In chapter 13 we saw the two
beasts. We've understood in the context
of the rest of the letter that these are just pictures of what
is happening on the earth, what is happening in heaven, and what
is being permitted, let me change that word, what is being decreed
by God. Something, too, we need to change
our language. God does not permit evil, because permission means
that He allows it in the context that He's saying that it's okay.
So, I know it may seem like semantics, but God does not permit evil,
He decrees evil. There's a big difference. He
wills it to be, not gives permission for it to exist. There's a huge
difference there. But God has willed that the earth
be subject to the futility of sin, that Satan would be his
agent, if you will, in sending destruction and calamity and
pestilence and malice. And we see these beasts rising
out of the sea, rising out of the land. and we understand them
to be the totality and the entirety of those who do not worship Christ
nor follow Him in all the earth, including of governments and
everything. In chapter 14, we have a revisit
of something that is very familiar to us, the 144,000. If you look
there at chapter 14, verse 1, it says, Then I looked, and behold,
on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with Him 144,000 who had
His name and His Father's name written on their foreheads. Now
stop there for a second. Remember what we just learned
about the beast? That those who had the name of the beast on
their foreheads would be the name or the number of the beast,
and his number shall be 666. And we closed out our time last
week looking at this unholy trinity, or this unholy expression that
this beast, that this world, this totality of evil in the
world is authored in the sense by God because He is sovereign
over it. But the agent of this wickedness is Satan. And Satan
wants to blaspheme God. Satan wants to take God's glory.
He wants to share and bask in something that doesn't belong
to him. And so the antithesis of holy, holy, holy is evil,
evil, evil. Man, and the number of man is
six, so therefore everything human is wicked. The wickedness
of the earth is because of humanity. There's never been an evil tree.
There's never been an evil frog. There's never been an evil river
or an evil cloud. Creation is just subject to the
futility of the fall and it groans, as Paul would say in Romans 8,
for the time when it will be restored to its glorious state,
when it will be restored. But it is subject. We also, as
the redeemed, the 144,000, Paul says in Romans 8, we also groan
as in the throes of childbirth, waiting for the revelation of
the sons of God, waiting for that day when our adoption as
children will be complete. Because, friends, I'll tell you,
I don't know about you, but there's one thing that I'm looking forward
to in relation to leaving this world and being with the Lord,
and that is sin. I am looking forward to the day
when sin no longer tempts me, when my flesh no longer has any
control, any opportunity to tap on my shoulder, any time, ever. I cannot wait to the day that
I am made right and pure and holy and righteous in my glorified
body. Now, we do stand holy and justified
and righteous, but yet we wait for that day when our bodies
will be made like Christ and we will live without sin in the
world. Evil, however, is eternal. It does not cease. It is just
assigned to hell and to judgment forever and ever. And as we see
here in Revelation 14 soon, Its judgment is certain. Just as
the beast of Revelation 13, the judgment is sure. But yet the
beast in his fury, like Revelation 12, pursues the people of God
and continues to create havoc in hopes that he might destroy
the church of Jesus Christ. This was a very, very... A personal
message to the people of this century, the people who received
this letter from John. They knew, as we've said time
and time again, what persecution looked like. They understood
that if God did not move divinely on their behalf, that there was
nothing but burden and malice and death awaiting them. And
so these letters, or this letter, was a great vision and a great
blessing to their hearts, to know that there is no way that
they would slip into the hands of destruction, but they are
sealed by the Lord, and they will forever be celebrating the
presence of Christ their King. And when we look at this 144,000,
we don't have to really revisit. It's a number of completion,
12 times 12. Over and over again we see this
completion of 12. There were 12 apostles, there
were 12 tribes of Israel. If you do the math there, it's
a complete number of 144,000. We know that when you start looking
at at a thousand, it represents
the idea of eternity. When you start looking at seven,
it's the idea of perfection and purity and holiness. The man
number is six, the number four represents completeness as we'll
see in a minute. Even the idea of half of seven is three and
a half, 42, remember? 1260 days, three and a half months,
that we saw back in Revelation 13. Here, these beasts and those
kingdoms who are used by Satan by the will of God have an end,
and their end is the judgment of God. Christ is victorious. And in this little section here,
you'll see that there is now, we've seen seven seals and seven
trumpets and seven churches, and now seven is continuing to
be If you think about chapters 12, 13, 14, and the first four
verses of 15, you'll see there, if you were to lay it all down
on a piece of paper, you'll see a series of sevens. Listen to
them for a minute. The conflict of the serpent with
the woman and her seed, chapter 12. the persecution of the beast
from the sea, the persecution of the beast from the land, and
then three things, the lamb and the 144,000 standing on Mount
Zion, then the proclamation of the gospel and of judgment by
the three angels, and the son of man's harvest of the earth,
and then the seventh, things we see in this little sequence
is the victory of the saints over the beasts. And that's what
we're going to look at tonight as we see this thing unfold.
In Revelation it says, I looked and behold on Mount Zion stood
the Lamb and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father's
name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven
like the roar of many waters and like the sound of a loud
thunder. And the voice I heard was like the sound of harpists
playing on their harps. And they were singing a new song
before the throne and before the four living creatures and
before the elders. No one could learn that song
except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is
these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins.
It is these who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have
been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb.
And in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless."
And you think about the contrast there of what we just read in
chapter 13. The contrast there, you've got these two beasts,
and both beasts are blasphemous. Both beasts have names and titles
that are blasphemous. Claiming to be God, claiming
to set themselves up in the context of being God. And the dragon
is using these beasts to do the bidding. that He has been given
permission to do and to bring destruction. And this number
shall be 666. The very nature of wickedness, the very nature
of the fallenness of man, just exemplified and in triplicate. This unholy trinity. Now the
contrast there is that we look and we see the beast standing
as a mockery to Jesus Christ who is the Lamb. Now we see the
Lamb. Now don't take literally, we see the pictures that John
has been painting here. Now all of a sudden we still
see pictures, so we don't want to take in the midst of this
picture something literal and go, oh, oh, oh, Mount Zion, that's
where Jesus is coming back. Jesus is not coming back to a
physical place. Jesus is not going to come back
to the earth in a space of temporality. He's not going to land on a rock
and then work his way around the world. He's going to show
himself instantly and judgment is instantaneous. We know that. We know that. But the pictures
that we're seeing are for the readers to understand that calamity
is going to be here and that judgment is coming and swiftly
to be executed by God and that they are victorious and nothing
shall separate them from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus their Lord. So we see some other comparisons
and some reminders, this 144,000 who are sealed. We see them the
first time over in the previous chapters where it asks the question
when God's judgment is revealed the first time in the seals.
And it says that everybody runs and hides but they cannot escape
judgment. And the question is asked then who can stand? And
then behold, I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, 12,000
from this tribe, 12,000 from this tribe, 12,000 from this
tribe. All of the elect of God come together perfectly in unison,
sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. And then it says John said,
then I looked, I heard their number, their completion, and
then I looked and I saw a myriad of myriad, a multitude of multitude,
innumerable people from every what? Language, tongue and tribe,
from every nation, tongue and tribe, praising the Lamb. Now
we see the Lamb. So you see how it's a recapitulation,
it's a restatement of the same thing. Now here is this judgment
day, and in heaven, the complete number of the church has come,
and we see Him. Mount Zion is to be understood
as the perfect place of God. It's where God comes and gives
His glory and reveals Himself. It's not to be said that we,
oh, wherever that is, that's where we're going to be. We're
going to go to Jerusalem. We're going to go here. No. God is
coming back. Jesus Christ is coming back to
this earth to set all things straight immediately. There's
not going to be a temporal kingdom of Christ. A temporal kingdom
where Jesus Christ is now at war and at odds with the kingdom
of men. I don't understand why that seems
to be so popular, but until I don't know, mid-19th century, we've
never even heard such a thing. And yet you think, well, why
do people come up with those ideas? Because we are products
of our environment. And we believe what we grow up
around believing. And when we are creative in our
minds, and we are very imaginative as human beings, we can come
up with some crazy stuff and some really cool stuff. But when
we put inside the Word of God, the product of imagination, we
can come up with all sorts of things. And sadly, because the
Bible is not taught holistically, and has not, brothers and sisters,
let me tell you something. You may not understand just how
amazing that it is that God would allow us to exist as a congregation.
Because everything that could possibly go wrong, has gone wrong. Every person that could possibly
try to put a stop to what we have tried to do, what the Lord
has tried to do with us, has worked overtime to stop us. And if you don't think the devil
wants to stop us now, you're not paying attention. The devil
wants to stop any peoples who are gathering together to hear
the Word of God taught. And through the centuries, through
my lifetime, the Word of God has not been taught. Less and
less and less and less and less of the Word of God is taught.
I cut my teeth on people like Adrian Rogers and Charles Stanley
and other men like that as a child, and I don't remember or recall
any time being awed by the Word of God preached to those men.
I mean, I've heard some good stuff and I've heard some good
sound bites. But as far as exposition, and this is what the Bible is
teaching here for those hearers, and this is what it means for
us today, and this is the glory of God in Jesus Christ who gives
us all the effectual grace that's needed for us to live and understand
and celebrate Him through the teaching of His Word. It's not
been done. So that the hunger that God gave
me, even as a young boy, had to go someplace else to get the
meat of Scripture. And by the Lord's grace, I had
people in my life like that. I had my grandmother and I had
other people who would tend to me and God would send in certain
seasons of my life to keep me focused on this and not be, though
I did walk over the edges of the cliffs of churchmanship and
over the edges of the cliffs of of church growth movements
and all of these things, the Lord was always gracious to bring
me back to the centrality of the Word. But friends, it's not
been taught. And because it's not been taught,
it's very easy for us to say, I wonder what this means? And
to be honest with yourself, how many times in your lifetime do
you read all the way through a letter in the Bible? That's
how it's supposed to be read. I don't know anybody that goes
and buys a ticket to a movie and watches the first 36 minutes
and 15 seconds and walks out. And then a few months later they're
going to buy another ticket and say, wait a minute, I'm going to go
out to the snack bar. Tell me when it gets to 35 minutes,
I'll come back in and I'm going to pick up the rest of it. Oh
no, no, okay, here's the story. Alright, 10 minutes, I don't
have much time, but I'm going to watch the next 10 minutes.
Okay, next week you're going to buy another ticket. But we treat
the Word of God that way. We treat the Scriptures that
way. And because we have done that, and because the pulpits
of our country, and of our region, and of our culture have done
that, we have been susceptible to the imagination of men to
the point that everything we know about God, Jesus Christ,
the Gospel, and times, and everything within and between is a caricature,
not truth. And it's time that we recognize
that and celebrate that because as we grow to understand what
the Word of God teaches, beloved, we are going to be responsible
for helping other people to know what the Word of God teaches.
And what we can't do is say, well, my pastor says in Revelation
14 this. Or my pastor says the 144,000
are this. Or my pastor says the beast are
this. That's not learning. Learning is, you hear what I
say, you test it, you look at it, you don't Google it, you
don't search it, you don't watch somebody else teach you something
differently on YouTube. That is the ploy of Satan, y'all.
We don't go to those ends to try to prove our point. That's
bad research. That's an F on your PhD thesis.
That's a rejection of your defense because it's not your work, it's
the work of someone else. Make your faith your faith. And what I mean by that is do
not depend upon what I say to you as truth. Test it and prove
it through the Word of God. Read the Scriptures. And when
we see these things and it starts to come alive, you'll recognize
the fact that the Spirit of God, when we hear the Word as it was
intended to be heard, the Spirit of God moves in a great way. And sometimes it's sensual. In
other words, we can see it and tell it with our senses. We can
feel it in our hearts or we can know it in our minds. But ultimately,
the response that we have as the church is that we worship
His glorious grace, we praise Him for who He is, and we know
Him more intimately, which our worship then moves upward. And as we worship upward, as
we worship God through the understanding of His Word, then our worship
then moves outward because we are actually able to encourage
each other in the faith. We're able to actually equip
each other in the faith. We're actually able to correct
each other in the faith and live in a way that God is glorified.
God is glorified, beloved, not in a church full of missionaries,
but in a church full of people who are in love with Him and
in love with His Word. And the outpouring of that affection
which is given by God then produces all sorts of things that God
is glorified in and gets credit for. If we wrongly read Revelation,
if we wrongly read this that has been revealed to us by the
Spirit of God, we will misunderstand a lot about who God is. And He
will always and forever then remain a caricature in our lives.
He will remain this small little cartoon figurine that we remembered
from Sunday school from years past. He'll remain something
that doesn't even make sense in the narrative of Scripture,
but yet we still hold on to those things, even though they may
contradict that which is clearly taught. this expression of the
thunder, this voice, the harp is playing. Get this picture.
Verse 3, they're singing a new song before the throne, before
the four living creatures, and before the elders. Remember that
in Revelation 4 when they sang a new song? Here it is being
stated again. It said, now instead of seeing what God is doing on
the earth in the context of judgment of men, now we're seeing what
God has done in the judgment against Satan and the angels
that fell with him. And no one could learn that song
except the sealed, those who have been redeemed from the earth.
These are the ones who have not been defiled. These are like
virgins. These are the ones who follow
the Lamb wherever He goes. These are the ones who have been
redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and for the Lamb. And
in their mouth there was no lie, for they are blameless." Brothers
and sisters, this is a victory praised because the beasts are
defeated. There's victory here because
the beast are defeated, the evil one is gone, and all those who
are in reprobation, all those who are unbelieving, as heart-riching
as it may be this day, in the day of judgment, it will make
perfect sense, for they have refused the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and they have set themselves apart to disassemble the beauty
of His glory, and to defame His name. It will make perfect sense
for us. These siblings are seven, seven,
seven. That is the number of their God.
That is the name of their God. Holy, holy, holy. It is respectively
different than the six, six, six of those who follow the world
and its ways and Satan and his ways. It's different than those
who are the son of Satan. The Pharisees, the Sadducees,
the unbelievers, the humanists and everybody in between. Everywhere
you look. The majority of the world, beloved,
are in the hands of Satan. And Satan has blinded their eyes
to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, to keep
them from seeing the glory of God. But God has and will shine
in the hearts of His people so that they may see and not just
see, but believe, and not just believe, but savor in such a
way that the name of their God is written in their lives, that
everyone can look and see that is a child of God. The Spirit
of God testifies to our spirit that we are His sons and daughters. These siblings bear the name
of their King. Oh, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Look at what it says there. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. The
glory of redemption. This new song. These who are
the firstfruits for God and the Lamb. Now I know a lot of people
like to play with those words. But beloved, it's very simple.
You and I are the first fruits of God. You and I are the fruits
of the Lamb. We are the ones who have been
planted by the Spirit of God to grow into a royal priesthood. And that is not our own growing.
That is not a maturing of our own doing. That is a glorification
that God does in an instant. And we shall stand very, very
perfectly in contrast with the rest of the world. This is a
contrast not only of the world, but of the beast and of the dragon
and of the wickedness that this world sees. Look at verse six.
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal
gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth. Listen, to
every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with
a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of
His judgment has come. And worship Him who made heaven
and earth, the sea and the springs of water. Another angel, a second,
followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who
made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual
immorality. And another angel, verse 9, and
a third followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone
worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead
or his hand, He also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured
full strength into the cup of His anger, and He will be tormented
with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the
presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment
goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night,
these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives
the mark of its name. Here is a call for the endurance
of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their
faith in Jesus Christ. And behold, I heard from heaven
saying a voice, write this, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord
from now on. And blessed indeed, says the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds
follow them. Now there's a lot here, and I'm
going to go through it in about ten minutes. The first thing
we see here is this angel flying directly overhead. We see this
angel and it says there He has an eternal gospel. And who is He screaming to? To
proclaim to all those who dwell on the earth, to every nation
and tribe and language and people. Now I want you to think a minute
for the contrast. We see in Revelation 4 and 5 every language and tribe
and people. And we see here earlier the 144,000,
the full seal of the church, who are there worshiping God
with a new song that only they can know. You know what that
means? That means that there's no way for someone who's not
born of God through Jesus Christ to know how to worship Him. It's
not just about singing a song and we withholding the lyrics.
We're not going to teach it to them. They're going to look stupid
standing there. They can't sing it. The singing a song of praise
to the Lamb of God is only enabled by those who are born of God.
It's only enabled by those who are sealed by God. We cannot
love that which we do not love. We cannot worship that which
we cannot see. And we cannot go after that which
we have not been shown. Beloved, we know that when the
angel here is saying he's screaming an eternal gospel, he is not
saying, please come to the good news of Jesus. He is not crying
out to the church. This is not an evangelistic letter,
beloved. Revelation is not for the lost.
Revelation is for the sealed. And this revelation is showing
that there is an eternal gospel. What's that mean? It's good news
that lasts forever. It's a forever good news. But
what is He proclaiming? The destruction of Babylon. Why
is that the gospel? See how backward we understand
the gospel? Friends, if we don't understand
the judgment of God, we've missed half the gospel. Why is it good
news that God would put our judgment on Christ? if it's not deserving. And is it not good news? Is it not an eternal gospel for
us to hear out of the mouth of God that Babylon has fallen? What it must have been like when
Nazi Germany surrendered. What it must have been like in
the terrors of the Holocaust for those that survived to see
the allied forces come and open the gates and say, here's an
eternal good news, we've destroyed the enemy. Beloved, that's a
good news. That's a good news. It's not
that just we're redeemed, but that God's holiness is vindicated.
It's not that just we have eternal life and we're saved, but God's
enemies have been placed under His feet. It's not that just
we have been judged and then forgiven because Christ took
our judgment. It is also that the world is judged and found
worthy of justice and God will bring wrath upon them forever
and ever and ever and ever. And that is good! That's what
he's saying. It's good! All the people of
the world, of every nation, tongue, and tribe, just like all the
saints, will be from every nation, tongue, and tribe. Beloved, if
there's not something in the Word of God that shows you that
God's not going to be a favor of a people because of their
lineage or blood, that better do it right there. There is no
ethnicity that will escape the judgment of God And there is
no ethnicity that will escape the grace of God. Verse 7, Fear God and give Him
glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. And worship
Him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the springs of
water. Is that not the response of judgment? See, the sealed
don't run and hide from God. The Scripture teaches us, John
would teach us later, that we are not those who hide from the
return of Christ. We don't shrink back in fear,
for perfect love drives away fear. We're not waiting for daddy
to get home. and hoping we can just sort of
slip in and not notice us. We want to see Him. We want Him
to see us. We want to be known by our Father.
We want our King. We want our Savior to come. We
are not worried about what judgment awaits us, for there is now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because He has
taken the justice of God upon Himself that we might be His
righteousness. Worship. God, for in His sovereignty
He has come to bring judgment. Man has done all that it thought
it could do. Satan has been free to run amuck
and bring disaster. And all the evil of the world
is the dominant force of existence in this land, but God is sovereign. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, this
angel says. Worship the one that is on the
throne. Worship the God of heaven, for He has come to set the record
straight. Say an amen, we've been good
there. Are you straight? Is your record
nailed to the cross of Christ? Is your sin forgiven in Jesus
Christ? Or are you here today with a
false hope, with a false possibility of salvation? Are you here under
a pretense that you're okay with God because of what you've done?
or worse, what you're doing. Beloved, you cannot escape the
wrath of God except that Christ took it for you. And you cannot
stand holy before God except that the life of Jesus stands
in your place. Worship, because, verse 8, Babylon
is fallen. She was great. And all the nations
were intoxicated with her immorality. The debauchery of this world
is judged, and it is done, and it is assigned to death, and
it shall be no more. It shall never, ever, ever again
harm the church. It shall never again tempt the
church. It shall never again lure the
church. It shall never martyr another
one of God's sheep. Because God's wrath, verse 9
and 10, comes out on anyone who is not sealed by Christ. Those who are not in Christ are
in Satan. Those who are not born of God
are born of the devil. Those who are not the believing
ones are the unbelieving ones. And Jesus, out of His own mouth,
says that they are condemned already. Paul would say that
the wrath of God remains upon those who are the unbelieving
ones. Beloved, do not mistake the gospel. Do not misunderstand the judgment
of God. Do not downplay the fierceness
of His justice. Please, I beg of you, when you
think of it in your own heart, shudder with the possibility
of what it would be for you had God not reached into the darkness
of the domain of Babylon and snatched you and sealed you and
shoved you into the Kingdom of Christ. What would it have been
had He not seen you, and found you, and sealed you? Shudder. And when we share this gospel
with others, do not make light of God's wrath, for it is the
foundation, it is the beginning of the reason for which God created
the world, that He purposed and willed evil to exist, that He
might be glorified in redeeming a people, and glorified in enduring
wickedness, and glorified in the destruction thereof. He will
receive all glory, and all honor, and all praise. And His wrath
is not temporal. It has no time. It is forever. His wrath is unspeakable. No one shall escape it. Look
at verse 11. Or look at verse 10. Those who are unbelievers will
drink the wine of God's wrath. poured full strength into the
cup of His anger." Look at this imagery. Wine of wrath poured
full strength into the cup of His anger, and they, He, will
be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels
and in the presence of the Lamb. You think Jesus is going to turn
His head in the destruction of the wicked? No, He will gaze
upon it with all rule and all authority. For it is He who will
turn up the heat. It is He who will hurl the wicked
into the lake of fire. It is Jesus Christ who will come
reigning with a sword. He is the Lord of Lords. He is
the King of Kings. He is the Ruler of all things.
He is the Holy One. He is the Righteous One. He is
the First and the Last. The Alpha and the Omega. the
beginning and the end. He spoke it all into being and
He will set it all right in the end. And nothing will escape
His fury. And it is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God. For God is a vengeful God. But praise God, hallelujah, He
is a merciful God. For He looked into our lives. And before the world began, He
looked at us and said, I will save My people. Those who are
not My people will be My people. through the blood of Jesus my
Son. Don't forget it. And God's wrath
is forever. And the smoke of their torment
goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest. Day or night,
the worshipers of this beast and its image, and whoever receives
the mark of his name. In chapter 12, I mean in verse
12, It says like it did in chapter 13. Now here is a call for the
endurance of the saints. In chapter 13, verse 10, it said
that very same thing. Right after John was showing
and reminding the church, if there's somebody that's going
to be arrested, then to jail they go. If somebody's going
to have their head chopped off with a sword, then to the sword
they shall be put. Now here's a call for the endurance
of the saints. The same thing here. Because what we just read
and what we just heard is about God's ineffable and eternal damnation
for all those who do not believe, for all those who continue in
their sin, all those who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, all
those who are assigned to eternal wrath. These are going to feel
the fullness of His judgment. And it's something that as the
church we go, oh dear God, where's the hope? And the hope is, here
is a call for endurance with the saints. Brothers and sisters,
there is always hope for those who are not believing as long
as they breathe. You might say, that seems a little
odd for you to say. Why? Because when you die, it's over.
It is destined unto man once to die and then the judgment.
Beloved, if you know those around you who are not in Christ, I
beg you to pray that God would save them. Share the gospel instead
of a meal. Share the Lord Jesus Christ instead
of a game. implore them, admonish them,
exhort them to hear the gospel of Jesus carried along by your
prayers. For there is no other way to
salvation except the Lord Jesus Christ save one through the hearing
of the gospel. No one has ever been saved through
buddyship, relationship, friendship, osmosis. relational evangelism,
walking an aisle, saying a prayer, checking a box. No one has ever
been saved those ways. Everyone who stands redeemed
is redeemed because God has decreed their salvation before the foundation
of the world, and He effectually revealed it through the hearing
of the Word. And when they believed, He is
glorified in it. And in our imaginative state
as human beings, we come up with all sorts of what-ifs, all sorts
of logical expressions and statements, a lot of delineated ideas that
come, well, if that's true, then this, and if that's true, then
this. Friends, if the Bible doesn't teach it explicitly for us to
impose that which is not taught is to put words in the mouth
of God. God saves lost people. Christ came to seek and save
sinners. Paul says that he did so in such
a way that he is the foremost of all sinners and God saved
him, a murderer, a blasphemer, a self-righteous zealot. Part
of the greatest church member that the evangelical church could
ever dream of would be Saul of Tarsus and Judas Iscariot. Same heart. Both of them wanted
Jesus in his proper place. Dead. We often think about that. How
wicked it must be to be Judas with Paul had the same heart
as Judas. But there is endurance here.
There's endurance, those who keep the commandments of God
and their faith in Jesus Christ. That's not a prescription to
say if you obey God, then you will have eternal life. But friends,
if you are believing in God, you are obeying his commandments.
You are believing on him. You are honoring the Lord. You
are glorifying God above all things. You are loving your brother.
These are the evidences of God's work. These are the experiences
of God's work. This is the faithfulness of God's
work. And even when it's not there,
we are still found in Christ because he will work out our
salvation. As we tremble in fear, he will finish the work. We do not have to fear the judgment
of God. We will endure. Verse 13, and
I heard a voice from heaven write this, blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord from now on. They shall rest from their labors.
Friends, do you not think that the Christian life is a job?
Have you ever thought about that? And we all have other things
to do in life, in seasons of life. Some of us work for companies,
some of us work for ourselves, some of us work at home, some
of us work other places, some of us work inside, some of us
work outside, some of us work our minds crazy, and some of
us work our hands to the bone. But there is no work that is
more difficult and more laborious and more frustrating and more
costly than the work of living as a Christian in the world that
hates Christ. There's nothing harder. And we
strive and we yearn and we hope. And we go after ways, and Brother
Jesse and I were talking about this earlier, we go after ways,
you know, the five languages of love, or the three points
of intrusion, or the six ways to a healthy relationship, or
all of these different ways in which we can just fulfill the
law of Christ. And you know what they do? Nothing. Jesus, God tells us through the
writing of Paul, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the
church. That's a commandment. And then
we buy books, and we ask for help, and we look at television
shows, and videos, and outlines, and all sorts of little interesting
things, and we think, okay, I can get this, I can do this, and
we do it all, and the wife doesn't receive the love because it's
not love. It's not love! It's not love to do certain things
for people because some PhD has prescribed it. It's not love
to walk in a certain way and say a certain thing. It's not
love. What is love is to say, Oh God, have mercy. I cannot
love this woman of mine like you love me. Oh, woe is me. What shall I do? And the resolve
of the Christian is to trust in the righteousness of Jesus. And when we are holding on to
Christ as our only hope, we are loving our wives as Christ loved
the church. When we are holding on to Christ
as our righteousness, believing in Him, we love our neighbor
as ourselves. When we stand in persecution
and in trials, When we hold fast to our confession
of hope, God has drawn us near to Christ, for we are in Him.
We are fulfilling the commandment to love our neighbor. I want
you to hear that, church. What, pray tell, would these
Christians be doing right now that's so glorious an example? of obedience to God. Were they
feeding the hungry? No. They were hungry themselves. Were they visiting the sick?
No, they were the sick. Were they in prison, ministering to
those in prison? No, they were the ones in prison.
Were they giving cups of cold water? Absolutely, they had no
water. They didn't do that. Were they praying three times
a day? Doing Bible studies? Coming to church service? No.
They were running for their lives. But they were holding on to Christ.
And this blessing are the dead who no
longer labor. Blessed are the dead. Blessed
are the dead who die in Christ, for their work is done. Paul,
in prison, in his second letter to Timothy says, Oh, I am being
poured out like a drink offering. I have finished the race. I have
fought the good fight. I am done. Paul is not worthy of glorification
because of the work he did as a missionary. Paul is not worthy
of sanctification because of all the times he put to death
his flesh. Paul is not worthy of eternal
life because of the ministry that He did and the suffering
He endured. Paul is worthy of glorification
to share the light of God next to the right hand of Jesus Christ
because Jesus Christ took all of the iniquities of Paul and
put it on Himself and nailed it to the cross. That's why. And then I looked, verse 14,
and behold, a white cloud. Listen to this, church. Hand
seated on the cloud, one like a son of man, and a golden crown
on his head. Now this is Jesus in the picture
of Jesus in His room. And then He has something in
His hand, and it is a sharp sickle. Another angel came out of the
temple calling out with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud.
Now get this, an angel came out of the temple calling with a
loud voice to him who sat on the cloud and said, put your
sickle in and reap. For the hour to reap has come.
For the harvest of the earth is fully ripe. You might say,
wait a minute, I thought that was Jesus. What's this angel
telling Jesus to do? What are angels? Messengers. Who tells angels to send a message? God. Who is Jesus subordinate
to? God the Father. I do not come
to glorify myself, but to glorify the One who sent me. I do nothing
of my own accord, but I do only that which the Father is doing.
Jesus, even in eternity, even in the state of rule, is told
by the Father, now is the time. Reap the harvest of your judgment.
reap the harvest of your judgment. So he who sat on the cloud swung
his sickle across the earth and the earth was reaped. What did
that say? That said, he sat on the cloud,
and he hurled his sickle, and he reaped the world, the earth,
completely. And then we see it again in a
different point of view. Another angel came out of the altar,
and the angel who has authority over fire, and he called with
a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, Put in your
sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for
its grapes are ripe. So the angel, verse 19, swung
his sickle across the earth, and gathered the grape harvest
of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath
of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and
blood flowed from the winepress as high as the horse's bridle
for 1,600 stadia." Now let me give you that picture there.
Judgment time has come. Just as we saw in the sixth seal
and the sixth trumpet, I mean, yes, the seventh, It's judgment. Now we see it has come here in
this portion of Scripture. King Jesus has come to reap judgment
and to bring recompense. Verse 18, it tells us that the
instruction given to the Son of Man is given by God the Father
through the angels. And He says to reap. And then
there's a mirror image of this reaping. As Christ is reaping,
as angels are reaping, this is the work of God. This is the
work of God in reaping judgment and crushing His enemies. Now
think about it for a moment. In verse 20, it says the blood
will be outside the city where the winepress is. What's the
city? Mount Zion. the city of God, the place where
God is. There are not any unbelievers
in the presence of God's grace. There are no people who are going
to just make it in to eternal life. Only those who have been
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And oh, what a turn of
events. Here is the Lamb we saw that
was slain before the foundations of the world. who has been raised
to life, whose blood flowed for the redemption of His people,
those 144,000, those sealed ones who can stand before God, who
worship Him forever, now there is another shedding of blood.
As Jesus' blood flowed for six hours, and then He died, as He
lay dead in His body in the ground for three days. Redemption. redemption took place. He suffered the wrath of God.
And beloved, because Jesus bled, we will not bleed. Did you hear
that? Because Jesus bled, we will not
bleed. Because Jesus died and was raised
to life, we too shall be raised to everlasting life. And this
blood shall run deep. What does it mean, 1600 stadia?
Well, I had to look that up because I don't know. And I saw several
different things. People say, oh, it's going from
Palestine to Syria to here. It's about all the places where
God's going to like let the blood flow and it's going to be horrible.
I mean, it's going to be just rivers of blood. It's going to
be terrible. Like Vlad the Impaler. This isn't Vlad the Impaler.
This is Jesus Christ the Righteous. This isn't a crusade by an almighty
divine being. This is God who with the word
of His mouth finishes the work. Well, if you take the word four,
and in the context of four, we notice the four beasts are comprehensive
of the entirety of creation, the entirety of the created world.
And in this type of writing, we see that four, we know that
the compass has four directions. The world has, quote, four corners,
if you will. So this four, is showing a complete reaping.
This 10 is the number of perfection. So if you want a stadia, which
is 184 miles or roughly 320 kilometers, I guess, you take 4 squared times
10 squared and you have a stadia, 1,600. 1600. It's just another way that John
uses, in his Semitic style of writing, the numbers to show
the picture of the completeness. What is it telling us here? That
the judgment of Jesus Christ shall leave no one who is an
unbeliever. It is full. It is done. It is
done. All unbelievers shall be reaped
unto the judgment. No one shall escape. The church
will live forever. And I saw another sign in heaven.
Look at these words. Great and amazing. Seven angels
with seven plagues which are the last. For with them the wrath
of God is finished. Look at that for a second. That's
15.1, by the way. It goes with this. If you didn't
know where we were. Here is this other sign and John
describes it as great and amazing. The final touches of judgment.
The final press of the button of it's finished. The wrath of God is finished.
And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire. And also those who had conquered
the beast. Who are they? It's us, beloved. These Christians
who were suffering, when they read this, they thought, hey,
we're going to stand with Christ. Our enemies are going to be under
the judgment of God. The blood of our enemies is going
to run deep. God is going to bring justice
against these people. Those who had conquered the beast
in its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea
of glass with harps of God in their hands." What's this picture
showing? I mean, when you've got a mess... I mean, after Matthew,
it didn't even hardly touch us. Imagine what it did in Haiti
and the places where it hit as a Category 4 and 5. I've never seen anybody after
a disaster standing out there playing a harp. Man, I'm chilling.
Everything's good. Who plays a harp anyway? I mean, maybe a guitar. But a
harp is an instrument of peace. It's an instrument of tranquility.
David played the harp to put at ease the evil spirit that
God put in who? Saul. So that he could be in the king's
house. It's a sign of peace. And they
sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and they sang the song
of the Lamb. I mean, imagine that. Who has
a song in their heart in the midst of horror? Who has a song
in their hearts in the midst of pain? Who has a song in their
hearts in the midst of persecution and destruction and judgment?
The beloved of God. Why? Because our King Jesus is
victorious. Our King Jesus is the victor. Our King Jesus is greater than
He who is in the world. He's greater than the beast.
He's greater than the dragon. He created it all. And He decreed
it all. To display His glory, to display
His patience, to display His love, to display His justice,
and display His righteousness. God has purposed it all. And
we, beloved, no matter how hard it may be in this life, have
nothing but peace and hope and worship to look forward to. Great
and amazing are Your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty. Just and true
are Your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O
Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy, All nations
will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been
revealed. You see that, beloved? God will
show His righteousness. God will show His authority. God will finish the work that
He began when He said, let there be light. Let's pray. Lord, it is difficult to swallow
some of the pictures of this text. It's difficult because it seems
a little macabre. It's difficult, Father, Saul,
because in some sense we want to know all the details of exactly
what is written there, but Lord, you've given it to us just like
that so that we might see you. So that we might see the picture
of your redemption. Picture of your judgment, now
for the third time in this letter. Father, it's disturbing sometimes
because we, though we may be counted in the number of the
elect, there are many that we love that may not be. So Father, help us to see that
what we learned even in the last few chapters of how the work
of the apostles are still to prophesy to the nations to bring
in the number of Your people. So Lord, as we pray, as we preach,
as we proclaim, as we share the perfection of Jesus Christ and
Your gospel, we pray that You would bring others to faith. Let us celebrate this, Lord.
Let us sing the song of the Lamb in our hearts. Let us sing the
song of Moses with our mouths. Great is Your work. Great is
and mighty is Your power. We see the deeds that You have
done, O Father, and we praise You for them. In Jesus' name,
Amen. Amen.