Throne of Grace

No Compromise Radio

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, Mike Abendroth here. Today is Wednesday, well, in real time, it's

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Saturday. I've just changed my shirt four times. We're just powering through. This is episode five for me today.

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No, four for me today. I think we're going to do five. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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I've been thinking about the fall. Do I go back to some other daily radio shows or whatever? I'm getting stronger, healthier, not quite as tired.

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So we'll see. Some of you have written me and said, you know, could we go back to daily stuff? And maybe we'll go back to daily, but just Wednesday being this video with Mr.

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Escobar. Mario, what's your middle name? Mario. Oh, what's your first name? Juan. Oh, well, there you have it.

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Okay. And what's the story behind that? Your dad - My father's Juan Fernando, my grandfather

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Juan Francisco, and as far as we can remember. Okay, all right. Well, in our family, you as a son receive the middle name from your father.

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So my dad's Lee Henry because his dad was Henry. I'm Michael Lee because my dad was

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Lee. Luke is Luke Michael because his dad's name, Mike, Michael.

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And so anyway, that's the way it works. I wrote a book called

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King, how the sovereignty of God changes everything. And it's on Amazon, FYI, just brand new.

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I want to talk about one of those chapters today. And the premise of the book is simple. If you understand

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God as King, it will help you and inform you and assist you to understand

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God better. Now, of course, you know, Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

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Jesus is prophet, priest and King. But what comes into our mind when we say King, it's harder for us to think biblical thoughts now than back in the

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Bible days. Kings back in the Bible days, both Old Testament and into the new, they were more powerful.

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They had more authority. They had more say. When I say King now, we don't have a

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King. If you say to yourself, well, where is a King? You might think about the King and Queen in Britain, but even they're not the old fashioned

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King that rules with a powerful hand. It's constitutional monarch and checks and balances and parliament and all this other stuff.

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And so I wanted people to understand that if you get King right, you get a lot of things right.

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Worship, a hope for the return of the King and how do the

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King chooses. But today I want to talk about prayer life. Can your prayer life be affected knowing

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God is King? What changes? What makes you think more biblically?

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And so today I just want to talk about God the King. The reason I started this whole King thing in my mind was

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I listened to Bob Godfrey, Robert Godfrey, preach a message in Felton, California at First Baptist Church in Boulder Creek, I think it was called.

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And San Lorenzo, let's see, San Lorenzo Valley. And he preached on God as a

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King. And he said, when's the last time you've been to a throne room? Well, there are no thrones in the continental

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United States. There is a throne room in Hawaii because before they became a state, back in the day they had a

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King. So he said, when I go overseas, I like to go to throne rooms, right?

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In Austria or someplace in Europe where they had a lot of Kings and Queens. So I started doing that as well because I thought

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Godfrey's right. We don't quite get God the King in the Bible like we should.

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So I went on this quest to find different throne rooms and things like that. I'm sure the kids, like the kids would say to me, dad, do we have to see another spot where Martin Luther was today, right?

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In Germany. Yep, we have to go see another one. Dad, we have to go see another throne room, the quest for throne rooms.

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And so today on the show, I want to talk about thrones and Kings and prayer so that you can understand

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God better. And it's from chapter one of my book. Now, I'm not going to do,

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I'm not going to read it, but I will tell you a funny story. We had a speaker here once,

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I'll tell you the name of the guy, Don Whitney, and he was doing the spiritual disciplines thing, which I'm not really on board with anymore.

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Don's a fine man, but I just theologically differ with him on the spiritual discipline stuff.

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And somehow we were supposed to receive a fax with his notes or supposed to be sent.

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And so he got here and he's a very prolific speaker and goes all around the country and the world speaking.

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And he said, well, did you get my notes? No, and so we didn't have the notes. And he said, well, do you have a copy of my book?

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And I said, sure. So I gave him a copy of his book and he goes, I'll just teach from that. So I thought, wow, it's kind of cool.

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So I'm going to pull a Don Whitney on you. Well, I might, you know, love the man and disagree with some spiritual discipline stuff.

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Hey, that was a good thing. So maybe I don't need notes anymore. I just, where's my book? I just teach from the book.

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I should have a copy of the book in front of me to show you. That was sure dumb, but I left it at home.

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There you go. Thrones. Here's our little, here's where we're going today.

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I'm going to talk about throne rooms and then we're going to talk about a throne room in the Bible. So here we go.

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Throne rooms. In the old days, Bible days, you didn't want to go to a throne room because most of the time throne rooms is where the

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King dispensed justice. You go to a throne room for the verdict of the

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King. You go to the throne room because you were in trouble. You go to the throne room because sometimes people would say, you know, there'd be a knife affixed underneath your neck, pointed here with a pointy part here, the sharp end here.

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So you'd have to look at the King in the eyes when he gave you the death sentence. You couldn't hide your face, you know, with shame.

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You see some of the people now, criminals that get caught and, you know, they want to put a coat over their handcuffs and they want to put a coat kind of up over their head because they don't want to be seen.

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Here, you're going to see your judgment face to face. If I did word association with you back in the day and I said throne, you would say judgment every single time.

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They're called judgment halls actually many times. So where's this all going?

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You're going to find out. You got to stick with me to the end of the show because the punchline is at the end. 1

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Kings 7, he made the hall of the throne where he was to judge the hall of judgment.

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And it was paneled with cedar from floor to floor. The King's throne room was called the hall of judgment.

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Did you get that? Esther chapter five. Now it came about on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood at the inner court of the

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King's palace in front of the King's rooms. And the King was sitting on his royal throne room, on his royal throne in the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace.

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So this is the judgment hall. This is the throne room. You can just imagine lots of times they were smaller.

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So all the focus was directed on the King. If it's too big a room, you're gawking around and looking around.

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I was just in Rome and I would go to these big cathedrals and churches and you can go to St. Peter's and you're like this.

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Here are the throne rooms, small chair up there with a place that they would sit for the judgment to be dispensed from.

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If you had a throne, you had power. If you had a throne, you had a throne room.

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And if you had a throne room, you'd have a place to give out justice. First Kings 10.

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Want to hear about Solomon's throne? Wow, this is wonderful. Moreover, the King made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with gold.

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There were six steps to the throne and a round top to the throne at its rear and arms on each side of the seat.

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Listen, and two lions standing besides the arms. 12 lions were standing there and on the six steps on the one side and on the other, nothing like it was made for any other kingdom.

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Gold, ivory, lions, judgment, throne room. Oh, that's a cool throne.

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But there's another throne that's wilder. Ezekiel 1. Now above the expanse that was over their heads, there was something resembling a throne like lapis lazuli in appearance.

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And on that, which resembled a throne high up was a figure with the appearance of a man.

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How about Isaiah 6? In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted with the train of his robe filling the temple.

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Can you imagine the throne room, the judgment of God? You have rebuked the nations, the

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Bible says. You have destroyed the wicked. You've blotted out their name forever and ever. The enemy has come to an end in perpetual ruins and you have uprooted the cities.

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The very memory of them has perished, but the Lord abides forever. He has established his throne for judgment and he will judge the world in righteousness.

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He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity. Psalm 9, thrones, judgment,

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King. Daniel 7. I kept looking up until thrones were set up.

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And the ancient of days took a seat. His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head was like pure wool.

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His throne was ablaze with fire. Its wheels were burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him.

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Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads of myriads were standing before him. The court sat and the books were opened.

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Daniel 7. To judge the picture of these thrones. Human thrones, scary divine thrones, wow.

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Psalm 11. The Lord is in his holy temple and the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his eyelids test the sons of men.

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The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked. The one who loves violence, his soul hates. Upon the wicked, he will rain snares, fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

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Thrones, judgment, execution on earth and heaven.

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Revelation 4. And before the throne was something like the sea of glass, like crystal and in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in the front and behind.

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And they do not cease to say day and night, holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord God almighty who was and who is and who is to come. Holy, awesome, judgment, righteousness, thrones, halls.

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Justice. What's the point?

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Here's the point. Your favorite verse may be your favorite verse.

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Therefore, Hebrews 4 .16. Let us draw near with confidence to the throne.

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What? Let us draw near everything I've just read. Run, you don't wanna be there.

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Justice, judgment, hall of judgment, throne, lions, get away. Payback, works of justice.

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And now in Hebrews 4, it says, draw near with confidence to the throne. How? How can a person who's sinful go with confidence to the throne room of God?

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Walk right in, saunter right in. How does that all work? I mean, this door right here is an illustration

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I use quite often. I usually, when I'm in here, I leave the doors unlocked. And for the longest time, people just walk right in.

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They wouldn't even knock. And I would say to this particular gentleman, oh, I thought maybe you were my wife or children.

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Because only my wife and children should be able to walk in here without knocking. I mean, I don't know, what if I'm pecking my nose or who knows what

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I'm doing? You just don't walk into my office, you knock. That's what you do, you knock. But if you're my child, you just walk right in.

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You don't, you just come in. You can be loud, whatever. What's happening in Hebrews?

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The Hebrews who know about the Old Testament, the Hebrews who know about kings, the Hebrews who know about thrones and justice and all that other stuff, they know about thrones.

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And they are told by this writer, listen, you don't saunter into the judgment throne.

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You don't saunter into the throne room of God. Unless you have a mediator.

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Unless in Hebrews, you have a high priest. Unless you're a child of the King, then you get to walk right in.

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And guess what? We are sons and daughters of the great King because of the work of the triune

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God. The Father's work in redemption, the Son's work in redemption, the Spirit's work of redemption. And guess what?

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The throne of judgment for you is no longer a throne of judgment. Let me finish the verse. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence.

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You can go into God's presence anytime you want. To the throne of, and every

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Jew would say, every reader of the book of Hebrews would say, you might say, if you're theologically educated with thrones of judgment in the

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Old Testament and in the Middle East and Near East culture, let us draw near to the throne of, and you would automatically say, justice.

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But here we know it's different. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.

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Guess what's dispensed at a throne of justice? Justice. Guess what's dispensed at the throne of judgment?

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Judgment. Guess what's dispensed from the throne of grace? Grace. All grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Instead of getting forced to go to the judgment hall to be judged for sins that you've committed and I've committed, now we're beckoned, hey, go.

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You should wanna go to the throne room of God. You should wanna go to God in prayer.

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You should wanna boldly approach Him, not on your own merits, of course, but on Christ's merits, Christ's righteousness.

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You should wanna go anytime. What kind of parent says to their children, now, by the way, when you're in trouble, don't bother me.

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I guess there are probably some out there, but good dads and moms, even sin -tainted moms and dads, even unbelievers, they would say to their children, listen, if you're ever in a bind, you can call me.

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You can be five years old, you can be 15, you can be 25. I'm there for you.

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I would tell my children, if you get in a car accident, if you get in a car accident because you're drunk or high or something, then it's a little different.

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But if you're in a car accident, you just call me. I'm not gonna be mad. I wanna make sure you're safe.

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I'm gonna come and get you. I don't want you to be afraid to call dad. And I think for years, they probably were afraid to call dad because I probably was pretty jerky.

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But I said, listen, no, no, it's not about the car. It's about you. When you need help, you call me.

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And to this very day, if I get a phone call and it says, Grace, Maddie, one of my other kids' names,

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Haley or Luke. I was thinking about putting Kim in there or Kim. I answer the phone because maybe they need help.

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And I can usually tell by their voices, if they're just calling to check in and say, hi,

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I love you, or if they're calling for help. But if I'm a dad tainted by sin, and I'm like, you come to me anytime you want, any day, any time of day,

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I'm here for you. I wanna help you. I love you. How much more, right?

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Three of preacher's favorite words, how much more is God favorable to his sons and daughters, those trusting in Christ Jesus, believing in Jesus.

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And so he says, do you know what? Come with confidence, come to me. You need help?

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Come to the throne room. You need mercy? Come to the throne room. You need grace? Come to the throne room because it's no longer a throne of judgment.

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Judgment happened at Calvary. By the way, Christian, no more judgment for you. Anybody that's telling you there's judgment at the end, your deeds are gonna be judged, and you're gonna be judged, and you have enough deeds at the end.

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They're all teaching falsely. Judgment happened at Calvary. Jesus said it is finished.

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And now that there's been judgment for all your sins, even your future sins, go to God. Go to him anytime you want.

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Let me read the two verses before this. Since we have a great high priest who's passed through the heavens,

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Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

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Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of not justice, not judgment, not wrath, but of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Do you need mercy? Do you need grace? Do you need help?

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Of course. And by the way, you go to God, and you don't have to have any formula to approach.

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You don't have to have any, know any Latin. You don't need any smoke or anything else.

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You can just go to him and say, father. Isn't that the way Jesus taught us to pray? Our father who art in heaven.

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When I was in the hospital thinking I was gonna die of COVID, not good oxygen, saturation, probably couldn't think that well, plus super sick.

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Sometimes the only thing I could do is just say help. I would just sit there and cry and say, help.

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I just need help. I didn't have to go through all kinds of, you know, it's fine to pray the

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ACTS acronym, adoration, confession, Thanksgiving, supplication. I'm just a sick child.

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Almost said a sick puppy. I'm a sick child. I'm skipping adoration, confession,

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Thanksgiving. Are those good to do? Yes. But right now I just need help. I need to go to the throne of grace and I need to receive mercy and grace and help in time of need.

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I need help. And so because of the Lord Jesus, that throne of judgment is no longer a throne of judgment.

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The throne of judgment happened to Jesus when the father judged the son. And now we're free.

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No condemnation, no judgment, no payback for any of the sins that we've done.

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Forgiven, I mean, you think about the words for forgiveness. Sometimes it's the word for grace. We've been graced.

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That's Ephesians four. Sometimes it's forgiveness in Ephesians one. To take away, just to take away.

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It's like the scapegoat, right? Some sins are just gone and then other sins have to be punished with a sacrifice.

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And so we have grace from the throne room, no longer judgment.

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Now I started with 16 and backed up because 16 said, therefore.

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But I skipped a word in verse 14 that talks about we've got a great high priest.

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And that first word was therefore. So now I'm doing not sequential exposition forward motion.

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I'm going backwards. Therefore in verse 14 leads me to verse 12 and 13.

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For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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That's what the word can do. And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

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I call those two verses, the two scariest verses in the Bible. God knows every sin.

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He knows everything you've ever done. He knows all the skeletons in your closet. He knows everything with thought, word and deed, sins of omission and commission.

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He knows it all. There's no creature hidden from his sight. All things are open and laid bare. Here's what the word laid bare is.

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Neck exposed. It's where we get the word for trach. How do you kill a sacrifice in those days?

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Right here, carotid and jugular. And it's like we're before God as unbelievers, as sinners, neck laid wide open, ready for the judgment of God.

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I mean, after all we've sinned, he judges our intentions, our thoughts. He knows what's in our heart and we have to stand before God.

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And here's the throne room of justice, bared neck. Therefore it says though, at the next verse, we've got a great high priest.

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He's passed through the heavens. So let us hold fast our confession. He's truly God. He's truly man.

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He's paid for it all. Jesus was the one executed, not us.

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Jesus was the one that bore the penalty, not us. Jesus was the one who for our sins paid the penalty.

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So the writer, Paul or whoever it is, he wants you to know, yes, sin is real and true.

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And we committed it. Yes, we should go to the throne of judgment, but you get to go through the throne of grace.

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I think that's pretty good news. Laid bare, the

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Greek word trachelos, where we translate neck. I guess

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I should quote from my own book. If you think of tracheotomy, the cutting of the hole in the neck is to allow oxygen to flow to a person with a restricted airway.

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Could it be that God wanted his readers to understand that before the omniscient King, people have their necks exposed much like an animal about to be sacrificed.

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With head pushed away to fully reveal the jugular vein and the carotid artery for a quick kill.

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Homer Kent, the commentator said, whether the metaphorical use here is based upon the act of victorious wrestler grasping his opponent's throat to render him helpless, choking him or derives from the exposing of the sacrificial victim's throat just before the knife is thrust, it's not certain.

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But either one's bad, either one's bad. What is certain is this, we do not want to be in such close contact with the

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Holy King. God's spotlight is to be avoided by sinful man, not relished.

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Hordes of people today want to bask in the presence of God when they should run from such an unnerving nightmare.

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It's amazing what AI can write for you. Actually, Mario, it says now when you upload a book to Amazon, it was any of this

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AI. I don't have AI write my books, but if I've got a sentence that I think it might sound weird, it's just like typing into Grammarly or whatever.

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Is this grammar right? Is that okay to do? Okay, good. It's like spellcheck. It's like spellcheck, that's exactly right.

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Jesus in Hebrews 2, merciful and faithful high priest. That's why we have a throne of grace, it's what the

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Lord did. Chapter three, verse one of Hebrews, apostle and high priest of our confession.

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Jesus here in Hebrews, the mediator, what does he do? He allows a condemned sinner to confidently stand before the throne of God, because that sinner is now a saint.

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That sinner now is simultaneously sinful and righteous. That sinner is justified, sanctified, will be glorified, and you get to have confidence.

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Now, let's just make this super practical because Mario's here and he raises his hand. Can you make this practical, pastor?

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I don't want you to sin. I don't want you to transgress. I don't want you to be lawless, but I want you to know when you are, you can still pray and you can still approach

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God. And you can still say, even in prayer, I'm sorry, I repent.

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There's no hoops to jump through. This is you have access. If I have children and I do, and they disobey me, can they still come up and sit on my lap and we can talk?

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Of course, the answer is yes. So sin in my life tends to make me not wanna pray.

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And I just want you to know, I don't want you to sin, but you're still accepted. I mean, what's worse, sinning and not praying or sinning and praying?

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I'm not asking you to sin. I don't want you to, but I'm a realist and I realize you do. So I'm just saying your heavenly father accepts you to the merits of the son.

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It says we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. When I meet people in this very room in council, sometimes they admit sins and I'm like,

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I didn't need to know that, number one. Number two, my heart sometimes says, my inner man says, what were you thinking?

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How stupid are you? I would never do that. And I don't say any of those things out loud, but I want you to know there's a sympathetic high priest that doesn't think the way

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I wrongfully think sometimes. Here's the word a sympathetic high priest says when you come to him with temptation failures and with sin and with weaknesses.

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Here's what the sympathetic high priest says. I know, I understand, I still love you.

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I mean, what kind of God is that? Who would do that? It's the merciful and faithful high priest.

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He understands, he's sympathizing with our weaknesses, because Jesus, truly human, truly human.

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Yes, the God man, truly God, truly man. Yes, I understand that, but he understands. That's part of the wonder of the incarnation that he would know.

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It's one thing, I mean, when people in the old days would call me and say, I have cancer. I was pretty kind, but could there be real sympathy?

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Empathy maybe, but sympathy to have empathy with because I've been in that situation and Jesus has been tempted in every way, yet he's sinless.

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And so he understands temptation. He is the high priest. What do priests do? Priest, they offer sacrifices and they pray.

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And Jesus prays for you even now and has offered the sacrifice. So dear Christian, if you think about kings of the

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Bible and you think about thrones in the Bible and you think about judgment in the

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Bible, you're thinking rightly, but Jesus steps in and what

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Jesus accomplished, both in his obedience, passive and active, he has earned for you the right to approach

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God anytime. And now that throne of judgment, dear Christian, is gone. And for you, forever, it's a throne of grace.