When God Speaks — Keith Price

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.

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 are 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 over 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 him. 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 if there's meaning to life. God didn't just dump us down here for 70 years arbitrarily.

He says, well, I might 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 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. Tavernacle. 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. So, there's the B and the V.

So, as a result, it's the tavernacle. Now, that tabernacle in the wilderness, here were all the tribes of Israel in a square all around this central tabernacle. And this was the place where God would dwell.

He told them exactly how to build it with its altar, burnt offering, with its laver, 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 gonna come in the person of the word. The word's gonna be made flesh. He's gonna be enfleshed and skinned.

He's gonna 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 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 gonna 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. You 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?

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 us, 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. I want to know 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 going to do this in three days and you're going to 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 fathers worshiped in this mountain. You say Jerusalem's the place you should go to worship, said the woman at the well in chapter four.

Ha, ha, Jesus said, the time is coming when neither in this mountain nor Jerusalem you 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 got my diary. You want to discuss this more? Okay, how about half past 10?

Or how about tonight or tomorrow, 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 and 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, let me, as I just come to a close here, read you what it says about that lamb.

Listen, 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 here 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, 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.