Open your Bibles, if you will,
to the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation, in the
first message, we dealt with chapter 4, tried to give somewhat
of a verse-by-verse study of it. We didn't get all the way through
it, but at least we got a good look at it anyway, so that we
We basically know what chapter 4 of Revelation is about. You
know, the book of Revelation is a very symbolic book. It's got a lot of symbolism in
it. In fact, I'll give you what I think is like a key word. Look
back in chapter 1, chapter 1 and verse 1. Let me show you something
back here. to give you a little understanding
of what the book of Revelation is about. It's not the revelation
of Saint John the Divine. It is the revelation of the Lord
Jesus in his glory as the great victor, as the one who has defeated
all of our foes. He's the one who defeated Satan
in fulfillment of Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, he defeated him
when he crushed his head at the cross. He's defeated our sin. Our sin, awful, awful before
God. Not just the things that we do,
but what we are. Not only that sin nature, what
we received and inherited from our father Adam, but our own
personal guilt and sins. No way possible we could ever
put those away. But our Lord Jesus did. He did. He put them away by the blood
of His cross. He brought into His people everlasting
righteousness. I stand before you this morning,
a man who is guilty in and of myself. You're looking at a sinful
man. I sin every day in word, thought,
deed, imagination, motive. Motive. Heard somebody say, well,
if I have sinned today, I hope the Lord will forgive me. You
just forget that if part. Just leave that off. We sin,
everything we do has got the stain of sin on it, you know
that? Your Bible reading, my Bible reading, my preaching,
all of our praying. It's a massive sin. But it's been removed. It's been
washed away for God's people. You see, God the Father sent
his son into this world to do a specific work for a specific
people. He came to save His people from
their sins. And this awful load of sin, mysteriously,
miraculously, wonderfully, taken off me and charged my Savior. is found guilty of my sins. He wasn't contaminated by them.
He wasn't infused with them. But he bore responsibility for
them and therefore answerable to divine justice for them. The wrath of God set its sights upon the substitute
of all of God's elect, that is the Lord Jesus. This is the one
who is our surety in the covenant of grace. Even then, when the father chose
us in grace, he gave us to his son and his son said, I'll be
surety for them. You entrust them to me. I'll
bring them all safely home. I'll be responsible for them.
I'll be answerable for their indebtedness." And really, the
justice of God has always looked to the Savior for full satisfaction. Then he came to do something
about our sin. He lived a life of perfection
before the law, thus showing he's qualified to be the sacrifice. He qualified to be the sin offering. And then he died. He died under
the wrath of God. And in my sins having been imputed
to him, his righteousness, O my soul,
his righteousness imputed to me. I am made, really. I'm really made by God the Father. He considers me to be righteous
in His Son. Before you, I'm a sinner. When I look into a mirror, I
see a sinner. When God Almighty looks at me,
He sees me in His darling Son. And I'm accepted in the beloved. The Lord Jesus was revealed from
heaven to deal with our enemies. He dealt with Satan, crushed
his head. He dealt with our sins. He did
away with them. He removed them. He buried them. My daddy was in World War II.
on the USS Biloxi. He'd tell me stories about being
on that ship. One day, because he told me,
he said, Jimmy, go out and burn the garbage. I said, all right. So I was taking the garbage out,
and I said, what, by the way, what did you all do with the
garbage on the ship? You have a 55-gallon empty drum,
and somebody go out and burn the garbage? He said, no, no.
We'd sack it all up. Wade it and throw it in the sea
and she's gone. That's what God did with our
sins. He put them in a bag, waded them
down, sunk them to the bottom of the sea of forgetfulness.
And they're gone. Listen, child of God, your sins
are gone. They are gone. And never to be
raised up against you again. But preachers, surely at the
judgment, all of our bad sins, our evil things that we've done,
they'll be raised again for us at the judgment and we'll be
embarrassed when we see them all. They're gone, I tell you.
That's what God says. God says they're gone. They're
gone. There's no condemnation to them
who are in Christ Jesus. Our sins are gone. He defeated
Satan, he defeated our sins, and he defeated death in the
grave. For he ever lives to make intercession for us. You know
what the empty grave of our Lord Jesus Christ announces? Sin's
been put away. You know what the empty grave
of our Lord Jesus Christ announces? God is satisfied with the work
that he did. You know what the empty grave
of our Lord Jesus Christ announces? All for whom He suffered, bled,
and died are redeemed, they're saved, they're justified, and
they're going to find out about it when the Spirit of God deals
with them in regenerating grace. They're going to learn what Christ
did for them, and then they're going to rejoice. They're going
to rejoice. This is the revelation of Jesus
Christ, the victor, the great conqueror. That's what the book
of the Revelation is about. It's the revelation of the conqueror. Watch. Which God gave unto him
to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass,
and he sent and signified it, by his angel unto his servant
John. That word signified is sign language. And the rest of the book of Revelation
is filled with sign language. It's filled with symbolism. It's filled with figures that
stand for somebody or stand for something. If you go through
the book of the Revelation trying to make things literal, That
ought not be literal. You're gonna get yourself in
a lot of hot water. We've studied in our earlier
message in chapter 4 about a throne. I don't think this is a literal
throne. The throne is symbolic. The throne
is symbolic for the reign of God. For the reign of God. For the authority of God. for
the sovereign dominion of our Lord. To say there's a throne
set in heaven is to simply say that God reigns, God rules. He rules over all. My friends,
God is sovereign. That is, God does whatever it
is He wants to do. And none can stay his hand, or
say unto him, What doest thou? God is sovereign. The root word
of sovereign is reign. When we read about a throne that
is set in the heavens, we are to understand by that the sovereign
dominion and authority of our God over all things and all people,
all events, everything. God reigns. There isn't anything He doesn't
rule over. If there's something that God
doesn't rule over, then that is God and not God Himself. Does that make sense? If there's
somebody that God doesn't have control over, if there's somebody
who controls God, who can manipulate God, Who can outmaneuver God? Who can thwart the purpose of
God? Then God is not God at all. That
power is. And that's the one I want to
worship. Does that make sense? But the Bible says God rules.
God reigns from His throne. This is the revelation of our
Lord Jesus Christ who sits upon His throne. And He got to that
throne by way of a bloody cross. He earned the right to be the
Lord. The Son of Man earned the right
to sit upon the throne of universal sovereignty by His substitutionary
death, His sacrifice upon the cross. We read in Romans chapter 14,
For to this end, or for to this reason, Christ both died and
was buried and was raised again, that He might be Lord of the
living and the dead. That He might be the Lord. There
is a religious program up our way, comes on every Sunday morning,
probably does down here. Before, at the end of the message,
the preacher always says, I never liked to close the service without
giving you an opportunity to make Jesus the Lord of your life.
Well, I've got a news bulletin for him. God's already made him
Lord of everybody's life. He doesn't want to be your Lord.
He is your Lord. Now, whether you recognize his
Lordship and bow to his Lordship, and love His Lordship, well,
that's another matter. But you will bow to His Lordship
sooner or later. And I believe that bowing to
His Lordship in this life, that's salvation. That's salvation. But He's the Lord. He's the Lord
over all. And throughout the book of the
Revelation, this is what we're seeing, the lordship of the Son
of God. He sits upon a set throne, a
throne that is fixed, a throne that is established, a throne
that is immovable. And all of His decrees are irreversible. He does His will everywhere. Now as you know, I suspect, the
book of the Revelation consists of seven visions that the Lord
gave to John. John has been exiled to a lonely
island called Patmos. He's out there because he preached
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace. He declared
the triumphant work of the Son of God in finishing the work
of redemption that the Father gave him to do. He preached imputed
righteousness. He preached the sin atoning blood. He preached salvation by grace. And they sought to shut him up.
They said, well, I tell you, this is how we'll shut him up.
We'll put him on that rocky island out there. He's not going to
have any kind of congregation out there. Put him out there,
and since all things happen in the providence of God, it was
good that they put him out there because that's where he received
the book of the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's when the
Lord gave him these visions, seven visions. He granted these
seven visions, which John sees and records in Holy Scripture
for the encouragement of God's people. And here's our encouragement. Our Lord Jesus is the conqueror.
He's the victor. And as Romans 8 says, we are
more than conquerors through Him who loved us and who gave
Himself for us. The first vision is in chapters
1, 2, and 3 where the Lord Jesus stands in the middle of His churches,
the seven golden candlesticks in this world. He instructs His
people. He rebukes His people. He warns
His people. He encourages His people. The
condition of those churches, and they're set forth in chapters
2 and 3, the different conditions of those churches show the different
conditions that exist in God's church at any given time between
the first coming of our Lord Jesus and the second coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. The second vision goes from chapter
4 to 7. Here we see our Lord opening
and fulfilling the seven sealed book of God's sovereign eternal
purpose. And I'll come back to that. That's
what I'm going to talk about this morning, but I'll give you
the others just briefly. The third one is our Savior answering
all the prayers of his people, protecting them from their enemies.
and vindicating them by executing seven trumpets of judgment in
his rule of the universe. That's chapters 8, 9, 10, and
11. The fourth vision is of our Savior
and his kingdom, where his people are opposed and persecuted by
Satan, by world governments, by false religion, by false Christianity. Here we see the war between Christ
and Satan, chapters 12 through 14. The fifth vision, Christ sending
his angel to pour out the seven vows of his wrath upon the earth,
chapters 15 and 16. The seventh vision is Christ's
conquest over Babylon, Babylon in the Bible, is God's word,
it's the word that God uses to set forth all false free will
works religion. It's all false religion and false
Christianity. So in chapter 17 through 19 in
this sixth vision, we see our Lord conquering over Babylon,
the beast, and the false prophet, and that vision will be finalized
with the great white throne judgment. And then the seventh vision,
chapters 20 through 22, Christ's dominion and destruction over
Satan and the glory of the new Jerusalem. The second vision begins at chapter
four. And we dealt with chapter four
for a little while earlier this morning. We're gonna get into
chapter five now. But when we get into chapter
five, and this is especially for the benefit of those of you
who were here for the earlier service, when we get into chapter
five, we must not think that it's a new theme or another vision. You know, we're very grateful
for chapter divisions. Otherwise, you know, it'd take
us a while to find this particular scripture that we're going to
be looking at this morning. The Bible is divided into chapters
in the, what, 13th century or so. And we're grateful for that. But whenever you see a chapter
division, that does not necessarily mean that we're getting into
a new idea or a new area or there's a new theme that's going to be
dealt with. Actually, chapter 5 is just a
continuation of chapter 4. At the beginning of chapter 4,
John has been enabled to see into heaven. In fact, the Lord,
the sovereign savior who has conquered, he takes him up into
heaven. He says, come, come up hither.
And I'll show you things that must come to pass. They must
come to pass because God has ordained them. And John says,
I was in the spirit. His first thing he saw was a
throne, a throne that was set, fixed in heaven. Then he saw
the one who sat upon that throne. Even the son of God, really the
triune God sits upon the throne. And our savior is there, of course.
And he sees round about the throne, 24 elders. This is a symbolic
number for all of the elect of God. And these 24 elders, they all
are sitting. They are all clothed with white
raiment. That's the righteousness of Jesus
Christ imputed to them. He's our beauty. He's our glory. They all have on their heads
crowns of gold. They have the crown of life.
We have everlasting life in Christ Jesus. We have a life that will
never die. They all have the crown of righteousness.
All of God's people are righteous. Righteous in the Savior. We stand
perfect before the Lord. His righteousness has been credited
to our account. Even as our sins were imputed
to Him, charged to Him, His righteousness charged to us. We have the crown
of righteousness. And we wear the crown of glory.
Glory. The Lord will give grace and
glory. Where He gives grace, He always
gives glory. They all have on their heads
crowns of gold. John hears thunderings and lightnings
proceeding from the throne. And then he sees four living
creatures. These are symbolic of the preachers
of the gospel. They're living creatures. They've
been made alive by the Spirit of God. And they have eyes within
and without. They see, they understand the
Word of God. Understand this about all of
God's servants. There are many things you can
ask us about the Bible that we can't answer. You can trip me
up, you can go and dig into some rather obscure passage of scripture
and then you read it and then come and ask me about it and
I may not be able to answer it. So there are several specific
things you could ask me or ask any of us and we couldn't answer
them. What this means is when God's
preachers have eyes to see things within, we understand the message
of the Word of God. We understand who God is to a
degree. God's perfections. He's holy. He's righteous. He's just. He cannot behold iniquity. God
cannot accept anything less than perfection. God's just in all of His doings.
God's preachers understand that. It's what the Bible declares
the perfections of God. God's preachers declare the perfections
of God. God's preachers declare our own
sinfulness. Our waywardness in Adam. That
in Adam we all fell. That in Adam we all died. That
in Adam we all became sinners. That in Adam we all became estranged
from God. And God's preachers look in the
book of God and see that the only way that God can be a just
God and a holy God and save sinners like you and me is through the
person and the work of Jesus Christ the Lord. God's preachers
understand that. We look in the book and we see
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We see the blood and the righteousness
of Christ. Blood shed to put away our sins. Righteousness established by
His substitutionary death, which righteousness has been imputed
to all of God's people. We're justified through the blood
of Christ Jesus our Lord. He is all of our acceptance. I understand that. God's preachers
understand it. You understand that, don't you?
Oh, I hope to God that you do. God's preachers. God's preachers. They preach, holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God of hosts. And God's preachers, look at
verse 9 of chapter 4. When those beasts give glory
and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne. That's what
God's preachers do. They give glory and honor and
thanks to Him that sits upon the throne, which leads you to
worship. Now we get into chapter 5. In
chapter 5, John says, And I saw in the right hand of Him that
sat upon the throne a book. And notice he still sees the
Lord upon his throne. You see, a God without a throne
is no God at all. A God who doesn't rule over all
of his kingdom has no kingdom at all. A God who is not sovereign over
all of his creatures is not worthy to be worshipped. Read the Bible. Psalm 47, 8, God reigneth over
the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of
his holiness. Psalm 93, verse 1, the Lord reigneth. He is clothed with majesty. The Lord is clothed with strength. Psalm 96, verse 10, say among
the heathen that the Lord reigneth. Psalm 97, 1, the Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Psalm
99.1, the Lord reigneth, let the people tremble. Isaiah 52
verse seven, 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 sayeth unto Zion,
and I say unto Zion this morning, I say unto the people of God,
to you who are redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, I say unto you, be encouraged in all things, in every situation,
thy God reigneth. that encouraging to you, thy
God reigneth. When the doctor comes to you
with bad news concerning your physical health, remember, thy
God reigneth. When they come to you like they
came to Job and said, you've lost your child, you've lost
your children, Job's case, he lost 10 children at once, he
said, Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away. In all these things he worshipped
the Lord. Thy God reigneth. I'm telling
you, God reigns in creation. He reigns in salvation. He reigns
in providence. He reigns over everything. He
reigns over you and He reigns over me. He sits upon the throne of His
glory. Matthew 19, 28. He sets upon the throne of his
holiness, Psalm 47, 8. He sets upon the throne of his
judgment, Proverbs 20 in verse 8. He sets upon the throne of
his majesty, Hebrews 8, verse 1. He sets upon the throne of
grace, Hebrews 4, 16. The throne of grace. I like that,
don't you? I like the rest of them too.
John says, I saw in the right hand of him that sat upon the
throne. Now watch this. He says, I saw in his hand a
book. A book written within and on
the backside sealed with seven seals. This book is written within and
without. Perfectly sealed. Seven is the
number of perfection. Perfectly sealed in the right
hand of God. Sealed with seven seals. This
is a book of God's eternal decrees. This book represents It represents,
it is symbolic of, God doesn't have to have a book to remind
Him what to do. It's a symbolic language. This book represents God's eternal
purpose of grace, His purpose of predestination, which includes
all things. Preacher, are you one of those
predestinarians? Yes, I am, because I believe
the Bible. He's a God of predestination. He's ordained all things that
shall ever come to pass. It's to this book that our great
surety referred when he said, this is quoted in Hebrews chapter
10, Lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of
me, I delight to do thy will, O my God. This book therefore
symbolizes God's purpose with respect to the entire universe
throughout all of history and concerning all creatures in all
ages unto eternity. God rules over all and He reigns
with an everlasting purpose. His purpose is the glory of His
name and the salvation of His people. In election, God chose
a people unto salvation in Jesus Christ before the foundation
of the world. And in predestination, He sovereignly
ordained all things that come to pass in order to secure the
salvation and everlasting glory of those chosen people. He predestinated
all things. Be sure you understand this,
all things means all things. Preacher, you don't mean to tell
me that God reigns and rules and he's predestinated even these
bad things that happen in the universe? What's the worst thing
that's ever happened in the world? What's the worst thing that man
has ever done? What's the greatest criminal act since the history
of the universe, 6,000 years? What's the greatest criminal
act? the death of Jesus Christ, man killing his creator. Here
is a perfect man who healed the sick, who raised the dead, who
gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, who went about doing
good, who was open to all, friendly to children, forgiving to the fallen, and men hated him. Religious men hated him. And
they all ganged up on him. Actually, the Jews and the Gentiles
and the leaders of government, they all ganged up on him. Everybody
who was somebody in religion and somebody in government turned
thumbs down on Jesus of Nazareth. And they all gathered together
in one with one goal, one will, one desire, do away with Jesus
of Nazareth. It's the worst criminal act in
the history of the world. And yet it was ordained by God. All those folks did just exactly
what God had written in the book. of His everlasting decrees. They did just exactly what He
ordained to be done. Because you see, this salvation
of His elect, it was ordained before God made the sun, moon,
stars, and the earth. And it was ordained that they'd
be saved, these would be redeemed, these would be made righteous
by the death of their charity, The representative, the Lamb
of God, the Son of God, the Son of Man, our Savior, our Redeemer,
would be saved by His death, by the shedding of His blood. I tell you, God's predestinated
all things. That gives me great comfort.
And you who are the people of God, You are the chosen of the Lord,
the redeemed of God, wakened up from wrath to flee. You fled
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You rest easy. The Lord reigns
over all. He reigns to fulfill his purpose. He reigns to work all things
together for the good of his elect people. John sees this book. In this
book is all the decrees of God are in this book. And he says in the second verse,
I saw a strong angel and this strong angel, he was proclaiming
with a loud voice who is worthy to open the book and to loose
the seals thereof. In the book now, all of God's
predestinated purposes, but John sees that book closed. It is sealed. It is shut. That is, John sees them as being
unfulfilled. The purposes of God being unexecuted. Not carried out. Because it's
sealed. So a strong angel says, who's
worthy? To open the book and loose the
seals. Who's worthy to bring to pass
God's eternal predestination? Verse three, no man in heaven
nor in earth, neither under the earth was able to open the book,
neither to look thereon. We're not even talking about
executing the decrees of God. Nobody's even worthy to look
at the book. much less open the book. They are not worthy to
look at the book or open the book, and certainly not powerful
enough to execute the decrees of the book. So John says in
verse 4, I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open
and to read the book, neither to look thereon. Nobody was even
worthy to get a look at the book. And one of the elders, now the
elders is one of the elect. This is one of those sitting
upon a seat in heaven, clothed in white garments, made the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus, washed from their sins. They have a
crown on their head, crowns of gold. One of the elders saith
unto me, you can stop crying. That's what weep not means, because
he's already started crying. Stop crying. Behold, look, see, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. You go back to Genesis 49 sometime
and read Jacob's final words to Judah. Calls him a lion. He's a lion. Our Lord came forth from the
tribe of Judah. Glorious in His royalty. Fearlessness. And He's the root of David. Literally
the offshoot of David. He's the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. There's His deity. He's the root of David. There's
His humanity. He's God and man. He hath prevailed
to open the book. Prevailed how? By His substitutionary
death. He's earned the right to execute
God's decrees. He's earned the right to sit
upon that throne. In Hebrews chapter 10, it talks
about all those Old Testament priests working in and around the tabernacle. There was one piece of furniture
that wasn't in there. There wasn't any chair. No place for them
to sit down because their work was never done. But this man,
when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down. He sat down. The work is done. The work is done. He earned the right to execute
the will of God. He's the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, He's the Root of David, He hath prevailed. God gave Him
a work to do and He did it. He did it. This is His reward. He's prevailed to open the book
to loose the seven seals thereof. That is to execute God's decrees. Our Savior reigns. This is the
message. Our Savior reigns. Our Redeemer
reigns. And then John says, I beheld
and lo. Now watch this. In the midst
of the throne, and in the midst of the four beasts, and in the
midst of the elders, there's someone who's in the middle of
everything here. Stood a lamb. as it had been slain. You cannot
separate the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ from Jesus
Christ himself. That's why we say, we preach
Christ crucified. That word slain is used in verse
6. That in verse 9, for thou was
slain. Again in verse 12, worthy is
the lamb that was slain. John sees a lamb as if he had
been slain. He's the lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. He saw him having seven horns,
that perfect power. Seven eyes, which are the seven
spirits of God, perfect knowledge throughout all the earth. In
verse 7, John watched and he came and he took the book out
of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. Somebody's
worthy to take that book. Somebody's great enough. Listen,
listen. Somebody's great enough to do
business with God. And the only one who's great
enough to do business with God is God himself. And he's our
representative. That's my elder brother right
there. That's my savior right there. That's the friend of sinners
right there. That's my redeemer right there.
He took the book right out of the hand of him that sat upon
the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and
the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb. They all
had harps and golden vows of odors, which are the prayers,
the worship of the saints. And they sung a new song. Now
notice, here's a threefold doxology, or three groups singing praises
to the Lamb. And you need to draw a distinction
between the three groups. I'll give this to you and I'll
quit. First of all, the first group are those redeemed. These
are the only ones that sing about redemption. Angels can't sing
about redemption. We do. We sing, what can wash
away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Look at verse 9. All the
saints of God, remember the four and twenty elders, that's a symbolic
number for all of the elect of God, New Testament saints and
Old Testament saints, and the four beasts, that's the preachers
of the gospels who are all in here worshipping together. They
sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book,
and to open the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain, and hast
redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue,
and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and
priests, and we shall reign on the earth. These are all the
redeemed ones singing. And you know what? I'm going
to be there singing with them one day. I'm going to be there
singing with them. All the redeemed ones will be
there singing. Praises to the Lamb. Well, then a second group
joins in. Verse 11, and I beheld and I
heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the
beasts and the elders. That is, they joined the beasts
and the elders. And the number of these angels
was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands saying with a loud
voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and
riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.
But they don't say that has redeemed us to God because they don't
know anything about redemption. There was no redemption for those
fallen angels. those who followed the leadership
of Lucifer, there was no redemption for them. They fell individually. We fell through a representative
and were saved by another representative. It was a representative who got
us into this mess and another representative who has already
got us out of this mess, right? Isn't that right? That is absolutely
right. Representation, imputation. Learn what those things mean.
You'll learn the gospel. And now, verse 13, everybody
else. It starts off with the redeemed
ones, sinners saved by grace. And then angels join in and now
it's every other creature. These are the fallen angels. This is Lucifer. This is all
unbelievers. Every creature which is in heaven,
and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the
sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and
honor, and glory, and power be unto him that sitteth upon the
throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. This is the fulfillment
of that passage in Philippians chapter 2. Every knee is going
to bow. Every tongue's gonna confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But wait, true worship can only
come forth from the heart of somebody who's been saved by
God's free grace. So, verse 14, And the four beasts
said, Amen. And the four and 20 elders fell
down and worshiped him. Here's all the elect of God.
A people chosen out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue.
And they worship him that liveth forever and ever. This will be unending. Unending. You know, I'll tell you when I'm the happiest.
I tell you when I'm the most joyful, it's when I'm sitting
under the gospel. I'm listening to the Word of
God. I'm listening to somebody talking about Jesus Christ, my
righteousness, Christ my all. I'm safe in Him. I'm saved in
Him. I'm forgiven in Him. I'm accepted
in Him. And I get just a little taste
of glory in this. One of these days, children of
God, We'll all be together around the throne that is set before
Him who sits upon that throne and we will worship and worship
and worship forever. Won't that be wonderful? To see
the Lamb of God face to face. To see Him as He is in His beauties,
in His glories. We preached about him. We've
talked about him. We've sung about him. We've got together and talked
about what he's done for us and about his righteousness and about
his blood. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see
him, to see him, to embrace him, to be embraced by him and to
listen to him forever. That will be heaven. That will
be heaven. You can talk about, give your
description of heaven from now on. Well, people say it's going
to be a beautiful paradise. It will be. But for about the
first million years, I think we'll just be looking at him,
don't you? The pearly gates and the streets
of gold, that's not going to get our attention. Nah. It'll
be him. It'll be Him. Will you be there? If you wind up there, it'll be
by His free and sovereign grace, I tell you that. Be by His blood
and righteousness. Righteousness freely, graciously
imputed to you. And you'll worship Him here and
look forward to that day of eternal worship. God be the glory. Amen.