In Revelation 11 verse 15, it
speaks of the seventh angel sounding. Verse 15, the seventh angel sounded. Let me go back and put things
in perspective for you so that you can know exactly where we
are. This portion of scripture is
part of that second segment of the revelation these seven different
viewpoints of the New Testament age that the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. And in
this section, you remember, this is the angel of the Lord who
is Christ himself, the Lamb, who's worthy, back in chapter
five, opening the seven-sealed book. That big seven-sealed book
of God's purpose reveals God's plan, God's purpose throughout
the new covenant age. And that's what we're looking
at. And so we've looked at the first six seals. Right now we're
looking at, this is part of the seventh seal judgment, Christ
revealing in the last days. And it shows us all these different,
as one commentator said, camera angles of the same thing. It's
like looking at the same thing from different angles. But it's
all the same truth. And remember, this is a book
of Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ and his majesty and his glory.
God working all things after the counsel of his own will.
That's what we're seeing. Now in this seventh seal, when
Christ revealed this, opened the seventh seal, remember we
had the, this is seven trumpet judgments. that come throughout
the New Testament age. The first four pretty much came
together. That was back in chapter eight.
And then the last three, of the seven trumpets, the first four
came together. The last three began in the last verse of Revelation
chapter eight, and they were called three woes, woe, woe,
woe, to the inhabitants of the earth. So you had the The fifth
trumpet was the first woe. The sixth trumpet was the sixth
woe, or the second woe. See all these numbers, you know,
you get them mangled up. Well, here's the seventh trumpet.
It's the last woe. This is the last day right here. The last trump is going to sound. Now listen to the last trump. He says in verse 15, the seventh
angel sounded and there was great voices in heaven. This is a thunderous,
a very public, as one translation says it, a mighty disclosure. You know, the word revelation
itself means uncovering. And it says here, these great
voices in heaven, here's a message from God. And every bit of this
has been God's message to men, especially to his church. And
to his church, it's been a word of comfort, It's been a word
of assurance for those who have fled to Christ to flee from the
wrath to come. We who stand in Christ, and I'll
tell you what, I've been thinking about that a lot in studying
for these messages and in doing a lot of writing. The phrase
in Christ means so much to us, doesn't it? I mean, you know, you think about
it. A believer, a sinner saved by grace, We were in Christ before
the foundation of the world in God's electing grace, weren't
we? I mean, you know, Paul spoke of salvation when he was writing
to encourage Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter one. He said, this great,
he said, you don't have any, Paul was in prison when he wrote
to Timothy and he said, but Timothy, we don't have anything to be
ashamed of. We don't have anything to shirk back because we're preaching
the gospel that reveals a salvation that was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. That's an amazing thing. We've
always been in Christ in that sense. Representation, imputation,
all of that. And then we were in Christ at
the cross. Romans 6 describes that beautifully. You know how when he died, we
died. He died as our surety and our substitute, the people of
God. Now that's who I'm talking about. Not all without exception.
He represented a people just like the high priest in the old
covenant went in for Israel, the nation Israel, Christ went
into the holiest of all before his father with the election
of grace. And he died. And when he died,
I died. Somebody asked one time, how
do I know he died for me? Well, do you believe in him?
That's the evidence, isn't it? Do you trust him? And that's
the evidence of having spiritual life. So when he died, I died.
When he was buried, I was buried. When he arose, I arose. And so
I'm in him redemptively. I'm in him eternally by the election
of grace. I'm in him redemptively by the
cross. And then in time, the Holy Spirit
providentially brings us under the preaching of the gospel,
and he imparts spiritual life. He literally raises us from the
dead, doesn't he? We're born dead in trespasses
and sins. And he brings us into Christ
in what we might call a marriage union. Romans chapter seven speaks
of that. We're in Christ, we're married
to Christ. Spiritually, we're in him. By
faith, we believe in him, we trust him, we rest in him, we
follow him. So we're in Christ. But now,
when we see all that's going on in the world, all the chaos,
and that's what it looks like, all the evil, all the sin and
depravity, And when we go even through in the warfare of our
own, the flesh and the spirit, you know, one of our enemies,
you understand, is ourselves. We still have the assurance that
Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And our righteousness
never changes, never diminishes. is never contaminated not even
by our sin let alone by Satan in the world who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect so that's what this is about
but now it's also about the negative in the sense that God's bringing
judgment down on this world and look at what he says verse 15
there were great voices in heaven saying the kingdoms of this world
are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he
shall reign forever and ever Now, there is a sense in which
the kingdoms of this world have always been his because he is
the sovereign of this universe. He's always been working all
things after the counsel of his own will. He's always been in
control. I'm going to talk a little bit
about that in the message today, the 11 o'clock hour. But for
the purposes of his glory in the salvation of his people.
And I know theologians get upset and they argue about what words
we should use. I really don't know. I mean,
there's no, I say it this way. I say for the purposes of his
glory, God allowed Satan to usurp authority over this fallen world. That's why Satan is called the
prince of this world. And somebody said, well, you
can't say God just allowed it. He caused it to happen. God is
the first cause of all things. And yet he's not the author of
sin. I can't explain that, but I don't have to. If I could turn
you to chapter and verse and map out an explanation, then
fine, but I can't do that. But I know this. God is not the
author of sin, but he's the governor of it. He sure can try. How else could we say that all
things work together for good to them that love God, who are
the called according to his purpose? But now there is in this last
trumpet, we see Christ reigning forever. I didn't put this verse
in there in your lesson, but you might want to cite it. Turn
to Hebrews chapter two. I want to show you something.
Hebrews chapter two. I apologize for putting these
on. I broke my glasses, so I'm wearing
contacts, but they're only for distance, and that's why I have
to keep these. And I'll get used to this now,
and I won't have to do all that. But anyway, look at Hebrews chapter
2. This is where he quotes from
Psalm 8, what is man that thou art mindful of him? Verse 7,
look at Hebrews 2, 7. Thou madest him a little lower
than the angels. That's speaking of the humanity
of Christ in his human nature without sin. And of course it
says, Thou crowns him with glory and honor. That's his resurrection
from the dead, his ascension to be seated at the right hand
of the Father. Now why did all that happen? It's because he
came to this earth as the surety and substitute of his people
and he finished the work. He made an end of sin. He brought
in everlasting righteousness. And that's His mediatorial glory,
you see. And He said, And it set Him over
the works of thy hands. It's all in the hands of Christ.
Verse 8, Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet.
For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that
is not put under Him. Is there anything outside of
His control? What says here? He left nothing.
That is not put under him. And you know, what is it? Nothing
plus nothing equals nothing. So, I mean, there's nothing that's
not under his. But now look at the last line
of verse eight. But now, now this is in the time
of this book being written, and in our time too, now we see not
yet all things put under him. He's talking about what we see
on this plane, on this horizontal plane. You look at things, you
know, and even believers, now we have a tendency, don't we?
I mean, we get worried and we get upset and we think, oh man,
what's gonna happen? But the Bible reminds us God's
in control. It's all under his feet, but
we don't see it yet. It's not being realized in our
vision of things. We know it's so, but look at
verse nine, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than
that. We see Christ, don't we? We look at this world and we
see all this chaos and we don't actually understand it all. Why did God do this? Why did
he allow that to happen? But we see Jesus. We see our
salvation. That's what that means. We see
it in him. And he was made a little lower
than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and
honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for every
man, every one of his elect. That's what it's talking about.
Well, look back at Revelation 11. Now, in verse 15 here, it's
come. And we see it in working, in
our experience. He reigns forever and ever. This
is the final consummation of all of God's purpose. And here
it is. And look what happens. Look at
verse 16. He says, and the four and 20
elders, now they represent the church, the 12 plus 12. You know,
the 12 patriarchs, the 12 apostles, they represent the church. That's
what that is. The church of the Lord God. And
he says, they sat before God on their seats, and they fell
upon their faces, and they worshiped God. Two things. Well, let's
put it down to three things. Number one, what are they doing? They're sitting. It means they're
resting. They're not up pacing the floor.
They're resting in Christ. You see, I know, and I'm like
you all, we do, we worry, we get upset, but in the end, what
marks the life of a true Christian? We rest in Christ. And even, you know, it's like
we've talked about our country and how, I'm not very optimistic
about our country. And maybe that's a bad thing,
I don't know. I do know this, I know America's not my salvation,
Christ is. I know that. And I know secondly,
America's not gonna last forever. This world's gonna burn up, you
all realize that, don't you? And it's not the whole world
except USA. The whole world's going to burn
up. But we've often talked about, Jim, how I hate to see it in
my lifetime and in the lifetimes of my children and my grandchildren.
I would love for them to enjoy the freedoms and the privileges
that I had growing up, the opportunities. But you know what? I'm not that
wise. God's all wise. God knows what
he was doing, and I remember, y'all remember the old preacher
Scott Richardson, some of you do. He said, well, if we knew
what God knew, we wouldn't change a thing. I'm the Lord, I change
not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. But anyway,
here it is, these four and 20 elders representing the church
of the living God, the elect of God, the redeemed of the Lord.
Those who are righteous in him, what are they doing? They're
resting. They're seated. They're resting in the finished
work of the Lord God. And then secondly, humility.
It says they fell upon their faces. And that's about all we
can do by the grace of God. We only do that by the grace
of God. That's humility. How awesome is our God? We haven't
even, you know, we're like those two West Virginia farmers. who
some, they got up into their early 80s, and one of them talking
to them, he says, you know what? He said, I have never in my lifetime
seen the ocean, and I'd like to see it one time before I die.
So they made a trip to the ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and they got
out there on the ocean, or on the seashore, and they were looking
out of it, and one farmer said to the other, he said, man, I
didn't realize it was so big. And the other farmer said, and
he said, and yeah, and that's just the top of it. And that's the
way we are with this thing about the majesty of God in Christ,
the glory of God. We've seen it because the Holy
Spirit's revealed it to us, revealed him to us. And that's a humbling
thing. You know, what is man that God
is mindful of him? You know, that's an amazing thing,
you know. And that's why when people think of salvation or
revelation as something that they've earned or deserved, it
is such an it's such an attack upon the character and nature
of God himself. Do you know that? And then they
look and say, well, it's not fair for God to do that. Who
in the world do you think you are? These guys fell on their
face. The four and 20 elders fell on
their faces in humility to God. Amazing grace. That's what that
is. And then thirdly, Worship. They worship God. Now what is
it to worship God? It's to give God all the glory.
And that's what I'm going to talk about in the message at
11. And that doesn't mean just giving God credit. A lot of people
think they're giving God glory when they gave God credit for
things. They may be giving God credit for things he doesn't
want credit for. And I'll show you two examples. There's several
examples of that in scripture. But look at verse 17. He says,
saying, we give thee thanks. Thank you, Lord. Oh, Lord God
Almighty, thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord,
for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great salvation so rich and free. And here's who God
is, which art and was and art to come, the eternal God, the
self-existent God. You see, worship is giving thanks
unto God first for who he is. People fight truth about God. Man by nature fights truth about
God in the scripture, doesn't he? God is absolutely sovereign. He says, it's not of him that
runneth, nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth mercy.
And what does man say? That's not fair. Well, you're
not worshiping God when you say that. You're not giving God the glory
due unto his name. When sinners come to God seeking
salvation based upon anything but his grace through the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, they're not worshiping God. They're not
calling upon the name of the Lord now. Because the Lord God
says that he's so holy and righteous and just, he cannot and will
not save sinners based on anything else but Christ's righteousness
imputed, his blood alone. Worship. One old theologian said,
it's attributing unto God that which belongs to God. And so
we worship God. And then he says in verse 17,
because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned.
God's people are glad and thankful that he's in control. Aren't
you glad of that? You know, we often get the kind
of attitude that says we wish we were in control. But if you
think about that for a few minutes, aren't you glad you're not? Aren't you glad God's in control?
God who saves sinners by his grace, he's in control. And then
look at verse 18. He says, and the nations were
angry and thy wrath has come in the time of the dead. God's
wrath, that's his justice. That's his hatred. Whenever you
think about God's hatred, as I've said, don't think about
it in terms of our hatred because that's a bad thing. But God's
hatred is his wrath against sin based on his justice. That's
what it is. And the time of the dead, what's
the time of the dead? That's judgment. That's the time
of judgment. The dead will be judged. And
it says that they should be judged. and that they should give reward
unto thy servants the prophets and to the saints The prophets
being those who preach the word of God, and they're all together,
the saints, the sanctified ones, those who were set apart by God
before the foundation of the world, those who were set apart
on the cross as he died for their sins, their surety and substitute,
and those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, sanctified
by the Spirit, called out of the world, and he says he's going
to give reward unto thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints,
and them that fear thy name, fear meaning that reverential
respect, that worship, small and great, no matter who they
are, they're stationed in life. You know, in God's kingdom, there
is no small and great, but when we look at people, you know,
we say, well, they're small ones, they're great ones, but the point
he's making here is this. That distinction that is so important
and so valuable on earth means nothing in the kingdom of God.
And he says, and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
And that word destroy you see in your concordance is corrupt.
And the corruption of the world could involve, it's not talking
about environmentalism there. It's talking about the false
gospels, the false ways, the ways that are contrary to God's
ways, talking about unbelievers. Now look at that verse 18 again.
He talks about he's going to judge the dead, that's those
who are spiritually dead. The Bible teaches us, I've got
some verses in here that you can study. The Bible teaches
that God's going to judge those who appear before him outside
of Christ by their works. And what are their works? going to say about them, that
they're unbelievers, that they're rebels, that they have no mediator,
they have no righteousness. You see, that's the issue. What
is your righteousness before God? All right, you remember
Matthew 7 and 21. Lord, Lord, haven't we preached
in your name? Lord, Lord, haven't we cast out
devils? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? Now, is that your righteousness before God? If it is, what are
you gonna hear? Depart from me, you that work
in it. You're gonna get the reward of your works, which is death.
No flesh will be justified in God's. You say, well, I accepted
you as my personal savior. I was baptized. Is that your
righteousness? You see, that's the reward of
the deeds of the body, the deeds of the law. But he says here
he's going to reward the servants and the prophets and the saints,
all that. Well, what is that? That's not rewards, plural, in
heaven based upon our works. That's not what the Bible teaches.
Look up the word rewards, plural, and I think It's been a while
since I've done this. I think you might find it two
times, but it has nothing to do with God's people being rewarded
in heaven. Anytime the word reward is connected
with the saints, it's not a reward which we earn by our works. It's
the reward of grace. Romans chapter four, if the reward
is of debt, something you've earned that God owes you, then
it's not of grace. I've heard people, I've heard
preachers do this. Yeah, we earn our rewards, but
we'll cast them at Christ's feet and there'll be rewards of grace. Well, listen, if we earn it,
it's not grace. Christ is our reward. We have
a reward of life. We have a reward of glory. We
have a reward of righteousness, but it's all a reward of grace.
He earned it. We get it. That's basically what
the Bible teaches and that's what that means. And those that
corrupt the world, all right, he's referring there to the unregenerate
unbeliever. Look at verse 19, the temple
of God was opened to him. Now here's the, this is amazing.
Here's the whole ground of the whole issue at judgment. The temple of God was opened
in heaven. What is the temple of God? Well, sometimes Christ
himself is called the tabernacle, the temple of God, because in
him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He came
and the word was made flesh and tabernacled among us. That's
what that means when it says the word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. He is the dwelling place of God.
And then sometimes the church is called the temple of God.
You're the temple of God, Paul told the Corinthians. In other
words, this is where the glory of God resides. And there was
seen in his temple the ark of the testament. That's the ark
of the covenant. Now, there are some religions that think there's
going to be a literal temple in heaven and a literal ark there.
That's not what this is teaching. This is all fulfilled in Christ,
who is the ark of the testament, the mercy seat. Remember that
ark? It was Shittim wood overlaid
with gold. That's his humanity, that's the
wood, and the gold is his deity, the God-man, and it contained
the law which was broken, that's the law that curses everyone
by nature, and it was overlaid with that lid, the mercy seat,
and you remember how in the old covenant the high priest had
to come in and sprinkle the blood? And that all pictured the covering
of sin, which was propitiation. Propitiation is the mercy seat.
It's a sin-bearing sacrifice who brings satisfaction. Sin's
imputed to Christ. He died. Righteousness imputed
to his people. That's what this Ark of the Testament
symbolizes. And this is what he's saying.
It's going to be in this last trump when Christ comes the second
time to judge the world and gather his people The truth of how God
justifies the ungodly, how he saves sinners, is going to be
so open that the whole world is going to know then that there
was only one way. Now, right now, the world thinks
there's many ways to God. Right now, we live in a day of
relativism. Everything's relative, you see.
You got your way, I got my way. We're all going to heaven. We're
all going the same way. You know, in this last Trump,
God, the temple of God is going to be open in heaven, and there
was seen in his temple the ark of the testament. And it says,
there were lightnings and voices and thunderings and an earthquake
and great hail. Because sinners stand in opposition
to the Lord Jesus Christ and God's way of salvation in and
by him, The wrath of God symbolized in these voices, thunderings,
earthquakes, and hails coming down on this world. You see,
the whole issue here is this. At second coming, at judgment,
the only thing that's really going to matter is how do we
stand before God in Christ. If we don't have Christ, if we're
not washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness, where are
we? We're under the wrath of God. That's right. But if we
stand in Him, pleading His blood and righteousness alone, then
there's great joy, there's that humbling, there's that worship,
there's that rest that comes. All right.