 Hey everyone. Welcome back. I hope you did a good stretch. I got a good break, put some coffee, tea, water. Awesome. Welcome back to the second session. Okay. See, John has asked a question. How do we explain the use of flags during the time of worship from Scripture? One person asked me and I could give a generalized answer. Thanks John. Thanks for sharing, asking that question. How do we explain the use of flags during the time of worship from Scripture? Awesome question, isn't it? John, may I know what was your answer? I said, it's a symbol that we see even in Sam's saying that the banner that he hold me above me was love. So God symbolizes usage of flag as love. So we show that love took by using a physical flag. Right. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's an awesome perspective. Yeah. The term, another word that you use was very interesting, banner. Another word for flags is banner. Right. So from the Scripture, see, I hope I remember. Okay. Can we look at numbers chapter two? Okay. Numbers chapter two, Numbers chapter two, verse one and two. Okay. There's one of the Scriptures is reminded of, but I'll share what I share my thoughts, what I think about it. So Numbers chapter two, verse one and two, it says, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, the Israelites are to camp around the tent of meeting. Okay. Some distance from it. Remember that. Okay. The tent of meeting is nothing but the tabernacle of Moses. Okay. Depends on what your translation says. So the Israelites, that means the whole nation of Israelites are to camp around the tent of meeting or around the tabernacle, some distance from it, each man under his standard with the banners of his family. Okay. That means each man simply means each tribe, each man that belongs to a certain tribe of Israel should be under his standard with the banners of his family. That means in a way that each family had a banner. In other words, a flag that symbolize. Okay. But then let me see if I can get this image because I've been teaching on the tabernacle of Moses for the third years. And whenever you're ready, Google. All right. Okay. There you go. Let me share the screen and to just make my point. Okay. I hope you all can see that image. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So basically, this is the tribe of Levi. This is where in the middle was the tabernacle of Moses that was set. And the numbers chapter two, literally says is the tribes, right? They're divided into three and four sides. So you see in the east. Okay. This is the, you know, east. There were three tribes were to gather. Okay. The Judah, Ishakar, and Zepulon. Okay. And then, you know, towards the southwest, you have Rubin, Simeon, Gad, and West. You had the camp of Ephraim. You know, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. And towards the north, you had the camp of Dan. And Dan, there were three tribes that gathered is Dan, Neftali, and Asher. Okay. We all gathered divided, separated. That's from the book of numbers. You have all these, the numbers of the population. This way, it's called the book of numbers. Okay. But on a very side note that has no relations to what we're learning is in the Hebrew, the book of numbers is actually called as in the wilderness. Okay. In the wilderness. So anyway, that's like I said, it has nothing to do with what we're learning. But as you see here, each group of tribes, right, had a flag. You see, mentioned the flag of Judah, you know, was lion. That's why we call it as the lion of the tribe of Judah, is their flag was lion. And the flag of this camp was man. And the flag of this camp was a symbol of ox. And the camp of this flag was a symbol of eagle. Now, do these four creatures sound familiar? Yes. Yeah. And in Revelation, yeah. And in Ezekiel, chapter one, right, when you read. So flags, I mean, just to answer your question, scripturally, I think it's just another expression of flags or what, like, you know, they mark your territory, isn't it? Like, if the if you've seen some of the ships that's cruising, they will always have the flag of the country of their country of origin. Right. So flags always symbolize territory. So when we use flags in worship, and there are different colors. Again, there's a scriptural references that we can talk about what the color means, like the gold and white and green purple, and whatnot. You know, once again, in the tabernacle of Moses, as you enter the tabernacle, it's the first thing that you encounter is the gates. And the gates were made of four colors, right? Scarlet, white, purple, and blue, each of those colors have a symbol symbolizes something of, you know, of the kingdom. So when we use flags in worship, in our context, is we are displaying the dominance of God's kingdom in our territory, in our realm. So that's one of the reasons, you know, why, you know, and that's another expression of using flags in a worship is we declare that God is in our midst. We declare his presence, his kingdom is in our realm. So that's another expression of praise. It's similar, you know, like, even, like I said, we, in the previous chapter, we saw nine expressions of praise. It doesn't really stop there, it shouldn't stop there, because, you know, any art of yours can be an expression of praise. Your, you know, your painting can be an expression of praise. You know, anything that God's kind of gifted you, you know, can be an, you can use that to express your praise towards him. So does that help, John? Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Awesome. Okay. All right. Awesome. Great. So we've, I think we've ended our study on praise so far, you know, and if I may just pause and ask you, what was, what was the one perspective of praise that you did not have and now you have? Because praise and worship in our day and age is not a, is not an unfamiliar subject. We are all familiar with the topic of praise and worship, isn't it? We all have an idea of something, some understanding of what praise and worship is, because it's been spoken about so much in the last 20, 25 years or so. But in the last month of what we've covered, only on the praise, not worship, on praise, if there's one thing, one perspective that you have, which you didn't, what would that be? And I would really like all of you, I mean, most of you would share, so if you don't mind. Can I share? Sure. Yes. Once you said, every time we praise, no matter where we are, the room turns into his throne. And that made me feel better. So after you said that, every time when I pray, I feel like it's a throne room and I feel that is there and it makes me feel better. That's what I want to share. Awesome. Thank you for sharing, Jeffrey. Thank you. And who else? Anyway, just, just so, I mean, we can all learn from each other, right? That's one of the reasons why I'm asking this, but you know, maybe your perspective, what your takeaway can help someone else remind them of something else. So anyone? Okay, Zalitoli, looks like I have to pick on names now. Okay. Yes, Foster, like when you were mentioning about Leah, you know, like in Genesis 49-39. Yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah. There, you know, like how her perspective of God changed after she praised God and she was buried honorably with her, with her descendants. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry, ancestors. It really struck me and it really blessed, really blessed me. Okay. Thanks for sharing, Zalitoli. Amen to that. Elijah, do John, anybody feel free? Anyone? Come on guys. Can I share? Sure. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah. First of all, thank you, Foster, for it. It's really inspiring to learn about, you know, the power of praise. Why should we praise in all these concepts? Yeah, in a systematic way. And one thing that a sentence that really caught my attention was the heaven has only one reason to praise because he is worthy. And that's so true. And I was really amazed at that picturization of yes, God is in the midst of so much of praise and adoration, like mighty creatures are praising him yet when I am sitting in my room and if I'm worshiping, God's presence just comes over there. So that's really amazing that, yeah, it's just as we sing in that song, he's merciful and mighty, right? So he's so powerful. He's amazing. Yet he's so loving. Yeah. So thank you. Awesome. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. I just need two more people, just two more people quickly to share their takeaways on praise. John, why don't you, if you don't mind? A lot of background noise here. So I'll just say for some time. Okay, no problem. Nikki, would you mind? Alright, stick it now. Why don't you go? Sometimes I wonder what's happening behind the cameras. All right, guys. Well, I just hope there's definitely a lot of ways that you could learn and use it in your journey as a worshiper. So that's all chapter chapter four is about, is the power of praise. We've concluded that in page 17. Now we move into another topic, chapter five, page 18. We will begin to go deeper into the subject of worship and understand deeper a little bit about what worship is and how we can help us when becoming a better person in understanding the power of worship. So what is worship? We've already seen this definition. Worship dictionary defines as intense love or admiration, a service showing reverence to express reverence to have a sense of awe, to bow low. Worship simply means worthship. It comes from the ancient old Anglo-Saxon word, worthship, to esteem the worth of, worthy of our honor. Okay, something that is worthy. And we saw a lot of definitions given by a lot of wonderful people, authors, now who've done their study on worship. I give their definition in chapter one, if you remember. And in Genesis chapter 22, verse five, in the English Bible, we see the word worship mentioned for the first time, where Abraham worshipped, it says. And then in 2 Samuel 1220, see that David, after losing his son, he wakes up, he has a bath, cleanses himself, and anoints himself with perfume, and then he worships God. So all these moments of worship is mentioned in the Bible. And Hebrew was like we learned, the word shahar means to bow down, to fall down, to put your face to the ground, completely humbling ourselves, because originally Hebrew was a pictorial language, and the picture that was used for a symbol or a sign of worship was complete face down before the presence of the king. Okay, so we've understood all of this. And in this chapter, we have a few points that is, again, not an exhaustive list, but just a few pointers to help us understand what worship is. Okay, shall we begin? The first point, what is worship? Worship is the recognition of who God is. Worship is the recognition of who God is, recognizing who he is, recognizing what he has done, recognizing his presence, recognizing his voice, and recognizing how he looks like. That's when we use recognition, isn't it? We identify from having met and encountered. So in the very act of recognition, as it's mentioned in the notes, we do two things. We identify and we acknowledge. Okay, we identify and we acknowledge. So we identify from having met or encountered someone or something. We acknowledge, that is, we accept and admit to be acknowledged, okay, we acknowledge the person's presence, right? So let's, if you can turn with me, let's go to John chapter 21. John chapter 21. If you're there, type an amen in the chat. John chapter 21. Give another five seconds, 10 seconds for us to get there. Okay, are we there? John chapter 21. I'd like to read from verse one, John chapter 21. Okay, now just to give us a context here. If you look at chapter 20 of John, by then Jesus is crucified, he's buried, he's put into the tomb. In John chapter 20, he appears to Mary Magdalene, and he appears to a bunch of disciples, and then he appears to Thomas as well. Okay, so all that is happening in John chapter 20, and Jesus keeps disappearing. He comes in suddenly, he comes through the wall, scares everybody, speaks with them, and then he goes away. And so disciples at this point are very confronted, very conflicted as like, oh my gosh, this person who was with us, whom we walked with, whom we saw do all these signs and wonders, miracles, is no more with us. So they're kind of in a state of depression, okay, they're kind of sad, they're depressed. So in John chapter 21, that's the context, okay. It says, from verse one, after Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the sea of Tiberius, another word for sea of Galilee, it happened this way. Verse two, Simon Peter, Thomas called Dilimus, Nathaniel from Canaan Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, two other disciples were together. Verse three, I'm going out to fish, Simon Peter told them, and they said, we'll go with you. Okay, so they went out and got into the boat. Now it's okay to understand that Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, you know, decided to go fishing, but I don't know what other disciples like the tax collectors and I don't know why they went along, but you know, that's how sad they were, I guess. Simon Peter told them, I'm going fishing, and they said, we'll go with you. So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Verse four, early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, underlined that, okay. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciple did not realize or recognize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, friends, haven't you any fish? No, they answered. Even after he spoke, they did not quite recognize that voice that they've been hearing for three or plus years. The person's voice that they've walked with, you know, you would expect them to recognize the voice of the person that they've spent three years of their lives with, right? But they still don't. Verse six, he said, throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Verse seven, something beautiful happens. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved, when he called his claim that it was John, then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, hey Peter, you must have given him much, Peter, it is the Lord. It is the Lord. John recognized Jesus, his voice. And I believe one of the reasons, one of the reasons why he could have, he was able to recognize much later, of course, is that John was a worshiper. And all of the four Gospels, it is only John who writes about worship in chapter four. He was a worshiper and every time, you know, we find him resting his head on Jesus' bosom. He wants to be close. He wants to believe that he's the only one who's loved. And that is all the heart of a worshiper, isn't it? A worshiper is always able to recognize the presence of Jesus, the voice of Jesus, like John did. And it's important for people like that to exist. Why? Because as soon as John tells Peter, you know, as soon as John helps, let's put it that way, as soon as John helps his friend recognize the presence of Jesus, look at how Peter responds in verse seven. As soon as Peter heard him say it is the Lord, okay, as soon as Simon Peter heard him say it is the Lord, he wrapped his outer garments around him for he had taken it off and he jumped into the water. And other disciples followed in the boat towing the net full of fish. You got to love Peter, isn't it? Oh, he's awesome. As soon as he heard, he just jumped out of the boat into the water, swam to the shore. Something about Peter. But another reason why we need worshipers, I mean, how many times we've been in a place in our lives where we are unable to hear his voice, we are unable to recognize for whatever reason we are going through. Then there's always been this friend, he's like, hey, come along, let me worship with you, I'm praying for you. And this friend has helped you recognize the voice of Jesus or the presence of Jesus. Has that ever happened to you? Yeah? Yes, no, maybe. So that's point one, isn't it? Worship is simply recognizing and in recognition, two things happen is that we identify and we acknowledge. Right. If you're a parent, you might be able to relate to what I'm saying is, I mean, I've known my son from the time he was conceived in my wife's womb, from the time he was like a dot from the first scan that we had to go and take and all of that. And so I've always known him. And then even after his birth, it's easy for me to recognize and say, that's my son because I know who he is. But the world of a parent kind of changes when the kid is able to recognize the voice of the mother or the father and point his or her finger and say, that's my mama, that's my dad. And I think that's similar with us. We are all children of God, isn't it? You and I are a child of God. And the Bible says that he knit us together in our mother's womb. He knows the inside and out of us. He knows who we are. He knows everything about us there is to know. Even before he laid the foundations of the earth, he knows you and I by name. But his heart is impacted on the day that you and I are able to recognize that he is our father. And that's a beautiful moment in worship, isn't it? So first point, what is worship is worship is recognition, simple, recognizing who God is. A worship is encountering and acknowledging God's existence in your notes. It says that encountering and acknowledging God's existence, that he is your father, his nature and character, his majesty, his greatness, his goodness, his infiniteness, his holiness, his love. When we are able to recognize all of this, his power, his mercy, his faithfulness, all of that is worship. And we acknowledge in Psalm 95 verse 6 and 7, once again it says, oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. What is happening? There's a recognition of this God, who is our maker, our creator. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Look at those, the choice of words there, it's amazing, right? We are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. We see that language used in Psalm 23, isn't it? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leads me beside quiet waters, right? He leads me in the parts of righteousness. Why is that choice of words used right after that, you know, he's our maker in verse 6? Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God and then suddenly the imager is changing that he is our shepherd. On the side point here is for us to know the historical background of their culture, a sheep was an asset, it was a property. That means a shepherd had to go out and buy it, purchase it. Okay, unless, you know, you have a bunch of sheep, it gives birth to another sheep, that's a different story, but originally you had to go out and buy, you had to pay something to get the sheep, it was a property. Okay, in other words, here is saying us that, you know, he's our maker, he's also a redeemer, he brought us by his blood, he redeemed us by his blood. We are the people of his pasture, the language is incredible there and the sheep of his hand. That means you and I were brought at a price. Okay, so there's another recognition, another revelation that is happening there. So that is worship, right? Another scripture in the notes that's mentioned is Hebrews 11, chapter 11 verse 6. But without faith, it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Psalm 29 verse 2 says, worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness. Okay, worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness. Okay, we need to pause and recognize that he is holy. Okay, it's not enough for us to recognize that he is our creator and that he is good. You know, sometimes I feel in my opinion that we kind of get too hung upon, you know, oh, he's good, he's good, he's good, he's good, okay, he's good, he's good, you know, he's good, so I can do whatever I want to do and et cetera, et cetera and whatnot, right? I need to pause and realize that he is holy. He used to be revered. Okay, hey, how many of y'all have seen this movie Chronicles of Narnia? Okay, one person? Anybody else seen Chronicles of Narnia? Okay, I guess we have too many nice people, I don't see movies. Okay, but then if you've seen, you know, you might remember this scene. Okay, so there are these beavers and, you know, there are these children, right? The children who enter through this magical wardrobe and they enter to this land, mystical magical land of Narnia and, you know, they ask these beavers who is Aslan, you know, Aslan, he was the king before and then the beaver tells him, you know, he's a lion and whatnot and one of the kids ask the beavers, when they get to know that he's a lion, is he dangerous? That's what they ask, the kids, one of the kids asked the beaver, is he dangerous? The beaver's response is, of course, he's dangerous, he's a lion, what do you think? And then the beaver goes on to say, but he is good, you know, but he is good. Most often, you know, we dwell on the fact that, dwell on the truth that God is good and he is absolutely good, but we cannot forget that he is also the lion of the tribe of Judah and his danger is he's to be revered, he's to be worshiped, right? So, recognition of his holiness, can someone quickly read Psalm 99 verse 5 and verse 9 for us, please? Psalm 99 verses 5, exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool, he is holy. Verses 9, exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy. Awesome. Thank you. It's recognizing that the recognizing the holiness of God is crucial to our walk as a worshiper, as a Christian, okay? That he is holy, he doesn't do holy, he is holy. Okay, when we talk about his holiness, you're not talking about one of his attributes, like his love or his mercy, his kindness or his goodness, right? The Bible does not repeat in the angels say, the angels cried out, he is good, good, good. Lord, he is mercy, mercy, mercy. He's faithful, faithful, faithful. They cry out saying that he is holy, holy, holy and the root word of holy, it means to be set apart, to be cut off. It simply means there is no one like our God, there is no one. Okay, let me see if I can remember another scripture and see if we can. Okay, let's go to Psalm 89. I was just reminded of this Psalm, I'm not too sure which verse, so just follow with me, Psalm 89. Okay, let's read, I'm going to read for us from verse 5, Psalm 89 verse 5. It says, the heavens praise your wonders, Lord, your faithfulness too in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies above can compare with you, Lord? Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings? In the council of the holy ones, God is greatly feared. He is more awesome than all who surround him. Verse 8, O Lord, God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O Lord, and your faithfulness surrounds you. Amen, this is so beautiful that those scriptures, verse 7, verse 6, who in the skies above can compare with the Lord? It's a rhetorical question, no one. Who is like the Lord among the heavenly beings? When you think of the heavenly beings, you think of the angels, the seraphims, the cherubims, and those mighty angels in Revelation 4, there's not one being. Let's say, for example, for our discussion's sake, if an alien from the planet Mars, who's called as Martian, comes to planet Earth and asks, who are you? I would say my response would be, I am a human being. What do you mean human being? It means I am like John, I'm like all these different people. We are called human beings. I can point my hand at another person or another being like myself and say, I'm like them. I'm like so and so. There is not one being, as the Psalm says, that God can point his finger hand and say, I'm like them. I'm like that. He is holy. He is set apart. There is no one like when we say that he is holy. We are referring, we are addressing the person of God. So worship is recognizing who God is in all his attributes, in all his nature, in all his characteristics. One of the most important thing is recognizing the person that he is, and that he is holy. So recognizing the holiness of God is very key in your walk as a worshiper and as a Christian. Okay, are you guys with me? Yes, okay. All right, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Isaac. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's go to the second point now. Worship is reverence for God. Okay, to revere is to regard or treat adoration and utmost fearful respect. Yes, the Lord is our Father. He calls us his friend. He is also soon and coming King of kings and the Lord of lords whose eyes are like flames of fire and his feet like fine brass. We see that in Revelation chapter 2 verse 18. Okay, this same person, remember John that we read about that the person that who recognized the presence of Jesus, the voice of Jesus in John chapter 21, right? And the same person who writes about worship in John chapter 4 and the same person who believes, who rests himself on the bosom of Jesus. Okay, you know what his response is when he encounters Jesus in all his beauty and glory? It says he fell down as though he was dead. Same good, the same dude who hung out with Jesus, you know, who thought Jesus was cool and he was, you know, I'm his loving disciple and whatnot. And when he encounters Jesus in his, all his holiness and all his glory, his first response is that he fell down as though he was dead. It means in a way that even John recognized that he is standing in the presence of someone who's to be greatly feared, who's not supposed to be taken very lightly. His presence, he knew that he was standing on holy ground. Worship is recognition and in that recognition comes that we learn that we need to rever of who this God is. Okay, Psalm 5 verse 7 says, but as for me, I will come into your house in the multitude of your mercy. In fear of you, I will worship toward your holy temple. And Psalm 96 verse 9 says, oh worship the Lord and the beauty of his holiness, tremble before him all the earth. Okay. And can we also, you know, I want to read as, I'm sure we've read the scripture many, many times, but can we read Isaiah chapter 6? Can we go to Isaiah chapter 6, please? Isaiah chapter 6, wait for us to turn there. There's layers and layers of revelation, lessons that we can learn from these, from every verse of this chapter. Okay, so Isaiah chapter 6, I hope we're all there, it says, in the year that King Uzair died, Uzair was the cousin of Isaiah, right? In the year that King Uzair died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne high and exalted. Okay, a side point, okay, for your personal walk is some of the things that we worship as kings needs to die for us to see God lifted high and exalted in our lives. Okay, in the year King Uzair died, I saw the Lord seated on the throne high and exalted. And the train of his robe filled the temple. Okay, if it's not underlined, underline it. And the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet. And with two, they were flying. Verse three says, they were calling to one another. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the door posts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. Another translation would say cloud. Okay, let's pause there. And again, so Isaiah, the prophet who writes this point, Isaiah was known as the prophet of prophets. Like most of the prophets that we read in the Old Testament, they were known to be living a very, not a very fancy life. They were known to be sleeping under the trees like Elijah did, who would not eat very fancy foods and whatnot. But Isaiah was different. He had access to the courts, the king. Okay, he was like in, you know, in the king's court, you know, there'll be ministers, you know, all these officials of the king. Right, so Isaiah was like one of them. He had access. Okay, so the language that he uses there is, I saw the Lord seated high, seated on the throne, okay, high and exalted. And then he says the train of his robe filled the temple. Now again, going back to the days of Isaiah, the train of his robe is simply, you know, if you've seen the king, you know, he, they would have this robe, like a purple kind of thing, because purple represented the color of royalty. The longer their reign, okay, the longer the success of their reign, the longer their greatness, the robe will be that great as well. I mean, if you've seen some of the brides, they'll house that one, you know, train of their robe goes one kilometer back, you know, they need like a hundred people to carry their robes and whatnot. Okay, so Isaiah has seen the kings of the world. Okay, Isaiah has seen the train of their robe, okay, that would go only to a certain distance, certain length. But there's another translation that says, as he saw the Lord high and exalted, the train of the robe was filling the temple. Okay, and I don't know which translation it is, but I remember reading it, filling the temple. That means it was present continuous. That means he was sovereign, there was no end for his reign, for his kingdom. Okay, so the train of his robe was filling the temple, and above were the seraph. Okay, the plural of seraph is seraphim, singular is seraph. Okay, so, and this simply means burning ones. Okay, you can look it up, you can do your study. So seraphims means they're burning ones, they must be on fire, these incredible creatures. Okay, and I don't want to go into the details of why they cover their faces, why they cover their feet. You know, you could do your own study on that. Okay, and I would encourage you to do that. But this is what is happening. Isaiah is recognizing, and he's seeing God in all his beauty and all his holiness. And verse four, it says, at the sound of the voices of the seraphims, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. And at this encounter, Isaiah's response is, Woe to me, I cried, I am ruined. Okay, let me know the rest of the story. But I don't want to get into that. You know, let's get, for us to get another glimpse of another scripture, we have three more minutes. You know, can we just turn to Ezekiel? There is a couple of y'all here who would have heard me read the scripture many times. I apologize, but quickly, quickly, quickly, Ezekiel. Okay, Ezekiel chapter one, and you know, I would encourage you to read this whole chapter whenever you get the time, but Ezekiel chapter one, I'm going to read from verse four. Okay, Ezekiel one, verse four, it says, I looked and I saw a wind storm coming out from the north and immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance, their form was of a man, but each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight, their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings of their four sides, they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings, and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead. They did not turn as they moved. Their faces looked like this. Each of the four had the face of a man. Okay, and one had a face of an eagle, one had a face of an ox and one had a face of a lion. Okay, verse 13, the appearance of the living creatures was like the burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures. It was bright and lightning flashed out of it. Verse 14, the creatures sped back and forth like the flashes of lightning. Okay, that line tells us something about the speed of what they travel. Okay, if you know anything about the speed of light, the speed of light is, I think, 300,000 kilometers per second per second. Okay, the lightning doesn't travel at the same speed, but you get an idea. These angels, okay, these cherubims, these beings, okay, these are the kind of beings our God, your God, my God is surrounded by. Okay, I mean, we look at that second point, and when we say that worship is a reverence for God, we need to realize, hey, we are not dealing with some ordinary being here. We are talking about a being who's eternal, who's sovereign, like Isaiah says, his train of his robe is filling. There is no end for his reign. This is the being that you and I are worshiping, that you and I are called to worship, that you and I are called to be priests in the courts of the king. Okay, let's pause and just imagine and wonder what a privilege and what an honor it is for all of us to bow before a king and say, your majesty, your highness. You know, I'm sure we haven't done to any of the kings on earth, but I'm glad we haven't, I'm glad at least I haven't, but incredible privilege to walk into the king and the courts of the king of all kings. In the presence like, you know, there's a song by Matt Redman, you should check it out, called Peace Down by Matt Redman, the presence where angels fear to walk, fear to tread, and we've given complete access to walk into the presence as children of God. Amen. So I would encourage you to just dwell on these scriptures, to dwell on the holiness of God, to dwell on who this beautiful, magnificent God is and be encouraged by it. Okay, we restart time, we've got one minute overboard, apologies. Let's just pray and we'll bring this session to a close, okay? Father, we bow before you. We acknowledge who you are in our lives, God. We acknowledge your greatness, your awesomeness. We acknowledge everything about you, Lord. And we just want to say thank you for giving us this incredible privilege to come into your courts, to come to your throne just as we are, and to call you Abba Father, that no angels, no cherubim, no seraphim have that privilege to call you Abba Father, to say I love you and to hear you say I love you too. Thank you for this incredible privilege, Lord, and I pray that even as we learn from your word, that you will continue to speak to us, God. I pray and I come at the rest of the day into your hands. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you all. Thanks for joining in. I'll stop the recording now. I'll see you all.