10 December 2017
Dear Phyllis,
I
don't know what is going on. As usual Pammy is going wild telling
everybody in sight about Jesus. For the past year or more she has had
extensively contact with the Lahu minority people. SEA is filled with
millions of different ethnic people that have their own culture and
language living within the borders of the various counties. The Lahu are
one large group here in northern Thailand. The children all go to Thai
schools which means that they can speak Thai, but among themselves their
native tongue is still Lahu. A large number of Lahu are Christian, but
their church worship services are in their Lahu language. Last Sunday a
small group came to our house for church. Of course I was expected to
preach. My heart really wasn't in it and I had done no preparation, so,
desperately, I asked the Lord for a message to deliver. A thought came
of something the Lord had been sharing with me recently.
It
is surprising that the Bible tells us very little about heaven. I
suppose the reason for this is that it is impossible for us to
comprehend what heaven is like. For children in Thailand it is
impossible for them to know what snow is like. They have never seen a
snow flake. They have never seen a frozen pond and it is impossible for
them to know what it is like to ski down hill. Heaven is so much out of
our known environment that it is impossible for an angel to tell us what
it is like. Apart from Revelation, the Bible only gives us two or three
briefs glimpses. One of them is what Isaiah saw in chapter 6. There he
saw the Lord sitting on the Throne with the seraphims crying
ceaselessly, “Holy, holy, holy”. Six hundred years later John had a
similar experience and the scene hadn't changed. The seraphims were
still crying “Holy, holy, holy” (Rev. 4:8). Then he saw the Lamb and
millions of saints worshiping Him, but their message was different. From
Rev. 4:11 to 5:12 we see the word “worthy” uttered five times. The
thing about God that impressed the seraphims the most was His character. But the greatest impression of the Lamb upon saints is His worthiness.
Seraphims and saints are looking at the same Being but His main
impression on them is different. I say the same Being but here we are
talking about the difference between the Father and the Son. To say He is holy is to admire His character, but to cry “worthy” is to marvel His performance.
The reason for the different impression is that Jesus never died for
seraphims, but when saints look upon the Lamb of God they know that I
was for them that He died. It is because of what He did that makes Him so worthy.
If we had never sinned perhaps we might look upon God and marvel at His
character, but when we look at the wounds of Jesus and know it was for
us that He came, lived, and died; is there anything else that could
escape from our mouths than “WORTHY”? If we were responsible to arrange
the seating order in heaven who is the one who is worthy to sit in the
front seat? Oh, thank God they have it right in heaven but the scene
here on earth is mind-boggling insanity. Even among Christians self sits
up front and Jesus gets to sit in the back row.
Last
Sunday the Lord gave me an illustration of the worthiness of our
Savior. Suppose there were two men who both had one son. The son of one
man had a very bad heart. The father took him to the hospital and the
doctor told him that his only possible chance to live was a heart
transplant. It is only in the past 60 or so years that medical science
has been able to do organ transplants. Today they are fairly common.
Kidney transplants are the easiest. We all have two kidneys, and if
someone needs a kidney transplant a downer can give one and still
survive on the one left. But we only have one heart. To get a heart
transplant we have to wait until someone dies. But suppose there were
two men with one son and one boy needed a heart transplant. Then the
father of the healthy lad said, “I will donate the heart of my boy to
save your son.” What do you think of that? That is utterly obscene. But
what God has done for us is infinitely greater.
What
do you think about the performance of Jesus? For 30 silent years He was
spectacular. When Jesus was baptized God broke His silence in heaven
and in an audible voice He said, “Thou art My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”
(Lk. 3:22). The ball game isn't over yet. Jesus has only played 7
innings but the Father couldn't help but remark, “Son, You have done
marvelously well”. It was only in the 9th inning that Jesus hit the winning home run.
My
illustration of the two fathers with sons is imperfect as it features
the fathers. I don't know which is greater - what the Father has done
for us or what the Son did. It is the character of the Father who would
give His Son, but it is the performance of the Son who did so well when
He became a man and trounced the devil by His sinless life and
sacrificial death. Oh my goodness, is there anything else we can say but
“Worthy! Worthy! Worthy!”? In heaven we will get that right and Jesus
will be in the front seat. Is it possible that any human being could put
themselves up front. Astoundingly, here on earth even among Christians
self gets to sit up front and Jesus is relegated to the back row. If
Jesus is so worthy, how is it possible that self could challenge Him for
supremacy in our lives? How is it possible that we could be
half-hearted in our devotion to Him?
The
message of surrender just blows my mind. The only thing that I can
think of that is more mind-boggling is salvation. Somehow we have got
the salvation message utterly inverted, and now we present God as the
supplicant pleading with sinners to please accept His offer of
forgiveness and eternal life. I can only wonder at the bewilderment of
angels as they observe pastors in thousands of churches pleading with
sinners to please come forward and accept what God is trying to give
them. It is sinners who should be crying and begging God to please
forgive their treasonous transgressions. How we got that upside down to
make God the supplicant is utterly beyond me. But then the message of
surrender. Somehow we think that we can be saved - we can accept God
free gift of salvation – and still be in charge of our own lives.
Question. Who is worthy to possess everything we have? I have never
surrendered my life to Jesus. I didn't know you were supposed to. When I
asked Jesus to come in to save me from sin, I assumed He was to control
my life. All I have ever tried to do for the past 60 years is to follow
and obey Him.
The
other day Pammy was talking to me about all the people we need to reach
to save them from going to hell. I said, “Yes that is true. If we love
them we should do everything possible to keep them from going to hell.
But there is a better reason. Jesus came and paid the price for their
salvation. He needs to get His money worth of the full price He has paid for.” No one is worth of salvation but Jesus is worthy to receive what He paid for.
I don't know if anyone else got anything out of my message but the Lord certainly spoke to me. What I am trying to say is that Jesus is worthy. Oh for grace to love Him more.
bill
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