We'll begin our verse study in
verse three, but let's read the first three verses now. And there
was given me a reed like unto a rod, and the angel stood saying,
rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them
that worship therein. But the court, which is without
the temple, leave out and measure it not, for it is given unto
the Gentiles the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and
two months and I will give power unto my two witnesses and they
shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days
clothed in sackcloth." Now these three verses remind us of the
ark and what God did in Noah's day. God told Noah to build the
ark and to very strict, exact specifications, and Noah preached. Second Peter 2.5, God spared
not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher
of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the
ungodly. That's a lot like our text. Here
in the text in Revelation, this has figurative language to it,
but this represents the actual church, the kingdom of God. And God has already built that.
He said, I'll build my church on this rock and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. And he has. But like, and
John is just measuring it in the first couple of verses here,
but like in Noah's day, there are measurements and there is
preaching. There's something built to God's
exact specifications and there's a message preached in both of
these instances. There's an established kingdom
with a certain number of occupants in mind. The way that it's populated
is by the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ Just
like the ark was populated It was built with a certain number
of people in mind and the gospel was preached And so that's what's happening
now in verse 3 of our text is Now, when the gospel goes forth,
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, God, it says in the scripture,
mixes it with faith in them that hear it. If there's going to
be a good outcome to the preaching of the gospel, or at least one
of mercy and salvation for sinners, God mixes faith The preaching
of the gospel in them that hear it if not there's no profit to
it and However many here by those means God is Pleased as the gospel
goes forth to give life to those whom he chose he loved from eternity
in Christ and He puts them in Christ gives them faith in him
and puts them in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he calls them out
of darkness into Christ, his marvelous light. And in our text
here, the church, the temple, or the kingdom of God, clearly
picturing the same thing. It's laid out according to God's
exact specifications. He built it with a certain occupancy
in mind, and God sends his preachers. populated There's a parable that also parallels
this in Luke chapter 14. Let's turn over there Luke chapter
14 Verse 16 This is the message throughout
scripture Luke 14 16 and Think about our text and then
Noah's Ark as we're reading this. Then said unto him, a certain
man made a great supper and bade many and sent his servant at
suppertime to say to them that were bidden, come for all things
are now ready. And they all with one consent
began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have
bought a piece of ground and I must needs go and see it "'I
pray thee have me excused.' And another said, "'I have bought
five yoke of oxen and I go to prove them. "'I pray thee have
me excused.' And another said, "'I have married a wife and therefore
I cannot come.' So that servant came and showed his Lord these
things. Then the master of the house,
being angry, said to his servant, "'Go out quickly into the streets
and lanes of the city "'and bring in hither the poor. and the maimed
and the halt and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it
is done as thou has commanded and yet there's room. Thank God there's room. And he and the Lord said unto
the servant, go out into the highways and hedges and compel
them to come in that my house may be filled. The ark was filled. God's church
is filled. His house is filled. But you
see the same situation there. There's a house and there's a
message sent in order to fill that house. That was the purpose
of it. My house is going to be filled.
God's house is gonna be filled with redeemed sinners, all of
God's elect, for whom Christ Jesus shed his precious blood
on Calvary. He said, of all those you've
given me, Father, I will lose nothing. It's gonna be full. David said in Psalm 27, for one
thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that
I may dwell in the house of the Lord. the days of my life To
behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple
God's house is gonna be filled and David said I want to be in
on that. I want to be one of them Our message is to come to Christ
all things are now made ready Don't bring anything just come He's accomplished salvation for
all who believe it is finished all things are now ready come
come in dine And as we preach That message come to Christ everything's
done Not you need to do something Christ has done everything Christ
is all as we preach Is as it was in acts 247 where it says
praising God and having favor with all the people and The Lord
added to the church daily such as should be saved That's how God does it He builds
a house, and he sends preachers. He builds an ark he sends a preacher
and He has a feast, he sends messengers. Come and dine. And God just has
two messengers here in this verse. Not literally, but it's not a
big number. It's not a big number. The Lord
sent the disciples out two by two to preach. Why do you reckon he did that? Well, I know this about that.
He doesn't send relatively very many out, but I'm glad it's not
one. I'm sure glad it's not one. Thank
God for our brethren that preach the gospel. He makes it so that we need each
other. He sent them out two by two. because that's the way he
does it. He causes us to need each other
and to be able to rely on each other. And so though we are greatly
outnumbered, they're just two, and of course that's a, that's
a figurative number, a small number though, and yet we have
each other. But the most important thing
we have is in the text too though, power. It says God gave him power. It's not that he gives power
to us as his people or preachers in the sense that he makes us
powerful in ourselves. He doesn't do that. We're not.
So we know that can't be right. Here's what he does. Listen to
Matthew 28, 18. Jesus came and spake unto them
his disciples saying all power is given unto me in heaven and
in earth Go ye I Love that verse all power is given unto me go
ye therefore Not because all power is given unto you, but
because it's given to me and he sends us with his authority
to Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded
you. Say what I said." That's what we do by his grace. And
lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, amen.
Our power is him with us, his presence. I'll be with you. That's my power. His blessing. God has never used great numbers
to win his victories. He always wins, but he's never
used great numbers to do that. Gideon was already greatly outnumbered. You remember Gideon's army? They
were already greatly outnumbered. And they, Scratched together
as many as they could and said, all right, Lord, we're ready.
And he said, you've got too many. That's the way the Lord does
things. It's too many. Religion has the attitude of
we've got to get, you know, a lot of people say we've got to get
everybody safe so we can defeat the armies of the devil. First of all, God isn't trying
to defeat the devil. God doesn't try to do anything.
And God is just using the devil for whatever he wants to use
him for. He's not trying to defeat him. He's got him on his chain. And he uses him for whatever
he wants to. And secondly, if God was ready
to defeat the devil, he wouldn't need us to do that. You think
he would? And if he decided to use us,
he wouldn't use very many, would he? Because he never has. He
never has. He never has. That the excellency
of the power might be of God and not of us. That's the way
he's always done things. Verse four in our text, these
are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before
the God of the earth. Now turn with me to Zechariah
chapter four. Zechariah chapter 4 right at
the end of the Old Testament just about Zechariah chapter
4 verse 1 let's read this together and you'll see the significance
here of the olive trees and the candlesticks Zechariah 4 verse 1 And the angel
that talked with me came again and waked me, as a man that is
wakened out of his sleep. And he said unto me, What seest
thou? And I said, I have looked, and
behold, a candlestick, all of gold, with a bowl upon the top
of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven
lamps which are upon the top thereof, and two olive trees
by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon
the left side thereof. So I answered and spake to the
angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? Then
the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest
thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord. Then he answered and spake unto
me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel.
saying, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord
of hosts. So with this, these trees and
these candlesticks, God is teaching us that. It's not your strength,
it's not your power, it's not your ability, not your wisdom,
not your anything. It's by my spirit that the message
gets out. Look at verse seven. Who are
you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt
become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof
with shoutings, crying grace, grace unto it. Moreover, the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel
have laid the foundation of this house. His hands also shall finish
it, and thou shalt know that Zerubbabel is a great man. No,
it doesn't say that, does it? God's gonna use Zerubbabel to
do this so that you might know that the Lord has sent him, has sent me unto you. So the
significance of the olive trees and the candlesticks in our text
in Revelation is the same as in Zechariah, and he told us
plainly what it's about. Yes, the Lord is gonna shine
forth his light in this world. There's gonna be the candlestick
is the church. Remember at the beginning of
Revelation, we're told that the candlestick is the church. And
the Lord Jesus was in the midst of the candlestick, that he's
in the midst of his church. And God is gonna shine forth
his light in this world through his church. He's gonna use us
to do that, but there's no oil for the lamp without the olive
tree. We don't have any light of our own. The olive tree is
indicative of the Holy Spirit of God. The oil, by my spirit,
the light will shine. Not yours, not your wisdom, not
your ability. For every candlestick, there
has to be an olive tree. So that's why in our text, there's
two, two olive trees and two candlesticks. the Holy Spirit
of God, by the Spirit of God. We stand before God in our text. You see that? That stand before
the God of the earth. That's because we report to him,
so to speak. We stand before him being sent
by him and giving an account to him for the work that he's
given us to do. But we have no ability of our
own. None whatsoever Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 3 5 Not that
we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves
But our sufficiency is of God That's just as plain as you can
say it Now verse 5 back in our text
in Revelation 11 And if any man will hurt them,
if any man will hurt God's preachers, fire proceedeth out of their
mouth and devoureth their enemies. And if any man will hurt them,
he must in this manner be killed. He's going to be killed, destroyed,
burned up by that fire that comes out of the mouth of God's preachers. Well, that's a pretty clear picture.
It's the very message, the gospel message that men hate so much
that will itself be their destruction. Jeremiah 5.14, listen to this. Jeremiah 5.14, wherefore thus
saith the Lord God of hosts, because you speak this word,
behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire. And this people
would. W-o-o-d My word in your mouth
is gonna be fire and they're gonna be firewood And it shall devour them That's
exactly what our text is talking about Remember John listen to
John 5 45 you'll remember this don't do not think that I will
accuse you to the father There is one that accuses you even
Moses And it's not Moses the man, it's what Moses wrote. It's
Moses in the scriptures. Moses, the first five books of
the Bible, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you
would have believed me, for he wrote for me. But if you believe
not his writings, how should you believe my words? Claimed to have Moses Moses is
our father. They didn't believe a word Moses
said if they did they'd have believed what Christ said Because
it's been the gospel from the start hadn't it. It's been Christ
from the start Here's the lesson for us there
be careful how you receive the gospel Be careful of taking it
for granted or treating it as perhaps less important than than
other things. Be careful of taking the word
of God lightly. The word of God is the word that
Paul said is able to make you wise unto salvation, but it also
will destroy you if you despise it, if you neglect
it, if you have no interest in it. All you got to do is ignore
it and it'll burn you up. Verse six in our text. These have power to shut heaven,
that it rain not in the days of their prophecy and have power
over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all
plagues as often as they will. Now you think of Moses in that,
don't you? To turn the water to blood and
over all plagues. Often as they will God gave Moses
that power and this picture is the same thing that did God sends
his messenger And there are consequences to rebelling against God Pharaoh
said who is your God that I should listen to him Okay All right But this is spiritual language
Simply saying that by the preaching of the gospel this world is judged
and one way or the other. Judgment is not always bad, but
sometimes it is. God will judge you worthy if
you're in Christ. If not, then all of the plagues
of this book are upon you already and you
just don't know it yet. God will shut up heaven against
you as it pleases him. How does he do it? Well, the
judgment is through the preaching of the gospel. That's why it
says power is given to them, the messengers, the preachers,
to do that. Not that we have any power, but
that it's his power. Power is given to him to do that,
and it's accomplished, though, through the preaching. That's
the sense in which it's ours. It all hinges upon the preaching
of the gospel. Blessing or curse, life or death. Paul said, who is sufficient
for these things? To one we're the saver of life
unto life, to another we're the saver of death unto death. Heaven
may be shut up to you, or God may rain down his word upon you,
as he said, he promised he would on somebody, didn't he? And like
the rain from heaven, it doesn't return unto me void, he said.
but it'll give life, it'll give life to those upon whom it falls. And the power again, now it's
not of us, but of God who executes his power to save or to curse. I remember teaching a Bible lesson
not long ago where I kept saying, because in the scripture, It
just had to be said, didn't it? You don't know who you're dealing
with. And that's true of everybody that rejects Christ. You don't
understand who you're dealing with. He can save you. He can damn you. And it's just
a matter of what he wants to do. If he just decides you're a goner,
then you're a goner. I recommend bowing. I have to
say that too, I recommend bowing to him. I recommend begging for
mercy. He delights to show mercy. Verse seven back in our text,
and when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that
ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, remember we saw him in chapter
10 some I believe, before that in this study The beast that
ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them
and shall overcome them and kill them Now We have a very real and a
very strong powerful enemy in in Satan and Those whom he sins We wouldn't be able to stand
for one second against it If the Lord Jesus himself were not
our strength in our refuge we have to be aware of that We don't have to be afraid of
the devil because Christ is our refuge we have to be aware of
it As the Lord has taught us to be sober and vigilant we have
an adversary that seeks to devour us and When God is pleased, he gives
Satan enough rope to do some damage at times. And this is
a prophecy of that. Satan was given permission to
torture Job, wasn't he? God just flat gave him permission.
He's not going to do anything without God's permission. If
people can't see that in the scripture, you just haven't read
the Bible yet. God gives him permission, or not, at his pleasure. So I
wouldn't fear Satan, I'd fear God, wouldn't you? Does that
sound reasonable to you? But he does give that permission
at times. This is talking here about the
church, though, in the last days. There's gonna be, it's gonna
be tough, isn't it? The Lord said to his disciples,
they'll kill you just for preaching. In the last times, they're just
going to kill you for bearing testimony to the Word of God.
And there's going to be times, and especially at the end, it's
going to look like Satan has won. You could maybe argue that
right now. It kind of looks like that now,
doesn't it, in a way? Look at this world, and mostly
look at the religion of this world, and tell me it doesn't
look like The truth is dead. As far as this world in general
is concerned. And we have to be honest and
look at ourselves, too, don't we? Look at ourselves. I thank
the Lord for you, and I'm not just talking about you when I
say look at us. I'm talking about us, me and
you. We have to be honest, don't we? There's not a lot to us. There's not a lot to us. And again, I thank the Lord for
you. This is an exceptional church by God's grace in many ways.
But at the same time, we're pathetic, aren't we? We bicker about things
that don't make any difference while the whole world is literally
going to hell. So we have to be honest with
ourselves, don't we? The picture is painted in the
next three verses. Look at them with me, verse eight.
Their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city
Which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt? So this is not a literally
literal city. It's called Sodom and Egypt Where also our Lord was crucified
and The Lord was crucified in Sodom and Gomorrah, or in Egypt,
was he? This is spiritual Sodom, spiritual
Egypt. This wretched, sin-cursed, horrible
world that we live in. A world full of monsters. That's
what it's talking about, religious monsters. And they, verse nine, of the
people and kindreds and tongues and nations, shall see their
dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead
bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the
earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send
gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented
them that dwelt on the earth. The Lord said, the world will
hate you. They hated me first, and now
they're going to hate you too. And the only recognition that
this world even has of the true church of God, that we even exist
at all, is to laugh at our dead bodies. Does that sound accurate
in our day? Our dead bodies lying in the
street and they laugh, make merry and send gifts to one another.
It's Christmas time. God is dead. His people are dead.
The word of God is dead. And we can do as we please. So
they throw a big party. If that doesn't make you a little
bit angry, think about who it is that's laughing at your dead
body. Sodom. They do a lot of laughing, don't
they? Spiritual Sodom. Which is this whole Christless
world. Sodomites are laughing at us.
They're glad that we're dead That's the picture here What
we preach is the problem for them What we preach is why they
hate us what we preach is why they're celebrating our silence Relative silence now The gospel is a torment to the
wretched scum of this earth The gospel puts God's righteous claims
upon this world that supposedly has their free will to do what
they want to do. You don't have a free will, and
you can't do what you want to do. What you will do is bow to the
Son of God, believe on Him, and serve Him all the days of your
life, or you will pay eternally for it. They don't like that. This world doesn't like that
message. There's not a whole lot of people telling them that.
There's still a few. We remind this horrible world
that God is on the throne, and they don't take that well. We
remind them that Christ redeemed and saves who he wants to, everybody
that he set his affection on, all whom the father gave him,
they're called, more than anything else, they're called in this
book, the chosen, God's elect, which means chosen. And we remind this wretched world
that absolutely nothing is up to them, nothing. They can say
it all they want to, they can preach it all they want to, nothing
is up to you. And I'm thankful to God for that. It's not up to me, it's not up
to you. It's of God, the show of mercy. They won't take that
well. They don't, do they? But their rejoicing over our
demise is a little bit premature. Look at the next verse, verse
11. And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from
God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet,
and great fear fell upon them which saw them. I don't know what the specifics
of this are. I don't know if there's gonna
be a great revival before this world ends or not. I honestly
don't know, and I guarantee you nobody else does either. But thank God for this verse.
You reckon God would do that for us? You reckon he would breathe
life into us? Because we look dead. That's
just the truth, isn't it? As far as this world is concerned,
we're dead. I know that generally speaking,
he will do that for his church because we see it right here. And boy, I want in on that. I
want in on it. I don't know, again, I don't
know the specifics of that. I don't know what it means exactly.
If there's gonna be a revival of the gospel for this world.
I hope that there is. I hope that's what it means.
I'd like to see somebody tremble a little bit at the holiness
of God again. People used to do that. People
used to have great respect for the word of God. Not many, never
has been very many. But boy, it seems like a lot
compared to now, doesn't it? Maybe I'm just old. But I long for this. that God
would breathe life into us, that the Holy Spirit would revive
us and give us courage, give me
courage and boldness to preach and just give us the energy and
the wisdom and everything we lack by nature that Christ might
be exalted for a while in a great way in this world before God
wraps this up That may happen. I Know this nobody that God loves
is ever dead It looked like it in a sense they were and will
be I guess at the end It'll look like it they may stink and not
do a whole lot, but they're not dead not if you're his I We were dead in trespasses and
sins once, but even then, we were in Christ by God's grace. Eternally alive in Him. Don't count out
anybody who belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't do that.
And then in verse 12, And they heard a great voice
from heaven saying unto them, come up here. What a great thing. What a beautiful, beautiful thing.
And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies
beheld them. Again, I don't know the exact
timing. Is this a revelation that's gonna take place? He raises
his church from the dead and the gospel goes forth in power
in this world for a while. People tremble they were it says
they were afraid I guarantee you when God actually speaks
sinners are gonna fear him And does that happen for a while
and then this voice comes and says come up here I Don't know. I don't know the timing. We're
not told that we don't know the specifics of it, but we know
this we know who gives life and And we pray that he would give
us life, he would revive us, that he would cause his enemies
to tremble at the preaching of the gospel again. Remember what it said in verse
seven. It said, when they have finished, just remember that,
when they shall have finished their Testimony, I know one thing
another thing too. You see there's that which we
know That's so important and so vital and so precious. Why would we speculate about
things that aren't revealed? I'm real happy about this one
right here. It's not going to be wrapped up until the gospel
is preached to everybody God has intended for it to be preached
to and and that he's intended to add to his church by that
message to give faith in Christ to somebody here in the gospel
somewhere the last time when his work is finished in that
sense it's already finished on Calvary but when he's called
the last sheep home then it'll wrap up and not until he's not
willing that any should perish but that all of his people should
come to repentance, and they will. That is what we know, and
that's worth talking about. I'm thankful for that. So when they're finished, when
they have finished, when God is done speaking, when the last
gospel message is preached somewhere, sometime, by somebody, the world
will think we're dead because the gospel light is all but snuffed
out, it looks like in the end times here. They're laughing
at our dead bodies. They don't understand the power
of God. If God was trying to save the
world, it would look pretty grim, wouldn't it? We need to know what God's doing.
He's saving his sheep. And one of these days, he's gonna
save the last one when they've finished, when they've finished
preaching, when the work is done, when the last sheep is called
home. The world will think we're dead,
but that's all in God's purpose. That's all in God's purpose.
When just about nobody believes, and again, we're not far from
that, are we? If not, we may very well be in the middle of
that right now. Nobody hardly preaches the truth anymore. But
on that last day that the gospel is ever preached, there will
be a last day, somebody somewhere will be preaching, maybe to a
handful of people somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a bunch
of nobodies from nowhere in attendance. And God's going to turn the light
on one last time. Some sinner is going to hear
the message of the sovereign, successful savior of sinners. And he's going to believe by
the power of God's Holy Spirit. He's going to trust him. They're
going to trust the Savior with their very souls. They're gonna
see him as the only righteousness a sinner could ever have or need. They're gonna fall in love with
the Son of God. And then not long after that,
I don't know how long, when the gospel is preached the
final time, when the race is run, when that last sheep is
brought home, we will hear the Lord say to us, come up here. but we'll be taken up to glory
to be with Christ, which is far better. And all of our enemies are gonna
watch that happen. You ever notice in scripture
how the Lord is careful to say that often? When something wonderful
happens to us, our enemies are watching. He prepares a table
before us in the presence of our enemies. It must be one of
the greatest torments of hell to realize that the gospel was plain, it was
clear, it was life everlasting, and it was at the fingertips
of men, it was there. It happened right in, it wasn't
done in a corner. And they missed him, they missed
Christ. They're gonna watch us ascend
into everlasting glory to be with our God forever Then verse 13 and the same hour
was there a great earthquake in the tenth part of the city
fell and in the earthquake were slain of men 7,000 and The remnant were affrighted and
gave glory to the God of heaven There's a few beautiful things
in this last verse that we'll look at tonight. There's actually
quite a bit in this verse, but I hope I can just say it simply
and clearly and plainly, and that the Lord will reveal it
to us. When God calls home his sheep, everybody that's left
will begin to be destroyed. It won't all happen at once.
A tenth part is what it's gonna start with, it looks like. Remember
this is Sodom and Egypt this city Talking about a spiritual
Population just like the church is a spiritual house It's not
this building It's God's people and Sodom and Egypt are not God's
people In the same way When God calls home his sheep, those left
will begin to be destroyed here. And this is Sodom. Sodom representing
obviously what Sodom was, the debauchery and the horrible,
arrogant evil of mankind. And Egypt representing the bondage
of the law, which is every religion in this world except the gospel.
Bondage of the law. It's works or grace. If it's
not grace, then it's works, Paul said. If it be of works, it's
no more grace. And if it be of grace, then it's
no more works. There's one gospel of God's free
grace in Christ Jesus, and there's everything else, and that's the
bondage of the law, pictured by Egypt. So we see what this
is. It's the religious world who are in bondage Say they never been in bondage
like the pharisees did But a great portion of that city is going
to immediately crumble When God's sheep are told to come up here That day when the sheep were
called home now whether this is a real earthquake in this
verse I Doubt it. I seriously doubt it I Whether
it is or whether God spiritually is destroying the foundations
of man's evil, proud, false religion, either way, it's over for them.
It's over. It's the beginning of the end
for them. And they're going to know that it's over for them,
and they're going to know why. They're going to see us going.
And they're going to understand exactly what's going on. And there's gonna be wailing
and weeping and gnashing of teeth. They'll be crying for the mountains
to cover them up and hide them from the face of the Lamb. We'll
read that in a minute, Lord willing. But you know what's interesting
here? We're the remnant now. All through the book of Isaiah,
we saw that, didn't we? We're the remnant according to
the election of grace. You know what that word means?
Leftovers. leftovers But we're God's leftovers
And then in the end when it's all said and done They're gonna
be the remnant And we're the prize What grace Everybody that's left
out everybody that doesn't know Christ are the remnant then In a sense here, it says they
will give glory to God. But I'll tell you how they're
doing it. They're forced to acknowledge that God is God once and for
all. They have no choice. Every knee is gonna bow. Isn't
that what our Lord said? Every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. That's lost people. too, right? They're giving glory to God in
that sense, but it's going to be too late for salvation for
those who know not the Lord Jesus. They know who he is, but they
don't know him in saving love and faith. But they're going to bow anyway.
And so it's the same sense here. They're giving glory to God out
of necessity, but not in a saving way. It's a little bit late for
that. The Lord has warned much through
the scriptures And listen to the language describing
this same event in Revelation 6 let's turn back over there
to Revelation chapter 6 verse 12 and Revelation 6 12 And I beheld when he had opened
the sixth seal and lo there was a great earthquake same same
earthquake Again, whether it's the Lord spiritually shaking
the foundations of men's evil religious pride I Suspect that's
it and the Sun became black as sackcloth of hair and And the
moon became as blood, verse 13, and the stars of heaven fell
into the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs,
when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed
as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain
and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of
the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains
and the mighty men and every bondman and every free man hid
themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains and
said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the
face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath
of the lamb for the great day of his wrath has come and who
shall be able to stand? So they're glorifying God, they
know who he is now. but to no avail. Not a one of them said have mercy
on us. Not a one of them. Not a one of them repented. They're still trying like Adam
and Eve in Eden to hide from God. But the mountains hide us
from the face. of the Lord Jesus Christ. It takes great powerful grace that comes only by the preaching
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to bring a sinner to the
feet of the Lord Jesus as a mercy beggar. Crying as Bartimaeus did, Lord
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And I'll pray for
that grace for all of us. Amen. Let's pray.