May it please Almighty God to
bless us together this evening as we meditate in His Holy Word. Let's turn to the book of the
Revelation, chapter 19, and we'll read verse 6. The book of the Revelation, chapter
19, and reading verse 6. And I heard, as it were, the
voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth. We don't read very much in the
Word of God about the glory of heaven, but yet we are supplied
with little parts of God's Word which encourage us to have some
comprehension of what it will be like in glory. We're reminded, of course, the
Word of God tells us, I have not seen nor ear heard what the
Lord has prepared for his people, for his church. And therefore
we should not delve into those things which are not revealed. Those things which are revealed
belong unto us. But those things which are not
revealed belong unto God. And it's very foolish for us
to try and delve in to those things which are not revealed. But however we would be thankful
that there are things which are revealed. And here we have a
little picture of the great multitude, the whole Church of God, the
whole family of God, the whole elect of God, all gathered together
as a great multitude. A multitude which man cannot
number. out of every nation and of every
kindred and every tongue to think that there in glory will be gathered
together this great company. And of course we don't know what
language the praise of God will be in. We do know there will
be unity. We do know there won't be any
problems and anything to cause a division, anything to upset
the harmony of the whole Church of God. And so we should be encouraged,
and it's good sometimes, just to sit and ponder those things
which are revealed to us in the Word of God, to not try and find
out things which are not revealed. But here we have in this verse
a little picture which tells us the voice of a great multitude. And that voice was described
like this, as a voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty
thunderings. Well that's clearly very loud,
clearly the voice of many people. and how wonderful it will be. And to think, you see, that these
times of worship will not cease, will not finish, but we shall
be forever with the Lord in that place of glory, that place of
peace, that place of eternal happiness, and to realize it
is the place where there is no sin, where there is no devil. He would have been cast out forever
and therefore there will be nothing to upset the peace and enjoyment
of the Church of God and to realise that there in the midst of all
these things will be the glorious Saviour himself. And of course
the whole objective and position will be as it is outlined here
they will be saying it's interesting that this verse refers to saying
it doesn't refer to singing I'm sure there will be as we read
in other places singing but here we're told they are saying and
what are they saying they're saying Alleluia Alleluia of course
is praise the Lord Alleluia There will be a wonderful opportunity
then, an eternal opportunity, with nothing to hinder, when
the Church of God will be able to praise God. Alleluia! And to be able to come and say,
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. It's just interesting that this
word omnipotent is only translated omnipotent in this one place,
The word occurs in the original 10 times, 9 times it's translated
as Almighty, but here it's translated as Omnipotent. And I'm not prepared
to try and enter into the difference, but clearly there is a difference.
Our translators decided that it was necessary to translate
in this position, in this verse, the word as omnipotent. And therefore it'll be praise
to God for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. He is then as he is
now and always will be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's a wonderful, wonderful
consideration, isn't it? to think that we as poor sinful
mortals on this earth find it hard to concentrate on the things
of God even as we sing the hymns how hard it is to keep our minds
on the words that we sing and so easily our minds wander away
perhaps into good avenues perhaps into bad avenues but nevertheless
it's hard to keep our minds concentrating, but there will be no difficulty
in glory. Because here we're told that
this great multitude will be as one voice, as many waters,
And there's a voice of mighty thundering saying, Alleluia,
praise the Lord, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Well, as we think of these things,
we wonder perhaps, does the Scriptures give us more information? Well,
of course it does. And I often refer to the seventh
chapter in this book of Revelation, because there we have again a
picture of the situation in glory. And the apostle having first
of all in his chapter gone through the number of them that were
sealed, the 12 tribes that were sealed, he comes down then in
the ninth verse and says, after this I beheld and lo a great
multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds,
and people, and tongues, stood before the throne and before
the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands. And they cried with a loud voice,
saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne
and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round
about the throne, and about the elders, and the four beasts and
fell before the throne on their faces and worshipped God, saying,
Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be unto our God
for ever and ever. Amen. And one of the elders answered,
saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes?
And whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou
knowest. And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation. We shouldn't forget
that the Word of God describes the difficulties and trials of
this life as great tribulation. and it washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Wonderful to think
of the cleansing power of the blood of the Saviour to take
away all sin, every vestige. Therefore are they before the
throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. and
he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. Of course it's described here
as day and night to accommodate our natural thinking but we know
that there is no night in heaven, no night in glory. It's one eternal
light. No sun. The Saviour is the everlasting
light. Therefore are they before the
throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple, and
he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. Neither shall
the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters, God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. Well, it's a wonderful prospect,
it's a wonderful picture that the Apostle John was given, that
vision on the Isle of Patmos, and how gracious our God is to
have done that, so that we have this view here described of glory. You see in this chapter that
we read together, the 19th chapter, and we read this verse, the 6th
verse, but we have a lot more information which tells us, let
us be glad and rejoice and give honour to Him For the marriage
of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Well, we have a picture of the
marriage of the Lamb really set before us in the Song of Solomon
where we have a picture of the Bride of Christ as the Church
of God and as the Bridegroom, as the Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then also of course we have
the picture of the wise and foolish virgins who were there, and five
were wise and five were foolish, and those that were wise were
ready when the bridegroom should come and usher them in. the marriage supper of the lamb
and five solemnly were not ready they didn't possess oil in their
lamps and so here we have this picture the lamb is come and
has made his wife ready herself and his wife hath made herself
rather ready. What a blessing it is if God
gives us that grace to be ready. And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine
linen is the righteousness of saints. To think that all our
self-righteousness All our filthy garments will have been taken
away and by the grace of God we shall be clothed in this fine
linen, clean and white, which represents, of course, the glorious
righteousness of the saints. What a mercy and what a blessing. He said unto me, Blessed are
they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Well, if God has called us by His grace, if we are amongst those whom
He has chosen unto life eternal, then there's no doubt we shall
be called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto
me, These are the true sayings of God. Something that you and
I can rest upon. Something that you and I can
trust in. Because we know, as the Lord
Jesus said when he prayed to his Father, Thy word is truth. And therefore these wonderful
pictures that the Lord has given us in his word are true. And it gives us a little view
of the glory which is to come. And to think how utterly unworthy
we are to inherit such a wonderful favour and such a wonderful blessing. But may we be blessed with that
heavenly desire to set our hearts and our affection upon things
above. well we have this great picture
before us and to realize how great and glorious the Savior
is. There's a number of references
really which we might just refer to in the book of Psalms where
David gives us some little clue or again of the wonder of Emmanuel's
land and the situation and the picture and we can read in the
47th Psalm, these words. Starts off by saying, O clap
your hands, all ye people. Shout unto God with the voice
of triumph. For the Lord Most High is terrible. He is a great King over all the
earth. And then down to the 7th verse
in this 47th Psalm. For God is the King of all the
earth, singing praises with understanding. What a mercy of God's given us
spiritual understanding for these things. It's very easy to move
away from the great truth of Scripture. What a blessing to
recognise, as again we read in the 93rd Psalm, the Lord reigneth. He reigns now. He always has
done. He always will. The Lord reigneth. He is clothed with majesty. The
Lord is clothed with strength. Wherewith he hath girded himself,
the world also is established, and it cannot be moved. Thy throne,
established of old, thou art from everlasting. So we have
these words to confirm the everlasting nature of Almighty God. And to
realise that we're not following some plan that man has devised,
but we're following the great and glorious plan of Almighty
God. And the 97th Psalm tells us again,
the Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Let the
multitude of isles be glad thereof. It's good to rejoice, in these
things and that's in the 97th Psalm and the first verse and
the last verse is very similar in this Psalm. Rejoice in the
Lord, ye righteous. Those clothed with the righteousness
of Christ. Those are the ones that rejoice. Those who are not clothed with
that righteousness We'll have no desire to rejoice in the Lord. But we can rejoice in the Lord
because of his great plan of salvation. Rejoice in the Lord
because that which he has done in redeeming our souls. Rejoice
in the Lord because he's paid the price to redeem us because
he's removed all our sin. Yes, and covered our nakedness
with his wonderful righteousness. Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous
and give thanks and the remembrance of his holiness. Again how important
it is while you and I are on this earth to give the Lord thanks. Thanks for the glorious plan
of salvation. Thanks to believe there is a
heaven prepared. As the Lord Jesus said, I go
to repair a place for you. And if I go to repair a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am there, ye may be also. These are the great truths of
God. These are the great encouragements that you and I should have as
we carry on in life, battling with all the powers of evil.
It is a battle, it is through much tribulation, but thanks
be to God who giveth us the victory through his Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are more than conquerors,
through him, as we read in the Hebrews, and what a wonderful
blessing that is. Well, we should truly thank God
for these wonderful favours and wonderful, wonderful blessings. The 99th Psalm says, The Lord
reigneth, let the people tremble, He sitteth between the cherubims.
Let the earth be moved. The Lord is great in Zion, and
he is high above all the people. Let them praise thy great and
terrible name, for it is holy. See, there are so many references
to the greatness of our God, so many references to make us
joyful, to make us rejoice in what God has said on the record
we have of the great and glorious work of God. The 100th Psalm
tells us, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye saints,
serve the Lord with gladness. come before His presence with
singing. What a God we have, what a merciful
God. And it's good if you and I are
able to look into our lives and realise how the Lord has had
mercy upon us, how He hasn't dealt with us as our sins deserve. Oh, the mercy, the favour of
God, as the Lord enables us to consider our ways and consider
what we are by nature, to realise how bad and evil we are, and
to think we have a sovereign God, a sovereign Lord, who's
come to us and called us out of darkness into the glorious
light of the everlasting Gospel. What a mercy and what a blessing. And we today have these good
tidings. Isaiah speaks about it when he
tells us about those who preach the gospel he says this in the
52nd of Isaiah 7th verse how beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth
peace there is peace in the glorious things of God there's not peace
in the poor things of vanity, the poor things of time. How
beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth
good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings
of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, thy God
reigneth. He always has, he always will. May there be a great and wonderful
consolation to realise this favour that we have of God who is kind
and gracious and merciful. And so there is then in glory
this great multitude with a voice of many waters praising God and
saying, Alleluia! Praise the Lord for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth, the Lord God almighty reigneth. So how does this affect us today? Do we rejoice? Do we say praise
the Lord? Praise the Lord for what he's
done for unworthy sinners? As it comes personally, we can
say for unworthy me, we'll never be able to boast in what we've
done, but we can boast in what Christ has done. We can boast
in His finished work. We can boast that He has washed
away our sin. It's because of His amazing love
His wonderful favor and His wonderful mercy. We realize that great
truth that He said when He was in the upper room to His disciples,
speaking just before He was crucified. He said, you have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you and ordained
you. You should go and bring forth
fruit. and that your fruit should remain. What a blessing to have the evidence
that God has chosen us. And if God has given us that
evidence, the result will be that we desire to praise and
thank God. We will come with this word and
say, hallelujah, he saw me ruined. in the fall. Yet love me, notwithstanding
all. It's a great and glorious truth,
isn't it? And to realise that through His
mercy, through His love toward us, He's called us and the darkness
of nature into the glorious light of the everlasting Gospel, a
light that we would not have seen in and of ourselves and
by ourselves, but that light which has been displayed to us
through the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit, and how glorious
it is to realise that we're privileged to enjoy such a wonderful favour
and such a wonderful blessing, to realise the mercy and goodness
of Almighty God. Well, I hope we can truly bless
God for these favours to award us and to think how good he is. A well-known verse which I often
quote is in Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians and 4th chapter,
the 6th verse, for God. No one else, but it's God. And that's very humbling. The
almighty God, but God who commanded God commands the blessing and
Satan can't withstand the command of God. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. That is a wonderful and glorious
revelation. And the apostle goes on to confirm
this. But we have this treasure, this
light, this treasure in earthen vessels. We are in earthen vessels. And the reason that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. You see, God has all
the glory. He must have all the glory. He
will have all the glory. And He deserves all the glory. And my friends, in glory, we
shall, by His grace, be praising Him for all that He's done for
us. And to thank Him and come and
say, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. It's a wonderful
thought, isn't it? It's a wonderful prospect. that
when we have finished our course on this earth and the Lord has
a divine purpose for each one of us, he has a course for each
one of us, a life that you and I have to live and a life that
the Lord has ordained Specifically for each one of us, we may say
perhaps it's tailor-made because the Lord knows all about us. The Lord knows how to deal with
us. The Lord knows how to bring us
into conformity to His image. The Lord knows how to prepare
us for our eternal home. I don't believe that any true
believer arrives at heaven without a little taste of what it's like
in Emmanuel's land. The holiness, the purity, the
blessing, and of course, the great and wonderful favour is
to know that Jesus is in the midst. What a mercy and what
a favour it is, then the Lord has given us these great and
glorious views And we read here about John, and we're told, he
tells us, the Lord said, write, blessed are they which are called
unto the Marian supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, these
things are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to
worship him. And he said unto me, See thou
do it not, I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have
the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And then he says, and I saw heaven
open. God gave him that vision. And
behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called
Faithful and True. and in righteousness he doth
judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire,
and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that
no man knew but he himself, and he was clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God." Well,
you see, John was blessed with this view
and he was told to write it down, write it down for the Church
of God down through the ages, written down for us today that
we have this little picture that we are provided with and we're
told in the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white
horses clothed in fine linen white and clean, no spot of sin,
no spot of dirt, clean, white and clean. And out of his mouth
goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations,
and he shall rule with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the
winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. Well, that's our Saviour. To
think that He's trodden the winepress of Almighty God, the wrath of
Almighty God, on our behalf. And then we have this picture.
He hath on His vesture, and on His thigh, the name written,
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Never weary of considering our
Saviour with this title. King of kings and Lord of lords. Just gives us a little view,
doesn't it, of the greatness of our God. And what a mercy
it is to have such a God and to have such a prospect for unworthy
sinners. Sometimes, perhaps, when we are
downcast, which of course we are because of our sinful nature. It's good to look out and beyond
unto life and to realise God has gone to repair this place
in glory as he said to his disciples, let not your heart be troubled.
In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so,
I would have told you. I go to repair a place for you.
What a mercy to think that God is preparing a place for utterly unworthy sinners, and
by His grace, and by His favour, one day we shall be found with
Him in glory, to be eternally, indeed forever, with the Lord. It's a wonderful line of a hymn,
isn't it? Forever with the Lord. No separation. No devil. but peace and praise
and union and communion with the whole Church of God. Well,
may God look upon us and enable us to have some view of Emmanuel's
land, of that land very far off, and yet that place that God has
prepared for all his church. And may you and I have the evidence
in our hearts, which is a great thing, isn't it? To have the
evidence in our hearts that we're amongst Christ's chosen ones,
that he's convinced us of our sin, He's brought us to that
place of guilt. To cry to Him for mercy. To plead for mercy. God be merciful
to me a sinner. The true believer pleads for
mercy. It's not just a mere statement. It comes from the heart. God
be merciful to me a sinner. And then to have the revelation
that God is merciful to us and directs us to that sinatonic
death of the Saviour. To rejoice then in the wonderful
plan of salvation and realise that Lord Jesus Christ came into
this sinful world to pay the price to take away my sin. We have to come and say, do we
not? is the lamb that was slain. You know that's the new song
of the Church of God. It's a song which I believe is
begun on this earth by the true believers. Worthy is the lamb
that was slain. We come then to say to God be
the glory, great things he's done, He has indeed done great things
in redeeming our soul. So this evening may we ponder
these great truths and realize that here we have no continuing
city, but we seek one to come. And remember, as John says, and
I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as
the voice of many waters, and as a voice of mighty thundering,
saying, Alleluia, praise the Lord. For the Lord God, omnipotent
reigneth. Amen.