Okay, welcome back. Lisa will
be here in a minute, I trust. We're going to open this session
by singing, Thine be the glory, risen conquering sun, endless
is the victory, thou, oh death, hast won. Angels in bright raiment
rolled the stone of the way, kept the folded grave closed
where thy body lay. ? Day and night, from the sun away
? ? Heav'n and earth, with faith close, where thy glory lay ?
? Thine be the glory, risen, conqu'ring Son ? ? Ever since
the beginning of time ? Oh, say does that star-spangled
banner yet ? Before it's in supply ? ? Life
is how we love it ? ? May God speed us by ? ? May God's holy
compass ? ? Through the heavens fall ? ? Bring us in good order
? ? To thy home above ? So then, we've seen the fall
of Babylon. In chapter 18, the fall of Babylon
is laid out there very clearly. All the world and false religion,
the end of all earthly society. It's commerce, it's culture,
it's civilization. And so, the people of God are
given this call in verse 4 of 18, come out of her, come out
of her. Then, because we haven't got
time to look at it in any detail. Chapter 19 is the church married
to the Lamb, and then in the second half of it, Christ coming,
and again, it's another perspective on the end of all things. But
as I say, we haven't time to look at that now. There's beautiful
pictures in there, but you can study it for yourself. But then
we get to chapter 20, where I particularly wanted to come, because And before
we get to the end of the book, which we'll look at next week,
in chapter 20 there's some key things that are so deeply misunderstood,
misinterpreted, and you end up in all sorts of deep error and
confusion if you don't get the right picture of what it is actually
teaching us. It's another, yet another, chapter
20 is yet another perspective on history, from Christ's ascension
until the end of the world. And, as I say, misuse of Chapter
20 concerning the millennia, the thousand years, has led to
all sorts of bizarre and absurd notions. You've got premillennial,
you've got postmillennial, you've got amillennial, and Satan loves
it. Bear this in mind. Satan loves
it. Because why? it distracts from
the central message, which is Christ and the salvation he has
accomplished. Don't ever, we mustn't ever let
any theories about how things will pan out confuse us or distract
us from the central message of Christ and the salvation he has
accomplished for his people. So, let's spend half an hour
or so looking at this. First of all, the angel, the
key, the chain, and the pit. The angel, the key, the chain,
and the pit. Chapter 20, verse 1, And I saw
an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless
pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the
dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and bound
him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit,
and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive
the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled,
and after that he must be loosed a little season. We've seen the
immense power of Satan. We've seen the unstoppable power
of his deceit. And we've seen the almost universal
worship of the beast, of his beast, of Satan's beast, of worldwide
unity. And the infatuation of the world
with the delusions of the false prophet. The world is infatuated
with the delusions of the false prophet. And their basis is life,
happy life, without the justice of God, without any need for
the justice of God or retribution for sin. His objective at the
Tower of Babel was to defeat God. That was it. His triumph was the fall in the
first place. When he plunged the kingdom of
God as it was in the Garden of Eden with the rule delegated
to Adam. He plunged it into sin and made it his kingdom, his
realm in which he reigned and ruled. Then at Babel, his objective
there was to defeat God by this worldwide consensus of unity.
And ask the question, why has he still not succeeded? Because
as bad as things are, he still has not succeeded. Why do I say
that? Because there are still the true
people of God. There are still those, as chapter
14 was telling us, who keep the commandments of God, and who
have the faith of Jesus Christ. They're still there. Satan hasn't
succeeded. Before Christ came and redeemed
his people in the Old Testament, before he came into time, he's
the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, but before he came
into history and redeemed his people at Calvary, Satan stirred
up five empires against Israel to crush God's people. And then
Rome came, the time when John was writing. And in the Old Testament
days, he accused the Old Testament saints in heaven of being there
unjustly, because they were sinners. They were his by right. They
weren't God's. They should be his. And he fought
with Michael, the archangel, and his angels, with this. And
the argument was an argument of spiritual concepts. The weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but those that are spiritual,
to the bringing down of strongholds. So if he's got such power, why
has he not won? And the answer is, chapter 12,
verse 11, the blood of the Lamb overcame him. This is the key.
It's the blood. The blood of the Lamb overcame
him. From that point, he knew his
time was limited. Chapter 12, verse 12. He knows
he has a short time. He's furious. He knows he has
but a short time. And here in chapter 20 we see
another perspective on this limiting of his powers. In verses 1 to
3 we see his powers limited. The empowered messenger of God
comes into the realm where Satan prowls, prowls around, Peter
tells us, he prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom
he may destroy. And God's messenger, empowered
messenger, comes down with a key and a chain, symbols of restraint. Remember, it's symbology. to
restrain, to restrict the power of Satan. And that's why he has
not been successful. That's why he has not yet completely
conquered. I tell the story in the book
about this key and this chain. When we were a lot younger and
quite poverty-stricken and trying to run an old banger car and
the starter motor would go and rather than going and paying
a fortune to have a brand new one fitted there was a scrapyard
that had all sorts of old cars in it and I'd go and see the
owner and say have you got a starter motor for a Morris Marina or
whatever it was and he'd say yes I think you'll find one down
there go down there and you'll find an old one I'm sure that's
got a starter motor on you can have that and you know you're
paying a fraction of the price but there was this huge great
dog house with a fierce German Shepherd dog. It was one of the
biggest German Shepherd dogs I've ever seen, but it was on
a strong chain, and I had to walk down past this thing, and
it was fierce! You know, it would have ripped
your throat out if it could have got off his chain, but it was
on its chain. You know, it used to charge at
you so aggressively that when it got to the end of its chain,
the whopping great doghouse would shift forward a few inches, but
it was on a chain. And that's the picture. Satan
is limited. He is limited in the extent of
what he can do. So they're symbols of restraint.
We read in 2 Peter about the angels, the fallen
angels. 2 Peter 2 verse 4, God spared
not the angels that sinned with Satan, but cast them down to
hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved
in judgment. That's where they are. They're
not doing the ultimate of what they have the capacity to do
because they are limited by the chains of judgment that they're
in. This is the bottomless pit. This is the proper temporary
abode of the devil and his demons. Limited. Active, but limited. And what they can do is always
constrained by what God permits them to do for his purposes.
And it's all for his purposes. Do you remember Job? God said
to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? It wasn't that
Satan could see him and went and attacked him. God said to
him, why? For God's purpose. For all things
work together for good. What a terrible thing God put
Job through. It was for his eternal good.
All things work together for good to those who love God, who
are called according to His purpose. That's what it was. We've seen
the key before, and the bottomless pit in chapter 9 verse 1, when
the star comes down from heaven and the locusts were released.
But remember there, Who gave the devil the key? God gave the devil the key. It's God that gave it to him,
and limited his power to use it. Satan was given the key to
release those locusts, those demonic powers that have so corrupted
the society and the government and the rule that we live under.
But always remember, the key is God's to give and to take
back at His will, and the chain is God's to determine its length.
The power is God's to give to His angel to restrain Satan as
much as he ordains. Now, what is the nature of the
restraint? It is binding, it is imprisoning,
it is setting a seal, which is an unbreakable mark of restraint,
and he's limited in that, it says, he should deceive the nations
no more till a thousand years be fulfilled. He should deceive
the nations no more as he had done before Christ came, with
the empires, those godless empires. He deceived the nations and the
empires rose up, and almost swallowed Israel, which was the one and
only line from which the Messiah, the seed of the woman, would
come. How did he deceive them? He deceived them concerning divine
justice. The true people of God are the
only ones who really have any understanding of divine justice,
because they understand what their sin does in relation to
the holiness of God, and how it must have its penalty paid,
and how Christ, the Lamb of God, is the only one that can pay
that penalty, because He is God. He is God in flesh, who came
in a body that was prepared that He might fulfill the demand of
the law, that the soul that sins, it shall die. Concerning the
salvation of God's people, concerning the salvation of His people out
of this world of Satan into the Kingdom of God, Satan had deceived
the nations in Old Testament days. Which nations? Verse 8. and he shall go out to deceive
the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth. Of
course, the earth doesn't have four quarters, but this is just
symbolical. This is poetical language, if
you like. Four is the number of creation.
Into the world, the nations of Gog and Magog. What are they?
Well, we read of them in Ezekiel, in 38 and 39 of Ezekiel. These are the nations that have
been completely untouched to all practical purposes by the
white horse riding forth. There's just no influence of
the gospel in them. They know nothing of the truth
of Christ. They know nothing of the God of Israel. They know
nothing of the oracles of God that were given to Israel. It
has just completely passed them by because of Satan's deception.
This is clearly what it is saying. Gog and Magog repeatedly came
against greater Israel to try and destroy it. But we remember
from chapter 11 it was only the center of the temple that was
the true people of God. That alone was the bit that John
was told to go and measure. The nations outside of the influence
of Christendom, these are really anti-Christendom, this is the
nations of Gog and Magog, the nations outside of the influence
of Christendom, which is really anti-Christendom. after Christ
has gone back to heaven. You know, Satan is furious, we
saw it in chapter 12. You know, the child was born,
he that would rule the nations with a rod of iron, clearly Psalm
2, that is Christ, and he accomplishes his work and he's taken up to
heaven and there's victory in heaven and Satan is cast out
and he's furious and he knows his time is short and he wants
to persecute the woman, which is the true Church, from which
the true children of God will come. More of God's children
are going to be born in that church. That is where the true
believers are born. They're born. Why are they born
there? Because that's where preaching is, and it's by the foolishness
of preaching it pleased God to save those who believe. And after
Christ ascended to glory, Satan continued to want to deceive
Gog and Magog, to unite them in world power against the people
of God, against the true Israel of God, Galatians 6.16, the true
Israel of God. But God stops him from doing
it. How does he do it? By restraining him for a thousand
years. Since Christ, Satan is restrained
for a thousand years. Now then, let's think about this
thousand years, because people come up with all sorts of speculative
theories about it, and I'm not going to go into the theories
that they come up with. They have an idea of Christ coming
again and reigning in literal physical Jerusalem for a thousand
years with sinners in the world and temple sacrifices continuing
and all sorts of weird things. First question to ask is this,
this thousand years, is it literal, or is it symbolical? Now, you
must remember, in any one vision, it's perfectly clear, when it
was talking about this world, the creation, coming to an end,
it talks about the real creation coming to an end. The real astronomical
bodies, it's coming to an end. These are real physical things,
don't over-spiritualize that. But where it is clearly symbolical,
We have to work out, well, if it's symbolical, it must all
be symbolical. There's great danger in mixing
it. Surely, surely, we must agree that the key and the chain and
the pit are symbolical. Where can you go in the physical
universe where you can see the key and the chain and the pit?
You can't. They're symbolical, they're spiritual
things. So if they're spiritual, why
wouldn't the thousand years be symbolical of something spiritual? Ten, is the number that symbolizes
completeness in this world, a worldly perfection. There are ten commandments
for the people that was given to Israel in this world. There
are ten plagues to inflict the judgments on Egypt. There are
ten virgins in the parable. There are ten talents. There
are 10 days that the church of Smyrna in Revelation chapter
2, 10 days that Smyrna has to suffer persecution. We know it's
not literal days, it doesn't mean that by Tuesday of next
week it'll all be over. No, it's symbolical. It's a short
time but a complete time. And this thousand years is a
fullness, a completeness, as determined by God. So a thousand
is ten, complete, times ten, complete, times ten, complete.
It's a long time, But it's a limited time. It's a time that God has
limited. In the Old Testament, as I've
already said, Gog and Magog, the nations outside of the influence
of greater Israel, repeatedly came against Israel. In New Testament
times, down in New Testament history, the kingdoms of Gog
and Magog, those nations untouched by the white horse of the gospel,
the history of it is relatively quiet. Relatively quiet regarding
world history, because why? Satan is restrained not to deceive
them, as in Old Testament times. Does that make sense? Satan,
from Christ until I think quite recently, Satan was restrained
in his ability to deceive those nations to be a credible opposition
to the people of the Israel of God. But since then, since Satan
was restrained, in this thousand years, Christendom has spread. When I say this thousand years,
I mean this symbolical thousand years. You can have a different
opinion if you want, but to my mind, that thousand years was
actually about 1980 years, because in my reckoning it was about
1980 that things started to dramatically change to the world that we have
today. The world of the 70s and 80s,
I know there were the seeds of it in the rebellions of the 60s,
etc., but the change of the last 30 to 40 years has been so, so
dramatic. And prior to that, Christendom
had spread like greater Israel. the temple court around spread
into greater Israel. Well, Christendom has, in a way,
flourished. There has been an influence.
There's been missionary spreading of the Gospel. There have been
pockets of true believers all over. All because Satan has been
restrained for that symbolical thousand years. And there are
even significant numbers of converts amongst the nations of Gog and
Magog. Some of you have even been and
spent some years there, teaching in a school, in what would be
regarded, as far as the scripture is concerned, as amongst the
nations of Gog and Magog. Because God says that his church,
his people, will be drawn from every tribe and tongue and kindred. Every. God so loved the world.
Not everyone without exception, but everyone in the world without
distinction of race or language. God so loved. that he gave his
only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
but have everlasting life. So then, that's Satan's restraint
for those thousand years. Meanwhile, in heaven, look at
verse four. I saw thrones and they that sat
on them, and judgment was given unto them. And I saw the souls
of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for
the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither
his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads
or in their hands. And they lived and reigned with
Christ a thousand years. Throughout that thousand years,
that same symbolical thousand years of New Testament dispensation,
the souls of the saints, all down that history, look at the
characteristics of them in verse 4, look, they'd not worshipped
the beast, they didn't have his image on them, they hadn't received
his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands, they lived
and reigned with Christ. They who died as believers during
that period since Christ have gone straight to be with Christ.
As he said to that thief on the cross, that penitent thief, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
this day you shall be with me in paradise. This day, to be
absent from the body, said Paul, is to be present with the Lord.
I don't know what to do. It's needful for me to stay and
minister to you. Yet to depart and be with Christ is far better.
When we leave this body, we go to be present with the Lord.
But in verse 5, the rest of the dead, those who are not his believing
people, lived not again until the thousand years were finished.
This is the first resurrection. Unbelievers, as it were, in a
limbo of death, waiting for judgment. How blessed to rise straight
from physical death into the glory of heaven. The second death. That final judgment has no power
over them. We're made priests and kings
with God. This is a lovely picture here
of what happens to believers when we come through the Great
Tribulation, which is not some special event as such, but the
whole of this world in varying degrees of intensity is for the
believing people of God a time of trouble. In this world you
will have tribulation," said Paul. In this world now perilous
times will come. We're in perilous times for the
people of God. But then Satan is loosed for
a little season. Look in verse 3 at the end of
it, when the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that
he must be loosed a little season. Then down in verse 7, and when
the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of
his prison. The constraint upon him God's
restraint, which restricts how far he can go and what he can
do, will be let loose. He will be permitted to deceive
the nations once more. Look, he shall go out to deceive
the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog
and Magog. His reason? To gather them together
to battle. that's what he's going up for,
to gather them together for battle, permitted to deceive once more,
to try and destroy the kingdom of God, that his kingdom might
be supreme. And we see a picture of Gog and
Magog, masses of them, encompassing the camp of the saints and the
beloved city. Look in verse 9, they went up
on the breadth of the earth, encompassed the camp of the saints
about and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of
heaven and devoured them. You see, This is just another
perspective, another picture on what we've already seen. You
know when the beast rose from the pit in chapter 11, when the
witnesses had finished their testimony, the two witnesses
finished their testimony, the beast rose from the pit and killed
them. Is that not talking about the
same sort of thing? It's as if they come ready to
destroy that which is God's people. And all of this is recalling
the great battle of Gog and Magog against Israel, again in symbolical
terms that's given in Ezekiel 38 and 39. It symbolizes godless,
anti-God, anti-Christ world battling against the righteousness of
God and the righteous requirements of God. And I am of the opinion,
and you can take your own view, but I struggle to see how it
could be otherwise, that the days in which we're living now
are that little season. I believe that little season
has happened because of so many things that I see that point
to it, in terms of the activity of the beasts, the way the world
has become. In the book I point out that
in my lifetime, I'm getting on but I'm not that old, and the
world population has trebled in my lifetime. You know, prior
to my generation, nobody could say anything remotely close to
that. For centuries, the population, it seems, bobbled along around
a billion people. And then, since the Industrial
Revolution, it's gradually started to creep up. But since 19...
Well, I was born in 1951, and since then, it has more than
trebled. And it's a dramatic increase. The advance of technology, the
freedom of movement that there is, the way that the national
borders are just no longer there. The national borders have come
down. In chapter 16, you read about the great river Euphrates
dying up, which was the symbol of the eastern border of the
people of God. And it's gone. There's a complete
intermingling of the peoples of the world. And of course,
for evangelical purposes, we make use of that, and we don't
take any sort of a racist opinion of that at all. But nevertheless,
it is true that it is fulfilling what God has said in His Word,
that this, what seemed like national borders and the separation of
that which was Christendom, albeit anti-Christendom, from Gog and
Magog, has completely gone. There's freedom of movement like
there's never been before. You know, people talk about their
bucket list and the number of places they want to go. And it's
great to be able to visit different places in these days. But it's
a phenomenon that's no more than what, for the vast majority of
people, it's certainly no more than a 50-year-old phenomenon,
is that. Nobody prior to about 19... I
know there was flights before that, but nobody prior to 1970,
en masse, had in mind that they would travel the planet and they
would visit every country on the planet. We know of people
who make it their objective to try and put a tick in the box
of every country on the planet, if they possibly can. Seems like
a little bit of an extreme bucket list to me, but never mind. But,
you know, that's the sort of thing that marks out these days,
and to me it says that we are indeed living in that little
season. There seem to be practically
no national borders anymore. One of the big things that in
Britain many of us, the majority of us, had a problem with the
European Union was that one of the conditions of membership
was that you get rid of your national borders. Freedom of
movement. Anybody. Anybody can come in. Doesn't
matter. Once they've got into the European Union and on the
eastern and southern borders there seems to be very little
to stop them. Once they're in, they're in. They can just come.
They can partake of our benefits and all that sort of thing. It's
very, very hard to keep a track on them. No national borders
anymore. Just like it was saying in Revelation
9.14 and then in 16.12 about the river Euphrates dying up.
Christendom, the culture of... Well, I know Australia isn't
in the West, but it is in the West in the sense of culture
and economy and all the rest of it. Western culture of Christendom
as such has been overrun with Gog and Magog influence, of Islam,
of Hinduism, all of these other things coming in, overturning
biblical laws and justice. You know, there's great attempts
in British society to try and have pockets where Sharia Islamic
law applies and the law of Britain doesn't apply anymore, and they
try really hard, and there's strong opposition to it to try
and prevent it, but I'm sure in practice Underneath the radar,
Sharia law is being practiced in significant communities in
Britain in these days. All of this is a phenomenon of
the last 30 or 40 years. As true churches in these days,
as true churches, we appear to be lying dead in the street.
Somebody, a stranger comes to Nauru and says, oh, can you tell
me, to anybody out in the street, can you tell me a church I can
go to? I can imagine you would think that the last place that
the average person in Nauru would point somebody to come to church
would be here. because they'll say, oh, go to
that building over there, or go to that one down there, and
it's the same back home. In the eyes of the world, the
true church that preaches the true gospel of grace is as good
as lying dead in the street. Its buildings are no longer there,
its structures are no longer there, it's in such small numbers,
it's regarded as insignificant and irrelevant, and not worth
being talked to or taken seriously. I may be wrong, but does anyone
have a better explanation of the world that we see around
us? The phenomenal changes that have happened in politics, in
economics, in philosophy, in culture, in travel in the last
50 years. You know, the whole thing is
so transformed and yet is in reality so fragile, utterly fragile. Think about the world economy.
The world economy has never in history been so utterly indebted
as it is at the moment. It's in colossal debt. It's in
unrecoverable debt. It's only the great delusion
of confidence that is keeping the world economy going. In truth,
people have spent way beyond the natural resources that have
been taken from the earth and added value to. This is the days
in which we live, and that's why I think it's the little season
where Satan is let loose to deceive. But it's only a little season.
Do these days scare you? When we think of these things,
do they scare you, believer? Remember, it's a little season. Look what happens. Verse 9, they
went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp
of the city. They're about to swallow up the saints of God.
And the beloved city, Zion, where Mount Zion, where the 144,000
stand with the Lamb. And look what happens. Fire came
down from God out of heaven and devoured them. As quick as that.
As quick as that. That's the end of it. Don't be
afraid. Fear not. Don't be afraid. It
is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Don't
be afraid. If it's His good pleasure, this
little season and whatever happens in this world is not going to
take you. What did He say? No man is able to take them from
my Father's hand. My Father is greater than all. Nobody's able to defeat Him. The fire from God comes down.
The devil is cast into hell, into the lake of fire. There's
not even a trial. There's no need for a trial.
The case is open and shut. He's absolutely plumb guilty.
He's cast straight into the lake of fire. Now then, as we close
this, let's look at the end of chapter 20. Because there is
a throne, and there is a day of judgment, and there are two
books. Look in verse 11, I saw a great
white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth
and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for
them. And I saw the dead, small and
great, stand before God, And the books were opened, and another
book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were
judged out of those things which were written in the books according
to their works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it. And death and hell delivered
up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man
according to their works. And death and hell were cast
into the lake of fire. This is the second death. This
is the second death. And whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. Be absolutely
clear, you'll hear all sorts of weird nonsense spoken and
claimed by people. There is only one return of Christ
to this earth. There's not a previous return
and a secret rapture and things like that. There is one return
of Christ, but there is an order within it. And if you read, we
haven't time now, but if you read 1 Thessalonians chapter
4 about verse 13, down to chapter 5 verse 11, you will see that
order clearly given there by the Apostle Paul. First of all,
the dead saints rise, the bodies of the dead saints rise. The
living saints rise, they meet Christ in the air, and then all
the rest are raised for judgment. The second resurrection for the
saints, the union of souls with their new bodies. As I say, the
details are subject to another study in 1 Corinthians 15 and
1 Thessalonians 4 and 5. But here we see in a vision everyone
without exception. Everyone who ever lived without
exception. The sea, hell and the grave,
they all gave up the dead that were in them. Death and hell
gave up the dead that were in them. In this vision we see everyone
who has ever lived without exception assembled at God's throne of
judgment at the end. People always say, how could
that logistically be possible? How on earth can you form a crowd?
It's symbolical. Don't think of the constraints
of this physical universe in which we live. God will have
all assembled before His throne of judgment. It is appointed
to man to die once, says Hebrews 9.27, and then the judgment.
Romans 14 verse 10 and 2 Corinthians 5 verse 10 both say we must all
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. That's coming. But look at verse 12. What is
the measure for judgment? I saw the dead, small and great,
and all the books were opened, and another book was opened,
which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out
of those things which were written in the books according to their
works. The measure for judgment is the
books. I'm sure it's the same in Australia,
but in England, when you are on a charge in a court of law,
What you're there for is because you are deemed to have, you're
accused of violating something that is stipulated in the books
of English law. I used to have a lot to do with
writing contracts, and even if a company was in Scotland and
another one in England, we had to decide for the purposes of
the contract was it Scottish law or English law that would
preside, because they're different. But these books are the books
of God. These are works being judged
against the measure of the righteousness of God. And in verse 14, death
and hell were cast into the lake of fire. Death and hell is those
that death and hell gave up for judgment are cast into the lake
of fire. The judgment falls. They're judged
worthy of hell. God will be vindicated. In verse
15 we see, Whosoever was not found written in the book of
life was cast into the lake of fire. Yes, this symbolical language,
but the import of it is horrendous. And the reason is because sin
is horrendous to God. All are judged in accordance
with the books of works. But there's another book open.
Praise God, there's another book open. The Book of Life. The Lamb's
Book of Life. There he has written the names
of all those for whom he paid the debt of their sin to the
law of God. There are the names of those
for whom on the cross of Calvary he finished the judgment of God.
If He finished the judgment of God for us there, there is no
more judgment to come. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the
flesh, but the Spirit. Names written there, the elect
of God, the Israel of God. Do you see how different this
is from the false gospel of a salvation that makes it possible for all,
if only they will believe it. How blasphemous and how dishonoring
to God is that false gospel. God, by His sovereign grace,
has written the names of His people, the people of His choice,
not because of any merit, not because of any good He saw. He's
written them there in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation
of the world. And that book is open, and what's
found when they are judged according to the books are dealt with already,
dealt with. It's like you go up, there are
cases where people go up into the dock in the court and the
prosecution states its case and the judge says, let me see this.
He says, well there's no case to answer. because of this legal,
there is no case, case dismissed. You're free to go. That's the
way it is. Those who are written in the
Lamb's Book of Life, at that judgment seat of Christ, there
is no case to answer. Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? Who shall bring it? Nobody shall.
Why? Because Christ has already died for them. He's already shed
his blood. So then, Names written in the Lamb's Book
of Life for the Israel of God. In Jeremiah 50 verse 20, one
of my favorite verses is this. In those days, and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none. Isn't that good? There shall
be none. And the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found. Why? God says, I will pardon
them whom I reserve. Not that he will sweep their
sins under the carpet, but he's dealt with it, he's pardoned
it, he's forgiven it. The books of works record no
sin against Israel, Judah, the people of God, symbolically.
Why? Because of the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Justice is satisfied. You know
when you have a fire here, same as at home, the best place to
stand is where the fire's just been, because it isn't going
to burn there anymore. The fire has already fallen. We stand
on burnt ground in the Lord Jesus Christ. The wrath of God, the
fire descending from heaven, is not going to descend on the
people of God. There is one question that everybody
needs to ask. Am I in the book of life? Am
I in the Lamb's book of life? How can I make my calling and
election sure? Peter says, add to your faith
virtue, et cetera, those precepts of the gospel. But this is it.
I heard Don Faulkner say recently, the only assurance of faith is
faith. That's it. What did he say to
the Thessalonians? 2 Thessalonians 2.13. He said, We're bound to give
thanks to God for you, beloved of the Lord, for God has from
the beginning chosen you. He's written your names in the
Lamb's Book of Life. How do I know? Through sanctification
of the Spirit, and I can see that you believe the truth. When
I preached the gospel, it has all sorts of different reactions.
When I preached the gospel to you, I saw the effect it had. You believed the truth of the
gospel. Come to Christ, believe him.
Seek his strength to follow. Believe. What should I do, said
the jailer? What shall I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Well, I hope God blesses
those thoughts to us. Yes, indeed. Thank you. Let's
pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank
you for its truth. We thank you that your spirit
comes and reveals those words to the hearts of your people.
We do thank you, Heavenly Father, for bringing us the gospel and
and bringing it to our hearts in such a way that we can find
our rest and our peace in the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Bless our fellowship, Heavenly Father, bless your word
to the hearts of your people, and bless the food that we're
about to have. and help us, Heavenly Father,
to ponder the things of this world through the lens of your
word, which cannot lie to your people, Heavenly Father. We do
pray and bless, pray you bless our meal together and our time
together. For we pray in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen.
We're gonna sing our doxology. is able to keep, able to keep
you from falling. And with your blessing on the
presence of His glory, we sing joy. you