Great Prayers No.9 The Sanctuary Text

5 in the mission praise, soon and very soon we're going to see the King. I'm going to talk this morning about the church text in the archway, which speaks about the Lord Jesus and his coming again. 605, soon and very soon we're going to see the King.

And this is a happy song. Let's stand and sing. Soon and very soon we are going to see the King.

Soon and very soon we are going to see the King. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're going to see the King. No more crying then, we are going to see the King.

No more crying then, we are going to see the King. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're going to see the King. No more dying then, we are going to see the King.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're going to see the King. Before we sing the last verse, you know the words. Soon and very soon we're going to see the King.

Put your books down, clap your hands, this is a happy song. Okay, everybody together. Soon and very soon we are going to see the King.

Soon and very soon we are going to see the King. Soon and very soon we are going to see the King. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're going to see the King.

Soon and very soon we are going to see the King. Soon and very soon we are going to see the King. Soon and very soon we are going to see the King.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're going to see the King. Only by grace can we enter, only by grace can we stand. Not by women in death, but by the blood of the Lamb.

Into your presence you draw us, and now by your grace we come. And by your grace we come. Lord, in your blood, our transgressions, who will stand? As your grace we are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.

Lord, in your blood, our transgressions, who will stand? Thanks to your grace we are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Only by grace can we enter, only by grace can we stand. Into your presence you draw us, and now by your grace we come.

I lift my hands to the coming King. To the great I am, to you I sing. For you're the one who reigns within my heart.

I lift my hands to the coming King. To the great I am, to you I sing. For you're the one who reigns within my heart.

And I will serve the Lord and God. The Lady of the Tray, you are my heart's desire. Spirit without measure, unto your name I will bring my sacrifice.

Coming King, to the great I am, to you I sing. And I will serve the Lord and God. The Lady of the Tray, you are my heart's desire.

Spirit without measure, unto your name I will bring my sacrifice. God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming soon.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus.

Be with God's people. Amen. Douglas Crouch was a remarkable man.

The founder of this church. If you want to see what he looked like, well, you just take a trip up by the stairs leading to our youth lounge in my office. Spurgeonic figure, I mean by that he looked a little bit like the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

And in one sense Spurgeon had been his mentor. Crouch came down to the south coast. Pioneered Shoreham Baptist Church.

Moved into Worthing. Helped in the establishment of the Baptist Church here. And then some while later took the hall opposite from where the present Woolworths is.

The building is still standing but now two or three shops are contained within the complex which was the first meeting rooms of this tabernacle. That was late last century. The 1890s.

Eventually the congregation grew. And the facilities were not large enough to house the boys and girls work. So they came towards the outskirts of Worthing.

And planted themselves here. And those who say that the tabernacle is opposite the town hall historically are wrong. The town hall is opposite the tabernacle.

Douglas Crouch was a man of prominence in the community. In those days what preachers said from pulpits was listened to by editors of local and national newspapers. And sometimes Mr. Crouch's sermons in summary fashion would be placed in the Worthing Herald or whatever it was called in those days.

Today well you have to write a book on strange subjects to get the attention of the press. Smuggling the gospel message by the back door but exploit the opportunity in so doing. But when Mr. Crouch made reference to the coming of the Lord they listened in Worthing.

And his commitment to the doctrine of the second advent I guess is the reason why the text which is now replaced and repainted above this pulpit was selected. Surely I come quickly even so come Lord Jesus. The latter being the response to the text.

And of course in those days they used the version of the Bible which the Apostle Paul used. So it was in the authorized rendering. And a wonderful rendering it is too.

If you look into the Book of Common Prayer which predates Worthing Tabernacle by many centuries. If you were to check the Athanasian Creed which predates the Book of Common Prayer by even more centuries. You will discover that the historic position of Christendom has been this.

That Jesus Christ will physically return to this world again. So the text which occupies the central position in this church. Is also a text which enshrines the truth contained within the Old Testament and the New Testament.

That this world belongs to God. He has not given up control. And one day he will return in the person of his glorified son and set up his government.

I don't generally watch TV on a Sunday. On a Sunday morning picking up the news. There's enough that's depressed me during the week to want to be further indoctrinated.

But this morning I did simply because I thought the GMTV program that I'd done was going to be screened this Sunday and not next Sunday. And I picked up as a result the interaction between two or three politicians. And I thought bless my soul.

If these men who do seem to be and I'm not denigrating politicians. There are some good moral people amongst them men and women. If these men are so much at sixes and sevens then God help the country.

The country is in their hands. But the fact of the matter is my friends that the country and the world and the future of the country and the world is in the hands of God. And it's interesting that when you come to the last book of the Bible and the last chapter of the last book of the Bible.

What actually you get are reflections back on the first chapter and the second chapter of the first book of the Bible. The book of Genesis which speaks of paradise. The world as it was fresh from the hands of God who in six successive stages brought everything into being and said it is good, it is good, it is good.

And then as one of my friends said when he got to the sixth and he created man he was just like a French. It is very good. And it was man, Adam, his companion in a paradise, rivers flowing through, green grass, trees, fruit, animals.

Nothing to injure society as it fell fresh from the hands of God until sin come into the world. And as a result man's relationship with God was broken. And he is not just alienated from God at a theological level.

He is alienated from society and the consequences of that is ecological problems which are more manifest now than they were then. And man doesn't even understand himself so he has a triplet of difficulties theological, ecological, and psychological. But when you come to the last book of the Bible in this last chapter you find that Eden supplies the imagery.

There is the river of the water of life. There are trees. There is the fruit of the tree available for men and women to take.

Reference is made to a curse but it is a curse that has been dealt with and the concept is that what was lost at Eden is regained. But not just regained, better than what it was at the beginning. Eye has not seen nor ear heard the things that God has in store for those that love him.

You see the French cook analogy. It's good as far as it goes but it doesn't go far enough or maybe it comes too quickly onto the scene. God kisses his fingers and moves to the height of the brilliance of his creative work not as a result of the sixth day.

But when Jesus Christ tetelestai it is finished. When Jesus is raised in the power of an endless life and allows his spirit to be infused into mortal men and women so that they become mystically part of the body of Christ. When God looks down from his high heavens and he perceives millions of people down the centuries who have confessed that Jesus is Lord and have become new creations.

Magnificent. And that's what the Bible tells you. That God has made men and women new in Christ Jesus spiritually.

And the work of redemption which has not been completed will be brought to its consummation. When this same Jesus born in Bethlehem is fated in this world by all intelligent beings. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Then I saw the holy city the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. The Bible projects heaven coming down onto a rejuvenated remade earth.

The concept is of a universe in tremendous splendor with meaning and people who have been redeemed. Enjoying one another's company. Enjoying the world, the glorified world.

Enjoying all the other species who will share eternity with us. And when God says how this is to happen. He points to the return of the Lord Jesus.

And in the book of Revelation you get the groaning of the early Christians who were in great difficulty at times. And they were saying Lord how long? How long must we cope with the problems of life as they now are? How long will we see your holy name brought into disrepute? How long will the ravages of sin continue? And the Lord gives them the consolation of his promise. Yes, I'm coming soon.

Surely I come quickly. That's the statement. And here is the response.

Even so, come Lord Jesus. But there are some who say of course that you are not to take the promise literally. After all there is mileage in what they have to teach us.

Did not our blessed Lord say, Lord I am with you always even unto the end of the earth. I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. Should we not spiritualize this? You see he comes doesn't he? He comes into your heart when you became a Christian.

So often Tim and I have taught you that the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine is not a perfunctory act. It's not just, it is bread literally that we eat and it's wine literally that we drink. But there's more to it.

Our Lord pledges that when we come together in sincerity to remember his death, there's a special sense in which he manifests his presence. He comes to us. And then there are times in worship when we're lifted up and we know.

And that's one of the reasons for coming together. We know he's here. There's something in the atmosphere.

There's something in your spirit. It builds up a sense that he's around. And then there are times when you're doing a mundane job and you experience what the hymn writer says when he suggests sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings, it is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings.

There are times when God makes his presence known in the mundane affairs and you know he's there. And then at death does he not come with his holy angels? Does he not give peace to those who are troubled? I've said before and I remind you again that the last experience I had of the Reverend Eric Land who was very much a proclaimer of this doctrine, the third pastor of the tab here was when he was in his bed in the hospital and I knew that he was going and he said to me when I put the question, are you all right Mr. Land? He waved his hand and he says I'm all right boy. He was all right.

When Spurgeon died he was all right. When Lloyd-Jones died he was all right. You see he does come in a very wonderful way to people as they die even though relatives may not be aware because they cannot perceive the inner workings of the soul.

But you can put all that together and no way do you want to devaluate it all but it does not amount to what those disciples were expecting when Jesus was taken from them into heaven. Surely this same Jesus who you have seen go into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go, Acts chapter 1. When the apostle Paul and he was anticipating he'd be around when the Lord Jesus returns in the book of Thessalonians into which we'll be looking in the opening Sundays of next year he talks about the trumpet sounding and then we who are alive. You see the apostle Paul like us he doesn't want to go through the grave.

Who wants to do that? If you've got the option of being around when Jesus comes isn't that the best one to go for? We who are around alive when the trumpet sounds we shall be caught up together to be with him in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Oh yes the spiritual truth to this he does come at these various epochs in life these various stages but you cannot say when you bring all the text together that they're fulfilled completely by this. There is more.

There is the hope which has been the eternal hope of the church down the centuries the historic hope of the church that Jesus Christ shall come in great power and great glory. Surely. I had a wonderful time with my computer yesterday just checking that word surely through.

It's a wonderful word. It's the same word as our Lord uses when he says let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. Authorized version.

So sure. So absolutely certain. It's a very small word.

It's a very powerful word. A different word could have been used. There were three or four options in the Greek language but translating here the Aramaic the most powerful word for certainty is taken by the Apostle John as he responds to what he is being told in this vision.

Surely. Definitely. You know what the difference between a vision and a dream is? I'll tell you.

Last night I had a dream that I was preaching and in the congregation there was the Pope. It was the most extraordinary dream. I've never had it before and probably never will have it again but he was there and he was smiling at me.

But it was only a dream. It won't come true. I'm not expecting a call from the Vatican.

But a vision. That's different you see. You dream.

You speculate. But this vision is connected to heaven. It's the intelligence of heaven coming down to earth.

This is the Lord Jesus speaking. Yes. I am coming.

Soon. Ah, Lord Jesus, but 2,000 years have spun their way by into history and you say soon. Well, a thousand years is as a day with the Lord.

When you look back from the vantage of eternity upon your period in time though it's hard for us to realize this now, it will have seemed like the fluttering of a butterfly's wing. It will have seemed like the blinking of an eye. He will be coming.

One American evangelist has said, His coming fills the whole horizon of my life. And if you do believe, as our forebears in this church believe, that he could come at any time, then how much will that keep you alert? How much will this doctrine stimulate you? He's coming. The certainty.

He's coming quickly. The alacrity. He's coming like a thief in the night.

This is the statement. Here is the response. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

And though it's not obvious in the English language, exactly the same word is used in response as was used by our Lord when he was saying it was definite. All right, Lord, on the same basis of that assurance, yay, come Lord Jesus. Amen.

Amen. So be it. My friends, once again, I'm not wanting to make capital out of the modern political problems which face us today and face Mr. Major in particular.

But when you read the papers and when you hear of all that is going on, aren't you glad that you can say, without wanting to cop out of your citizen responsibilities, even so, come. Come Lord. Look at the mess that we're in.

Come Lord. Look at Bosnia. Lord, we've prayed so often.

Look at Northern Ireland. I can't remember a time in my life when there wasn't difficulty in Northern Ireland despite all the praying. Oh Lord, come.

Some of these problems are so mega that unless you come and resolve them, there will be no resolution. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Come.

My good friend Len Gruber, he had a lad who bore my Christian name, Antony. Antony was a very, very deformed lad as a result of a problem at birth. His feeble body, one of the most disabled bodies that I have ever seen, however, encased a mind that seemed to have been quite brilliant.

But Gruber was only able to tap the resources or realize the intellectual ability of his boy when he was in his twenties, that is when his lad was in his twenties. And as a result of modern computer technology, you know sometimes our people who are encased in, their minds are encased in the prison of a body. They can just make little reflexes and operate the computer and if they absorb the program, they can communicate.

These people who have been so silent, they have the ability so to do. And one of the last messages that this lad gave his father was three words before he died, it came up on the computer screen. Father, home, come.

Father, home, come. What the lad wanted more than anything else, to be at home with his earthly father. Now don't you see the emotion is here in this text.

Here are these early Christians. Here are Christians down the centuries. They've been bruised and battered.

Some have fallen. Some are in difficulty as a result of their own folly. They're very much like us.

There's not much difference between one generation and another generation of Christians. You know that in your heart there are times when you would prefer to be with the Lord than to be here. Times when you wish you could press the button and eject yourself from this world and launch yourself out to be with Him.

Now this is the response to this statement. Amen, come, come, Lord Jesus. And notice how our Lord is referred to.

You see, Jesus was the name of His ministry when He was earth. I mean it was the name that He bore then. Thou shalt call His name Jesus.

Thou shalt call His name Yeshua. Greek and Hebrew for Savior. But when the Savior has gone to the cross, when He's been raised from the dead, when He's ascended to heaven, the highest name that heaven affords is given to Him.

He is the King. He is the Lord. And so the early church says not just come Jesus, but come Lord Jesus.

Come in all Your majesty. Come in all Your power. Come, Lord, and take up the government of this world.

Come, Lord, and may Your glory cover this world as the waters cover the sea. Now, you can understand why preachers sometimes get a little enthusiastic when speaking in this area. You see, the politicians can't do it, can they? They can't see an agenda beyond the next four years.

And very often they have to lament that the agenda they proclaimed four years earlier has not come to fruition. You see, they dream, do our politicians. But the prophets don't dream.

The prophets have visions. The visions are not connected to human hope. The vision is connected to the mind of God.

And this is what you find in this particular verse. Surely I come quickly. Now, in the light of this, what sort of people ought we to be? You see, when the apostle John is writing on another occasion, not the book of Revelation, that was his last letter when he's an old man, though he's probably an elderly man.

Well, he certainly was when he was writing the epistles. And in the epistles that bear his name, he makes reference to the coming of Jesus. And he puts up certain ethical tests for Christians to apply to themselves, so that, to quote the apostle John, you will not be ashamed when he comes.

What does he mean? Well, you see, to be saved is wonderful. And thank God for that. But as a result of being saved, we have a year, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, more or less, in which we can live in the service of the Lord.

Now, the apostle John is teaching, with this truth fixed in your minds, live in such a way that if he were to come, you would not be ashamed. And here's another scripture, which I don't understand, but I'll quote it, because some of you perhaps have greater insights than I have. If we're evangelistically in earnest, if we are concerned in the dissemination of the gospel, if we're involved in the ministry of FEBER or AWM or OM or one of our mission organizations, if we're a little anonymous lady here in Worthing Tab, praying and giving to the best that you possibly can, you're advancing the kingdom.

And there's a sense in which you're bringing forward the date. You're hastening the coming. You're living in such a fashion that when the Lord Jesus comes back, at least he can be comfortable with you.

I've come to a conclusion. What is it like on your wedding day? You see, the Bible is always very homely, more often than not, in its illustrations. And Jesus sets up a story of some brides on their wedding day.

And there's only one thing, ideally, that occupies a bride on the wedding day, and that is the bridegroom. How long? They are waiting for the taxi to come. Or these days, they've gone back to ponies and traps.

The last couple of weddings I had, they came in a pony and traps, quite extraordinary. They come down to the tab, and there's a great degree of earnestness. And not just with young people.

I once remember marrying here in front. I am not exaggerating. In front of my pulpit, I remember marrying a 70-year-old man to a lady he'd been in love with for a long time, and happily, her husband had died.

So it was all quite legitimate. And I got to the point in the wedding service when I said, I said, Let me at least complete the thing that you're committing yourself to. Now, it's the same enthusiasm that there is within this text.

Amen. Come. Come, Lord Jesus, and set up your kingdom, because we believe it will be far greater than the one that we're in, at the moment.

But let's listen to some description of what it's going to be like. Last night as I lay sleeping there came a dream so fair. I stood in old Jerusalem beside the temple there.

I heard the children singing and ever as they sang methought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang. Methought the voice of angels from heaven in answer rang. Jerusalem, Jerusalem lift up your gates and sing.

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna to your king. And then methought my dream was changed.

The streets no longer rang. Hushed were the glad hosannas. The little children sang.

The sun grew dark with mystery. The moon was cold and chill. As the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill.

As the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill. Jerusalem, Jerusalem hark how the angels sing. Hosanna in the highest.

Hosanna to your king. And once again the scene was changed. New earth there seemed to be.

I saw the holy city beside the tideless sea. The light of God was on its streets. The gates were open wide.

And all who would might enter. And no one was denied. No need of moon or stars by night.

Or sun to shine by day. It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away. It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem wait for the night we saw. Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna forevermore.

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna forevermore. Hosanna in the highest.

Father we thank you. We thank you that we have a hope that is steadfast and certain. Gone through the curtain and touching the throne.

We pray to you that our future, our destiny is sealed in our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father hear us when we pray. Even so come, come Lord Jesus.

Now may the blessing of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit rest and remain with each one of us always. And all God's people said Amen. God bless you.

Thank you.