Restoration 2013: Jesus.

<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>

Restoration Ministry

Mark Howard

Jesus:  The Lamb of God

Heavenly Father, I thank you tonight for each 1 who is here, who's taken time out of their busy schedules.

And Lord, I know there are many things that bombard us and that each person here has their own share of burdens that they seek to lay aside when they come in to this meeting.

But I also know, Lord, that the enemy is relentless and he doesn't want us to receive the message you have for us.

So I pray that you would be with my mind, my thoughts, and my lips tonight, as well as the ears of the hearers and the hearts of every 1 of us that we would be able to respond to what the Spirit says to the church tonight.

We ask and pray these things in the name of Jesus and for his sake, amen.

How many of you were able to make it out this morning?

Okay, I shifted gears a little bit this morning.

Be known, I haven't had the conversation with the restoration staff, so they may as well hear now as soon as any other time.

But I, you know, when we talked about doing our meeting here, the morning was a little bit less time, and I felt like it might not be a lot of time to really develop a topic.

So I figured we'd pick stories of interest, and that went okay.

But I have felt personally convicted that, you know, there's some people can only come at that time, and I felt I needed more spiritual emphasis there.

And so I decided I want to take our stories in the morning and use more of a biblical theme.

And this morning I held my testimony, complete with pictures.

And so I had some of my growing up pictures.

I had my girl on the back of the bike picture, which those of you who were here, Arden wanted me to show those tonight.

I don't know if anybody would be interested in me giving a quick run through on that in the evening.

I'll do that at some point and give you a quick snapshot.

But this morning I basically started out with a story in Luke 15, well the 3 stories, the 3 parables in Luke 15.

And you have the parable of the lost sheep, and you have the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost boy, and you've probably heard, as these have been discussed before, that they're all very different.

You have the, or, you know, they're all lost, but the sheep knows it is lost and wants to be found.

The boy knows he is lost but doesn't want to be found.

And the coin is a coin so it has no idea it is lost.

I liken myself this morning to that coin as a young man.

I thought that I was everything that I realized I wasn't when the Lord got a hold of my attention and helped me to see my need for Christ.

Tonight I want to talk about Jesus as the Lamb of God.

And this is a topic that contends sometimes to be viewed as even, well I hate to say it, but generic for us.

Oh yeah, Jesus the Lamb of God, we kind of know that Jesus is the Savior of the world, etc.

Now I'm going to give a little bit broader picture of this tonight because the scripture does.

I'm not going to go in as much into the concept, I think I should ask you maybe, what's the first thing you think of when you think of Jesus as the Lamb?

Okay, sanctuary, slain from the foundation of the world, there we go.

Now we're jumping into that tonight, but I'm not going to get into as much of the idea of the sanctuary.

I actually want to start tonight in the book of Revelation.

In Revelation chapter 5, Jesus is pictured there as a lamb.

This is 1 of my favorite pictures that the Bible gives of what It means for Jesus to be the Lamb of God.

We're going to Revelation chapter 5, we're starting in verse 1.

Now in Revelation 4 John gets a picture of the throne room in heaven.

We come into Revelation chapter 5 verse 1 and John says, I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back sealed with 7 seals.

Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals.

No 1 in heaven or on the earth or under the earth, that means anybody who has ever lived and died, was able to open the scroll or to look at it.

Verse 4, John says, so I wept much because no 1 was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look at it.

Now this should grab your attention here because, first of all, it doesn't say John didn't say I wept, like, you know, I got a trickle down my cheek.

And you've got to understand that John, the disciple, John the apostle, I mean, this is a man who, according to history, the emperor, was it Diocletian, who tried to have him killed and put him in a vat of boiling oil, but he wouldn't boil.

And so they had to take him out, and they did, what do you do with a guy you can't boil?

Oh, I know, you stick him on the rocky prison colony of Patmos and you have him work mining rock in his old age and that's what happened with John the Apostle.

So this is a guy, he couldn't boil him, he's mining rock, I mean, this guy, he's not a wimpy guy, a book can't be opened and he's bawling about it.

This scroll that's sealed up has massive implications for John.

Now we know from a study of the book of Revelation that when You go through Revelation and you see the seals being opened for this book.

When the seals are opened, you begin to see the unfolding of the Christian Church.

In other words, the future, John realizes that the whole future of humanity, the future of the church, the future of the human race lies in whether or not that book can be opened.

And that will be significant in a little bit.

And so, as John is weeping, verse 5 says, 1 of the elders said to me, do not weep.

Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its 7 seals.

He has been in a conflict and overcoming that conflict to qualify him to open the scroll.

So it says in verse 6, he's been told, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, we know who he is talking about here, but notice what he sees in verse 6.

And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne, and of the 4 living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood what?

A lamb as though it had been slain, having 7 horns and 7 eyes, which are the 7 spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Then he came and took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne." Now this is fascinating.

Nobody is permitted, nobody is authorized, nobody is worthy to take the scroll.

John is weeping because nobody, and it's just been announced, nobody is able to take it.

And then John's directed to this lamb, which is a representation we know, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, this is Jesus Christ who has been slain and after having been slain he's prevailed, he's qualified And he comes up, he doesn't ask any questions.

He takes the scroll, which is communicating to us that he has fully prevailed and qualified and is worthy to take it.

It's the significance of that that we want to delve into this evening.

What in the world is that all about and why is it so important and why was John weeping?

I want you to look at, oh, 2 things I want to bring up.

It's interesting in the description of the Lamb that we see Him with 7 eyes and 7 horns.

When you're looking in the Bible in symbols, what are horns representative of?

What would you, when you're Talking about God and the nature of God, what is the word we use for completeness of power?

When we talk about God and His attributes, what is the word we use for completeness of vision?

Back to Menu

Jesus: The Lamb of God

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

The Mount of Blessings

Light of the World

40m

Revival Now!

1. We Need Revival

31m

Why I Love Jesus

42m

Abraham: Father of the End-time Faithful

Father Abraham: Stranger and Pilgrim

42m

Plenary

Building Altars

1h 26m

The Sanctuary

Blood, Bronze, and Blessings

1h

Waiting for the Promise

31m

Fresh Thoughts on the Sanctuary

The Adventist Theology of the Sanctuary Re-examined, Part 1

1h 14m

What Jesus Said

19. Religion and Politics

1h

Addiction & the Devil's Battleground

Addiction & the Devil’s Battleground: Power to Heal

58m

Shipwrecked

31m

How Does the Gospel Redeem Wounded, Broken Hearts & Minds?

50m

Sound Doctrine