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Muskegon SDA Church

Jason Sliger

Where Art Thou

Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, that we can come into your presence this morning, knowing that as we open our Bibles, that you are going to speak to our very hearts.

And Lord, we ask that as we come to the study of your word, that we would have the attitude of surrender, the willingness to have your will done and not ours.

Father, we want to be ready when you come to take us home.

You have your Bible, so please turn with me to the book of Revelation.

Revelation, the sixth chapter, verses 14 and 15 is where we are heading.

Revelation chapter 6, verses 14 and 15, our sermon title this morning, Where Art Thou?

Revelation 6 is a place where we find John describing in 1 of the many places in his apocalyptic book, he's describing the second coming of Jesus.

He does it multiple times, several times throughout the book of Revelation.

And here we find 1 description, verse 14 and 15, the Bible says this, and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.

And every mountain and island were moved out of their places, very similar to his description in Revelation 16.

Verse 15, he says, and the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every free man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains." It's sad words that are recorded in this book of the Bible that there will be those when Jesus comes back the second time who want to be hid from Jesus.

It's something to give some pause and reflection to, that by God's grace, we will not be part of that group that wants to be hidden when Jesus comes the second time.

The face of Jesus, the coming of Jesus, will be terrifying to this group of people.

They cry out for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them and to hide them from the beautiful face of the 1 who has redeemed us from sin.

This is the man who created man in his own image in the Garden of Eden.

He breathed into his nostrils in a very intimate way the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

This is the man who gave up heaven to come down here to this earth to die on a cruel cross so that you and I might be redeemed.

This is the man who right now is in the kingdom of heaven doing the work of intercession as our high priest, who is preparing a place for you and I so that 1 day we can be with him in the kingdom of heaven.

This is the man that some will want to be hid from.

The Bible goes on in verse 16, it says this.

And said to the rocks, mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.

Why do the wicked want to be hidden from the face of Jesus?

I look forward to seeing the face of Jesus.

Have you ever thought about what the face of Jesus is going to look like?

Something to use your imagination and try to think about what is it going to look like to see the face of Jesus.

Yet here are people who are going to talk to rocks and mountains.

Have you ever had much of a conversation with a rock before?

Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.

I want to be part of the group that when Jesus comes back that I will say, lo, this is my God, I have waited for him and will rejoice and be glad in his salvation, amen.

There will be those who say that to God and there will be those who speak to rocks and ask them to hide them from the beautiful face of Jesus.

Now, of course, when we think about hiding in the Bible, we here are in the last book of the Bible, but as we go back to the book of Genesis, keep your finger on Revelation, we're going to come back to that here in just a few moments.

But as we go to the book of Genesis, Genesis 3, we go to the very first place in the Bible where we find man hiding himself from God.

Genesis 3, And of course, the fall is in play at this point.

Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And in verse 9, the Bible tells us this, and the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, where art thou?

When you read in Patriarchs and Prophets, you actually find that Adam and Eve enjoyed walking with Jesus in the Garden of Eden.

And when Jesus came to the garden, I can almost imagine in my imagination that they were anxious to connect up with him and to walk with him and to talk with him and to spend time with their creator.

What an awesome experience that must have been.

But here they have done what God had asked them not to do.

They had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and as God came and was walking in the coolness of the garden, Adam and Eve were not coming up to him the way they normally did.

And so he calls out and he says, where are you?

Did you know the answer to that question?

He was asking the question more for Adam than he was for himself.

Verse 10, the Bible goes on and says, and he, that is Adam, said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." From the Bible, as you read that verse there in verse 10, Why is it that Adam hid himself from Jesus?

The Bible says it was because he was what?

He tells the Lord, I was naked and I hid myself.

Now we know as we fill in the blanks here from reading the story that there is a reason why Adam was naked and hid himself.

It's because he ate from the tree and that resulted in him sinning against God.

So it wasn't so much the nakedness that made Adam hide from God, although that was part of it, but what really made him want to hide himself from God was the fact that he had sinned.

Whenever we sin, the natural human tendency is to hide from God.

In the garden, we see that tendency, And with the wicked in the last days, we see that tendency.

For they have indulged in sin until it is reached to its full conclusion.

And all throughout the history of this earth, the same story has played out.

When we sin, we want to hide and draw ourselves away from God, when in reality we need to come to Him and ask for forgiveness, amen?

We need to ask Him to forgive us and help us to overcome those sins that cause us to fall and want us to hide from Him.

The natural tendency when we have sinned is to separate ourselves from God and his people.

And it's inevitable that you will find when people separate themselves from the church, when they separate themselves from God's people, they may have certain reasons for why they have done that, but when you drill down and when they really get to their heart reason why they have separated themselves from God's people, you will oftentimes find it's because of some sin in their life.

Now that doesn't mean that the devil doesn't use other sources to try to chase people away from the church and chase people away from God, but we hide ourselves from God because of something that we have done wrong in our lives.

We see that in the story of Adam, and we see that in the story in Revelation chapter 6.

Now go back with me to Revelation 6 if you would.

There's a couple of other verses I want you read here this morning.

Revelation 6, we're gonna look at verse 16 and 17.

As we conclude this chapter, the Bible says this, and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.

Why are the wicked wanting to be hid from the face of Jesus because they are sinners and sin cannot dwell in the presence of a holy God.

Verse 17, the Bible goes on, it says this, for the great day of his wrath is come, and what's the question that the wicked people ask?

They're calling for the rocks and mountains to fall on them, and when rocks and mountains fall on you, it's pretty difficult to stay standing.

But they're asking this question, and I think the wicked are asking a question that maybe some of us don't even know the answer to.

And I think it's a good question for us to reflect upon this question of the wicked.

Who shall be able to stand in his, when he appears in the clouds of heaven.

There will be those who want to hide from God.

There will be those who will be able to stand and want to be in the presence of God.

There will be those who cry out to the rocks and the mountains, and There will be those who cry out to the rocks and the mountains, and there will be those who cry out to God and saying, I've been waiting for you.

Well, David asks the same question in the book of Psalms.

He doesn't just ask the question, but he actually answers it.

Psalms 24 Verses 3 and 4, he asks the question again in verse 3, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Or who shall, what's the next word there?

Who will be able to stand in the holy place?

Who will be able to stand in the presence of God?

When Jesus comes in the clouds of heaven and we see him face to face, who will be able to stand?

And he answers the question in verse 4, he that hath what?

Pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

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Where Art Thou

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