Thank you. Oh, how wonderful it is to think
he died for me. And for each of you who believe
him, he died for you. And in that death, everything God demanded was absolutely
answered and fulfilled. Nothing can ever be added to
what the Savior did. He finished the work of redemption. I certainly appreciate the two
special songs of this morning and again tonight. Both very
exalting to Christ Jesus. Let's go to Revelation chapter
19. again this evening, Revelation chapter 19. And maybe God would
be pleased to have another word for us this evening. John has seen the absolute destruction of Babylon. All anti-Christ religion is going
to come to an end. And after that, he saw in Babylon,
he saw that there was in her the blood of the prophets, of the saints of God, all those
that have been martyred for the cause of Christ Jesus. I know religion today, especially
in this nation, and I'm very thankful to live and be a citizen
of this nation. But false religion in this country,
it has a different face than it has had through most of the
history of the world. Now all religions, especially
in this country, are nice, pleasant, do lots of good things. But it
hasn't always been this way. False religion, especially in
this nation, doesn't show her true colors as much as she had
in many of the decades and centuries and millenniums of times gone
by. False religion has murdered many
thousands and millions of the people of God. False religion was certainly
instrumental in the death of our Savior. God brought it to
pass, of course. God did it because He purposed
the salvation of His people There could be no salvation without
our indebtedness being paid. There could be no salvation unless
our sins were dealt with, which our Savior did. There could be
no salvation unless righteousness was established for the people
of God, and that was settled at the cross. And so God ordained the death
of the Savior. He sent him into this world to
die. That's the reason he came. He
was born to die. Ever since old eternity, when
he was appointed to be, and indeed he volunteered to be, the surety
of all of God's people, the shepherd of the sheep, those who were
given to him, the Savior was all along pointing Calvary. That's where he looked to. And
it says in Isaiah, he set his face like a flint. Like a flint. He just couldn't
be moved from that. And he died according to God's
will and purpose. But those who exercised their
wills to bring it about were religious people. And we mustn't
ever forget that. These were the Jews. These were
people who said that they worshiped the same God as Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. They didn't, but that's what
they said. These were men who said they loved the Law of Moses.
These were men who said they loved the Scriptures. In fact,
the Savior even said about them, you searched the Scriptures,
they did. They read the scriptures. They
memorized the scriptures. They were thoroughly acquainted
with the letter of the law of God. They didn't see the spirit
of it. They didn't understand the message,
but they knew the scriptures. And these were the men who, when
confronted by Jesus of Nazareth, who said he was the son of man,
thus identifying himself as the Messiah who was promised in the
Old Testament, these people rejected him. When he said God was his
father, why, they accused him of blasphemy. And they were on his case all
through his public ministry until ultimately they were successful
and having him arrested, and then at their urging, the Romans
put him to death. This is false religion. You say,
but it was Judaism. Yes, it was Judaism, but that
was false religion. Because those men believed salvation
by works. They based their acceptance with
God on their obedience to the law. Legal obedience. That's how they said they were
accepted by God. They said, we're not sinners.
We love the law of Moses. We keep the law. We're not guilty
of these things that other people are. We're not like these sinners.
We're not like the publicans. We're not like the harlots. We're
not like that bunch at all. They said to Jesus of Nazareth,
we're not like those you hang around with. If you really love the Lord,
you'd be with us. That's what they said. But He
wasn't with them because they were so stuck on their own righteousness
and they didn't see they needed a better righteousness than their
own. In fact, our Lord Jesus said,
except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you're not going to enter into the kingdom
of God. And people must have scratched their head because
they thought, well, the scribes and the Pharisees, they're the
holiest people we know. And those people that the multitudes
thought were a holy people were the enemies of God. They were
the enemies of the gospel. They hated the Son of God. John
says at the very beginning in John chapter 1, He came unto
His own, His own received Him not. They didn't have any use
for Him. They didn't want Him. They despised
Him. And they were not satisfied till
He died. And even then, they went to the
governor, and said, make sure you seal his tomb because here's
what that imposter said. Here's what that blasphemer said.
I'll come back in three days. You go ahead and seal that tomb.
And that's what Pilate did. And John sees, John is taken. Remember, John lived nearly 2,000
years ago. And he is taken by the Spirit
to see things that are absolutely going to happen. And now he is,
as it were, in his mind, in his heart, he's transported all the
way to the end. And he sees the ultimate judgment
that awaits all the false religion. And when the mouths of all the
Antichrist preachers, and when all the lives of all of those
who love Antichrist preaching, when they're all stopped, when
it all comes to an end, that's when John says, all of heaven
breaks out in joy. That's when they're all rejoicing.
Remember earlier in the book of Revelation, those who were
under the altar, who were right there at the altar, they said,
Lord, how long? Lord, how long before you avenge
our blood? He said, just be patient. And now
that time has arrived in the book of Revelation. And God has
avenged the blood of His saints. These were men who sealed their
testimony of loving the Lord Jesus Christ and believing in
salvation by grace alone. They sealed their testimony with
their blood. And Babylon was the one who murdered
them. And John says in the very last
verse of chapter 18, in her was found the blood of the prophets
and of the saints and of all that was murdered, all that were
killed and slain upon the earth. And then all of heaven erupts
in joy. And we get down, we work through
the first six verses, down to verse seven, even this morning. Verse seven says, John says,
or he hears a voice says, let us be glad and rejoice. Won't it be a wonderful day when the only message The only
message that anybody will ever hear again is the true gospel
of grace. Now that'd be a wonderful day. When every mouth of every lying
preacher is shut forever, that'd be a wonderful day. When our God shuts the doors
of every goat pasture, of every false religion, they're all shut
down and he puts them out of business forever. Had to be a
joyful day. And I know there's some people
who say, preacher, that's too hard. That's too hard, you're
too rough on them. Let me tell you something, I
don't think we can be rough enough. We can't be too hard on this. It's impossible to be too hard. Because we love the truth as
it is in the Lord Jesus. We love this gospel of redeeming
grace. We love to hear of the Lord Jesus,
that he laid down his life. He said, I have the power to
lay it down. I have the power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my father. He said, the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He talked about the
grace of God. He talked about what the Lord
does for people. These others talk about what
you've got to do for God. Which way is it? Is God waiting
on us to do something for Him? Or must we wait for God to do
something for us? Now, which way is it? And as
you read through the Word of God, as you read the Scriptures,
if God the Spirit gives you some understanding, you realize salvation
is of the Lord. And I'll tell you, it's the only
message worth hearing. I don't want to hear anything
else from you. I can't hardly stand it. Every
once in a while I'm put in a position where I've got to listen to something,
maybe at a funeral or whatever. And then I get so, I'm just tied
up in knots. And you are too. Some of you,
you've had to go to funerals, family member died, and it was
a Catholic church, or maybe a Baptist church, or a Methodist church,
and you had to go there, you had to endure that tomfoolery. You had to sit through that junk.
Be a wonderful day when every mouth be shut. That won't exist
anymore. And righteousness, righteousness
will be throughout the world from sea to shining sea. This
is what John sees. And this is what he's listening
to. And he hears a voice that says, a voice that says in verse
seven, let us be glad. It's the voice of a great multitude. Well, who is the multitude? It's
all the people of God of all of the ages. And they all say
this at the end of verse number six. Hallelujah. For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice. I rejoice that he reigns, don't
you? You know, the very doctrine that
there are people who absolutely choke on and they can't get past
it. The reign of God, the sovereignty
of God, the very doctrine they find to be so offensive is to
the people of God a wonderful, beautiful, very comfortable,
encouraging truth that God reigns. Well, surely you don't have any
trouble with this doctrine, do you? Let's be glad. and let's rejoice,
let's give honor to him. And watch this, then he goes
on to say, for the marriage of the lamb has come. This false
church, now she's done away with. She has pretended to be the bride
of Christ. She's just a great big counterfeit. She's beautiful, she's painted
up like a harlot. And she seduces people to follow
her. She causes multitudes of people
to commit fornication with her. What is fornication? Giving the
love of your heart to one who is not entitled to it. The false
God, the false Jesus presented by false religion is not entitled
to your worship, not entitled to your faith, not entitled to
be honored, not entitled to be reverenced. They're not worthy
of that. The only one who's worthy of honor is the Lord God of glory.
The Lord God omnipotent who reigns, that's the one we worship. And
I say this to you, if you haven't worshipped this One who reigns,
you really haven't worshipped. If the God you worshipped, if
the God you adore, anybody in here, anybody out there on the
internet, if that God doesn't reign over everybody, you have
got an idol. That's not God. That's just an
idol. Don't give him honor. Don't give
honor to a false God. You're in troublesome water there. Now, if you give honor to a false
God, you give honor to a false Jesus, a Jesus who needs you,
a Jesus whose salvation is conditioned on you. That's a false Jesus. Why, you wouldn't be any worse
off if you went out and bowed down to a tree. Right? Would you? You wouldn't be any
worse off. If you went to a rock and said, oh rock, I worship
you. You wouldn't be any worse off. There's one who reigns, and that's
the one we've got to worship. We've got to find out who God
is. That's the problem with this day. Men are ignorant of God.
They don't have a clue who He is. That's why they feel sorry
for God. They make apologies for God.
That's why you don't ever hear preachers talking about Jacob
have I loved, and Esau have I hated. And when they get that second
part, it says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I loved less. Boy,
they've got to water it down. It's too strict for them. It's
too stern for them. But listen, we've got to say
it just like God says it. If we don't set forth God as
He sets forth Himself in the Scriptures, we're handling the
Scriptures dishonestly. We're not preaching to please
men. The Apostle Paul addressed that in Galatians chapter one. He said, if I do that, I'm not
the servant of God. I want you to receive the message,
but I'm much more interested in and much more concerned about
this message being honorable to God. Because that's who I
answer to. I don't answer to you. If you
get mad at me, if you get offended at me, well, it'll just have
to be that way. And I hope we can work it out.
But I don't want God mad at me, Ron. I don't want God offended
at me. I don't want to say something
contrary to his truth. Let's give him honor. That's
what all the saints of God say. Let's give him honor. He says, for the marriage of
the Lamb has come. His wife has made herself ready.
The marriage of the Lamb. Now that this other has gotten
out of the way, This one, the false church, now that she's
gone. Now, there's nothing left but
the true church. And who is that? That's the bride
of Christ. It's those people chosen before
the world began. These are those people elected
under salvation. These are those people whom God
ordained that have eternal life. And he didn't give any consideration
as to what they would do, either good or bad. You know that? Either good or bad. See, actually this election,
this election of grace, it took place before Adam fell. Is that right? Before Adam fell. So there wasn't any consideration
of good or bad. Wasn't any consideration of any
works whatsoever. The basis, the reason for this
election is to be found in God's eternal purpose. Which is absolutely
mysterious. Why did God love Jacob and hate
Esau? Because he's God, that's his
right. You got an issue with it, take it up with God. In Psalm 5.5 it says, the Lord
hateth the workers of iniquity. Those who habitually work iniquity
all their lives, God hates them. And I know that's offensive to
religions today, but they need to read their Bibles. They need
to dust off their Bibles and see what the word of God's all
about. And these people, these people
who are the bride of Christ Jesus, they're redeemed by the Lamb
of God. They're redeemed by the Lamb.
Notice, John says this. He says, the marriage of the
Lamb has come. The marriage of the Lamb? Yes. Now, our Lord, this is all scriptures
inspired, right? We agree on that, all scriptures.
Give him the inspiration of God and it's all profitable. Our Lord could have identified
him using any number of titles. So this could have said the marriage
of the king has come. That'd be right, he is the king.
He's the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He could have
said the shepherd the marriage of the shepherd is come, and
that would be right. He could have used any name here,
any title that he would choose, but throughout the book of the
Revelation, this is a special word for the Son of God that
the writer John is led to record 26 times. He's the Lamb. And in this, He identifies with
us because we're the sheep of the Lord's pasture. Isaiah talks
about taking up the young lambs, the shepherd taking up the young
lambs in his arms. He shall lead them and feed them
like a shepherd. And here's our Lord Jesus associating
Himself with us, whom He came to save. It's the marriage of
the Lamb that's come. And his wife hath made herself
ready. That is, she's got on the right
wedding garment. What is this wedding garment?
Well, read on, verse eight. And to her was granted, was given,
that she should be arrayed in fine linen. Watch, clean and
white. What is this fine linen? What
is this in which she's arrayed? Well, it's the garment of righteousness. It's the robe of salvation. In
Isaiah, the Lord talks about his people. He's covered us with
the garments of salvation. That is the garments of the righteousness,
the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's absolutely clean. You see, our righteousness is
soiled. It's filthy. It's rotten. That's what Isaiah 64, six says. And this is white, white. That's like holiness, you see.
This is beautiful. Now he says, this for the fine
linen is the righteousness of saints. It is our righteousness. But it's not a righteousness
that we established, but a righteousness that has been freely imputed
to us by the Lord Himself. And now we can say, that's my
righteousness. That's my righteousness. I'm so thankful I'm covered and
robed and made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. There
stood Adam and Eve after they had sinned. You know, they immediately,
false religion was active immediately. Satan didn't waste any time. And once Adam fell and he realized
his nakedness, then false religion began to express itself. I need
something to cover my shame and my nakedness and I'll make it
myself. There's false religion, right
there in Genesis chapter three. Didn't take long, did it? It
didn't take long. But there's the Lord ready to
correct No, your covering is not going to do. I'll show you what you need to
be covered with. And so the Lord killed innocent
animals. He shed blood and he robed them. Now you're learning something. The only way you're going to
be accepted by God is for an innocent innocent, suitable victim
to die in his stead. That's the only way. I tell you, when the Lord put
those garments on Adam and Eve, I bet they said, this feels good.
I'm so thankful the Lord provided this for me, because you see,
if the Lord provides it, it's acceptable in his sight. Right? That makes sense, don't it? If
he provides it, it's got to be good enough for him. And there's
Adam and Eve clothed in those garments. I bet he looked at
Eve and said, you look good in that. She said, you look good
in that. I'm so thankful the Lord killed
a victim for us. You see, there's substitution
right there. There's the righteousness of
God in Christ Jesus right there. And that garment's been given
to us. He strips us of our old self-righteous
rags, and He robes us in the beauties, the comeliness, the
glories, the righteousness of the Son of God, so that our name
is now the Lord our righteousness. I got the same name, you've got
the same name as He does. And the reason is, for God made
Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin. that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. In him. Oh, there's the righteousness
of the saints. And then a voice says to John
in verse nine, and he saith unto me, write. Write this down. Blessed, well off, to be envied
and happy are they which are They which are called, they which
are summoned under the marriage supper of
the Lamb. This marriage supper of the Lamb,
this is the final time of rejoicing. I say final, it lasts forever. But that other, Babylon, has
got to go before this happens. See, that's the order. That's
got to go. All that error, that's got to
be trashed. That's got to be cast out. And
now all that's left is the pure church who loves the grace of
God, who loves the message of salvation by the bloody death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of these who love that
message, we've been summoned by grace. We've been called,
effectually called. And I've defined that for you.
It means able to get the job done. The Lord calls us. I know
there's a general call that goes out to everybody, come to Christ.
Believe on the Son of God. Man, I'm all the time giving
out a general call of the gospel to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Many are called, the scripture
says, many are called, few are chosen. There's a general call
that goes out. But then there's that special
call. That's a call of love. That's
a call of I mean business with you. I come here. And I tell
you, when the Lord issues that call, that's when we come. We're summoned to him. We're called to the marriage
supper of the Lamb. And he said unto me, now, these
are the true sayings of God. That's the title of the message,
true sayings of God. What's true mean? Faithful, believable,
It's believable. What God says is absolutely the
truth. Everything Babylon said was wrong. It was a lie. You can't take
their message. You can't believe their message
because it's man-based. It's works-based. It's will-based. It's worth. Based. But you can believe what God
says, because He's true. Let God be true and every man
a liar. I was telling a couple of the
fellows, I said I was talking to a person not too long ago. They said of another individual,
I don't like him, he's a liar. And I said, well the Bible says
all men are liars. That includes you. And that takes
me in too. All men are liars. But God doesn't
lie. He can't lie. Let's go against
his nature. So when God says something, you
know what it's for us to do? Believe him. That's what we do. That's what we're supposed to
do, believe him. He can't lie. And John says, John hears this,
write this down. Write this down. These are the
true sayings of God. Well, what has he said? He said,
back in verse one, he talked about salvation. Hallelujah,
praise the Lord for salvation. That's true. That's true saying
of God. Salvations of the Lord. You want
a true saying? Mark that one down. Salvations
of the Lord. In fact, the Lord is salvation. Well, yeah, Simeon in the temple,
when Joseph and Mary came and brought the infant, the Lord
Jesus, to do after him according to the law, there was a man in
the temple, led of the Spirit of God to go to the temple that
day, his name was Simeon. For the Lord had said to him,
you're not gonna die till you see the Lord's Christ. And he
saw that infant and the Spirit moved upon him and said, that's
the one right there. Right there he is. It was just
a wee little baby. He took him in his arms, lifted
up his eyes to heaven as he cradled the Son of God to his bosom. Some of y'all saw the twins were
here this morning, those sweet little girl, little babies. You just hug them. And old Simme,
he hugged up that little baby. But he saw more than just another
baby. He said, Lord, now let thy servant
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. I've seen God's salvation. I thought he just saw an infant.
He saw God's salvation because Christ Jesus is God's salvation. See, all of our salvation is
bound up and determined and dependent upon Him only. It's all up to
Him. It was all entrusted to Him before
God made the world. He laid that responsibility on
Him. Simeon said, mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. I'm ready to go. And if your
eyes have seen God's salvation, you're ready to go too. But if
your eyes haven't seen Christ as God's salvation, you ain't
ready to go. You don't wanna go yet. You don't
wanna go now. Because it'll be an awful end. That's a true saying of God.
Salvation's on the Lord. I'll tell you another true saying
of God that's found down in this passage of scripture. All Babylon's
gonna fall. Now if you wanna get mixed up
in her, go ahead, have at it. But this is a true saying of
God. With violence, she's going to be thrown down. And if you're
in her, you're going to be thrown down too. That's right. There's just no other way to
look at that. If you support her, kind of cozy up to her,
say, well, I think I can get along with her. If you can get
along with Babylon, you're not part of Jerusalem. You can't
be. You can't be for error when you
got the truth over here. And here's another true saying
of God. The marriage of the Lamb has
come. Now we were secretly espoused to Christ Jesus before the foundation
of the world. the election of grace. We're openly espoused to him
when we're converted by the Spirit of God. What this is talking about is
a very public, a public display. When the bridegroom identifies
himself as being the bridegroom, of these the Father gave you. And this will begin a celebration
and a rejoicing that will never end. You know, when you have a wedding,
usually afterwards you have some kind of reception. It's a joyful
time. Everybody's smiling. taking pictures,
everybody's happy, and it's just a delightful time. Well, I'll
tell you what, when the bridegroom and the bride, when this marriage
is made public before all the angels of heaven, and we stand
with Christ in glory, and we're going to be with Him forever
and ever, You're talking about a time of happiness. You're talking
about a time of joy. It's gonna be so wonderful. So wonderful. You know, for the
saints of God, when we die, we enter into the blissfulness of
heaven. We enter into the joy of heaven. I tell you, heaven's a happy
place. It's a happy place. Those that are there, they're
happy to be there. And the Lord's happy that they're
there. And there's great rejoicing because everybody's rejoicing
in the grace of God to them through Christ Jesus, the Savior. And
there ain't no frowns in heaven, are there? I can't imagine anybody
frowning in heaven. Everybody in heaven just tickled
to death to be there. It's a joyful place. We're entering
into the joy of the Lord. The Lord's gonna be joyful, and
he is joyful with his people. And we're gonna be joyful too,
because we're saved by the blood of the crucified one. 210, that's the last song of
the day. 210, saved by the blood of the crucified
one.