In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of the last days and the creation of the earth. He references the book of Job, stating that the morning stars and sons of God were present when God made the earth. The preacher emphasizes that we are currently living in the last days and highlights the importance of understanding the nature and attributes of God. He emphasizes that God cares for His creation and demonstrates His love and forgiveness, as seen in the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding. The preacher concludes by urging the audience to seek a deeper understanding of God and His glory through Jesus Christ.

Lord, we thank you that we have your word. We thank you that we can study, and Lord, with all our studying, without your Holy Spirit to guide us, to direct us into truth, all truth. And Lord, let your Spirit bring enlightenment and health and comfort. Let it bring, Lord, a release of your grace and your mercy so that we can understand and know and that the God of all gods, we can come more and more to the knowledge of him, for to know him is life eternal. I ask in the name of Jesus, and I thank you for it. Amen. The revelation of God came through many centuries, millennia. At first, through the patriarchs, he revealed himself to some, at least, and how many we don't know, there's some that are named, before Noah spoke to them. How much revelation of God they had, because they were in converse, many of them, with Adam. That was not written down, that was not given to us. Then after Noah, there was no more revelation of God until Abraham. And that was a long time. They had no Bible. And Abraham didn't write down anything. And the revelation of God was reduced to, maybe I shouldn't use the word reduced, but was limited to nature, the works of God. We find that in Romans 1.20. The things of God are clearly understood by the things which are made. So they weren't left without witness, they weren't left without testimony. And quite evidently, there was a decadence, there was a fall from the knowledge of God. Who is God? What is God? And until Abraham, we have no knowledge. In fact, actually, until Moses, because Moses wrote about Abraham. And he got it, I presume, or by special revelation, or by the older people telling what happened to the younger people. He grew up with the knowledge of Abraham and the beginning of their nation, and how it happened, at least a few of the details. And as the revelation developed, Moses was one of the great revelators, it was evident that Moses' revelation of God was limited. And throughout the century from then on, the revelation increased. Here a little, there a little. And God said, that's the way I'll speak, isn't he? And the first knowledge of God we have through Moses, was the encounter that Moses had with God himself, was the holiness of God, wasn't it? That was the first revelation. And that was built much upon. And with it, there was given another revelation, but it never took hold in the minds of the people, and it never took hold in the minds of most people, even up to this day, except a few individuals. There was a second revelation, beside holiness of God, but that was what really Moses laid hold of. Because he saw it operating, first he was introduced to the holiness of God, and that showed him his own heart, didn't it? Leprosy. Then, he was introduced to the judgments of God, and he saw how terrible they were, didn't he? He saw that, how the whole Egyptian nation was destroyed because of their sin, because of what they had done against God. And Moses, that was raised up and made a prince of the nation, was the one that destroyed the nation, or God did through him. And so much so, that when Israel sinned and was delivered and came out and made their golden calf, Moses did not know if God could forgive sin. You see, his prayer was, if you can forgive this sin, and if not. See, he didn't know much about forgiveness, did he? He knew about judgment. He knew about holiness. He knew the demands. He knew the, how shall I say, the highness of God, the bigness of God. He had a revelation of God that was tremendous, God himself, but only in that area. He knew he was a creator. He knew all things were made by him. He knew that, as he was there on the mount 40 days with God, he saw the, how shall I say, the immensity of God. And in that immensity and that, shall I say, the perfection and the holiness of God, that together was really the major point of his revelation of God. But he felt something was lacking. And so he said, God, show me your glory. Didn't he? He'd been up there on a mount for 40 days. He'd been up there in the presence of God, talking to God face to face, and yet he had this strange prayer. Show me your glory. Hadn't he seen it? Hadn't he seen it already? Hadn't he been in it? Hadn't he known it? No. Apparently not. He experienced something tremendous. He was in the presence of God, but he did not know the glory of God. So he asked for it. Show me your glory. And God granted the prayer, didn't he? He said, all right, you can't see it all. Much is going to be hidden, but you'll see the reflection of it. You'll see the afterglow. I'll pass by, and you'll see it. And so God passed by, and he declared his glory. And what did he declare? It was a strange thing. He declared the ability of God to forgive sin. And he declared why it was that he had mercy so that when he showed him his glory, he showed him the cross. He didn't see it in clarity, but he saw the mercies of God, and he saw that he could forgive sin, and forgive sin by the thousands, but he still would keep his holiness. He would still keep the judgment. He would not forgive certain sins, but he would forgive sin, and he would keep his holiness. And he said, this is my glory. He said, I'll answer your prayer. I'll show you my glory. Now, he didn't see it clearly, but he showed there was an ability for God to be holy and merciful, and that can only come through the cross. Are you following me yet? And that was a tremendous revelation, but they never laid hold of it. The Jewish nation never laid hold of it, but you see individuals. For instance, one of them is David. When David sinned, there was no forgiveness for that sin. There was no offering. There was no sacrifice that would be accepted by God. They were taken out in stone. Is that right? Nevertheless, David found forgiveness. How did he do it? Not only in the revelation to Moses of mercy, but into the revelation of Abraham, there came another gleam of light, justification by faith. Abraham was justified by faith, not by his works. You see what I mean? There is another ray of light that came through that illuminated something different than the rule of law, that there was a mercy, that there was something greater. But even as Paul said, the law is the schoolmaster that takes us to Christ. We will never really know grace, even as an individual. We will never know grace until we've labored and fought and been defeated under the law. We will never know the magnitude of grace. We will never know the greatness of it. We will never know how much we needed grace until we've come to the end of ourselves and we quit. We say, God, I can't keep the law because we really think we're good. I mean, all the world thinks that. All the world thinks that we're good. Just give us the right environment or the right government or the right friends and neighbors and we'll shine. And we still believe that. We say to God, Lord, forgive me. I'll never do it again. We believe that. Oh, yes, you will. As long as you believe it, you will. God will see to it. Though all men forsake you, I won't, said Peter. Uh-oh. That's a bad thing to say. You know what happened. We have to come to the end of law to receive grace. We have to come to the end of ourselves. We have to come to the end of believing our own righteousness. If it takes a whole lifetime, you'll still have to do it. He has to bring us to that place. I know, as Paul said, within me there is no good thing so that no one can boast. No one can say, three fourths of my life I needed Christ to save me, but this one quarter I did it. And that's why the heavy emphasis on law and on holiness, and only little by little came little gleams that there was something more. And then the Holy Spirit when it came with time to David, David reached back into the promises to Abraham, and he didn't go through the law of Moses. In fact, it says he was afraid to go up to the brazen altar. And he never did. He brought the ark to his place, but he never brought the altar. Do you remember that? Because the revelation of God, it started where it has to start with Moses, and it carried on, and there was little gleams, a little more gleams, a few more gleams, a few more, but they never caught them really as an understanding of God and His ways. Even till the day that Jesus Christ came. He came, and let me say it strangely, but He revealed another God, and yet it was the same God. He revealed a father God. That's why they couldn't understand Him. That's why they killed Him. You're blaspheming. You're tearing down the religion that Moses gave us. Moses gave you the law. You want the law? All right. He gave it to you. I mean He gave it to us. Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Try to keep it. Even your thoughts. Try and do it. Just try. You can't keep the first six verses, or ten I guess it is, let alone the rest of it. God wants us to know we can't. God wants us to realize that He had another way, but He also wants us to know that that way is glorious, it's wonderful, it is a fulfilling of the law. He doesn't accept us as sinners unless you stay sinners, and so we work to get out of it, but it's not going to come that way. He is made unto us righteousness. He is our righteousness. He who knew no sin became sin that we might, what? Become the righteousness of God. That perfect, glorious, high holiness. And therefore they couldn't receive Him. He came to their mind with another God, and yet He is God, which we'll see in a minute. And so the book of John is the one book of all of them that really begins to reveal this real God. The God of holiness and the God of mercy. The God of love and the God of judgment. John the Revelator. This was the last book in the Bible ever written. In this book, John had already seen the fall of Jerusalem. And the fall of Jerusalem to the Jews was one horrible, horrible, horrible revelation. How could God destroy His own city? How could God destroy His own leaders? How could God destroy His own temple? In other words, the thinking people said, well, we don't know this God. We thought He, if we kept the sacrifices and the temple and everything, we were free. We were home free. And now God wipes it all out. And the disciples? You see, they were steeped in the fact, all the disciples at first, that the gospel isn't for the Gentiles. It was only for the Jew, the Jewish nation. They expected Christ to come and serve His King. They didn't accept the Jewish nation as governors of the world, didn't they? Even though they walked with Christ. And He told them things. But they couldn't hear it. Little by little, through Peter, with Cornelius, came the first little tiny ray of light that, well, God loves a few Gentiles. And it was a hard thing for them to swallow. And the rest of the disciples, they were, Peter, what in the world are you doing going down there and having dinner with Cornelius, a Gentile? He said, well, what will I do? He said, the Holy Spirit came on like He did on us. Now what? What was I to say then? God trapped him. Forced him into a little bit bigger idea. Plus, the patient he had, remember, the sheep came down. He was told to eat those unclean animals, and that was a horrible thing for them. They were so locked in, that even though rays of light came, even though rays of light, you'll find it in Jeremiah, you'll find it in Isaiah, you'll find it in so many books of the Bible, but there were just little rays, right in the middle of the passage of judgment, for instance. Jeremiah will come out with a beautiful word. But it's all gone again. Back to the old. And that's the way they lived till Christ came. Not only that, even though Christ came, they still reverted, and we still revert to that concept of God. It's so hard to break over and realize He knew we couldn't. He didn't expect it. He set up the cross before He created man and He did something, and so He made us righteousness, not by our own works, not by our own righteousness, but by faith in Him. And we can never do it. We try and we try and we try to fulfill not only the law of the Old Testament, but the law of the New Testament. Because remember, they were still under the law. And the law is right. It isn't that the law is wrong. It isn't that view of God is wrong. It's absolutely right, but it has to be joined with another view. It has to be joined with a wider view. The Spirit of God will lead us into all truth, not part truth. And all truth is, there is a God that's bigger than we ever thought. There is a God that has a love beyond our knowledge of what love is. There is a God that created us in His own image with the purpose of make us into His image, and He will not be frustrated. He'll do that. He's doing it now. 2 Corinthians 3.18 Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are chained by the Holy Spirit into His image. Is that right? He didn't finish it in Genesis. He's still finishing it. He's still working it out. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it would take about 100,000 years to finish that job. Give or take a few thousand. But He's going to finish the job. And after all, what's His hurry? As far as I know, there is no hurry. I mean, you remember this. I think I don't know if I did or not. The Chinese brother, pastor, that gets to thinking about some of these things. He said, God, to you, how long is a thousand years? And God says, one minute. Just one minute. Wow. God, how much is a million dollars to you? One penny. Just one penny. God, how about giving me a penny? Just one little penny. Just one. Yes, then I will. Just a minute. The immensity of God. What's His hurry? He's got plenty of time. But He's going to finish this work. And it's going to be a wonderful work. We find they've joined that revelation of God in the Psalms, for instance. Mercy and truth have kissed each other. How can you do that? The truth is, I'm a sinner. And God condemns the sinner. And then mercy. You see, under the law, they knew no mercy. There was only judgment. And God is still the God of judgment. And I still preach the law because it's the law that's going to bring us to mercy. But there has to come an understanding that there is a God bigger than we ever realized. And there is a plan of salvation much, much more than we ever believed. Is it not written, without holiness no man shall see the Lord? But where are you going to find holiness then? Only in God Himself. But it is given unto us. And we in turn begin to work it out in the body of this flesh. We won't go into that now. The revelation of God. I'm sure there's much more we'll yet learn. I'm sure there's revelation upon revelation upon revelation that'll go on for the next billion years. Give or take a few billion. But this is a revelation that's brought to us. And you'll find it, but in the book of John, it shines. You see, he was an old man when he wrote this book. A hundred or more. He'd been through all the development of the church. And he'd been through the cross. And he'd been through the resurrection. He'd talked to Jesus after the resurrection. He was there for 40 days. We don't know what was said. I wish I did. But I see reflections. I see things coming. I said, no, he didn't get that from Moses. He didn't get that from the psalm, from David. And nothing was written in the other gospels about it at all. Where'd he get it? Where'd he get it? The first verse. Where'd he get that? You don't find it in any other place. There's a lot of things in the book of John that aren't in any other gospel. But in that book, there are revelation upon revelation from the John who is called the Revelator of an area of a God, an Aryan God, an understanding of God that is so much greater than they knew before. Because revelation is like a flower unfolding more and more and more and more. It's not ended. It's a basis. I mean, everything when you see a revelation, you'll find it. Oh, there it is, way back there in Moses or Jeremiah or someplace else. But you never realized it until light came and showed it to you. I don't know how David knew to go back to Abrahamic covenant. Somehow the light came. Because there's no hope for him in the lost. Well, he's a bachelor, but has to be taken out in stone. The revelation of God. That's what John is concerned with. His whole book is concerned with revealing God. But the God that's been revealed to man in his fullness, and not one part was revealed to Moses, or a small part revealed to any other of the men that wrote, because they didn't know. As much as God showed Moses of his power to forgive and still remain holy, at the same time, he didn't know anything about the cross. He didn't know anything about Jesus Christ. He knew there was going to come a Messiah, but he didn't know it was revealed to him yet. I know later it was, because when he came down on Mount Olives, no, Mount of Transfiguration, and talked with Jesus, they talked about his death, didn't they? So then he knew about it, but before he didn't. You see, revelation is line upon line, and precept upon precept. Here a little, and there a little. That's the way it is. And that's the way it has to be. And God is not in a hurry, and he works his works regardless of how much we know, as it is. We have a whole Bible, so we don't know that much. When we get over there, we're going to know a lot more. It says we'll know even as we are known. But this is enough. This will get us through. And for all the ages, they had enough. If they'd just lean into that, they'd have enough. He had the blood on the altar, and he accepted that, didn't he? That was enough. We all have enough. Way back there. But it has been increased. And God wants us to know there is a largeness, there is a greatness of God. Jesus Christ is a revealer of God. And so we're going to look at it. John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Very related Gospels. In fact, many things are almost word for word in Matthew and in Mark. But now we have a different Gospel. This is not the same as the other four. It starts out different. It reaches back to the beginning, doesn't it? Genesis. In the beginning, what? God. Period. In the beginning, the great mystery. In the beginning, there was something there already. In other words, the beginning was not the beginning. You understand? In the beginning, God created. God made something. Now something begins. But there was something before the beginning, and that was God. The immensity. The eternity. When was the beginning? Well, they tell us all the way from 16 to 15 billion years. And if I understand it right, the seventh day God rested. The first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, the sixth day. Fifth day and sixth day. That was a week. So God's week is between six and fifteen billion years long. That's a long week, isn't it? Then He rested the seventh day. I don't know when He began resting. Possibly after He made man. I don't know how long that was either, because a lot happened before the fall on Eden, but we don't know what happened. One thing we know, Adam learned to know the nature and give names to all the animals, and that took more than seven days, didn't it? And so He rested. How long is He going to rest? I don't know. Maybe His nap will last a couple hundred thousand years, or maybe a billion years. I don't know. I have an interesting thought, though. My wondering is, not how long is He going to rest, but what's He going to do next week? We'll be in on that, won't we? We'll be on the last one. We'll be in on this next one. We know that we are in the last days, strange enough. John said that. We're in the last days. You see, when God made the earth, and the earth is about six billion years old, if the scientists are right, maybe somewhat right, and we read in the book of Job that when God made the earth, the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God rejoiced. Is that right? So they were here when God made the earth. They were already created. They watched Him do it. Watched Him begin to form it, and form it, and form it, and work on it, and work on it, and work on it. Watched Him make the different creatures. Watched the fall of Satan. All that happened before we got through the last days. The last days of this week. John reaches all the way back to the beginning. He's talking about God. This God that's so immense. This God that's so great. This God that's so in control. This God that was there in the beginning. You say, well, look at the mess we're in. Sure, I know. But He's big enough to let there be a mess and then control it. Just like a weaver can make a mess on one side and a beautiful tapestry on the other. But they're always in control, aren't they? Regardless of how much of a mess it appears, it's always in control. God's in control. He's God. He's big. When I first began to realize the revelation of the bigness of God, it scared me. I didn't like it. It grew and grew until I realized He's so big that He'd become little. He's so big that He doesn't have to use huge bricks to make His worth. He used little atoms. In fact, He's got a number on every one of your hairs. He knows which one were lost. And that's what John wants to get across in the beginning was the Word. The Word is Christ. And he goes back to the beginning because the Word was already there. He wants us to understand that Jesus Christ, He wants us to really understand, is God. And all that He did was God. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. It wasn't that Jesus, a lamb, a special sacrifice, a special creation was made so that somebody could die for us all. That wasn't it. God was in Christ reconciling the world. This was God at work. And all that Jesus did because Jesus was God. And He wants to make that so sure in us that Jesus Christ is God. He is the Word. He chose that Word. No one else used that Word. Why did He choose it? Because of what it means. It's been badly translated. In the Spanish Bible it doesn't use Word. It's translated from the Latin. The Latin used the word Verbum or Verb. But that isn't in the original. The original is Logos. It's halogos. In the beginning was the Word. Well, I woke up in the beginning and what did I read? In the first, and God said, let there be light. Is that right? God said Word, wasn't it? There was a Word. The beginning was the Word. He was already there. He spoke. He is the revelation of God. The Word reveals everything about God. He is the Word. That's why it's called the Logos. Because the Logos, the word Logos is a word that means a complete expression. A total expression. And that's different. That's completely different. He's a total expression of God. In other words, if I speak of the Logos, I'm including art. I'm including engineering. I'm including any form you can use to express something. Singing, dancing, talking. Anything. Everything. He's a total expression of God. That's why he said to Philip, if you've seen me, what did he say? You've seen the Father. In other words, not only his words that he spoke, but his actions. His actions. He spoke some very legal words in the 5, 6, 7 chapters of Matthew, but his actions weren't that way. For instance, there was the adulterous woman. What do you say about adultery? Even to think of it, wasn't it? He committed adultery. But when the adulterous woman was there, what did he do? What were his actions? To find a way out for her, wasn't it? To find a way out. You see, he revealed God. He said, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You see how I react to certain things. The disciples said, it's late, send them home. But he had compassion on the most and said, they don't need to go home yet. They've been with me three days. They're hungry. They might faint on their way. So he created food for them. That was the Father in action. That doesn't sound like Moses' God in action, does it? You see what I mean? It doesn't sound at all like the God of Moses. And that's why they got so angry, because it wasn't the God that Moses revealed. He only revealed a part of it. But Jesus came to reveal all of it. I should say, all of it that we can stand on this earth at this time. I'm sure there's more. But I'm sure also what more comes will come through him, because he's the total expression of God. In the beginning was the world. The expression of God was there from the beginning. When any angel was made, he would find God through Jesus Christ. He is the expression of God. He is the word. And it's a very lovely little word. We pass it by so easily, but it's a very important little word. It's the word W-A-S-Y. Already existing. Before God made one angel, before God made one heaven, there was also already the word to reveal, to express God through all of his works. And that's why we read, without him nothing was made. He was the creator. And we read that his works will reveal God. Without excuse, for the things of God are revealed to the things which he made. Romans 1.20. Everything, he's made it to reveal God. That's why, I've said before, that's why he can pick up any illustration in his parables and say the kingdom of heaven is like this, the kingdom of heaven is like this, like a tree, like a fisherman, like a woman making bread like this. That's the kingdom of heaven. Everything, in one way or another, will reveal. We don't have eyes to see it. After Jesus said it, then the theologians grab it and argue over it for the next thousand years. What did he mean? But that's the way he made it. He's the expression of God. We will not know God except through Jesus Christ. No man cometh unto the Father except by me. Is that right? What did he say? That's the only way we're ever going to know God. And so, we find that God is the, how should I say, the purpose of this book, is to help us to realize God, to know God and he was writing it because at that time Arianism and other false doctrines and heresies were arising in the church and it inspired him, I guess would be the word, to write down what he knew about God. And there's no author that could have ever written that gives us more security and realized he had more authority to say what he did than anyone else. He was the closest one to Jesus Christ, wasn't he? He had the ear of Jesus Christ. Even Peter recognized that when he wanted to know something a little bit, shall I say, private he asked John to ask him, didn't he? And so I can trust the authorship because I realize that it was written to show us that Jesus Christ is God and he is eternal and he is divine and he was already there before God created. It wasn't a special creation of God It was God in flesh So we go on. In the Gospel of John we have some things that are eliminated. We have many of the teachings of Christ that are not in the Gospel of John, like the Sermon on the Mount Many of his teachings he says nothing about But we do have in the Gospel of John, Nicodemus That beautiful 3rd chapter. We have the 4th chapter, the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman We have, oh it's so much. We have things in the Gospel of John, especially chapter 14, 15, 16, 17 The revelation of God and the Holy Spirit and so on that you don't find in the other Gospels. There's nothing said about them When he's talking, he's deliberately speaking of God and Jesus Christ as God And then he came and perhaps the thing that was most shattering to the Jews and their Mosaic understanding was the fatherhood of God. He's my father My father and your father. The fatherhood of God Teach us to pray Our father which art in heaven They couldn't receive that They could only see him as a very angry, powerful deity. And through that they saw all deities as powerful and angry. They were afraid of their deities, all the gods they made. They would have to supplicate them And they would have to appease them Giving all kinds of ways. Building temples for them Trying to earn a little, shall I say Another word I can't think of Trying to earn kudos Trying to earn position, trying to earn value Trying to placate God. They only had an angry God. But he came with another God He came with a God that was always there But they'd lost sight of him. They'd forgotten Even though there's shining lights all through the Old Testament Beautiful little verse here, or a passage here Or like the word in 23rd Psalm That everybody sings to love. The Lord is my shepherd They still couldn't see that God Was who he really is. God was their father God was their shepherd. He was a good shepherd And it just shocked them It just shocked them. And so they Rejected the teaching of Christ. They rejected His place. They didn't want him. Nevertheless Whether they reject him or not, in the beginning Was the Word. He was always there Now, to go on, halagah Word. Actually, it's more than that The word ha goes with it. It means He the Word That special one. Psalm 33, 6, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made And all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth The word. The word. The creator. The creator word Proverbs 8, 27 to 30 You read it again. I won't read it to you Now he revealed by his works and his words He revealed the mind of God. That's why he interpreted the law He went ahead and interpreted the law. He knew what God was in mind After all, he was the one that wrote the law. He knew what it really meant He said, man was made for the sabbath I mean, sabbath was made for man, didn't he? The sabbath wasn't to rule man. Man was to rule, wasn't he? Oh, they're angry because he healed on the sabbath. But won't you pull your ox out of the ditch when he falls in on the sabbath? Don't you have circumcision on the sabbath because it's the eighth day? He revealed the mind of God in many ways And that just blew them. Because they had their best Theologians through centuries arguing and discussing and trying To find the very dots and tittles of the law And then we go on. He reveals the nature of God He found the nature, the nature of compassion. Their God Wasn't compassionate. Their God was frightening Their God was cruel. Because their God is cruel Their law is cruel. Because it's not been balanced They haven't been shown the glory. They've only been shown the holiness And they can't live it. And they fight themselves and fight with everybody else Because of that. Not only that, you know, he shows the nature of God He shows the attributes of God God is like this. God is like this, he kept saying This is what God is like. God isn't like we think You've seen me, you've seen the father. Look through all His actions. He went to a wedding. They ran out Of wine. He cared. They were his friends They were going to be greatly embarrassed. And despair them The shame and the embarrassment. He made some wine for them That's the father. He showed so often that God Cares. Even today when we have to go through one trouble or another God, don't you care? What did the disciples say on the boat? Carest thou not that we perish? Don't you care? He showed, you see me. Study the book of John Get to know that God. The God that he revealed. The God that he is Get to know it. Get to know him He cares. He stopped the storm. But he didn't keep it from Starting. Did he? He let Peter walk on the water But he didn't stop the wind from blowing. He just rescued Peter in spite Of it. You see See him. You see me. You see the father I will show you God. I have come to show you God. I've come To declare him to you. The word was God. In the beginning was the word. And then We go the word was with God. Now let's go to one more scripture before we go there 1st Timothy 3.16. Without controversy great is the Mystery of godliness. God was manifested in flesh, justified In the spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed On the world, and received us in the glory. I'm speaking of Jesus Christ That's God. And let me just add one thing Belief in Jesus Christ is not unbelief In God. I'm going to say that again To believe in Jesus Christ as God is not to have unbelief In the God of the Old Testament in Jehovah. And I'll say one more Thing for those of you who might not know this. Jehovah and Jesus Christ are the same. One's him revealing himself in the Old Testament and one Actually reveals himself in the New. He was with God And the word was with God. They were always Together. They were eternally together. In the beginning Was the word and the word was with God. Well in the beginning they were already There. Face to face. The word with Is to mean Direction. Flowing towards God. Face to face with God Interchanging. He was always there They had that, how shall I say it, that union Incomprehensible. It was too high for us. They had that relationship And yet they were two persons. Because he was with God. He wasn't In God. He was with God. And yet They were two persons. He makes that clear. The two personalities That's Jesus Christ. The word. The word was With God. Hebrews 1.3. Who being The brightness of his glory. The express image of his person Upholding all things by the word of his power. When he had By himself purged our sins. He sat down on the right hand of the majesty On high. It's express image If you see him, you see me, you see no bother. Now we go on to one more Verse. I want to go to Proverbs 8.30. Then I was by him. As one brought up with him And I was daily his delight I was daily his delight rejoicing Always before him And the word was with God The word was with God. It was his delight The union, the love, the joy The perfection of the supreme being In his trinity, in his total union Is beyond us. We cannot Conceal it. We cannot understand such total union, such joy It was his delight. And he said I was always there. In the beginning the word was always There. They didn't have to make anything to keep happy They didn't have to keep doing things to keep themselves occupied They were totally occupied in themselves They didn't need us. As much as God commands us to Praise, he doesn't need our praise. In fact It's a wonder he even accepts it. Faultless it is We need praise, but he doesn't. He didn't have to have Angels choir sing how wonderful he is. He knew how wonderful he was before They knew it. He knew a lot more about it than they knew But they needed it. They needed it They need to keep always before him how wonderful he was Always before themselves how wonderful he was. Because we forget Apparently the angels do too. I hope they do They have some bad things to remember, wouldn't they? In the time of the war in heaven And so he was always with God. As the God is the word He can reveal God because he is God And therefore he can reveal God in perfection Without twisting, deforming, without in any way Defaming, without any distortion Without any half-truths, without any Revelations such as Moses only a part. He is God And therefore he is able to reveal God In perfection. And we will only find the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. You will never find it any place else. Many people Try to find the revelation of God through experience or experience of others You never can base the understanding of God on Experiences because he just does things his own way. On the day of Pentecost Peter said what do we do? He said repent, be Baptized, be filled with spirit. That's the way Peter had it down, right? Word for word What do we do? What do we do to get saved? Repent Get your baptism, receive the Holy Spirit And he had all those people doing it so they had their experience. Now we know Except when Peter went to the house of Cornelius He wasn't very happy about going there But he went in obedience. And the Holy Spirit came and the first Thing he did was fill him with spirit. The next thing they were baptized And we read nothing about their ever repenting. So Peter's doctrine Failed him, didn't it? It didn't even work. You can't build doctrines That way. He alone can reveal God He is the perfect one. He is God He is God in flesh. And so in God Or as God, he's not an attribute. He is the Expression of God in all he does In all he still does. All the works of Jesus Christ, even today Are expressions of God. What he does do And even what he does not do. How he answers prayer And how he does not answer prayer. Very interesting People have the idea that if you've got a gift That it ought to always work. And when it only works part time You get mad at the guy Criticizing. Why doesn't Everybody heal? You ever heard that? You see this testimony, this testimony All wonderful, all glorious. All these poor people Why aren't they healed? As if when we get a gift we step In the place of God himself and we now can work all the things like we'd like to I've heard it said there's going to come Such a revival that we'll be able to walk into the hospitals and Empty them out. Well, fortunately such a revival will not Come. Because we sure make a mess of things First of all, we destroy the biggest industry there is. How many million people go out of work? We'd have a depression, wouldn't we? In the second place, how about those whose times are going to go? We put them out of time They might get there late and the door might not be open. Jesus went to the bull of Bethesda and He healed once. Left all the sick people there Isn't that right? He's God. This is the way I do it As much as when he does things as when he doesn't do things He is sovereign. He is king. He rules And he revealed Christ as much When he did his miracles as when he did not do his miracles He said I only do what the Father tells me to do. I only do what God wants to do at this time. Interesting enough When he went to the bull of Bethesda and healed one Told him to pick up his bed and carry it. And made everybody mad because that would be Sabbath. They were very angry Who told you to do that? He said the man that healed me. Well, what are you doing it for? Well, he told me to do it Who was it? I don't know. The Lord found me He learned it was Christ. Jesus said to him Be careful. Lest you do a worse thing A worse sin. And he did a worse sin He ran right to the Jews who he knew were angry with Christ Right to the Jews and said it was Jesus that did it. It was the first Judas He betrayed Christ. And we read That from that day on they sought to kill him He crystallized the decision to Kill Jesus Christ. God needed that man So I healed him so I could do it. Left all the other sick people there You've seen me. You've seen the Father He's the word. He's the revelation of Jesus Of the Father. Jesus Christ. The word And that's what John wanted to get across in the first part of his prologue Of his book. He said I want to know I'm writing about He who was in flesh but who is God All of his book is about that. He wanted it from the very first word To realize that who he is and who We are talking about. He was the word And I want you to go to another one. We've already quoted it First we'll go to this one. John 14 6. We've already quoted this one too Saith unto him I am the way the truth and life No man cometh unto the Father but by me And then the other one we've already quoted. 2 Corinthians 5 19 That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not Imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation God was in Christ reconciling The world unto himself. He is God Jesus Christ the man of Galilee Jesus Christ the carpenter. Jesus Christ The lamb of God. Jesus Christ the one Crucified and raised again is God God in flesh. And that's the very starting point Of John. As I said before it's a wonderful book Get to know the God that John especially revealed. Not saying the other ones aren't good. Don't misunderstand me They are true. They are wonderful. But they have not risen to the Height of revelation that John has as he fought through The traditions Of the elders. The traditions carried on by Moses of a God That was so different and yet So the same as the Revelation of God in the scriptures outside of The New Testament. You find even in the epistles Many times they would sort of cross They jump from one side to another. Paul would rise up like in Romans 8 we're studying. There is therefore no condemnation to them Who are in Christ Jesus and yet he didn't hesitate To put the law down where it belonged The law is not thrown out. We haven't done away with it. We haven't Done away with the God of Moses but he's been Enlarged by the revelation of Jesus himself To realize that there was a plan of God So much bigger than our trying to live a human life Of perfection and earning our way some way into the good Graces of God. It isn't that way. The worst sinner The worst sinner and perhaps the worst sinner That we can name is the thief on the cross. There were no Good deeds done by him was there. There were not Any good deeds done by him and he didn't last long enough to do any good Deeds. He was a sinner and a self-admitted sinner. We deserve What we're getting. I mean he was getting some pretty rough punishment wasn't he We deserve it and yet That same Jesus showing us who God really Was. So just because you've asked for it Today you'll be with me. That's God's way of dealing With sin. Sin is sin. To one thief it brought Relief to the other thief it didn't. He wasn't in Paradise. Sin is sin. Nevertheless There is a savior. A savior With no sin is impossible for him not to save That's a revelation he gave to Moses but they didn't lay hold of it They didn't understand this is God. So they had A cruel vindictive Vengeful God and preached it and practiced it We need to understand there is a God of love There is a God of compassion. There is a God of forgiveness He tells us don't keep holding these bitterness and Reactions and just forgive. Just cover it and forgive And when we forgive it's gone isn't it. That's a revelation To Jesus Christ. Father I thank you That you didn't leave us without light That you sent us Jesus You sent us a revelation of who you really were and are You came in to a culture and a civilization Based upon Moses himself That you came to do something about. Two thousand Years ago. They've lived two thousand years under that regime And they never did change over. They never did Find who you really were God. As much as you Sent light and light and light and so finally you said I must send my son I must go myself. I must show them Then they'll understand. Then they'll see And Lord still we don't see very well Forgive us. But let he who is the light of the world Shine in to our hearts. Shine in to our minds And understanding. Because when we really see and know you we will love you Because it's made in us. We are made to love things Lovely. We are made to love things beautiful. We are made To love things Lord. That are able To love us in return. And there's no one Like Jesus Christ. And so Father I pray That you reveal the Father to us Reveal the Son to us. Reveal the true God to us Reveal him as he really is So powerful. So beautiful. So pure. So demanding And yet. And yet. So forgiving And able to make us to become The righteousness of God in him. I thank you Father Increase our understanding. I ask in Jesus name. Amen We got 15 minutes. All we know Is he heard a declaration. He said you can't see My face. You can't see all of it is. But he heard the declaration The one thing he did not know. And the glory of God Is forgiveness. Face of Jesus Christ See that's the glory of God is forgiveness. The glory of God is a cross The whole world is. Earth is full of his glory It's a cross. A being so perfect So absolute holy. That can still Love a sinner such as I That's his glory You can't know one without knowing all three. They are one They work in different works. They're different persons But their natures are absolutely the same Their attitudes are the same. Their will is the same That's why I said I'm sending you another comforter Where's the other one then? Of Jesus Because he's called a comforter in 1 John 1 2.1 or 2.2 Advocate It is in the Old Testament Definitely in the Old Testament. It's like lights Little gleams of light here and here and here The anointing came upon David didn't it? It says the Spirit came upon him. It doesn't say Jesus It doesn't say the Father. It doesn't say God. It says the Spirit came upon him Genesis 1.2. The Spirit of the Lord It's in the Old Testament But the, we humans are pretty blind Until God opens our eyes we're pretty blind. There's a lot in the Old Testament Beautiful, beautiful things. But if your eyes aren't open to see it It won't mean anything to you. You'll only see what you What you agree with, what you understand. You'll say oh this is it I understand that, I understand that. But there's another verse that you throw out Well praise the Lord. See you tonight Go back to your good old Bible and get comfortable