We're going to be looking at
Revelation chapter 11 this morning for the message, beginning at
verse 15. We've been talking about the
seven trumpets that have been revealed in the seventh seal
of God's holy book, the book of his purpose, the book of his
providence, his sovereign will, what God wills will come to pass. He said, no man can stay his
hand, or saith unto him, what doest thou? I was thinking about
that, how God is sovereign. And I was talking to Debbie this
morning, she was talking about some singer. I think he's going
to do the halftime show tonight at the Super Bowl. And talking
about what he named his children. He named one of his kids Sovereign.
And I thought, good night. Naming one of your children sovereign?
Only the Lord is sovereign. Sovereignty means lordship. That's what it means. It means
you're in control. And so I want to start off with
Psalm 97, if you'll turn there. I'm going to just read through
it. Because I want it to be a prefix to this message in Revelation
11 on the seventh trumpet. Now, these trumpets were trumpets
of judgment that God manifest throughout the New Covenant period,
the time of His first coming up to the time of His second
coming. These trumpets, they will increase in intensity as
we grow closer to the second coming of Christ. And they are
trumpets that have a message. The message is that the Lord
reigneth. You see in Psalm 97 1, the Lord
reigneth. He's on the throne. And he's
never come off that throne. He's never given up that sovereignty
that belongs only to him. And these trumpets are messages
of judgment. They're forerunners of the final
judgment that's coming. And that's what we ought to have
on our mind. It is appointed unto men once to die and after
that the judgment. And what I want people to know,
what I want to know is How in the world can sinners like us
pass the test, the litmus test, at God's judgment? And whatever
you think about that, it better be in line with God's revealed
truth as it is in Christ. And that's what this is about.
And so these messages of judgment that come through these seven
trumpets, you know what a trumpet does? It announces a message.
It's the clarion call. Listen to what's being said.
Listen to what's coming. And it's mainly the judgment
of God against sin, but it's also a message that tells us
to prepare to meet God. And to prepare to meet Him is
to know who He is in the glory of His nature, in His righteousness
and holiness. Somebody told me one time, said,
well, I don't want to meet a God of justice. I want to meet a
God of mercy. And I told him this. I said, well, I'm sorry.
because if you don't meet a God who is both justice and mercy,
you're in trouble. Yes, he's merciful. Yes, he's
loving. Yes, he's gracious, but not without
judgment. This word righteousness, which
I use so much, which we preach so much, another term for it
is justice. Listen to what he says. The Lord
reigneth, let the earth rejoice. Now, the fact that God reigns
is a point of rejoicing for the people of God who appear before
God in Christ, washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness
with a heart of God-given faith, knowing who He is, knowing who
we are, knowing this, that I don't deserve or earn the least of
God's blessings. And I'll say, Brother David and
I were talking about earlier, said the very next breath you
take is a gift from God and you didn't earn it and you don't
deserve it. Same with me. Think about that. He reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the
multitudes of isles be glad thereof. Jew and Gentile, God has a chosen
people all over this world. And he says clouds and darkness
are round about him. This is his majesty. Righteousness
and judgment are the habitation of his throne. Do you hear that?
The habitation, that's where he lives. That's what that's
telling us. You're not going to get by judgment
without recognizing God's justice, God's righteousness, because
that's his throne. You say, well, what about mercy?
What about grace? What about love? That's in Christ. And that's how I want to appear
before God in Christ, who took in my place the judgment of God,
the wrath of God for me. And it says, that's the habitation
of his throne. A fire goeth before him. That's
his judgment. Burneth up his enemies round
about. This is not just hellfire and
brimstone preaching. I want people to understand that.
We're gonna be talking about the gospel, because that's our
only hope. But he says, a fire goeth before
him and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened
the world. The earth saw and trembled. The
hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord. At the
presence of the Lord of the whole earth, the heavens declare His
righteousness, His justice, and all the people see His glory.
You know, when the Bible says that we've all sinned and come
short of the glory of God, you know what that means. That doesn't
mean that we've all just made some mistakes, which we have. It means we all fall short at
our best, certainly at our worst. You don't have any problem understanding
that. But at our best, we still fall short of the glory of God.
Well, where are you going to find the glory of God? The Bible
talks about the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We all fall short. Here's what it means. We all
fall short of the perfection of righteousness that can only
be found in Christ. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Romans 10, four.
We fall short of that. So how are we gonna measure up?
That's what this clarion call, that's what this seventh trumpet
judgment, all of them, really means. Well, the only way Paul
said it in Philippians 3, oh, to know him and to be found in
him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith or the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God in him. We'll look at verse seven of
Psalm 97. He says, confounded be all they that serve graven
images, that boast themselves of idols, worship him, all you
gods. Idolatry. Zion heard and was
glad, that's the church. That's the people of God. Zion
was an emblem of that. And it says the daughters of
Judah, what does Judah mean? Those who praise God. Believers,
rejoice because of thy judgments, O Lord, for thou, Lord, art high
above all the earth. Thou art exalted far above all
gods. There are no other gods. You
that love the Lord hate evil. Do we love the Lord? To love
the Lord is to, we know we don't love him perfectly, not in this
life. Even our love falls short. That's
why we need Christ. Not to make up the difference
now. No. You say, well, you do your, he's
90, you're 99% of it, or you're 99% and you make a, no, no, no,
no. He's all of it. 100%. And that's why we love him. And you hate evil, even religious
evil. And he says, he preserveth the
souls of his saints. What is a saint? That's a sinner
saved by grace. A sanctified one, set apart by
God. And he says, he delivereth them
out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous
and gladness for the upright in heart. That's a believer who's
been convinced by the spirit that Christ is his or her all
in all. Rejoice in the Lord you righteous
and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness, His separateness. Our God is the one true and living
God. Now turn over to the Revelation
chapter 11, the seventh trumpet. Back up in verse 14, it says
the second woe is past. These last three trumpets are
called in the scripture the three woes. And you know what a woe
is, it's an expression of anguish. Woe is me. If you read any Shakespeare,
you see that. Woe unto you, woe is me. Isaiah said it, woe, and when
he saw the glory of the Lord high and lifted up in the temple,
He said, woe is me for I'm undone. That literally means I'm cut
off. I'm a sinner. I have no right. I can put no
demands on God. All he owes me is death and hell.
I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. And
not just me, I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. We're all in
the same boat, folks. We're all in the same boat. And
it's the boat of destruction and condemnation without God's
grace in Christ. Do you understand that? And that
applies to the best of us, the worst of us, and everybody in
between. There's no other way for any
sinner. I don't care who they are. I don't care how good of
a reputation they have on this earth among men. We are men and
women of ill repute in God's eyes. And the only way we can
have any reputation with God is to be in his son. This is
my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, hear ye him. Accepted
in the beloved. And so he says in verse 14, the
second woe was passed and behold the third woe cometh quickly.
Now the third woe is this seventh trumpet of judgment. And it says
in verse 15, and the seventh angel, the messenger, sounded,
blew the trumpet, and there were great voices in heaven. It's implied here that there's more
than one voice, but really it's only one voice. This is the voice
of God. And the voices would apply to
his ministers preaching the true gospel. It's heard by everybody. It says, the voices in heaven
saying the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.
This is no secret rapture as people mistakenly hold on to. You're not gonna just disappear
and everybody wonder where you are. This is an announcement. This is the blowing of a trumpet
and every eye will see. Now you can read about that over
in passages like 1 Thessalonians 4. It's a very public thing,
see. This is a trumpet blowing. And
it's heard by all, and it's pronouncing the final end of all things.
And listen to him. We need to understand, listen
to what he says, the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. What does the word Christ mean?
That's not his name. Somebody say, I think people
believe that Jesus is his first name and Christ is his last name.
No, Christ is a title. And it means the anointed one,
the one whom God appointed, the one whom God sent to be the Savior. It's the Messiah. And so it's
the Savior. That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
God, manifest, made known in the flesh without sin. His name
is Emmanuel, God with us. He's the Word of God that was
before and is always made flesh, dwelt, or tabernacled among us.
That's who Jesus Christ is. And so, right at the beginning
of this pronouncement of the final judgment, what's he telling
us? Your only hope is in Christ.
And understand now, there are counterfeits. Read your Bibles. There are counterfeit Christ.
How do we know? that our trust and our hope is
in the true Christ of this book. By the doctrine of Christ, who
He is, what He did, why He did it, where He is now. Who is He? He's God manifest in the flesh.
What did He do? He saved His people from their
sins by dying on that cross. He didn't make salvation a possibility
for you if you would do your part. If he did, then we're all
doomed. The Bible says we won't do our
part, whatever part that is. Well, the only part we could
do is perfect righteousness. Isn't that what the Bible says,
Acts 17, 31? God has appointed a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained
and that he hath given assurance unto all being and that he has
raised him from the dead. The only one who accomplished
in his doing and his dying Righteousness is Christ. And you can say right
now, I'm going to be the best person I could ever be. And you
still won't make it. That's what the message of the
gospel is. The message of God's grace. You
know, I love those little acrostics, you know, where you take a word,
you make each letter stand for something. Well, here's what
grace means. God's righteousness accomplished
in Christ, coming by Christ eternally. And so the message of God's grace
in Christ and eternal salvation by His blood, the reason I'm
forgiven of all my sins is because of the blood of Christ. That's
His death. Bible uses a metaphor for that,
washed in His blood. Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? What does it mean to
be washed? It doesn't mean you jump in the
shower or you jump in the tub. It doesn't mean you get baptized.
It means when Christ died, your debt to God's law and justice,
your sin debt, has already been charged to Him and he paid it
in full. Your name was written in the
Lamb's book of life before the foundation of the world and he
came and he paid that debt in full. It's wiped clean. Law satisfied. Justice satisfied. That's what
it means. I'm washed in the blood of Christ.
What can wash away my sins? You ever sing this? What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Now preachers will tell you that your sins are washed away by
your tears of repentance or your acts of reformation. We ought
not sing that. If that's what you believe, don't
sing that song anymore. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. and then to be declared righteous
in God's sight? God who knows my thoughts? You
realize that God, he's in control, he's on the throne, he's omniscient?
He knows your thoughts. The thought that just shot through
your head, he sees it, knows it. Isn't that scary? Your thoughts throughout the
week, your heart, he knows it. Well, what can he know of my
heart that would recommend me unto him? Think about that. The Bible says
that they who are at perfect peace, whose mind is stayed,
established, fixed on Christ. And this is what I know every
day of the week, even with my evil thoughts. I'm not excusing
them. And I'm not saying we shouldn't
fight them, because we should. And I'm not saying we should,
I'm saying that we should stop feeding evil thoughts. You know
we do that, don't we? We'll feed them. You take the person who has a
problem with pornography, stay away from it. Don't turn it on. Don't feed it. That's what I'm
saying. the person who harbors hatred
or resentment or unforgiveness, stop it. We feed on that stuff. But I
know this at all times, my hope is built on nothing less than
Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ the solid rock
I stand. Even when I have good thoughts.
I'm up here preaching to you and I think I've got good thoughts
right now. But that's not my righteousness
before God. Christ is. Do you understand
that? We ought to do everything we
can do to fight sin in every way, every degree, every facet. But that is not our righteousness
before God. Christ is. That's what grace
is all about. Amen. This message, look at it
again, verse 15. The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdoms of our Lord. He owns them. I know there's
a bunch of junk going on in the Mideast with Iran. God owns it. Now that doesn't mean we should
be complacent or let other nations run over us. I believe we should
stand for our country, stand for what's right. Sometimes it's
hard to know what's right when you deal with politicians and
even military people. And I respect it now, don't get
me wrong. I'm not an insurrectionist or anything like that. I love
my country. But my country's not my salvation. That's what
I'm saying. I'm a patriot. I'm a conservative
patriot. But that's not my salvation.
Christ is, God's grace is. Well, he shall reign forever
and ever. Look at verse 16. The four and
20 elders. Now the four and 20 elders symbolize
the whole church of Christ. That's what that's talking about.
That's a symbol. We first ran into these guys
in Revelation four and verse four. The four and 20 elders. multiples of 12, like the 12,
you had the 12 patriarchs back in the old, the 12 disciples.
And that's a symbol of the whole entire church, true church, the
elect of God, the kingdom of God. And look at what they're
doing. It says, they sat before God
on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worship God. Two things. They're resting in the presence
of God. They're not antsy. They're not
running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They're
at rest. They're at peace. Where does that peace come from?
It comes from Christ on the cross. He made peace between God and
His people by the blood of His cross. They're resting in Christ. Christ is our Sabbath. Did you
know that? Sunday is not the Christian Sabbath,
folks. It's the Lord's Day that we're
to meet together and worship publicly. But Christ is our Sabbath. You can read about that in Hebrews
chapter four. Christ finished the work. That's
what the Sabbath represented, resting after a work is finished.
Just like God did at creation. He rested on the seventh day. Now that doesn't mean that God
got tired and had to refurbish himself. It just means he finished
the work. Will Christ finish the work?
John 19, 30, here's our Lord hanging on the cross. It is finished. And you know what we do? We're
not trying to save ourselves by our works. We're not trying
to earn our way into God's favor. We're not trying to establish
our own righteousness by our works. We're resting in Christ
who did it all. Have you ever sung this hymn?
Jesus paid it all. That we say all to him we owe.
It's all the debt I owed. Now if you don't believe he paid
it all, don't sing that hymn anymore. You're just being a
hypocrite. But he did, he paid it in full.
Hebrews 10, 14, for by one offering he hath perfected, finished,
completed forever them that are sanctified, those whom God set
apart and gave to him before the foundation of the world. So they're resting, they're not
working. Does that mean that we shouldn't
be busy about the Lord's business? No, we should be. but we're resting
in Christ for our salvation, for our righteousness, for our
forgiveness. And then the second thing they're
doing is they're worshiping. They fell upon their faces. Why?
Because that's bringing us down. Lord God, be merciful to me,
the sinner. Fall on our faces and worship
God. And verse 17 says, saying, we
give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty. That's what worship
is. It's just thanking God. I hope you're not here trying
to earn God's favor. Look at me, Lord, I came to church
on Sunday. They used to give out these Sunday
school pens. She hadn't missed a Sunday. Might have lived like
hell on Monday, but she hadn't missed a Sunday. People, that's religion. And
you know what? According to God's Word, it's
sickening to Him. It's sickening to me. Well, I'm glad you're
here today, and I'm glad I'm here today, because we ought
to be here. But what are we saying? Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord. And thanking the Lord, gratitude,
which is the believer's motive, is not legalism or mercenary
promise of earned reward. It's grace, gratitude, and love. That's what we're all about.
Thank you, Lord. And it's more than just looking
up in the air and saying thank you. And it's more than just
praying and saying thank you. It's living a life to the glory
of God. Witnessing for Him. And so they
say in verse 17, saying, we give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty,
which art, and wast, and art to come. Eternality is only attributed
to God. because thou hast taken to thee
thy great power and hast reigned. You know, the Bible says in the
Old Testament that our king is our redeemer. Isn't that great? Our judge is our redeemer. And then look at verse 18, and
the nations were angry. Now this is the ungodly world. in unbelief, they're angry, and
thy wrath is come in the time of the dead, that they should
be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants
and prophets and to the saints, and them that fear thy name,
small and great, and shouldest destroy them which destroy, or
corrupt, would be a better word there. The earth. Man cannot
destroy the earth. I was looking at one of the Senate
hearings on this climate change thing, and of course these climate
change people, and of course you do know the climate has changed.
You understand that, don't you? I hope you do. I mean, that's
one of those big does to me, you know. Yeah, it's been changing
ever since the fall. And it'll change back. It'll
go here, there, whatever. And listen, I'm not advocating
that we just throw caution to the wind. I don't want to drink
dirty water and I don't want to breathe dirty air. We ought
to be responsible. We ought to be good stewards over the earth.
But these climate change people who are wanting to put the quietus
on your average individual, they say that we're destroying the
world. Man cannot destroy this earth. God's on the throne. He cannot save this earth, man
cannot. Only God can do these things. But here in verse 18, the nations
represent the ungodly who go through life in unbelief and
die in that state and they're angry. But God's wrath has come
and the time of the dead, what is it? That's the judgment. That's
when the dead will be judged according to their works and
condemned forever. But the servants, God's servants,
the prophets, that's preachers of the truth now, and to the
saints, that's the sanctified ones, the people of God saved
by His grace, them that fear His name, which means they who
regard and respect and worship the Lord, small and great, no
matter who they are. Doesn't matter if they're kings,
doesn't matter if they're paupers. Small and great. And he says they will be rewarded. Now a lot of people, he should
give reward unto them. This reward thing, people get
that so confused, they say, well, you're saved by grace. But when
you get to heaven, God's gonna judge you based on your works
and reward you accordingly so that if you've done a lot more
works than somebody else, you'll get more blessings. But that's
anti-gospel. The Bible shows us that God never
puts us in salvation now. never puts us in a position where
he owes us anything. Romans chapter four, it's not
of debt, because it's of debt, it's not of grace. And then I
want you to think about this. In the book of Ephesians chapter
one and verse three, it speaks of the saints, believers, sinners
saved by grace, as having been blessed And it says, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us, now listen to this, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. Now, if you're a sinner saved
by grace, if you're a saint, you're already blessed with all
spiritual blessings. How much more can there be? And
you didn't earn one of them. And you didn't deserve any of
them. Neither did I. It's the reward
of God's grace which Christ earned. Romans chapter eight, I can't
remember the verse, it's in the 30s, 32 maybe, 33. It says, he
that spared not his own son, how shall he not with him freely,
unconditionally give us all things? Salvation's by grace, you can't
get away from it in the Bible. People pervert it. God's gonna destroy this earth. Man, since the fall of Adam,
has corrupted it. And look at verse 19. And the temple of God was opened
in heaven. Now the temple of God is his
church, his people. And there was seen in his temple
the ark of his testament. Remember the ark of the covenant?
Everybody knows the ark of the covenant if they've seen Indiana
Jones, right? But that's, you know, that's just fiction. You
remember back in the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant was in
the holiest of all, where the high priest, one time a year,
could go in with the blood of the Lamb off the burnt offering,
off the brazen altar. That brazen altar represented
the death of the Lamb of God, the death of Christ, to satisfy
God's justice and accomplish righteousness, and it was taken
by the priest, and him alone, with the proper garments on,
the blood, and sprinkled in the holiest of all over the mercy
seat. Remember the box? That's the
Ark of the Covenant, contained the broken law that Moses brought
down from Sinai. And it was covered over with
the mercy seat, and that mercy seat sprinkled with the blood
is a symbol of Christ, our mercy seat. Our propitiation is the
word. Sin bearing sacrifice who satisfied
justice. And that's what's important here.
That's what we need. We need Christ. We need a mercy
seat. We need a savior. And it was
seen in his temple, the Ark of the Covenant, and there were
lightnings and voices and thunderings and earthquake and great hail.
Remember when Christ died on the cross, that same thing happened?
earthquakes, thunderings, great hail, all of that. There's climate
change, isn't it? All over that one person who
died that one death in the place of his people. So when we read
in the coming verses about the trials, the persecutions, the
tribulation, of God's people on this earth, going all the
way up to the time of the second coming of Christ, we can smile,
we can rest, we can take hope, because Christ is our righteousness. He is everything that we need. He's overcome the world, He's
overcome the flesh, and He's overcome the devil. And I'll
tell you, that's something we couldn't do. But he did it all. So let's sing as a closing hymn,
hymn number 489, Glory to His Name. Let's stand and we'll conclude
with this hymn.