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Sabbath, December 17, 2005 Newark Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Pastor Tom Hughes

The Sanctuary in Heaven - III

Even though this is the holiday season, we are living in very serious times. I am very concerned with the way prophecy is going and the way events are taking place. And I’m very concerned that our people are going to be lulled to sleep in a false sense of security; that the events of the last days are going to burst upon them and they are going to be wholly unprepared to stand. There is a judgment going on in heaven.

We’ve been talking about the Sanctuary in heaven, and today we’re going to bring that Sanctuary study to a close as far as the throne room of God is concerned. The advent of our God as a little baby never ceases to amaze me. When I look at the throne room and I see the glorious majesty of God’s throne room and then I compare that to a stable in Bethlehem, a stable of straw with cattle, and a donkey. And we all know what happens in stables. We all know how stables smell. We all know what animals do in stables while they’re tied there. We all know why they have to clean stables, and yet this is the place to which the king of universe is born!

As we conclude our study on the throne room today, it should be very evident in the study of contrasts the humility of Christ to leave that throne room to come down here and be born as a human being when he was in the form of God. What humility and what a sacrifice Christ made for us!

We’ve been studying about the little model that Moses made after the pattern he saw on Mt. Sinai. Moses constructed a little earthly model of the heavenly sanctuary. And we’ve been talking a lot about the sanctuary and what was in that model and how it looked. And today I would like to forget about the model; not focus so much on that but actually look at the elders who are gathered around the throne of God and actually think about the characteristics of God’s throne room in heaven as we conclude this Bible study.

These elders are there, 24 of us; human beings worshipping a Creator, not a creature.

Here we find the Sabbath commandment reflected worshipping the Creator keeping his day holy. They’re calling the Sabbath a delight and notice the pleasure they take in bowing down before him and casting their crowns at the feet of Jesus.

In Rev. 5, we’re told that the apostle John began to cry because no one was worthy to open the book and read the book. As a matter-of-fact they were so unworthy that no one could even look at the book. “No man in heaven nor in earth neither under the earth was able to open the book neither to look thereon and I wept much because no man was found worthy.”

So who was the only one who’s holy? What’s his name? It’s Jesus!

Who is the only one that is righteous? Jesus!

Who is the only human being that ever lived that is perfect? Jesus!

When God encourages you to be perfect, the only way you can do that is to accept by faith the free gift of Christ’s righteousness. You never have nor will you ever be sanctified enough to where you can be perfect in your own works or even in the works that the Holy Spirit inspires you to perform. That is a mythology that is a false theology, it is a lie that the devil has foisted upon God’s people to cause them to be self-centered and to focus on righteousness by works instead of the grace that comes from Christ. And Enoch and Elijah who were taken to heaven were sinners. Their only righteousness was found in Christ and their good works were as filthy rags apart from him. That’s the fact of the matter.

“Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect by loving others.”

How can you do that?

Well Jesus said, the Father makes the sun shine on the good and the bad, on the righteous and the wicked. The Father loves the evil people and he loves the good people. He is no respecter of persons. The Father is a loving God and when Jesus says, “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” he is not saying “watch every little thing you do to make sure you never make a mistake,” which is what we mistakenly say perfection means. What he was saying was, “Love one another as my Father loves: unconditionally.

Now who among us thinks that we can love people as purely and as righteously as Jesus did? Is there anyone on the face of the earth who can be as great a lover as Christ? Well if you can’t then you cannot be as perfect as God is because he was the greatest lover.

Now there is a way to be perfect. We should be perfect as he’s perfect. When I accept Christ as my Savior and I am filled with the Holy Spirit and by God’s grace I try to love others as Christ has loved me, the Holy Spirit comes inside of me and transforms me and makes me a more loving, more godly, more Christ-like person. I’m still down here and he’s way up there above me, but at least I’m heading in the right direction now, amen?

Paul said, “I have not yet arrived but I keep pressing forward toward that goal of being like my Savior.” Are you pressing forward? Have you made it yet? Oh! I’ve got such a long way to go! But by God’s grace, I’m going to keep on truckin’. I’m making a little progress; you can ask my wife. And when a man tells you to ask his wife, he’s serious. ‘Cause she knows everything. The All-knowing, all-seeing, never forgetting wife. Men, how do the wives do that? I don’t know where they get those memories from! You know, when they say women have more connective tissue between their brains? I think that connective tissue is 100% percent memory.

Now in Rev. 5:6 it says, “Lo, I beheld and lo in the midst of the throne of the four beasts and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain having seven heads, seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.”

Notice how Jesus is standing in the middle of the throne. It doesn’t say in the middle of the throne room, it says in the middle of the throne. This evidently is a throne – a single throne that has at least four places in it where ministry is taking place or reigning is taking place.

You have the throne of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three separate places: candlestick, Table of Showbread, Ark of the Covenant. Three separate places but referred to as one throne with the altar of incense in the midst of the throne. So the circular part of the throne has the three thrones with Jesus placed for ministry, at the altar of incense right in the very middle of it and it’s all referred to as a throne.

That’s Interesting. Very different concept of what we have often had. We’ve often had the model of the earthly sanctuary, the tabernacle: a little tent with a little curtain and little bitty furniture and we’ve taken that itty bitty model and we’ve fastened our minds upon it and we’ve limited God to our little itty bitty concept and all it was is a symbol to get you to think about heaven and think about the Shekinah glory.

Now I praise God for the model. I certainly don’t diminish it. It’s awesome! The whole sanctuary system was very impressive. But I want to say to the model thank you for your service now let us turn our eyes to the throne room of God and behold him in all his glory. Instead of a little tiny curtain with embroidered angels I want you to just get rid of that curtain in your mind’s eye and I want you to look at heaven with billions of angels forming the curtain around the throne room of Christ!

The Bible says in Hebrews that we need to turn our eyes upon Jesus as our great high priest.

There were three angels that flew in the midst of heaven with a warning for this last dying world. Aren’t you glad you live in the time when Daniel and Revelation which was sealed until the time of the end, aren’t you glad that this Lamb who was worthy took the seal off and we can now understand the prophecies of Daniel and the book of Revelation?

Now there is a beast we are warned about and a false prophet. The antichrist Roman Church that reigned for 1260 years is the beast we are warned about, and the false prophet are the apostate Protestant churches that came out of that beast. And in the first angel’s message there is a judgment going on in heaven. You need to worship the Creator-God on the day that the Creator said was holy the day he sanctified as a memorial of his creative power. He said “worship him who created the heavens, the earth, and all that in them is.”

So here we are today on God’s Sabbath day, in God’s church, you’re hearing the three angel’s messages and the sanctuary message proclaimed. There is one denomination preaching the sanctuary message that the hour of his judgment is come, that the judgment is going on in heaven, and you need to understand the sanctuary, the throne room of God and what is going on there. There is one denomination turning your eyes from this earth and placing it in heaven, and that is the Seventh-Day Adventist Church – one denomination and one denomination only.

Now I’m not being dogmatic. The people in the other churches are, many of them, born-again, spiritually committed people who I’m sure who will be saved. And we’re told that in the last days that many Seventh-Day Adventists will leave the church giving heed to doctrines of devils and seducing spirits, and many in Babylon will leave Babylon and come into the church. The church will drop down from 14 million to maybe 4 or 5 million and then shoot back up to 30 million!

So we are on the verge of one of the most cataclysmic changes that the Christian world has ever seen and it’s all taking place in heaven. We have the antichrist church with a false worldly priesthood and a human system of worship focused on creatures, like saints, and the virgin, and the bishops, and the cardinals, and all these different people where you have to go through them to get to God; everything is earthly, and people-centered, and creature-centered.

Contrasted with that false system, you have the true church directing your eyes to heaven and telling you that you need to look up to heaven and see what Christ is doing and what the ministry of Christ is in the most holy place. And you need to get your eyes off the earth and get them onto God because the earthly system has come to and end and the more glorious heavenly system of the new Covenant has been instituted. You don’t hear that anywhere else.

The false prophet is apostate Protestantism and they are teaching the same false doctrines as the antichrist church. They go to church on the same day, they teach the same thing about what happens to you when you die, about the immortality of the soul, about hell, all these false doctrines are being taught.

But in Rev. 14:6-12, God sends these mighty angels out to say the hour of his judgment is come, the mark of the antichrist is false worship, man-centered worship; the seal of God is true worship, the worship of the true and living God, the way he says to worship; and he says come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins.

Leave these false churches, these false antichrist groups teaching error and come into the church that keeps the commandments of God and has the faith of Jesus Christ.

Now the great high priest that Paul speaks about in the book of Hebrews (5:6) is after the order of Melchisedec. He stands there offering his blood in the most holy place, and he is mixing his merits with the prayers of the saints blotting out their sins in the times of refreshing and this continues until the last case has been decided.

The Bible states that Christ came to this world to be born as a baby, to magnify God’s law, and to bring in and usher in judgment and righteousness.

Well this little baby is now a king. He is now a priest and he is given a kingdom in 1844. The kingdom is being made up of people who have accepted Christ as their Savior and who are looking into the heavenly sanctuary putting away the evil of this world and becoming more and more heavenly-minded every day.

We’re told that none but those who have fortified their minds with the truths of the Bible will be able to stand in the last days. The reason for this whole series on the Sanctuary is to contrast this true faith with the antichrist church that reigns for 1260 years.

God in his word contrasts the judgment with this false religious system and the daughters that come out of her.

Now it’s not politically correct but it is prophetically correct to teach this message. I’m not too concerned with being politically correct.

In Rev. 7:1-3 it talks about the angels who are holding back the winds of strife and that soon God will let them go. Unless you are sealed you will be lost when that takes place. Unless people are sealed there is no hope. Therefore when the winds of strife and calamity are let loose when heaven’s restraints are removed from our world, probation will close. Then it is that heaven’s proclamation will be made, “If you’re filthy, be filthy still. If you’re righteous, be righteous still.”

This is the point at which Jesus comes after he ceases to intercede in our behalf. And when he stops interceding then that’s it. You can’t be saved or lost at that point.

Now we’ve had tsunamis, and earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes as warnings to wake us up to what’s coming. Can you imagine what’s going to happen when God lets go of the winds of strife, when God’s Spirit withdraws from this world and lets the forces of evil shriek and howl? We have not seen anything yet. Unless God’s people are sealed by a Holy Spirit filled relationship with Jesus they will not be able to stand in the last days.

Now the prophet said, “Only those who fortify their minds with the jingles of sitcoms will be able to stand in the last days. Right? I mean, in the last days when you’re running for your life and persecution begins you will find great comfort in Flintstones, meet the Flintstones; they’re a pre-historic family! Right?

And the words of Everybody Loves Raymond’s wife will really help you through those rough times, right?

And all those rap songs that you’ve memorized. Yeah, when you quote the words of TuPac Shakur or Eminem, boy that will give your heart great comfort won’t it? That will help you to make it through the last days! Amen?

“None but those who have fortified their minds with the Spirit of Prophecy will be able to stand in the last days.”? Not! The Spirit of Prophecy is great. I love Ellen White. She’s my favorite author next to the Bible writers, but she said “None but those who have fortified their minds with the truths of the Bible will be able to stand in the last days.”

If you don’t have a Bible and you have to pull these texts out of your brain, what will you have to work with?

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I spent three or four hours a day doing silly stupid stuff that doesn’t matter. And now when I need it, I don’t have your word in my heart.”

The Bible says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.”

Satan is rocking the cradle of Laodicea’s church as the baby snores with a contented smile on his face yawning in the face of God!

Do we read his word? Are we cooperating with Christ? Now he’s in the most holy place pleading his blood for us. The Lamb with seven eyes and seven horns – what a bizarre-looking lamb – with a slit throat and blood all over his wool; the Lamb looking, the Bible says, as if it had been slain, is standing before God’s throne at the altar of incense, which Paul now says is no longer in the first compartment, it’s in the second – because Christ’s body is the veil – there is no veil there are only angels and his body, and there he stands before the veil that is invisible.

Seems confusing, but if you can imagine a billion angels in one spot, if you can imagine a throne room 1500 miles square, and a pyramid 1500 miles high, if you can imagine light so bright you can’t bear to look at it because it will destroy you, if you can imagine glass that is slightly tinted green in the roof, walls, and floor and throne, and the light shining through it, if you can imagine a rainbow above the throne then you’re starting to get the picture.

He’s going to let loose the winds of strife but now Christ is in the most holy place pleading for us. Jesus is symbolically depicted there functioning as our high priest mediating for us. He mingles the merits of his intercession with our prayers and our confessed sins are forgiven. But when he ceases interceding for our confessed sins in the heavenly sanctuary in Rev. 8:3-5, it says the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it to the earth and there were peals of thunder and lightings, and an earthquake. And then the judgment in Daniel 7:9-14 will be complete.

The angel told Daniel to seal this up till the time of the end and then it would be unsealed. And we’ve already talked how the Adventist Church and the Millerite movement unsealed the book of Daniel and now the Ark of his Covenant is openly visible (Rev. 11: 18, 19) as we can come boldly before that Ark and confess our sins.

When Jesus is done Daniel 12:1 says, “At that time he will stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people, Michael, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. And at that time thy people shall be delivered. Everyone found written the book.”

Is your name written in that book?

If Christ were to take that censer and cast it to the earth right now, would you be saved or would you be lost? That is a question you need to ask!

Now notice the angel who stands up is called Michael. This is the name used in the Bible to describe Jesus the ruler of the angels, the archangel. Notice he is called the great prince, the Prince of Peace, Jesus, the Son of God; the great high priest – he stands for the children of the people. At that time, the time of the end; just before Jesus comes, he delivers his people by judging them out of the book of life. We see here the pre-advent judgment that the Seventh-Day Adventist Church has been preaching for over 100 years!

Rev. 5:7 - “And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. When he had taken the book the four beasts and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb having everyone of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints.”

The elders each have a golden censer representing the prayers of God’s people. They offer them to Jesus as a sweet aroma, a pleasing offering of praise to him and his Father. They petition for mercy. They are also joining with Jesus showing their complete agreement with and in cooperation with his priestly ministry. They stand with Jesus his work. They are according to Rev. 5:9 and 10, kings and priests, and they will reign on the earth!

Imagine those 24 thrones with seated kings; their crowns upon their heads, sitting upon their them, and as we talked last time about how they are Moses and Elijah, and Enoch and 21 other elders who were resurrected with Jesus when he came up from the grave they were taken back to minister in heaven. These elders and priests are intercessors only in the sense that they represent the prayers of the saints being brought before God. They are witnesses judging men and angels as Paul suggested in 1 Cor. 6:3, “No ye not that we shall judge angels. How much more things that pertain to this life.”

They will have a part in determining the punishment of the wicked and the evil angels during the millennium and they are our witnesses to the judgment in heaven.

Rev. 5:11 – “I beheld and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beast and elders. And the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand.”

It talks about the 24 elders being in a circle around the throne. There is a circular component to the throne of God. The angels are round about the throne and God sits in this giant 1500 mile throne room – who knows how big that actual platform is called the throne. Who knows how high it is? All I know is Isaiah saw it and he said, “I saw the Lord high and lifted up upon this throne and I fell down before him and said, Woe unto me!”

I probably would do the same thing especially when I saw those four beasts with the huge heads, with four faces on their heads – north, east, west, and south – an eagle, a bear, a lion, and a human face. Six wings fluttering around and following the Lamb wherever he goes and praising him. You want to talk about something out of the Star Wars movie! You think Hollywood can make up things, Lord of the Rings…forget the Lord of the Rings! How about the Lord of the Kings! In the throne room, the King of kings on his throne and 24 kings around him! How about the Lord of the Kings! I like that movie better.

One’s real, and the other is a bunch of baloney, as my Irish mother used to say. And people get so enamored by Hollywood! I like “Holywood” better myself. I like that cross! And I like the king upon his throne – the Lord of the Kings! Hallelujah! You want to talk about King Kong: the biggest, baddest creature in the jungle, I can make a monkey out of King Kong! Oh yeah, he already is a monkey. The biggest, strongest, being in the jungle is not some monkey with bad breath! The King of Kings, and Lord of lords, Creator of heaven and earth sits high and lifted up and Isaiah fell as a dead man and cried out “Woe is me I am undone!”

Can you see that throne room in your mind’s eye?

Rev. 5:11-14 - It says, “Glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him and cast their crowns at the feet of God and Jesus.”

Can you see it in your mind’s eye? Do you get the picture? A circle around the throne of God and the Lamb. The elders, the beasts, and millions of angels all making a sea of praise and worship in the light and glory. The 24 elders are on the floor of the throne room worshipping the King of kings, and Lord of lords! They’re lying down on the floor prostrate before the Lord of the Universe! And what a privilege to bow down there!

No wonder David said he’d rather be a door man in God’s house than be exalted in the house of the wicked!

The characteristics of God’s throne room.

You see, the Vatican is grand with all its money, wealth, Michelangelo’s paintings, and statuary. Oh yes! It’s grand, it’s glorious!
And as the man sits in his temple exalting himself above all that is called God, as we behold him with his robes and his fancy silver and gold, his purple and scarlet robes as he comes out grand glittering in the sun with his great miter hat and his huge gold staff, as we behold him seated in his wealth and his millions of dollars as the poor of the world starve – we behold the Prince of Peace born in a stable in straw, in the smell of cattle and waste, and there we see the humility of Christ! Compare the two! Compare them! The one dwelt in light unspeakable glory of the heavenly sanctuary and came down to be born in a stable and become a human being. The other sits in a temple puffed up, pompous, exalting himself above all that is called God according to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 exalting himself as the lawless one who has set aside the law of God.

Behold the baby in the manger and behold the pompous little horn. The contrast is there for all to see. Not politically correct. No, I realize I’m not politically correct. But I am prophetically correct. And I see in the Bible that God tells us in Daniel 7 to look at the little horn and look at the judgment going on in heaven. Compare the Anti-christ with the judgment that’s going on. Compare the false, creature-centered priesthood with the royal priesthood of Christ! Compare the false, papal Sunday with the exalted Sabbath of the Lord of Creation.

When you shop and compare this Christmas Season you must understand there is a sale going on in heaven called grace. It is given free of charge. The greatest gift God ever gave was wrapped up with a beautiful red bow symbolizing his blood shed for you, and he placed the most precious gift in the manger and said, “Here, I give you the greatest gift that has ever been given – my Son! What more can I give you?”

(Yawning) “Oh, that’s great, God. Uh, you know, I’m kind of Laodicean, you know, so I realize you know I’m not really too impressed but don’t get your feelings hurt. I’m just a little sleepy. Could you stop that red guy with the two horns from rocking the cradle? If you could just stop him from doing that, then maybe I’d wake up.”

A Laodicean Christian looks into the throne room of God and yawns.

The typical Laodicean Adventist response to bible subjects is, “Been there, done that, studied that, know it all already.”

“What are you preaching on?”

“The State of the dead.”

“Oh, I know all about that. I’ve heard Ken Cox, I’ve heard Doug Bachelor, and I’ve heard it all!”

Oh you’ve never thought that, right? You’ve never thought, “Oh, I don’t need to go to that meeting, I’ve already heard all that.”

“Oh, I don’t need to read that book, I already know that.”

“What’s he preaching on?”

“The Sabbath.”

“Oh, I already know everything about the Sabbath.”

You never felt that way? Do we have anything to learn, Laodicea? Have we really gone boldly before the throne of grace and gone into the most holy place and really studied the book of Hebrews to where we really understand what God is trying to teach us in the last days in the judgment-hour message? Or are we sitting there saying, “I’m rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. Is this not Babylon which I have built? Don’t let me break my arm patting myself on the back because I am the true church”?

Well guess what. We can be seated in the true church and still be: mean as a snake, unloving, un-Christ-like, spend very little time with Christ in the most holy place, say mean, unkind, critical things to others, drive people out the door because they’re not “good enough by being so righteous that people can’t even stand to be around us. And our children and our relatives think of us as arrogant know-it-alls that think we are the only ones who are going to be in heaven.

You say, “Pastor, how can you say that?” I hate to break the news to you; I haven’t said it, your relatives have said it. (Gasping) They’ve said it to me because I’m related to them – I do it too!

Are we rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing? Have we sometimes postured ourselves as the true church that has all the answers and come across like judgmental Pharisees and our own relatives say, “All they care about is what you eat and drink, and the way you dress, and what you wear. That’s all they care about. They don’t really love us. They just want to lecture us about the faith.” Our own children often get that impression.

Now if that’s true and Laodicea is doing that, how do we change it? I’m not interested in a history lesson, okay? I totally blew it with my family and kids on so many occasions I couldn’t begin to tell you. So if you have too, don’t get discouraged.

Maybe we have been too legalistic.

Maybe we have been too judgmental.

Maybe we have been too harsh.

Maybe we have been too mean.

Maybe we do have the truth but the way we’ve put it across has been in such a way that our own kids and grandkids have rejected us and the message.

Maybe we need to repent and open the door and let Christ in.

Doesn’t he say in Revelation 3:20, “I stand at the door of the church and I knock on Laodicea’s door. And if Laodicea will open the door of their heart and let me in, I’ll come in.”

Now he calls us to look at the door in heaven that has just swung open. “Look at the throne room,” God says, “And in the throne room you’ll find your Savior, you’ll find salvation by grace, you’ll find a Christ-centered righteousness that doesn’t push people away. It accepts people as they are and welcomes them and then changes them from the inside out.

Here are the characteristics I want you to go away from here with.

The throne room is 1500 miles square. It’s huge. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. They are reflected in three personalities that are represented by three thrones all part of a single throne in the sanctuary.

The God who sits on all three thrones is a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful and exists in all places.

The throne, singular, contains all three components of the Godhead.

The light that comes from the Shekinah glory of God the Father mixes with the light that comes from the lamp stand of the Holy Spirit and mixes with Jesus who is the light of the world, and you have this huge light streaming in every direction. In heaven, there are billions of angels. They were all created for God’s pleasure and service, and they are ministering there.

Third, God’s throne room faces east. The Father’s section of the throne is on the west, the Ark of the Covenant faces east. The entire sanctuary on earth was set up so that the worshipper would have their back to the sun. God’s sanctuary ministry has always been in direct opposition to sun worship in paganism, in sun worship, in the false Christian churches that exult the day of the worship of the sun. That is why Satan has sought to interject these religions and sun worship into God’s church.

The churches of Rome, and Alexandria in Egypt were the two churches that pushed sun worship into the Christian church. And they did this not as a day of worship but because they said, “God created the sun on the first day of the week and the sun was the greatest body in the heavens; therefore, we should worship God on his greatest day.” And they did not even use the Resurrection day argument as an excuse until the second and third century.

So the reason Rome and Alexandria, Egypt wanted Sunday was because of sun worship. That was their first reason to begin to keep it as a holy day. We have to reject that.

God’s throne room is set up so that your back is to the sun and you are facing the only true God.

Jesus’ side of the throne is on the north side of the sanctuary (Heb. 8:1). It says, “He is set down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty of heaven.”

Now notice it says throne singular. “He is set down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty of heaven.” That is why Satan stated in Isaiah 14 that he would sit on the sides of the north and he would be like God the most high. The right side is the north side. Satan is jealous of Jesus. Only a king can sit in the king’s presence. Satan cannot sit in God’s presence. He wanted to be Jesus but instead he led a rebellion that cost millions of lives and he will be burned in the lake of fire.

Some critics of the investigative judgment act as if Adventists teach that Jesus was trapped in the holy place for 1800 years. This shows a lack of understanding when it comes to the nature of God and his relationship to time and space. God exists in all places. Jesus was seated at the right hand of God when he ascended into heaven. He is in the Father and the Father is in him. He cannot be separated from him and the door the apostle saw in heaven was symbolically represented in the first and second veils in the earthly sanctuary.

The heavenly door is both grand and symbolic of Jesus, the door through which we approach God. John 10:7, 9 -- Jesus said, “I am the door.”
Now the altar of incense in the center of the throne and sanctuary is in the middle of the other three branches of the throne, and the three arms are part of the whole throne! “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and lead them to the fountains of water.”

And in Daniel 7:8 it talks about moveable thrones. It talks about the Son of Man being carried in a royal procession before the Father – his throne moved maybe closer or the altar of incense moved in closer. But there were movable thrones. Also the 24 elders’ thrones were moved in and set up. And this lamb now becomes the Christ who ministers at the altar of incense and the prayers of the saints are mixed with his righteousness at this altar. The 24 elders each have their own censer and they are all praying to God the Father and ministering. The 24 elders are not priests in the sense of intercessors as Jesus is. We have only one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. But they are priests and kings in the sense of during the millenium we will be ministering and we will have a part to play in the judgment.

Now the throne room of God is an incredible place where the greatest prophets fell down before his Shekinah glory. It reflects the beauty, majesty and light of the triune God in all his majesty. One day, God’s sanctuary will be on earth. God’s throne room will be in the midst of an adoring planet. He will make a covenant of peace an everlasting covenant that will be kept. In those days Jerusalem will be called the throne of the Lord and he will welcome all nations into his presence weekly and monthly.

Now in Ezekiel 37:26 the Bible says, “I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. I will place them and multiply them and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forever.”

When God makes the new heavens and new earth, God’s sanctuary will be right in the middle of it.

Jeremiah 3:17 – “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord and all the nations will be gathered unto it to the name of the Lord to Jerusalem.”

And then Isaiah 66:22 and 23 it says, “As the new heavens and new earth which I will make shall remain before me, it shall come to pass from one new moon to another from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before me saith the Lord.”

So Jerusalem is going to be called the throne of the Lord and we are going to go every Sabbath and keep the Sabbath in the New Jerusalem. You are going to have an apartment in the city and a home in the country. And when we go to Jerusalem you can come see Pastor Tom because wherever there’s a musical instrument being used to praise the Lord, I’m gonna be there! And I just might be one of those crazy beasts praising the Lord for 24 hours a day strummin’ my little harp!

Now once a week you come into that great crystal city and you worship God and then you go back. Now it says every new moon you’re going to come to eat of the Tree of Life, and every month you’re going to eat a different fruit. So we’re going to have a big, high celebration once a month, plus, we’re going to have the weekly Sabbath. And the Bible says we’re going to do that every week throughout all eternity.

Where do these people get the idea that God taught Sabbath observance all through the old Testament, in the days of the apostles, then changed it between the apostles and the Second Coming, and then changed it back when Jesus comes, and we keep it throughout eternity? I don’t think so! The bible consistently teaches that Saturday, the seventh day is the only weekly Holy day we are commanded to keep.

Now it’s been my hope over the last several weeks to present to you God in all his glory seated upon his throne in a way that is far more glorious and majestic than our human brains can ever comprehend.

The message of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church is a message of hope and vindication. The judgment of God is a judgment rendered in your favor by a loving God who has provided through Jesus everything you need to be saved.

When you look upon Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, and when you behold him as he stands at the altar as a Lamb slain for your sins, as you see him there, he is pleading for your salvation. That’s why we have to come to him today! We have to accept his offer of salvation full and free. We have to choose whether we are going to serve the devil and his earthly pleasures or whether we’re going to serve Christ. Whether we’re going to feed our minds on the worldly things, the worldly pleasures, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life and the avarice of the world – or are we going to focus on the great heavenly ministry of Jesus and let him transform us from the inside out.

We have one mediator, one lawyer, one judge, one priest, one Sabbath, one baptism, one Savior, one faith, one gospel, one way, one Truth, one light – our great high priest: Jesus Christ who is standing at the altar. Now we need to go to him and seek to become perfect in his righteousness so when the door of mercy swings wide on the hinges of grace we can go in to the ark of safety. And when they swing closed we’re already there – our name’s already in the book. We don’t have to fear. Someday soon he’s going to take that censer, cast it to the earth, and then it’ll to be too late.

Revelation 22:7 – “Behold I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.”

He named the book Revelation, which means revealed. Don’t listen to those who say you can’t understand it. Why would he name a book Revealed and then say you can’t understand it.

He said that he’s going to come quickly. Do you know he means by that? When he steps out of the sanctuary, it’s over. You’ll never know it. You’ll be buying your cars, you’ll be taking your kids to school, you’ll be going to the grocery store and the judgment will have closed in heaven and you’ll have no idea. Perhaps a week, two weeks, three weeks, three months – I don’t know how long the time of trouble and the seven last plagues will be, but all during those plagues no one can be saved, no one can be lost. It’s over. And by the time you know it, it’ll be too late.

The hour of his judgment is come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and all that in them is. Don’t worship the beast or his image. Don’t accept the antichrist doctrines or the false prophet. Come out of her my people that you be not partakers of her sins.

There’s only one desk from which you’ll hear this message in Newark, Ohio, and that’s this one. You’re in the right church. You’re at the right place at the right time.

Will you accept this message? There’s a lot of garbage on the Internet bad-mouthing Seventh-Day Adventism, bad-mouthing the messenger, bad-mouthing our way of life and our message. And when I say “garbage,” I use the word on purpose. God has an answer for all that junk that’s out there and its right here. Do you believe it?

How many of you want Jesus to write your name down in the Lamb’s book of life and save you when he comes? Is this the message that God wants you to have in the last days? Are you going to follow him or the antichrist? Who are you going to follow: Jesus our great high priest.

Father in heaven, thank you for coming as a baby. How can we be angry at a baby? How could be mad at a little baby? Come into our heart, Lord. Forgive us for our sins. We open the door of our heart. We invite you in, and we ask that you write our name down in the Lamb’s book of life.

Thank you for being a God who sits high upon your throne! We are so far beneath you! We worship you, O God.

Forgive us for giving our children and families the impression that somehow we were perfect or better than them. May we Lord learn how to present Jesus as a loving and accepting God who places the relationship that we have with our great high priest above the rules and regulations. They’re there – the law is there in the Ark, but thank God it is covered by the mercy seat and the blood of the Lamb.

May we reflect mercy to our families, our neighbors, and friends. May we show them the loving acceptance of God and teach them to keep the Commandments as only you can teach us.

Father, please write our names down in the Lamb’s book of life. Convert us, transform us, and help us to spread this message in a way that will lead them into the true church that keeps the commandments of God and has the faith of Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for loving us and letting us be part of your family even though we’re unworthy and we don’t deserve it; even though we’re not worthy, we’re still glad that we’re part of your kingdom. Bless us now, during this Christmas season we pray, with a great week and help us to witness to others about Jesus. May we lead many to you we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

All Scriptural References: New King James Version
Ellen G. White References: www.whiteestate.org
Transcription: Wendy J. Riebel
This sermon is also available on cassette tape.
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