today. Turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 4 and you might be wondering why are we going to Revelation if this would be like a Christmas type message and we will see in a little while. We will read Revelation chapter 4 and we won't actually come back to Revelation 4 until the end of our time today. Let's read Revelation chapter four. After these things I looked and behold a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I had heard like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me said, come, come up here and I will show you what must take place after these things. Immediately I was in the spirit. And behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and one sitting on the throne. And he who was sitting was like Jasperstone and Sardis in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. And around the throne were 24 thrones. And upon the thrones I saw 24 elders, sitting clothed in white garments and golden crowns on their heads. And from the throne proceeded flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. And before the throne there was, as it were, a sea of glass like crystal. And in the center and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind. The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature like the face of that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. And day and night they do not cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the almighty who was and who is and who is to come. And when the living creatures give glory to Nana, to thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders will fall down before him who sits on the throne and will worship him and who lives forever and ever and will cast their crowns before the throne saying, worthy art thou, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. But that's just create all these things. And because of thy will, they existed and were created. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, as we come before you this morning, Lord, we ask that you would quiet our hearts from the busyness of the week ahead with all of its celebrations. Let us bask in your wonder and your glory for the next hour. In the name of Christ we pray, amen. There is a loudness to the Christmas season. It seems to get louder as you approach the Christmas time and as we sing songs and you have family get togethers and everyone is is jovial and joking around and laughing and having a lot of fun. And then there's the rush to get the last minute Christmas gift, which I will be doing tomorrow at some point going out and getting a few other things that I need to get. And then on Christmas morning, it's just a mad dash on Christmas morning, especially for those who have younger kids, and it seems like you wake up in the morning before you even know it, it's the end of the day, and it's just a mad rush on Christmas morning, and as people tear into their gifts with almost a savage greed as the paper is ripped ashred. And even if you're alone at Christmas, your mind can be filled with lots of different voices on Christmas, and voices of anxiety, or voices of regret, or voices of anger and frustration, or it might be voices of joy and anticipation, of excitement, but it's just loud at Christmastime. When was the last time that you sat and quietness on Christmas and the quiet solitude and consider the majestic miracle of the reality of Christmas and what actually took place over 2,000 years ago. Sometimes it's best to just be still in the midst of all of the craziness of Christmas. Last Christmas Eve, Ange and I had the opportunity to attend a Christmas Eve service at a friend's church of ours in Greenville, Danny Wright, one of my best friends. He was my best friend growing up, and to this day remains one of my closest friends. At the end of the church service, they sang a song called Let Our Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, and that's the paper that was inside your bulletin, because we're going to sing that at the end of the service this morning. When we sung that song last year, I was awestruck at the song. I was just taken captive by the song and the hymn, and rarely am I moved so much by such a great hymn like that, but I was just totally moved. And that same night, I texted my friend, because they didn't have a program, and I just asked him what the... name of the song was and he gave it to me and it's a song that I have listened to over and over again and I checked it yesterday. It's the number two song that I had listened to this year. I listened to it some like 90 times or something like that in the past 12 months. I fell in love with the song and it's a song that I suspect several of you if not most of you probably have never heard of before. I am by no means a musical genius at all. So I asked a couple of you who are, and some of you who are musical geniuses didn't know the song, so I suspect that there are others who do not know the song. But I think it's a song that needs to become more and more traditional and more and more song on a regular basis and it doesn't have to be on Christmas morning and this morning we are going to be looking at that song let our mortal flesh keep silence and it's going to be more of a hymnology message today as opposed to a normal message because I just fell in love with this hymn and doing some research on it and stuff and so we're just going to spend some time looking at it and you can have that sheet of paper out if you want to kind of look at it because we're going to be looking at some of the stanzas in the song itself. The hymn, That Immortal Flesh Keeps Silence, is actually one of the oldest songs that is still used today that's been written. That's used in regular liturgy in Christian churches today. It's used in Orthodox churches and Eastern and Western Orthodox churches. It's used in Anglican churches and Presbyterian churches and it's used in Catholic churches and their liturgies and all that. It's a song that is used in a lot of liturgies and it traces its roots all the way back to the fourth century is where it gets its start is around 350 AD, around in that time is what they think it when it became. When it was originally written, it was not written as a Christmas song. It was not written even as an Advent song. It had nothing to do with when they sang it as part of the Christmas season. It was actually sung as part of the liturgy of the communion of the saints, is how the song was originally written. And what it was participating in is in the communion of the saints. And in those early days, the church taught which I think there would be some benefit to us going back to some of this, that at the time of the communion service, they taught that Jesus Christ was actually present at the communion service. And we talk about, you know, where two or three are gathered, Jesus is in your midst, and we know that Jesus is always here, but there was a sense that at the time of the communion, Christ was there. to the point that even the Catholic Church, in some of their fallacy of doctrine, taught that Jesus Christ actually became the bread, and Jesus Christ's blood actually was what was in the cup, the transubstantiation of the bread, from the bread into the body of Christ, which we do not teach. But even if they rejected that, they still held on to this teaching that at the communion, Jesus was there in his full presence with the saints. And the point of the hymn was to bring their participants into that sense of awe and reverence at the communion that they were about to partake in and that they were made to be brothers and sisters of Christ by his work. It is a hymn that lifts us from the realm of the earth into the realm of the supernatural. And it creates a sense of wonderment and solemnness. It was originally thought in the earlier years, it was originally thought that it was maybe even written by James, the half-brother of Jesus, as some people thought that actually wrote to him. But since then, it's kind of not been thought of that. It comes about during the time when Syrio of Jerusalem, who was a theologian in the Catholic church, I think, at the time. Syrio of Jerusalem in around 360, 370 AD. Underneath, when he was in Jerusalem, is where it came. The song was written in the city of Jerusalem, and they think it was around that time when it was written. So it's been sung for more than 1,500 years. around the world. It's been translated into hundreds of different languages and cultures, and this truly is an outstanding song. In the ancient liturgy, there was a text that was read before the song was sung, and the text that was read was this. We remember the sky, the earth, and the sea, the sun and the moon, the stars in all creation, both rational and irrational, The angels and archangels, powers, mights, dominions, principalities, thrones, and the many-eyed cherubim who say the words of David, praise the Lord with me. We remember the seraphim, whom Isaiah saw in spirit standing around the throne of God, who with two wings cover their faces, and with two their feet, and with two they fly, who say, holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabbath. We also say these divine words of the seraphim so as to take part in the hymns of the heavenly hosts. That's what they would say before they actually sung the song. So between that and the actual words of the hymn, it would have the effect of preparing the people to receive communion. But over the course of time, that hymn became not so much a song of communion, it became a song that had to do with the advent, and a song that had to do with the birth of Christ. And it's because it talks about the birth of Christ in the song of itself. So that's why it has become that way, and that's why we think of it today. It's actually in our hymnal. The song is actually in our hymnal, but for some odd reason, they took out one of the verses, which Ruben and I both didn't like, so we put the fourth verse back in. So that's why you have the printout. But the song is actually in our hymnal, and it's in the Advent section of our hymnal. The tune that we will sing it to is not original to it. It was originally sang as a chant as part of the liturgy, so it wasn't set to any tune. And it was originally written in Greek. And in the late 1800s, a man by the name of Gerard Mortier, an Anglican priest, translated it from Greek into the common English. And that's the words that we have today before us. Those words are translated in the 1800s. And then a little while longer, a French carol tune. was put into place that they put it to that tune, and that's the tune that we will sing it today. And if you're on Facebook and you saw Ruben's post, he posted the song with the tune that we will be singing today. So there are four stanzas to the song, and the four stanzas give us a glorious message that I want us to kind of consider today. And the first is the all of Christ's coming. The all of Christ's coming. The hymn starts off with a response, with three responses that we, the mortals, let our mortal flesh, that's us, that's our flesh, all those of us who are mortal and who will die, gives us three kind of responses that we should have. And the first one is keep silence. Let our mortal flesh keep silence. We should, in effect, when we consider the Christmas message, shut our mouths for a while. When someone important walks into a room, you become silent. If maybe you're in an office environment and your meeting's getting ready to start and everybody's kind of chit-chatting and when the big dog walks in the room, everyone kind of goes silent because the one who is greater has walked into the room. It's an out of respect that you show that person has a position of power, that you do not speak in their presence. It is a cue that there is a shift in dynamics in the room, that something greater has come. And you are to remain silent. The hymn starts off with a response of silence as someone greater, mainly Jesus Christ, has come to the earth. People today make Christmas about me, me, me. And Christmas is about him, him, him. And he is greater. So we are to be silent. It goes on, the song goes on to say, with fear and trembling stand. And another sign of respect is to stand when greatness enters into the room. When a judge walks into a courtroom, what does the bailiff say? All rise, for the honorable so-and-so is entering the courtroom. You stand as a sign of respect when the President of the United States enters into the Chamber of Congress to give a State of the Union address. Even in the midst of a divided nation, what happens when the President steps into the Chamber? Everyone stands out of respect for the office and the power of the President. And when Jesus Christ rises from his throne to descend to the earth. We should stand. But we don't just stand with irreverence and jovialness. We stand with fear and trembling. Gone from our world, from most of our world, is a sense of fear of God. Even in the midst of churches, there is a loss of the fear of the mighty hand of God. People have signs that say, Jesus is my co-pilot. Jesus is my best friend. Jesus, He is your friend. He is a friend of yours. But He is also Jehovah God. And we often in the church talk about fearing God as it only means reverence, and that deadens the sense of the reality of being fearful of God. When you read, and even as we read in Luke, at the front of our bulletins, when an angel appeared before the people, and they didn't have reverence for the angel, They were afraid of the angel. With fear and trembling, we stand. Thirdly, we ponder nothing earthly minded. This is not the time to be making lunch plans or gift exchangers or thinking about work. It is to put all that stuff aside and to be focused on the things above. Colossians 3, verse 2. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things on the earth. 2 Corinthians 4, 18. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Why is it that we are to be such an all before God? Why are we to be silent before Him and to stand with fear and trembling and not to think about anything else? We are to do that because God is working. The hymn goes on to say, for with blessing in His hand, Christ our Lord descendeth. We show Him the awe and the respect because God on the throne, the One who created heaven and earth in six days and could have created heaven and earth in six milliseconds if He so chose to. God who holds all of our lives in his hand and who no one draws another breath if it was not for God sustaining us. God, the one who holds both the keys of heaven and hell in his hands. God who can send us into everlasting joy or everlasting damnation. That God came to earth. He did something. He moved and He worked in mankind's life. We stand in fear before God because God is doing something or He did something at the coming of Christ. In Philippians chapter 2 it says, work out your salvation in fear and trembling. Why? For it is God who is at work in you. Be amazed at what God has done. Be in awe that God sent his son that we celebrate on the Christmas season. Psalm 338, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. And as our first verse closes out, what's the result? Our full homage. to demand, not to ask for, but to demand. It demands our honor and respect and reverence before Him. As Kim starts out with a clear demand to be in awe of Him. Turn to the book of Habakkuk, and if you don't have it marked like I do in my Bible already, Habakkuk, if you need to find Jonah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. Or you can start Book of Matthew, go back five books to the Book of Habakkuk. Or, I use this as my time that I like to tell people, all of your Bibles have this thing in the very front called a Table of Contents. And for some reason, Christians are opposed to using the Table of Contents because it shows us that we are not good Christians, because I do not know where the Book of Habakkuk is. Open up your table of contents, find what page number it is, turn to the book of Habakkuk. And this is one of the verses from which the song finds its roots in scripture. Verse 18, let's start with Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 18. What prophet is the idol? when its maker has carved it, or an image, a teacher of falsehood. For its maker trusts in his own handiwork when he has fashioned speechless idols. John Calvin once famously said that the human heart is an idol factory. We make idols out of everything. We make idols out of our spouses. We make idols out of our friends and our pastors and our politicians. We make idols out of material possessions and goods. We make idols out of nature itself. We make idols out of our pets and the animals. We make idols out of our houses or our brand new cars. Or we make idols out of praise and adoration of men. We make idols out of entertainment and our career. We make idols out of pleasure and make idols out of our savings account, our 401K. We make idols out of our looks or social media presence or likes on Facebook or Instagram or whatever social media. We just make idols, things that give us joy, things that give us pleasure. And we make these idols that are dumb and speechless, and then we wonder why they do not satisfy. There is no profit in them. There's no profit in their work. They are all dead. They have no life. In Isaiah chapter 44, it talks about the foolishness of idolatry. And for time's sake, we won't turn there. But Isaiah 44, verses 12 through 17, it talks about the foolishness of idolatry, that a man goes out, and he goes down to the forest, and he cuts down a tree. And he takes this tree, and he makes stuff out of the tree. And then he has leftover. And then he takes that wood, and he takes it, and he makes it into a fire. And with the rest of the wood, he fashes it into an idol and says, thou art my God. It's just foolishness. It makes no profit, gives you no benefit. In fact, it gives you a warning. Verse 19 is a woe. It's a warning of danger, of judgment. Woe to him who says to the piece of wood, awake to the dumb stone, arise. And that is your teacher? The stick and the stone, that's what you find your source of power and strength from. Behold, it is this overlay with gold and silver, and there is no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth Be silent before Him. He is not some God that was fashioned out of stone and wood. He is not carved out of wood and to our specific needs. We do not fashion God to be the way we want Him to be. He is Yahweh, Jehovah, Mighty God, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Eternal Father, Alpha and Omega. And what did God do with His rebellious creation? Did He cast us off? No, He sent His Son instead to redeem us. The Creator became creation at Christmas. The Messiah became a man. Jehovah became Jesus. The Son of God became the Son of Man. That's what happens at Christmas. Going on into verse three, chapter three, a prayer for Habakkuk, the prophet, according to Shiginoth. Lord, I have heard the report of thee, and I fear Oh Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known in wrath, remember mercy. There would be no mercy of the cross without the baby in the manger. There would be no cry from the cross that it is finished. If the angels did not cry, it has begun. The second stanza of the song speaks of the wonder of Christ's conception. And this is why the Song of the Years has become one of a more of an Advent song. It speaks about and explores the beginning of Christ's life on the earth. It explores the idea of king of kings yet born of Mary. How could it be that the one who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, also be born of Mary? If he created all things, how could he come and be a part and born of Mary? If he is the Lord, how could he be her son? As on earth, As of old on earth he stood. That is a reference to his eternality. Jesus, God in the flesh, had no beginning. There was a point in time at which he became a person on the earth, but he pre-existed before all of that. God the Father did not become God the Son. God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit existed forever in eternity past. Jesus was God in the flesh. John 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, Christ. And apart from Him, nothing came into being. And in verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld its glory. Jesus said, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am, I existed before Abraham. John 17, five, Jesus says, and now glorify myself together with yourself, Father, with the glory with which I had before the world was. He existed forever. And then the Lord of Lords and human vesture, the Lord became flesh. Vesture is the idea of clothing. That's what vesture is. He took on flesh. What you see in me when I stand before you is my skin and my hair, my eyes, my outfit. And what you perceive about me is by my speech and by my actions and by my words and deeds. That's how you perceive me. But who I am is inside of me. Who I am is in my soul. And Jesus was a real person and he had hair and eyes and skin and his friends and his family members, that's how they saw Jesus and they perceived who he was by the words that he said and actions that he did as he was growing up. But who Jesus was is markedly different in the inside and in his soul. We are formed when our mother and father comes together, and the genes from our father mixes with the genes of our mother, and it forms a new life. Jesus had an earthen mother, Mary, that he was born of, but his father, though on the earth was Joseph, his father was not Joseph. Turn to Matthew chapter one. If God was going to redeem mankind, which is what God did in sending his son, there are at least three things, there are way more than three, but there are at least three things that had to occur at the conception of this deliverer. He had to be a man, because it was man who owed the debt to God. God did not owe God anything. Right? We did. We are the ones who broke the covenant with God. We are the ones who sinned. So our Redeemer had to come from us. The problem is, is that we could never redeem ourselves. Because we are conceived in sin. So not only did this Deliverer have to be man, it also had to be God. Because only God could pay that debt of eternal wrath. And then the third thing it had to be is that he had to be conceived. He could not be conceived in iniquity. The moment that you are conceived, the Bible tells us you are conceived in iniquity. Sin passes from the father to the child at the moment of conception. Adam bears that responsibility and is passed down through the father. Not that the woman is not sinful because she has sin, iniquity and her conception as well. So how does that overcome? It is overcome with the virgin birth and the miracle of the virgin birth. Verse 18, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Without the virgin birth, the gospel is dead. You cannot, I'm gonna make this categorical statement, you cannot be a Christian and deny the virgin birth. It's one of those things that you have to confess. It's part of what it means to believe. You can't think that Jesus was just some dude that was a really good guy, and over the course of time, people just assumed that he had never done anything wrong. You have to believe in the virgin birth. It is something you have to die on. It's one of the few hills to die on in the Christian faith. Because without the virgin birth, Jesus is just a man. No matter how good he was, he's just a man. And no man can pay the penalty that is owed. So Joseph has a problem. His fiance, Mary, is pregnant, and he's not the father. The natural assumption would be of Joseph, Mary was unfaithful to me so I'm going to divorce her. But Joseph is a righteous man. Joseph her husband being a righteous man did not want to disgrace her publicly so he decided to put her away secretly. He didn't want to make a big spectacle of it. When he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, which she has conceived of as by the Holy Spirit. So in Matthew chapter one, you have the God man. And verse one is the genealogy of Jesus Christ as the son of David. That's his human line. And then his divinity line comes from the Holy Spirit here in verse 20. He is the God-man. And she will bear a son, and he shall call his name, you shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins. And Acts 4 verse 12 says, there's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved than that of Jesus Christ. All this took place as spoken of the Lord through the prophet, might be fulfilled as the prophet Isaiah, behold, a virgin shall be with child and you shall bear a son in the name of Emmanuel, which means translate God with us. If you're listening to this message, you're like, yeah, I've heard all this before. That's the point. You have all heard this before. I've heard this before. And the point of why I fell so in love with this song is I've heard it, but have I sat in just quietness to consider the reality of what is happening that God became flesh. That should never get old to us, but it does. It gets old. It gets familiar. Heard that last Christmas. I know the story. I've been saved for 50 years. You don't gotta tell me that. That's why I'm telling you that. This is how God, the King of Kings, is born of Mary. And he took on human vesture, took on the clothing of humanity. And what is the outcome of him doing that? He would give, in the song, he would give all the faithful his own self for heavenly food. His life for ours. He becomes our sustenance and our food. He is who we live off of. John chapter 6, he says, I am the bread of life. John chapter 7, he says, I am the fountain of living water. We draw all of our spiritual strength from Christ, not from ourselves. And when he came to the earth, that's what he was doing, was giving of himself that we would participate and be sustained through Him. The third verse speaks of the victory of Christ's ascension from the heavenly places. When Christ descended from the eternal throne of the Father to the earth, it was not wishful thinking that He would be successful. Jesus did not leave the throne room with a mission and a goal to beat Satan and that there was any risk involved in him not accomplishing the task. He did not march out with a potential of failure. When he took the scroll of the curse of God against mankind, which is spoken of in Revelation chapter five, As John weeps that there's no one available to deal with the curse, and then one rises, as if slain from the beginning of the foundation of the world, and takes the scroll to deal with it. It's the lamb that does that. When he takes that scroll, he does so to deal with the curse and to break it. Not to try to break it, but to break the curse. Have you ever thought about what it was like on that day over 2,000 years ago, whatever day of the month it was, we don't know, what was it like on the day that Christ was conceived, because he was conceived of by the Holy Spirit, what was the scene like in heaven? Because there was something that occurred. Christ, at that moment of conception, left the throne of God, the Father, and descended into a two-cell organism. What was that scene like in heaven? Well, the songwriter in this third hymn, third stanza, tries to think about what it would be like. when Christ came to the earth. Rank on rank the host of heaven. The host of heaven are the angels. What does rank on rank mean? Like have you ever seen like videos of like when a military march is happening and there's like thousands of soldiers lined up in row after row after row after, that's rank on rank. So the interpretation of the hymn is that when Christ descended, all of the angels lined up in an orderly fashion as Christ descended from the throne to walk between the midst as he descended into the earth. rank on rank on rank, myriads upon myriads, to billions and billions and billions of angels standing in attention as Christ left the throne to descend to the earth. Spread this vanguard on the way. What's that mean? A vanguard is a military term. It's the idea of troops advancing in the front. The tip of the spear is the vanguard. When the Lord descended, it was a military descent. The light descended, as the song says, from realms of endless day. Light conquering darkness. Why did he come? That the powers of hell may vanish and the darkness clears the way. His light conquers the darkness. He descended in order to lift us up. His birth was just the start of the process of destroying the darkness. He was born in a wooden manger that he could die on a wooden cross. The angels who said at his birth, go and look, a savior is born, would be the ones who would say, why are you looking for the living among the dead? Jesus lived that we may die to sin. He died that we might live to him. He was risen that we too may rise. He was crucified that we might have life. He was born that we could be reborn. He was never, he was not, never look at the baby in the manger without seeing the Savior on the cross. He came with a mission to be victorious over death and sin. His life, by his life, we have life. By his stripes, we are healed. Through his chastisement that he incurred, we have peace. None of that happens if he did not come. That's why the angel said on the front of our bulletin, glory to God in the highest. and peace on earth with whom man and God is well pleased. Glory to God. That's what the angels were thinking on the day of creation. Lastly, make you ready to Revelation chapter four, where we end up this morning. Not only was it a time of Christ's victory, that day in which he descended onto the earth in order to secure for us salvation. It was a time of worship of the glory of Christ. In Revelation chapter four, Jesus Christ is not some character out of a fairy tale. His birth is not a made up story. It really did occur. A virgin who had not been with a man became pregnant and had a baby. That is not made up. And that should blow us away. And when he descended upon The throne, there was great fanfare and worship and praise. And now that he is back on the throne, he is worshiped around the clock. If I told you to draw for me what angels look like, what would they look like? Mine would be a stick figure, but some of you have more artistic talent than I do. What would your, if you close your mind and I say angels, What do you think of? Most of us think of people floating on clouds with harps, with wings coming off of their back. So peaceful, joyful. And it is true, angels can look like humans. But I think that image is given to us oftentimes so that we do not be fearful. Because the Bible describes the angels around the throne of God a little bit different than floating harps on the cloud, fair skin. It's not how the Bible describes the angels. And that's the most singing you will ever hear me do, right there. Let's look at Revelation chapter four. Where we started off this morning. After these things, that's John, looked and behold a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, come up here and I will show you what must take place after these sayings. Immediately, I was in the spirit. And behold, a throne was standing in heaven and one sitting on the throne. He's taken up into the throne room of God. And he, Jesus, was sitting. He who was sitting was like jasper stone and sardis in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne like an emerald in appearance. It's like John's just trying to describe the indescribable. And that's part of the struggle with the book of Revelation when you try to study it is John is trying to describe things that are indescribable. And around this throne there were 24 thrones. There is a throne and then around the throne is 24 thrones. And upon the thrones I saw 24 elders. sitting, clothed in white garments and golden crowns on their heads. And this is where it starts to get really amazing. And from the throne proceeds flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder, like think of like a massive thunderstorm. And you see the lightning and then the thunder claps. That's what's coming from the throne that John is seeing. And the four living creatures, it starts to describe these angelic beings. And around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. It doesn't sound like the angel with the harp. The angel is full of eyes. It's a creature full of eyes. And the first creature was like a lion. And the second creature like a calf. And the third creature is the face of that of a man. And the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. That is strange. And that's what the hymn sings about. Six ringed creatures. Eyes. That's why it says that. That's how the Bible describes the beings that are around the throne of God. And day and night, They do not cease to say, holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come. These six winged creatures With the other references in the scripture tells us that with two of the wings they cover the eyes that are all around. Two of them they cover the feet, two of them they fly. These creatures who were created from the moment they were created, they were created with one thing to do. They sit around the throne of God saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Who was, who is, who is over. and over for billions of years around the clock, never stopping. And the wings cover the eyes so that they cannot see the one to which they have always existed to give glory to. They never behold him, yet they sing of his glory. And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever, the 24 elders will fall down before him who sits on the throne, and will worship him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne saying, worthy art thou, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they existed and were created. And it seems like it repeats. Because verse 8 says the angels do not cease in saying. That's what's going on. And that's what the last stanza is describing. At His feet. At the feet of the One who descended. They are there to serve Him. The Seraphim and the Cherubim. The two types of angels that the Bible describes at different places. These strange creatures that we just read in Revelation 4. With eyes all around and sleepless eyes. They praise the Lord at all times. They veil their faces to his presence. With a ceaseless cry. Singing Alleluia day and night. Alleluia means God be praised. Praise the Lord. Holy, holy, holy. It truly is a mighty hymn that I've grown to love deeply, and it has become one of my favorites. This Christmas, for just a few moments, look for some moments of silence, and just ponder the reality of Christmas, that Christ our Lord descendeth. take that song sheet that you have and Ruben and Tasha if you want to come. Let's sing this great song. Let our mortal flesh keep silence. So let's stand and sing this song.