Colossians 3:1-4 - A Scene In Heaven

Park Meadows Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:00

Good morning, everybody Good to see you all I thought that was plenty strong Matt It's good song.

00:10

Good. Good choices today. Very nice We are in Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4

00:17

We started with 3 and 4 and we're moving up to 1 and 2. I know that's backwards, but I wanted to emphasize 1 and 2 the most so I Kind of felt like 3 and 4 sort of the background for it and wanting to get into some really amazing things and Glad to have you with us today and and you guys at home as well

00:42

Thankful always have our internet members with us and visitors as well We got a home folk

00:49

Crowd here today in the building and that's always fun I like visitors, but I really like it when it's just us too.

00:58

It's just sometimes we can take a little deeper dive and not have to Worry about that so much.

01:05

So, all right, we may do that today. Let's pray Lord. Thank you so much for The services already the

01:11

Sunday school lessons the singing and Lord we ask you to bless the preaching And we know you will because it's your word.

01:19

Amen If you then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Colossians chapter 3 verse 1 verse 2 set your affection on things above not on things on the earth and Then three and four we covered the last two or three times for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory what better eternal security verse is there than that one and so We looked at several things here a lot of it you have to go up to the previous chapter to understand what it's even talking about really, but it's talking about victory over the flesh and victory over the law

02:06

Which the two are connected But we're gonna look at it mostly as victory over the flesh because as we get into this chapter it moves into that area it's interesting because Ben was teaching from Titus this morning in Sunday school and it was in that same area where Paul gave a list of sins of the flesh and so He's gonna do the same in this passage as we get to it

02:30

But first thing we looked at as far as our weapons that God gives us for dealing with the flesh

02:36

And by the way, you don't deal with you have three enemies the world of flesh and devil You deal with each one differently if you get confused and you try to deal with one in the inappropriate way

02:45

It doesn't work for example the devil It says stand against him and he'll flee

02:54

All right, but the flesh if you try to stand against the flesh you will be defeated You run from the flesh so like Things that tempted you or sins that you did in your youth usually follow you the rest of your life unless the

03:08

Lord removes it Which some of them he will but some he won't for his purposes but Whatever they are the sins of the youth

03:18

Don't stand against them get them out of your house Don't have it around So that's how you deal with the flesh and this is what we're gonna be talking about here

03:27

But then the world system, what do you do with it? Well, you you'd be separate from it in the sense of philosophically and when you say the world by the way

03:36

I like what Ben said in Sunday school about God didn't say that we're not supposed to enjoy the pleasures of this life and this earth

03:42

That God made but you never let him rule you now that would go with the flesh part, right?

03:47

I told you his son's good lesson fit right with the sermon today But as far as the world system, it doesn't mean that the

03:54

God's world is bad the waterfalls the oceans You know the mountains

04:00

It's talking about the world system. And who is the little G God of that? Satan it's talking about Satan's world system is is an enemy and So we're supposed to be separate from that so those are the three enemies but was with regard to the flesh

04:18

You flee the temptations of your youth is a great verse to remember, but this is going to give us even more ammunition and on a higher level and so we remember last couple of times what the first thing it talked about was

04:33

Realize that you are the new man and you're but you're in this life in this time Our old man is still with us, isn't he?

04:40

And so count him as if he's crucified already That was the first point. The second point was to realize that our old man is crucified, but realize the new man

04:51

Where is he? Where is his place? He is hid with Christ in God the

04:57

Father Where is Christ and God the Father? Well God the Father is outside of everything

05:02

But his she kind of glory is in the third heaven and Christ is seated at the right hand of that throne or you might

05:09

Call it a mercy seat. It's also throne of God. And so That's where we are hid and that I think

05:16

I really I really like that part of this lesson It's also an eternal security

05:24

Moment because it says when he appears we will be with him. It doesn't say we might be It's great, you know, it's a great eternal security passage and then

05:34

Last time the point in that sermon last Sunday was realize where you are

05:42

That you are risen with Christ and you dwell where he sits on the right hand of God.

05:48

Remember that remember where you are So all that's reviewed Colossians 3 1 says for if you then be risen with Christ, where are you you were risen with Christ?

06:02

Seek those things which are above. Where are you? You're above with Christ. Where's where Christ sits on the right hand of God?

06:08

So, where are you? You're seated at the right hand of the father That near that you can look you can come in the presence of the she kind of glory which in the

06:17

Old Testament before Jesus His blood was sprinkled on that throne. No man could go in that presence

06:22

But one and he could only do it once a year and it was the high priest and he better be Right with God when he goes in there and so Now all of us can come and be seated

06:32

At the right hand of glory, which is quite amazing. So we talked about where we are last time um

06:39

You're not an earth dweller. You're a heaven dweller. Remember that now today

06:45

The question is or the point is realize what you are to seek

06:50

All right So we'll talk about that now colossians One three chapter three verse one says if you then be risen with Christ that says where you are

07:02

Seek those things which are above that tells you what to seek So when you're walking around this earth in your body of flesh and that old man can come alive quickly can he not or she not and Uh, you can't let her control or him control though And so part of that is to realize what we are to be seeking

07:23

While we're walking on this earthly plane as a christian and so um verse one says

07:31

Seek those things which are above well in romans chapter six verse five is some interesting information

07:38

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of jesus's death

07:45

We shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection and I remember brother otis teaching

07:50

Sitting right here teaching the sunday school class about this and he pointed out That that particular verse even though there are verses that do say we're buried with him

07:58

That one doesn't say that it says we're planted with him and everybody's brain thinks it means buried. It doesn't mean buried

08:03

It means planted And it's different. It's a farming term What do you plant?

08:10

Something that grows Now so think about that We have been planted together

08:18

In the likeness of his death We shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

08:23

Now. We know that a seed jesus taught a seed Must die before you plant it or it won't never come up if you plant a green seed it will rot

08:33

So you put it out in the sun and you let it die Then you plant it and it comes alive and That's a picture of our physical death, you know and and our resurrection

08:46

And the new body that we get and all those wonderful things, but this is kind of interesting to talk about being planted

08:54

So even in the greek it's not the same word at all as buried this word means something entirely different and Uh buried is soon thopto, but that's not the word here.

09:07

It is in the greek. It is some Uh futas and it's a completely different word

09:14

And it literally means grown along together with something grown

09:20

Along together or growing along together with something uh

09:26

It you know sometimes in in the strongs He will put an english word

09:32

And he has a great vocabulary. I often have to look them up. He says it means to conate who knows what that means

09:39

I had to look it up So it's a botany term botany means the study of plants right in in Not physics, but oh man, the brain is so bad.

09:52

It's at this age biology, it's the branch of biology where we study plants botany and so What the word means to conate is parts

10:04

Of a plant that are united So as to form a single plant So what does that mean?

10:12

It means to be planted So you're being planted with christ And then coming up with him to be a single plant that's connected

10:21

That is exactly what spirit fill means It's when your spirit and the spirit of jesus in you becomes one spirit

10:29

Not two but one a oneness there and you walk in that mode. You don't sin you can't sin in that mode

10:35

So this is what this is talking about here, be planted together with him, and then to rise together with him.

10:42

So the idea here is to, literally, that you and Christ are of the same wheat seed, you're wheat, you're not tares, right?

10:50

You're the same wheat seed as Jesus, planted together and springing up together, springing up together to a fruitful, abundant life is what it pictures.

11:01

Now, so much of dealing with the sins of the flesh, as Brother Otis taught so well, is to not think about don't do those sins, it's to fill your life with the good things, and you'll be so busy all day, you won't have time to do the sinful things.

11:16

And this is what this part's talking about, be planted together with him, you rise with him, and you're one, so you're not gonna sin in that mode.

11:24

So as long as you stay in that mode during the day, you don't even have to think about these fleshly things he names later, and that you need to avoid, because as soon as you try to avoid them in your own effort, you will fail, and Satan will remind you, and even accuse you of not even being saved, which is a lie, of course.

11:44

But, so that's one thing that's interesting to me there in Romans chapter six, verse five, is a way to deal with the flesh, and to do the opposite.

11:57

Now, the next thing is realizing what we're supposed to seek. The next point is to realize where your affections should be.

12:07

In other words, first you realize what you're supposed to seek, those things which are above, and then what are you supposed to love in the world around you in this walk?

12:18

Where's your affection, where's the stuff you love to do? Where should that be? And then the sixth thing is, realize where your affections should not be, okay?

12:27

So that's kind of where this is headed. Now, Colossians chapter three, verse two says, set your affection on the things above.

12:35

It's the same thing as realizing where you are, but now it's saying love what's up there. Love what's up there, not what's down here.

12:44

And I'm talking about the world system part. Don't love the world system. Don't love the pleasures of this life.

12:51

Don't be involved with the cares of this world. Don't be involved with the deceitfulness of riches coming in, which choke the word.

12:59

Your Bible study will cease if those three things grab hold of you. It's like thorns and thistles wrapping around you, even though you're in the good soil and you're fruitful, and all of a sudden you've got these vines growing on you, and eventually it just chokes the word out of your life.

13:14

And then it's a problem getting back into it. It's hard to come back when you leave, same way with church attendance.

13:20

When you get used to staying home, it just feels really comfortable.

13:25

But the Bible says not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is.

13:32

In other words, some Christians don't come to church. And especially as you see the day, what day is that, approaching, right?

13:39

The coming of the Lord. When you see that you're in those days, you especially need to come together.

13:45

Why? Because we need the encouragement. We're getting beaten up by this society. It's a little bit of reprieve now that Trump's in there, but it'll swing back.

13:55

You're gonna have your next Biden and a younger one, which would be even worse. One that can actually think and do mean things, bad things to Christians.

14:05

We'll come again someday. So we need each other more and more, and that we know.

14:11

Now Colossians 3, 4 says, when Christ who is our life shall appear, then we will appear with him.

14:17

But look at verse five. This fits in, verse five fits right in with verses one and two, which is what we're talking about.

14:23

Mortify therefore your members, which are upon the earth. Now, what

14:28

I want you to notice is the word therefore. Mortify literally means to make something dead.

14:39

So nekroo in Greek means to make something dead, to kill something.

14:46

So we're supposed to mortify our members. That means our carnal physical body that can do good things or bad things, right?

14:57

It's kind of neutral. It's not really neutral. It has a sin nature, the old man, right? It has a sin nature. But because you're a new man, if you take control of your soul and your body, then it can do things for God, which is remarkable, isn't it?

15:12

And that's the whole point. But in the midst of all that, we are told to seek the things that are above, set our affections on the things that are above, to realize we are above in Christ, and then to mortify the things that your body would do that are sinful, the lusts of the flesh.

15:35

Mortify the flesh so that it can't do those things. Count your flesh as dead. That was really the first point, wasn't it?

15:42

You are crucified with Christ. That's the first point. Verse five is just bringing it home again. It's interesting that Paul started it with counting dead and ended it with count the old man dead, right?

15:53

So that's big. It's like he's not being redundant. What he's doing is, well, he is being redundant on purpose.

15:59

He's emphasizing how important that part is. But it starts with the word therefore. So that goes back up to verses one and two.

16:08

So because of verses one and two, therefore you can count the old man flesh if you're doing one and two.

16:15

Which is set your affections on things above. Then you're able to count the old man as dead.

16:20

And you know why? Because when you get in a mode as a saved person where you're focused on the heavenlies and what's there and who is there, you won't wanna go out and be fleshly and sin.

16:32

It's easy to mortify the old man when you have the therefore there because you're doing verses one and two that came before verse five.

16:39

Does that make sense? So let's delve into that a little bit more about the setting your affection on things above.

16:50

And the main place I wanna go to the rest of our time is Revelation chapter five, verse one. But first I'm gonna read a very familiar passage that Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33, starting with verse 31 though.

17:03

Therefore Jesus said, take no thought saying, what are we gonna eat? What are we gonna drink? Where with all shall we be clothed?

17:10

Now, remember there's three or four things. There's actually more than three. There's three things listed in it says and other things like it.

17:17

So there's a bunch of things that can choke the word from you. And it's kind of creepy because in one of the gospels, it says it will choke the word.

17:27

But in the other gospel, it says it'll choke you. But in one of them, it says it'll choke the word, which what that means is when you go to your

17:35

Bible study, you don't get much from it. You ever been in that mode? Like you're just doing it because you're supposed to and you're not getting much from it.

17:41

That's the scariest place to be in the realm of what we're talking about. Because what's the reason you're not getting anything from it is you are loving the world right now.

17:51

You didn't mortify the flesh and you're loving the world and you're having to do your Bible study because you're a

17:57

Christian. That's legalistic. That's not from the heart. That's from the brain. And that's the old man.

18:03

The brain is part of the old man. Now, your new man lives in it though and can control it and move it into God's realm, right?

18:10

At any second, any moment and keep it there too. But if we're loving the world, then the very world itself will choke the word out of your life where you don't want it.

18:22

And it doesn't, and the scariest part is in one of the two gospels, it implies that it is choked, the word is choked so that as you read it, it doesn't do anything for you.

18:34

Imagine being in that place. I've been there before. I remember when

18:40

I was first saved at 24 and in those first few years, I just felt like, well, I'm supposed to read the

18:45

Bible every day and pray for a whole hour every morning. I bought this little book that cordoned off every 10 minutes and told you exactly what to do each 10 minutes.

18:53

And you do it that way every time. And that's how you pray. I tried that for about two weeks. And I said, this is like, this isn't even me.

19:01

This isn't real. This is, I'm just trying to please God by doing something.

19:07

It's not meaningful. And then eventually, at first the Bible study, that was a long time because I was trying to stay up with the teenagers in the youth group

19:14

I was teaching. They knew way more than I did. So I had to study the Bible, but there was a time period in that first three years where all of a sudden it got where, okay,

19:24

I'm just doing this because I'm supposed to do it to be spiritual. So the people at church will know I'm spiritual. And that was really a dry period.

19:30

And this is what you don't want to happen is the word to be choked. Well, what does it say does that?

19:36

The cares of the world. The cares of the world. What is that? Stuff like you're worried about your paycheck.

19:42

And we do, don't we? You're worried about like inflation. You can't afford even the food you could afford two years ago.

19:51

Gasoline, the car, the payments, the debt we owe. The cares of this world.

19:57

Well, look at Matthew 6 31. Therefore take no thought, Jesus said, of the cares of the world. Isn't that interesting?

20:05

But he didn't leave it there, of course, because we do have to think about it, don't we? And we men are the worst about it sometimes.

20:11

I guess women can do that too, but men certainly think, oh, it's my job to bring home the bread. Well, that's kind of old fashioned nowadays, but you can worry about it and you're not supposed to, but it's kind of human.

20:23

But think about it. That's your old man. That is the part of you that's attached to the earth, to the world.

20:30

I don't know what that meant, but it says now, look, we just heard the trumpet. You're supposed to be thinking about the trumpet up there.

20:37

So Jesus says, take no thought, saying how are we gonna deal with this? Now look at verse 32 in Matthew 6.

20:45

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, like the lost world seeks the food, the shelter, the same stuff we find ourselves worrying about or taking care of.

20:54

That means we're worrying about it. And, but your heavenly father knows that you have needed these things before you pray or anything, he knows you have needs of it.

21:05

So why are we taking care? Why are we so worried about those things?

21:13

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things shall be added to you by whom?

21:25

By God, by the Lord. Right? That is a promise, isn't it? But it's a conditional promise.

21:33

What's the condition? The promise is all that stuff, the shelter, the food, the necessities of life, getting your bills paid, all of that stuff will be taken care of by God is the promise.

21:48

What is the condition that you have to do? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

21:57

It's hard to do that without being in this, right? You can't do that humanistically just from inside your brain and you know, a lot of times that's what we do.

22:06

We'll walk around, we'll be a little bit on the lazy side and we'll just start thinking about God and we think that's enough.

22:12

We'll just think about the stuff we already know. You know what that's like? That's like waking up in the morning as a

22:18

Jew in the wilderness and you see the manna out there that God gave you, which is a picture of this, and you eat some, you save some and try to hide it in your tent.

22:29

And then for the next three days, you don't wanna go out there and have to scavenge the manna. You just try to keep eating that old manna and guess what

22:37

God did to it? He put worms in it. By the next morning, it would have worms and be rotten. And that's how most

22:43

Christians live in this country today. They're living off of the old manna that they read six months ago, six years ago, when they were a kid.

22:52

And they think they can just, because of that knowledge, they can just walk with God and just talk to Him and you know, everything's great.

22:58

And you're never letting Him speak to you at all. It's like He spoke to you three years ago and you're wanting all this stuff now and you're talking to Him and you don't let

23:05

Him talk at all because you don't go into this word. You are not seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness when you live that way.

23:12

You gotta be in this book. It's gotta be new manna. Now, if you live the right way and you walk with God and you seek

23:20

His kingdom and His righteousness, you don't have to take care. I mean, you have to take care of it. Let me put it in a more modern way.

23:27

You don't have to worry about shelter, food, your paycheck, and getting the bills paid.

23:34

You don't have to worry about it. You have to think about it, but you don't have to worry about it. God will take care of it if you do the condition.

23:40

Your part is to seek Him first, put Him first, keep your eyes on Him, keep your eyes on the heavenlies and all of these things that we're talking about in the book of Colossians.

23:50

Verse 34 says, take therefore, why therefore? Because if you seek

23:56

His kingdom and His righteousness first, He will take care of your problems. So therefore, take no thought of tomorrow.

24:06

Oh, I'm worried about it. Am I still gonna have a good job tomorrow? See, we're not supposed to think like that because Jesus said tomorrow will take care of the thought of the things of itself.

24:16

He said sufficient unto today is the evil of this day. You don't need to be thinking about evil, bad stuff gonna happen tomorrow because what is the old saying?

24:25

90 % of it never happens anyway, and you're worried about it. Well, now I'm gonna worry about the 10%, aren't you?

24:32

Okay, here's where I wanna go. Go to Revelation chapter five, verse one. Let's talk a little bit about seeking those things which are above.

24:40

Do we even know what they are? How can we seek them if we don't know what they are? Well, how do we find out?

24:45

We have to look at heaven and see what they are. How can we set our affection on something that we don't even know what it is?

24:51

So we're gonna look at that. Look at Revelation chapter five, verse one. We're gonna get a view of heaven.

24:57

We're going to first behold the scene. Now remember, you're seated at the right hand of God in Christ, so look around.

25:04

Let's look around a little bit. First of all, here's what we see. I see in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside sealed with seven seals.

25:18

Now first of all, this is God the Father, and let me be quick to say that his right hand, that is an anthropomorphism.

25:27

It doesn't mean the Father has hands. It is us speaking of him as if he's like that, and that happens a lot in a scriptural wording, but we understand it by comparing it to all the other scriptures about the

25:43

Father, which says he is an invisible, pure spirit being who is not even in time and space, so you're not gonna see his hand, okay?

25:52

But what you do see above this literal throne is being looked at here by John when he was transported there to see it by the

26:00

Holy Spirit is you see a literal throne with the Shekinah glory hovering above it, which is such resplendent, bright light you probably couldn't look square at it, and it is a resemblance of just, a small resemblance of the

26:14

Father, and I've always, this is my theory. This is, okay, this is not in the Bible. This is my theory.

26:20

That throne is a portal that if you went through it, it's a wormhole, only it's not even a wormhole because that just takes you theoretically to another part of the universe.

26:28

It's a thing if you went through it, you would end at a place that's not a place and where there's no time and you would be obliterated, but that's where the

26:35

Father is, and he lets a little bit of himself show through that portal. You don't have to think of it as a portal.

26:41

I don't know what it is, but I do know what the Shekinah glory is. It's letting you see a little bit of the glory of the

26:47

Father who is not there because if he were, time would cease, and there's time in the third heaven.

26:53

Now seated right next to that throne, though, is the Lamb. Who is that? Okay, so now we can kind of see what's there when we seek those things.

27:03

When we look up there and we're seated there and we're looking around, I think the first thing we would notice would be that bright light above that throne, and I think it would have a noise with it, and I think it would be frightening the first time you were there, and I think you would fall flat on your face, and so would

27:19

I the first time we saw it. There's evidence that's what these people do, and so let's keep looking at it here.

27:28

So look at this book that this anthropomorphic hand holds.

27:36

It's a book written on the front and the back sealed with seven seals.

27:44

Now as we look at biblical numerology, what is the number seven picture all throughout

27:50

Scripture? Perfection or completion, right? So this is talking about the completed canon or part of it anyway.

27:58

It's a picture of the completed canon because it says seven seals, but it's specifically talking about probably parts of the book of Revelation perhaps, but it's symbolic of the whole perfect Bible, and so think of that hand that's not really a hand is handing that book from where he lives, which is not aware.

28:25

It's not even a place, and there's no time, and the book comes from out of that into space and time, and here it is, and everyone there can see it, came out of that portal.

28:35

I'm just gonna call it a portal because I like to think of it that way. It comes out of that portal and out of that shining light, and there's a real book, and it would be a scroll most likely.

28:44

We don't know though. They could have had one of these up there, right? We don't know, but it's probably a scroll, and it comes out there, and everyone sees it, and John sees it, and of course, he's not from there yet.

28:57

He's like really freaking out. He's not used to these sights, and he starts to weep because no man is worthy to grab hold of that book, and the father's hand is just holding the book.

29:13

What I think you really see is resplendent light with a book flickering in it where someone needs to grab it, and no one's doing it.

29:22

No one's worthy to do it, and John weeps over that. Now, that's how precious your

29:27

Bible is, by the way. Now, so look at verse two.

29:38

Verse one shows us the scene, and then it shows us the perfect book. Verse two, and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof.

29:53

This amazingly righteous angel who was one of the stronger angels was not even worthy to grab that book.

30:00

Think about that. He was not holy enough to grab the book. There's places in the Old Testament where it says that even the heavens are unclean to the father.

30:10

That's why he's not in there. Just he lets a little of his light shine, but he's not in there. It's not clean enough for him, even with just angels there and saved people.

30:19

Of course, there are times when the devil could come in there too, though, right? So he's not in there, but his resemblance is there, and that Shekinah glory is there, but this angel is not worthy to grab that book.

30:35

And so look at verse three. And no man, now that's not an angel there.

30:41

What is that? That's a man or a woman. And no man in heaven nor in earth.

30:48

So how many men is that? That's all of them. Not one of a man, or neither under the earth.

30:57

Now that's all of them. That's the ones in hell too, okay? So no man in heaven, in earth, or under the earth was able to open the book, neither to look on it, not even could look at it.

31:11

What does that tell me in you? I'm gonna tell you what it tells me. I don't know what it would tell you, but that tells me that humanism doesn't work.

31:20

Humanism is everywhere, in every seminary, in every university, in all the politics, and everywhere in the world.

31:27

It's where a man thinks that he can bring things in and of himself out of his mind that are new, like Freud thought he could with psychology.

31:36

And everything's based on him now. It's stacked on top of him, and he just made it up.

31:43

It all has to do with your mama. And I can't say everything it has to do with, but it's like almost everything he says it has to do with, you can't say in this congregation.

31:54

I studied it in college. I was pre -med for two years. I took extra psychology. I took abnormal psychology.

32:00

Book was that thick. Made an A +, you know why? Because I liked it. I was interested in it. I wasn't saved yet.

32:06

I was interested in it, and I thought it was how everything worked. Fascinating stuff, until I read this book.

32:13

Humanism, listen, scientists try to do that unless they're born again, like Dr. Ball, but if they're just a lost person doing science, especially when they meddle into the origins, which science will never tell you because the things that are are not made by the things that are.

32:30

They're invisible to these people. They can't even look at it, and they have this whole theory of evolution.

32:36

It's just straight out of the brain of another gentleman. I won't call him a gentleman. Another man,

32:43

Darwin. Came right out of that human brain. Nothing from God, just straight humanism.

32:50

Humanism can never approach or even look at this book. You know what that tells me?

32:56

This book was not written to the world. It's written to you. It's written to us. This is written to God's people.

33:02

This book is written to the elect. There are warnings in it for us to give to the world.

33:08

There are warnings in it for us to share with lost people, but they're not gonna pick this up and see anything in it.

33:16

Always remember that. They're blind. They're humanistic.

33:22

They think everything comes in of their mind, out of their brain. And this passage reminds me that humanism doesn't work at all with regard to knowing anything about origins or how things got created or where they came from or where they go when they die.

33:40

You can't know any of that. Plato said that. Socrates said it. They even knew that those things, only

33:47

God knows those answers. You can't define it with science. You can't define it with history. You can't define it with any intellectual process.

33:55

So no man in heaven, earth or under the earth is able to open that book or even look on it. Look at verse four.

34:01

And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look on it, emphasizes that again.

34:12

And so the Bible is not for the lost world of men. Look at verse five.

34:18

And one of the elders, now that is a man, that's a person that was a pastor on the earth and now he's died and gone to heaven.

34:26

And one of the elders saith unto me, weep not, behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof.

34:40

Who is the lion of Judah and the root of David? That's Jesus Christ, the lamb, pictured as the lamb at the right hand of the throne.

34:49

He is able, he is worthy to grab the book out of that fire. Remember the book is in fire.

34:57

It's not just light, it's heat. And he is able to grab the book out of it and bring it into time and space.

35:04

Isn't that wonderful? That's why he's called the word. He is the word. He provided the word to us in time and space or we would have nothing but humanism.

35:15

Imagine the darkness. You wouldn't know where you came from or why you're even here or where you're going or if you're going anywhere without Jesus.

35:26

So he prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld,

35:31

John says, and lo in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts. By the way, what are those four beasts?

35:38

That's old English. It means creatures, creations. What are they, do you think, if they're in the exact proximity of that Shekinah glory, the closest to it, who are they?

35:50

Cherubim. Yeah, are the cherubim? The ones whose job it is to guard the holiness of God, the

35:56

Father. That's what those are. You don't mess with them either. Man, if you saw one of them, if they walked in, and that wasn't a train, but it was really a horn, and they walked in the room, everyone in here would fall on their faces thinking and try to worship it.

36:14

And he would say, get up, I am as you. I serve the same God you do not worship me, but you'd be scared to death and so would

36:21

I. And this is what we're talking about here, the four beasts. And in the midst of the elders, so now you have these pastors who died and went to heaven who are in the proximity of these beasts, close to God, close to the

36:36

Lamb. And then in the midst of the elders, now I love this, I want you to think about this. In the midst of these deceased preachers, like Dr.

36:44

John MacArthur and Rocky, stood the

36:49

Lamb as it had been slain. So what do we get from that?

36:57

Well, these are preachers at the throne of God next to the cherubim guarding the book.

37:10

Ben and Dave and Matt and Paul of Davis, if he were here, as elders, your job is to protect the truth of this book from the world system, from the humanist, and from liberal theologians.

37:24

In anything they try to change, it's your job to set it back.

37:29

As it ought to be, and mine. And someday we will be there with these other elders.

37:37

And it will still be our job. It's quite a fascinating thing. And then stood the

37:43

Lamb as it had been slain. So Jesus is the final thing we see there leading the worship and receiving the worship.

37:52

And now we kind of see the scene of what we're supposed to set our affections on. Now, the

38:00

Lamb, the last part of verse six says, has seven horns and seven eyes.

38:07

Then it's symbolism. And the way you know it's symbolism is when the Bible comes and says, which are something and it says something else that's literal, then you know it's allegorical or symbolic in this case, not allegorical, but symbolic.

38:21

So this is Jesus, the Lamb is Jesus. He has seven horns. What do you think the horns represent?

38:28

Seven is the number, perfect. He has perfect horns, like a king.

38:34

Also power, like you know how an animal, I raised cows, right, until I went to college.

38:40

You gotta watch the ones that have the horns. The other ones, they can run over you, but the horns can impale you.

38:48

And you don't get them in a corner. The Old Testament language always used the horn of an animal as power.

38:55

So this is talking, speaking of the power of God and Jesus has all of it. Jesus has the perfect, complete power of God and he's this eternal son.

39:06

But he has the complete power of God just as the Father does. And then he has these seven eyes, which picture seven spirits.

39:14

What does the number seven mean? Perfect, it doesn't mean there's seven of them. It means whatever it is is perfect and it's a reference to the

39:21

Holy Spirit. So when you look at the eyes of the Lamb, here you are seated in the heavenlies with Christ, hid in the

39:30

Father from the world and you look into his eyes, you see the Holy Spirit is there. I can look in your eyes and see that.

39:40

It's one reason I like a small church. I wouldn't even know anybody if we even had 200. Wouldn't know anybody much.

39:48

A small handful of servants that may be in the inner circles, you know, doing the management of the church and the teaching,

39:54

I wouldn't know them. It would be hard to know everybody. You wouldn't even know if everybody's saved, would you, in a bigger church.

40:01

So you can see the Holy Spirit in the eyes of a believer that you've been around for a while. You've walked with them for a while.

40:09

And you don't see it perfectly like Jesus can see it, but you can sense it. Now, when you look at Jesus, however, you can see it.

40:16

Now, so Jesus has the Holy Spirit, but let's keep reading.

40:23

And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne, that's the

40:29

Father. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the

40:36

Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which is the prayers of the saints.

40:44

So that's pretty interesting. As our prayers go up, as we pray, they go up to this place that we're looking at right now and they land in what is pictured as little buckets that the elders are holding.

41:03

And they get to heaven in that place. It's symbolism, but it means that your prayers end up right next to the throne of God, the

41:12

Father. Right next to it and right next to the Lamb and in the midst of the elders.

41:20

And so the prayers of the saints are there and they have harps and Brother Matt, that pictures how important the music ministry is, but it kind of starts out showing worship, doesn't it?

41:35

So it shows the posture that we should have when we're in heaven and we are in heaven now.

41:40

Remember, we are seated in him now. The posture that we should have, and it'll help with that stuff

41:46

Ben was talking about, meekness and gentleness and appropriate with people that disagree with us.

41:52

It'll help if we understand that our posture is always one of worship. And if we're worshiping the

41:58

Lord, we're not gonna be brawling with people. It takes care of a lot of those things you were talking about.

42:05

But then also it pictures humility and we're on our faces before God.

42:12

So it gives us the posture, but it also gives us the atmosphere of worship and it's music. Isn't that interesting,

42:18

Matt? It's music. The atmosphere going on while you're worshiping will be loud, glorious music.

42:29

And I'll have to admit on this earth, at First Baptist where I grew up, Brother Russell went there too,

42:35

Charlotte went there. I remember when they'd get up at the end to pray, they'd have that organ playing.

42:42

And I'm thinking, man, if that's me, I couldn't even think. There's no way I could pray with music playing. And it's hard, but in heaven, you'll have the ability to do it.

42:51

You'll have the ability to praise God. In fact, it will accentuate your ability to praise God because of the loud, glorious, beautiful music.

43:01

And they're there experiencing this, John sees it. And then look at verse nine.

43:08

And they sung a new song saying, thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by your blood plus nothing.

43:23

I added the last two words. One of them is Texan. Redeemed us to God by the blood out of every kindred, tongue and people and nation.

43:35

And that's what Paul means every time he says, Jesus died for all men, all kinds of men.

43:41

He died for some men from this kindred, some from that family, some that speak this language.

43:47

He died for some of these people over here and some from that nation over there, but not all of everybody of any of it.

43:55

It's never all individuals that he died for. It's some from every people group.

44:00

And it says it right here. He died, we are saved, we're redeemed, we're bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus.

44:08

Because you think about it, if he redeemed, that means he's set free by paying a price. If he paid that price for every individual, then every individual goes to heaven because the only thing that takes you to heaven is the blood.

44:19

So whoever he died for will be there. That's why Calvin was correct when he said limited atonement.

44:25

He didn't die for every human. He died for the people he knew from the foundation of the world before he made anything were his kids.

44:33

That's who he died for. There's no doubt in my mind about that doctrine. 95 % of Baptists don't believe it anymore, but if you go back to the 1700s and 1800s, 95 % of all

44:44

Baptists believed it. And they were called particular Baptists, which means Jesus died for a particular group of people.

44:52

Isn't it funny how that flip -flopped in the end times when Jesus said there are many false prophets, many false preachers?

44:58

Interesting, isn't it? It totally flip -flopped just since the 1800s. Go read

45:03

Charles Spurgeon. He's known as the Prince of Preachers by almost every denomination. And most denominations, you know, don't believe in the sovereignty of God right now, but they still call him the

45:13

Prince of Preachers. Go read one of his sermons because every sermon has it in there. Every sermon talks about election, just about.

45:20

Every sermon talks about God is in control of everything. And that's how they believed back then, not so now, but some of us still believe that way.

45:29

And that's why we should probably put Spurgeon Baptist Church on the sign. Then nobody would ever visit, but anyway.

45:36

All right, so they sung a new song, thou art worthy to take the book because you died for your people.

45:44

Verse 10, and thou hast made us unto our

45:51

God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. When's that happened?

45:57

Not now, right? Try that now and you'll be persecuted. You don't reign now, when do you reign?

46:07

At the second coming, when we go into the millennial kingdom, we will rule and reign with him for a thousand years.

46:12

And then the Bible teaches there's age unto age. There's endless number of ages after that where we rule and reign with him.

46:18

Now, let me tell you, one of the greatest things you can take from that is when your old flesh comes up and makes you want to sin and you're tempted, seek those things which are above, put your affection on things above, and then it says we're not to put them on the earth.

46:35

So that thing that's tempting you is an earthly thing. Don't love that. Love the fact that you're already a king and a priest and you're being prepared right now sort of as a young king or priest in the family and you're learning the family business of God.

46:52

And when you grow up, you're gonna be doing what Jesus is doing. You will be ruling and reigning with him and that's who you are.

47:00

That's where your affection should be is in preparing for that. Look at the athletes. It's a good example.

47:05

We like tennis, our whole family, because my mom, who won second place at state, by the way, and of course,

47:12

Kenna, should have been first place, but it was raining and they had to play in the gym and it just wasn't her surface, she told me, which

47:18

I believe that. I know she would have won. I wish we could redo history and have that one thing different.

47:24

But anyway, so we all play tennis. Well, now, if you watch Wimbledon or something, if you've ever tried to play, how many of you have tried to hit a ball with a racket?

47:34

You've just tried it, okay. And then you watch them play on that level and here you are down here just trying to get one over, right?

47:42

And on that level and they're hitting it, in some cases, 140 miles per hour and hitting that one back.

47:51

That's the serve, that's not the normal shot. The normal shot's only 90 miles an hour and they're hitting that back with their backhand or they're at the net and they just go, boom, and it wins the point.

48:01

And you go, how do they get to that level? You know how they got to that level? When they were eight years old, they were swinging a little racket.

48:10

That's why a lot of them use a double -handed backhand. They were so weak, they couldn't even swing it with one hand. I've seen one,

48:16

Pancho Gonzalez had a double -handed forehand and backhand because he started playing when he's five. When they were six, they were playing.

48:23

When they were eight, they were playing. When they were 10, they were playing in tournaments. 12, they didn't get to go to the prom.

48:31

They didn't get to go to the parties that the other kids were doing when they were teenagers. They didn't even get to date.

48:38

They played tennis. I've only known one that started when they were 18 and that was

48:45

Stan Smith. Everyone else started when they were five and he wasn't the best in his day, even though they named a racket after him, but he was pretty good.

48:53

You start when you're young in the faith. I'm gonna relate this to Christianity. You start now while you're on this earth and really compared to those who are in heaven, we're babies, aren't we?

49:03

We don't know much of anything. They're still changing our spiritual diapers and they love us, thankfully.

49:11

Because if they didn't love us, they would not do that. That's they, I'm talking about the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. We are like babes and right now is when we should be preparing.

49:21

We should lay aside all that other stuff and just focus on our forehand, our backhand, and our serve and our serve return and get so good at it that when we hit that thousand year millennial kingdom, we know exactly what to do and God can rely on us.

49:34

Now, if you focus on that, you don't need to worry about the flesh because you don't have time for it. So that's the sermon today.

49:42

So let's stand and have prayer together. Lord, we thank you for giving us a glimpse of the heavenlies.

49:53

Thank you for the things that we see there. Lord, help us to focus our attention there more, each of the moments of our days and to prepare like an athlete would because this is far more important than any athletic event on the earth.

50:10

And Lord, we just thank you that you let us be on the team. We don't have to be bench warmers. We can be playing, we're on the field and help us to prepare at each level of our lives here so that when like John MacArthur or Brother Rocky or Otis or whoever we know and love that goes to heaven, that they enter it still not on the bench, but on the playing field.

50:36

And that's what we want for ourselves and our young people here today too. So help us to be prepared and ready and to be focusing on the right thing, seeking those things which are above and putting our affections on things of heaven, not on things of the earth.