Revelation chapter 19. And our text will be found in verses
7 and 8. Revelation 19, verse 7 and 8. The Scripture says, Let us be
glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him. For the marriage of the
Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready and to her
was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean
and white for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. I've entitled the message this
morning, the joy and worship of heaven. The joy and worship
of heaven. The first point I want us to
see is this. Heaven is a place of both great joy and great worship. Read this in verse 7 with me.
Let us be glad and rejoice. Heaven is a place where Every
believer has his final destination. Heaven is a real place. It is a place created of God
for His saints. You see, God needs no dwelling
place. God needed no dwelling place. He alone by Himself in
eternity was perfect, content without creating anything. God
is holy and righteous in Himself and has need of nothing. But the Scripture says that God
created the heavens and the earth. What did He do this for? He did
this for His people. He did this for His saints. God has set His throne in the
heavens and it is a place where all of the elect of God, all
those chosen by sovereign grace and eternal love, all those that
have been redeemed by the Spirit of God, and all those who have
been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and all those who have
been quickened by the Spirit of God, These are whom God has
prepared this place called heaven. Jesus said to the thief on the
cross, he said, today thou shall be with me in paradise. That's another word for heaven,
paradise. You see, man was in paradise
and man fell out of paradise because of sin. Christ came and
accomplished righteousness and by His blood redeemed His people
and has brought them back into paradise. Heaven. Heaven. Is heaven a place prepared for
you? Is that not a question we all should
be asking? Is heaven a place for you? Did God prepare heaven for you? If you have been cold, to faith
in Christ. It is true that God has redeemed
you by the blood of Christ and called you His elect from eternity
and heaven was from eternity prepared for you. God purposely prepared it for
you. Go to 1 Peter chapter 1. Look
over to 1 Peter chapter 1. This should cause God's people,
this should cause every believer in Christ to rejoice and to be
glad. To rejoice and to be glad. 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 2. Paul is writing to the elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Those are
the ones that God chose in eternity, the elect. Through sanctification of the
Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ, grace and peace be unto you. Every believer in this building
should have the utmost joy and peace in your heart because of
this. If you are a believer in Christ,
God's Word is something that we should rejoice in. The Word
of God itself is a gift of God to us. It is God's communication
with us. This is how God speaks to us. God in different times spoke
in different ways to the prophets, but now has given us His final
Word in His Son. And this is the Word of God.
This is God's Word for us, for man. We should rejoice that God
gave us His Word, because if we've never heard the Word of
God, we never could have been saved. But God gave us His Word. And what does God reveal in this
Word? He reveals that there is an elect people. To the elect, according to the
foreknowledge of God. Now, God's not looking at what
you would do, but God looked in love to you and chose you
based on nothing in you. He chose you because he would.
That's sovereign electing love. God's Word reveals this truth
that never could have entered into the heart of man. You know
that no religion in the world speaks of sovereign electing
grace. Every religion but the gospel
speaks of you doing something to merit God's favor. Every religion
without exception. Look in history. You'll see every
religion has something for you to do to please their God, whether
it's sacrificing to the God of Moloch, which is sacrificing
your children. Some people sacrifice their children
to please their God. Or if you look at our religion
today, most religion today is that if you'll just make your
decision for Jesus, then He will be pleased with you. In other
words, you making your choice for Him pleases Him. You see,
it's still something you must do. That's not the gospel. The
gospel is free. The gospel is of grace, of mercy,
of something God did for us in eternity, something Christ did
for us in time, and something the Spirit did for us in experience
of grace, in regeneration of the soul. Scripture clearly teaches in
Romans 9, that God had made a distinct electing choice between Jacob
and Esau. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now, when
did God love Jacob? Way, way back. You see, God could never begin
to do something otherwise He's not God. If God had to start
doing something, then He's not eternal and He's not God. God's
love is always in the same character and nature of God. It is eternal. He loved Jacob from eternity.
And the same is true of Esau. He hated Esau from eternity. Has God set His love on you? If God has set His love on you,
don't you have cause to rejoice? Don't you have cause to be happy? That God has always loved you
and God cannot ever stop loving you? Is that not something to
rejoice about? Man, we're always afraid of somebody
loving us or rejecting us, aren't we? We're always afraid that,
you know, man, maybe they'll love me for a little while and
then they'll cast me off. Well, that's something we can
fear with men because man changes, constantly moving, constantly
changing. God never changes. Otherwise, He's not God. And because God is God, If He
set His love on you, then you have great cause to be happy.
You have great cause to rejoice. Be glad and rejoice, because
God, who has loved us, has sent His Son to bear the guilt of
our iniquity. Isn't that what causes us the
most grief? If you're a believer in Christ, I know it's true of
you and it's true of me. Sin is the most grieving thing
in all the world to our hearts. It's grieving. I hate my sin. Pastor, do you sin? Yes. Matter of fact, everything I
do is mixed with sin. Everything this message mixed
with it, full of it. Why? I'm doing it. I know it
is because I'm doing it. Let me save you some suspense.
Everything that you do has sin mixed with it. Everything you
do has sin mixed with it. Your best religious thoughts
that you have ever had are contaminated with sin. Every one of us are
contaminated by nature full of sin and iniquity. Not one of
us escapes it. Not my children and not your
children. None of us escape that. How then can we please God? How
then can heaven be for us? How then can we be glad? How
can we rejoice if we have sin and God is holy? How can we be
just before a holy God and stand before Him when we die? Only
one way that God gave His Son to bear your guilt. That's the
only hope. Is that somebody else take our
place before God. And that's exactly what God did
for every one of those He loved. He gave His Son. Christ was the only sinless man. Even His enemies said, there's
never a man spake like this man. What did Pilate say about Christ?
He says, I find no fault in this man. Pilate had no love for Christ,
and yet he himself, being an unjust man, found nothing in
Christ. Satan found nothing in him, because
he was the sinless man. The sinless God-man. And yet He came for one specific
purpose, that was to die. That's why He was made man. God
could not die. Man could die. And man deserved
to die. And Christ took our sins by the
imputation of the Father. God bore our sins into His own
body on the tree. And He suffered under the wrath
of God for our sins. And he said, what about my sin, pastor? He
said, it is finished. Christ Jesus finished the work
of atonement for our sins. That thing that separated us
from God, Christ has removed out of the way. What then stops me? From heaven. Nothing. Nothing. He prepared that place for me. And for you, if you know him. and for you. And we have great
cause then to rejoice. You that have heard the gospel,
hear me. How many have heard what you've heard and went away
and died in their sins? How many have heard the message
you have heard? And somehow you believed and
they did not. Were you better? Did you do something
to earn that? No! That was a gift that God
gave you. And we should rejoice in his
gift. We should rejoice and be happy. Not saying we always have to
walk around with a smile on our face, we can't do that. Because
they're suffering in this life. But you can do that in your heart
always. Always rejoice in Christ. Believer in Christ, we must never
then let the circumstances or false religion of this world
move us one inch from the joy that is ours. This joy is yours. It belongs to you. Don't be robbed
by vain philosophies and traditions of men. Don't be robbed of your
joy by law and religion. That just robs us of our joy.
Oh, man, look, I've got to do this and I've got to do that.
No, it's done. It's finished. The work is complete. But in this world, you will suffer. Isn't that the promise of Christ?
Didn't He promise us that? Christ didn't say, well, when
I go, boys, everything's going to be okay. Everything's going
to be swell. All you've got to do is just
go on out there and preach and nobody's going to touch you.
You're going to be healthy, wealthy and prosperous. Is that what
He said? No. No. In this world you shall have
tribulation. He told his apostles, he said,
they'll take you and they'll kill you in my name. Isn't that what happened? Every
one of the apostles, but this one who wrote this book died.
As a martyr, this one was exiled to an island all by himself. Every other apostle died a violent
death. Every one of them. They died broke. They died suffering. They experienced hunger. They
had no homes, no family that loved them. They were rejects
of the world. Hated of the world. Don't put
a glossy coat over the apostles. They didn't have no halos running
around on their heads. These men suffered and people
looked at him and said, man, how could that be? God's men
looked at him. He's suffering. God's people suffer. Look back over to first Peter,
see this, see this in first Peter chapter one again, look at verse
six. Verse 6 says, Wherein we greatly
rejoice? We rejoice in what? The election
of God, the redemption of Christ, and the calling of the Holy Spirit
to faith and life in Christ. We rejoice in those things. Though
now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. Manifold trouble. Many troubles. We rejoice in the gospel, but
we will suffer in this life. We will suffer. Are you suffering? Do you have trouble? If you don't
have troubles, something's wrong. If you don't have any troubles
and everything's going well for you, I'm sorry, there's something
wrong with that. Either you're lying or you're
dead. That's the only thing I can say.
Everyone has troubles. But only a believer can be glad
in the troubles. Only a believer can know that
these troubles are for our good. That baby that died, Caleb and Anna's grandson, that
was for our good. You see, I don't have to explain
how. God says all things. things work together for good
to them that love God to them who are the called according
to his purpose is that you then whatever is happening to you
it's necessary you don't have to know how it's
necessary you just have to believe that God knows what he's doing God knows what He's doing. Jesus
said, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God? Believe also
in Me. In My Father's house are many
dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go and prepare a place for you. And if I prepare a place
for you, I will no doubt come again and receive you to Myself.
No doubt. Who said that? God said that.
You don't have to take my word. God said that. I didn't say that.
I would have no right to tell you that. God said that. When my life work is ended and
I cross the swelling tide, the bright and glorious morning I
shall see, I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side,
and His smile will be the first to welcome me." That's what's
waiting for us. This life is but a vapor, but
a moment in time, and it's gone. Then what? Nothing but joy for
God's people. Why Christ prepared it for us? It's ours. Number two, heaven
is a place of great worship. Look at that in your text, flip
back your text. This is the people in heaven
speaking, they said, let us be glad and rejoice. And give honor. To. Him, to who? In the previous
verse, the Lord God omnipotent. That's who. Let us give honor
to God. Honor to God. In heaven, the saints will be
forever giving honor to God. Believer in Christ, our God reigns
over everything. You believe that? If we truly believe that, why
are we so troubled? I pray that I could believe that
more. Our God reigns over all things. There is nothing that happens
by chance or accident. It is by divine providence. You are not here by accident.
You're here on purpose. God sent you here. Otherwise,
you wouldn't be here. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here. This should give us great confidence
and this should give us hearts of great worship. Worship. It was God's eternal decree that
chose us, redeemed us, and called us. And if God does all that
He purposes, shall He not bring us to Himself? Is there anything
too hard for God? Is there anything too difficult
for Him to do? No! Absolutely not. Our God reigneth. And Heaven is one continuous
church service. Now, you that don't like church,
heaven is not a place for you. Heaven is not a place for you.
Heaven is a continual church service. Constantly worshiping
God every day for eternity. I'll tell you a story. My son,
I know my family gets all these, I love them and I hope they bear
with me. Andrew came to me the other night and he said, Dad,
I'm afraid of dying. Afraid. I said, son, well, I
can't do anything for you have to talk to God about that. You
have to go to him, he only he can save you. Only he can do
things for you. You have to believe in Christ
and you need to go speak with him. Don't don't come to me.
I can't help you. And he said, Dad, I don't want
to go to hell. He said, but I don't want to
go to heaven either. And I was confused. I didn't understand. I never heard that before. I
never heard anybody say that. He said, I said, why? He said,
there are no video games in heaven. Now you laugh, but I tell you
this, that's exactly how every man feels by nature. He don't
want to go to hell. Sure enough, he don't want to
go to hell. But I guarantee you this, if heaven is church all
the time, he sure as heck don't want to go to heaven either.
Why? Because he is so in love with
his flesh and the things of this life. that he will not let it
go to believe on Christ. This is how lost men feel about
heaven. Heaven to the natural man would be nothing more than
hell. That's what it would be. An eternal hell. having to sit
or praise God and sing to Christ and, oh man, they'd be rather
playing video games or some foolish thing, some childish thing like
that. I'd rather be with my family. I'd rather be with my friends.
I'd rather be over here having a good time. I don't want to
be there. That's what the natural man thinks. That's how he feels about heaven.
See, because heaven doesn't profit the flesh anything. Heaven doesn't
profit the flesh anything. If any man come to me and hate
not his father, and his mother, and his children, and his brethren,
and his sister, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Is that plain? Did anybody miss that? I don't
see how that can be any plainer. To be Christ's disciple, you
must be willing to sacrifice everything. him. Jesus said, count the cost. What will it cost you to have heaven? It will cost us
everything here. Not for our sins. We could give up everything,
it wouldn't take away one sin. But if we love Christ, we are
willing to give up everything that would hinder us from worship. Why would you go and sit in that
church? They don't have anything exciting.
There's no entertainment. There are no comedians. There
are no plays or big performances or artists coming in there. Why
would you go and hear the gospel in this place? That's boring. No excitement. Friends, they
would have no joy in heaven. None. Because heaven is focused
only on Christ alone forever. Forever. It's worship. It's an eternal worship service. Look at your text a couple more
times. I've got two more things. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come. Heaven is
a wedding feast. It's a wedding feast. It's not
a funeral. It's not a funeral. It's a wedding
feast. This is the same feast that Christ
spoke of in that parable. You remember when the king had
made all things ready for the feast and people kept giving
excuses why they couldn't come. They said, oh, I got to do this.
Oh, I got to do that. Oh, I got to go over here and
do this. And what did the master do? What did the king do? He
said, they're not invited. You go out and you get the worst
scum that you can find. And he found me. He found me and invited me to
a wedding feast. And it wasn't just an invitation,
it was a command of a king. He said, hey you scumbag, get
up, come to the wedding feast. The king has commanded it. I'm
going to a king's feast. You see, that wouldn't be something
to somebody who had money, but somebody who had none, that would
be something, wouldn't it? Yeah. You see, I had nothing. And he said, come, I'm giving
you everything. Come to the wedding. And this wedding, when they had
a wedding, there were several things involved in a wedding.
It's not like ours today. It's not like a courtship. You
see, a wedding was a betrothal. In other words, the father of
the son, he would take and he would find a bride for his son. And he would go out and make
a covenant, a contract, with that other father for his daughter.
And they would pay a dowry, he would pay a dowry, so that that
woman would be his son's wife. Is that not a beautiful picture
of the wedding of Christ? God the Father chose His bride,
the bride of His Son, the church, to save the redeemed ones. He
chose us. And not only that, He paid the
dowry for us by the blood of His dear Son. And in a wedding, there's an
interval of time. When the betrothal takes place,
the wedding doesn't take place very soon after. Usually, it's
a number of years before they ever come together as husband
and wife. Now, they are legally bound, legally together, but
not physically together. This is an interval time, and
that's where we're at now. We are the church of God, chosen
of God, redeemed of God. We are in an interval time between
the time where the groom comes and gets us to bring us to his
father's house. Now, get the picture of this.
The bride is at home. She knows she's betrothed. She
believes she's betrothed. She's been bought with a price.
And now she sits in the window, looking out of her window in
the streets, waiting for her groom. Waiting for her husband. And that's exactly what we're
doing now. We're waiting. Waiting for him to come. And
in this betrothal process, when the man comes, he comes down
like a parade in the middle of the street. It's not a secret
thing. It's not something that happens
in the middle of the night. The groom comes with a big procession. singing and celebrating, coming
to get his bride. And he comes to her door, and
he takes her to himself, and they have that procession all
the way back to the Father's house. Oh friend, the feast is ready. Believe on Christ. And everyone
who believes he will come again and take you to his father's
house, not as a slave, but as a bride. As a bride. Notice this, the bride made herself
ready, what is this? What is this? How can sinners
make themselves ready? Pastor, you just told us we're
a bunch of sinners. You told us that we can't obtain
our righteousness with God. How is it that we can make ourselves
ready? It says it right here. It says
the bride, the wife, his wife made herself ready. What does
that mean? What does that mean? How do we
make ourselves ready for Him? Well, that's not speaking of
anything that we can do to be accepted of Him. That's not talking
about that. He's already done everything
that we need to be accepted. We are already His bride. What
do we do to make ourselves ready? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the same way we started
is the same way we'll finish. Faith. Faith. I was telling him this morning,
faith again is never past or future, it's always now. You believe now. And now. And now, and now, and
now, and now, and now, all the way until Christ comes. That's
how we make ourselves ready. Believing, trusting in Him to
come. Trusting in His blood. Trusting in His righteousness. The Lord mentions in a parable,
a wedding feast in another place, and He said there was a man in
this wedding feast, he had on a different garment. Remember
the king walked down the aisles and he was looking at the guests
and everybody was dressed the same except for this one fellow.
He had on something different. And the king says, why you come
like this? Where's your wedding garment? And the man was speechless, and
the king said, buying this man and cast him out into outer darkness. Listen to me, all who have heaven
or desire to have heaven by their own free will and works religion
shall be speechless in the day when Christ comes and they will
be cast out. But we who believe in Christ
have made ourselves ready because we have the perfect righteousness
of Christ. Perfect. righteousness of Christ. We don't have our own wedding
garment. We have his. We have his. We have it by his
positive and negative work, by his negative work of taking away
our sins and his positive work of imputing his righteousness
and imparting his righteousness to us. Notice this. It is fine
white linen. What does that mean? I want to take you to a couple
of places in closing. Look at Matthew 27. What is this fine
linen? Matthew chapter 27. Verse 59.
27 verse 59 says, and when Joseph
had taken the body of Jesus, he wrapped it in a fine and a
linen, clean linen cloth. Why is that there? God doesn't put anything in there
for just taking up space. Why is that there? Flip over to Matthew, Mark chapter
15. Just a couple more pages. Mark chapter 15. Verse 46. Speaking of Joseph again, he
said, And he brought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped
him in the linen, and laid him in the sepulcher which was hewn
out of a rock, and rolled a stone under the door of the sepulcher.
Why is that there again? That's two. God doesn't take
up space. Luke chapter 23. Verse 53. And he took it down the body
of Christ and wrapped it in linen and laid it in a sepulcher that
was hewn in stone, wherein never a man before laid. That's three. Flip over one page. Luke chapter
24 and verse 12. This is after the Lord rose.
And it says, Then arose Peter, and ran into the sepulcher, and
stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves,
and departed, wondering in himself at that which had come to pass. Go to John chapter 20. John chapter 20 and verse 5. Same instance, and he stooping
down looking in and saw the linen clothes lying. And yet he went
not in. Then come a Simon Peter following
him and went into the sepulcher and seeth the linen clothes. And the napkin that was about
his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together
in a place by itself. Why did they spend so much time
talking about this linen cloth? Why was it so important for us
to know what he was buried in? Why was it important to know
that it was left in the tomb? Look at your text. And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen. clean and white. For the fine linen. You don't
even leave it to your imagination what it is. Praise God. I mean,
we could probably go really off somewhere on that one. He doesn't
even give us a chance. Here it is. For the linen is
the righteousness of the saints. When Christ said it was finished,
they wrapped Him in that cloth. It was white because sin was
gone. It's finished. It was buried in the tomb. And what was left when sin was
gone? What's left at the absence of
sin? Righteousness. Righteousness. Not just any righteousness. Your
and my righteousness ain't no good. It's not any good. My righteousness
and your righteousness is about as filthy, dirty rags. That's about as good as we get.
Oh, but I don't have my righteousness. I have God's righteousness. Is that not great cause to rejoice
and worship? Is that not great cause? It sure
it is. It's great cause to rejoice.
Great cause to worship. And it belongs to us. This is the righteousness of
the saints. He did it and gave it to me. And it's mine. The righteousness that he made
is yours who believe in Christ and heaven is yours. Heaven's yours. I pray that God
will bless this to your heart. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.