Let's open our Bibles to the
book of Revelation chapter 16. Revelation 16. I'm going to begin
reading at verse 12. Revelation 16. It is a little
different, isn't it? Coming back. We hate change,
don't we? That's just what we are by nature,
human beings. We just hate change. But sometimes
you need it. And I'm so glad that Kristen
is teaching the children back there. bringing bringing these
children up in the admonition, the nurture and the admonition
of the Lord. That's important. And we just pray that the Lord
will bless her and bless those children. It's good to be back. Great to see all of you. Debbie
sends her regards and love. She she's babysitting. And that's
that's the that's her plight these days, you know, with with
our grandchildren, our two grandsons, they're growing like weeds. But
I do bring you all greetings from 13th Street Baptist Church.
We pray for you and covet your prayers for us, too, as we continue
to minister the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in our
area. And so we just thank you for
all your prayers. All right. preach to you on a
subject you might not expect to hear me preach from as far
as a lot of things that are commonly held and thought today but the
title of the message is Armageddon. Armageddon. And it's in, I want
you to look at verse 12 of Revelation 16. In Revelation 16 what's happening
here is you know the book of Revelation, the book of the apocalypse
which is what Revelation means. It's dealing with events that
take place in what is commonly called and known as the last
days. People generally don't understand
what the last days really refers to. What they refer to, as you
know, because we've dealt with this before, and I preached through
the book of Revelation when I was here as your pastor, But the
last days refers to the days, the time period, the days between
the first coming of Christ to do his great work on the cross,
death, burial, and resurrection, his ascension unto glory, the
days between that event, that great event, that crux of redemptive
history, all the way to the second coming. So it's not just his
second coming, it's that time period between. These things
that Revelation speaks of begin... You know, John, the Apostle John,
was on the Isle of Patmos when the Lord revealed these visions
to him of Revelation. And these things were things,
the events of Revelation, are things that began in John's day. You know, people talk about Antichrist,
and they usually focus on one person, and I believe that's
a mistake. Antichrist is a spirit. Antichrist refers to the spirit
of religion that comes in the name of Christ, but denies the
truth of Christ, denies the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace.
It's a false gospel, and I'm going to talk about that in the
next hour, another gospel. But John said in his day, when
he wrote 1 John, he said, even now there are many anti-Christ
in the world. And so he's, and then he begins
to talk about those who profess to believe in Christ, but then
left the gospel. Now, many people say, well, they
lost their salvation. No, sir, that's another gospel.
They didn't lose their salvation. They never had it to begin with.
That's what John explains in 1 John 2, 18 and 19. So these are events that take
place throughout the age, but it seems as you look at Revelation
and read through it, it's going to get worse and worse and worse
and worse and worse up until the time of his actual second
coming, and then comes the end. Well, Revelation 16 is a revelation
of what we call the vile judgments, V-I-A-L, viles or bold judgments
is what some call them. I prefer the term vile because
what these are, they are measured judgments that lead up to the
final end judgment. In other words, you see a measurement
of God's wrath coming down upon earth. as time goes on, it gets
worse and worse, but he doesn't destroy the earth all at one
time at first, but in the end it's all coming down to that
final judgment, that final wrath of God. And here are seven vial
judgments. I'm not going to go into all
of these, but I want you to look at this one in verse 12. It says,
and the sixth angel, that's a messenger of God, an angelic messenger,
and he's going to talk about the sixth vial. There's seven
vials. Here's the sixth vial. The seventh vial that comes on
at the beginning at verse 17, that's the second coming of Christ.
And right before the second coming of Christ, here's what he says,
the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates. Now what does that mean? Now
all of this is symbolic. And in order to understand the
symbols, you've got to go to the scripture. And we're not
going to turn to all of these scriptures. You know, the river Euphrates,
that was one of the four rivers that flowed out of Eden. And
the river Euphrates represents all that is evil in the world
since the fall of man. For example, the Jews back in
the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, they look at the river Euphrates
as the place beyond which their greatest enemies dwelt, Babylon
and Assyria, the great enemies of the Jews. They dwelt beyond
the river Euphrates. And so it became a symbol of
the passage between the people of God or the division between
the people of God and the people of the world against God. In
the Babylonian captivity during Daniel and Ezekiel's day, the
river Euphrates was the river that ran through Babylon and
literally fed the city. There the river Euphrates is
a symbol of that which feeds false religion. You know, Babylon
is a symbol of false religion. The Tower of Babel, all of that.
Works religion. works-oriented religion, freewillism. That's what Babylon was all about.
And the river Euphrates fed that. And so this is what it's talking
about here, the great river Euphrates, verse 12, and the water thereof
was dried up. When Judah was in captivity at
Babylon, under King Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants. Remember,
Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple
of Solomon and took the people in captivity to Babylon. When
they were in Babylon, God sent judgment upon the Babylonians
through the Medes and the Persians, and the way that they destroyed
and conquered the Babylonian Empire, the Medes and the Persians,
is by drying up. They dammed up the river Euphrates.
They cut off their water supply. And this is what this verse is
teaching. It's teaching that everything that, in this day,
in this sixth vile judgment, in the end, what God is going
to do in his wrath upon this earth is he's going to dry up
everything that feeds man's pride, man's self-righteousness, man's
false religion. That's the end of it all. False
religion abounds today. It abounds today. The Lord told
his disciples, it's recorded in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 and
Luke 21, that two events were gonna mark the beginning of the
last days. And what were those two events?
Well, he talked about the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
That's gonna be one. And that was God's physical mark,
sign on earth that the old covenant had ended and he was finished
with the nation of Israel as a nation. And that's what Paul
talks about in Romans 11. He cautions the Gentile believers
not to be puffed up because that doesn't mean that no Jews can
be saved now. That just means God's finished
with them as a nation. That's number one. The second
thing that he talked about was gonna mark the beginning of the
last days was a great falling away from the truth. that people
would claim to believe the truth of God's grace in Christ, but
they'd fall away from it. And it would start out small
and gradually get bigger and bigger and bigger. Paul spoke
of it in 2 Thessalonians 2, and he talked about the great apostasy,
this great falling away. You'd have much religion that
comes in the name of Christ, but which denies the doctrine
of Christ. And that's what this is talking
about. What the Lord is saying here in this sixth vow judgment,
all of that's going to dry up. Their river Euphrates, what promotes
them, what feeds them is going to dry up. And it's going to
be no more. Just like the river Euphrates
running through the Babylonian empire dried them up so they
could be conquered. False religions, river Euphrates
is going to be dried up. He says in verse 12, that the
way of the kings of the east might be prepared. Now who are
the kings of the east? I believe that's talking about
God's people. That's talking about the church. In Christ,
based on his blood and righteousness and the redemption that he accomplished
on Calvary, and through the merits of his redemptive work, we who
are believers by the power of God's grace, are made kings and
priests unto God. He is the king of kings in that
sense. And what he's saying, anything
comes out of the east, the sunrise is marked by the glory of God
in Christ. And all of this is going to prepare
the way for the gathering of his church. That's what he's
talking about. When Christ comes the second time, what's he going
to do? He's going to bring wrath down upon his enemies and he's
going to gather his church into his bosom. and we're going to
be glorified together with him. The lamb that was slain, the
lamb that is worthy to open the books. And so this prepares the
way for the gathering of his church. And then he said in verse
13, he says, I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of
the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and
out of the mouth of the false prophet, the dragon, that's Satan,
the accuser of the brethren. The beast, that's ungodly governments. That's the political arm of Satan,
ungodly governments, political governments. And the false prophet
is ungodly religion. There's the unholy trinity. These
frogs, they're not literal frogs. They're representative of poisonous
serpents, poisonous reptiles. That's what comes out of their
mouth is poison. If you read through these vile
judgments, you'll see a very good parallel to the plagues
that was on Egypt that God used to bring judgment down upon Egypt
to bring his people out of Egypt. Well, that's the same thing that's
happening here in essence. This is using symbols. And what
comes out of their mouth? What comes out of their mouth?
Words. What comes out of the mouth of Satan? His words. Well,
we're going to see that in just a moment. Accusations. Accusations. He's the accuser of the breath.
What comes out of the mouth of the beast, the ungodly governments? All their pride and their selfishness. What comes out of the mouth of
the false prophet, false gospels? Poison, you see, that's what
it is. And it'll damn men's souls. When they preach their message,
whatever message it is, it's a poison. The false prophet who
preaches a gospel of salvation by works, conditioned on sinners,
and not totally by the free and sovereign grace of God. That's
poison to your soul. That's poison to me. That's poison
to me. And it sounds so good. It sounds
so nice. It sounds so pleasing. And that's
because man by nature is fallen. Bible says in Romans chapter
3 and verse 19 that light has come into the world, but men
love darkness and hate the light. Why? Because the light exposes
the light of God, the light of Christ, the light of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the light of the finished work
of Christ, the light of his righteousness, his blood. exposes what we naturally
esteem as being false and ungodly and sinful. Look at verse 14,
he says, for they are the spirits of devils working miracles which
go forth under the kings of the earth and of the whole world.
Now these false prophets, this Satan, these false governments,
false prophets, they are impressive to men. They go forth working
miracles, but it's miracles that are a lie. And that's what he's saying,
that they'll be impressive to men. Men will look at them. and
see these miracles that they work, whatever miracles they
are now. And it doesn't have to be some healing service or
anything like that. It could be that. And they'll
conclude, men by nature will conclude, well, if God wasn't
in it, they couldn't do that. But that's a wrong way of judgment.
You say, well, how do you judge? And I know people say, well,
I don't judge. Yes, you do. Don't lie to yourself. You know
what I've always said, I've told you all a thousand times, you're
judging what I'm saying right now. If you're not, you're not
listening, and you may not be, I don't know. But you have to. Well, how do you judge? What
do they preach? I don't care if they fly through the air.
If they don't preach Christ and Him crucified, it's a deceptive
miracle. It's a deception. You see, if
they don't lift up Christ as the only way of salvation and
his shed blood and his imputed righteousness as the only ground
of a sinner's justification before God, it's a false message. That's
what the Bible teaches. The problem is, I'm gonna bring
this out in the next hour more, is that men by nature just aren't
concerned with it. They're just not concerned with
it. Oh man, everybody's preaching
the gospel. You make it too complicated. But I'm telling you now, you
know, get into the scripture, read the Bible. He says that
he's going to go forth unto the kings of the earth and the whole
world. That's who he's, this is a majority here. And he says
to gather them to battle, to the battle of that great day
of God almighty. Now that great day of God almighty
refers to the end of all things when Christ comes again. Now
I want you to skip down to verse 16. I'm not, I'm going to come
back to verse 15. He says, and he gathered them
together into a place in the Hebrew tongue called Armageddon. Now you know what most people
think of Armageddon. Most dispensationalists today, most books today, most
prophecy seminars today, they'll talk about a great physical battle
that's going to take place with tanks and guns and helicopters
and planes over in Israel in a place called Megiddo. And just
to make a long story short, that's not what this is talking about.
First of all, Megiddo is a valley. And the first two letters of
Armageddon, R-A-R, sometimes it's called Har, H-A-R. You know
what it means? It means mount. It's a mountain. What does Armageddon mean? In
reality, we don't know for sure what the word means. The closest
we can come to it is this, and I believe this is what it means.
It means mountain or mount of assembly. That's what it means.
It means mount of assembly. And the mount of assembly, I
believe, refers to God's people assembled together, gathered
together, in unison under the headship of Christ. Gathered
together. And what this is teaching is
in that last day there's going to be a great battle between
Satan and the forces of evil and Christ and his church. Now,
this is not going to be a physical battle. There's nothing in scripture
that indicates in any way that this is going to be a physical
battle fought with tanks and guns and helicopters. This battle symbolizes the battle
that has been taking place since the fall of man. It's a spiritual
battle. Christ said that. The apostles
taught that. When Paul spoke of us putting
on the whole armor of God, was he talking about literal armor?
No, he was talking about spiritual armor. And he talked about we
wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities, powers
in high places. This is a spiritual battle. He
said in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, for the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, not physical and fleshly. But the weapons
of our warfare are spiritual to the pulling down of strongholds.
And where are those strongholds? I'll tell you exactly where the
stronghold is. I'll tell you exactly where the battle's taking
place right now in your mind, in your heart, the mind, the
affections, and the will. That's where it is. And what
is our weapon in this battle? It's the gospel. It's the gospel
of God's grace. It's the gospel where Christ
is revealed and identified and distinguished as God in human
flesh. The God man, his name shall be
called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. His
name shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted as God
with us. The word made flesh and dwelling
among us. It's the gospel that reveals
the power and efficacy of his finished work on the cross. What
did Christ accomplish on the cross of Calvary when he obeyed
unto death as the substitute for his people? Did he die to
make you savable if you would let him? Is that what the Bible
teaches? No. He died to save his people
from their sins and he accomplished that in the redemptive work.
He established an everlasting righteousness of infinite value
whereby God could be just to justify the ungodly. And that
which demands and secures the entire complete eternal salvation
of all his sheep, his church, God's elect. Who are they? All
who come to believe on him by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It's what he teaches. That's our weapon. This gospel was first revealed
back in Genesis chapter three and verse 15. You remember what
the Lord said there? Now this is right in line with
what I'm teaching here on Armageddon. He's talking to Satan there,
pronouncing the curse upon Satan in Genesis 3.15. And he says, I will put enmity.
What is enmity? It's hatred. That's friction.
That's opposition. You're at odds. I will put enmity
between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed.
Who is Satan's seed? Well, that's the beast and the
false prophet, all who follow his deception. All right. Who is her seed? That's Christ. Number one, and his people, all
who follow him. And he says, it shall bruise
thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now I want you to notice
something about that back over here in Armageddon. The fact
that this, what this is, these vile judgments in Revelation
16 mark the final completion of God's wrath upon earth. God's
been raining wrath down upon the earth since the beginning,
since the fall of man in measured judgments. Incidentally, if you
want to know how to look at those manifestations of God's wrath,
read Luke 13. How are we to look at them? Remember
what Christ said? Do you suppose they were greater
sinners than you? He said, except you repent, you
likewise will perish. Don't look at people who go through
measured judgment, such as natural disasters, and say, well, they're
getting what they deserve, as if I don't deserve it, too. Because
you see, if God gave me what I deserved, if he gave you what
you deserve, what I've earned, what you've earned, what would
it be? It would be eternal damnation. But what this represents here
is the final end of it all. God's wrath upon all who worship
the beast and take his mark. We won't go into the mark of
the beast, but it's not a literal mark. It's the mark on the forehead
and the hand. That's this false doctrine in
your mind and false works that spring from that. Armageddon. Here's this ongoing war between
the dragon and the beast and the false prophet against Christ
and his church. Here's where it comes to an end.
That's what Armageddon is. But the fact that there's an
Armageddon here doesn't mean that the outcome of the whole
battle and the whole war has not already been insured from
the very beginning. Remember what he said in Genesis
3 15, you'll bruise his heel, but he's going to bruise your
head. And the great sign on earth that the outcome has always been
insured and assured was the cross itself. when mankind sought to
put God in human flesh to death, and he died. But who really bruised
him? It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. And what happened? He was buried, and he was raised
again the third day. He accomplished it. What did
Daniel say in Daniel 9, 24? He made an end of sin, he finished
the transgression, he brought in everlasting righteousness,
He sealed up the vision and the prophecy, and He anointed the
holy place. In other words, He accomplished
all that God requires for the salvation and the justification
of His people. You know what that means? That
means this. That means everything that God requires of me for salvation,
I find in Christ. I stand before God washed in
His blood and clothed in His righteousness. And I have no
other plea but him. And so when Christ arose from
the dead, he showed that the outcome of this battle has always
been insured and assured. It's never been in doubt. Somebody
said, well, if it's assured, the outcome, why does God let
it go on? I'll tell you exactly why. For his glory. God has allowed
Satan to wage this battle even though it's a lost cause for
Satan. God has allowed Satan to wage this battle because it
is God's purpose to glorify himself in the salvation of his people
throughout time until the last one of his people is brought
into the kingdom. And then Christ will come again
and it'll all be over. That's what Armageddon is. But
now there's the reality of Armageddon. The end's coming. And you can
believe it or not believe it. You know why a lot of people
don't believe it? Because they don't want to believe in accountability.
They don't want to believe they're going to be held accountable.
Well, my friend, the only way you're going to stand before
God and be declared justified before him is to be found in
Christ. Outside of Christ, there's nothing but wrath. Now here's
the proof of that. Here's the second thing. Here's
the issue of Armageddon. I want to show you the issue.
What should we do, knowing this is going to happen? Well, you
ought to go out and buy all the canned food you can get and store
it in your basement and buy all the ammo and guns you can get.
Like Y2K, you know, I knew fellas in Y2K, boy, they were stocking
up. I know a fella up north who put a gas tank in his front yard
so he could fill up his car. You know, he thought it was gonna
be so bad, you know. Is that what we're to do? No, look back
at verse 15 now. If you go back and you read Revelation
16, 12 through 16, you're gonna come to verse 15. Here he's talking
about the great day of the Almighty, and look at verse 15, he says,
behold, I come as a thief, It means unexpectedly. Now, he won't
come as a thief to his church because we expect him to come.
We don't know when he's coming, but we expect him. The world
doesn't expect him, so he'll come as a thief, but here's what
he says. Now listen, here's the issue
that we must be concerned with in light of Armageddon. He says,
blessed is he that watcheth It means he doesn't fall asleep,
he's on guard, he's keeping his eyes open. And keepeth his garments. You see that? Lest he walk naked
and they see his shame. Now as you read through that,
it kind of reads like it's out of place. I mean, what's he talking
about there? Keepeth his garments, what's
a garment? That's something you wear. In other words, here he's talking
about this great battle, and it's gonna come to an end, and
God's wrath's gonna rain down from heaven, and we're to be
concerned with what we're wearing? Is that what that's talking about?
What is it to keep your garment? You know, that word keep means
to hold it close, like guard it for your life. Like this is
the most precious thing you have. Right there. You know, if you
knew that somebody was going to destroy your house tonight,
you'd probably run and try to get things out. But what would
be the thing you'd get out first? I'll tell you, if you have children,
you'd get them out, wouldn't you? You husband, get your wives out.
You wives, get your husbands out. You see, that's because
you guard them. You keep them. They're close to your heart.
That's what this means. But what are these garments that he's
talking about? What's this garment that I'm to be concerned with
in light of the second coming of Christ, in light of the last
battle of all time, when Satan and his cohorts and all of his
minions are going to be defeated, never to rise again. What, what
is this garment? We'll turn to Revelation 19 and look at verse five. He'd been talking about the fall
of Babylon, which is the fall of false religion. And he says
here in verse five, he says, a voice came out of the throne
saying, praise our God and all ye his servants and ye that fear
him, both small and great. That's he who worship him, follow
him, serve him, believe in him. And I heard, as it were, the
voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to him for the marriage of the Lamb. Now, who's the Lamb?
That's Christ, the Lamb of God. The Lamb is come, and his wife
hath made herself ready. Who's his wife? That's the church.
The church is the bride of Christ. Now she's made herself ready.
Now how does she make herself ready? Now that's the key. Well,
she gets busy and starts doing as many good works as she can.
Well, now let me tell you something about that. We all should get
busy and do as many good works as we can. But that's not how
we make ourselves ready for the bridegroom. Look at it, he says,
He says in verse eight, and to her, underscore this, was granted. You know what that means? Whatever it is that's given to
her, she didn't earn it. And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, that fine linen is pure and white,
clean and white, For the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints." Now, what is the righteousness
of saints? I was listening to a fellow several years ago talk
about that. And what he said was this. He
said that the righteousness of the saints are the righteous
works of God's people. And the problem with that is
this. Whatever work you do, let's say
good work, does the Bible teach that that's what makes you righteous? No work we do is good enough
to make us righteous or to make up our righteousness. You won't
find one of, it says here, the righteousness of the saints.
What's a saint? That's a sinner saved by the
grace of God. You won't find one saint from
Genesis to Revelation who stands before God pleading his good
works. You'll find false preachers doing
that in Matthew 7, 21 through 23. Lord, haven't we prophesied
in your name? Haven't we done many good works?
Many wonderful works. They pled their works. What was
the problem? They pled their works as their
righteousness, not Christ. Paul wrote in Philippians chapter
three, all that I may know him and be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, his faithfulness to do what he
accomplished. What is the righteousness of
saints? It's the righteousness of Christ, imputed, accounted,
charged to us. It's what Christ accomplished
for us on Calvary. It's the merits of His obedience
unto death. And the Bible symbolically represents
that as being put on us like a garment. Now it's not a literal
coat or dress that we wear, but it's an accounting. It's an accounting
of the merits of righteousness from Christ. That's why it's
called the imputed, accounted, charged righteousness. It has
nothing to do with anything I have done, am doing, try to do, want
to do, or will do. It is not the works of man, unregenerate
or regenerate. Bible says that the good works
of God's people are not the ground of their salvation and justification,
they're the fruit and the result of the power of God in them. This righteousness is perfect
satisfaction to God's law and justice. Whatever I do that's pleasing
to God, does not bring about perfect satisfaction to God's
justice, but what Christ did on Calvary does bring about perfect
satisfaction to God's justice and law. That's why Paul said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first
and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. What does that mean? The justified shall live
by looking to Christ for righteousness. Our faith is not our righteousness.
Our faith looks to Christ for righteousness. You see? Now back
here in Revelation 16, that's the garment that we keep. Now how do you know that this
is an issue in the Battle of Armageddon? Look back at Revelation
12. Look at Revelation 12. Now many
times, and I do this too, and I know you men do it too who
preach, we will talk about the blood and the righteousness of
Christ. But you know in reality, in Scripture,
they're the same thing. Because what did it take for
Christ to work out the righteousness by which I stand before God?
His death, his obedience unto death. That's what the scripture
says. That's why it says in Romans 3, I'm gonna read this later
on, not in this message, but where he says we have faith in
his blood. That means we have faith in his obedience unto death
to make us righteous before God. But look at Revelation 12. Look
at verse 9. This is talking about that ongoing battle between Satan
and the church. And it says in verse 9, and the
great dragon was cast out. That's Satan. Now when was he
cast out? John chapter 12. That's when Christ died on the
cross. Now is the prince of this world
cast out. That old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world, He was cast out into the earth and his angels
were cast out with him and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
now has come salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and
the power of his Christ. See, not your power, not my power.
This battle's not fought in my power or in your power. The power
of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down
which accused them before our God day and night. Now here,
listen to what this says. What are Satan's two main weapons? in his endeavors, his lost cause
to defeat the church. You know, incidentally, remember
Christ told Peter and the disciples, he said, upon this rock I'll
build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against
it. But that doesn't stop Satan from trying. But what are the
two main weapons that Satan uses in his onslaughts, his attacks? Number one is deception. He deceiveth
the whole world. He uses deception. and usually
it's a religious deception. What's the second thing? You
see it there? Accusation. Accusation. Now, Jim, if I come to you and
I say, I'm gonna accuse Jim Casey, I'm gonna say, Jim, you're a
sinner. Does that accusation stick before men? It does, doesn't
it? Because you're a sinner. I'm
a sinner. We're all sinners. But picture yourself standing
before the court of God's justice and Satan comes along and accuses
you. Does the accusation stick then?
Well, look at verse 10 or verse 11. He accused them day and night
and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. and by the
word of their testimony." What is the word of our testimony?
The blood of the Lamb. We plead the blood. We plead
the righteousness of Christ. And they loved not their lives
unto death. They died for that belief. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died, yea rather
He's risen again. Satan's main weapons, deception
and accusation. What's going to combat his deception
and his accusations? The gospel of God's grace in
Christ. One more thing and I'll close.
You remember back here in Revelation 16? It says there in verse 15, blessed
is he that watcheth and keepeth his gun. Keep looking to Christ.
That's what that means. Keep looking to Christ for forgiveness,
for righteousness, for eternal life, and for glory. Don't look
anywhere else. Don't look to yourself. Don't
look to your denomination. Don't look to mom and dad. Look
to Christ. Run the race of grace, Hebrews
12, 2, looking unto Jesus, the author and the what? finisher
of our faith. And you see there it says, he
says, keepeth his garment lest he walk naked and they see his
shame. You remember back in the Garden
of Eden, that Adam and Eve, when they fell, what did they find
about themselves? They were naked. What did they
do? They became ashamed. What did
they do to relieve that ashamedness? They sewed fig leaf aprons together
to try to cover their shamaness. But that wouldn't work. That's
just a covering for something. That didn't take care of the
problem, you see. That's a picture of man trying to work his way
out of this mess of sin by his works. It doesn't take care of
the problem. What's the only thing that would take care of
the problem? The death of a God-appointed, qualified substitute. God told
Adam in the day that you eat there, if you shall what? Surely
die. Fig leaf aprons don't accomplish
that. So what did God do to cover their
shame and to take care of the problem? In verse 21, you have
a picture of it of Genesis 3. He says, unto Adam and Eve and
to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe
them. Now how did he make coats of
skin? I'll tell you exactly how. He had to kill an animal. You
don't take the coat off the animal, the skin off an animal, without
killing it. He had to shed blood. Why? Without the shedding of
blood, there is no remission of sin. And out of that came
the coat, came righteousness. You see, what's God teaching
here in type and picture? He's picturing the fact that
there has to be a God-appointed substitute who is worthy and
qualified to take the place of a sinner in order for that sinner's
shame to be taken away. He established right there the
sacrificial system of worship which all pictured Christ crucified,
buried, risen again, the blood, the righteousness of Christ.
And the only way when Armageddon comes if we're alive at that
time, even not, because we'll be coming back with Christ if
we're dead and gone. The only way we're going to be
found victorious and without shame in that day is to be in
Christ, to be washed in his blood, to be clothed in his righteousness
alone.