Look at Revelation 14, verse
1, the lamb on the mount, the apostle John. Could you just
imagine how he was feeling when he received this vision? Up to
this point in this fourth vision, he's been talking about opposition,
the opposition of Satan to Christ and his church, the opposition
of Satan to the gospel. been talking about anti-christian
government and its opposition, and then anti-christian religion,
the false prophet, the mark of the beast, all of that. It's
anti-christian. And understand when we say anti-christian,
we have to see that in the light of the true gospel, not just
what the world calls Christian. The Bible says in 1 John 3, the
world will not know us. So don't be deceived by false
Christianity. It has to come in line with the
gospel wherein Christ is revealed as the righteousness of God.
And so he's been talking about all this opposition. And he's
assured us, the Lord has assured us through this opposition that
we will be victorious. We are in a war. I've often thought about, you
know, in messages that I've been preaching on our scandalous gospel,
you know, how the Apostle Paul, he didn't make any effort to
assimilate into his society or make his message relevant to
the day. But he simply preached the truth
that goes against the grain of everything that man is by nature
and man stands for. The gospel is like an intervention
that way. The gospel is an intrusion into
the religion of man, even the false Christianity, as Satan
goes about sowing his tares. And so we're in a warfare. The
gospel ministry evangelism is a declaration of war against
the the flesh the world and the devil we have to understand it
against false religion but we're sure to victory because of christ
who is our victory our victories not in ourselves is not in our
power is not in our goodness we have done it's in christ and
always refer back to what he told his disciples in the upper
room discourses he said He said, in the world you shall have tribulation. That means trouble. But he said,
be of good cheer because I've overcome the world. Christ overcame
the world. He overcame sin on the cross. And how did he do it? By establishing
righteousness. He overcame the devil, the accuser
of the brethren. How do we defeat the devil? By
pleading the blood of the lamb. And so he overcame the flesh.
How can we defeat ourselves? You know, a Christian is a person
who's at war with himself, herself. That's right, isn't it? I mean,
it's a daily struggle, and it never lets up. You know, people
say, well, when am I going to have peace? You already have
peace, but it's in Christ on the cross, and his righteousness
imputed. Now, that's where peace is. We
may have some moments in life where things might seem to go
well, but still, that's not lasting peace, is it? Because it's not
going to last forever. Well, when we come to Revelation
14, we have a vision. In the fourth vision, this vision,
part of the vision, is the victorious lamb, the lamb on the mount.
Look at verse one. I looked, and lo, that's behold.
Keep your eyes fixed here, that's what that means. A lamb, now
you know who the lamb is. The lamb is Christ, the lamb
of God. Behold the lamb of God, which
beareth away the sins of the world. The lamb slain for the people
whose names were written in the lamb's book of life before the
foundation of the world. The lamb who was worthy, worthy
is the lamb, Revelation 5. So this is Christ in his sacrificial,
mediatorial suretyship, substitution, satisfaction, imputation. Everything
that the gospel is for the people of God is summarized in this
type, this title of Christ the Lamb. He's our Lamb. He's the
Passover. He was Abel's Lamb. Abel brought
the blood of the Lamb. That was a picture of Christ.
That was a testimony of his faith in the future promise of Messiah
to come to put away his sins. Abel had righteousness imputed
to him. How? Who's right? The Lamb. And
he's the Passover Lamb. All those lambs that were slain
on Jewish altars They were pictures of Christ, the Lamb of God, and
the effectual power of his blood, not to make you savable or to
make me savable, not to provide a possibility of salvation if
we would do our part, that's a false gospel, but to secure
and demand the salvation of the ones for whom he was slain. That's
what it is. And here he stands on Mount Zion. Mount Zion is a picture of the
church. You can go through and read the whole history of Zion,
starting with a Z, or Scion, starting with an S, it's the
same thing. And what it is, what that has to do is it's showing
the collective body of the people of God as his church, the redeemed
of the Lord, chosen before the foundation of the world, and even though fallen in Adam,
ruined by the fall, redeemed by the blood, and eventually,
in each successive generation, regenerated by the Holy Spirit,
and He identifies them as the 144,000 with Him, and 144,000,
and of course, you know, people go crazy with that. First of all, look at the number
thousand or sometimes in Revelation it's thousands with an S and
it was a way of indicating a vast number that only God knows. And that's what it was. It's
just like a man tells his wife, he said, I'll love you for a
thousand years. How come she didn't get upset
and say, well, why just a thousand? Because that's an idiom. That's
an emblem of forever and ever and ever. A thousand years. And that's the way we talk, a
thousand times. One day with the Lord is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. That's an idiom,
see? He's not talking about a specific number of 144,000. 144 is 12
times 12. And that is a completeness of
the government of God made up of his people. And so that's
what this number is, an emblem of the true church. If, you know,
who are these 144? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ? Are you submitted to him as the
Lord your righteousness? You're in this number of 144,000.
And literally, there's a whole lot
more than 144,000. Thank God. In the promise he made to Abraham,
he said, be as the sands of the sea. How many, you know, you
know, people will argue, well, is there going to be more in
heaven than there is? I don't listen. That's not our business. And so let's get off of it and
let's just recognize that those who are saved are saved by the
grace of God based on the imputed righteousness of Christ and regenerated
by the Holy Spirit and let it go with that. And don't you go
in and get your calculator out and try to figure out the numbers.
If you're trying to figure out Hebrew math, you're gonna go
wrong. It's not like us, all right? So this 144,000, Christ as the surety of all his
people, all the chosen of God, all the redeemed of the Lord
who will eventually in each successive generation be regenerated, be
born again. And so he's standing on this
mount as the victor. Now, you know, Christ is represented
as the one who finished the work of redemption. who finished the
righteousness, he's the end of the law for righteousness, and
after he finished his work he sat down at the right hand of
God. That's an emblem of the acceptance of his people by virtue
of his merits, his value, his worthiness. In other words, we
are accepted. He's seated at the right hand
of God, making intercession for us. But here he's standing. What
does that mean? That means right now, The victorious
Savior is protecting, preserving his church. That's what he's
doing. He's not some kind of alienated
Savior who just walked off and then he's gonna come back sometime
and find out what's happened or how we've done. No, he right
now is involved in the protection and the preservation of his church. And that's why we see so much
language in the New Testament. He is able, Paul said, I know
whom I have believed that he is able to keep that which I've
committed unto him against that day, the day of God's judgment.
Christ is able to keep his people. And so here he is, the church,
here we are, the church built upon Christ, the Lamb, built
upon the foundation of His merits, of His blood, His righteousness
imputed. He's standing there. And it says, and with Him, the
144,000, every one of His people in Him, united to Him. And look
what it says in verse 1. It says, having His Father's
name written in their foreheads. That's in their hearts. The Father's
name. I didn't reference this in your
lesson, but turn over to John chapter 6 just a moment. You
might want to just put this out on the side, write this one out. His father's name. You know,
false religion tries to capitalize on what they think is common. amongst all religions. And there's
basically three rules or three commandments, three tenets, three
doctrines that false religion will go by. First one is what
they call the universal fatherhood of God. Whatever God you have,
they say. We're all God's children. and
then secondly the universal brotherhood of man we're all brothers you
know and of course that that gives rise to what we call the
mountain analogy that there's one god and we're just going
different ways or something like that and the third one is the
golden rule do unto others as you have them do unto you well
all three of those rules are as false religion uh... relays them and promotes them
are false Paul recognized, for example,
the Apostle Paul recognized that when he stood on Mars Hill that
we do have a connection with all men without exception in
creation. And they call that the universal
fatherhood of God. God created all of us. And we
know that. But we fell in Adam. and we lost our connection with
God so that we cannot all be called the children of God you
know Christ looked at the Pharisees in John 8 44 and he said you're
of your father the devil and even the elect of God Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 tells us that we're no different by
nature than the rest of them The children of God are those
who are children by electing grace, adopting grace, redeeming
grace. And so when he says over here,
having his father's name written in their foreheads, what he's
saying is that these people have been brought into a relationship
with God that they didn't have before in their nature. And look
at John 6, 44. He says, No man can come to me. Except the Father which hath
sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Look at verse 45. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. This is the revelation
of God in Christ, in the gospel. Every man therefore that hath
heard, heard what? Heard what God teaches. And what
does he teach? How things are made right with
him through Christ. The revelation of the Godhead
through Christ. In other words, you don't know
God except through Christ and what he accomplished on Calvary,
who he is and what he finished. So every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father, how can God be both a
just God, a righteous judge, as well as a merciful Father?
Well, that's the gospel. And so we learn of the Father.
And he says, if you learn of the Father, if God teaches you
that, you know what you're going to do? You're going to come to
Christ, come unto me. I could show you several other
passages there, but go back to Revelation 14. This Father's
name is that which identifies and distinguishes him from all
counterfeits, all idols. And what is his name? Well, we
could go through the scripture on that, couldn't we? Because
there's so many names that identify the glory of the father. How
can God, I'm a sinner, and if I approach God on my own terms,
in my own works, then who am I going to meet? A loving father?
No, a consuming fire, the scripture says. A righteous judge who must
punish sin, who hates all workers of iniquity. So how can I have
any comfort, any peace, any assurance that God is my Father? Only as
I see Him, as Isaiah identified Him in one way, a just God and
a Savior. Only through Jesus Christ. And
this is what we need to tell people. We'll talk about the
mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God, the fatherliness
of God. But my friend, outside of Christ,
none of those things are true of you or me. None of them. There's no love from God outside
of Christ. There's no mercy outside. Christ
is the mercy seat. Christ is the love of God, and
the love of God shown through Christ is a just and righteous
love. And that's the way we need to
see Him. Look at verse 2 of Revelation
14. Now they say, have it in their forehead. Remember now,
Those who worship the beast, they have the mark of the beast
on their foreheads and on their hands. But here, we have the
name of the father written on our foreheads. And that's, you
know, again, go back, you know, people talk about, well, that's
a literal mark, it's gonna be somewhere on the head under your
hair or whatever, or it's gonna be a barcode. This is not hidden. And by the same token, God's
not going to write father on your forehead so that people
can see that as you walk down the street. But he's written
father in your forehead in the spiritual annals of your mind,
your heart, your affections, your will, as you plead the blood
and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is my
father. How do I know that? How can I
be assured of that? There's not but one way. And
that's as I'm submitted to Christ as my surety, as my substitute,
as the Lord my righteousness. Now, he says in verse 2, he says,
I heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters and
as the voice of a great thunder, and I heard the voice of harpers
harping with their harps. This is talking about worship.
I probably, and I was looking at the lesson this week and I
need to emphasize more that the voice of many waters, and you
might want to write this down because I didn't emphasize it
enough in the lesson because I wanted to bring it down to
see that this is worship. Those who have the Father's name
written in their foreheads, they are the true worshipers of God.
And so you can see two applications of this as far as commentators. First of all, the voice of Christ
himself is the voice of many waters. And that's what I didn't
emphasize enough, so you might want to write that down there.
I thought about this when I was going back over some lessons
that I preached several years ago out of the book of Ezekiel.
Remember, in the last part of the book of Ezekiel is a prophecy
or vision given to Ezekiel of the Millennial Temple. Now, as
you probably know about me, I don't believe that Millennial Temple
is a literal building that's going to be built in Jerusalem.
The Millennial Temple is Christ, the dwelling place of God, and
his church. That's the Millennial Temple.
And I don't have time to go into all that this morning, but it's
there. You know the description of it
over in Revelation 21, 22, things like that. But that's the Millennial
Temple. And out from under that Millennial
Temple comes a river. And that river is life, the water
of life. Christ is the water of life.
Remember what he told the woman at the well. He's the fountain
of living waters. So that's an application of this.
Another application of this, the many waters, can refer to
God's elect all over the world. Because in that millennial temple,
that water flows all over. God has a people out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. So we can think of it that way
too. God's people from all the world, and they have a song to
sing. And that song is a song of worship.
That song is worthy is the Lamb. This voice of great thunder,
that's authority. Christ is our authority. His
word is our authority. And Paul said that could apply
to us too because as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5.20, we are
ambassadors of Christ. We have the authority of the
word of God. And that's why it's impendent
upon us to rightly divide the word of truth, to become familiar
with the word of truth. Because whenever we're confronted
with opposition to our message, really the only thing we need
to do is just say, now look, look, the Bible doesn't say what
you're saying, here's what it says. And whenever you confront
people who know the Bible better than you, what should that do
for you? It should make you go study.
Shouldn't it? Make you go, I need to learn
these things. I want to be equipped with the
sword of the Lord, which is his word. So we have his authority. So this is a voice of great thunder. That's authority. That's power.
That's the word of God. And it says in verse two, I heard
the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And that's
not teaching that when we die and go to heaven, we're all going
to be angels on a cloud playing harps. That's an emblem of worship.
That's the string music of the soul, as one commentator put
it. Crying out with praise to the
Lamb, worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Look at verse three.
He says, and they sung as it were a new song before the throne. Now that new song is not new
as to time, but it's new as to its nature and its quality. For example, we talked about
that I think back in Revelation 5, how that song, you only begin
to sing that song as you are brought under the power of the
Spirit in the new birth. You didn't sing this song before.
You may have been religious, and you may have opened the hymn
book, and you might have even sung my favorite hymn, My Hope
is Built on Nothing Less Than Jesus, Blood, and Righteous.
I used to sing that song a long time before I really believed
it and understood it and believed it. But when the Holy Spirit
brings us to see God's holiness and justice and righteousness
and see our sin in the light of that and how we cannot save
ourselves, that if God were to ever give us what we earned or
deserved, it would be death. and showed us Christ in His glory,
in His person, God-man, in the power of His finished work, His
righteousness. When God showed us that, what
did we do? He gave us life and we began
to sing a new song. It was new to us. It's a song
of the redeemed. It's a song of the Lamb. So it's
the quality, it's sung by the redeemed, it's the song of the
Lamb. And it's new compared with the old song that we all sung
before we were regenerated, which is salvation, someway, at some
stage, in some degree, conditioned on us. And that song of salvation
by works I put in there. It's the song of God's grace.
And look at verse three, he says, this song, they sang it before
the throne, the throne of God's glory. the throne of Christ,
and before the four beasts and the elders, the four beasts and
the four elders, the four beasts and the elders represent the
ministers of the gospel who lead the people to Christ, who point
to Christ. They're like the signpost, pointing
you to Christ, not to themselves now, not to their own abilities,
Not to their own goodness, but they point you to Christ. That
word beast, remember, we learned back in, I think it was Revelation
4, that's not talking about a wild, untamed beast. This is a living
creature. That's what the word beast there
means. The beast of Revelation 13, that's a wild, untamed creature. The beast that is an emblem of
the ministers of Christ and the people of God is a living creature. In other words, they're not dead
in trespasses. They're born that way, but they've
been made alive. They've been quickened by the
Holy Spirit. And so these are the ministers
that point to Christ. And he said in verse 3, he says,
no man could learn that song but the 144,000. Now why is it? Because man by nature will not
come to Christ. No man can come to me. Now remember
back in John 6, 44. He said, no man can come to me
except the Father which is... That word can. No man can come
to me. You know that's the same word
that's translated in a derivative of the same word that's translated
power in like Romans 1, 16. The power of God and salvation.
We get our English word dynamite from it. Well, that's ability. The gospel is empowered by the
Holy Spirit, and no man has power to come because he will not.
His mind, his affections, his will are in the bondage of sin
and deception, self-righteousness, unbelief, darkness, ignorance,
and he will not come to Christ. So what has to happen? If you're
going to learn this song of the redeemed and sing it, well, you've
got to be sealed in your forehead. with the father's name you gotta
be born again by the spirit you gotta be given a new heart you
gotta be given a new spirit and that's what he says no man could
learn that song but the hundred forty four thousand and and the
responsibility there the accountability is upon man he don't want to
sing that song because it gives god all the glory he wants to
have some glory for himself he wants to think he made the difference
between saved and lost, between heaven and hell, and not Christ
alone, not God's electing grace and God's redeeming grace and
regenerating grace. And so he says, no man could
learn that song but the 144,000, that's the true church, the people
of God, the chosen, the redeemed, which were redeemed from the
earth. This is the song of the redeemed. What is redemption? It's paying
the price. The full redemption price that
brings you out of bondage. That's what it is. That's what
redeemed means. The redeemed of the Lord. This
doesn't say that any who've been redeemed will refuse to sing
the song. It says that no man could learn
that song and sing it except those who were redeemed. So here's
the issue. What is the evidence of a person
being chosen of God, having their name written in the Lamb's Book
of Life before the foundation of the world? What is the evidence
of Christ dying for my sins on the cross that I've been redeemed?
Singing the new song. The gospel song. Pleading the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to the praise of the glory
of His grace. That's the evidence. And so we
don't have to get into some kind of a religious schematic that
men set up hoops and hurdles for us to jump through and walk
through. That's all man-made religion.
It's false. Seeing that song, my hope is
built on nothing. Is that really what you believe?
Nothing less than Jesus, blood, and right. Dare not trust this.
Is your hope in your decision? Is your hope in the fact that
you were brought up in the South in a religious place on the buckle
on the Bible belt? Your baptism? Is that where your
hope is? That's not the song of the redeemed,
folks. Song of the redeemed is Christ, Jehovah Sid Canu, the
Lord my righteousness. That's who sings it. And then
verse four, look at verse four. He says, these are they which
were not defiled with women for they are virgins. Now, what is
he talking about there? Well, he's talking about spiritual
virginity. Paul related that over in second
Corinthians chapter 11. I do have that referenced in
your lesson. In other words, what he's talking
about is here is a sinner, here's an individual sinner, here's
a collection of sinners, the church, and they're married to
Christ. and their love and their loyalty
in this matter of salvation is to him alone. Now if that's talking
about, let me just say it this way, and I'm not here trying
to embarrass anybody, but if that's talking about physical
virginity or physical adultery, which some people say it is,
then you can take King David out of the kingdom of heaven.
You can take Solomon out. You can take a lot of people
out. Now, should we as believers strive to be pure in these areas
of physical sexuality? Of course we should. We're to
be witnesses for Christ, you see, in the sense that we don't
want our character and conduct to get in the way of our witness. But that's not what Revelation
14's talking about. These are they who are not defiled
with women. The women there is an emblem
of false religion. It's an unnamed woman. An unnamed
woman in the scripture either refers to idolatry, adultery,
spiritual adultery, false religion, the great whore, Babylon, or
it refers to the church. Remember back in Revelation 12?
That woman, Christ is the seed of woman, an unnamed woman. That's
what it refers to, and context tells us what it's talking about.
Well, these are not defiled with false religion. Now, we began
our lives defiled with false religion, didn't we? But we've
been what? We've been chosen, we've been
redeemed, we've been cleansed by the blood of Christ, and He
can wash away all our sins. So when he talks about this not
being defiled, what's he talking about? He's talking about a sinner
who stands washed in the blood of Christ. What can wash away
my sins? Look at 2 Corinthians 11 verse 2. Paul wrote to the
Corinthian church, I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy.
I've espoused you to one husband, that's Christ, that I may present
you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Now who's he talking to? People
who'd never committed adultery in their life? People who'd never
fornicated in their life? No. He's talking about sinners
washed in the blood of the Lamb. So back here in Revelation 14,
these are they which, we're not defiling them, they're virgins,
spiritually speaking. We have no other husband but
Christ. We have no other Savior but Christ. And these are they
which follow the Lamb, whithersoever he go. We follow Christ wherever
he goes. These were redeemed from among
men. That word redeemed, bought. You see that. Being the firstfruits
unto God and to the lamb. We're the harvest of God. That's
what the church is. Christ is the seed that went
into the ground. He died and went into the ground.
And out of that seed comes much fruit. The firstfruits. And the
firstfruits is an emblem of that which belongs to God alone. That's
what that firstfruits mean. That doesn't mean we were the
first ones saved as far as the new birth, but it meant the first
fruits in the old covenant law, that belonged to God. We belong
to God. We belong to Christ. And so he
says in verse five, and in their mouth was found no God. Does
that mean they never tell a lie? Well, if it does, where does
that leave us? Does that mean that they're always
dishonest or never dishonest? If it does, Disqualifies us. The guile there he's talking
about is the guile of a false gospel. That causes a sinner
not to be honest with God about his sin. That's why free willism
and decisionism is such an abomination to God because it doesn't require
a sinner to be honest with God about his sinfulness and his
depravity. and therefore drive him to Christ
for all salvation. So he says, in their mouth was
found no guile for they are without fault before the throne of God.
Now you think about that one. How in the world can I honestly,
without embarrassment, say that I stand before the throne of
God without fault? How could you do that? There's
only one way in the Bible. And that's as I stand clothed
in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ freely imputed to
me, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness. All right.