First and foremost, remember
we're not really doing exposition of this text. So there are some
key things that could be taught. There are some key things that
could be taught in this text a little bit deeper that we're
just not going to have the opportunity for. But we do know the gist
of it. is that Jesus Christ reveals
for these suffering saints of this first century the pure joy
of victory. There is nothing that they should
fear. There is nothing that they should cower from because even
when their heads are taken from their shoulders they have victory
in Jesus Christ. I had a conversation earlier
today with a sister in the Lord about some of the imagery here
and remember that Revelation is a letter that's given to us
in pictures. We see a picture of this and
a picture of that and sometimes it's a restatement, a recapitulation
of what we've already seen from a different point of view. Revelation
isn't supposed to teach us doctrinal things in the sense that like
Romans would teach us. This is what justification is
or here is the gospel or this is what the law does. That's
not the point of this letter. The point of this letter and
the style in which it's written is to give pictures of hope and
redemption in the time when the people were suffering beyond
reasonable and logical and rational hope. They could not see beyond
their suffering. They could not see beyond their
persecution. They felt as though there was nothing left for them
except to die. But here, this letter teaches
us that we have victory in Jesus Christ. There is not to be, we're
not to take this letter and do what so many have done through
the last hundred years and to create all sorts of different
plays on words. Matter of fact, word studies
can get you in trouble just because the word is used in the sentence,
and it's also used in the sentence someplace else. We're not supposed
to read into what the word means. It means what it means in the
context of the sentence, in the context of the paragraph, in
the context of the letter in which it was written. But we've
gotten in trouble over the last hundred years or so, and we've
come up with our own idea of what last days are supposed to
look like. We've come up as a culture, as a church culture, the idea
that there are certain people that are going to be set in place,
certain things that are going to be set in place. And I'm not
even talking about millennial views. We'll get to the millennial,
we'll get to a real picture of that next week. We're, we've
allowed our humanity to dictate the interpretation of scripture
when scripture should be read in a simple way. Jesus said to
the disciples, do not hinder the children come unto me for
if your faith is not like theirs you will not inherit the kingdom
of God. Now what does that mean? Do children have a grasp and
the depth of what it means to propitiate divine righteousness? Divine justice? The children
understand, like we were talking tonight at dinner, about the
effectual point in which justification actually was applied. Is that
really what the gospel is all about? No, it's not. The gospel
is about Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and doing what we
could not do, and obeying God the Father in complete obedience
as a human being, and dying on a short time on the cross, just
six hours, to satisfy an eternal wrath that is due us, that we'll
see tonight that comes upon the world, and comes upon all the
unbelievers of the world. Jesus Christ then also was raised
from the dead, showing that He is the victor. He is the God
of heaven, who came back to life, and He's promised life eternal
for all who believe in Him. And we know that as we continue
to grow in our understanding of scripture, that the gospel
is not just this offer, but it is an absolute declaration of
what God has accomplished. So the good news of Jesus Christ
is that which God has accomplished on our behalf for the sake of
our salvation. It is yea and amen and nothing
can take us away from the work of God. Nothing can separate
us from the love of God. Nothing can thwart the plan of
God, the gospel, is good news. It's not maybe good news for
you. It's not a possible good news.
It's not an option or an opportunity for good news. It is the good
news of God unto salvation for you. And not only is it just
the good news, it is the power of God unto the salvation, as
Paul teaches the people of Rome, that I'm not ashamed of the gospel,
for it is the power of God unto salvation. So when we get to
the place where we think that our lives, and our suffering,
and our persecution, and our downtroddenness, and our depression,
and our despair, and our inability, and our failures, and our sin,
and our doubt, and all these things have come to a place where
we just cannot possibly have security in Jesus Christ. We
need to remember that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
So that God has saved us in spite of us. God has saved us in spite
of our ability. And God has saved us in spite
of our continuation. and persevering because He is
a faithful God. Yes, there are instances where
some people do not have true salvation, do not have true saving
faith. They have not been born of God
and it's evidenced by the fact they reject the gospel later
and walk away as if they've never been a part of Christ. But beloved,
we who are in Christ have nothing to fear. Our hope is not in how
strong we are or how faithful we are. Our hope is in the faithfulness
of God through Jesus Christ. Our hope is in the work that
God has finished on the cross. Keep that in mind as we close
this letter out. Because there's never been a
more opportune time in our world as to have people continue to
twist Scripture for the sake of monopoly. twist Scripture
for the sake of profit, to twist Scripture for the sake of popularity
and fame, and there's no greater place to twist Scripture but
that in two or three places, the top one of which is to tell
people that God wants them completely happy and completely healthy
and completely wealthy. The second would be where people
could take this end times and literally scare the hell out
of people that they might have a following. Teach them things
that the Bible does not teach so that they can seem wise in
the eyes of men. For it is their own wisdom that
they see in the mirror of their soul that causes them to think
that they are something when they are nothing. Paul would
remind us, as he reminded the Corinthian church, or the church
of Corinth, not many of you are wise, not many of you are of
noble birth. Where is the soothsayer? Where
is the wisdom of this age? Do you not remember that God
uses the nothings of the world to bring to nothing the things
that are? The lowly things, the weak things. Paul would go on
to teach, he says that the weakness of God is greater than the strength
of men, and the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom
of men. Therefore, I do not brag in myself. Paul says, I didn't
come to you with eloquence and with great stature, with great
oratory, but with trembling and fear, I came before you and I
preached nothing but Christ and Him crucified, lest the cross
lose its power. You know what it means for the
cross to lose its power? if we preach anything but Christ as
our only hope. If we preach that man's ability, man's decisions,
man's ingenuity, man's charisma, and man's, what is the word? Oh goodness, let me get the word
right. Determination and devotion. Is the effectual agent unto salvation? The cross is unnecessary. If we even believe that man can
overpower the work of God in salvation, then the cross is
unnecessary. If we believe that Jesus Christ has paid for the
sins of every human that has ever lived, then the cross is
unnecessary. Why? Because it's not effectual,
is it? If all that is true, and the
world is driving itself toward God, and the world is choosing
to follow after God, and the world has already been saved,
but yet we see that the majority of the world falls away and hates
the Lord, and does not believe, and does not follow after Christ,
then Christ died for nothing. He's a weak Savior. He's a hopeless
image of mockery. But Christ is not a weak Savior.
Christ has certainly paid for the sins of all who will believe.
And all who will believe are called by God. And all who are
called come because God gives them to the Son. And the Son
will never cast out those whom He gives. He will never cast
out. And the old song, I'm not so sure who wrote it, the old
hymn that I remember singing as a child, when He was on the
cross, I was on His mind. Friends, not every person in
this world can sing that song. without lying. Not every person in this world
can sing that song, because those who are on the mind of Christ
were those for whom He died. And those for whom Christ died,
their sins have been paid for, and it would be wicked for God
to judge them for their sins. This is the truth of the Good
News. It's a very clear, very explicit, very myopic reality
that God has saved a people for Himself. You believe because
God is gracious towards you. You and I stand justified before
God because God has been gracious towards us. It's not because
of who we are, or what we're worth, or what we've done, but
because of who God is. And one day, beloved, we will
stand before our King, perfect and glorified, never to sin again,
never to fight, never to be bitter, never to weep, never to cry,
never to have any anguish or doubt or frustration ever again,
but our tears will be wiped away from our eyes and we shall stand
and behold Him face to face. And that's what the letter of
Revelation is about. That God is faithful in redemption
to the end. No matter what the world looks
like, no matter how good or bad our faith may be, God is faithful. Isn't that good news? We should
know when we hear the word gospel that that's what it means. Good
news. Last week we looked In chapter
18 we saw the specific judgment that God brought against all
of the leadership of the world, I mean all of the markets of
the world, the divisions of the world, systems if you will. Now
keep in mind again, this is not a picture of this is going to
happen and then this is going to happen and then this is going
to happen. God's not going to come back to earth and judge
the banks. and after he's judged the banks, then judged the sea
merchants, and then he's not going to then judge this. He's
just showing pictures of everything that Babylon, the world, boasts
in. Why is it so popular to be popular? You ever thought about that?
Why is that the dream of so many people? I mean, I don't know
about you, but on some days when my phone rings 20 times, it does
not make me feel good. You ever been overwhelmed with
a day? You're thinking, if I have to
see one more person, if I have to change one more pull-up, if
I have to clean up one more mess, if I have to deal with one more
problem, if I have to change one more tire. You see what I'm
saying? I think I'm going to lose my mind. Why? We can't handle
it. Life can overwhelm us. What's the point? Why would we
want to be popular? Always in the spotlight. Always
getting recognition. You know why? Because we love
glory. There's no difference. Somebody
needing what we have or a problem that we might get help with or
a problem that's just in our own lab that we have to deal
with. Why not enjoy that fodder? But yet everybody in the world,
I say that hyperbolically, seems to always want to be famous.
They want their children to be famous. For what? So they can be gawked at and
looked at. But that's what the world is. The world wants self-glory
because that's what the nature of humanity is all about. Glorify
me, look at me, see me, understand me, love me because I'm special. We're not special. There's not
a man in history who doesn't clean his bottom the same way
the guy next door does. When we get sick, we blow our
nose in the exact same way. When we die, we're embalmed with
the exact same type of needle. And the blood that once gave
us life is drained out into nothingness. Babylon has fallen, and the church
rejoices. And in chapter 19, we saw last
week that there's a rejoicing in heaven. Let's read it. And
as I read, I'll speak to it. After this, I heard what seemed
to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out,
Hallelujah. Salvation and glory and power
belong to our God. For His judgments are true and
just. For He has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged
on her the blood of His servants. Oh, look at that. Here's this
psalm, this hymn of praise after the saints, after we see the
destruction and the judgment of the world. Beloved, we will
worship God in that way. We will worship God in that way
when we see that the world and the allure of all who are in
the world and everything that they've done to mock the Word
of God and to mock Christ, everything they've done to try to belittle
the church, everything the world and the devil have done together
to seek self-glory, they shall become nothing. We who are the sheep who are
being led as lambs to the slaughter. Though we die, Paul says, yet
we live. And one day we shall stand beside
the king while the kings of the world bow down in judgment. Now see, there's a dichotomy
here in my soul. On one side I'm going, yes! Praise the Lord,
your judgment is right, just and true. It's just a three-sided
coin. And on the other side, I'm like,
why do I feel good about that? It seems wrong. I wish they'd
come to faith. And then the sinner is, man,
if God's judgment are true and just, then how did I escape judgment?
It takes us back to the Lamb. That which I explained hopefully
clearly before I began. It takes us back to the cross. where Jesus Christ displayed
the righteousness of God who had forgiven the sins of His
people, so that it would be just and
true. So that the judgment of God against His church is true
when He says, you are innocent. For Christ took our guilt and
our shame. But to the world who continually
not only hates the body of Christ, but pursues her passionately,
And in our day, it's just in courts and in word and in economic
things. But in some peoples, in some
regions of the world, it's with your very life. It's not even
with the judicial system. Some places in the world, just
because you get caught with the Scriptures, you die. The Scripture teaches here that
God's judgments are true. I mean, it's just not wrong in
everything that he judges. It is not wrong for God to say
that man is without excuse. What about those who have not
heard the gospel? They are without excuse. For they were born guilty and
sinners. It's not, you don't go to hell
because you haven't believed. You go to hell because you're
worthy of judgment. The sin of unbelief. Yes, it's
bad. But friends, we're not escaping.
I mean, we're not entering, we, but the world is not entering
into the wrath of God because they just didn't want to believe
on Jesus. They're entering into the wrath
of God because that's where we start. That's where we begin. That's the guilt that's given
to us from our father, Adam, who actually was saved. And Adam was justified before
God. We've talked about this a little bit tonight as well.
Adam was justified before God. And all through the centuries
before Christ died, Adam was justified. He was innocent before
God. And God saw him as not a sinner,
but a saint. How? Because Jesus would take
his sin And that's why Paul teaches what he does in Romans 3, that
God put forth Christ in order to display His righteousness.
Because if God had never allowed Christ, or God had never killed
the Son, then there would never be a substitute. There would
never be a substitute. So Adam being forgiven would
be evil. Why? Because you can't let Adam
get away with the sin that he committed. You can't let Eve
get away with the sin that they committed. And all of their sons
and daughters, which is us, are guilty of their father's sins
and sin nature. Yes, I'm culpable for my own
sin. You are culpable for your own sin. But we are guilty by
nature. We are children of wrath. But
God in His love and kindness, because of the great love with
which He loved us, caused us to be born again in Christ. so that God is righteous now.
And so when we see that the judgments of God are true and just, when
we're singing that, you know why we're able to do that without
being sort of overburdened by the idea that there are those
who are suffering justice? Because there is exaltation there. There is thanksgiving there.
There is righteous glorification there where we are praising God
because we are not counted in that number because of the great
love with which He loved us and how He called us out of darkness
and snatched us into the kingdom of His Son. That's how we're
worshiping. And His judgments are true and
just for He's judged the great prostitute who corrupted the
earth with her morality and He's avenged on her the blood of His
servants, and they cried out once more, Hallelujah! And they
sing this song, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever. You see that? The smoke from
her goes up forever and ever and ever. And I can already feel
I'm only going to get through verse 10 tonight. Yeah, sorry,
Dre. What does this teach us? The
saints are praising God and singing praises to Him because not only
is the world and the prostitute and Babylon, you know what those
pictures mean, no longer are those wicked unbelievers being
judged, but their judgment is forever. This is no temporary
zap you, you're over, it's out, done, annihilation. This is a
forever, physical, absolute wrath. Now at least read 11 through
21 so you can see what it looks like. And it says, and the 24 elders
and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God,
who was seated on the throne saying, amen, hallelujah. That means praise God. And from
the throne came a voice saying, praise our God, all you servants,
you who fear him, small and great. In verse 6 it says, Then I heard
what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar
of many waters, and like the sound of a mighty peals of thunder
crying out. So all of a sudden we see the
saints, the church crying out. Then we see or we hear or John
hears this voice of a great multitude. And listen to the descriptives
he gives. like the roar of many waters and like the sound of
mighty peals of thunder. Remember back a few chapters
ago where we saw that imagery, where we saw the imagery that
as the Lord spoke it was as peals of thunder and John was not allowed
to write it down? So now all of a sudden the worship
in heaven sounds almost like the voice of God. It's that strong,
it's that unified. And I'm going to impose something
here as a possibility or a speculation to consider, but not necessarily
say that the scripture teaches it here. But could it very well
be that in the last day, when we stand glorified with our King,
that we do speak out of one voice? We definitely sing praises with
one voice. No longer will we have our intimate
individualistic salvations. We will worship God together
as he intended for us to, with one heart and with one soul and
with one mind and with one voice. No longer will we be concerned
about how we're going to survive and what we're going to do. We
will forever now be a church together, the bride of Christ.
And verse 6, this, I mean, the end of that, hallelujah, for
the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Now look at what they're
screaming. Look at what they're crying.
Look at what they're singing. Our Lord God, the Almighty reigns. Isn't this the position that
these people who were suffering were looking for? Isn't this
the position that the Jews hated Jesus for not being? I thought
you were gonna be our king. Remember several times in the
gospel accounts where the scripture writes, it says, you know, you
were coming, they saw him and teach and saw him do things,
and then the scripture says that they would come to try to make
him their king. That was their intention. They
would set Jesus up in a place of political stature so that
he would then create them as a people to fight against the
government of Rome, to take over. Friends, the kingdom of God is
not on this earth. Never has been, never will be. Beloved, we're not going to see
greater days ahead of us. We're not going to see great
godly days. And if you read much of history,
and if you read history, I really encourage you to read original
sources, read journals, and read diaries, and read letters. Don't
read historians that are 500 years separated, except where
they actually talk about the original source documents. They're
available. But when you begin to read the
letters back into the throne, when you start to read the letters
between the people that migrated into this area to actually start
new colonies, when you read all of the things that you see, we
saw a people who were sold out to the purpose of having the
freedom to worship how they wanted to, and that there would be no
king to tell them what they should do and how they should act in
the context of who they believed. or how they believed in their
God. And there are some really good
men who monopolized on this passion. And without teaching an entire
course on American church history, the Church of the United States
of America was birthed in nationalism, not Christianity. It wasn't. And it was so far
removed from spirituality by the 1930s that in the 1950s,
a movement to revive a God-centeredness, not a Christ-centeredness, but
a divine, theocratic-centeredness gave us, in God we trust, on
our money, gave us indivisible, with liberty under God, indivisible,
added to our whatever that is. Yeah, salute. And all sorts of
things. And it gave then a press to the
Jesus movement that gave birth to the hippie movement. And it's gone downhill ever since.
Many people would look at the history of America and say, oh,
we've just come, we started out with such divine heritage. No,
we didn't. There were a lot of godly people
in the early days. But be careful how much we worship
the Puritans, beloved. They worship themselves. They worship themselves. They're
the ones who put skirts on furniture so that men wouldn't lust after
women thinking, oh, there's a leg of a chair, ah, leg of a woman,
ah. Not kidding. These are the things we need
to understand that there is no such thing as a godly nation.
The only people who are godly are those who have been justified
by the blood of the Lamb. The only people who are the people
of God are peoples, small, very small pockets of peoples from
every nation, from every tongue, and from every tribe of all the
world, who are the redeemed of God, who then at the marriage
supper of the Lamb cry out, for the Lord our God, the Almighty
reigns. And this is the place that Jesus
has always sat. And He's been patient and long-suffering
so that the full number of the church could come in. So that
His redeemed would be born and then born again into His kingdom. This is where we are. We are
citizens not of this world, but we're passing through, and everything
in this world is passing away. We are passing through, and we
don't hold tightly to anything that we do here. It is garbage,
it is firewood, it is being prepared for destruction. We use it, we
give it, God gives it, and as Job would say, God takes it away.
But even then, blessed be the name of the Lord, our God, the
Almighty, who reigns. Let us then rejoice and exult
and give Him glory. Why? Because He's worth it. He
reigns. And you know what? Throughout history, you see stories
of people bowing before kings and cowering in fear, lest they
look wrongly at the king or his court or his queen or whoever
it might be. And one of those people thinks,
by what glare did you give me? What heart is it that you stare
upon me? Cut off his head! We look to our King face to face.
We stand bold before the throne of grace. We rejoice and we exalt
and we give glory because we stand clean. There's nothing
to hide from God. There's nothing that we have
on our conscience that we're hoping doesn't pull out in front
of everybody else. When Paul wrote in Romans chapter
8 verse 1, Therefore now there is no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. Beloved, you can take that to
the grave. There is no condemnation. We're not bowing down to a king
that we're scared may chop off our heads. We're bowing down
and rejoicing in the king who chopped off his own head for
our sake. No, he didn't really chop off
his head, but he died on a cross. For we rejoice, we exalt, we
give Him the glory. The marriage of the Lamb has
come. The union. When God created Adam and then
took Eve out of him and put them together in the garden, it was
a microscopic picture of the church in Jesus. And it's a temporal
picture. It's not meant to be forever.
But beloved, our relationship is meant to be forever. Our relationship is meant to
be forever and Christ is taking His bride and He has prepared
her for Himself. Now the crazy thing is to use
the imagery that John uses in comparison to the world. The
world, the great prostitute. Friends, we were like that. Not
worthy to stand in the presence of the King. Not worthy to be
called the bride of Christ. but He took our sin and now we
are the righteousness of God. He took our debt and now we owe
Him nothing. You know that. We owe God nothing
in relation to our sin debt. So what do we give Him? Praise. Glory. Honor. The bride is ready. She has made
herself ready. We won't go into that right now.
It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, pure
and bright. So imagine the bride preparing
for the marriage, for the wedding, and she's putting on her gown.
And I'll sort of give you the picture here. The bride is prepared,
but she has not prepared herself in righteousness of her own doing. That's what that's teaching.
She was granted the clothes of fine linen, pure and bright.
How? Through the blood of Christ.
We put on His dress. That's a weird picture. Jesus'
righteousness is our clothing. It was given to us. It's ours. We wear it. And one day we will
wear it perfectly. not inside this corruptible flesh,
but in our glorified flesh. For the fine linen is the righteous
deeds of the saints, all the work of God in us and through
us, which account for nothing, because God has worked them in
us. Do you realize when we obey the Word of God, we cannot take
credit for it? I can't say, you know what, I
obeyed the Lord today. I can't say, man, I've been obeying
the call of God for the ministry for 20 years. I can't say that
because God has done the work. God is the one who's effectively
caused me to walk in His ways. God causes you to walk in His
ways. But even as we struggle in this
life and as our flesh continues to be at war with the Spirit,
even in obedience we're not in obedience. So we don't put hope
in the way we live. We put hope in the way Christ
lived. We don't put hope in the way we love. We put hope in the
way Christ loves. We don't put hope in the person
that we are becoming. Because no matter who we are
and how much we mature, we're never going to be righteous.
It's Christ who is righteous. But at this day, we are made
righteous fully. And the angel said to me, verse
9, write this. Blessed are those who are invited
to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Are you invited to that
supper? Those who are married to the
world, those who are seduced by the whore of Babylon are not
invited to the supper of the Lamb. Are you blessed? How do you get to come to the
supper of the Lamb? You've got to be the bride. You can't be the bride unless
you trust fully in Jesus Christ, alone. And the angel said to
me, these are the words, true words of God. And then I fell
down at his feet to worship him. But he said you mustn't do that.
I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold the
testimony of Jesus. Worship God. The testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. There's a lot there. But ultimately
we see now this reminder that we are blessed to be invited. We know that over in the beginning
parts of Revelation, Jesus tells one of the churches, Behold,
I stand at the door and knock. That you would open the door
and that I would come in and sup with you and you with me.
This is talking to a people who he has redeemed, who have forgotten
their love. It is a knock on the door of
His own people about intimacy. Those are invited to the supper.
Nothing in this book, nothing in this letter is an invitation
to unbelievers. Did you hear that? This wasn't
written to unbelievers. It wasn't written for unbelievers.
And nothing that Jesus says in this letter is for the sake of
unbelievers coming to the Lamb's supper. it is a declaration that
those who are invited shall come. And that the only one worthy
of all praise and glory and honor is Christ. So I could preach
a couple of sermons on that. You shouldn't worship the pastor,
you shouldn't worship teaching, you shouldn't worship certain
things or certain experiences, you shouldn't worship feelings,
you should worship Christ. Let's see how far we can get. Then I saw, now keep in mind,
he's not saying this happened, then this happened. I saw, I
heard, then I heard. What was on the menu the last
four weeks? Well, this, and then this, then this, not necessarily
at the same time, not necessarily in such order. It's just what
he's seeing, he's saying what he saw. I saw heaven opened,
and behold, a white horse. And then this white horse is
a symbol of authority and rule and power. a symbol of a king
victorious. We need to understand that as
Jesus rode into Jerusalem, He did so on a what? On a donkey. Why? For they, if they'd had
their way, would have put Him on a horse like a king. So He
came in on a donkey. And the one sitting on it is
called Faithful and True. Now we just heard, we just heard
These are the true words of God. We just heard that we shouldn't
bow down and worship the messenger for the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy. Does that ring a bell to you,
especially in John's gospel? As John would speak to the Pharisees
and to the Jews in John chapter five, they begin to argue with
him that his testimony of himself cannot be valid because according
to law, in order for you to bring a testimony, it had to be validated
by a witness or two. So I couldn't say, well, this
is true of me if there weren't other people. And to lie back
then was a death sentence. Well, not necessarily until Saul
came along. But in the law of Moses, it was
a death sentence. And so as Jesus begins to talk
and they argue with him that he doesn't have a witness, Jesus
argues in three different ways that there's a witness. Number
one, he says, the father testifies about me. Secondly, the spirit
testifies about me. But the most but he says, but
it won't be me or the father that indicts you when you stand
before God, the father. It will be Moses. Now, if we read that incorrectly
without understanding it, we'll go, you mean Moses is like the
judge now? No, the word of God is the judge.
Jesus Christ is the word. And the world will be judged
by the Word of God who is Jesus Christ. When Moses wrote, Jesus
says it is Moses he wrote and he will indict you for he wrote
of me. Faithful and true is the one
sitting on the horse. This is Jesus. This is the Christ. This is the son of God. This
is the alpha and the omega. This is the creator of all things.
Jesus is the lamb. He is the king. Listen to this
description. The one sitting on it is called
faithful and true. And in righteousness, he judges
and makes war. See, there's a sermon in there.
I seriously probably will just take some of this for next week.
And I'm just gonna go slow here. Jesus Christ, by all caricatures
in our culture today, and even in the church, has become this
mealy mouth, wimpy, pacifistic, just worthless person who just
wants everybody to get along, sing kumbaya, share a Coke and
a smile. It's nowhere in the Bible that
teaches that. Even in his earthly ministry, Jesus says, and I quote,
I do not come to bring peace with a sword. I will pit father
against daughter and son against mother. Your enemies shall be
those of your own household. People would come after Jesus
and Jesus would say, follow me. Drop what you're doing now and
follow me. I need to prepare my household. Leave your household
and follow me. I need to go bury my father.
Let the dead bury the dead and follow me. It's a command. I
want to go take care of my nets. Follow me. Scripture says when
Jesus commanded the apostles to follow him, they dropped their
nets immediately and followed Jesus. Jesus is faithful and true, and
in righteousness He judges. Don't judge me, people say. You
shouldn't make judgments. Really? What does the word discernment
mean? How many of you would disagree
that we're supposed to have discernment? I hope not. We're supposed to
have discernment. The root of discern is discriminate. Well, should I eat this plant
or not? Is it poisonous? I'm not sure. I don't think I'll
be a fool and test it. Should I listen to this preacher?
I'm not sure. Let's listen. No, that's not
right. You discriminate on what you hear based on what you know
is true. Well, let me tell you how judgment looks. God is the
God of judgment. God is the God of war. Jesus
Christ is the one who will judge the nations, and He's judged
the nations already. He says in Nicodemus in John
3 that this is the judgment. It's the very words of Christ
right out of His mouth. And he's talking to the teacher
of all Israel who walks in a manner so great that Jesus even uses
in an expression of comparison. He says, if your righteousness
is not greater than that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the
kingdom of heaven. That means if you're not more holy than
the Pharisees are, then you can't enter the kingdom of heaven.
These are people who walk around with the Bible in their eyeball,
the phylactery. They wore a headband with leather
tassels and a box with the the Hebrew symbols on it and inside
of it they had the scrolls rolled up into little tiny pieces and
they walked around and they couldn't even see out of the left eye
because they had the Bible in front of their face because they
read the Old Testament and said to always have the Word of God
in front of you. So there you go. Talking about
literal stupidity. And if you're not more holy than
they are, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus has
said that those people are broods of vipers, dogs, snakes, the
sons of perdition, the sons of their father, that do the work
of their father. And here are the Sanhedrin, the holiest people
to walk the earth. And they said, what do you mean
about our father? Abraham is our father. And he says, if Abraham
were your father, you would know me. For before Abraham was, I
am. He says, you are the sons of
your father, the devil. Jesus judges truly. And he has the judgment to make war.
Be holy for I'm holy. And beloved, we are not holy
without Jesus. We're not holy without Jesus.
Listen to this picture. His eyes are like a flame of
fire. And on his head are many diadems,
many crowns of authority. And he has a name written that
no one knows but himself. What is it? No one knows but
him. The name of God. No one knows
the name of God. No one can know the name of God.
No one can speak the name of God. In thousands of years, it's
never even been written down. He is clothed in a robe dipped
in blood. And the name by which he is called
is the Word of God. and the armies of heaven arrayed
in fine linen." Remember, fine linen, pure and bright. White and pure were following
him on white horses. See this picture? What does Paul
tell the church? Of course, all these poor misfits. and they're making poor judgments,
they have lack of wisdom, they're not doing anything right, they're
getting drunk at the Lord's Supper. I mean, it's just a bunch of
mess, incest, lawsuits, it's just horrible. And Paul asks these questions.
He says, are you to be making judgments on the outside world?
Don't you know that you're supposed to judge yourselves? God will
judge the world. Christ will judge the world.
Don't you know that you will judge the world? How is that? And that's a very short paraphrase
of a long argument. How is it that we judge later? Because we are the righteousness
of God and we stand with our King who is our Savior. We are
like Him and by His standard, who is His righteous bride, He
looks upon the world and He looks upon us and He goes, you're guilty. He looks at His bride and we
are arrayed in splendor and brightness and perfection. And He looks
at the world and says, you're nothing like them. You're guilty.
And He makes war. He is the Word of God. And the
Word of God, if you know anything about argumentation and logic,
you know that it's circular reasoning to say, I am so and so because
I say that I'm so and so. The Bible says that Jesus is
the Word of God, and we know it because the Bible says that
Jesus is the Word of God, and Jesus is the Word of God, so
we know the Bible says that He's the Word of God, so we know He's
the Word of God. And if we keep pinging that back, it never quits.
Circular reasoning. How do you know the Bible is
the Word of God? Because it's the Word of God.
That's the dumbest thing anybody in their right mind could ever
say, but it's the absolute truth. That's why it's foolish to the
world that's blind. That's why it's ridiculous to
the wise. Friends, Jesus is the Word of
God and everything written in this Word, Jesus will execute
with precision and justice and truth. Verse 14. shows us where we are,
following on him with white horses, verse 15. From his mouth comes
a sharp sword. Do you see the picture? Hebrews 4.12 says that the Word
of God is living and breathing and sharper than any two-edged
sword, cutting flesh and bone and marrow and soul. How will Jesus strike down the
nations? With His Word. How did Jesus create the universe?
With His Word. Let there be and there was. How does Jesus take a dead man
and bring him to life? With His Word. I don't know where
I saw this recently, but you know, we love, and Jesse names
his son after Ezekiel, but we love Ezekiel. Chapter 36 and
37, where we see not only the call of God through the prophet
Ezekiel to call Israel out of bondage and to do a work in them
because he is going to restore his name, not because they would
do it or were worthy of being saved. And then the image that
God gives and how this is going to work is that He shows Ezekiel
the valley of dry bones, just bones, dry, no skin left on them. They've been there a long time,
bleached by the sun. And the Word, God says in His
Word, can these bones live? And Ezekiel goes, you know, Lord,
I don't know. And the word, the Lord says,
prophesy to the bones, preach to them, preach to them my bones.
And I don't know where I've seen this recently, but it's an interesting
thing that we all know, but I just thought I'd bring it up. Ezekiel
didn't go to the bones and say, okay guys, let me show you what
I'm gonna teach you real quick, and then I'm gonna outline this
theology for you real quick, and then I'm gonna tell you just
how profitable the word of God is real quick, and I'm just gonna
do this real quick, and then I'm gonna get into the stuff
real quick. He just said, stand up. The Lord said, stand up. Oh, I know where it was. It was
an expression quoted from Spurgeon. It was on Facebook recently.
And I got into a conversation with somebody about it. And it
was so amazing. We didn't get there. That's what
it was. Ezekiel didn't get in there and talk about how the
wind was going to work and what he was going to do and how he was
going to express it. But he just began to preach. and God opened
them, brought dead bones to life. When we preach the Word of God,
God brings dead people to life. Listen, Jesus will rule, Jesus
will kill, Jesus will destroy, Jesus will strike down the nations
with His Word, and He will rule them with an iron rod. The days of mercy are over when
the judgment comes. It is not wrong for God to be
merciless. It's not wrong. When Adam and Eve sit in the
garden, if God had purposed before the world began to be merciless
in judgment and wrath and righteousness and that every human being would
be born and that For 60 billion years He would let the earth
be populated and destroy every living, breathing one in hell
forever. He would be worth all glory and
honor and praise. But He didn't do that. He didn't
do that. He chose to save His people from
their just, righteous wrath. and we stand with Him, and He
strikes down the nations. Look at the latter part of verse
15, and that's all we'll probably have time for today. He will tread the winepress of
the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. He will strike them down with
His Word. He will rule them with an iron
rod. And in His rule over them, all
that they will do is sit under the crushing of His judgment.
Did you hear that? There is no pause. There's no stopping. There is nothing that's going
to give any brief moment of reprieve from the judgment of Christ upon
the nations, upon Babylon, upon unbelievers. Y'all listen to
this. Jesus is the author and the agent
of their damnation. The devil's not going to do it.
We'll see next week. He's in there. Angels aren't going to do it.
They're worshiping. Jesus does it. Jesus brings His
righteous wrath. And the descriptiveness here
is absolutely macabre. Let's put it out for just a moment.
Jesus is barefooted and he's walking on top of a stone that's
sort of like a, I don't know, a top, but not a real slant top,
but it's sort of a strolled out top that rolls around like this. Stone, probably weighs two or
three tons. and they chuck all the grapes
in this thing, and then men would walk around this wine press stone,
and the grapes would smash, and as they smash, they're masticated,
and all the juice and the fibers roll out into the buckets to
make wine with. And the picture John is saying
here is that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is going to put all unbelievers in the winepress
of the fury, listen to this, of the wrath of God the Almighty,
and He's gonna stomp on them forever. Why? Do we have such a hard time
with that? You know why? Because we believe
somewhere deep in our heart sometimes that humanity is worth just letting
go in their guilt. We're not. And I find it fitting
that Jesus Christ the Son who took this same fury of the wrath
of God on the cross for our sins, gets to put that fury back on
those who reject Him. And worse, or in addition to,
martyr His people for whom He died. And I'll leave us with this thought.
Who is Jesus that He might have such a Verse 16, on his robe and on
his thigh, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And if you'll remember last week,
church, the kings and the rulers stood far off and watched the
city burn. You realize that's just a picture,
that's not the way it works. So today, or later in this thing,
later next week, we'll see where their judgment is brought. and
how their judgment is given. There are two feelings here for
us as the church. Feelings of horror that the majority
of the world will suffer the wrath of God forever. And you
know this is a picture. It's not like that. They're not
going to be stuck in a real wine press. That would be easy compared
to the justice We're horrified. So be motivated
to pray that the Lord will send workers into the harvest. Secondly, we should marvel at
it. We should marvel at the fact
that we're not in there. We should marvel at the fact
that not only we are not in there, we're worthy to be in there,
but we're not in there because Christ took our shame and our guilt
and we're not in there, but where are we? We're on horses like
rulers with Jesus. So talking about where we should
not be. that that which Christ has purchased
and that which He has done on our behalf, we are the righteousness
of God. Who is the righteousness of God?
Jesus the Christ, and we are like Him. Friends, we fall short
to think that the Gospel message is just about escaping judgment.
It's about being a reflection of righteousness. It's about
being in the same place, seated in
heaven with Jesus. Not that we have the authority,
not that we're gods, not that we're many Jesuses, but we're
there. When Paul says in Ephesians 2, that you've been raised in
Christ and seated with Him. Friends, that means that as God
looks at us this very day, listen to this, as God looks at us this
very day through the work of Jesus Christ the Son, we are
worthy to sit next to Him in righteousness. Not authority,
not role, but purity. Why? Because Jesus Christ's righteousness
is ours. That's a picture. It's supposed
to make us go, oh, how? the glorious gift of God's grace. We'll pick up there. We'll pick
up there and watch some birds eat some people next week. All
right, let's pray. We thank you, Father, for your
grace, for your glorious, perfect grace. And Lord, these pictures
sometimes are just too harsh in our own hearts. But Lord,
I think they're a beautiful image of who you are and who your righteousness
is and what your holiness is. Let us never forget that Jesus
Christ took that for us. Let us never forget that Jesus
being crushed pleased you. Let us never forget. But if it
were not for your mercy, if it were not you sending your word
to us, we would not believe today. We pray for the lost Lord. We
pray for our own families, our children, our friends and our
neighbors. Send us into their lives with
the gospel, the clear message of the cross of Christ. Let us
labor for them that You might save them. Father, let us pray
for each other. Purpose for us to pray. Pray
for us, Father, that we might pray that Your
power be made great in our weakness and that we would rest in the
sufficiency of Jesus Christ. And it's in His name we pray,
amen.