He said, it is finished. And
he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. The work was done. The work of redemption. That
great work of buying us. It was finished. He didn't buy
heaven for us. He didn't buy salvation for us. He didn't buy forgiveness for
us. He bought us redemption. And the work of reconciliation
was finished. The Savior reconciled us unto
God by His blood. There was an issue between us
and God. The issue was one of our own
making. The issue was our own rottenness
and depravity, our sinfulness. God said, your sins and iniquities
have separated you from Me. Our Lord Jesus reconciled us
to God. He took them out of the way.
He removed them. It is finished. establishing
righteousness for us, it is finished. It is now right for God to save
us, to receive us, to accept us,
because everything divine justice absolutely demanded, our Lord
Jesus has finished. It is finished. What a wonderful, wonderful song,
and what wonderful words from the lips of our Savior. Go with
me this morning to Revelation chapter 19. Again, Revelation
chapter 19. My subject is, Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord reigns. He reigns. Revelation 19, 1, and after these
sayings, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying,
Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the
Lord our God. For true and righteous are his
judgments, for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt
the earth with her fornication. and hath avenged the blood of
his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. Her smoke rose up forever and
ever. The four and twenty elders and
the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the
throne saying, Amen, Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne,
saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear
him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the
voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia. The Lord God
omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His
wife hath made herself ready." John has now witnessed the destruction
of everything that is anti-Christ, that is anti-Christ religion,
He has witnessed the devastation of Babylon. We noted this back,
if you'll turn back perhaps a page in your Bible. In my Bible, it's
a page back. Chapter 18 and verse 5. Chapter
18 and verse 5. This is what the Lord says about
Babylon. All of her sins have reached
unto heaven. They've reached unto heaven.
Her sins are so great Our sins are so vile, so absolutely horrible,
they've reached all the way to the very throne of God. Sins this great have got to be
punished. Now make no mistake about it,
every sin is going to be punished. Every sin's against God, right?
We know that. Every sin's against God. David
said in Psalm 51, against thee, thee only, have I sinned and
done this evil in thy sight. But when it says that they've
reached unto heaven, that marks the greatest degree. the greatest
degree of sin, it is now pushing in, as it were, upon the very
glory of God and the throne of God. All sin is an attack against
His sovereignty. We know that. All sin is offensive
to God. However, when the sins of a person
or a group of people, when they reach all the way to heaven,
you can be sure of this, then heaven is going to reach all
the way to earth with wrath and with judgment. Notice what John
says a little further over or deeper into chapter 18. Notice
verse 20. He says to the righteous, he
says to those who know God, rejoice over her. That is, rejoice over
this fall. It isn't something to be saddened
about. Now indeed, as you read down
through chapter 18, you'll find those who were involved with
Babylon, Those who loved Babylon, those who held up Babylon, who
held up false religion, they're going to be very broken hearted
over her devastation, over her fall. But not the people of God,
and so here's a command issued to the people of God. Rejoice
over her, thou heaven, and let everybody in heaven Break out
in joy, that's what the command is here. Ye holy apostles and
ye prophets, for God hath avenged you on her. And then he says this in verse
21, and a mighty angel, a mighty angel took up a stone
like a millstone. He cast it into the sea. And
this is what he said, Thus with violence, with violence, shall
that great city Babylon be absolutely thrown down, cast into hell,
and shall be found no more at all. With violence. When you
think of violence, think of aggression. When you think of violence, think
of viciousness. When you think of violence, think
of brutality. This is our God getting vengeance. You see, Babylon represents all
false religions. That's the whole gamut. That
goes from one utter extreme to the other
utter extreme. This is every religion, doesn't
matter what it's called, it may be called Buddhism, it may be
called Muslim, whatever the false religion is, all of it together
is against God. It's anti-Christ. The Savior
said, he that is not with me is against me. Those who are
against the Lord Jesus Christ, those who are against salvation
by grace alone, those who are against the rule of God, those
who are against this wonderful redemption by The sacrifice of
Jesus Christ alone. These are marked for a great
fall. And God is going to bring about
the end of false religion in a vicious way. And I know most
people, when they think of God, they think of God is love. Well, He is love. He is love. And we certainly preach that
and we believe that. God is loving, God is gracious,
and God is full of compassion. Full of compassion. We talked
about it in the Sunday school lesson this morning. The Lord
said, I will not send the hungry people away. We talked about
it in the lesson. These people have been with Him
three days. He's been healing thousands and thousands of people.
And they were all hungry. He said, I will not send them
away fasting. I won't send them away hungry.
I'm not going to send them away. I'm going to meet their needs.
He's wonderful to do that. And He met the physical needs
of thousands and thousands of people. And He meets the spiritual
needs of millions and millions of people. He's met our spiritual
needs. He's full of mercy. He's full
of grace. And I say to you, this very morning,
this very moment, if you need the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ,
He's a great Savior. He is full of mercy. He's full of grace. He's full
of forgiveness. He is full of tenderness. Come to Him. to Him right now. He won't turn you away. He's
not holding up His hand saying, no, no, you're not allowed to
come. You can come to Him. He's a gentle
Savior. But He has other attributes as
well. He is absolutely holy and righteous. and just, and he is the judge of all. As we've gone through the book
of Revelation, it's a wonderful study, and I hope that you have
been profiting from this, and it's been a blessing to me to
look at it again, to study through it. And our Savior has been,
He has been revealed to us. After all, that's what the book
is about anyway. It's the revelation of Jesus
Christ. I was reading this week, reading on the internet some
of the thoughts of various men about the book of Revelation. And one guy said in the book
of Revelation you'll see Adolf Hitler. In the book of Revelation
you'll see Saddam Hussein. And I said, that's not what the
book of Revelation is about. It's about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the revelation of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we've seen that. I hope you're
understanding that it's a revelation of the Son of God. That's why
in chapter 1, He's revealed as the Son of Man who's been glorified. Where did He get His glory? He
got His glory by His humiliation, by His substitutionary death,
by being made lower than the angels in order to suffer death. And by that death, He satisfied
God's justice, He saved His people, and as a result of that, He's
been raised from the dead. He's ascended back to heaven. He's seated at the right hand
of God. He's the exalted Son of Man. That's how John sees Him in chapter
1. He's presented that way. He's
revealed that way. He is the Son of Man who's exalted. He's the son of man who meets
with and ministers to his people. That's why in chapters 2 and
3 we have the letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor. He ministers to us. That's what
he does this morning through his word. He has something to
say to us. He has something to say to you.
And if we would be wise, if we are wise, we'd say, Lord, speak. I'm listening. What do you have
to say to me today? That's our Savior. He's set forth
as the Son of Man who meets with and speaks to His people. And
then we see He's the Son of Man who's been exalted And He's the
Lamb. He's the Lamb who was slaughtered.
He's the Lamb who shed His blood. He's the Lamb who's worthy, therefore,
to take the book of God's everlasting decrees and bring them all to
fulfillment. So we see the Lord Jesus not
only as the Son of Man glorified and magnified and ministering
to His people, we see the Lamb of God who is executing all of
God's decrees right now, all the way through this age. And
everything that happens is the fulfilling of that which God
purposed to do before He made the world, and He's bringing
them all to pass by His Son, the Lord Jesus, the exalted Lamb. The Lamb of God who was slaughtered
for our sins. And John sees that, and he sees
Him opening the book. John has seen Him executing the
seven trumpet judgments. These are daily judgments, things
that happen around the world to warn us. The Savior, the Savior
who saves sinners, He warns people. Judgment never comes without
warning. Wake up, folks! Wake up! Pay attention to these judgments
that God brings around about you and things He brings into
your life to remind you you're not always going to live, you're
going to die. Things are not going to be a
smooth sail off into the sunset. There's a God to meet. There's
a judgment to face. There's a death to die. You ever
think about those things? That's why he sends trumpet judgments. Who sends those? The Lord Jesus. He's warning you. He's warning
you. Don't meet God without Him. Don't
meet God laden with your sins. God's a consuming fire. He'll
devour you. Don't you understand you need
a mediator between you and this holy God? Oh Lord, wake us up
out of this sleep of death. Lord, we're so content, we're
so at ease in this world. Disturb us. That's what we need. We need disturbing. Lord, bother
us. I want to be bothered. Some people say, don't bother
me with this. Don't bother you with this. With
eternity? Your soul's condition? Don't
bother you about these things? Oh, I've got too many other things
I have to attend to. Well, maybe you will attend to
those, but I promise you this, you will die. And you are going
to meet God. And you dare not meet God without
a great high priest to speak to you, to represent you on your
behalf. Our Lord Jesus is set forth as
that one who sends the seven judgments. And then we get over
here and now we find that he's the judge himself. He's the one who's bringing all
of this to pass against Babylon. Against all false religions.
Against everything that is anti-Christ. And he's full of viciousness.
People don't think of the Son of God that way. No, He's meek
and mild. No, preacher, I want to think
of Jesus as a little baby. Well, you can think of Jesus
as a little baby, but He's not a little baby anymore. He's the
Lord of glory. He's the one who's been exalted.
He's the King of kings and He's the Lord of lords. He's the one
to whom you must answer. And His righteousness is the
righteousness you're going to be put up against. And if you
don't have a righteousness equal to His righteousness, then you're
going to perish in your sinfulness. That's for sure. Because you're
going to be put on the scales of God's justice. And you surely don't want to
hear the words that Belshazzar heard when Daniel interpreted
the writing on the wall. The king said, what does that
mean? Daniel said, this is what it means. You've been weighed
in the balances and you've been found wanting. And this night,
you're going to be a dead man. And God's going to put you on
the scales of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Perfect, pure,
spotless, holy. That's how you've got to be to
be accepted by God. And the only way you can hide
from an angry God, from a just and righteous God, is to hide
in God, that is the Son of God. And to be found in His righteousness. dressed in His righteousness,
robed in the garments of His salvation, and from the bottom
of my heart I say to all of you, flee to Christ Jesus. The scripture
says flee from the wrath to come. There's wrath coming. And here
the Lord Jesus, it says with violence shall that great city
Babylon be thrown down. With violence. Boy, when you
think of somebody being violent, I don't want to meet anybody
who's violent, do you? When you think of violence, you
think of brutal, being brutal. That's the way the Savior is
going to be. Will He be vicious with you? Will He cast you down? Will He
cast you away? Will He say to you what He says
to those people in Matthew 7? Depart from Me. I never knew
you. You're workers of iniquity. And
you know who He's speaking to? People from Babylon. That's right,
religious people. I never knew you. Get away from
me. And with viciousness, Babylon's
going to be thrown down. He's going to be brutal. It's likened in the book of Isaiah,
the Lord Jesus is likened to a man of war. Where did you get those blood-stained
garments? There's two ways to look at that
passage in Isaiah. Number one, he shed his own blood
to redeem his people, but also it's the blood of his enemies.
He's slaughtering his enemies. You cannot stand up against King
Jesus. That's an impossibility. You'll
either be slaughtered by Him, in His viciousness, in His justice,
in His brutality. Or, may God be gracious to you
and be saved by His own blood. This is what this is about. That's
why it's so serious. I can't find too many people
who are interested in listening to this message of the gospel
of God's saving grace. And you know, I read to you back there in verse
20, rejoice over her. Rejoice, this is a call to all
of the saints of heaven. Rejoice in what's going to happen. Rejoice when the Lord is vicious
with Babylon. Yes, rejoice. Rejoice as He slaughters
all of His enemies. Yes, rejoice. I think about a man by the name
of the Apostle Paul. In Romans chapter 10, he said,
brethren, my prayer and my heart's desire to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. He says in the previous chapter,
I could wish myself accursed for my brethren, my kinsmen according
to the flesh. That's what he said in Iran.
He says that in chapter nine of Romans. But most of those people didn't
come to a knowledge of Christ. They didn't believe Him. They had a bad attitude toward
Him. They believed their own works would save them. They were going about to establish
their own righteousness. That's what Scripture said, right?
Going about to establish their own righteousness. Wouldn't submit
themselves to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. They
didn't realize Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.
They didn't understand that. And here's a man brokenhearted
over them. But wait. Wait. Look at that
chapter 8 and verse 20 again. Rejoice over her thou heaven
and ye holy apostles. That includes the apostle Paul.
Rejoice over her when the Lord casts her down to hell. How could
Paul rejoice then? How could he rejoice seeing these
family members, fellow countrymen who are wrapped up in self-righteous
religion? How could He rejoice over them
in their demise? Well, because this man has gone
to glory, now he's got the mind of Christ. He sees things as
the Lord Jesus sees things. And he sees very clearly now,
and all of us when we enter into heaven's glory, we're going to
see very clearly that everything in opposition to Jesus Christ
ought to get exactly what they deserve. It isn't that we're heartless.
But listen, if you go through life, oh hear me, if you go through
life with your fist in God's face, You go through life insisting,
I can get to heaven my way? It's my way, my works and my
will. I'll hold on to that. Tell you
what, when you die and God sends you to hell in the final judgment,
we see you in everlasting torment, we'll say, praise God, He did
exactly what was right. You stand in opposition to King
Jesus, Hey, I'm not on your side. I'm not standing with you. Now
if you want to be opposed to Christ Jesus, you go ahead, but
I'm not going with you. You're going down that road by
yourself. I'm on His side. It's like Moses. He said to the children of Israel
after they had worshipped that golden calf and he ground it
to powder and put it on the water and made them drink that water,
he said, now who's on the Lord's side? Come over here. And a bunch
of them came over and I don't know how many stayed over on
that other side, but he told those, he said, see those folks
over there? They're the enemy. They're the
enemy. Strap on your sword and go after
them. That's what he said. I want to be your friend. That's
the reason I'm telling you the truth. But you persist in your rebellion
against Christ Jesus. I'm on His side. Yes sir. And when He gets brutal
with you, when He gets vicious with you, I'm going to say, Lord,
you did what's right. It gets down here in chapter
19, He uses the word alleluia four times. Four is the number
of the earth. It's the only place in the Bible alleluia is used. In the Old Testament, here's
the way it's translated. Praise ye the Lord. That's what it means. I remember
when I was a kid growing up, we used to sing a little chorus.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. What's the next part? Praise ye the Lord. Y'all ever
sing that? I ain't going to sing the rest
of it to you. There's no charge for that extra
solo there. But we used to sing it. I didn't
understand what that was all about. Now I do. When it says, hallelujah,
which is literally, hallelujah, it means praise the Lord. And
four times, four times, John hears a great voice out of heaven
saying, hallelujah! Four times. Let me show these
to you. First of all, here's hallelujah
for God's salvation. Look at verse one. After these
things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying,
hallelujah or hallelujah, salvation and glory and honor and power
unto the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments. This first hallelujah has to
do with salvation, but it's also still connected with this theme
that he's been on in chapters 17 and 18 about Babylon. It's
about salvation. It's rejoicing and singing hallelujah
because of salvation out of and from Babylon. Thank God He saved
us from that. That's what this is about. and
hear all these voices in heaven saying, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Salvation to our God! The Lord
saved us! This is what He saved us out
of! What did He save you out of? I know He saved you out of
a lot. He saved you out of sin. But
with a good many of us, I suspect, we were saved out of organized
religion. That's part of Babylon. And we
meant well. I was sincere. Weren't you sincere? Those of you who are wrapped
up in some false religion, I was sincere as I could be. Nancy
was telling some of the grandchildren, Ethan and Angelina, that for
my Christmas present one year, I didn't get a Bible and that's
what I wanted. I remember getting up in the
bed, my mom and dad crying. What are you crying about? Because
I wanted a Bible, and I didn't get a Bible. Well, I'll tell
you, I got one pretty quick, but that worked. I was interested in religion. I was interested in the Bible. And I'm sure the Lord, even back
then, He was paving my way and directing my steps. But I was
involved in a religion that didn't exalt Christ Jesus. And then I'd go away to Bible
college. And I'm going to be a preacher.
I'd set my sights on this. Since I was a little boy, I just
knew that's what I wanted to do. Lots of times my sister and I
would play church, and she'd play like she was playing the
piano, and then she actually learned piano. She played piano.
And then I'd be the song leader. We had a song leader. and I'd
act like I was a song leader and I'd act like a preacher.
That's what I did. I grew up with that kind of mentality. I go away to Bible college and
I got big plans. I'm going to pastor a big church. And then I run right into the
truth. Not at the Bible, not because of the Bible college,
but in spite of it. And I found out before too long,
I was wrong. I was wrong. I remember, I'll
tell you a story. I grew up in Bassett, Virginia,
corporate headquarters of Bassett Furniture Company. Had an uncle
who was, we called it personnel manager back then. They call
it something else now. I don't know what it is, but anyway. He knew I was going away to Bible
college, and he said he'd get me a job at J.D. Bassett Plant,
working through the summer, and I'd work as many hours as I wanted
to work, and so I worked lots of hours. Nancy and I were dating,
and I tell you, I'd get there, go to work at 7, get off at 8
or 9 at night, and drive 40 minutes back to Rocky Mount, sleep a
little bit, get up the next morning, do it all over again. But anyway,
every Friday, I preached during lunch hour. Eighteen years old. I took my
Bible, Scofield Reference Bible, that's the only kind I had back
in those days. Yes sir. This is what I was taught, if
you don't have a Scofield Reference Bible, sell your boots and buy
you one. And so I did. Of course, I later
found out that he believed in about seven different Gospels.
I don't follow that one anymore. But anyway, that's another story
for another day. But I preach on Fridays. And this elderly
black man, he'd listen to me. And one day he told me, he said,
you got it all wrong, preacher. And of course, I'm the soul winner. Can you understand that? I was
the soul winner. I said, what are you talking
about? Do you believe on Jesus? He said, God doesn't love everybody. I thought, this is a crazy old
man here. He said, and I'll tell you, Jesus
didn't die for everybody either. He died for His people. He said, the Spirit of God, It's
not our will, it's His will. I just dismissed Him as an ignorant
old fool. I did. I'm sorry. I'll see Him in heaven, I believe,
one day. And I'll know Him. But that's
what I thought. Full of zeal. But listen, zeal
and sincerity in false religion counts for nothing. It counts
for nothing. Because it's still just error. You can be sincere. And I'm not
denying that there aren't a lot of very nice people wrapped up
in false religion. I don't deny that. And many of
them have got a lot of zeal. And they do a lot of things.
They do a lot of things in the name of Jesus. But they don't
know how God can be just and justify the ungodly. They don't
know what Christ did upon the cross of Calvary. And the only
reason you and I are not still in that kind of mess is because
the Lord has saved us. That's why. He's brought us out
of that. And that's what this first hallelujah
is all about. Hallelujah! Salvation! Salvation unto the Lord our God. He saved me from that. He delivered
me. He rescued me. Where were you
when He rescued you? Well, I guarantee you it was
in the false religion of self-righteousness and the worship of self. Because
it was all about you. But now it's not all about me
anymore. Oh, it's still too much of me
in me. Don't get me wrong. But now I
understand it's all about Him. It's all about the Lord. It's
about worship. It's about honoring Him. It's
about thanking Him and praising Him. And this first hallelujah
is about salvation and glory, His glory. One of the things
He has to say about Babylon back in chapter 18, she lived gloriously. In other words, she sought her
own glory. Still is this, who gets the glory? Who gets the glory? And when you, you know, if you
turn on the television, you watch a religious program, or you know,
you're on the radio, whatever, you're listening, this ought
to be always right in the forefront of your mind. Who is getting
the glory in this? It better be God. If it's not
God, it's false religion. And honor. That means there's
somebody worthy of majesty. Somebody worthy to be recognized. Honor to whom honor is due. Who
is worthy to be recognized in your salvation? Do you think
you deserve any recognition? I can tell you this, the only
contribution you've made in this matter of salvation is your sin. That's the only contribution
you've made. And me too. And power. Power. Omnipotence. So this verse, hallelujah, is
about salvation. And then look at verse number
3. And again they said, a hallelujah, her smoke rose up forever and
ever. This is a hallelujah for judgment. Her smoke rose up forever
and ever. What does that put you in mind
of? Perhaps Sodom and Gomorrah? Huh? That put you in mind of that?
Her smoke rose up? Who did that to her? God did. Because of her vileness. Her
wretchedness. And when Babylon is cast into
the lake of fire, who does that? Who brings this about? The Son
of God, the Lamb, the King. Their smoke rose up forever and ever. And then in verse four, here's
the next hallelujah. It has to do with worship. The
four and twenty elders, that's twelve representing the Old Testament,
twelve the New Testament, this representative number of all
the elect of God. And the four beasts, those represent
the preachers, go all the way back to chapter 4 for that. They
fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne saying,
Amen! So be it! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! And a voice came out of the Throne,
saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear
Him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the
voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, as
the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia. Here's the
fourth one. For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Oh, alleluia. God reigns. He reigns. He reigns in salvation. He reigns
in providence. He reigns throughout His vast
creation. He reigns. It isn't that He wants
to reign, or He's going to reign, or He desires to reign. Won't
you please let Him reign? No, He reigns. He reigns. When Lucifer fell, He was reigning
then, wasn't He? When our Lord Jesus, back in
the covenant of grace, When He stood as our surety, He was reigning
then over our salvation. When Adam fell, did he lose reign
then? Did he lose control then? No,
he is still reigning when Adam fell. And when the Son of God
suffered, bled, and died on the cross of Calvary, guess what? He is still reigning. He was
still reigning. And still today, Oh, hallelujah. He reigns. He reigns. You see, he's omnipotent. What
does that mean? He's almighty. That means there's
nothing too hard for the Lord. So let's be glad. That's what
it says in verse seven. And rejoice. I rejoice that He reigns. There was an article in the Huntington
paper editorial this week. I don't know if you get the Huntington
paper. But I think it was this past week. And this guy wrote
an editorial and he was talking about how some people foolishly
think that God put Donald Trump in office as president. Well,
listen, whether you're a Democrat or Republican or whatever, every
president that has ever sat upon the presidency of this nation,
God put them in office. There's no question about that.
Every king, every prime minister, God does that. And this man,
he just went on to berate this idea, really, that God reigns. Go back and read the article
if you want to read some trash. And I told Nancy, I said, you
know, I've got a good notion to answer that guy, but I don't
want to get into a... I'm not a debater, I'm a preacher. But sometimes you get so aggravated
at people that they're so ignorant. In fact, in the Ark it said he's
a theologian. A theologian and you don't know
God reigns? Theology is the study of God. Theos is God. Ology is the study
of. You mean you're involved in the
study of God and you haven't learned the basics that God reigns? I'd say you're just an idiot.
You're just a fool. Well, that's right. I'm not trying
to be mean. I'm just trying to tell you the
facts. The man doesn't know what he's talking about. Listen, either
the Lord reigns over everything, or He reigns over nothing. It's
one way or the other. And if He doesn't reign, then we're all gone Jesse, that's
for sure. But if He does reign, and He
does, then let's worship Him. And let's do what He says right
here. Let's be glad. I'm glad. I'm not sad. I'm glad. And rejoice. I give honor to Him. That's what I'm gonna do. And we'll continue from this
verse, a few more verses tonight. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
And actually that passage I asked Ron to read there from Psalm
104, it talks about praise the Lord when He destroys the wicked.
No matter what the Lord does, we're going to praise Him. That's
what we want to do. Praise the Lord whatever He does. Oh, flee to the Savior.