Revelation chapter 15. And the Lord willing, we shall
look at the first four verses this morning. Revelation chapter 15. And I saw another sign in heaven. great and marvelous, seven angels
having the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the
wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of
glass mingled with fire. And them that had gotten the
victory over the beast, and over the image, and over his mark,
and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having
the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses. the servant of God, and the song
of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord
God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways, thou
King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord,
and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy. For all nations shall come and
worship before thee, For thy judgments are made manifest. Now, up to this point, we have
seen in the previous chapter, chapter 14, We have seen in,
if you'll flip back there, you can go through it with me, I'm
going to give you an overview of what we've seen in the last
part of the vision, in the previous chapter, John 14, 1-5, you see
the future sure estate of every one of the hundred and forty
and four thousand. They're standing with the Lamb
in Zion singing the song that only they know, which is the
gospel. These are the ones that God has redeemed from the earth. He redeemed them from among men
and one day He will redeem us from the earth. He will call
us to be with Him. That was seen in verses 1 through
verse 5. And in verses 6 through verse
13. We see in this the work of the
church. which is the preaching of the
everlasting gospel. That angel that came, he came
from the midst of heaven and he preached the everlasting gospel. This is the mission of the church
in the present state. In the present state of the church
in the world. We declare the gospel of Jesus
Christ to everyone. Without exception, we preach
to everyone within our sphere. We preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ to men. And that is, fear God and give
Him glory. That was their message in verse
7. Fear God, give Him glory. This is our message. Fear God
and give Him glory. How? By believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Repent and believe the gospel. We believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Repent from your righteousness.
Repent from your religion. Repent from your works. Repent
from yourself. And turn only to Christ, resting
in His perfect righteousness and perfect work, which God has
accepted. This is our message. And the
second part of that was false religion. Babylon is fallen.
False religion is fallen. All works religion is empty. It doesn't measure up. It always
comes short of the glory of God. False religion, free will works
religion is a failure. And listen, we also preach the
destruction of all who will not repent. This is a message not
acceptable to the natural man. It's not one that is pleasant
to the ears, but it is necessary that we tell you the end of everyone
who will not repent and believe on the Son of God, which is final
destruction. That's what's said in verses
9 through verse 13. But to you who do believe, we
have an encouraging message in verses 12 and 13. This is the encouragement of
the saints. We are to encourage the saints
in the faith, even unto death. Why? Because our God had said
this, blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. This is our
message to you, saint, to you, child of God who have repented,
to you who have believed, our message is good. We have a good
message for you. God says you're blessed, even
unto death. Even your death is blessed. And
in verses 14 through 20, we are given to see the end of all things. This One, this One likened to
the Son of Man coming on a cloud is the Lord Jesus Christ ascending
from heaven on His throne. He is coming again. He is coming
to do what? To reap. He is coming with a
crown on His head and a sickle in His hand, and He is set to
reap. And what does He reap first?
He reaps the wheat, which are His saints. He is coming and
the dead in Christ shall rise first. And we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds.
So shall we ever be with the Lord. The end. The end. Rather the beginning. Just the
beginning of praise and glory and honor to experience what
God has done for us fully and completely. Christ we shall be
in heaven forever with him and that's the first reaping but
there's a second reaping another reaping Which is those who are
outside of Christ those who are wicked those who have no righteousness
God will send his holy angels to reap them. They are accounted
as grapes When grapes are full and ripe, what are they ready
for? They're ready to be crushed That's what grapes are good for.
Grapes are good when they're ripe only to be crushed. God will crush the wicked. When
their wickedness is full, He will crush them. Therefore, we tell you to flee
to Christ for refuge. So, into which group will you
fall? If you have not believed, why
have you not believed? Why have you not believed our
Gospel? I've told you all things, haven't
I? Isn't this the sum of all history that I've just went through?
I've summed up all the history of mankind in just a few words,
because that's what the Lord tells us. I've told you all things. Where will you be? Into which
group will you fall? I've told you to repent. I've
told you to believe on Christ. I've told you of His perfect
redemption. I've told you of His perfect
righteousness. Why then, you that will not believe,
why will you not believe? Why will you die in your sins? Why? There's no goodness in you. Stop
looking. There's no righteousness in you. I've warned you of false religion.
I've warned you to flee from all freewill works religion because
it is empty, it is vain. And flee to Christ alone. That
is our message. That is our gospel. Why will
you not believe Him? Why will you still seek refuge
in your own righteousness and not flee to His perfect righteousness? Why will you seek to look to
your sacrifices and not look to His sacrifice, which was perfect,
accepted of God, because God raised Him from the dead? That's
how you can tell His sacrifice was perfect. Why will you still
hide under a refuge of lies and deceit? You should believe. Every one of you, under the sound
of my voice, you should believe. And if you do not believe, it
is because of your own rebellion. It is because you hate God and
love yourself if you will not believe. But if you do believe, well,
that's altogether of God. That's all together redounds
to His glory, His praise, His honor that you believe it all.
If you believe in Christ, it is because of Him. And you who
do believe, all that do repent and lay hold of Christ the refuge,
I want to give you a message of comfort concerning this matter
of judgment, concerning this matter of God descending in the
clouds with His sickle and with His crown. Listen. This won't harm you. This won't
hurt you. Deuteronomy chapter 33 and verse
27, listen to these words. The eternal God is thy refuge. Now, how far does that refuge
extend? Huh? If He's the eternal God, then
you have an eternal refuge. It extends from eternity to eternity. God is your refuge. And listen,
underneath are the everlasting arms. And He shall thrust out the enemy
from before thee, and shall destroy them. Believer, don't you see
that you are safe overhead? You are safe from above? The
wrath of God has fell not on you, but on your refuge on Christ. Do you not see that underneath
you, Below, here in this world, and underneath you are the everlasting
arms. Who do you suppose has carried
you all this way? You suppose you've carried yourself,
believer? You suppose you've lasted this
long? Joanne, how long have you believed the Gospel of Jesus
Christ? I tell you, you've been carried all the way. All the
way. And if you make it to the end,
you'll know this, He carried you all the way. So you're safe from above, you're
safe from beneath. And yet notice, he says, I will
thrust out thine enemies before thee. In other words, those enemies
were right before them. They were surrounding them. Is
that not true of you, believer? Are you not surrounded by your
foes? Both within and without, you
are surrounded. And yet your God, your refuge
says, I will cast out your enemies before you. I'll do it right
in front of you. I'll show you. Our enemies are all around us
and they oppose us. The world, the flesh, the devil,
all oppose us. Yet our confidence is not found
in how things appear. Know that. How do things appear? They appear like we're in trouble.
They appear grim. They appear as though this thing
is a mess. But we don't trust in appearances.
We're not to trust in the appearances. Believer, you should expect trouble. We're always surprised My trouble? Why is this happening to me?
Yet our Lord said you should suffer in this world. Take up
your cross and follow me, is what He said. In this world you
shall have tribulation. You should expect trouble and
tribulation and trials, but you should never look at these things.
We should always then have our heart and affection set on things
above. Now is this not the cause of
most of our fears and troubles is that we have set our affection
on something here. If we're anxious, isn't it about
something here? Then what we've done is we've
set affection on that thing. And it's caused us anxiety in
losing it. We're fearful we might lose something. Believers, set your affection
on things above. Why? Because there we never lose
anything. Why would we be anxious if we
would never lose it? Why do we cling so tightly then
to our family, our friends, and even this life? We cling tightly. Why? Because our affection's
on it. This is why you are exhorted to set your affection on things
above and not on things of the earth. Are you troubled? Are
you fearful and anxious? It's most surely because our
flesh is trying to cleave to the world. But I tell you, your
trouble is for this cause, that God might separate you from the
world. That God might take your hand
that is cleaving so tightly to the things of the world and that
He might open it and let it go. Let it go. Believer, remember, we are pilgrims. Isn't that what the Word tells
us? We are strangers. I know this, people look at you
funny. They think you're strange, cleaving
on to this Gospel, cleaving on to Christ, not enjoying the things
of the world and the pleasures of the flesh. They think you're
strange! I am. I'm a stranger. I'm a pilgrim
passing through. Let us not be like Lot and pitch
our tent towards Sodom, but rather let us be like Abraham who sojourned
looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. And so with this in mind, now
that you know all things, you know all things, You who
believe, you know all things. With this in mind, now then,
go to our text. We'll go to our text. John, in
these next two chapters, by this vision, will show us a marvelous
thing. He shows us seven angels with
seven vials of the last plagues, which the Scripture says are
filled up with the wrath of God. Now, listen, there is a day coming,
and I've told you again, I'll tell you again, there is a day
coming, there is a final judgment coming, when the wicked shall
be judged, but make no mistake, God does not pin up all of His
wrath to that day. He does not pin up all of His
judgments unto that day, but pours them out as vials upon
the wicked men, When his iniquity is full, when his iniquity is
full, God is long-suffering with the wicked. He is long-suffering. But there comes a time when God's
long-suffering and patience ends with men. There's a time. In Genesis chapter 15, the Lord
speaking to Abraham was talking about the promised land and how
He would give him the rewards and promises of the Gospel. And
He says, But Abraham, you're not going to be around when your
children inherit this land. He says in Genesis 15, 16, He
says, But in the fourth generation they shall come hither. for the
iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." You see that? Why was the children
of Israel not allowed to enter in at that particular time? Because
it was not God's appointed time for them, but it was also that
God should be long-suffering with the Amorites. With those
nations, those wicked nations, God should be long-suffering. And God had appointed a time.
In 430 years, God would send His people into that land, and
they should be eradicated from the earth. You see, God was going
to pour out these vials upon these people. When? When their
iniquity was full. And He did that. And listen,
even as God does that with the Amorites nationally, I'll tell
you that, He does this with men individually. With men individually. You remember, when we studied
the trumpets in chapter 8 and 9, the seven trumpets in the
vision, what did we say those were? Those were the warnings
of God to the wicked. The trumpets. The trumpets are
warnings of God to the wicked of His coming judgment. They
come in ways like calamities or tragedies. And every tragedy,
every calamity that men face is a trumpet, a warning of God's
impending judgment. But what was the result of these
trumpets? When God warns men, what is the
result of them? Revelation chapter 9 and verse
20 it says they did not repent they did not repent from the
works of their hands nor did they nor that they should stop
not worship devils or idols of gold I look around you just in
our recent history. We've had, what, three hurricanes
pass through? Devastating results. People killed. Whole cities destroyed. In a
matter of hours, God destroyed what man took years to build. In a matter of moments, God could
destroy it. And what is this but a warning?
It's a trumpet. It's a warning of God's impending
judgment upon this earth. Floods, earthquakes, famines,
sickness, sorrows are all around us. Yet men see these. And what is the result? They will not repent from the
works of their hands. You got that? They will not repent
from what? The works of their hands. The
worship of devils and idols of gold. I'll tell you, when these floods
and hurricanes and things come, you know what men do? They double
down in their religion. They do. They become more religious
than they were. They get scared, they get fearful,
and what do they do? They come and they go to church.
They go to their church, they go to the church they'd been
raised in, which is... So they double down on their religious
superstitions. I'll tell you, there are more
freewill works religion places of assembly today than there
were before these hurricanes. They're full. People have needs and so where
do they go? They go to these churches and they double down
on their religion. You remember as the pagan Roman
church flourished in the time of the reformers? That church
at that time covered almost the whole expanse of the globe at
that time. Even so now, free will works
religion spans the globe as the commonly accepted gospel. Go
ask them. Go ask them. And yet the more this free will
gospel is preached, have you noticed the more wicked men become? It's not gotten better, has it?
It's only going to get worse. It appears then that in our age
that the true gospel, it appears as though we are like those two
prophets in chapter 11. Those two prophets that were
killed and laid in the street. That's how it appears to be the
true gospel. But you shouldn't despair, believer.
You shouldn't despair on how things appear. I know this. Before Christ comes, God will
There will be a great coming in. God will call many. He won't use governments. He
won't use the wicked. He won't use the tricks of false
religion. What He'll use is this, the preaching
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and many shall come in. Many
shall come in. But you listen, soon all the
iniquity of man shall be filled up, and God will pour out His
vengeance at His appointed time." So, all the iniquity of man in
this, and I want you to consider that all these warnings of God
to those who will not believe on Christ, they will soon end. They will soon end. and the vial of His last plagues
He'll pour out on these men." Now, there is a time which God
will cease to warn men and call men to repentance, and He'll
give them the desire of their heart. He'll give them what they
want. He will leave these men to die
in their sins. Consider Noah. This is an example. The Lord was long-suffering with
the people in Noah's generation. For a hundred and twenty years,
God sent Noah to preach. A hundred and twenty years was
the arc in building and Noah in preaching the gospel. And I tell you, there were many
warnings during that time. Noah warned them. Noah told them,
the flood is coming, the flood is coming. Get in the ark! Get in the ark! 120 years God
was long-suffering. But there was a day when God
shut the door. Let me ask you, did He shut the
door before or after the flood came? Before the flood. God says this in Genesis 6, ìMy
spirit shall not always strive with man.î You see, God did not
always strive with them. God did not always allow His
gospel to enter their ears. One day, He shut the door. And
when He did that, He shut out all hope. Consider Pharaoh. Pharaoh hardened
his heart. He had all the warnings, all
the trumpets, and one day God shut it and gave Pharaoh exactly
what he desired, a hard heart. God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And you make no mistake, it's
exactly what Pharaoh desired. In Matthew chapter 12, our Lord,
He says, "...all manner of sin shall be forgiven, save blasphemy of the Holy Ghost."
You know what that is? That is to refuse to believe
the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is the message of the Holy
Ghost? It is Christ. And to blaspheme
Him is to reject Christ. In Romans 1, chapter 24, God
gave them over to what? A reprobate mind. You listen, you who refuse to
believe, God has not promised to strive
with you for tomorrow. You realize that? Those of our
friends, those of our family who refuse to believe our gospel,
you listen, God has not promised to give them another opportunity. God will not always strive with
man. In Hebrews 6, you remember those
who fell away. He said, it was impossible to
renew them again to repentance. Why? You listen. The vial of
the wrath of God had been filled up, and God had had enough. God had had enough. In one of Spurgeon's sermons,
there was a man named Francis Spira, a man who was in the Reformers'
day and a well-renowned man, a man who was known of the Reformers,
known of them greatly and admired. And yet, when the Roman church
pressed him to recant, he did. And you listen, that man died
in agony, not being able to repent. Why? The vial of God's wrath
was full up. It was full up with Him. See,
then the trumpet's worn, but the vials are poured out. And
notice the trumpets and the bowls are not for the elect. That's
good news, isn't it? These trumpets, these vials and
trumpets, remember, yours are the seals. That's for you. Believer,
these are not for us, but only for those who will not come,
those who have received the mark. Look at this in chapter 16, verse
2. I'm going to let you know this
is not for us, believer. If you've already believed on
Christ, you do believe on Christ, you are repented of your sins
and come to Christ as your refuge. These vials are not for you.
Look at that in verse 2 of chapter 16. And the first went out and
poured a vial upon the earth, and it fell a noisome, grievous
sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them
that worshipped his image. Who are they? Those who will
not believe the true gospel. Those who believe the false gospel. That's who these are for. Who
will not repent and trust Christ. But you who do believe, I want
you to consider this, that God will not trifle. You do not believe. God will not trifle with those
who trifle with His Son. Isn't that what men do? They
say, ah, tomorrow, tomorrow. I'll believe tomorrow, but today
I'll have my way. Today I'll do my bidding. Today
I will have my lust. God may give you what you want.
forever. Is that not solemn? It is. When a man is filled up the measure
of God's wrath, By willingly rejecting and despising the gospel
of grace, that man is past all hope, the door of the ark is
shut, and damnation is sealed. For such men is the wrath of
God prepared." So why then will you despise
today the day of grace? Why? Fool boast not thyself of tomorrow
thou knowest not what a day may bring forth See day today I have a message Today the doors open Today come in come now Now then, look at your text again
and see what's for you, believer. And verse 2, because I know this
troubles you and God knows this troubles you, doesn't it? I mean,
you hear things like that and the believer is the only one
concerned. The believer is the only one fearful. Is it me? We're like the disciples. Is
it me? Is it me? Am I going to leave? Am I going to have no hope? And
when these things come up, you notice that in Revelation so
far, that when there's ever something dark, something bleak, God always,
before He even finishes, you know, He doesn't even show us
the pouring out of these vials until the next chapter. Why?
Because He's got to comfort His people. He's got to comfort you. And so look at what John saw.
And he said, I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire.
And them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over
the image and over the mark and over the number of His name,
they stood on the sea of glass having their harps. And so for the comfort of the
saints, let us look at these things just for a few minutes
here. First of all, the sea of glass. The sea of glass. This sea of glass is first seen
in Revelation chapter 4 and verse 6 when it said that when he was
describing the throne of God and he said, before the throne
was a sea like unto glass. What does that mean? How do you
picture a glass sea? It's calm. There's no ripple. There's no wave. It's calm. This sea of glass
was before the throne of God. This is the same sea which is
the sea of the blood of Christ. that cleanses us from all sin.
This is what this sea is of glass. It is the blood of Christ. You
remember in the tabernacle they had that brazen labor where the
priests would come in before to wash themselves before they
could enter into the worship of God. Is that not true of Christ's
blood? It's a picture of the blood of
Christ. And in 2 Kings there is a reference to this. You know what it's called? It
is called the brazen seed. The brazen seed before the tabernacle. It is called a sea of glass because
of its stillness and clarity. Believers see that we stand before
God on the blood of Christ. We see clearly that by His one
offering, the raging sea of God's justice has been stilled forever. You who stand, you stand on the
blood of Christ. the sea, and notice it is mixed
with fire. This sea of God's wrath, this
is a sea of God's wrath, and though it is calm to you, and
though you are able to stand above it and on it, will consume
all the wicked. But for you, it's safe. It's safe. The blood of Christ
alone is the basis upon which we stand before the throne of
God. And second of all, notice who
stands there but the victors over Antichrist. It says that
these are they that had gotten the victory over the beast, and
over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of
his name. The victory is by their standing
upon the blood of Christ. John says this is the victory.
which overcometh the world, even our faith." You see, we stand
on the blood of Christ, how? By faith. By faith. Those born of God have this faith. But oh, how weak is our faith. Our faith is weak, isn't it?
How often do our hearts cry, Lord, increase our faith. Yet
faith remembers a gift of God and not of works. Faith is the work of God. Do
you believe on Christ? Then consider this a miracle,
friend. It's not just common. What you
have is not common. It's supernatural. It's a work
of God in you. And so our faith is not to be
laughed at. Our faith is not our own, but
rather a work of God. But I want you to understand
this, that our faith is not in our faith. We stand not upon
this sea of Christ's blood in the strength of our own faith,
looking to our faith. We look rather to the object
of our faith. It is the object of our faith
that sustains us. It is the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Savior. Our faith that overcomes the
world is our faith in Him, in Him. Therefore we are presently
trusting in Him alone, desiring only to hear and stand before
Him. Thus we have this promise that
Antichrist and his religion shall never overcome us. But we have
overcome them. You see, Antichrist could never
deceive us, allure us, or destroy us, nor can it hinder our faith
in the gospel of Christ. For we are victorious, not by
our own strength and power, but because He chose us, He redeemed
us, He called us, and He keeps us. You see, you're standing
on this sea because of Him. And thirdly, they had this in
their hands, they had harps in their hands. In Psalm 137, the
children of Israel were in captivity and they said, we've hung our
harps on the willows and we cannot sing. Why? Because they were
in captivity. Believer, you're not in captivity
anymore. You have been set free. Don't
hang your harps upon the willow, we take our harps down and we
sing praises under our God. These who stand upon the sea,
we sing praises. You may be surrounded by trouble,
and most of our days upon the earth will be filled with sorrow
and trials and troubles, our bodies in pain, our minds tormented
and troubled by our sins, yet we are not to hang our harps,
but rather to sing praises unto our God. And what song did they sing?
Look at that, verse 3. They sang the song of Moses.
This song of Moses, when did He sing this? It was after they
had went over the Red Sea. After God had sacrificed the
offering of the Passover, they were delivered They came to the
Red Sea. The sea parted before them and
they were safe on the other side. You listen. The blood of Christ
has been shed. The wrath of God has been parted. And now we walk through on dry
ground and we are safe on the other side. Sing! Sing! Why? The Lord hath delivered
us. He hath cast the horse and the
rider into the sea. All of your enemies that would
hinder you or drag you back to Egypt. are destroyed. You see,
we sing because we're delivered. We are delivered. We've been delivered by the blood
of the Lamb. We sing praise unto our God. prays for the redemption of our
souls by the blood of Christ. Therefore, let us behold Him
and praise Him as our Lord and King." Isn't that what they said?
They sang praises unto the King of Saints. The King of Saints. You see, believers, our faith
is in Christ alone. We have been delivered by Him.
We now stand in Him before God and are accepted. We now fear Him, though others
will not. But you mark this down, they
will soon. You know, soon, very soon, everyone
will believe this gospel you believe. They'll know it. Every knee will bow to the Lord
Jesus Christ. We bow now willingly. They will
be forced, but they will bow. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord,
and glorify Thy name? For Thou only art holy, and all
the nations shall come and worship before Thee, for Thy judgments
are manifest." Believer in Jesus Christ, let
us be aware of this, that the vials of God's wrath are being
filled up, that God is long-suffering with men for only so long, AND
HE SHUTS THE DOOR, BUT FOR YOU, HE GIVES THIS COMFORT. YOU STAND
ON A SEA OF GLASS, MANGLED WITH FIRE. YOU STAND ON THE BLOOD
OF CHRIST. YOU HAVE HARPS IN YOUR HANDS.
YOU HAVE OVERCOME THE ENEMIES BY HIS BLOOD. AND NOW WE SING
PRAISES UNTO OUR GOD. And we do this through not only
singing with our voices, but the preaching of this gospel
of Christ, by declaring this gospel. And that's what we're
to be about, declaring the gospel of Christ. May God give us strength and
courage. I'm so thankful to be given such
a gift. as to believe on the Son of God,
to love Him and to serve Him. While others, God has passed by. And if you're not a believer,
you should be. There's no reason not to. If you don't, it's all your fault. Maybe God will give you such
faith today. I pray it will.