He will destroy this. And every
believer knows this. We all know that false religion
is fallen. Isn't that what Christ said in
the previous chapter? He said, Babylon the great is
fallen, is fallen. This is something that's commonly
understood among believers, is that all works religion is vanity. All works and free will religion
saves no one. We know that Babylon is fallen,
that all works religion is doomed and cannot save the soul. Matter
of fact, in Jeremiah chapter 23, what God says about false
prophets is this. He says these false prophets
shall not profit this people at all. You see how big false
religion is? You know how much impact that
has on the church? None whatsoever. None whatsoever. They do nothing for the kingdom
of God. They do nothing for the glory
of Christ. But I'll tell you this, God even is now calling
His people out from her. He says, Come out of her, My
people. My people. Christ is calling
His people out of the abomination of false religion. He says, by
His ambassadors, be ye reconciled to God. This is the work of the
ministry, is that we call sinners to Christ. We don't call sinners
to ourselves. We don't call sinners to just
this localist's hymn. We call sinners to come to Christ. Christ. In Christ there's salvation.
In Christ there's hope. In Christ there's life. Come
to Christ. Believe on Christ. Be ye reconciled
to God. Why? For God hath made Him to
be sin for us who knew no sin, that we, we who are in her, in
false religion, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. In Him. And the result of this
we saw also in the beginning of chapter 19. And after these
things I heard a great voice of people in heaven saying, Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and honor and power unto our Lord. What
is the end of this? The end of this that come out
from her, you who believe your end is sure. Your end is sure. It is this. You shall praise
God forever. You shall give glory to God in
heaven forever. Praising His name. And this was
pictured to us In verse 7, it says, "...Let us be glad and
rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb
has come, and His wife hath made herself ready." You see, this
is all pictured in that marriage covenant. Last week we discussed
this in great detail. The marriage has several parts. It has to be trothal. The contract
was made between the husband and the wife. This is a picture
of election. God the Father has chosen a people, a bride for
His Son. And in a covenant of grace, He
gave that bride to His Son. And then there's the interval,
the part where Christ must come and pay the dowry for the marriage.
And He did. He came and paid in His own blood.
He bought us as His bride. And then there's the procession.
That's when the bridegroom comes and gets his bride. And he does
this by the Holy Spirit. He's done this to you, believer.
He's come in that procession, the grand procession of the preaching
of the Gospel. And the Spirit of God has called
you and says, come apart. to your bridegroom, and you've
believed, and you've come, and now we're on our journey to Zion. We're on our journey to this
marriage feast. Isn't that good? We're on our
way. And what we have here is like,
I believe it was, Rebecca, she had those things
from Isaac, those jewels and things given to her. This is
the Gospel and we're on our journey to see our Isaac, our Lord Jesus
Christ. And when the end has come, we're
going to have a marriage feast. We're going to have an eternal
feast with our Bridegroom ever rejoicing. So therefore, you
have great cause to be glad, don't you? You have great cause
to be glad. Even though in this world it
seems that believers suffer, and we do, Even though we have
great pains, and we do? Even though we have great tribulation,
and we do? Did not our Master promise us
these things? He said, in this world, you shall
have. This is not a maybe. You're going
to have tribulation. But, be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. All
these tribulations are meant, are necessary. Let us walk, not
then by sight, but by faith. Let us by faith rejoice in the
salvation of our Father that betrothed us, of our Bridegroom
that redeemed us, of the Spirit that now calls us and keeps us. And rejoice and give honor to
God. You know, I like that hymn that
says, More happy, but not more sure, are the glorified saints
in heaven. Now they're a lot more happier
than we are, but they're not any more sure than we are. Our
salvation is just as sure as theirs is. Just as sure. And
this brand possession is going to end someday, and it's going
to come, and we're going to rejoice and spend the eternity with our
Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, that's where it brings
us to our text. So we've seen the persecution of the church,
we've seen the overthrow of false religion, we've seen the end
of every believer in Christ, which is to be at the marriage
feast. And so now, in verse 11 of our
text, John says, And I saw heaven open. In this text, I want you to understand
what the revelation here is doing, the picture, the vision is doing.
Now that we've seen the end of all things, we're going backwards
a little bit. We're going to go back just before
the fall of the judgment of Christ. He's going to take us back because
we've only seen the destruction of one of our enemies. We've
only seen the destruction of the great whore. What we are
going to see now is He's going to bring us back to this judgment
day to show us that not only the whore is going to be judged,
but the beast Every anti-Christian government and nation and people
shall be judged and condemned, and every false preacher, every
false doctrine shall be condemned. Everything that is against Christ
will be cast into the lake of fire." So that's what he's doing
here. We're coming back. And so now, in this text, we
go from hallelujahs of heaven and the wedding feast, we return
to moments preceding the judgment day. So as to see the end of
the beast, the false prophet, and Satan himself, which is to
be cast into the lake of fire. Now in verse 11, John says, I
saw heaven open. This is a little different. He says, I saw heaven opened. I didn't see a door in heaven.
I didn't see a window in heaven. But I saw heaven itself opened,
completely exposed, open for all to see. I saw heaven opened. Now in time past, God testified
of Jesus Christ Not in a great light, but in shadows, didn't
he? In the Old Testament, we had
pictures and types and shadows. We had the sacrifices, we had
the priests. And Paul said all of these things
were a shadow, were a picture of what was to come. Christ was to come and fulfill
all of these things. But when Christ came, when Christ
came, the shadows were done away with. The shadows. It's like you have
a room that's dimly lit by a candle, and then all of a sudden the
sun shines and lights the room. Now what need have you of the
candle? The candle is swallowed. Its light is swallowed up in
the light of the sun. And that's what happened when
Christ came. All of the light had opened. Heaven had opened. And the Son of God Himself came
in human flesh, just as He was prophesied to do. He came. The day had dawned, the day star
had arisen, and scattered the night. For Jesus Christ, the
light of the world, had come. And He had come for this purpose. to save His people from their
sins. People are very confused as to
why Christ came. Religion is very confusing. Christ
came for them to make you healthy, happy, wealthy, and wise. He came to offer salvation to
people. That's what they believe Christ
came to do. The Scriptures have no such words
like that. The Scripture says, Thou shalt
call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. This is no obscure thing. And
when Christ came, what did He do? He saved His people from
their sins. Hebrews 9.22 tells us that He
obtained, He got, obtained eternal redemption for us. In Hebrews
10 it says, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Thus the light of the world and
the Holy Spirit by our gospel now shines into this dark world
as it has shined first into our hearts To us who believe on Christ. Isn't that what it says? As God
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He has shined
in our hearts to give us the light of the glory of God. Where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
We who believe on Christ. This gospel is not obscure. Christ and His mission is not
vague. We understand exactly what He
came to do, and we trust in Him that He has accomplished it all.
And He will come and fulfill all of His promises. This is
not vague. It is not obscure. The light
has shined out. Heaven is opened in our eyes. We understand. We know. We know these things. And though
the light is plainly revealed to us, even though it shines
ever so bright by the gospel we preach, and ever so clear, unless God opens a man's eyes,
he will never understand this message. This is how ruined, this is how ruined man is. that
the very speech that I'm talking to you in is not obscure, it's
not vague. I have told you what God tells
us in His Word. These are words that children
can understand. These are not complicated words. And yet men do not know, they
cannot know these things, except God open their eyes. Except God give them a new nature,
a mind. Except one be born by the Spirit
of God and by the will of God, they will never believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember those two instances,
the Lord was speaking in parables and His disciples asked Him,
Lord, why? Why were You speaking to them in parables? And He told
them in such plain words. He says, unto you, It is given
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto them
It is not given For you to know and to be able
to see the heavens opened and Christ the light of the world
it must be given to you Now, do you know the mysteries
of the Kingdom of Heaven? Has Heaven been opened to you?
If you believe on Christ, it has. You know all things. Isn't
that what the Scripture said? John said, you know all things. You know all things. If you know
Christ, you know all things. Why? Christ is all. Christ is
all. Do you know the hidden wisdom
of God? To know that is to know Christ.
To know this is to know that God has chosen a people, that
Jesus has died for them, and they all shall come to faith
in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit, and none of them shall
be lost. And we who believe this, we have
been washed, reconciled by the blood of Christ, we have been
robed in His righteousness, we have been given life, and we
shall never, never perish. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him,
listen, should not perish. You realize that you'll never
perish. You'll never perish. You who
know the mysteries, you who know Christ. Now you suppose that
such knowledge would be elementary. You know Christ. Is this elementary? It's elementary to understand
and believe on Christ. Yet why are not many believing?
Where are they? I'm not talking about giving
a nod to Jesus as though you acknowledge His existence. Devils
acknowledge His existence and they tremble. That's not faith
in Christ. That's not saving knowledge.
I'm talking about an intimate understanding, an intimate knowledge
of Christ. To believe on Him. To trust the
weight of the soul on Him. To bow before Christ. Christ
is all, you would figure that Christ is all is elementary.
That salvation is of the Lord. You know that. You who have been
saved, you understand that salvation from start to finish is all of
the Lord. That should be elementary. But
I tell you, it's not common knowledge. It's not commonly known, nor
is it commonly preached. In this time, it is not known
or preached And I tell you this, only the Holy Spirit can open
it and reveal it to men. Only the Spirit of God can testify,
can preach Jesus Christ and reveal Him. That's what it is to have
heaven open because that's what John... Isn't that what John
sees? What does John see when he sees heaven open? He sees
Him riding on the white horse whose name is faithful and true.
He sees Him whose name is the Word of God. He sees Him who
is a mighty conqueror, a King of kings and Lord of lords. That's
who He sees. Isn't that what you saw when
heaven was opened to you? But I tell you, one day heaven
will be opened to everybody in this sense. It will be opened
in that everyone will see Him when He comes. Everyone will see Him. They will
see Him as He is. When He comes, He will be known
by all. And see this picture then that
unfolds before us here. He says, And I saw heaven opened. And behold, a white horse, and
he that sat on him is called faithful and true, and in righteousness
he doth judge and make war. The one seated on the white horse
is none other than the Son of God. And His appearance is not
veiled, but exposed. When Christ comes again, His
appearance will not be veiled, but it will be exposed. And everyone will know the majesty
and dominion of Christ. Everyone. Everyone will see it. Now the
first time when Christ came, He did not come in majesty, did
He? He came veiled in humility. He condescended to be born of
the virgin's womb. He rode not on a white horse,
but on an ass. He came in humility the first
time. He came in humiliation. He was
subject to the law of God and subject to the slights and mockery
of men. And when put to those false charges,
what did the Scripture say? It says, as a lamb, he opened
not his mouth. In humiliation, he endured the
cross and bore the shame. And upon the cross, he died the
death that we deserved. God imputed the sins of His people
to Christ and He willingly laid down His life for the sheep.
And now the Shepherd, in meekness and power and love, calls out
His people. This is a day of great grace.
It's a day of mercy. It's a day of hope. Sinner, come
to Christ. This is the day. Come to Christ. Come now to Him. This is a message
of hope, because when He comes again the second time, there
will be no hope. Today is the day of salvation,
not tomorrow. Today. Because when He comes
again, there will be no hope for it. Because notice what he comes
for. Look at this. He comes on this white horse,
he that is faithful and true. He comes in righteousness and
doth judge and make war. He came first to save. He is
now calling his people and saving them. But when he comes again,
it will not be in salvation, it will be in judgment. Judgment. In righteousness he doth judge
and make war. Listen to the description. 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 himself, and he was clothed in a vesture dipped
in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies
which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed
in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a
sharp sword, And with it he should smite the nations, and he shall
rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on
his vesture and on his thigh the name written, King of kings
and Lord of lords." Does this sound like mercy? Does this sound
like one coming in mercy? This is One coming to conquer.
This is One coming to show who He is, to display His might,
His power, and His vengeance on His enemies. You see, clearly the language
here is not one of peace, but of war. Make no mistake, Christ
who saves us is also the Christ of war. He is a man of war. And this is so because he has
an issue, a conflict with fallen man. Do you understand that,
that Christ has a conflict with fallen man? Scripture says He
is angry with the wicked every day. Every day. Man has fallen. And by our own
sin we have rebelled against the sovereign rule of God. I
want you to understand, sin is no mistake. Sin is no accident. Sin is spitting in the face of
God. That's what sin is. It is shaking
your fist in the face of Christ, telling Him, I will not have
this man to rule over me. That's what sin is. What we consider
small sins is nothing but treason. Treason. against the Lord of
Heaven. And one day, when Christ comes,
He will come in vengeance and His eyes are a flame of fire.
What does that mean? His eyes are full of vengeance.
And I know this, He is not... No sin is hidden from His eyes. This is what it means. His eyes
see all things. All things that ever a man did. And nothing will be secret in
this day. Everything will be exposed. Everything
will be judged. Every thought, every motive,
and intent of the heart, God will judge. And notice this, He had on His
head many crowns. What does this mean? There is
no place that he does not have dominion. That's what that means.
There is no hiding from him. No hiding. When he comes, there's no place to go. There's
no more room to run. No more places to hide. He said, All power is given to
Me in heaven and in earth. He said, The Father hath committed
unto the Son all judgment. All judgment is committed to
the Son. Now then, notice the cause of judgment. Here it is.
He had a name written that no man knew but himself. Here's the cause of judgment.
that no man knows Christ. No man knows Christ. These whom Christ will judge,
these men who are men who knew not the name of Christ. His name
was hidden from their eyes. Now today I've told you plainly
of Christ, haven't I? I've told you who He is, I've
told you what He's done, I've told you what He'll do. and yet you still mean some of
you still don't know his name christ said he did believe it
not that i am shall die you don't know he's god you don't
know his name you don't know his name You don't know Him who
came in the flesh, you don't know His name. I tell you, of
His sinless righteousness, of His perfect obedience, His perfect
redemption. I tell you of His substitutionary
death, His resurrection from the dead, and how He sits upon
the throne of God and sends His Spirit to call sinners to life
and faith. He freely gives eternal life
to all who believe on Him, who have no merit in righteousness
of their own. And yet, why will you not come?
You will not come because you don't know Him. You will not
come because you know not His name. You've not called on Him. I tell you, many people call on
Him for earthly things, right? Lord, save me from death. Lord,
save me from sickness. Lord, save me from poverty. Lord,
save me from this. But I tell you, you don't know
His name if you've never been pleading for mercy and forgiveness of
sin. You never know His name until
you know that He alone freely gives life. He said this, No man knoweth
the Son save the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save
the Son, and listen, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him. And now, we see His name, we
know His name, But where do we know His name?
How do we know His name? Look at the next verse. "...And
He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and His name
is called the Word of God." Now, you suppose those things are
contradictory to one another. It says on one end, it says,
well, nobody knows His name but Himself, and then all of a sudden
it says, wait, His name's written right here, it's the Word of
God. That's not contradiction. No
man by nature doesn't know His name. And the only way you know
His name is this, by His gospel. That's what this vesture dipped
in blood is. It is when Jesus Christ Himself
bore our sins in His own body and tread the winepress of the
wrath of God alone for our sins, endured them, and His vesture
was covered in His own blood. You see, that's the only way
I know Him. It's through His gospel. It's through His death. And that's the only way I know
God. The Word of God. John says, In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God, and all things were made by Him. Not anything was
made without Him that was made. And we beheld His glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It is
the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who alone endured the wrath of
God in full measure for the sins of His people. And you know what? I know this Word of God. I know
Him. I know that that vesture dipped
in blood stands for me as a mediator between me and God. Every day
that vesture testifies of His mediatorial work between me and
God. He stands between us, between
us and the holiness of God, and God accepts us only as He sees
us in His Son. only as He sees us in His Son.
Do you not see that? With His perfect righteousness
on, I am as holy as the Holy One. Isn't that glorious news? If you know the Word of God,
if you know His name, you know this, He has taken away your
sin and He has clothed you in righteousness. You know the Word
of God. You know His name. But in that day of His wrath,
this vesture of blood that testifies to us of His name will also testify
against everyone who does not believe. Now, we who know His name, we
must and do confess that His name is much a mystery to us
still. Isn't it? We see through a glass
darkly. We do. I don't know the fullness
of His name, do you? I don't know the fullness of
His person. I don't know the fullness of His grace. I know
some. I'm so grateful to know some. But I don't know the fullness
of it yet. But what we do know is this. Jesus is the Word of
God, isn't He? That the whole Word testifies
of Him. Isn't that something that people can go in this book
and find many different things? I find one thing in this book.
Every time I go there, I look for one thing. I look for Christ.
Why? He's the Word of God. This whole
book testifies of Him. And if you pick anything else,
what you've done is you've lessened it. You've made it less than
what it really is meant to be. He says the volume of the book
is written of Me. to do Thy will, O God." Now,
notice this, "...and the armies of heaven which followed Him,
upon white horses and clothed in fine linen, white and clean."
Now, we know that the angels will come when Christ comes again
to judge the world, but these are not angels, these are the
redeemed ones, and we can see this for several reasons. First
of all, they are soldiers that follow their captain. We, as believers in Christ, are
soldiers, are we not? We are soldiers. That's why the
apostles said, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness in high
places. Therefore, put on the whole armor
of God, that you may be able to withstand the wows of the
devil. We have enemies, friend. They're
spiritual enemies. They're not carnal. They're spiritual.
And we must dawn on the gospel of Christ. We must put on the
breastplate of righteousness. Hold His righteousness near to
your heart. The helmet of salvation. Protection of the mind. Let this
mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. That's the mind we should
have. Praying with all prayer and supplication. Shodding our feet with the preparation
of the gospel of peace. These are things soldiers do.
And when we come with Him, when He comes to judge, we will not
be judged, we will come with Him in judgment. Come with Him. His armies follow Him. We follow
Him now, don't we? He said, My sheep, they hear
My voice, and they do what? Follow Me. They follow Me. You follow Him? You follow Him now, you'll follow
Him then. See, correlation, it's not ever
going to stop. We won't ever stop following
Him. Secondly, we ride the same horse. You got that? He rides
on a white horse. This speaks of power and swiftness,
which is the Spirit. The Spirit of God was given to
Him without measure. Even so, us, it is given to us,
and we ride with swiftness. And who carries us into this
battle? I know you fail. I know this
from my own self. I see myself as the weakest soldier
that ever lived. But yet, I know this. I'm victorious
because of He who carries me into battle. The Spirit of the
living God carries me. He carries us now and He'll carry
us then. following Christ. And thirdly,
we know these are saints because of their dress, their clothed
in the righteousness of Christ. Isn't that what he says back
in verse 8 of the same chapter? He says that it was granted to
her to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. And what is
this? The fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints. So what is these? We are granted
to be robed in His righteousness. made by Christ, clean and white."
And notice verse 15, "...out of his mouth goeth a sharp two-edged
sword. And with it he shall smite the
nations, and he shall rule over them with a rod of iron, and
tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God."
What does this mean? I'll tell you right now, the
Gospel is divisive, isn't it? Listen, I want you to hear this.
This is going to make a division all by itself. You who believe on Jesus Christ shall be saved. You that do not believe shall
be damned. Got that? Now, I didn't have
to make a division in myself. The Gospel makes that division
all by itself. And this makes people angry. Christ said, I came not to send
peace, but a sword. And those enemies will be of
a man's own household. Have you not found that to be
true? I have found that to be true. But one day this sword, and I'm
thankful for this sword because it actually brought me life. It made a division in me. It
gave me a new nature, a new heart. And there is a division in me.
There's a struggle in me. There's two natures now conflicting
with one another. That division, that sword has
made a difference in me. But one day it's not going to
be used for grace, it's going to be used for judgment. And
God is going to smite the nations and rule them with a rod of iron.
You know He doesn't have to rule His people with a rod of iron?
Why? We willingly follow Him. We willingly
serve Him. We willingly bow down to Him
as Lord and King. But one day, those who will not,
He will rule them with a rod of iron, and the sword of God's
justice shall smite them, and they shall be damned forever.
In verse 17 of this chapter, an angel stands and he calls
the birds of heaven. Even before the battle begins,
the birds are called. The fowls are called to feed
upon the flesh of the slain. Believer, just as sure as you
are for heaven, unbelievers are just as sure for the damnation
of hell. Just as sure. And in that day when Christ comes,
He shall overthrow the beast. In verse 19, I saw the beast
and the kings of the earth and the armies gathered together
to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against
His army. And I tell you, that's what's happening now. The beast is making war. But
I tell you, when Christ comes, it will be no long battle. It will be just his very presence
shall cast them into hell. Look at that next verse. And
the beast was taken. They set themselves in array
and then they were taken. No long battle here. When Christ
comes, it's over. It's over. No more hope for them. No more struggle. It's over.
The sword of His mouth shall smite them, and they shall be
destroyed. And listen, He hath on His vesture
and on His thigh the name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. Now let me ask you, have you
bowed to the King and Lord of all the universe? I didn't mean
nod your head and say a little prayer. I'm talking about submission.
True submission. Surrender. I've got nothing to offer. I've got nothing to give. I've got nothing but sin. And Christ is my only hope. I bow. And you know what, I haven't
stopped bowing. I haven't stopped bowing. But listen to me, you'll bow
either now or later. But I promise you this, you all
will bow to Christ. May God, the Holy Spirit, even
cause you to bow today.