Part III gets to the heart of the matter: What is the single greatest need of the church to get ready for the second coming?

<p>Part III gets to the heart of the matter: What is the single greatest need of the church to get ready for the second coming?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Ouachita Hills College

The Song of the Ages

Scott Burgess

The Song of the Ages, Part 1

The title for this morning's talk is The Song of the Ages.

Yeah, we had some good music this morning.

And before we begin, let me give you these 2 texts just to kind of set the course for where we're headed here.

The Bible makes very clear that when we become Christ's that we are called to conquer.

As an example of that, let me give you these 2 texts.

Romans 8, verse 37 tells us, We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

And again in Revelation 21, verse 7, He that overcometh, same word as conquers, He that conquers shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and He shall be my Son." Who here wants to be a son, or as the case may be, a daughter of God?

Well, by implication, you need to conquer.

Now, if you're like me, I'm a very logical person.

So if someone says to get from A to B, or to get to this destination, this is what you want, then I wanna know, well, how?

So if we're called to conquer, I wanna know what I'm supposed to conquer, and I wanna know how I conquer.

If I know that, then we're in good shape.

So let's see what we can learn from the following folks right here.

I figure this is a good place to learn from.

Revelation 14, verse 1, John records, "...I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him a hundred 40 and 4000, having his father's name written in their foreheads." Verse 2, "...and I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder.

And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.

Then the verse that we had for our reading, and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the 4 beasts, and the 4 and the elders.

And no man could learn that song, but the hundred and 40 and 4000 which were redeemed from the earth." And it continues, verse 4, these are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins.

These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb." And verse 5, "...and in their mouth was found no guile, for they were without fault before the throne of God.

Now, if you read about these people right here, these are the 144, 000, and a statement that you all may be familiar with.

We may not know every detail about the 144, 000, but we should strive with all of our might to what?

They're conquerors, so let's strive to be among them.

The verse that we had this morning, verse 3, it said, they sung as it were a new song before the throne.

I think part of the key to victory here is to understand this new song that they're singing here.

It is interesting that this group of overcomers is singing.

It's not what I always associate with conquerors, warriors, right?

But again in Revelation, just the very next chapter, you read about some folks and they're singing again.

Notice in Revelation 15, it's very similar.

Verse 2, it says, and I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having, " there it is again, the harps of Grodd.

Very similar image, it seems to be presenting it just from a slightly different angle, but it's pretty much the same event we just saw.

Verse 3, And this time they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty!

Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints." Notice right here it says that this is the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb, whereas before it was referred to as the New Song.

In verse 4, they conclude by saying, Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name?

For all nations shall come and worship before Thee, for Thy judgments are made manifest.

Now as far as what we are told about these songs here, in the Great Controversy it actually speaks about both this new song of Revelation 14 and this song of Moses and the Lamb in Revelation 15, she rolls them together, which seems very fitting because they are in fact, thinking about the same thing.

Notice what she says here, and they sing, quote, a new song before the throne, a song which no man can learn save the hundred and 40 and 4 thousand." That's Revelation 14.

It is the song of Moses and the Lamb, Revelation 15, a song of deliverance.

None but the hundred and forty-four thousand can learn that song, for it is the song of their experience, an experience that no other company has ever had.

Now I am going to suggest that this experience they have is the experience of conquering.

It says no other company has ever had this.

There has been no other company of people in the world, there have been individuals, but not companies of people, that have experienced what it is to conquer.

Based on just the overall Bible message, what is it that God wants us to conquer?

Okay, I heard, let's see, I think I heard sin, right?

Self, yeah, where there's sin, self rears its ugly head, right?

These 3 S's, Satan, sin, and self, they're all rolled together.

We are to resist the devil and he will flee from us." That's good, right?

Now, the Song of Moses, that's that song of deliverance.

When the Israelites were taken by God out of Egypt, He rescued them, He delivered them.

Exodus 15, you read, we even have a song that we sing here at Washita Hills about the horse and the rider he has cast into the sea, right?

That's what they're singing about, deliverance.

On the other hand, it was called the song of the lamb as well.

In the book of Revelation, Jesus, when he's referred to as the 1 who marries the bride, he's referred to as the Lamb, the 1 who died for her.

So he demonstrated that perfect love that we're called to have for our wives.

So the lamb is the 1 who marries his bride, but his bride is the 1 she has the law of liberty on her heart.

And so she is free to obey her lamb husband, Jesus, perfectly.

So the song of Moses is a song of deliverance.

The song of the lamb is 1 who has become free, free to obey her Lord perfectly.

And I dare say we all need this deliverance.

That's why the Bible was written, so that we could learn about it.

And we need to learn, like the hymn says, to trust and obey, for there is no other way.

We all need to learn, I think, this, to sing and shout the victory.

Wouldn't it be nice, we have a song about that, but wouldn't it be nice if we could actually, it would really true, we'd say, yes, I know what victory is like.

And though we're not gonna go into the details of it today, there's been a time where I've shared, it turns out if you were to go to Psalm 96, it says this is the new song.

If you were to scan it, it's not that long a Psalm, you will discover what the new song is, the song of victory.

Some of you may possibly remember Psalm 96 actually when you read it it turns out it reveals the first angels message.

And you can also make an argument for the other 2 angels' messages.

That's the song of victory the 144, 000 are singing.

That's the message this church is to be giving to the world, right?

We're to be singing, we're showing the world what victory looks like so that they will want to join the winning army and become victors in Christ.

The Only thing is we need to know kind of a song lyrics if we're going to actually sing the song.

We need to come into unity of the faith if we're gonna sing, right?

The Song of the Ages, Part 2: Learning the Lyrics

All right, well, we're going to go ahead and we're going to dive into our talk this morning.

A few weeks ago, we had looked at the first chapter of the Song of Solomon, and we explored the question about, well, what is it about?

And we saw a few things there that suggest that it deals largely with the sanctuary.

Now for those of you that are, that weren't here, but might like to catch up, I'm going to provide just a very brief review of just some of the main points, and then we'll go on a little bit further into the song.

And today, after we do a little bit of review, I've entitled this Learning the Lyrics.

The Song of Solomon is supposed to be the greatest song, so it'd be kind of nice to know what's it about.

So to begin, in verse 1, it says, The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.

And he did compose this song, but when we say Song of Songs, it's just like Holy of Holy or Lords of Lords or any of these expressions.

Yeah, the best, the chiefest, the greatest.

So it seems like it might be worth studying.

And since I think most of us agree this is a book that's not well understood, It might be helpful in the last days to consider and see if God can help us.

When we went down to verse 5, we noticed it says, this is the bride speaking here, she says, I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.

And then she says, how black and how comely, as the tents of Kadar, as the curtains of Solomon.

And we looked at a few verses to help explain that, but the gist of it was when it talks about curtains and Solomon, it's not too hard to conclude that that might be dealing with the sanctuary.

There are curtains in the sanctuary there.

In the prior verse, in verse 4, it says that the king has brought me into his chambers.

And that may or may not suggest something to you, but a few verses in the Bible help to open that up.

And Samson said, "'I am going to go into my wife into the chamber.

I think that makes it pretty clear what room is in view right there.

And again in Joel 2.16, talking about God in the end of time and his people, It says, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts.

Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber and the bride out of her closet.

Okay, so would you say that the chamber sounds like the bedroom, is that fair?

We also noticed in verse 12 of the first chapter, it speaks about the king being in the area roundabout.

Well, what we do is we just go on the Bible.

Go to your computer and say, okay, where is this word found?

And lo and behold, in 1 Kings 6.29, talking all about the preparations for Solomon's temple, it says that Solomon carved all the walls of the house round about, with carved figures of cherubs, palm trees, open flowers within and without.

Still might seem curious to you, but this expression is in a sanctuary context.

And since Solomon wrote the psalm and he built the temple, That suggests very highly that yes, this is talking about the same thing.

And then finally, the last verse of chapter 1 of Song of Solomon mentions that the beams of our house are cedar and are rafters of fir.

And it might seem like just some sort of incidental detail and you're thinking, well, okay, you're telling me what you built it out of, but does that really matter?

But by telling us that right there, this is a dead giveaway about what he's talking about.

It says, he, Solomon, built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar, and he covered the floor of the house with planks of fir.

Lots of details there that we have not covered, but we're just trying to show just enough to suggest that the song keeps referring to the sanctuary, and so to properly understand it, if we have that mindset, if we have that lens that we filter things through, we can begin to make sense out of it.

I think that's needed because this is a difficult book of the Bible.

It might also suggest why If you've ever heard, maybe read things by who knows who out there, maybe not within our own ranks, you might get all kinds of ideas and some that don't seem to make a lot of sense.

As a people, we are the only people on earth that really present the sanctuary, what it means to us living in the last days.

If you don't have that mindset, there's no hope of understanding the psalm correctly.

Now if you do, you still need the Holy Spirit to enlighten you to get it correct, but at least you're coming at the right angle.

We also noticed 1 other verse here in chapter 1.

The bride says she describes her beloved, this would be Solomon, as a cluster of camphor.

And when I was here a few weeks ago, I asked the question, does anybody know what camphor is?

Now at that time, it didn't seem to get much of a response.

If you were not here before, would anybody like to hazard a guess as to what camphor is?

Has anybody ever heard of camphor other than in this verse?

Now some of the literature out there will suggest to you it's a henna blossom.

To me, I looked at that and said, okay, very well.

I know what a blossom is, I have no idea what henna is.

So it still doesn't help me out that much.

So then I said, okay, let's forget all the books.

Let's just, let's see what the Hebrew word is.

And lo and behold, the Bible explains itself.

And this is so interesting and so much easier to understand.

Now, why would you describe atonement as a plant?

But I do know, does atonement fit with the sanctuary?

That's what the whole sanctuary is about.

From cross to the end of the judgment, it's atonement.

And this word here, referring to some sort of plant, you will find it in Exodus 25 17.

The so-called mercy seed, it really literally is the atonement lid.

Modern translations will capture that detail.

I don't know if you've looked at Noah's ark, there's a fascinating study for you.

Every detail of it suggests it was a Floating, protective sanctuary.

But they were to pitch it in and out with, it's the same word here, that word pitch.

What sealed the ark, what made it watertight, was atonement.

And that's exactly what's going to seal us in the end, Jesus' work of atonement, right?

Again, it may seem like a curious expression, but hopefully you can kind of get the broad idea here.

Also in 1 John 2, 2, Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.

Again, not a word that most of us use on a daily basis.

Just go trace it out to the Bible and you'll find out, oh, it's the same word that's translated atonement, which is better understood.

So Jesus in Song of Solomon 114 is described as a cluster of atonement.

Hopefully that sheds a little bit of light, no doubt some questions, but hopefully that gives you some broad stroke understanding of what's going on here.

We just looked at a few ideas, a few little details in chapter 1, but it kind of begs the question, what's the rest of the book about?

Is it gonna be painful to go through all the details?

Well, if we were to look at them up here, it probably would be, you'd be thinking, oh dear, the day is dragging on.

Again, we're just gonna catch just a few to see if we can get kind of the, we're gonna try to determine what forest we're looking at and not every tree in the forest.

The Song of the Ages, Part 3: At the Door

So we're going to go ahead and we are going to take a look today.

We're going to springboard off of the text Revelation 3 verse 20 as we continue our look here at the song of the ages.

I appreciated that children's story right there at the door because it seemed like that's just exactly what we're going to talk about here.

So I don't know if that was by design or not, at least God's design.

But yeah, we're going to look at the door here.

So let's go ahead, we're going to review the message that God gives to His church, His people of Laodicea.

It begins in Revelation 3, Verse 14, and what it says here is that, "'Unto the angel, ' the messenger, "'of the church of the Laodiceans write, "'These things saith the Amen, "'the faithful and true witness, "'the beginning of the creation of God.'" And just right there, I thought it might be good to examine those words, the true witness right there.

You'll notice that the Amen, capital A, right?

The fact that he's called the true witness as opposed to just saying, this is Jesus, tells us something right there.

This is legal, this is courtroom language.

Jesus has a testimony to give and he can only give a truthful testimony.

So what he tells the angel of this church, so that it can go to the entirety of the church, is absolutely true.

Then it goes on here in verses 15 and 16, and he says, I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot, I would thou were cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." Now just to make sure that we understand this properly, you understand, you may have heard this before, you know, Laodicea was known for having a water that would go into it.

This is water imagery with the cold and the hot and the lukewarm here.

And it might seem a little puzzling right there.

Lukewarm water, I think we would all agree, is not necessarily great.

But the cold or the hot, it might seem a little bit strange right here.

Why does he say that he wishes we were cold or hot?

Sometimes we kind of go straight to a spiritual understanding and say, Well, you know, if we were cold, not open to the gospel, or if we were hot, somehow that'd be good.

But let's not miss the water imagery right here.

Does the Bible say anything good about cold water?

Yeah, somehow we think cold is bad here, but notice what the Bible says.

Proverbs 25, verse 25 says, As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.

The ultimate good news I can think of from a very far country is the gospel.

If you look in the New Testament, what does Jesus Himself say about cold water?

You may remember from Matthew 10.42, He says, If you give drink unto 1 of these little ones, even a cup of cold water, goes on to say, you won't lose your reward.

So evidently cold water in the Bible as I read it is a good thing.

And so you can see why you'd say, I wish that you were cold or hot.

Now cold or hot, apparently you could either be cold, you might not be on fire for the gospel, but you could be made to be refreshing to somebody else if you accept it.

You could be hot, you know, you might even be opposed to everything the scripture says, but if you are willing to be transformed, if you are zealous to repent, as he says in a few verses, this is a good thing.

But when you're lukewarm and you're comfortable, God says, I can't do a thing with you because you're not willing to budge.

You're just comfortable right there in the cesspool.

When it says, I will spew you out of my mouth, that's, I mean, I think we know what that means.

He's not saying that, well, because you're lukewarm, I'm gonna do it.

It might be better to nuance it more like the Greek says, because you're lukewarm and you're not cold or hot, I am on the verge of, I'm just about to spit you out.

In other words, there is still a glimmer of hope, it's just that your case is pretty sad.

Now as you go on here in verse 17, Jesus continues by saying, because you say, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and know not that you are wretched, miserable and poor and blind and naked.

I mean, he couldn't make it any more evident that this church is in a sad way right here.

But because you do think you're rich and increased with goods, notice what he says here.

He doesn't say, because of that, I'm going to just blot you off the face of the earth.

He says, no, this is the seventh of the 7 churches.

You just need a lot of polishing up, let's say.

And so rather than blotting them out, he says, let's fix the problem.

He says, I counsel you to buy of me 3 things.

The first he says is gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich.

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The Song of the Ages

The Song of the Ages, Part 3: At the Door

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