Thank you, thank God. He was
man to suffer, God to save. Oh, the blessed God, man. Look with me again this evening
in Revelation chapter 19. I have spent quite a bit of time
in Revelation 17 and 18. And I've said this morning, those of you who were here, if
you don't mind me repeating just a bit, chapter 17, John sees
a description of the false church. And God just calls it Babylon,
which is just a bunch of confusion. In the Gospel, there's a blessed
simplicity to the Gospel of God's sovereign grace, isn't it? I know it was conceived in the
infinite wisdom of God. Before God made the worlds, even
forever as far as that goes, but he designed this salvation that would honor all of his attributes,
all of the characteristics of God. God chose a Savior There wasn't one choice to be
made as the Son of God. And God chose a people that He
would save. The Lord Jesus was the first
one chosen. He's a Savior who was selected
by God, then we were chosen in Him. That's what the scripture
says in Ephesians chapter one. Chosen in Christ Jesus. And this
great salvation, it just had to be devised by
God because of all the intricacies, all the, what would be obstacles
to anybody else but God. All of these things had to be
worked out. And yet it wasn't difficult for
God. But this salvation, though to
us it is clear and simple, and we don't want to be removed from
the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus, yet we know this gospel
is founded, established, by the great and infinitely deep knowledge
of God. How can God, who is righteous
in all of his works, just in all of his deeds, and he's got
to be that way, doesn't he? He's just got to be that way. How can he deal in grace, in
mercy. How can he embrace people like
us without defiling his own holy character? We could never figure that out. Several years ago we were visiting
in Japan And at that time, David taught some English classes. And he asked me if I would speak
to his class, Japanese people who were learning English from
David. He said, just preach to them.
I said, well, that's what I do. I'm a preacher. So I said before
them the gospel. You know, it's a real challenge
to speak to people about the things of God, people who've
never, they've never heard anything about the true gospel. I mean, we've been over there
to Hiroshima a number of times, and they took us to one, what
they call a Protestant church. and it was a Methodist church.
They don't have churches like we are acquainted with on every
corner over there. It's not like that. And so I
realized I was speaking to people who They didn't know anything
about the Scriptures. You know, we've been blessed.
We've been blessed, a good many of us. We've been taught the
Scriptures for years and years. We've sat underneath the Word
of God, the Word of the Gospel. Don't take that for granted.
God has blessed us. It's a real honor. When I hear
it like Bill Preacher, any of the Lord's servants, that's an
honor to listen to one of God's servants preach the gospel. Brother
Allen, when he stands forth to speak the gospel, Brother Ron,
when he stands behind this pulpit, whoever stands here, whoever
sets forth Christ and Him crucified, it's an honor for us to listen
to them. That's a great blessing. We don't
ever listen to any error in here. We don't have that. We're not
gonna stand for that, and nobody who ever occupies this pulpit
ever preaches error. We've preached the gospel. I
mean, I'm very protective of this, like you were. You were
protective of this. Brother Mahan was protective
of this when he pastored here, and I'm protective of it. Not
just any fellow's gonna come up here and stand behind this
pulpit, so we make sure we, and preachers tell the truth. Well,
they don't have preachers all over the place over there. I
don't know if there's anybody in Japan preaching the gospel,
but anyway. So I began to preach to them,
and I told Nancy this happened, and I said, you know, I'm just
a simple preacher. I'm just a country preacher. I'm not trying to impress anybody,
because my preaching's not impressive. Simple. And try to keep it that
way. I gotta tell you this, one of
the, we had several children in the congregation this morning,
and I'm so thankful for the children, but we had a young girl visit
with us this morning, and she's in the third grade. And as she
was leaving, She came up to me and shook my hand. She said,
good preaching, dude. I said, thank you. I said, I won't get another compliment
like that today, I'm sure. But you know, I want to speak
in such a way that the children can understand, at least grasp
it. So I preached to these people. I tried to find an illustration.
And I said, here's what I was illustrating. I started with
God. Now listen, you always start with God. Our message starts
with God. It doesn't start with us. I know
we're in a mess, but it doesn't start with us. It always starts
with God, just like the Bible starts with God. In the beginning,
God. So I told them who God is. Creator. Great sustainer. talked about
his attributes, talked about his holiness, his purity. And
then I said, then I described us and our sinfulness. And I
said, well, let me just give you an illustration. And every
once in a while, I'd use a word and David would say, they don't
know what that means. And so he would interpret for
me because he speaks fluent Japanese, of course. I said, here's an
illustration. I said, here's your teacher,
your sensei. Here's your teacher. I said,
let's say he had a white suit on. White suit. And I've got a white suit on. And then he, when he was a little
boy, let's say, and he falls in a mud hole. And he gets mudded
from head to toe. And they just laughed, you know.
And I said, now here's what I want to ask you. How could I embrace
him, pick him up and hug him, and not get his mud on me? They
said, you can't do it. I said, you're right. I said,
now here's God in his holiness, purity, white. And I said, he made man upright. But we fell into the mud hole
of sin. All of us have. Some people manifest their muddiness
more than others. And if we don't manifest our
depravity to a greater degree, that's only because of the restraining
mercies of God. some natural goodness in us. I said, so God's white, he's
holy. And I said, we fell in the mud
hole of sin. I said, now you tell me, it's
what I'm asking you. How can this God pick us up and
embrace us and love and welcome us and not defile, not get the
dirt, the mud all over him. And I talked about God and us
and Christ. From the back of the room, somebody
said, Christ Jesus? I said, that's it. That's it. You got it. I felt like going
back there and shaking their hand. You got it. You got it. Our message, is to be clear and
simple. Christ and Him crucified for
poor sinners like us. And I want to set it forth in
a simple way, in an understandable way, but no matter how we set
it forth and how we endeavor to be absolutely clear, this
much is for certain. We're really not going to grasp
this message apart from revealing grace. It takes the power of
God, doesn't it? And you know, if you understand
what's going on, if the message doesn't just kind of shoot right
over your head, but it hits you in the heart, and you can rejoice
in this grace of God. You understand to some degree. I know none of us understand
all of it. To understand it all, you have
to be God. But if you can understand to
some degree, this is how God can receive me and not defile
Himself. Because I know this, God is not
going to lower His standards. He will not do that. He is just,
He is holy, He is righteous, and He's always going to be that
way. Even when He shows mercy, when He forgives, it's got to
be in a way consistent with His own holy character. That's why
Christ Jesus came. To honor God's character. To
honor God's justice. to save His people from their
own sinfulness by taking our place. And all of our indebtedness,
all of our filth, you think about it, that's all charged to Him.
That was charged, that was laid to His account. And there the
innocent, the one who is innocent in Himself bore all the sins
of His people. And he had to answer for our
sins. Because somebody's got to answer to God. That's all
there is to it. And he did. He answered to God
for all of his people. For all of his chosen ones. Everybody
God gave him in the covenant of grace. Everybody God entrusted
to him. He came down here to this earth.
And then at that appointed hour, Boy, he went to the cross of
Calvary and he dealt with God for us. He dealt with God for
you. He dealt with God for you. He
dealt with God for me. I can't deal with God. God's a consuming fire. But the
son of God came down here and in love he said, I'm gonna take
care of this for you. See, that's the good news of
the gospel, isn't it? He took care of it. He paid our
debt. And we as the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, redeemed by his blood, Having had the gospel
revealed to us, we rejoice in Him. We rejoice in this full
and free redemption. Because we know we didn't do
it. It's not of us. This is of God. You wouldn't be in here tonight
worshiping and understanding how God saves sinners. You wouldn't
be here apart from the fact that God drew you and He's given you
a love for this very message. That's why you won't stand for
hearing anything different, and I won't either. We love this
gospel, but there's religion all around us, and I hate this
gospel. that which we dearly love, and
that which God loves more than we do. There are people who despise
that message. They don't like God being God. They want God to be whoever they
want Him to be. They've got their own ideas about
God. And when the Word of God talks
about God reigning, God ruling, God showing mercy to whom He'll
show mercy, God blinding people, no, they don't want anything
to do with that God. But this is the God with whom
we have to do. He saves and He damns. He reveals
and He hides. And our attitude should always
be, Lord, don't hide the truth from me. Though I don't deserve
for you to reveal it to me, reveal your truth to my poor soul. And let me rejoice in that truth. You see, false religion, and
I hit on this this morning. This is what false religion does.
They're in chapter 18. And I go back to this again,
verse seven, she hath glorified herself. She hath glorified herself. And you can mark this down. God
will not, he will not put up with, he will not tolerate a
competitor for his glory. He will not do that. He will
not put up with a challenger for His honor, a contender for
His throne. He won't put up with a contender
for the glory of creation. You think about people who denied
the creative wonders and glories of God. You think God's going
to put up with that? Now He will endure them for a
while, but not forever. They would rob God of the glory
of creation. He spake and it was done. They'd
take all that away from Him. Isn't that something? The audacity
of man. In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth and they said, no, no, no, that's
not the way it was. And you want to say, who do you
think you are? to rob God of the glory that
is rightfully His. He made all things. In six days
the Lord made the heavens and the earth and all that in them
is. And you say, no, this is billions
and billions of years and this happened and that happened and
this little thing and that little thing and this chain reaction
happened. That's a bunch of baloney, you
know. But they robbed God of that glory
and they robbed God of the glory of providence. And they attribute
things to luck or to fate. And people get upset with us.
They ask us, do you believe in predestination? Well, if you
believe the Bible, you've got to believe something about predestination,
because the Word's in there. And if you look it up in any
kind of dictionary, it's halfway reputable. It means to destinate
to a point ahead of time. And they say, well, you believe
in what will be, will be. Well, do you believe in what
will be, won't be? Of course I believe in what will
be, will be. And I'll tell you what will be.
Everything God has ordained. And if you deny that, you're
robbing Him of His glory. You're saying God doesn't reign
when the book of God says He does reign. Now who am I going
to listen to? Some babbling idiot who says
that Satan is running things and man is in charge and God
is standing back saying, Oh my, I lost control somewhere along
the way that God's leaning over the banisters of heaven saying,
Boy, they sure are in a mess down there. I don't know what
to do about it. Is that the God they worship?
Well, I mock that kind of God like Elijah did. they would rob God of the honor
that is due to him in that he rules all things according to
his sovereign will and purpose. There's nothing ever happens
outside the determinate counsel of God. Now that's a God you can worship
right there. A God who reigns in sickness and in health. When
things are going as you assume your way, he reigns in, and the
God who reigns when things seem to be going contrary to the way
you'd have them to go. This is the God who raises up
kingdoms and brings them down. This is a God who puts men in
office, women in office, and brings them down. This is a God who sends a storm
and it may take the lives of thousands of people. Well, yeah. He'll send a hurricane. He'll
cause a mountain to blow its top. And all that lava just surge
out. And men stand by and say, we
can't do anything about that. No, that's divine power bringing
that to pass, my friend. And you can't stop it. And you
better get out of the way. Because here it comes, it's not
going very fast, that love is it, but it will take you out
if you stay there. And men would rob God of the
glory of his providence. We saw back in Revelation chapter
five that the Lord Jesus, He took the book of God's predestination
out of the hand of Him who sat upon the throne. And He's executing
that will of God, that book sealed with seven seals, written within
and without and on the backside, and then there's everything God's
gonna do. And who's bringing everything God purposed to do?
Who's bringing it to pass? King Jesus is. That's who's reigning. And would you dare, would you
dare voice your own opinion and say, well, I don't think that's
of the Lord. I expect you better shut your
mouth and fall down in contrition. before the throne of the Lord.
So it is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good
in his sight. And in this matter of salvation,
oh, this is where men really turn into robbers. This is where
they turn into thieves. They would rob God of glory of
his saving grace and give that over to an idol. And the idol is man's will. And multitudes bow down at the
idol of their own so-called free will. And that's what men worship. They're not concerned about the
will of God. You've got a free will and God's
not going to interfere with your will. And I tell you, we better pray
and hope that God interferes with our will. Because if we
get our will, we're going to perish. Because our wills are
set dead, set against His. By nature. That's the way we
are. Because his ways are not our
ways. And his thoughts are not our thoughts. We see things differently
than God does. And this is false religion. She's
glorified herself. But then in chapter 18, we see
the demise of Babylon. And then we get into chapter
19. And briefly, just briefly, and
I said this this morning, that we see more of the true church
when we get to chapter 21. But once Babylon is dealt with
and she's out of the way, then the focus is on the true church.
You know, I couldn't help but think about that passage. You
remember it in Hebrews chapter 10, he taketh away the first,
that he may establish the second. That old Babylon, that old harlot, caused millions and millions
to commit fornication with her. Many have drunk of the wine of
her false gospel. God's gonna put her away. And
once she's been put away, then there's nothing left but the
true church. And she's just, she's robed in
the beauties of Christ Jesus. That's what she's got. She has
no beauty of her own. We have only ugliness. Wounds and bruises and putrefied
sores, that's us. But we've been washed. washed in the blood of the Lamb
of God. And we got a robe of righteousness,
and it's not just pasted on, and it's not just pretend, it's
real. Because you see, God made Christ
Jesus to be sin for us. That one who knew no sin, that
we might be made, now listen to this, that we might be made,
or in order that we would be made the righteousness of God
in Him, in Christ Jesus. He's my righteousness. And God has made Him to be my
righteousness. In fact, right there at the end
of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, who of God, speaking of Christ Jesus,
who of God has been made to us to be wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, that's holiness, and redemption? How do you like
that? Need any more than that? Does
man have to be sanctified to get the glory? Yes, indeed. He
does have to be sanctified. Christ is my sanctification,
thank you. Does a man have to be righteous
to get the glory? Absolutely. Christ is my righteousness. You see, my righteousness is
right now seated at the right hand of God. He's my righteousness. He's my worthiness. I'm worthy
of heaven. I'm fit for glory. Imagine this
old foul sinner is fit for the very presence of God because
I have the beauties of Christ Jesus charged to me, given to
me freely. That is grace. That's nothing
short of amazing grace. John sees this. He sees the church. She's dressed in white linen. White linen, clean and white. You see, our Lord Jesus died
in order that he would have a spotless bride. That's what it says in
Ephesians chapter five, to redeem us, to wash us. And is God God
who sees us in Christ Jesus? And I'll tell you this, He's
always seen us in Christ Jesus. There never has been a time that
we weren't in Christ Jesus. That's why in Ephesians chapter
1, He talks about being chosen in Christ, predestinated to the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself, and being
accepted in the Beloved. And then He talks about redemption. He doesn't talk about redemption
and then acceptance. We've always been accepted in
Christ Jesus because God has always looked to Him for satisfaction
to His law and justice. And we were in Him. We were in
Him when He died. The wrath of God's already fallen
on us in our substitute. We is in Him like Noah and his
family was in the ark. and rain came down, and the wrath
of God poured out. It was poured out on us in Christ
Jesus, and God's got no more wrath for his people. There is
therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. So John sees the church, he sees
the true church. And then the Spirit of God gives
him another vision. And all of a sudden in chapter
19, verse 11, he said, I saw heaven opened. I saw heaven opened. And behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him, he
was called faithful and true. And in righteousness, in righteousness,
doth he judge and make war. He's on a white horse. Now if
you go back, hold your place there, go back to chapter 6. Go back to chapter 6 and verse
2. Verses 1 and 2, chapter 6. And I saw when the lamb opened
one of the seals. In chapter five, he's taken the
book out of the hand of God because he's worthy to take it. He's
worthy to take it. He earned the right to take it.
He earned the right to execute the will of God by finishing
the work of redemption that God assigned to him in the covenant
of grace. And now here he is, here's the
lamb. He opened one of the seals and I heard, as it were, the
noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying,
come and see. And I saw and behold, a white
horse. And he that sat on him had a
bow and a crown was given unto him. He went forth conquering
and to conquer. Here's our Lord Jesus. He's on
a white horse here. The white horse, I believe, is
the gospel. He's on the white horse of the
gospel. It's the only horse he ever rides. That's right. You won't find where there's
a false gospel being preached, he don't ride that. He's not
on that. He's not on a gray horse or a
black horse or a brown horse. He's only on a white horse, the
pure gospel of grace. That's the only one that he sits
on and by which he conquers men. He conquers men with this gospel. That's why I just refuse to believe
that the Lord Jesus ever accompanies a false gospel and uses that
in the salvation of his people because that's a lie. What does
he use? He uses the truth. He who is the truth must use
the truth. So when he goes forth conquering,
when he pulls back the bow of his grace and he shoots an arrow
and it finds our hearts and we're conquered, it's only when he's riding the
white horse of the gospel. And that's just another reason
we keep on preaching the gospel. because this is the only message
the Lord's gonna use to conquer the hearts of His elect, to bring
us to Himself. But over here in our text, in
chapter 19, this, this is His second coming. This is His second
coming. And He comes forth. He comes
forth again as the conqueror. But this time, The armies of
heaven follow him. And he's coming to, this is,
I tell you, I would say this about chapter 19, verse 11. This
is the beginning of the end. That's what it is. It's the beginning
of the end. He's coming back to conquer those
who are his enemies. Be sure you understand this.
He'll conquer all men. You will bow. You're going to
bow, everybody's going to bow, either now or later. But everybody's going to bow,
every knee's going to bow to him, and every tongue's going
to confess that he's the Lord. Here he is, I saw heaven open,
behold, a white horse. Who rides a white horse? The
conqueror. Here he comes back as the king.
He that sat upon Him was called faithful and true because He's
always faithful and true. He's faithful and true to His
covenant commitments. He's faithful and true to all
the promises that He's made to His dear people. He's faithful
and true to those commitments He made to the Father. And watch this, and in righteousness
doth He judge and make war. Righteousness. That's what he's interested in.
That's what he's all about. That's what he's all about. And
even when he makes war, it's in a righteous way. Everything
the righteous judge does is right. Is right. In righteousness does
he judge and make war. Make war? He's a man of war. That's what the Israelites said.
They came out of the Red Sea and then looked back and watched
as the Lord washed away, washed away the Egyptian army, said,
the Lord's a man of war. And I know that's not the Jesus
of false religion, but this is the Lord Jesus of the Bible. He's a man of war. And may God bring us to contrition
before Him and to humble ourselves under His mighty hand. May He
break our pride like He broke the pride of Nebuchadnezzar.
Man, that guy walked around and he thought he was somebody. Had
a dream one night. He saw this great big tree. Birds
of the air sitting in this tree. It had fruit on it, lots of leaves,
all kind of animals underneath it. Then he said he heard the
voice of a watcher saying, cut that tree down. Cut that tree
down. Leave the stump and the roots.
And boy, he called his magicians and his soothsayers and said,
what in the world does that dream mean? He said, nobody knows what
it means. Ah, but there's a guy named Daniel. I believe he can tell you what
it means. And Daniel interpreted that dream
and basically he said to King Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord's going
to take the axe to you and you're going to fall. Boy, Nebuchadnezzar,
he is out looking at his mighty city that he had made. He said,
is this great Babylon that I've made myself? With all of my ingenuity,
with all my knowledge, with all my engineering skills. And before the words got out
of his mouth, the Lord put the ax to him. Boy, that tree fell. And I tell you, that man lost
his mind, and he wound up eating grass like the oxen of the field. And his hair grew like eagles'
feathers. And his fingernails looked like
birds' claws. And he stayed in that state till
he learned something. He learned that the most high
God ruleth over all, and he gives the kingdom to whom he will.
And he said, you know, sometime we'll preach from that. There
in Daniel 4, the unique thing about that chapter is he's the
one telling the whole story later. He said, then my understanding
returned to me. I tell you what regeneration
is, is God, our understanding coming to us. And he said, he then understood,
God rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and nobody can stay his hand or say to him, what
doest thou? And those that build themselves up in pride, Here's
what Nebuchadnezzar said, I've learned this, he's able to abase
them. He said, that's a lesson I've
learned. He's able to abase. And he's
gonna abase everybody. Sooner or later. I'd heap rather it be sooner,
wouldn't you? I'd rather it be now. Lord, humble me now. Lord,
bring me to the end of myself now. Lord, break my heart now. Lord, bring me to utter contrition
before you now. Bring me to the end of myself
and cause me to see myself as a poor old needy sinner who deserves
nothing but surely wants life in Christ Jesus. Lord, would
you do that for me and I'll give you the glory? Like the fellow
said, if the Lord saves me, He'll never hear the end of it. I'll
praise Him the rest of the days of my life, and I'll spend all
eternity doing it. And that's what we're gonna do,
isn't it? That's what we're gonna do. We'll spend all of eternity.
He'll never hear the end of it. Because we're gonna be singing,
worthy is the Lamb that was slain, who has redeemed us, us, even
us, unto God by His blood. That's what we're gonna be doing
forever. Well, I don't want him to make
war with me. Because that's a war I can't win. That old saying, choose your
battles wisely. You don't want to be involved
in this battle. Well, as Brother Scott used to say, stack your
shotguns in the corner. That's the best thing you can
do. And fall down before this great conqueror. His eyes were as a flame of fire. Nothing's hid from Him. On His
head were many crowns. The crown of Godhood. The crown
of manhood. The crown of redemption. He bought us with His blood.
The crown of providence. Many crowns. And he had a name
written that no man knew but he himself. And he's got to reveal
that to us. And verse 13, his clothed with
a vesture dipped in blood. Clothed with a vesture dipped
in blood. All the blood of the Son of God. The blood says substitution. The blood says satisfaction. The blood shed for sinners says,
release them and let them go free. That's what the blood says. The blood announces salvation. And here's his name, the Word
of God. That's his name, the Word of
God. The Word, W-O-R-D, is a vehicle
of thought. That's the only way you can know
what's on my mind is I use words. You can only know my mind, my
thoughts, my will by my words. We know the mind of God, the
will of God, the glory of God, the grace of God in the living
word, the incarnate word, Christ Jesus. He's the Word of God. And John, he wrote about him
in John chapter one, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with
God, the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. That's his name. And watch this
in verse 14. There were armies of heaven following
him. Armies, that's a bunch of people. They followed him on white horses.
And watch it, they're still clothed in that fine linen, still got
the same garment. White and clean. They followed him. They followed
him when he issued to them the effectual call. My sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. In chapter 14
it says, these are they that follow the lamb whithersoever
he went. We follow Him. We follow Him
in the waters of baptism. That's where He went down in
the waters of baptism. I follow Him there. And I follow
Him through life. And where is He now? He's gone
to heaven. I'm gonna follow Him there one of these days. And when He comes back, I'm gonna
follow Him back. I'm always gonna be with Him.
I'm a follower of the Lamb. Are you? And I thought about
this. I preached a little bit too long,
forgive me. I thought about this. Here he
comes back with the armies of heaven. Will I be with him? And by the grace of God, I can
say, yes, I will be. I'll be with him. Because I follow
him wherever he goes. By his grace now, by his grace
I follow him. This is the lamb and his followers. And out of his mouth goes a sharp
sword, his word. And with it, he's gonna smite
the nations. He'll rule them with a rod of
iron. He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of
Almighty God, and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh
a name written." You know who it is? King of kings. Lord of lords. That's who he
is. Here's the Word of God and his
followers. Will you be there? And I tell you, I say, by His
grace, Ron, I'll be there. I'm a follower. And you know
what? Here's the thing about this.
I give you this, no extra charge. I was thinking about this just
a little bit ago. When he comes back, nobody's
gonna be paying any attention to the followers. Every eye is
gonna be on the general, the conqueror. Gonna be watching
him. Oh, he's coming back in power
and great glory. And we gonna be with him. Oh boy, that's wonderful. Well...