to say tonight, and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Now this chapter starts out by saying,
the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and they that dwell therein,
for He had founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods.
Now, if you would keep your finger in Psalm 24 and flip to Revelation all the way at the end of your Bible,
look at Revelation chapter 4.
You see, the Bible says that this world belongs to God,
and not only that, but all the people in this world belong to God,
because He's the one who created them,
He's the one who made every single human being that's alive,
and look what it says in Revelation chapter 4,
in, let's start reading in verse number 10, it says,
The four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne,
and worship Him that liveth forever and ever,
and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power,
for Thou hast created all things, and then watch this last statement,
and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.
So the Bible is clear here, and this is a great chapter in Revelation 4, just praising God,
and just when you understand the fact that according to Revelation chapter 4,
as well as other places in the Bible like Isaiah 6, for example,
these four beasts that surround God's throne,
one of them in the likeness of a lion, one in the likeness of an eagle,
one in the likeness of a calf, and the other with a face like a man,
these four beasts that surround the throne,
the Bible says that they rest not day or night,
saying with a loud voice,
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which is and which was and is to come.
Holy, holy, holy, I mean day and night,
in Isaiah 6 they were doing it, in Revelation 4 they were doing it,
God is glorified at all times,
God's house is filled with his glory up in heaven,
the tabernacle in heaven as the Bible calls it,
he's surrounded by a multitude of angels throughout Revelation,
singing his praises, glorifying his name,
and yet sometimes we can have so little respect for God.
We ought to see Isaiah like Isaiah did in chapter 6 where he said,
I saw the Lord high and lifted up,
and his train filled the temple,
that train is a procession,
you think of a train that pulls cars with goods from China,
across America you see it all the time,
these freight trains, it's a procession,
the Bible is obviously speaking before the freight train was invented,
it's talking about a procession of multitudes of angels,
numbering 10,000 times 10,000,
and thousands of thousands, that's over 100 million,
God's glory fills his house,
God's glory is spoken of throughout the Bible,
the whole world is full of his glory,
he's the king of glory,
and every single thing that was made in heaven,
in earth, under the earth,
is made and was made for his pleasure,
that's why you exist,
to bring glory and pleasure to God,
that's why everybody exists,
that's why the whole world exists,
it's all about God,
it's not about you, it's not about me,
it's not about your job,
it's not about your music,
it's not about movies,
it's not about sports,
it's about God,
and there's nothing else that matters in this world,
nothing,
long after everything has crumbled to dust,
and everything is consumed with a vehement heat,
long after the world and heaven and earth have passed away,
God will be sitting upon his throne,
and all flesh will be gathered before him at that time,
at the great white throne of judgment,
and so we have to understand that
you exist only to bring pleasure and glory to God,
according to the Bible,
look at Romans chapter number 12,
really famous verse,
it's about halfway through the New Testament,
Romans chapter 12,
the sixth book of the New Testament,
Romans chapter 12 says this in verse 1,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
look at the next word, holy,
that's what God demands, holiness,
he said, be ye holy, for I am holy,
it says this,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service,
because God has created you,
because you were created for his pleasure,
according to the Bible.
It says in verse 2,
and be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
You know what it means to be a conformist?
You know what it means to conform?
It means to pattern yourself after those around you.
The word form basically means shape,
and I always think of a pattern,
when my wife is sewing,
she gets a pattern, she cuts it out,
and then she cuts out the fabric according to that pattern.
Don't be patterned after this world.
Don't pattern yourself after the people around you.
Pattern yourself after God's word.
Pattern yourself after the standard
that Jesus Christ set
when he walked on the face of this earth.
Not after a preacher or a man or anybody.
Don't be conformed to this world.
Don't conform to Hollywood and Madison Avenue
and what the TV and the world
wants to brainwash you
and the school system,
the public school system,
which is basically just a conformance center,
just to bring you in conformity
with the political views of the system,
to bring you into conformity with their religious views,
which is, yes, it's a religious view,
it's the God,
it's the religion of atheism,
of humanism,
evolution.
Evolution is a religion.
You have to believe in it.
Have you ever seen it?
We walk by faith and not by sight
and so does the evolutionist.
He walks by faith, not by sight.
He's never seen evolution.
He has faith in evolution.
He believes on evolution
as his explanation for where we came from.
I believe on Genesis 1-1.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
That's my faith.
That's my religion.
That's what I believe.
He has a religion
and he wants to bring your children
into conformity with his religion.
Obama and his cabinet,
and whether it was Bush or Ronald Reagan
or whoever it was,
is not the issue.
That man and his cabinet,
he has a person that's called,
I don't know what he's called,
but there's the Department of Education
and somebody's in charge of it.
I'll just call it the Minister of Education.
I don't know what it's called.
I'm not an expert on the cabinet.
Can somebody help me out?
The czar.
Thank you.
I forgot.
Safe school czar?
It's safe school czar.
There we go.
I guess we're back to feudalism in Russia.
So we have a czar.
The school czar.
Or whatever.
I'll just call it the Minister of Education.
The Minister of Education.
That man or that woman or whatever it is,
that homosexual or whoever it is,
wants to bring your child into conformity
with his religion.
With his belief system.
And we're not to be conformed to this world.
We're to be transformed by the renewing of our mind
which comes with the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
It's not found in a school.
It's not found in a university.
It's found in a church.
It's found in a book.
The Holy Bible.
That's where it's found.
And so we don't want to be patterned after the world.
Instead of that we'd rather offer ourselves to God
and say, God, make me into the person that you want me to be.
I don't want to be conformed to this world.
I'm the clay.
You're the potter.
And I want you to form and fashion me
into the person that you want me to be, God.
I don't want the safe schools are to form and fashion
my child's mind or my mind.
I'd rather have the Holy Spirit renew their mind.
And that's the truth tonight.
Turn back if you would to Psalm 24.
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
The world and they that dwell therein.
We belong to God.
Our actions should glorify God.
That is why we're on this earth.
That is the only reason why we're on this earth.
It says in verse number 2,
For he hath founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart,
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
nor sworn deceitfully,
he shall receive the blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
You see, there's a two-fold application here.
You could look at this and say,
well, in order to literally stand in the holy place,
and we're talking about not the holy place made with hands
that was on this earth in the tabernacle,
which was just a pattern of that which was in heaven.
But if we were to take this literally at face value and say,
okay, how are we going to stand in the holy place?
How will we stand in the hill of the Lord?
Well, in order to do that,
you would have to have completely clean hands
and a totally pure heart.
Of course, in the book of Job,
it talks about the fact that nobody can really say
that they've cleansed their hands
and purified their heart from sin.
Nobody's perfect.
Nobody has completely clean hands and a pure heart.
That's why in order to be saved,
you have to believe on Jesus Christ.
Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith.
The righteousness of Christ has to be imputed unto us
in order for us to have an entrance into heaven
because none of us is good enough.
We don't measure up to any kind of a standard of righteousness.
Like, for example, when a guy came up to Jesus,
and he believed that he had to work his way to heaven.
The rich, young ruler.
And basically he said,
well, you know, if I keep the commandments,
and he listed off several commandments,
and Jesus said, you're right.
He said, this do and thou shalt live.
But the problem is, you can't do it.
And that's why he said, well, you know, if you'll be perfect,
not only will you keep those commandments that you just listed,
but you'll also sell everything you have
and give it to the poor and take up your cross and follow me
if you want to be perfect.
And of course, he wasn't willing to do it.
But the point is that in order to go to heaven,
you have to be pure.
You've got to be clean.
And none of us is clean.
None of us is pure.
It's only going to be through Christ
that our sins can be washed away by the blood of Christ
and that the righteousness of Jesus Christ
will be imputed unto us.
That's why it says in verse number 5,
he shall receive the blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Not our own righteousness,
but the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed unto us,
Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 5,
and elsewhere in the Bible.
2 Corinthians 5 says this,
for he who knew no sin became sin for us
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
But also, just from looking at this,
we can just look at these literal commandments,
OK, in verse 4, where God is telling us
that we ought to have clean hands.
Now, none of our hands is completely clean tonight,
but we ought to have clean hands.
We ought to have a pure heart.
None of us have a completely pure heart.
We ought not lift up our soul unto vanity
or swear deceitfully.
What does it mean to lift up your soul unto vanity?
Well, look at chapter 25, verse 1,
because, you know, the answers are found in the Bible,
in the context where you see it says,
unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul,
O my God, I trust in thee,
let me not be ashamed,
let not mine enemies triumph over me.
So when he says lifting up our soul unto vanity,
contrast that with lifting up your soul unto the Lord,
which means what?
Trusting in the Lord, he said,
because he said unto thee, O Lord,
do I lift up my soul, O my God,
I trust in thee, OK?
Basically, lifting up our soul to vanity,
the Bible says in many places
that the idols of the heathen are vanity.
It's talking about a false god,
a god that can't save you, OK?
And so basically when he says lifting up your soul unto vanity,
this could be praying to a god that can't save you.
This could be praying to some idol,
praying to a false god or trusting in a false religion,
trusting in something vain.
You can just look up the word vain or vanity
and you'll see how many times vain and vanity
are applied to the gods of the heathen,
the false gods, the false religion, the idolatry.
And so the Bible teaches very clearly that idols,
they're vain, they can't save you, OK?
And yet people trust in them
even though they are the work of their own hands,
that they have formed and fashioned themselves,
which is the opposite of the truth
because God formed us,
but man wants to form his own god.
Everything is backwards with false religion.
Everything is twisted and perverse
with Satan and his way.
For example, in order to be saved,
the Bible says the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We preached last Wednesday night,
you know, if thou knewest the gift of God
and who it was that saideth he give me to drink,
thou wouldest ask him and he would give thee living water.
But yet today's religion is the opposite.
It's give your life to Christ.
You know, when in reality the Bible is like
he gave his life for you.
The gift of God is eternal life.
He's giving you the gift.
But then today's religion will twist this around
and try to say, no, you give your life to Christ.
So now it's like the gift of Stephen Anderson
is my life to God.
Instead of saying, well, no, the gift of God is eternal life.
I don't have anything to offer.
You know, this isn't some kind of a bargain
where, OK, God, give me eternal life,
give me a home in heaven,
and I'll give you my wonderful life
and all my talents and abilities
and my personality.
No, I don't have anything to offer.
Like the song says, Jesus paid it all.
Great song, Lord, nothing good have I
whereby thy grace to claim.
I'll wash my garments white
in the blood of Calvary slain.
Jesus paid it all.
And so I don't have anything to give to God.
And so it's just the opposite again.
God created us, but yet man wants to create God.
Whether it's with his hands
when he forms and fashions an idol
or whether it's in his mind when he says,
well, I just don't believe in a God
that would do this, this, and this in the Bible.
You know, my God is always loving all the time
and he's always positive.
That's what my God is.
Your God is a figment of your own imagination.
You might as well carve it in wood or stone
and he can't save you.
It's not the real God of the Bible.
You can make up your own idea of who God is,
but if it's not the God of the Bible,
it's just not God.
And so people have made up their own God.
And the Bible talks about a God that can't save.
And so many times we knock the door of somebody
who is a devout member of their church,
whatever the church may be,
and you say, do you know for sure
if you die today you go to heaven?
And they don't know.
It's like, why are you going to a religion
that can't save you?
Why would you believe in a Christianity that can't save?
You don't even know if you're saved.
What good is it?
What does a man profit if he gains the whole world
and loses his own soul?
So what is the point of going to church?
You don't even know if you're saved.
What's the point?
What good is it?
It's worthless.
And so the Bible says here about, you know,
ascending into the hill of the Lord,
standing in the holy place.
You're going to have to receive righteousness
from the God of your salvation, okay?
Now, nobody's perfect.
It's going to have to be through the blood of Christ.
But look if you would at James chapter 4.
If the Bible is admonishing us to have clean hands
and a pure heart, let's look at a passage here
that's spoken to believers.
Of course, the book of James is written to believers.
He talks about the fact, he says, my brethren.
He keeps referring over and over in the book.
He's writing to Christians, he's writing to believers
and teaching them about how to live their life.
And in James chapter 4, he says in verse number,
let's see here, verse number 4, he says,
ye adulterers and adulteresses.
Know ye not that the friendship of the world
is enmity with God?
Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world
is the enemy of God.
Do you think that the scripture saith in vain,
the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
But he giveth more grace.
Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud,
but giveth grace unto the humble.
Submit yourselves, therefore, to God,
resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners,
and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.
So again, the purity of heart and cleanness of hands
is mentioned.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning
and your joy to heaviness.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord,
and he shall lift you up.
Speak not evil, one of another brethren,
he that speaketh evil of his brother and judged his brother.
Do you see how he's speaking to the brethren?
He's speaking to people that are saved
in the past.
Just want to give you the context there.
And so here it is.
If you want to draw nigh to God,
if you want to get close to God,
because we looked at the first example of,
you know, you're not even going to be in that heavenly kingdom
unless you're saved through Christ,
have his rights disputed unto you.
But what if you just want to walk with God on this earth?
What if you just want to be close to God?
What if you want to draw nigh to God?
And in order to draw nigh to God,
he tells us how.
He says, cleanse your hands and purify your heart.
You know, the Bible says,
blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
And today, as Christians,
if we want to say I will walk with God,
it's not because we sang songs
that made us feel really close to God.
You know, a lot of people today,
Christian music has become a substitute for a real walk with God,
with a real righteousness in their life.
And many people who do not do anything for God,
they'll never give anybody the gospel.
They'll never do anything for God.
I mean, they don't read their Bible.
They pray very little, if at all.
Their life is filled with sins against God.
It's just the way that they live.
And yet, they feel very close to God
because in that CD player, they've got that worship,
you know, praise or, you know,
and that music makes them feel really close to God.
But yet, they didn't read their Bible
when they listened to that CD.
They weren't giving anybody the gospel.
They didn't pray.
They listened to a CD.
They did not follow God's commandments.
They did not change anything about their life.
They did not serve God or attend church
or bring people to church or do anything.
They did nothing.
And yet they walk away,
oh, I feel so close to God.
And it's like a substitute,
like a surrogate Christianity.
You know, like TV, that's how TV is.
You know, you sit down and watch TV
and you feel like you've done something.
You ever, you know, I haven't watched TV
in a really, really long time, like many years.
I think it's been about seven or eight years
since I've watched TV or any movies or anything.
But let's say back when I did watch movies,
I remember this feeling.
You'd go to a movie, a matinee,
at like 10 or 11 in the morning, right?
And you go in there and the movie's really intense
and, you know, maybe there's a fight scene.
You know, you're feeling the stress.
You know what I mean?
Like whatever the plot is
and the main character's in trouble
and you just, you're feeling the stress,
like, oh, is he gonna make it, you know?
And you've got literally sometimes adrenaline
flowing through your body.
I mean, does anybody know what I'm talking about?
It's true.
Or maybe you're watching sports and it's, you know,
oh, you know, you're just, you're so into it.
And even physically you're into it.
I mean, like sweat's coming out of your face.
You know, you're so into it.
And you literally walk out of there at 11 o'clock,
1 o'clock, you're tired.
You're worn out.
I mean, you're drained
just from going through that experience of that movie.
And you walk out on the line and you're like, oh, you know.
But you know what?
You haven't done anything.
You know, that's why so many people today
are just so unf, they're out of shape.
You know what I mean?
They're not in shape.
They're overweight or whatever, weak.
They're just weaklings, you know?
Don't be a weakling, right?
If you're a man, if you're a woman,
you know, you're the weaker vessel.
But if you're a man, you know, don't be a wimp.
Don't be a weakling.
But yet so many times we feel, you know,
and we're eating all this food, you know, in front of that TV.
And we feel like we've done all this activity.
And even the adrenaline going through our body
and the endorphins being released
similar to the kind of chemical processes
that would be going on if you were playing basketball
or if you were running from the law, you know,
jumping out of an exploding building or, you know, whatever.
Do it in real life.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm just saying, you know, you feel like you've done something,
but you've done nothing.
You watch that football game and you feel like, you know,
we won, but you've done nothing.
It's the same thing with a lot of this touchy-feely
Christian contemporary music.
It gives you the feeling of a closeness with God.
But did you cleanse your hand?
Did you purify your heart?
Did you purify your DVD case?
Did you purify your thoughts?
Did you purify the magazine rack?
Did you purify the music library?
Did you win somebody to Christ?
Did you open your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of God?
You did nothing.
You thought you did something.
You felt like you did something.
You felt, oh, I feel so close to God.
You know?
And, oh, I went to church.
And, oh, I love my church because it's
such a spiritual experience.
OK, what did you learn today at your church?
You know, God loves me.
Did you already know that?
Yeah, actually, I've known that for years.
Well, what did you learn today?
Well, that I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself.
Did you already know that before?
Yeah, actually, I've known that for about 20-some years now.
OK, so then that means you didn't learn it this Sunday.
You know what I mean?
Does anybody understand what I'm saying?
Like, oh, what did you learn?
Jesus died on the cross.
Did you just learn that?
You know, I mean, why go to church week after week
and learn nothing?
OK, so what are you going to change about your life
as a result of that service that you went to?
What are you going to change?
What are you going to do different?
Nothing.
But, boy, did that service bring you close to God.
You know what I mean?
And that's what we think.
But in reality, there's a way to draw an eye to God.
And it's not just a feeling, and it's not music.
It's by cleansing your hands and purifying your heart.
You know when you're the closest to God?
He said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
You see, you're the closest to God
when you're in the yoke with Jesus side by side,
doing the work.
You know, when you're working with Jesus.
When you're in the yoke with Jesus.
You see, the yoke is not something
that you put on for fun.
You know, hey, let's just get in the yoke for a while
and watch TV.
And Brother Dave's getting more in my house.
We're going to harness ourselves into a yoke,
and we're going to sit on the couch and watch the game.
Yeah!
You know, here, put some popcorn in my mouth.
Hey, you put on the yoke to do some work.
You yoke up oxen to pull a cart, to pull a plow,
to plow a field to do work.
That's what a yoke is.
It's to yoke two people together to do work.
That's what a yoke is, okay?
And so when you put on the yoke,
and you know, remember Elisha was plowing with the oxen?
He got in the yoke.
He had an odd number, so he took the other spot.
Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
Have you read the Bible?
And so he's plowing with the 12th, okay?
And so the yoke is how you're going to get to know God,
and so we go back to Psalm 24.
We just don't get this idea that being close to God
and being caught up in the heavenly of heavenlies
is just a feeling or an experience or music.
It's a very tangible thing.
If we walk in the light as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
You know, when we're walking in darkness,
we have no fellowship with God.
Now, we can walk in the darkness
with praise and worship on our iPod,
and guess what?
We still don't have fellowship with God,
unless we're walking in the light as He is in the light,
unless we're walking in His commandments,
unless we're doing the works,
unless we're doing the works that He did.
So let's look at this again.
It says...
Let's start at the beginning quickly, Psalm 24.
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and they that dwell therein.
For He hath founded upon the seas
and established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord,
or who shall stand in His holy place?
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart,
who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
nor sworn deceitfully,
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of His salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek Him,
that seek Thy face, O Jacob, Selah.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors,
and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors,
and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts.
He is the King of glory, Selah.
Now that's just...
Basically this whole psalm is really just praising God.
Hey, God created you.
He created this whole world.
Everything is for His glory.
He's the King of glory.
He is the great King of kings and Lord of lords.
Look, if you would, at Revelation 19.
While you're turning there,
I'm going to read you from Psalm 2.
The Bible talks about the Lord being mighty in battle,
strong and mighty.
God is not just basically this big lovable,
you know, fuzzball or something.
And that's what people think of God
like He's a spiritual Santa Claus.
Like He's just always just...
It's all just sweetness in life.
And that's what Hallmark will teach you, you know.
And there's nothing wrong with the image
of Jesus as being, you know, the shepherd,
the good shepherd.
He gives His life for the sheep.
That's all part of who God is.
And I'll not deny that for one second.
That's the truth.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He restored my soul. Amen and amen.
But if that's all you think of God,
you have an imbalanced view of God.
You're off balance.
You're mixed up when you think that that's just all God is.
He's just all love.
He's just all gentleness.
No, because God is also a God of vengeance.
Have you ever read the scripture?
Vengeance belongeth unto me, sayeth the Lord,
I will repay.
God's a God of wrath.
He's a God of judgment.
He's a God of holiness.
And so we don't want to just be all wrath and vengeance
and just every time you come to church it's just,
God is mad!
You know?
And I mean, but He is mad.
But you don't want to come to church and every time it's just,
oh, He loves you.
He loves you.
You know, you need the balance, the whole thing.
I mean, how would you like it if somebody portrayed you
in an off-balance way?
Now, I know what this is like,
because I've had people portray me in a very off-balance way.
You know, if you were to just go by CNN alone,
you'd think that I just eat, breathe, and sleep hatred
for breakfast, you know, and lunch and dinner,
and that I just am just angry and wrathful
and that I just am nothing but just enraged 24 hours a day.
You know, my eyes are just burning with hate, you know,
and I just, no love, I'm never happy, never positive,
and every time you come to church
you're just getting a brow beating,
you're getting screamed at, you know, and that's not true,
because there's a lot of other aspects to who I am.
That's a small part of who I am when I'm preaching on,
you know, some harsh subject from the Bible.
From the Bible, okay?
Or when I'm, you know, angry about something.
I mean, there are times when I'm angry.
That's a part of who I am, a small part of who I am.
But those who know me well,
or maybe those who've been on one of my work trips with me, right,
where you're with me like 24 hours a day,
who's been on one of those trips with me
where you're just with me 24 hours a day?
You know, was I just the whole time just mad?
Oh, you know, I hate, you know, Obama and his, you know,
and, you know, the Catholics, and, you know, I'm just,
I'm sure I'm just, just, ahh!
You know, obviously, you know, I'm smiling, I'm joy,
I'm a lot more of a joyful person, right,
than an angry person.
I'm a lot more smiling and happy and having a good time.
Okay, so you see how you can just take one aspect of somebody
and just mischaracterize them?
Or what if you just said,
What are you casting on?
I said, I'm a father.
That's all I am.
Now, I am a father,
and it's important to me that I'm a father,
and my children are very important to me,
but are they the only thing that matter to me?
No.
I'm also a pastor.
That's important to me, too.
But am I just a pastor?
No, I'm also a husband.
I'm also a father.
I'm also a businessman.
You know, these are the aspects of who I am.
These are the facets of my personality,
and it's the same thing with God,
and in fact, God is a much more complex person than I am,
and yet I have many different facets.
I have a business facet,
and people have seen me go into extremes.
Like, they'll see one minute I'm just all business.
I got two phones up to my ear.
I'm typing.
I'm all business.
And then another time, I'm just reading the Bible,
memorizing the Bible.
Another time, I'm just playing with the kids.
Another time, I'm just with my wife.
Another time, I'm just with the church,
fellowshipping, and the other time, I'm preaching.
I mean, I have all these different aspects of who I am,
and yet God is far more complex than I am.
He has far more much, much more personality than I do,
and yet I want to put God into this one box of who He is
and just, He's love, and that's all.
That's not all of who God is,
and if that's all, then why didn't God
just instead have given us the Bible?
Why didn't He just give us an index card?
God is love.
You know what I mean?
He could have just put on an index card.
Just carry it in your pocket, memorize it, learn it,
show it to people for your soul winning.
God is love.
Do you believe this?
All right, you're saved.
So this whole book, you know,
you got to read the whole thing to know who God is,
and if you haven't read the whole thing,
you see maybe a partial picture of who God is.
You know, this is how much, you know,
if you've read half the Bible,
this is like how much of God you see.
You know, if you've read like, you know,
a quarter of the Bible, cover to cover, you know.
You know, a lot of people, this is what they see,
like just this, you know.
It's like the old Zorro, you know,
the old black and white Zorro, you know.
Okay, at first Zorro had like this black thing over his eyes.
I'm talking about the old black and white really old show.
At first he was just covering only his eyes
with like a bandana thing,
and then there was another version of it
where he just had everything but his eyes,
and I was thinking, you know, if you put the two together,
I'll be able to figure out who that is, you know,
because he had like the bill on the bill on the wall
through his nose in one,
and then the other one was covering his eyes.
That's how you see God.
You see part of who God is.
You know a little bit about God,
but until you read the whole book,
you do not have the full picture.
When you read that last word in Revelation
and you start in Genesis 1-1,
that's when you can say,
okay, now I have a little bit of an idea of who God is.
I've at least glimpsed the whole thing,
and then when I read it the second time,
I'm getting a little bit more of a picture
that's staying with me,
and then I read it five times, ten times.
Now I can remember and see and comprehend
more and more who God is,
and so this is another aspect of God,
the battling side of God,
the king of glory that's mighty in power,
mighty in battle,
the glorious, powerful, almighty king
who is omnipotent upon his throne.
You're in Revelation 19.
I'll quickly read to you from Psalm 2.
He says this,
I will declare the decree the Lord hath set unto me,
thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me,
and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings,
be instructed, ye judges of the earth,
serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
That's another aspect of who God is,
the king of glory,
the king of kings and Lord of lords,
the Lord God omnipotent.
Look at Revelation 19.
We see Jesus Christ returning the second time
with those who've been saved
coming from heaven on white horses with Him.
And He says in verse 11,
And I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse,
and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True,
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire.
You see, I thought God was the Prince of Peace.
I thought Jesus was the Prince of Peace.
He is the Prince of Peace.
But also in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
Get the whole picture of who God is.
You see, I'm not seeing how those two can exist.
That's because you haven't read the whole thing.
Read the whole book and you'll see those two items,
how they go hand in hand.
I'm not going to explain it to you tonight
because it would take all night,
because we could sit down and read the whole Bible together
and it would take us a few days nonstop.
But He says here,
In righteousness he doth judge and make war,
What verse am I in? Somebody help me out.
Verse 12,
His eyes were as a flame of fire,
and on his head were many crowns,
and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself.
What does a crown represent?
Authority.
Okay, that's what a crown is.
The one who wears the crown is the one who has the authority.
When a person is crowned, it's when they become the king.
It's when the authority comes upon them.
And it says,
And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself,
and he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood,
and his name is called the Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him
upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And out of his mouth go the sharp sword.
It says that with it he should smite the nations,
and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.
That's the passage I just read to you in Psalm 2.
And he treadeth the winepress of the cuddliness
and love of...
No, I'm just kidding.
It says he treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh
a name written,
King of kings and Lord of lords.
Now, just in case you're not sure who this is,
this is the last place we'll turn.
Go to 2 Timothy 4, I believe.
Just in case you're not sure who this is,
just to make sure that there's no confusion
about who that is on that white horse,
whose name is the King of kings and the Lord of lords,
who is the God of gods.
He's the Word of God in the flesh incarnate.
I thought it was in 2 Timothy 4.
Let's see here.
It's in 1 Timothy 6.15.
Sorry about that.
1 Timothy 6.15.
We'll start in verse 14, actually.
That thou keep this commandment without spot,
unrebucable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which in his times he shall show,
who is the blessed and only potentate,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who only hath immortality,
dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto,
whom no man hath seen nor can see,
to whom be honor and power everlasting.
Amen.
And so if there's any confusion in your mind
about whether Jesus Christ is God,
God the Father up in heaven,
whom no man hath seen nor can see,
is here equivalent to Jesus Christ,
who came on the white horse,
who is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Jesus said it this way,
I and my Father are one.
He said if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
And so Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh.
No man hath seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father,
he hath declared him,
even though no man was able to see the face of God
in the Spirit, in heaven, on his throne.
Remember Moses just saw the hinder parts of God?
God just passed by him
and just showed him just a glimpse of his hinder parts.
And at that time, Moses' face glowed.
And when he came down from the mount,
he had to wear a veil over his face not to scare people.
But Jesus Christ basically came to this earth
in the form of a man.
He took upon him the form of man.
So he was veiled in the flesh.
Just as God appeared in the burning bush,
God appeared in these different ways
throughout the Old Testament,
throughout the New Testament.
He appeared and was manifested in the flesh
as Jesus Christ who walked and talked to this earth,
who was God in the flesh.
Okay, and so to separate Jesus Christ from God,
you know, they cannot be separated
because Jesus Christ is God the Son.
Just like the Bible talks about God the Father.
He said there's three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one.
He said if you see me, you've seen the Father.
He said that he's the Lord, he's the Savior,
he's the Good Shepherd.
And of course the Bible says
there's no Savior in the Old Testament besides me,
says the Lord.
He said I'm the Good Shepherd,
the Lord is my Shepherd.
You know, there's so many things
that people want to separate
and try to say, well, you know,
that's God, not Jesus.
Well, you know what?
Jesus said this.
He said if you believe not that I am he,
you'll die in your sins.
And that was a reference to Isaiah 43
when God said I am he and there's none else.
Beside me there is no Savior.
And he said if you believe not that I am he,
you'll die in your sins.
They said they now are not 50 years old
and hast thou seen Abraham?
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
before Abraham was, I am.
And that's when they took up stones to stone him
because they said he's making himself God
because God said in the burning bush,
I am that I am.
He said say unto the children of Israel
that I am hath sent you unto them.
And so Jesus Christ is the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords, the Creator of the world.
All things were made by him, John 1, verse 3.
And without him was not anything made that was made.
He's the Creator.
He's the King of Glory.
He's the Lord God Omnipotent.
And so many times in the Bible we see these titles.
The Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever, amen.
Blessing and glory and honor and thanksgiving and power,
all these things, just loving God.
And yet sometimes we don't have enough respect for God
to where we'd actually take his name in vain
as human beings.
Now I'm not going to, but I'm saying humanity
will just throw it around, oh my God,
oh Jesus, and throw it around.
When God's glory is so high above you,
you don't even have a clue.
If you were to be face to face with Jesus Christ right now
as John was on the Isle of Patmos
in his glorified, resurrected state,
he fell on his face as dead.
And I mean Jesus had to lay his right hand upon him
and say, fear not, and lift him up and strengthen him.
Because if you were faced with who God is,
you would be flat on your face.
You don't understand the power of God.
You need to understand the might and power
and greatness of God.
And then you'll realize that next to God you're nothing.
I'm nothing.
All the things that you worry about,
all your problems in your life are nothing compared to God.
And when you get that perspective right
and you see God high and lifted up,
it will cause you to purify yourself.
The Bible talks about in the book of Job, Leviathan,
you know, his mighty power, his comely proportion.
He said, men purify themselves, you know what I mean?
Because he said, you know, you get around them
and it's humbling.
And that was an animal.
He said, how much more the God who created Leviathan?
Get this into your head.
Let it sink down into your ears who God is,
God's power, God's might, God's greatness.
He is the King of Kings.
He's the Lord of Lords.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for saving us, dear God.
When we consider the heavens and the works of your hands,
the stars, the sun, the great creation that you've made,
what is man that thou art mindful of him,
or the son of man that thou visitest him?
It's amazing, God, that you love us,
even though your mind is so much greater than ours,
even though your power is so much greater than ours,
you look down upon us
and you've created us for your pleasure.
You love us.
Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for dying on the cross for us.
Thank you for humbling yourself to become a man,
to walk among us, to die on the cross for us, to rise again.
And please, God, help us to appreciate and understand
and comprehend your greatness,
and also, dear God, to cleanse our hands
and purify our hearts so that we can draw nigh unto you.
Help us to realize that the only reason we're even here
is for your pleasure and your glory.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, let's go ahead and sing a song before we go.
All right.