Well, we had the privilege of
singing that last song, It Is Well With My Soul. I've heard some very disturbing
news regarding the man who wrote this, that later he actually
denied the faith. I hated to hear that, but the
words he wrote were still good, and so we still sing it. But
I had us sing this song because that last stanza, that Lord haste
the day when my faith shall be sight. and all the clouds will
be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound and the
Lord shall descend. He's coming back. Even so, it
is well with my soul. And I want to speak to you today,
this morning, on the subject of the return of Christ Jesus
Let's go to Revelation chapter 19 again. John has seen some wonderful
things, marvelous things in Revelation chapter 19. He sees and hears
the heavenly hosts. all the saints of God singing
and praising God, rejoicing that the Lord has conquered over false
religion. He's conquered Babylon. Babylon
has been destroyed as she deserves. And she will
no longer spread her religious lies. and she won't lead men
into spiritual fornication anymore. The Lord Jesus is coming back
and He's going to destroy everything that is not of the truth. And I'll tell you, if we're not
of the truth, He's going to destroy us as well. Now, it behooves
each of us, therefore, as Peter says, to make our calling and
election sure. You have no ability to enter
into heaven's glories and open up the Lamb's Book of Life and
see if your name is listed there below the Lamb's name because
His name heads the page. It heads the book. It's His book. And He's the first one who was
chosen and of course we were chosen in Him. But you don't
have the privilege to know whether your name is there or not unless
The Spirit of God has effectually brought you, called you to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the book. You know, the jailer, he brought
Paul and Silas out and he said to them, Sirs, what must I do
to be saved? And they didn't say, there's
nothing you can do. They said, this is what you do.
Believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. But you must believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the Lord. He's the Lord. He doesn't want to be the Lord.
He's not begging to be your Lord. He is the Lord. He's Lord by
virtue of the fact that He finished the work of redemption God the
Father assigned to Him in the covenant of grace. He had a work
to do. He did it. The work was to save
His people. The work was to redeem the slaves. The work was to liberate His
people who were in bondage. And our Lord Jesus, He came into
this world for that specific reason, to save His people, to
rescue us. We needed rescuing because we
couldn't do it ourselves. If we could rescue ourselves,
if we could save ourselves, there would be no need for Him to come.
Because we're a poor and a helpless people. He came and redeemed
us to God by His blood. And He's gone back to heaven
and He's the Lord. He's the Lord and He's the truth
we believe. He's the full embodiment of all
the truth of the gospel. He's the one we worship. He's
the one we adore. And this Lord Jesus Christ He
is the one who is coming back again and He's going to forevermore
shut the mouths of those who speak forth a false gospel. And
those who are entangled in religious lies They're going to be put
out of business. That's the reason I said it behooves
us to make sure our calling and election is sure. And the only
way we can know we're elected is if we've been called. Have
we been brought by the Spirit of God to believe on the Son
of God? The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
Savior. He's the only One who can save
you. He's the Christ. He's the Anointed One. He's the
One we believe. That's what Paul said to the
Philippian jailer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and He's the one we rest in. He's the one we embrace. He's
the one we hug up to. The Son of God. But everyone who doesn't believe
Him, everyone whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book
of Life, everyone who dies in unbelief, They're going to find
out that He's not only full of grace and mercy, He's full of
wrath, and He's full of condemnation as well. Scripture says the Lord
is angry with the wicked every day. Woe be unto those who die
in unbelief. Woe be unto those who die in
error. Woe be unto those who die and
they don't know the true gospel. of how God can be just and justify
the ungodly. Our Lord Jesus is going to come
back and He's going to put Babylon out of business. And everybody
who believes the doctrine of Babylon, everybody who believes
error. And I'll tell you folks, that's
a multitude of people. That's every belief except the
truth. Except the gospel. The message
of redeeming grace, the message of the work has been done by
Christ Jesus. And so he's going to come back
and John hears all of these people, they're singing about the Lord's
victory over Babylon. They're rejoicing, they're singing
hallelujah. And then John hears, he hears
a voice about the marriage of the Lamb. And we know that in
the book of Revelation, the word lamb is used about 40 different
times, and whenever it's used, it's always directing us to the
lamb who was slaughtered. The Lamb who was sacrificed?
The Lamb who died that we would go free? That we would be saved? And John hears this voice saying,
be glad and rejoice and give honor to the Lord, the marriage
of the Lamb has come. This is a time when the Lamb
of God is going to be presented to the bride, and the bride is
going to be presented to Him. We know this, in old eternity
the Lord chose for Christ Jesus a bride. A bride of numberless
people? These were given to Him in covenant
grace, entrusted to Him. And He accepted full responsibility
for the salvation of these people. The Lord Jesus often spoke, especially
in the Gospel of John, about those the Father gave Him. He
said, All that the Father giveth Me, they shall come to Me, and
him that cometh to Me, I'll in no wise cast out. And so these
that were given to Him, these that were given to Him, were
given to Him to be His bride. To be His everlasting companion. To be one with Him. You know, we had a wedding recently
here and many of us are married and the scripture says the two
shall be one. The two become one. We read in
Ephesians chapter 5 about husbands love your wives as Christ loved
the church. Life, submit yourselves to your
own husband. It talks about how those become
one. Then he says, I speak a great
mystery, but, he said, I'm talking about Christ and His church.
He said, that's what I'm really talking about. I'm talking about
the union, the union of the Lord Jesus with His covenant people. And in old eternity, when God
gave us to Him, we were united to Him. Betrothment. It was legal and
binding. And our Lord Jesus came into
the world to pay our debt to the Father that we would rack
up due to our sins. He came to pay a dowry for us. The dowry that He had paid was
the service of Himself in dying in our stead. The price that
He would pay for our dowry was His own blood. His own sacrifice. And then, during this age in
which we live, the Spirit of God brings us to see the beauties
of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we don't see apart from revealing
grace. He shows us the Savior, and He
shows us our need of Him. And by faith, we give ourselves
to Christ Jesus. We give ourselves to Him. We
talked about it in the Sunday School class this morning. We
deny ourselves, we deny our knowledge, we deny our wisdom, we deny our
righteousness, and we come to Christ Jesus. We deny everything
about ourselves. The word deny means we disown
them. We disown ourselves. We disown
any goodness. We disown any righteousness.
And we come to Christ Jesus for everything. We're nothing. He's
everything. He's the one we need. And by
the Spirit of God, we're enabled to see the beauties of King Jesus. And you know what happens? We
fall in love with Him. We fall in love with Him. We
believe Him. We embrace Him. Then, sometime in the future,
there's going to be that official, official presentation of the
bride to the Lamb of God. That's going to happen in glory.
And in that day when all of the redeemed of the Lord are gathered
together, from every age, from every nation, of every language. And that day when we're brought
together in the beauties of Christ Jesus, there will be a public presentation
of this lovely bride to Christ Jesus. And there'll be a celebration.
And it will be a celebration that will last forever and ever
as we're rejoicing in the Son of God. That One who is our Bridegroom. That One who paid the debt for
our redemption. John hears and he sees all of
these glorious things. And then we get down to verse
11. And John says, And I saw heaven open as if he hasn't seen
enough. He's seen a lot of things here.
He's heard a lot of unusual sounds. I mean, he is escorted, as it
were, into eternity. And he hears all of the saints
of God rejoicing in the Lord. Rejoicing in His victory over
Babylon. And then he sees all of this
wonderful host of people. And they're all dressed in white
garments. They're all just alike. It's
the righteousness of the saints that has been freely imputed
to them. That's why it's called the righteousness
of the saints. It's the righteousness that Christ
Jesus established for us. And He gives it to us. He grants
it to us. It's granted to us. You'll notice
there in verse number 8, And to her was granted. She didn't
earn it. She didn't work for it. This
was granted to her that she should be arrayed. Arrayed in fine linen. It's clean and white. It's the righteousness of the
saints. We'll all be alike. It's only
fitting because we're saved by the same grace. chosen in the
same election, redeemed by the same blood, we're saved by the
same gospel, we're called by the same Spirit, we're made anew
in Christ Jesus the same way, and we get to heaven and we're
all going to be dressed alike. I love that in Matthew chapter
22, the parable of the king, gave a wedding supper for his
son, and he commanded the men to go out and compel people to
come in, and people came in. I don't have time to go through
the whole parable, but people came in, they were invited to
this great supper, and this was the tradition back then. When
you go to a wedding feast, a wedding ceremony and the feast, everybody
dresses in the garments provided by the king. And there were white
garments. So when you entered in at, let's
just say if it were here, you entered into the vestibule and
here's all these white robes out there. And you just look,
see what your size is. Here's small, medium, large,
extra large, extra petite, whatever the case may be. You go ahead
and you get, it's the garment. And everybody was dressed alike,
supposedly. And so then you enter into the
chapel or wherever, where the wedding's gonna be held, and
then the celebration. And as the king came in, and
everybody stood up when the king entered, and he looked over this
mass of people who came in, here's a sea of white, except for one. And this guy, he doesn't have
his white robe on. He doesn't have the robe provided
by the king. He had his own garments. Maybe
he went out and he rented a tuxedo. I don't know what he did, but
he had his own garment on. And to him it looked good. But the king was angry. The king
said, Friend, how dare you enter in
here without a wedding garment? And the man is speechless. The
king says, bind him hand and foot. Cast him out. You see, here in the last day,
here is eternity, here's a group of people robed in white. Robed in white. They're all alike. They all look alike. And I'm
asking you this morning, are you robed in white? Is there
anybody here this morning who would dare to keep on a garment
of your own making? A righteousness of your doing,
of your production? You say, well, but I try to do
good, and I've been faithful to the church, and I've been
religious all my life, and I read my Bible, and I do good, and
I give an offering, and I pray, and I do all of these things.
Listen, all of those things count for nothing with God, unless
you're robed in the righteousness of King Jesus. It's good to pray. It's good
to read your Bible. It's good to do good deeds. But that's not salvation. That's
not how you're accepted by a holy God. And God, in His mercy, He
must strip us of our rags of self-righteousness that we, by
nature, just cling to a little tighter. Because it is ever man's
idea that the more I do for God, the more God will do for me. And that's just not true. The fact of the matter is you
can't do anything for God pertaining to your salvation and redemption
and reconciliation. That work's been done. And we
must denounce all efforts, we must deny, we must disown our
righteousness and our goodness. I always loved the writings and
the songs of Augustus Toplady. In fact, that's why I put one
of them in the bulletin today. But he said, nothing in my hands
I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. I don't bring anything. I disown everything I've got. I disown my attendance. I disown this. I disown that. I don't have any knowledge. I
don't have any wisdom. Lord, I don't have anything.
Do you know who receives everything from the Lord? People who don't
have anything and who are made to realize it. So here's the bride of our Lord
Jesus, and she's robed, she's beautiful, she's spotless, like
in Ezekiel chapter 16, that infant cast out in its own filth and
pollution, and the Lord said, I washed you, I robed you, and
you became beautiful through my comeliness. Could I ask you a question? Young
and old alike, are you beautiful to the Lord? As He sees you right
now, does He see you beautiful? Does He see you comely? He does if He sees you in Christ
Jesus. But I'll tell you, outside of
the Son of God, we're filthy and ugly. John sees this great host, and
they're beautiful. They're beautiful. And I'll tell
you, I intend to be among this number. Because I renounce, I
disown, I deny any goodness of my own, any righteousness of
my own, any wisdom of my own, I denounce it all. And I say Christ Jesus is my
all in all. And I have no other hope but
Him. And I hope it's the same with
each of you. Well then John, he gets down to verse 11, he
says, and I saw heaven opened. I saw the heavens opened. What
must that be? How glorious that must be. I
saw heaven opened. And now, and of course here,
once again he gets into the symbolism, because we know the book of Revelation
is a book full of symbolism. He said, and behold, I saw a
white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful
and True. And in righteousness doth he
judge and make war. Now, our Lord, He came 2,000
years ago. It was His first advent, and
sometime in the future, and this is what John is talking about,
His second advent. And the very first time, He also
came to make war. Did you know that? But He came
to make war against our sins. That's what He came to make war
with. But He didn't come to judge men. He didn't come to condemn
men. Not the first time. Go back with
me to John chapter 12. Look at John chapter 12. And we've been studying this
on Wednesday nights. And we're getting toward the
very end of John chapter 12. And in these verses, John is
led by the Spirit of God to kind of give a, I don't know, summarize
the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and His preaching. And
the Savior says this in verse 47. John chapter 12 and verse
47. And if any man hear my words,
and believe not, I don't judge him, I judge him not. For I came not to judge the world,
but to save the world. It's obvious to anybody who reads
the book, especially the book of John with some understanding,
that John refers to two worlds. There's the world of believers
and the world of unbelievers. Or the world of God's elect and
the world of God's unelect, non-elect. Or the world that He loves and
the world that He hates. So there are two worlds. There
are two worlds. And here's what the Savior says,
I didn't come to judge the world, I came to Save the world. In other words, there's a world
of people, all kinds of people, as I've already said from every
nation, kindred, tribe and tongue, that He came to save. That's
the reason He came the very first time. He had a mission, He had
an errand, as I've already indicated. He came to save His people from
their sins. He says, I didn't come to judge
the world. What He did, He came to judge
our sins. He came to do something about
our sins. He came to set the record straight with God. Listen,
there was a mountain that, as it were, stood between us and
a holy God. Our own transgressions, our own
sinfulness, and there it was, real and immovable and huge. There's nothing we could do about
it. God said, your sins and your iniquities, they have separated
you from Me. And the Lord Jesus came into
this world to take care of that issue. Now, here's the question. Did He do it? Did He do what
He came to do? And the answer is, yes, He did. He saved all of those that He
came to save. and very obviously says, I didn't
come to condemn. I didn't come to judge. I came to save. He said the exact
same thing over in John chapter three. Look at John chapter three. John chapter three. He says this,
and he's speaking to Nicodemus. And these words to Nicodemus,
they go all the way down through verse number 21. But I'll break
into this, into our Lord's message to Nicodemus. He says in verse
14, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and
you know, Nicodemus knew exactly what he was talking about because
he's a student of Scripture. He's a man who taught and the
Jewish rabbi schools and so forth. And so he knew this story. He knew about when the Israelites
were bitten by the fiery serpents and the Lord told Moses what
to do, lift up a serpent of brass in the wilderness. And so our
Lord Jesus, speaking to a man who has knowledge of Old Testament
history, he draws on that And this is what he says to him,
as Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness, and you know
what I'm talking about, he could have said, even so must the Son
of Man be lifted up. Lifted up to die. Our Lord said,
used this very expression over in John chapter 12 when he said,
and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. That is
all of my people, all of this world that I love and I came
to save. So he says, must be lifted up,
verse 15, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. For God, God so loved the world. Does God love every single person
in the whole wide universe? Of course not. He didn't love Esau. I know one man he hated, the
Lord says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. And Psalm
5.5 says the Lord hated the workers of iniquity. It's a righteous
hatred. It's a just hatred. Listen, everybody God loves,
He saves. Everybody God loves, He rescues. Everybody in God's family, all
of His sons and His daughters, He sent Christ Jesus to redeem
them. This is not a universal love
that wants good for everybody, but can't really do anything
for anybody. This is a specific love for a
specific people to save them from their sinfulness by the
doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't water down
the love of God. You see, the religious world,
Babylon, would make the love of God to be no more than a wish
for goodwill from God for all men. That's all it is. It's a
love that really can't do anything. It's a love that cannot rescue. It's a love that's bound by man's
will. That's not the love of God. The
love of God is glorious. The love of God is specific.
The love of God is effectual. And the love of God actually
saves. He saves people. And the Lord
Jesus, He came into this world because God loved the world of
His elect. And He loved this world so much. To this degree, He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, even you, even
you. So a preacher, what if the Lord
hates me? Don't worry about that in that
context. You see, you have no power over
whether God loves or hates. Isn't that right? You have no
power over that. If He doesn't love you, you can't make Him
love you. The fact of the matter is, you don't know whether He
loves you or He hates you. Well, what must I do? I tell you what
every sinner needs to do is run to Christ Jesus. Flee to the
Savior. And if you find rest for your
poor soul in Him, it's because God loved you. Is that okay? That's the way we've got to preach
the love of God. It's not some kind of of weak
desire, of feeble desire that can't achieve his goals. It's an effectual love. I don't tell anybody that God
loves them unless they tell me first, I believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ as He's revealed in the Word of God. And I don't
tell anybody God hates them either. Because I don't know that either.
Not much I know. I don't know whether God loves
you, I don't know whether God hates you. But I can tell you this.
If as an unworthy, ungodly sinner you deny, you disown everything
about yourself that you would consider good and you flee to,
you run to, you hasten to the Lord Jesus Christ and find in
Him that only salvation and believe Him to be the Lord of glory,
of God, the Son of Man, the One who lived and died for sinners,
and the only One who can reconcile you to God. If you run to Him
by faith, and you bow before Him, and you suit for mercy,
I believe I can tell you God loves you. God has great affection for you,
and that's the reason you're doing that. That's the reason
you run to Him. Look at now verse 17. What does
the word for mean? Because. Because. God, God Almighty the Father,
He sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. Now the word might, don't let
that throw you, the word might means in order that." That's
what might means, in order that. In order that the world of His
elect, watch it, through Him, don't leave that out, through
Him would be saved. He didn't come to condemn the
world, not the world of His elect, He came to condemn the sins of
the world He came to save. But, back over here in Revelation
chapter 19, He's coming the second time,
and He's also coming to make war. But, not against the sins
of His people, because that's a transaction that's already
happened, correct? That's something that's already
taken place. He's coming to judge and to make
war against His enemies. Against His enemies. You know,
when the Lord Jesus comes back, just two groups of people He's
going to find. The saved and the lost. Those who are His, those who
are not. Those who know Him, those who
don't know Him. Those who believe and those who
believe not. Now as to the people of God when
He comes back, you know what our response is going to be?
Great joy. Celebration. Rejoicing. There won't be any sadness among
the people of God when Christ Jesus comes back. I remember
Many years ago when I was in Bible college, we had a professor,
he said, you know, when the Lord comes back, he said, some of
the Lord's people are going to be happy to see Him, but there
are going to be others who are going to be embarrassed, and
they wish He wouldn't come yet. He said, because they hadn't
done like they ought to have done. And that when they get
to heaven, they're not going to have many crowns. They're
not going to have many rewards. They're going to lose out. There's
going to be great sadness in heaven for them. He said, in
fact, this is what he said. He said, I'm not even sure they're
going to be on Main Street in heaven. He said, in fact, not
that professor, but another guy, he said, there are going to be
some Christians going to live on the back of the, what do you
call it? Slum section? Slum section of
heaven? The bad section of heaven? The
poor section of heaven? Listen. When we get to heaven, we're
all going to be just alike. One is not going to have more
than another, because the Lord Himself is our portion. We have in Christ Jesus every
spiritual blessing. That's what the scripture says.
Isn't that what it says? We have all spiritual blessings
in Him. That means you can't have more
than me. You say, but are you saying, preacher, that the thief
who died on the cross believing Christ Jesus, are you saying
he's got the same position in heaven as the apostle Paul? That's exactly what I'm saying.
That's exactly what I'm saying. Because you see, they're saved
according to the same election of grace. They're redeemed by
the same blood. They're called by the same Spirit.
Regenerated by the same effectual power of God. Taken to heaven
by the same mercy. He said, but here's the Apostle
Paul, he did more for the Lord. He did more for the Lord than
the thief ever had an opportunity to do. But everything the Apostle
Paul did, he did through the grace of God. And he said, it's
not me, but Christ who lives in me. Read Galatians chapter
2 verse 20 again. You see, I do believe in different standings in hell,
if that's what you want to call it, different degrees of condemnation
and punishment. Because all men have sinned alike
according to the light that God sent them. Did not our Lord say
to the cities of His day? He said, it's going to be more
tolerable in the judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than it's
going to be for you. That's what He said. So there
are going to be, somehow or another, degrees of punishment in hell. But there can't be degrees of
glory in heaven. Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
He's our all. We're all robed in His righteousness.
And if you do anything for the glory of God, if you perform
any good works, if you do what you ought to do, you still say,
I'm just an unworthy servant. I've just done what I was supposed
to do. If you figure on getting some
kind of glory when you get to heaven, some kind of recognition.
If you figure that the Lord's going to say, I present to all
the rest of you, here's so and so. And he did more than the
rest of you did on earth. If you think that you're going
to hear that, you've got another thing coming. That's just not
going to happen. In fact, I'm worried as to whether
you're even going to be there or not. Because that kind of
smells of works to me. That kind of smells of man's
will. We're going to all be the same
in heaven. This is the significance of the
white robes. And if the Lord is my portion,
if the Lord is my reward, how can you get more of the Lord
than me? Or how could I get more of the
Lord than you? Well, that's just a holdover
from free will Arminian days. That's all that is. Years ago, I used to work in
a church in Winston-Salem, and Brother Mahan came and preached
for us. And he got on this subject, and
I guess he didn't know. If he did know, he probably didn't
care. that our pastor believed on different rewards in heaven.
And Brother Mahan came in and he said, these people talk about
winning yo-yos and tinker toys. That's kind of lame. Some of
you probably remember him using that kind of phrase. Yo-yos and
tinker toys in heaven. He said, it's not going to be
that way. After he left, our pastor got up the next service
and said, Preachers ought to be careful how they talk about
the rewards that the righteous are going to earn and don't call
them yo-yos and tinker toys. No degrees of heaven. I'm going
to have all of Christ Jesus. You'll have all of Christ Jesus.
And listen, if we're unable to do anything for the Lord, first
of all, remember, the works that we do, and we want to do good
works, but the works that we do, we do because they were ordained
of God. Ephesians chapter two and verse
10. For by grace you say through faith and that not of yourselves,
it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained. that we should walk in them.
Why should you be rewarded for something God ordained in purpose
that you would do? He just used you as a vessel. That's all He did. He could have
used somebody else, but He chose to use you. It's His work. It's
His grace. And He gave you the ability to
do it. When the Lord Jesus comes back,
it's not going to be to judge His people. It's going to be
to receive His people unto Himself. But He will be a man of war against
His enemies. And if you are on the wrong side
this morning, may God the Spirit deal with you in grace. and bring
you to the end of yourself, to where you disown all of your
righteousness, all of your good, all your Bible reading, all that
stuff. You see, that doesn't count for
anything with God. Let me tell you something. God's
only, this is what He's impressed with, His Son. That's all God's
impressed with. He's not impressed with you.
I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done.
The greatest preacher who's ever lived, whoever that might have
been, the Lord wasn't impressed with him. The most faithful believer
who's ever walked on this earth, the Lord wasn't impressed with
him. He's impressed with His only begotten Son. And the only way He's going to
accept you and receive you is if you're in Him. That's the
only way. So I just don't like that. Well,
just go on to hell then is all I can tell you. Because that's
the way it is.