Mike Bickle explores 'Ten Expressions of God's Beauty,' emphasizing the multifaceted nature of God's beauty as revealed in Scripture. He highlights three primary passages: Revelation 4, Revelation 1, and Song of Solomon 5, which collectively illustrate God's beauty through light, color, and the character of Jesus. Bickle encourages believers to become lifelong students of God's beauty, drawing inspiration from King David's desire to gaze upon God's beauty. Each expression reveals different aspects of God's nature, from His majestic presence to His intimate relationship with humanity. Ultimately, Bickle invites the congregation to deepen their understanding and appreciation of God's beauty in their lives.

on the hearing of your word tonight. Lord, I ask you for a spirit of inspiration on speaking and on hearing, so that we would connect with your heart. And we thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Tonight, we're gonna continue our studies on the beauty of God. And I'm gonna look at 10 different expressions of God's beauty. Roman numeral one, we're looking at three primary descriptions of God's beauty in the scripture. I could think of maybe 10 or 15 different chapters or passages in the word of God that focus on the beauty of God. But these are the three primary ones. Revelation four, which I think of as the ultimate chapter or passage declaring God's beauty. Revelation one, and then Song of Solomon chapter five. So I'm taking these three primary passages that are real well known to those of you that have been students of the beauty of God, and combine these three chapters together and come up with 10 different categories. And of course, you could define these 10 categories in different ways. You could have eight or 12 or 15. You could put different ideas together and have any number of categories, but I just have 10 at this in the way that I laid it out tonight. Paragraph A, the purpose of this session is to give a general overview of God's beauty, to encourage you and to give you a roadmap to study it as to be lifelong students of the beauty of God like King David. King David said, this one thing I do, I gaze on your beauty all the days of my life. Psalm 27 four, most of you are real familiar with that. This one thing I do, I'm a student of your beauty all the days of my life. And we do well to be students of the beauty of God. Paragraph B, Revelation four, which we've spent some weeks on, and we're still gonna continue here on Friday nights and those visiting, you can be a part of it with a webcast. If you want to, you can hear the messages live and follow along with us with the notes if this subject interests you. But Revelation four gives us significant insight into God's beauty. Again, I call it the, this chapter, the beauty realm of God. It's the clearest statement of the beauty and the majesty of God, the father anywhere in scripture. It describes the father's throne room and the holy of holies in the new Jerusalem. Paragraph C, I've outlined this chapter using five main categories of thought with three specific themes in each one of these five categories, then totaling 15, 15 different themes on the beauty of God. Now in this paper tonight, I'm combining some of those together in these 10 different expressions of God's beauty. And I have just a little overview there for those of you that have the notes. And if you don't have the notes in your hand, you can get them at the back or you can get this on the website when you get home tonight, if that interests you. But Revelation chapter four, verse one, John said, behold, a door was standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like the sound of a trumpet. And the voice had come up here and I will show you the things which must take place. Verse two, and I was in the spirit and I saw a throne set in heaven. And then I saw one who sat on the throne. Of course, he's looking at God the father. What an amazing revelation. Verse three, the first description of God the father that John sees that he was like a Jasper stone. And a Jasper stone in the ancient world was like a bright diamond. And he was like a Sardius stone, which was a deep red gem. And there was a rainbow around the throne and around the throne were 24 thrones. And I saw 24 elders, they were in white robes, they had crowns. And from the throne proceeded lightning and thunder and voices and seven lamps of fire were burning. And before the throne was a sea of glass and around the throne were four living creatures. And it goes on. But this gives us a significant insight into the beauty around God's throne. And at a casual reading, this passage may not seem like it has that much in it. If you read it fast, like, well, okay, there's some lamps and there's some fiery, you know, seraphim living creatures and you know, whatever. But each one of these indicates significant realities around the presence and the throne of God. Of course, we're not gonna go through that tonight in any kind of depth, but over the last weeks and the weeks to come, we're gonna continue on that just theme by theme. Paragraph D, we're looking at the second passage just to kind of give you a snapshot of it. This one doesn't focus on God the Father like Revelation 4, this one focuses on God the Son. In Revelation chapter one, John saw Jesus's beauty as the son of God and as the son of man. He saw him as the God-man. He described the beauty of the pre-existent Christ, the eternal uncreated second person of the Trinity, the one that called himself the Alpha and the Omega. God the Father and God the Son are the only ones that use those titles about themselves. But at the same time as being fully God, he is a human high priest. He's our high priest. And John goes on and describes this and we'll just give just the quickest look at this passage. He said, Jesus is speaking, he goes, I'm the Alpha. I am the Omega. Only God can say that. I am the first and the last. These are the titles that the Father has in the book of Revelation. Jesus is claiming the titles that only the Father has. Well, now Jesus has them. Verse 12, John said, I saw the son of man. He's not only fully God, he's fully man, he's a human. And he was clothed with garments, with high priest garments. He was girded about the chest with a golden girdle or a golden band. His hair and his head were white like wool, white like snow. This is like God the Father as well. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace. His voice like the sound of many waters. And in his right hand, seven stars. Out of his mouth, a sharp two-edged sword. His countenance was like the sun, shining in its strength. And I fell at his feet as a dead man. John was completely overwhelmed looking at the beauty of Christ Jesus. Paragraph E, I give just a little description of a few of these different facets of Jesus's beauty in this real significant chapter. Again, I take these three chapters as the three primary chapters in the word of God and the beauty of God. However, there's about 10 other chapters that are really significant ones as well. But these seem to, in terms of my estimation, they stand in a category of their own. I'm not gonna go through paragraph E. I'll leave that for those of you that wanna review the notes at a later time. Let's go to top of page two, paragraph F. The third passage that we're combining in these 10 different expressions of God's beauty, 10 different categories of God's beauty, is Psalm of Solomon chapter five. This is the great, I mean, those of you that are Psalm of Solomon students, which is my prayer that everybody in the body of Christ would be a Psalm of Solomon student. But this is the greatest poetic revelation of the beauty of God in the scripture, the beauty of Jesus. It focuses on his majestic personality and his leadership, his power, and the plans, his wisdom. And Solomon, the bride, the Shulamite is declaring the beauty of the king. And she starts out in verse 10. And she says, my beloved is dazzling and ruddy. He's chief among 10,000. His head or his leadership is like finest gold. And she goes on and describes 10 different attributes of Jesus using poetic language. Paragraph G, in Psalm of Solomon five, the spirit combined metaphors of the human body, head and hair and eyes, cheeks, lips, et cetera, and metaphors of the Jerusalem temple, gold, precious stones, ivory, cedars of Lebanon, et cetera, to convey 10 different attributes of Jesus's glory and Jesus's beauty. Now, these were attributes that were familiar in Solomon's day. So when the people heard this poem, they understood what it was pointing to in terms of the glory of the king. Again, my point tonight isn't to break this down, but I have in paragraph one and two under G just a little bit of information on this if this is an entirely new chapter to you. Paragraph one talks about Jesus's leadership as compared to finest gold. And his leadership is enhanced by his perfect wisdom, his eyes that see everything and his sovereign power, his hands like rods of gold and his feet, his legs like pillars of marble. He's unmovable, he's stable, he's steady, he's sturdy and all of his plans and all of his ways. Then in paragraph two, we talk about his personality. And there's a number of references to his personality that his emotions are like beds of spices. And it goes on, I don't wanna go through all the symbolism right now. It's a course in and of its own right to study these attributes. But my purpose in sharing it with you tonight was to give you these three chapters. If you're a new as a student on the beauty of God, I just wanted to give you just the idea these three chapters existed and draw them to your attention and have you begin to set your heart to begin a study of these in the years to come. And I don't mean you study them once. I continue to study these three chapters year after year after year. We will never ever exhaust the revelation of what God wants to tell us about the splendor of God through these passages. Well, I just want to give you these three chapters as kind of an introduction to these 10 different categories or 10 different expressions of God's beauty that are found in the scripture. Let's look at those now. And even as we look at these, my idea again, just to give you a little roadmap, give you a kind of a little bit of direction as students of the beauty of God so that you can make sure that you're covering all the main subjects as you're progressing in this glorious, life-changing study. Expression number one in the scripture of God's beauty is God's beauty in his light and God's beauty in his color. It's how God looks, how God the Father looks. Now, what an amazing subject, how God looks. The scripture doesn't tell us that much about how God looks, but it does give us hints. Paragraph A, God's beauty is seen in the many colors that radiate from his being. God has color emanating out of his being, his personhood, and out of his throne. Many colors come forth. And the primary ones, which we already looked at a moment ago, are here in Revelation 4, verse 2 and 3, that he who sat upon the throne is like a jasper. He has the radiance and the glory of a diamond, a bright, shining diamond emanating out of his person. But not only is he diamond-like in the color that comes out of him, he's also like a sardia stone, which is a fiery red gem. He has fiery red glory also coming forth. John was impacted by this, and he was meant to be. He was meant to record this in the word of God for our benefit. And then, in addition to these two primary colors that are coming out of John, the two things the Spirit wanted him to focus on, the foundational colors were the brightness of the jasper and the red of the sardia stone. Then there's the full colors of the rainbow circling the throne. And in these full colors of the rainbow that surround all that God's doing, there's an emerald color that is dominant even among these seven colors of the rainbow. So John's gazing on the throne of God, and he sees so much color coming out of the throne of God. And these colors, the brightness and the glory and the supernatural qualities of these colors are beyond anything that our natural capacities could grasp before we have a resurrected body. But I believe that this is, it's edifying to us just to even begin to peer into this and ask the Spirit to help us. When I come before the Lord in prayer, I like to focus my mind on the throne of God, the revelation of fourth throne. And I like to speak into the God of jasper-like glory and sardius glory with their emerald rainbow around His throne. And I never picture God's face, but I picture this translucent light breaking forth out of this throne of glory. And I'm standing before Him on the sea of glass-like crystal talking to Him. Father, I ask You, and we call Him Father, and we bring our prayers to Him, and we offer our worship to Him. Paragraph B, God covers Himself with garments of light. Psalm 104, the psalmist said, you cover yourself with light as a garment. So around His throne, God puts garments of light that shine forth from His being. Now, of course, God would have the ultimate garment of many colors. We know Joseph had the garment of many colors, but God has the garment of light of many colors because the rainbow colors are shining forth through this garment of light that God puts around His throne. It's glorious, it's awesome. Even speaking this, I say, Lord, I barely know anything I'm talking about, and I'm on the beginning of the beginning of the outer regions of even understanding the concepts. But, beloved, I think it's well worth our time to meditate on these things, to take these passages and speak them back to God, ask the Spirit to give us revelation of them. 1 John 1.5, the scripture says, God is light. 1 Peter 2, it says this, Peter said, proclaim the praises of God, who called you into His marvelous light. Beloved, we're called into the fellowship and into the experience of this marvelous light. We don't just have light in us, we're called to interact with what Peter called marvelous or beautiful or majestic light. This light is marvelous in its color, it's marvelous in its power, it's marvelous in how it changes us. And we're not just called to tell people about it, we're called into it, we're called to encounter it, we're called to experience majestic, glorious, beautiful light, it's God Himself. It's the light that emanates out of God's being because He has a garment of light surrounding Himself. Paragraph C, top of page three, God dwells in light that no one can approach. This is what Paul said in 1 Timothy 6.16. He says, talking about God the Father, he said, God, who alone has immortality? And who alone has immortality? And He dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen, nor can any man see because it's inapproachable. The light of God is unapproachable. And it's because our capacities in our natural body cannot hold up under the glory of God's light. He's unapproachable for that reason. He's not unapproachable because of the desire of His heart, because He wants to be emotionally distant from us. He's unapproachable because His glory is so much greater than our natural capacities without a resurrected body, that it would be like plugging in a 110 unit device into a billion volts to just completely fry it. And so Paul talks about that. He says the unapproachableness of God's light, that says man cannot see it. He does not have the capacity to experience this face-to-face in our resurrected bodies, we will. But beloved, this is the one we call our Father who art in heaven. This is the one before whose eyes we live and before whom we give an account of our life. He's filled with marvelous light. It emanates out of His being. Paragraph C, this light functions to protect His creation from His full radiance. I mean, He puts light as a garment to protect us from Himself. He has so much intensity of His glory. At strategic moments, we find this different times in the book of Revelation or one of the classic examples in Isaiah chapter six, verse two. I don't have that passage on there, but Isaiah six, verse two is kind of the famous one when the seraphim have six wings, but with two wings, they cover their eyes when they're gazing on the glory of God. And when God allows them to peer into His glory at strategic times, it so overwhelms them, they cover their eyes, they can't take anymore. And it's as though the light of His glory, the glory of God, it races through their being. And for lack of better language, they are completely overwhelmed and they close their eyes, they cover their eyes, their face from God's glory. They need relief from it. They need to be shielded. They need protection from such radiant beauty. And so they close their eyes and they bow down, they turn away. It's like they come back up for air a little while later. And the impact has touched their being. And then they look at another view, another gaze of God's glory. And then they cover their eyes again. And forever and forever, they will be continually having new discoveries of the beauty of God as He opens up different facets of His glory to them. He lets them have yet another glance at His glory. Well, it's because of His mercy, He wraps Himself in garments of light. And this light's unapproachable because without a resurrected body, it would completely, we'd be completely undone. Even the seraphim with a supernatural body, they still have to cover their eyes, completely overwhelmed time after time after time for all eternity. Paragraph D says in Revelation 4, verse 5, from the throne proceed lightnings, thunderings, voices. Out of God's throne proceed flashes of lightning. Continually, lightning is breaking forth out of God's throne and out of His being that is releasing impartation of who He is to the angelic host as well as the saints around His throne. These lightning flashes are His means of impartation for those that gather around His throne on those special occasions when He calls all of heaven to gather before Him on the sea of glass like crystal. But the God in whom we worship, flashes of lightning break forth out of His being continually and thunder and voices. But I'm just focusing on the lightning right now. We're talking about how God looks. And of course, we can only talk about it in the most general sense in terms of the colors that He's revealed to us and the glorious radiant light that emanates out of His being. Let's go to the next expression of God's glory, of God's beauty, expression number two. God's beauty is seen in Jesus's physical beauty, His resurrected body, His resurrected body. It's actually in His physical body He carries the beauty of God, in His human physical body in the resurrection. Paragraph A, God's beauty is seen in Jesus's resurrected body as well as His garments that are filled with glorious power. Philippians 3, Paul talked about our own lowly body, our human natural body is going to be conformed one day to a glorious body just like the Lord's. And the Lord's physical body is called a glorious body, a body filled with glory. Jesus, as a man, we're talking about the man Jesus, He's fully God, but in His humanity, we actually have a bigger problem with His humanity than His deity. We know He's God, but the thing we struggle with, I mean, we all know He's man as well, but we picture Him in eternity more as God than as human. And His glory is in the fact He's fully God and fully human. As a human, we will see His beauty in a physical resurrected body as a human, as a five foot eight Jewish man. Well, maybe not five eight, but that's my guess. That's a joke. Okay, paragraph B, wait, let's go back to A. In Isaiah 33 and Isaiah 4, verse 2, this talking about seeing the beauty of Jesus in the millennial kingdom in His humanity. That's the point I wanna stress, that when it says our eyes will see the King in His beauty, they're talking about the Jewish man, Jesus, in a resurrected body on the millennial earth. That's what both of those passages are talking about. The human beauty of the man Christ Jesus, fully God, fully man. Or let me say this, the beauty of God or the beauty of Jesus seen through His humanity is what I'm trying to say. And so it's different than God the Father. It's not just light shining forth out of Him on a throne that's shrouded in mystery. It's actually in His humanity, face to face, we see Him as a King radiating His beauty in this way. And that's what Isaiah prophesied on two occasions. Paragraph B, Jesus can manifest or He can veil His resurrected glory according to the situation. For instance, in John 20 and 21, after He was raised from the dead, He has a resurrected body. He appeared to His disciples, but He veiled His glory. When He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden, she thought He was the gardener because He's veiling His glory. When He appeared in Luke 24 to the disciples on the road of Emmaus, they don't know it's Jesus. They say to Him, are you the only guy who doesn't know what's going on here in Jerusalem? And they're looking at the resurrected Christ. And then Jesus starts sharing the scripture and they said, whoa, man, you know the Bible. They didn't know He was the word of God forever, the eternal word. They're looking. I mean, does it get any better than Jesus preaching Jesus? There He is talking about Himself face to face with them. Well, when He, in John 21, when He, when the disciples, I think there were seven or eight of them they were on the seashore and they look and they go, who is that guy? You know, tell him to come here. And Peter said, I mean, and John says, it's the Lord. You know, they can't quite tell for a while. And then He cooks them fish and they eat a meal together, but they don't know who He is at first because He's veiling His glory. Jesus in His resurrected body can unveil His glory in His full splendor or He can hold it back. He can choose whichever the situation requires. And I believe the same will be true of the saints in our resurrected bodies. I think that some saints will have such great glory related to the way they lived on the earth because we will all have a different measure of glory. And some will have, and with the glory is a greater capacity to experience God and a greater capacity to experience His glory even with one another. It's just like today, there are saints today that have a far greater capacity for understanding of the things of God than other saints. Some saints are just such babes in their understanding and others have been around for years and years. And there's various levels of experience even in the resurrection. And Jesus in His resurrected body, He can fully unveil His glory as well. And in John 1, the passage we looked at a few minutes ago, He unveils His glory as the Son of Man clothed in the high priestly garments with the head and hair like white and His eyes like fire. And He lets them know who He is and John falls as a dead man before Him. Paragraph one, underneath that. It's interesting, it's not just that Jesus' body has glory in it, His garments have glory in them. His garments have supernatural ability, the supernatural qualities in His garments. Here it says in Isaiah 63, one, speaking about Jesus in His resurrected body. As He's returning at the second coming, they say, who is this man? Who is glorious in His clothing or in His apparel? His apparel has supernatural qualities of brightness and power in them. Remember when Elijah, you know, like threw his mantle and the river divided? Elijah had the power of God was released in his garments. Well, Jesus has what the scripture calls glorious apparel. I don't know what that means, but I know this, that when He's traveling up through the land at the second coming, He's returning to Jerusalem, He's traveling in the greatness of His strength and that's related to His glorious garments and glorious apparel. I mean, He has strength unrelated to His garments, but His garments have glory and power in them as well. And the same will be true of the saints. Revelation 19, verse 14, it says, the saints are clothing will be bright and it will be clean and white, but I like the word, it will be bright. And one translation says it will be radiant. And when the angels appear at various times in the scripture, their clothing is white and radiant. And so Jesus's clothing has this dimension to it. Paragraph two, Jesus's eyes of fire. They speak of His knowledge that penetrates all things in the way that fire penetrates metal. His eyes are like fire. It also reveals His eyes of fire to His love and His zeal for His people. He has fiery love and fiery eyes when He looks at His people. It's not just that He can see and penetrate everything like fire penetrates metal. His eyes can impart love to us and His eyes impart holiness to us. His eyes have the capacity of impartation by gazing at us eye to eye. Our spirits will move and tremble and we will receive when we just look into His eyes, we will receive from Him. It's a glorious reality. It's like the disciples on the road of Emmaus, they heard Him speak and their hearts burned. We will look at His face and our hearts will burn like fire within us, stirred with longing and desire. I have here in paragraph two, when He looks at us, our heart will be warmed and filled with the flame of God's love. Now that's true in the resurrection forever. He will have that dynamic quality when we relate to Him face to face. There'll be times we'll see Him face to face. Throughout eternity. Eternity isn't everybody standing in one place, looking at God's face. In eternity, we will be ruling and reigning and carrying out responsibilities and functioning and subduing and ruling the earth. But there'll be very important occasions when we will gather in before Him face to face. But eternity isn't billions of years of standing in one place, looking at His face. Eternity is coming and going, doing His bidding, doing His work, coming back and standing before Him, interacting with Him. And those will be the most glorious times when we get to look into the eyes of the Father and the eyes of the Son. But even now, even now, even by faith, when we posture our hearts before Him in worship and in meditation on the word, even though we don't see His eyes, we read the word and we're posturing our heart, still His eyes are warming and stirring our hearts. We receive a little bit of that now, like we will receive it in fullness in that day. I love to ask the Lord, Lord, let your eyes of fire touch me even now. The Lord might answer like, do you really know what you're asking for? Yes, Lord, anything. Remember the man that was closest to me of any way, John. He took one look at my eyes and felt like a dead man after he'd been an apostle 60 years. Do you really want me, do you really want to look into my eyes like that right now? Well, Lord, just a little bit, just ever, you know, a little peek, just a little something, how's that? Meaning we want more, but we understand who it is we're dealing with, who it is we're asking to visit us. Paragraph three, Jesus' white hair reflects the Father's white hair. In Daniel 7, the Father has hair that's white and that reflects God the Father's eternal existence and his wisdom and his purity. It goes on in paragraph three, Jesus' face shines like the sun shining in its strength. John not only saw the eyes of fire, he saw Jesus' face like the sun in its strength. Now, when the sun is in its strength at the noontime, at the brightest, you know, days of the year, you have to get away from the sun. You cannot look at the sun in its strength. So Jesus has eyes of fire and he has a countenance like the sun in its strength. And it's this very thing in 2 Thessalonians chapter two that the lawless one, the antichrist, when he's revealed, Jesus will consume him by the breadth of his mouth and by the brightness of his coming. The very brightness of his face will consume the antichrist. Jesus will come and he will breathe on him and the power of the spirit will hit the antichrist and Jesus will gaze on him with an eyes like fire and a face like the sun and consume him. He will cause the antichrist to be completely defeated by gazing at him and breathing and releasing the spirit. When Jesus breathed on the apostles and John 21, the spirit came on them. And when he breathes on the antichrist, it will release the power of the spirit to completely immobilize the antichrist, completely stop him, subdue him. He'll be consumed. He'll be completely subdued and then thrown into the captured and thrown into the lake of fire. Later on in Revelation 19, it says he's captured. Paul says he's consumed. John says he's captured. I'm sure the two work together, those two concepts. He will be consumed and captured and cast into the lake of fire. Okay, turn to top of page four, paragraph C. God's beauty is also seen in Jesus's face. His face is like no other face. I'm talking about the human face of the resurrected Christ. His face is holy and powerful and awesome yet warm and inviting. The smile on his face, the warmth and the fire of his eyes, the brightness of his countenance will conquer God's people with love. The very face of Jesus will subdue and win us forever. Paul talked about the light of the knowledge of God's glory that was released in the face of Jesus. The glory of God is released in the face of Jesus. Now in a partial, we understand that in its partial sense in Jesus' first coming and what he accomplished on the cross. That the face of God, we see his face in receiving forgiveness and we're justified by faith because of the work of Jesus. And so in that sense, that through the face or through the person of Jesus, the glory of God comes to us. But beloved, the day is coming where his face will in the full sense, when we're face to face with him in eternity, his face will communicate the fullness of God's glory as well. It's not just that his work on the cross in his person communicates God's glory, which is an awesome reality in itself. But his actual face, we're studying the beauty of the man Jesus right now. That's what we're talking about. The glory of God in the resurrection will be communicated through the face of Jesus. It says in paragraph D, the writer of Hebrews talking about Jesus, he says, he is the brightness of his father's glory. He is the brightness of his father's glory. He is the express image of God, the father's person. He is the express image of the father's person. What God the father is, God, he expresses it through the man Jesus. On the earth, he did that. In his resurrected body as fully God, fully man for billions and billions and billions of years, the full glory of God will shine forth and we'll be able to handle it a lot better than we can now because we'll have resurrected bodies. So we'll be able to receive far greater portions of it. But we will never exhaust it. A billion years from now, it will still be fresh and new to us. It says in Isaiah 24, verse 23, I'm talking about the glory of Jesus again. He possesses the father's brightness. Here it says here at the second coming, look at this, verse 23, the moon will be disgraced. The sun will be put to shame because Jesus will reign on Mount Zion in Jerusalem before his elders. Gloriously, he will reign and the sun will draw back an embarrassment at a man who sits on a throne in Jerusalem. This is real. This is not poetic. This is real, meaning Jesus is, well, it is poetic as well because the sun is being personified as being ashamed. So there's a poetic dimension to this. But the point being the brightness of Jesus when he wants to turn up the full glory because there's times he can subdue it and veil it and other times he can fully manifest it. When he wants to turn it up, it will be brighter than the sun. That's the meaning of it. Paul the apostle got just a little token of this. I mean, it was just a token. He must've thought at the time it was the fullness, but when it's all said and done, it's only a token. When Paul's telling about his conversion experience, he said, I saw a light from heaven. He sees Jesus. The light was brighter than the sun shining around me. We all fell to the ground and the voice said, Saul, why are you persecuting me? He's looking in the face of a man and it's brighter than the sun. Again, probably Paul thought this is the fullness, but no, that face of Jesus will illuminate the entire new Jerusalem and the entire earth in the age to come. It's far more than what Paul saw, but it must've been so overwhelming in that moment. So, paragraph E, Jesus's glory will illuminate the eternal city or the new Jerusalem. It will fill and it will fill the new Jerusalem with the weight of God's presence, the weight of glory. There's a passage in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17, where Paul talks about the weight of glory. He says, we're called if we're suffering now, he says, it will be, you won't even think anything about it in a few minutes because of the surpassing weight of the glory that is yours in Christ Jesus. The weight of his glory is when God communicates his presence. It has weight and heaviness and power. There's a substance to the glory of God when it touches us. We feel it, we feel the weight of it. Well, that weight, that substance of God's presence and glory will fill the entire new Jerusalem and it will be coming from the face of Jesus. From the person of Jesus. It says here, John said, the city had no need of the sun because the glory of God illuminated it. Because the lamb, Jesus is the light of the new Jerusalem. My, this is intense. This is a man who's lighting up the new Jerusalem. Who is this man? Well, John thought he knew and he fell as a dead man when he gazed into his eyes. It's more than just the city will be lit up, verse 24. The nations on the earth in the millennium will be lit up by the light that comes out of that city that comes from that person called Jesus. Jesus will light up the city and the city will light up the earth. There's his light. I mean, the sun and the moon will continue in the millennial kingdom, but the light coming out of the new Jerusalem will have its own function and contribution on the millennial earth. Revelation 22, the throne of God and the throne of Jesus will be in the new Jerusalem. They will need no lamp. They won't need light of the sun inside the city because the Lord, it's Jesus gives them light in the city. Paragraph F, Jesus is the light of the world. When he said, I'm the light of the world, his apostles might have thought, yeah, we agree. And Jesus could have said, you don't have any idea what I'm talking about. I am gonna light up all the new Jerusalem and the earth in the age to come out of my personhood. I won't need the sun in the age to come. I am the light of the world. That's shocking. What's even more shocking is that Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, verse 14, he goes, you are the light of the world as well. I don't even want to go there and only because I don't understand it, but I just know that we will be conduits of that glory. We'll be conduits of that glory. The light belongs to him, but he will use us to communicate that light in the age to come as well. It's part of being the bride of Christ. Paragraph G. Now we're not gonna go far on this one, but just wanted to point it out to you. We're still talking about the glory of Jesus. And I know we're only on still our second expression of God's beauty, but I'm just gonna go real brief on the other ones. But this Ezekiel one, Ezekiel experienced the glory of the person of Jesus. One like a man on a throne is what he said. In verse 26, Ezekiel one, and I have the passage here. He saw one like a man on a throne and the light of God's glory was coming from that man. Wave after wave of glory. We're not even gonna get into it. But anyway, paragraph G, you can just, I just referenced that for you. You can look at it at your own time. Let's go to Roman numeral four. Ezekiel one is a very important, powerful passage. Ezekiel one. Okay, we're at expression number three. We've, expression one is the light that comes out of God the Father. Expression two is the beauty of Jesus in his literal physical body in the resurrection. I mean, he's beautiful. He's not just powerful. He is actually beautiful. It's stunning. It's majestic. It's terrifying. It's as the song, as they sing the song, I hope I get it right. Beautifully terrible, terribly beautiful, something like that. Anyway, it's great when they sing it. He is beautifully terrible and terribly beautiful. He's both. I think I'm messing it up. But anyway, that's, you got the idea. Expression number three, the beauty of God's personality. This is not how God looks. That's expression one and two. First the Father, then the Son. This is how God acts and how God feels. His beauty is communicated in how he acts and how he feels. Paragraph A, I believe this to be the most dynamic expression of God's beauty. It's seen in his personality, his emotions, his character, his happiness, his holiness, his desires. Understanding God's emotions gives us such insight into what I call the why of God. Why did God do the things he did? We study what God did, but even more penetrating a study is why he did what he did. We know he created the heavens and the earth. We know what he did. But the question is why? We know he accomplished redemption. He went to the cross. We know what he did. He went to the cross. But the greater question is why? And the answer is because he burns with desire for human beings. The why behind the what? Says in John 17, 23. I mean, I got, I have what I consider to be the two ultimate statements in the word of God. The two ultimate statements about God's personality. It says in John 17, 23, Jesus said, talking about the father, father, you have loved them in the way you've loved me. This, this is unthinkable almost, except for Jesus said it. It's in, it's incomprehensible. Let's say it that way. God, the father feels about you like he feels about Jesus. Beloved, this, this is the ultimate beauty of God is his personality, his, his emotional makeup. Well, Jesus says the same thing about himself. He goes, as the father loved me, I love you in the same way the father loves me. He goes, not only does the father love you that way, I love you that way. There's no difference. We love you both the same way. Paragraph B, God's personality is filled with joy and delight. And there's multitudes of, uh, passages on this. I wrote a book on this, just taking subject after subject of it called, uh, I'm spacing anyways. After God's own heart, that's it. That's it. We talk about the, uh, pleasures and personality of God. And I took chapter by chapter and a couple of years ago and wrote on that, the delight and the pleasure inside of God after God's own heart. Paragraph C, God's personality is praised because he's so reliable in his holiness. He never deviates from his holiness. Never. And his holiness actually is his righteousness, his love and his goodness. When we talk about God's holiness, sometimes we kind of go, oh, but you know, we think, oh no, his holiness, his holiness is his righteousness. It is his delight. It is his happiness. It is his goodness. Those are all expressions of his holiness. His holiness beautifies him in the same way that holiness beautifies us. Well, let's go on. We're going to leave the rest of this and go on to Roman numeral five, top of page six. I'm just going to look at these other areas. Just, uh, just real briefly. But I just want you to know they're there. We're not going to go into much detail on them, but I give you just a couple of verses, kind of give you a little, little, uh, a boost, kind of a little start on, on your journey. If this is new to you and some of you, you've been on this path for years and you've got just lots of understanding way beyond these notes. But others of you, this is a new endeavor in your heart to become students of the beauty of God. Expression number four of God's beauty is his leadership. It's not just his personality, his leadership, it's his plans and his wisdom. It's the ideas in his brilliant mind and his brilliant leadership. He has planned human history, not only natural history, but eternal history. He has a script. He has a blueprint. He has a plan that is so stunning. He has the ultimate beautiful mind. You know, they would read, you know, the great writings of history, you know, Shakespeare. And they talk, talk about the mysterious unfoldings of the plot and say, wow, that guy is amazing. He's awesome. Or maybe you hear a song or see a play and say it's beautiful. And what you're really saying is that the mind behind it was beautiful. The script, the person, the personality behind this, it was beautiful. It was stunning. And the, of course, the outworking of it was beautiful. But you're really talking about the blueprint or the script behind the song or behind the play itself. Well, God is the beautiful mind behind the script of human history. He has planned history, natural and eternal history. And he's planned it for our glory. Paragraph C. When the saints stand before Jesus, the second coming, Revelation 15 is related to the events of the second coming. The saints will cry out in Revelation 15 to Jesus. Great and marvelous. Great and marvelous. And in essence, they're saying, is your leadership? They're saying your leadership causes my heart to marvel. That's what we will all say. All the saints will say this. This is related to the second coming events. You make me marvel at what you do with your leadership over history. Beloved, his mind is beautiful. What he has thought of the blueprints from which he is working from, if you'll allow me to use that terminology, as he guides human history to the new Jerusalem and those that say yes to the grace of God and then on past, you know, the day of the Lord on into eternity, billions of years from the new Jerusalem, from his throne, together as his bride. It's a fantastic, beautiful mind that has come up with this. And I love to study the beauty of his mind by studying his plans and his wisdom from the word. Expression number five, the beauty of the Holy Spirit's manifest presence and power before the throne. It says in Revelation four, there are seven lamps of fire. They're burning before the throne, which we know are the seven spirits of God. It's a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And before the throne, there's a sea of glass. And that sea of glass is filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. And before the throne, there are four living creatures called the seraphim. And they're burned. They're called the burning ones. They have the fire of the spirit. Everything before the throne or not everything that's exaggerated, but a number of things before the throne are filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. The spirit's presence is on them and in them and manifest through them. The spirit's power, the spirit's presence around the throne of God, the act, the beauty of the spirit's work and power, his sovereign power. It's the spirit whom releases God, the father and God, the son's power. God, the father and God, the son have all power. And when God, the father and God, the son talk between one another, I mean with one another, it's called intercession. When Jesus is talking to the father, when Jesus talks to the father, when he did it in Genesis one, the spirit move and created the heavens and the earth. It's clear from Scripture in Genesis one, when God said, let there be God, the son was talking to God, the father in a dialogue and the spirit moves in power when the father and the son talk. So the power of God is mediated and manifest through the Holy Spirit, who is fully God as well. And it's a beautiful reality. God, the father, God's power, God's fire. It's not just that the reality of his power is beautiful. The fact that he uses us and his power touches us, but it goes through us and affects all of created order. And that in itself is part of God's beauty. The manifestations of his power by the spirit. Let's go on to expression number six. Top of page seven. The beauty of God's partnership, his bride. This is the beauty paragraph eight. God's beauty is seen in the partner that he redeemed to rule the universe with him. God has taken his former enemies and the beauty that he possesses, he imparted to his enemies and raise them up to rule the universe as his beloved bride. His beauty is manifest in the fact that he has chosen the lowly, the weak, the broken who were resisting him and has exalted them in his kindness to such heights. And drew in draws him near to his heart. I love this passage in paragraph B. It says in paragraph B, let's get down the notes so you can all see that PowerPoint. Paragraph B. My God, I don't have any power. Okay, I'll get there in a second. But sometimes it sticks. But okay, well, let's, I'll just read it to you. It says in Proverbs chapter two, 12 verse four, it says an excellent wife. There it is. Paragraph B. Ah, there you go. An ex, whoa. That's okay. It says an excellent wife is the crown of her husband. An excellent wife is the, I understand that verse in a real personal way. But the bride of Christ is the crown of Jesus. It's part of his glory. His excellent, he is taken out of the ashes, the ash heap of broken humanity and raised up a beggar and a sinner and an enemy to become the crown of his glory. So it says in Isaiah 60, Isaiah 62, he's made us a diadem, a crown in his own hand, a crown of his own beauty, his brightest. God's beauty is manifest by the fact of what he did in choosing us. The beauty that he possesses, he imparts in us. And we can study God's beauty through the way that he chose us and what he's done to us and through us. It says in paragraph C, that God's throne is adorned. God's throne, he is beautified. He is, I mean, it's kind of hard to say these kinds of words when we're talking about God, because he's so much bigger than, he's so much other, wholly other than anything that we can really fully grasp. But God has adorned, his throne is adorned. He has put the most beautiful work of his hands next to his throne. Those are the saints ruling with thrones, with crowns and robes. They are enthroned. They are crowned and robed. But the implications that God has taken the lowliest and the darkest of creation who have fraternized with demons purposefully, rebelled against him and drank in darkness of their own free will against him. And he has so worked in them and exalted them and put them next to his presence. They share his throne. They rule his own throne is delegated through them. He puts crowns on them and then does the ultimate. He calls them priest, which means he says to all of creation, they will be the ambassadors that mediate my likeness. They are the ones that will communicate who I am to the rest of creation. That's what being priest is all about. It's like, Lord, this is like outrageously kind. Your beauty is God's beauty is manifest at its highest level by what he has done to his former enemies, the way he's exalted them and caused them to be crowned and robed and on thrones next to him. It's absolutely stunning expression of his beauty. Number seven. God's beauty is seen in his music and in even God's own voice. It's an amazing study to study the music around the throne of God. The music is. You know, I don't have words for it. You don't have words for it. We barely understand it. We the best we'll understand in this age is only the beginning of the beginning of where this thing is, where God's beauty is. Music is going. God's beauty. Paragraph A, excuse me, is seen in the majestic sounds. The music, the choirs, the voices, the noises, the thunder that surrounds his presence. Jesus is a singer, a songwriter, a musician. Heaven is filled with with the melodies that come from God and the music and the sound of his voice is the the authority of all of heaven. It's like thunder and it's like a trumpet. And it roars like a lion, it says in Hosea chapter 11. Anyway, the music of God's voice and the music, I mean, the beauty of God's music and his voice is another arena of God's beauty. Let's go to number eight. Expression number eight, the beauty of God's royal court and the beauty of God's eternal city, because the royal court is the throne scene, the scene of God's throne. We look at Revelation four. It's the governmental center of the of the eternal city, but it's the throne and the city. It's all one glorious reality. God's beauty is seen in his royal court, which is adorned with seraphim, cherubim, elder saints, myriads of angels, Holy Spirit winds, music, fragrances that flow across the sea of glass like crystal. And it fills the entire city with these kinds of things. The psalmist said it right. In Psalm 96, verse six, he goes, honor and majesty are before him. Like what an understatement we're talking about before the great throne of God, honor and majesty, strength and beauty are before your sanctuary. He's talking about not an earthly sanctuary. We're talking about the throne of God as it is. It works its way out throughout the entire New Jerusalem. Strength and beauty fill your throne and they go throughout the entire city. Paragraph B, God's beauty is seen in the design of the eternal city. The way he created the city is an extension of what is in his heart. God is the ultimate, the ultimate paragraph C, the ultimate interior decorator who's revealing his beauty by the way he set up the entire situation of the city of God. I mean, where the houses are, where the water flows, the contrast of light and color and music and fragrance, it fills the city. God is the ultimate interior decorator who manifests his beauty by his courtroom and the eternal city itself. And when we study the courtroom in the eternal city, it brings us into contact with God's beauty, with the God who created this. Okay, expression number nine. The beauty of God's fragrances. We'll just take a moment on this, but there's more in the scripture on this than you would think. That God is, his beauty is seen in his fragrances, the anointing oil and the incense, which is different than the anointing oil that Moses made for the tabernacle were filled with beautiful fragrances and they spoke of God's fragrances near his throne. I have a question. How many different scents emanate out of God's being? How many fragrances flow in the eternal city? My assumption is there are different fragrances for every different occasion within the city. Paul talked about, we are to God the fragrance of Christ. And we can read it and just kind of reduce it to symbolism. Jesus has a fragrance, many fragrances, I assume. I love the song of Solomon, which is poetic, but I believe it's pointing to the reality. It talked about, it's the verse, it's like come quickly, Lord Jesus. It's the last song, last verse of Song of Solomon. Instead of come quickly, Lord Jesus, like the end of the book of Revelation, it's make your haste and be like a gazelle on the mountain of spices. And the mountain of spices is a description of the new Jerusalem, the mountain of God, the throne of God. It's a mountain of fragrant spices. Psalm, I'll give you one more verse and there's quite a few actually. Psalm 45 verse 8. Jesus's garments are scented with fragrances and they explained three different types of fragrances in Psalm 45 verse 8. Anyway, the fragrances of God's throne and God's city, God's person, God's people. And finally, expression number 10, the beauty of how God communicates with his people. And he communicates to his people through his word and through the countenance of his face. His face shines down upon his people and it imparts. It's like the countenance of God and the word of God. The countenance of God is the light of revelation by the Holy Spirit. But the point I'm saying is this. It's not just, well, we love the word. It's more than that. The word is stunning in its beauty. And of course, it deserves more than the 60 seconds I'm giving it here to end the session. Did you know that the word of God that we're reading tonight, this book, this Bible, we are going to be reading the same Bible a billion years from now. Did you know a billion years from now, you will read the book of Acts and you will read the book of Revelation and it will have meaning that is new and relevant to you a billion years from now. This book will never, ever lose its relevance. When God wrote it, he wrote it with such genius and there's such a, there's so many ways that the whole word of God interplays with truth and truth from one season in God to the other, from one time frame, from one age to the other. This book is stunning and perfect in its beauty. What I'm talking about more than the word, I'm just talking about the way God communicates. He communicates through his word. He communicates through his countenance. It's how God, it's the lightning and thunder from his throne. It's the beauty of what God gives, the way that God gives himself to his people is what I'm really talking about. You can read a little bit more of that if you want. Well, let's stand. The beauty of Christ Jesus, the beauty of God. We want to be.