situation in the original garden and that which developed from it. But we believe that within the context of the church today, the church of Jesus Christ, that God's intent is that within the church and from the church God should be worshipped.

And I believe this is God's intent as we're gathering. We're asking ourselves again, how should we think about worship? Well, we should think about worship as being of preeminent value and importance so far as God is concerned because it is an expression of the worship of God and he has designed that he should be the one who is worshipped exclusively.

It is, I believe, that is worship, the worship of God. It's the highest peak of what we could call perhaps Christian activity. It is the Mount Everest. It's the highest of all peaks. It's the highest function or activity in which a man or woman can engage themselves.

That's how important it is. There is nothing more important at all. There's nothing higher than it, the worship of God. Nothing higher than it and there's nothing that comes even close to it. It is separate from every other activity that we may engage ourselves in.

Worship as the Missing Jewel of Evangelicalism

With those things said and with that kind of picture broadly painted before us, it comes as a heartbreaking tragedy that a man who was a man of God, A. W. Tozer, not known to any of us, I guess, but known so far as his writings are concerned and we appreciate his writings.

But the tragedy is that this man of God would have a need or have a basis for making this statement. He said that worship is the missing jewel of evangelicalism. What a complete contradiction and I'm saying again, it's the supreme tragedy.

I'm sure that's something which we're saying already is the most important issue in the whole of the life of a Christian man or the Christian church should be found missing. The jewel is gone. In making that statement and sort of publishing it again, me publishing it again this morning, that statement of Tozer's, I am well aware that there will be a whole chorus of objectors who will rise up in opposition to that statement and they say that is a crazy statement to make.

That the jewel of worship is missing from modern evangelicalism. It would be said that this is a crazy and foolish statement against the backdrop of the huge presence of Christian worship music today.

And someone is going to say this Christian worship music, let's face it, it occupies this huge place in our culture. How can you say that this jewel is missing? Look around you. But the fact of the matter is, I believe, that the members of the evangelical community have naively allowed themselves to be seduced into a position of deceit.

I believe that this holy worship of holy God has been hijacked by business-minded men and women, I'm sure, who have recognized that this Christian music is a perfect business model in order to make money.

And I have read that Christian music is the fastest growing area in recorded music in history. Christian music, the fastest growing area in recorded ministry in history, with sales rising more than a half billion dollars annually in the US, making multi-millionaires out of many of these celebrity performers that are watching them and listening to them.

One of whom reportedly said, I just want to make entertainment more worshipful. What a bizarre statement in the light of Holy Scripture. I just want to make entertainment more worshipful. I'm well aware that there are some wildly differing opinions about this aspect of ministry that I'm referring to right now, and it doesn't fall to me today to somehow tease out the anomalies or whatever, and however we may think of this, and so on.

Maybe there is a place on another occasion to do that, but in making these statements in this broader context of what I'm sharing this morning, I refuse to ignore the one who once cried out and said, take these things hence and make not my father's house a house of merchandise.

I have to deal with that, and the end doesn't justify the means, because people will be pointing me to the end, but the end doesn't justify the means if the means have been being carried out in contradiction to the inspired Word of God and the clear teaching of Scripture, and so the very words of Jesus himself on this occasion.

Examining Our Worship Before God

We should think about worship. We need to think about worship. I don't know whether this has been your experience. I confess to you it's been my experience more times than I could count, and that is when I'm driving my car, at some stage in my driving, I might be in town just here, and I might have arrived down somewhere onto Marshall Road, and I'll realize I've just gone through two roundabouts, and I can't remember anything that happened on those two roundabouts, but at least I'm safely here at Marshall Road, and so on.

We become preoccupied with other issues, and we do so much just in a sort of a routine way, and we're not really concentrating on all that's happening. I suppose to a degree we are subconsciously, but there you are, and I fear that the very same thing is possibly happening to us, perhaps to all of us, and perhaps to all of us in this very area of worship where we've been brought up a certain way, to think a certain way, whether that was in some sort of ancient conservative church setting, or whether in some modern hyped sort of church setting, excuse my description if I need to be, but the fact of the matter is we can just continue through our days because we're preoccupied with a dozen or more other things.

We don't pause long enough to ask ourselves some real questions in the light of the Word of God. The fact is, if you are claiming to be a child of God, then you should be anxious to have answers to these questions, and to be able to have a clear, thought-through, biblically-based response to these questions, surely about this, which we have reminded ourselves is the most important feature of our whole lives, and of our whole Christian lives at that, and so on.

So we're talking about something that's very, very important to us, and I think we need to invite the Holy Spirit very positively, thoughtfully, and invite him to speak to us, and to assist us to engage in the kind of thinking that is helpful.

It was a man many years ago who I heard make this statement. He said, there's nothing like good, solid thinking in the hands of the Holy Spirit. We're not just saying I need to think this through for myself, but we need to come aside and say, Lord, teach me, Lord.

I'm making myself as though we're a blank sheet here. I want you to write on my paper here. I want you to write into my heart, and into my mind, and understanding. What is your will? Specifically, what is the kind of worship that you are looking for?

Worship in Spirit and Truth

See, if we're going to say, we're asking how we should think about worship, I think that presupposes a couple of other questions. One of them would be this. In making that statement, are we saying, is there a right way to worship?

Well, my answer is absolutely yes. To do that, I'm turning to another passage of Scripture in John's Gospel. If you want to turn with me, please do, but I'm in John's Gospel, and I'm listening to Jesus speaking.

I'm in chapter 4, and he's talking to the woman at the well, you will remember, and breaking in on that, Jesus says to her in verse 22, you worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews.

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers. God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

Amen. Is there a right way to worship? Well, we couldn't have a plainer statement in answer to that question than the very words of Jesus here. He says that it's got to be spiritual worship, and it's got to be true worship, genuine, sincere, unmixed, pure, holy worship of Holy God.

The other question then would be, well, is and I think it's implied by our answer to the first, is there a wrong way to worship? And the answer once again must be in the affirmative. Yes, there's a wrong way to worship.

There's a true way, and there's a false way. And if there is indeed a false way to worship God, who has prescribed the right way, that has to be a serious issue, and we need to think about it, and we need to examine their own hearts.

True Worship and Strange Fire

I think this factor is really highlighted in the passage of Scripture in the Old Testament, and I'm turning back into the book of Leviticus. You can turn with me, or I will read it to you. I'm going to read first of all in chapter 9, right toward the end of the chapter, verse 22, and Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he stepped down after making the sin offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offering, and Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting.

When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Then fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the portions of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

When it says, from the presence of the Lord, clearly it's from the place upon the Ark of the Covenant, between the cherubim, where the Jewish people then would refer to the bright shining of his presence, the Shekinah glory, and it says that fire came out from that place, fire came from God, fire came from heaven, and it consumed the offering which was on the altar.

This was the initiation, of course, of the temple. Wonderful, and we say, do we not, send the fire, Lord, send the fire, the fire that comes from heaven. But watch this as we read on in the very next chapter.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective fire pans and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

Amen. When we say, send the fire, we need the fire. We want that fire to be the fire that it comes forth from God's pleasure, and it's an expression of God's blessing and God's ministry to us, certainly.

But as we find this section here in chapter 10 that's so contrasting, and that reference to strange fire, in other words, that the fire that would burn, permanently burn, on the altar, because it must not be allowed to go out, we read, because it wasn't just fire that men created, it was the fire of God.

There's a tremendous parallel here that we could develop, thinking about our own lives in respect to this holy life, this holy fire, and the fact that it needs to be ongoing. But the fact of the matter is, these two young priests, for whatever reasons, we don't know why, what put it into their minds, but instead of following that prescription, they needed fire for the censers, for the incense burners, the fire pans, as they call them in this translation, and it was God's plan that there wouldn't be some separate fire that they would create there, but they would use fire from the altar, the fire which God had given, the fire which would speak symbolically of himself and of his presence, must be used, and they failed in that, with disastrous results, as we know very well.

And I think that highlights, to my mind, just how important things being right, our understanding being right, according to God, according to Scripture, and our activities, whatever they are, the actual activity that those men were about to be engaged in was an activity which had been ordained of God for them, but they went about it in the wrong way, and God judged their folly in that dramatic way.

And that must stand before all of us, as those words of Jesus we quoted earlier about his father's house. Here we got another situation, it's not God speaking verbally, but it's God speaking in a very plain way, that everything must be done according to the pattern that was showed in the mount.

And so it is today, and remains today. God's not looking for clever people. He's not looking for business people. He's not looking for people who have convinced themselves they're doing what they're doing for good results.

We need men and women who are rooted and grounded in the Word of God, who will only do that which God has prescribed, and we will only do that in the way that God has prescribed for it to be done. I think also, you know, the the way in which we worship, whoever we are, is the clearest indicator of our knowledge of God.

It's a giveaway. If I'm wrong about worship, I'm going to be wrong about God. And if I'm wrong about God, just to reverse it back, I'll be wrong about worship. This is such an important factor. My intention, can I just say here, my intention is not to try and introduce or reintroduce some style of worship that comes from my ancient past.

My desire is to point us to the Scriptures of truth. That's my intention and my purpose. For the remainder of my time, I want to turn our attention to three, I think, three passages of Scripture. We can only do this quite briefly this morning, but I trust that the Lord will use what we will see to our great benefit.

Each of these three sections of Scripture contain, within these brief readings, something which is staggering when we face it and consider it. In the context of what we're talking about. And it is, we will also find that which in each of them is instructive to us, which will help us if we're paying attention.

The Church as God Ordained It in Revelation 4

We started out by reading from Revelation. So this is the first section that I'm thinking about. What you will, you will have recognized, and I know some of you were with me a few weeks ago when we looked at this chapter on that occasion, in more detail than we are this morning.

But let me, let me set the scene by reminding you that where we're going in our thinking and with the help of Scripture, we're going into the church of the living God. That's where we're going. It's, let me just qualify that just a little bit more.

We're going into the church of the living God, how he sees it. And how he has ordained it to be. With that in mind, if you were to write those things down and then spend a lot of time here in this section exploring it, I think that could be helpful.

But that is indeed, let me, I'm only going to drop down briefly on one or two things. First of all, let me tell you that as we, a door has been opened for John and we're sort of with him on the basis of the fact that he's written these things down.

They've been kept for us by the Spirit of God. So in a sense, we're with him. We're going through the door that was opened into the church of the living God as God ordained it to be. And as we go in, the very first thing that I could say that's relevant is there is no stage.

I don't see a stage in this church. All I see is a throne. There's a throne and I know we looked at this in more detail those weeks ago, but I appreciate the way the text records this. There was a throne set in heaven and that speaks very, very clearly to the fact that this is a permanent throne.

This is an immovable throne. This is an unshakable and an unyielding and an immutable throne. In other words, this throne is not going to be moved off to one side so that another event can take place of another kind.

This is set. The throne is set. This throne is not going to magically sort of disappear into the framework of the platform so that it's out of the way so that we can do some whatever we want to do on the stage, but it's not there.

We're saying this is the ultimate pattern in the church as God ordained it to be from eternity past and it will be unchanging. And as we enter into it, there's a throne and enthroned upon the throne is this this being.

As I thought of this earlier, I thought of a phrase from one of Charles Wesley's hymns, which is a priceless statement. As he Wesley referred to God, the one sitting upon the throne, he said, see there the quickening cause of all.

Yes, this is who is seated upon the throne at the centre of the church of the living God. He who is the cause, the quickening cause of all, whose countenance is brighter than the sun, than the sun at noon day.

Amen. Notice that in this church, there's no dim mood lighting. There's no fake cloud or anything around here, just the sheer glory of God. Not man's imitation of it or his pretense to produce it, but it's the presence of the Almighty God enthroned in glory.

Amen. There's not even any spotlight shining down onto this throne. They would be rendered foolish in the extreme because the light that illuminates everywhere in his church is coming from the throne itself.

Not shining on it, but beaming out from it, the very glory of God blazing from this eternal throne of God. And notice quickly the response of the congregation that's there. We find in verse 8, the angelic hosts, this innumerable company of angels, and their response is holy.

Holy. Holy. Notice the reference we read to the elders, which we could pursue more than I'm able to now this morning, but notice their response, that the elders gaze is fixed upon him who sits upon the throne.

And they live in his presence, these elders. And they worship him. Some of you will have heard me say that many years ago, decades ago, someone in a meeting I was in said that they've been reading in some old English dictionary, and they were looking up the word worship, and were inspired when they saw that it was defined there in that dictionary as extravagant love.

Well, these elders are fixed in their gaze upon him who sits in the midst of the throne, and their hearts are aflame with love for him, and they're worshipping him extravagantly. This is how God intends worship to take place in his church, not quietly, and we're not talking about noise or volume.

We're talking about hearts that are poured out positively and completely to God. And the whole redeemed company, this innumerable company of people who are gathered there in this setting, in this great church gathering, there's just one word that keeps reoccurring.

You'll see it in this chapter and in the next chapter as well, and that is worthy. You are worthy, they're saying. You are worthy because, and I'll just take half of a statement, because you have made us.

You have made us. You are worthy. And they're conscious as they look upon him still bearing the marks of the cross, that they are there because he made them. He made them. He made them worthy, and they are there.

Glory to God. And notice also, you have made us. Note this. I think it's an important point. We don't hear anyone saying, you have made me. That's interesting. Which takes me back to the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to say, when you pray, say, our Father.

He didn't say, when you say, my Father. This is how I interpret that. When we are alone, we can say, my Father. Jesus said, my Father. But in the context of the company, in the context of the church, we say, our Father.

We lose our individuality in this context. And I see that in this setting here, there's just an absence of individuality. No one, no one has the limelight. How far have we come? No one has the limelight.

He alone has the central place. Notice that in this context, no one is private. God is saving individual souls, but it's a corporate bride that he's establishing for himself. No one is private. How completely different to today, for those of us who call ourselves the Lord's people, how unlike so many aspects of our lives and our behavior do we find here?

Hebrews 12 and the Present Heavenly Assembly

Well, someone's going to respond to me and say, well, this is all very good and that's wonderful and we believe this and this clearly is the way things will be hereafter. This is heaven we're talking about, but we're here on earth.

We're not there yet, which gives me reason to turn to my next passage of scripture. And I'm going to the book of Hebrews, if you'd like to turn there with me. I'm in Hebrews chapter 12. Do you remember I told you that these three scriptures were staggering?

I think you'll agree what we saw already in Revelation 4 and 5, although we didn't look into 5 exactly, was staggering in its wonder and it was instructive to us as we're there. The same applies here in this passage of scripture.

This is staggering also. Let me read it to you. We're breaking into a very important section. I'm sorry to do that, but nevertheless, I'm in verse 18. For you have not come, you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire and to darkness and gloom and a whirlwind.

That's verse 18. And to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For if they could not bear the command, if even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.

And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

Amen. That's an incredible section of scripture. There's a reason why the inspired writer is doing this that we can't explore. But we certainly see the contrast that we find here as he refers back to the old covenant situation and just how terrible it was and how condemning God's presence was and so forth and so on.

And then just a verse change, although it wasn't in verses in those days when it was written, I'm sure, we come to verse 22. But you have come. Note the tense there. He didn't say, but you are coming to heaven when you pass from this scene of time.