Let's go to Revelation chapter
19 again today. Revelation chapter 19. I asked
Ron to read that psalm. I was especially interested in and drawn to the
last verse, which I'll just refresh your memory as you look for Revelation
19, talks about the Lord cometh to judge the earth. And he shall judge the world
with righteousness, and his people with truth. In Revelation chapter 19, John
is led of the Spirit to that last day, the day without a night,
when the Son of God comes back and ushers in the endless ages of eternity. God from the beginning ordained
the end, and now John experiences, at least in the spirit, what
it's going to mean to be in the end, what's going to happen in
the end. And I wonder if we give much
consideration to what's going to happen in the end. What's
going to happen when Well, time shall be no more. We always figure
another day's coming. There'll always be another week. We'll meet again next Lord's
Day. We speak with a certain degree
of certainty that there'll be another day, and yet we don't
know that because the Word of God says a man doesn't know what
another day will bring forth. You don't know. You don't know
how long your life's going to last. The scripture says it's
a vapor. It's a vapor. That's what life
is. It's a vapor. It's here and then it's gone.
And then we'll be in the end. We'll be at end to eternity. And John is taken by the Spirit
of God right into the end. He sees judgment. He's already
witnessed the judgment of the great harlot church, Babylon. He's seen Babylon be cast down
like a millstone into the sea. He sees the judgment of God.
He sees the saints of God gathered together in the beauties of Christ
Jesus, and he hears them all singing, Alleluia to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He is escorted by the Spirit
of God to the end. To the end. Oh God, give me grace
to consider the end. In this day, there's only two
sides. When we get here to Revelation
chapter 19, and especially as we get into the next chapter
at the Great White Throne Judgment, there are only going to be two
groups of people. And in reality, that's all there ever has been.
Just two groups of people. Those who are the Lord's people,
and those who are not. Those who know Him, and those
who don't know Him. Biblical words come to mind,
those who are the sheep, those who are the goats. Those who
are the righteous, and those who are the wicked. Those who
are His, and those who are not His. And you would do well and
I would do well also to right now ask ourselves this question,
am I His or am I not? What's going to be my end? What is my destiny? Will I stand
with Christ Jesus in glory? Will I stand having been washed? Been washed in His blood? Forgiven
of all my transgressions? Will I stand in the beauties
of the Savior? In that great day of judgment? Will I be among those who are
at His right hand? Of acceptance? Of welcome? Will I be found to be among the
family of God? Will I be among those who believe
this wonderful gospel of full redemption by Christ Jesus? Will
I be among those who believe salvation, all of grace? Who
on this earth refuse to acknowledge any goodness in myself? and to
say before God, honestly, I'm just an awful sinner. And I'm
not deserving of the least of your mercies. I cast myself upon
the Lord Jesus only for all of my salvation, for all of my righteousness,
for everlasting life. Will I be found in that group? Or will I be found in that other
group? the wicked, the vile, the unwashed, those
who have their own garments of unrighteousness on them that
the scripture says are filthy rags. You see, to the one group
the Lord will say, Oh, enter into the kingdom prepared
for you from before the foundation of the world. Oh, blessed words,
we shall hear them. Come in. Come in. And won't that be wonderful?
Oh, come in, the Master says. But to the other group He will
say, depart from Me. You're just workers of iniquity.
But Lord, we were religious, we went to church, we read our
Bibles, we did all of these things in your name. Depart from me,
I never knew you. You don't have on my robe of
righteousness. You're filthy, you're ugly, you're
sinful, you're wretched. Here's my people over here, adorned
in my comeliness. Their beauty is of me, but you,
you wouldn't have me. You didn't want me. You weren't
interested in a Savior. You were too busy. And now the
end has come. Now you're in eternity. Now you
face me, the judge shall say. Go away. Go away. I don't know. And he will say
to the angels, bind them at hand and foot, cast them into everlasting
fire. What will be your end? It's time to evaluate, folks. It's time to examine your foundation. So here is John. He's taken right
to the end. God, who in the beginning ordained
all things, who ordained the end, as Isaiah 46 says, ordained
the end from the beginning, now brings everything to its end,
to its destiny, to that goal that He ordained before He ever
made the world. And John is a witness You see,
the Lord has left on record what is going to happen. It's not
like He's left us in the dark. It's not like we're uninformed. It's not like we don't know what's
going to happen. We do know what's going to happen. There's an end coming. The Son
of God is going to descend from heaven with a shout. With the
voice of the archangel, the trump of God shall sound. The righteous
shall be raised. All of the righteous of all of
the ages, those who died in Jesus. Their souls have gone back to
be with the Savior, but their bodies have been buried in Many,
many times buried in unmarked graves. Maybe not even in a grave
at all. But the Lord's going to raise
the bodies of all of His people, and the bodies will be joined
back with the souls, and they'll be glorified bodies. Bodies fashioned
like unto our Lord's body. And so shall we ever be with
Christ Jesus. Oh, what a wonderful day when
the soul is joined back to this old carcass. This body that's
destined to die. This body that must go back to
the grave. This body that must go back to
the dust. It's going to be raised. And
corruption. That's what this is. This body
is corruption. It's going to put on incorruption.
And this mortality. I'm mortal. You're mortal. We're
dying people. We're living people, but we're
dying people. but we're going to be raised,
and then mortality shall put on immortality, and we shall
forevermore be with Christ Jesus to rejoice in Him, to join in
the singing with all of the rest of the saints, worthy is the
Lamb that was slain. who has redeemed us to God by
His blood. And we'll give Him all blessing
and honor and glory and praise. And we'll do that forever and
ever and ever. What a wonderful day that will
be! A day without a night! And in
that day without a night, we won't need the the sun in the
sky because the Lamb of God in His glory, He's the light of
the city of God and we will be with Him and enjoy Him and worship
Him and fellowship with Him for all of eternity. That's what
it's going to be like for the people of God. We're not left
in the dark as to what's going to happen. We're not guessing.
We're not saying, well, I think this is going to happen or I
hope it will happen. No, these things are going to
happen because John is taken by the Spirit of God into a state
of being to where he is there in the end. He sees things as
they're going to be. And he sees the wicked who will stand before God. without
any hope. Hey folks, there's hope now.
There's hope now. There's a door of mercy that's
open. You interested? I'll tell you this, if you have
any interest, God will have to give it to you. That's right. And He'll have
to say to you, like He said to Noah, Come, thou into the ark,
come to Christ. And he's got to do it with special,
irresistible, effectual authority. Because my words to you, though
my words are genuine, and though I really mean business, when
I say, come to Christ Jesus, I can't draw you to Him. I have no ability to do that.
My calling is to set before you Christ Jesus in all of His glory
as the only Savior of sinners. That's my responsibility, to
tell you who He is. He's God. He's man to tell you
what He did. He died for sinners. Why did
He do that? That God might be just and justify
ungodly people like us. Where is He now? He's gone back
to heaven having finished the work that God gave Him to do.
I can only tell you about the Savior. And I can only say to
you, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but there's no effectual
ability my words to draw you to the Savior, God's got to do
it. God's got to do it. And if he
ever draws you to Christ Jesus, you'll never leave him. You'll
never leave. He'll make sure of that. John was taken to the end, to
the end of the age. You see, we're very, as the scripture
says, confident that he who began a good work in us will finish
it to the day of Jesus Christ. He will, one and all. He'll finish
the work. If he began a work in you, he'll
finish it. Whatever work God has ever begun
to do, he will always finish it. He began this thing we call time. And in this age of time, He's
already ordained all things will ever happen. And everything is
going to reach its ultimate goal. Because the Lord has ordained
it and we can be sure that He who began the work will finish
the work. Now, as John is taken to the
end, I draw your attention to these verses. Look again in verse
7 of Revelation 19. Let us be glad and rejoice. Be glad and rejoice about what?
The previous line says, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. That's
something to be glad about. That's something to rejoice about. You look at the world. You look at the things going
on in the world. Consider the things that are
going on in your life, our families, our situation. You say, preacher,
I don't have much to be glad about. I don't have much to rejoice
about. Well, I'm sorry that you have
a dim view of things. You know, the people of God should
be a happy people. We should be glad and rejoice
for a lot of reasons. For a lot of reasons. but especially
for this, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Now that ought to make
you glad. That ought to make you rejoice. It doesn't matter what you're
going through. It doesn't matter the deepness
of the trial. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. He governs. He governs all things. Let us be glad and rejoice. and give honor to him. It's what
he says here in verse seven. Give honor to him, give honor
to the Lord. I'm thankful that he rejoices,
that he reigns and I'll rejoice in him and I'll be glad in him
and I'll give him the honor. I'll give him the glory because
he's worthy of it. Does not the scripture say give
honor to whom honor is due? Well, and that's pertaining to
men. That's just pertaining to governors
and rulers and presidents and prime ministers, people like
that. Honor to whom honor is due. Well, I know that one to
whom honor, all honor is due, the Lord God omnipotent. And
that he reigns. Isn't it amazing this reign of
God, the sovereign reign of God, that which makes us glad, that
which makes us rejoice, is the very thing that many religious
people stumble over. They have great difficulty when
you begin to talk about the sovereign authority and rule and reign
of God. And they get mad about that.
That is nothing to be mad about, that's something to be glad about.
Who is it that rules the world? Is it Satan? If he rules, he
can be sad about that. If you rule in your little world,
that's something else to be sad about. But if the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth, if the Lamb of God rules and reigns over every single
thing, be glad and rejoice and give Him the honor. He's deserving
of it. Watch it. For the marriage, the marriage
of the Lamb is come. and his wife hath made herself
ready." The subject here is the lamb and his wife. That's the
subject. The lamb and his wife. Boy, if
this book, if the book of God speaks of anything, it's the
lamb of God. Over and over again we're presented
with the lamb. Not only in the book of Revelation,
we've talked about repeatedly how John uses the Lamb of God,
speaks of the Lamb of God. Back in chapter 13, he spoke
of the Lamb of God as being slaughtered before the world began. So John
takes us way back before the world was ever made. And he says
in Revelation 13.8, the Lamb of God was slain in the mind
and purpose of God way back then. That's before time ever began.
And now John takes us into the future. He has taken us into
the past, before creation. Now he takes us way into the
future, beyond the limits of what we call time. He takes us into eternity, and
he's still speaking about the Lamb, and he says, he talks about
the marriage of the Lamb. It's come. and his wife has made
herself ready. So just within the space of a
very few chapters, John tells us of the Lamb of God before
time began, and now he tells us of the Lamb of God when time
is no more. Listen, if you want to, you know
what a key is? A key is that which unlocks things. In Revelation chapter one in
verse 18, Christ said, I have the keys of death and hell. He
has a key to everything. He has the key to salvation. He has a key to death. He has
a key to the grave. But more than that, he not only
has the keys, he is the key. He is the key. He's the key to
understanding all of history. Everything that's ever happened,
if you want to understand history, and we have a history teacher
here, and several of you have been teachers, some teachers
here, and you teach history, and this is what unfortunately
you can't really get into in school, is that here's the key
to understanding history, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no
understanding history apart from Jesus Christ. If you want to
understand the history of the world, my goodness, that's a
big subject, right? World history. You only understand world history,
you can only understand world history if you have the key. And here's the key. The Lamb
of God. He's the key to understanding
history because it's all about Him and what He's doing. When you begin in the book of
Genesis with creation, why did God create the world? We know
He did. In six days the Lord made the
heavens and the earth and all that in them is. Exodus chapter
20 and verse 11. In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1.1. We know this. What is the reason for all of
this coming into existence? Well, first of all, we know that
all things were created by Him and for Him. And everything was
made for His glory. And we know this, everything
was made because it's on this earth. Not on a distant star,
not on a distant planet, but on this earth. God would bring
to fulfillment His eternal purpose of redemption. It was on this
earth. If you could think of it like
this, God made the earth as the stage as the stage on which He
would bring to pass the great drama of salvation. You see, before He made the earth,
He ordained salvation. He ordained the Savior. The Lord
Jesus is His first elect. And He ordained all of those
that He would save. There was an election of grace.
And God ordained the way that these would be saved, delivered
from sin, by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Well, where is that going to happen? And He ordained that
the Spirit of God would draw sinners to believe on the Lord
Jesus. Where is that going to happen?
In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. The earth,
that's where it's all going to happen. You see, the existence
of the earth means nothing apart from the Lamb of God. He's central
to it. And then as we go through the
history of the Old Testament, as you see God dealing with a
man called Abram, and drawing him out of earth, the Chaldees,
and giving to that man a new heart, to worship God, to give
up his idols, to worship the Lord, to offer sacrifices to
Him, and then that man being the founder of a nation. The
reason for Abraham in the existence of Israel is meaningless without
the Lamb of God. He's the key. He's the key. And if you want to understand
all that Israel did, the law that was given to them, all the
pictures, and all the offerings, and all the sacrifices, the tabernacle,
the temple, all the pieces of furniture, all of it. Here's
the key to understand the necessity of all of those things. The Lamb
of God. He's the key. He's the key that
unlocks the Old Testament. I've had lots of people say to
me, and I'll bet you lots of people have said to you, I don't
understand the Old Testament. That's the old book. I can't
get anything out of the Old Testament, so I go to the New Testament.
Well, here's what you've got to understand. There is a key
that unlocks the Old Testament. And when you use the key, the
Lamb of God, to unlock the Old Testament, then it just unfolds
in its beauty, in its glory, in its majesty, setting forth
the Lamb of God and His sacrifice for sin. He's the key. He's the key to understanding
all of history. What happened 2,000 years ago?
Well, there's a historical event that took place. Jesus of Nazareth
died. He was beloved by a few, but
the religious people despised him. And they despised him to such
a degree that they wanted to shut his mouth forever. So they killed him. They had
him killed. Well, how can we understand that? What he did, what he endured,
that was all but divine appointment. What those men did to him, they
did because God ordained it. Because that's the only way God
in justice can save sinners like us. Because the Bible says the
soul that sinneth shall die. The wages of sin is death. And
all the way through the Old Testament, there's animals dying so that
people would live. You see, death appeases the justice
of God. But those animals did not fully
appease the justice of God. They didn't satisfy the justice
of God, so they had to be repeated over and over and over again.
Then Christ came, the Lamb of God. And what all of those sacrifices
only pictured and typified, He did in reality. Because He gave
Himself to God a sacrifice. He's the perfect Lamb of God. He's the ultimate sacrifice for
sins. And He died so that God would
remain just and holy in all of His dealings. and yet embrace
folks like us and forgive us and wash us, make us acceptable
in his sight. You can't understand history
apart from the Lamb of God. Well, what about what's going
on now? How does this work into into
the happenings in the world. Well, I can't begin to understand
all of the things that God's doing, except to know this, He's
still drawing people to the Lamb of God. And nations rise and
nations fall according to God's purpose to fulfill that which
He ordained regarding His Son and His people. And listen, the
Lord, He said to Israel, I gave nations for you. And if it's
necessary, God will raise a nation up or He'll destroy a nation,
just remove them from existence if it means to bring some of
His people to knowledge of Himself. And that's how we understand
history today. What's going on today? All the
events of this world, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
is working out the Father's will, executing God's eternal purpose,
which is to bring all of His elect unto Himself, and then
the end will come. You see, He's the key to understanding
all of history, just like He's the key to understanding the
Bible. You see, before the world began,
God gave to Christ Jesus, in this passage called the Lamb
of God, God gave him a people, a people, the elect. And these
people are designated as being the bride of Christ Jesus. The wife of Christ Jesus. Now
we've set forth the Lamb. And you know in the Old Testament
the Lamb is typified in Genesis chapter 3, Abel's Lamb, that's
the Lamb typified. You get over to Genesis 22, there's
the Lamb prophesied. Abraham said to Isaac, the Lord
will provide himself a lamb. The Lord will provide the lamb.
The Lord himself will be the lamb. There's the lamb prophesied. You get to Isaiah chapter 53,
and the lamb is personified, and how we find out he's a person.
The lamb led to the slaughter is a person. He's Jehovah's servant. And you get over to John 1.29,
and John the Baptist, he identifies the Lamb. He says, Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Who is
that? Jesus of Nazareth. That's who He is. He's identified. And you get over to John chapter
19, there's the Lamb of God crucified. He had to die. We're not going
to live unless He dies. But in His death, we see our
life. We've been studying John 12 on Wednesday nights. Except
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. Our Lord Jesus died and as a
result of His substitutionary death, He brings forth much fruit
to the glory of God. Who's His fruit? We are. His
wife. His wife. And in Revelation chapter
5, we had the Lamb. We see the Lamb glorified. There's
the Lamb of God. And He has a wife. He has a wife. Now what do we know about this
wife? Well, we know Christ gave Himself for her. Because it says in Revelation
or in Ephesians chapter five, husbands love your wives as Christ
also loved the church, gave himself for it. To wash her, make her
blameless and spotless. That's what he's done for his
bride. What about the bride or the wife? What do we know about
her? We know that she fell into ungodliness. All of us, we're a bunch of sinful
people. All of the bride of Christ Jesus,
we're sinful, rotten people. We fell in Adam. We received
that fact based upon the word of God. Wherefore, as by one
man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death
passed upon all men, even you and me, because we all sinned
in Adam. The wife became polluted and
filthy and unfaithful to the Lord. We've committed spiritual
fornication because we've given the love of our hearts, which
is due to the Lord only. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy mind, soul, and strength. But we've given
that love to idols, false Jesuses, to those to whom it's not entitled,
The wife fell. It's like the story of Hosea
and Gomer. Gomer fell. She went back to
her former livelihood as a prostitute. And did ungodly things. That's
you and me. We're the wife of Jehovah, God's
Savior. We're the wife of Christ Jesus.
But we ruined ourselves. We're marred in our own corruption
and depravity. But our fallen Adam did not cause
us to fall out of grace in Christ Jesus. He still loved us. And like Hosea redeemed Gomer,
Christ came and redeemed us. And He bought her and He robed
her. We're robed with the garments
of salvation, the scripture says. And here we have the wife, she's
made herself ready. How does she make herself ready?
How do we make ourselves ready? We flee by faith to the Son of
God. And you see in verse eight, to
her was granted, she should be arrayed in fine linen. Oh, it's so clean and so white. Because it's the righteousness
of the Son of God. It's the garments of His salvation. And this fine linen is now said
to be the righteousness of the saints. That's ours. It's our
salvation. You know, when the Bible talks
about salvation, the first mention of the word salvation is in Genesis
chapter 49. When Jacob said in the middle
of blessing his sons, he said, I've waited for thy salvation.
That's the very first mention. It's thy salvation. It's called
a great salvation. I'll tell you what Paul calls
it. He says, my salvation. It's my salvation. It's mine. In this righteousness, it's mine.
You know why it's mine? Christ gave it to me. He gave
it to me. He's not going to take it away
from me. He's washed me and He's robed me. He's not going to strip
it off of me. What He stripped off me was my
filthy rags that I thought were beautiful. He said, these won't
do. I'll put this on you. And with
that garment of righteousness, I'm as pure as the Son of God
Himself. And He says in verse 9, He says
to John, write this, blessed are they which are called under
the marriage supper of the Lamb. It's still the Lamb. Still the
Lamb. The emphasis is on the Lamb.
Here's the key. I'm telling you, it's the key
to understanding everything. God the Lamb, the Son of God. And this marriage supper of the
Lamb, it's a celebration that'll never end. It goes on forever. He said, these are the true sayings
of God. Listen, if the Lord says this,
you can bank on this. This is the truth. Because He
can't lie. And He says in verse 10, then
it says, and I fell at His feet to worship Him, to worship this
messenger. And He said unto me, don't do
that. Don't do that. Don't fall down
before a creature in worship. It's just a creature. He said,
I'm thy fellow servant of thy brethren that have the testimony
of Jesus. Here's the only one to be worshiped.
Worship God. Worship God. Here he says, the testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. What does the word testimony
mean? The record? A record of Jesus? The report
of Jesus? What is the record report of
Jesus? Is it salvation and redemptions
all in Him? Is it He finished the work the
Father gave Him to do? And he says, for the testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. the breath of prophecy. In other words, the Lord Jesus,
He's the breath, He's the life of all true preaching. He's the
life of the scriptures, and He's the life of all true preaching.
And without Him, a sermon is worthless and dead, because He's
the life of it. Oh, here's the Lamb of God and
His wife. Let us worship him and adore
him. Let's sing of his mercies. Number
11.