Alright, Revelation chapter 5.
Now you remember we looked at the first part of this chapter
two weeks ago and we saw the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb,
as it had been slain. He was the only one worthy to
take the book out of the hand of the Father and to open it.
And you remember that book written on both sides of the paper, within
and without, full of writing, no empty spaces. That book was
the eternal purpose of God. Christ was the only one worthy
to take that book and to open it and to reveal God's eternal
will of redemption to men. And Christ was also the only
one worthy. He was able to open the book and fulfill everything
that was written in there to accomplish God's purpose of redemption.
If no one had been worthy to open the book, there'd be no
hope of salvation for anyone. And soon as our Savior opens
the book, all of heaven began to praise Him. You know, that's
the only reason anyone's ever going to be in glory. It's because
the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled God's purpose of the redemption
of his elect. And that song that John writes
here that we're going to read here in a minute, that song is
being sung in heaven at this very moment. This is the song
that they're singing. And that song is the gospel message
that we preach. It's the same message. The theme
of the song in heaven has to be the message that we preach
on earth right now. That's the only way God's people
are going to be saved. It's the only way that they'll
be fed, they'll be edified, is the message of this psalm. The
theme of heaven has got to be our theme of preaching right
now. It's the only way sinners can be saved. And we can't sing
it perfectly like they're singing it now. But by God's grace, we
can sing it. We know the words, we can sing
it. So here's the first thing from this song that we learn
about worship, about the preaching of the gospel. Worship begins
with prayer, verse 18. And when he had taken the book,
the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before
the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full
of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. Now the elders
represent the people. Remember, we looked at this a
couple of weeks ago. Those elders represent the people that God
has saved from every generation. And the bees, they represent
God's preachers. And all of the redeemed, whoever
they are, they all fell down before Christ in worship. And
they prayed. Those golden vials, we don't
have to wonder what they are. The vials that are full of odors,
full of incense, represent the prayers of the saints. That's
how worship has got to begin. It's got to begin with prayer.
It's the prayer of praise. If we're going to worship, we've
got to begin praising God for who He is. It's the prayer of
Thanksgiving. If we're going to worship, we've
got to thank God for all of His blessings to us. And it's the
prayer of petition. If we're going to worship, we've
got to ask God to give us a heart of worship. We've got to ask
Him to send His Spirit and meet with us and enable us to worship.
If we worship, we ask the Lord to meet our needs. You know,
that's worship. It's acknowledging God as who
He is. He's God over me. If I'm going to have anything,
He's going to have to give it to me. That's our prayers. Prayer, worship has got to begin
with prayer. And God, the prayers of God's
people are incense to Him. They're a sweet smelling safer
to Him. That encourages us to pray. Don't ever fall into the trap
that you keep praying, and you keep praying, and you keep praying,
and you think you're bothering God. The prayers of His saints
are always a sweet incense to Him. You pray, you call upon
Him. That's how worship begins. All right, here's the second
thing we learn. The theme of the song of heaven, the theme
of the gospel, is Christ. It's who He is and what He's
done. Look here, Revelation 5, verse 12. First, we see who Christ
is. Saying, I've skipped a verse. What have I done? It's verse
9. And they sung a new song saying,
thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof. Now, John says here they sung
a new song. Well, really that new song is
the old, old song. The song of redemption is an
eternal song. The song of redemption in Christ
began before the world was ever created because Christ is the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It's an old, old
song. But that song, salvation in the
blood of Christ is newly revealed to men, isn't it? The law was
revealed first. Salvation in the blood of Christ
was revealed second. And it's newly revealed to the
hearts of God's people. When we first believe, And over
and over and over again, it's newly revealed, it's newly rejoiced
in. This is a new song because the
song of redemption never goes old. And in heaven, this song
is sung in just pure, unadulterated love for Christ. It's just sung
adoring him for who he is. And that's how we worship now.
We worship God simply for who He is, long before we ever get
to what He's done for us. God's worthy to be worshipped
just for who He is. That's what that leper did. When
that leper came to the Lord, he came and fell down and worshipped
Him. He didn't know if the Lord would
heal him or not. He said, if you will, you can make me clean.
But before the Lord ever did anything for him, he worshipped. Christ is worthy to be worshipped.
He's worthy to be praised no matter what he does with me.
He's worthy to be worshipped for who he is. We worship Christ. We worship his matchless name
because he's worthy to be worshipped. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who's able to open the book to accomplish God's will
of redemption. Christ is the only one with an
obedience that produces a righteousness. His obedience is our only obedience
before God. He's worthy to be worshiped.
Christ is the only one worthy to offer a sacrifice to put sin
away. And what's more, he's the only
one willing to do it. He's the only one able and he's
the only one willing. That makes him worthy of all
of our praise, all of our love, all of our trust. He's worthy
to be worshipped for who he is. And secondly, Christ is worthy
to be worshipped for what he's done for his people. And really
what Christ has done for his people just declares who he is. Look here at the rest of verse
nine. For thou was slain and has redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and
people in nation. John says they sung, you're worthy
to be worshiped because you were slain. Christ was slain. Now that tells us a whole lot
about who man is and who God is. That word slain means butchered
or violently maimed. Men violently maimed, they violently
butchered the holy son of God who never did anything but good,
kind things for people. And yet men violently butchered
him because man is ruined in sin. We are such lost sinners
that by nature, man hates God. We hate the son of God. And our
hatred was seen in what we did to Him when the Father put Him
in our hands for just a couple hours. As soon as the Father
put Him in the hands of man, we violently butchered Him. And
the Father allowed that to happen. The Father allowed the Lord Jesus
Christ, His precious Son, to be butchered because there's
got to be a sacrifice for sin. That butchering tells us something
about us, how we hate God. But it tells us something about
God, too. God's holy. God is just. Sin must be paid
for with a bloody sacrifice. And when sin was found on the
Son of God, the Father's just. He allowed Him to be butchered.
Christ is worthy. He's worthy to be worshipped. Man hates God. That's what this
butchering tells us. But this butchering tells us
not only is God just, not only is God holy, God's gracious,
God's merciful to sinners. This is the whole reason that
the Father sent the Son into this world, to be butchered,
to be a substitute for sinners, to die as their sacrifice so
they could live. Now, God's worthy to be praised.
The salvation He's accomplished for His people is merciful, it's
gracious, but it's also just. Only God can be both just and
merciful. He's worthy to be praised because
of this sacrifice for sin. Christ is worthy to be worshiped. There's a matter here of redemption.
Something happened that requires a redemption. Christ is worthy. He's redeemed his people by his
blood. Again, this tells us a whole
lot about God and a whole lot about man. It's the blood of
Christ. It had to be shed. I'll tell
you what this blood tells us about you and me. We are such
vile, corrupt, filthy sinners. There's just one way we could
be cleansed. It's the blood of Christ. Nothing else could cleanse
us. If we ever find ourselves in
glory one day, I'll tell you there'd just be one reason why.
It's because Christ is worthy. Not because we're worthy, because
He's worthy. His blood cleansed us from all
of our sin. For my cleansing, this my plea.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. And this blood of Christ, the
redeeming blood of Christ, tells us this. Our sin, because of
our sin, we have sold ourselves into bondage to sin and bondage
to the law. And nothing else can set us free.
Nothing can pay the redemption price. Nothing can buy us back
except the blood of God's own son. Our sin debt is so great,
eternity in hell won't pay for it. That's how great our sin
debt is. But the blood of Christ did.
The blood of Christ has paid the sin debt for all of his elect. Nothing can for sin atone. Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. He is worthy to be praised for
his redeeming blood, his cleansing, redeeming blood. This blood of
Christ that was shed tells us about our nature, tells us about
our need, but it tells us something about God too. God is holy. Sin must be paid for with blood,
with death. It's the blood that maketh an
atonement for the soul. God's holy, He demands satisfaction. He demands payment for sin. Even
when it took the blood of His own Son, God demanded it, that
His people would be redeemed. Not only is God holy, not only
is God just, He's merciful. This is why He sent His Son in
the first place. He sent His Son made of a woman,
born of a woman, made under the law, made a real man so he would
have blood to shed that would atone for the sin of his people.
His people couldn't pay the price on their head. They couldn't
pay for their sin. Their blood wouldn't pay for anything. Their
blood's polluted with sin. Their blood can't cleanse anything.
Their blood just makes matters worse. So God sent his son with
blood to atone for the sin of his people. Now God's worthy
to be praised. We can sing about that, can't
we? Redeemed, how I love to proclaim, redeemed, how? By the blood of
the Lamb. What blood? He's worthy to be
worshiped. And here's something else we
can worship Him for. This tells us both about God
and man. By His blood, He's redeemed a people out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation. This tells us how far our sin
has reached. It's reached to all men. All
men everywhere. Every last one of us, no matter
where you find them, are ruined in Adam. Sin has caused the total
ruin of the whole human race. But this tells us something about
God's mercy too. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more than that. God's grace, salvation in the
Lord Jesus Christ, through His blood, through His obedience,
reaches to all kind of sinners. There's no limit to how far it
will reach. The blood of Christ is able to save any sinner, no
matter where you find them. The Lord Jesus came to the Jews.
He came as a Jew, but He didn't come to just save a few Jews.
He came to save spiritual Israel. He came to save sinners. real
life bonafide sinners from all over the world. Now you'll notice
the way they're singing this song here. He says, they don't
say you have redeemed, you have shed your blood for every kindred,
tongue and people and nation, does it? No, he didn't die for
every son of Adam. Christ shed his blood for a people
out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. He saved
the people out of all those. Every nation, every language,
every situation, He saved the people out of them. People that
He chose to save, people that Christ came to save. Salvation is not an offer. Salvation
is not offered to every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
What they're singing about is an accomplishment. Salvation
is an accomplishment of Christ for His people. And that's what
we sing about. Salvation in Christ reaches as
far as the curse is gone. You take comfort in this. Every
one of us have loved ones who are utter rebels, who just would
never, never would they listen to the gospel. They hate it.
They would never come here to the service with you. Well, you
remember those prayers of the saints? There's a sweet incense
to God. Don't you quit praying for them.
No one is so far gone that they're out of the reach of the power
of God's grace. No one is so far gone that the
blood of Christ cannot cleanse them from their sin. And here's
a reason for praise. This thing, this redemption in
Christ, it was precious. It is precious. But it's precious
because it's personal. Worship is personal. We gather
together in public worship. God is to be worshiped publicly
in the congregation of the saints. But even in this crowd, worship
is personal. Worship comes from the heart.
When they're singing here, they're singing about a personal application
of the blood, a personal application of God's grace. Christ did die
for a number no man can number, but it's not just this nameless
mass. They're saying Christ has saved us. Us. He's redeemed us. This is the most amazing thing
of all. He redeemed me. He redeemed you. He redeemed
us. That's the most amazing thing of all. Now we can sing about
that. God's worthy to be praised. All
right, here's the third thing. Theme of the song of heaven,
the theme of the gospel and the object of our worship. Is Christ
the successful Savior? What happened to those people
that Christ died for? He came to redeem a people from
every corner of the globe. What happened to them? Every
last one of them is saved. Look here at verse 10. And has
made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on
the earth. Everyone Christ died for, they're
a sinner. They're ruined. They're ruined
in sin. Their sin has made them vile
and corrupt, filthy with sin, polluted with sin. It's put them
under the bondage to the law and to sin. They've sold themselves
into sin. But everyone Christ died for
is set free from all that, cleansed from all that, and they're made
a king and a priest. You read through the Old Testament,
some kings, were prophets. Some prophets were priests. No
one was ever a king and a priest. No one. Except our Lord Jesus
Christ and his people. In him are made kings and priests. How does salvation in Christ
make that vile, wretched sinner born in Adam guilty and a rebel? How does salvation in Christ
make that rebel a king? Well, there's several ways. Kings
are born from a royal heritage. You know why a prince is a prince?
Because his daddy's king. That's why he's a prince. One
day he's gonna be crowned king, only for this reason. His daddy's
king. When God's people are born again,
we have a new father. Our father is king of kings.
We've been born into a royal family. And those people shall
reign with Christ. And that way they're kings. Then kings have a very specific
wardrobe. Kings dress like kings. They have a royal robe. Christ
gives his people a royal robe, the robe of his righteousness.
If you are dressed in Christ's righteousness, you can't be dressed
any better than that. Jay and I like to watch these
shows about royalty and nobility and stuff in England. We're watching
one now about this queen. I'm telling you, they put a lot
of time and energy and thought into how they're going to dress
the queen, buddy. The robe of Christ's righteousness
embarrasses the queen of England. Embarrasses her in her dress.
A royal, perfect robe given to his people. And then kings have
a crown. Christ gives his people a crown.
It's the crown of righteousness. It's the crown of life. It's
not crowns that we earn and stack up and wear on our heads. If
the Lord gave you one of those, you'd throw it at his feet anyway.
That's not what we're talking about. But believers have a crown. It's a covering, a covering of
righteousness, a covering of life that can never be taken
away. He's made his people kings. And he's made those sinners,
those rebels, He's made them priests. How is it that a sinner
can be made a priest? Well, you know, in the Old Testament,
nobody could go into the Holy of Holies except one man, the
high priest. He could only go in there one
day a year on the day of atonement. But salvation through the death
of Christ, when Christ gave up the ghost, What happened to that
veil in the temple? That veil that hung there all
those years, blocking the people, telling the people, you can't
come into the presence of God. The Shekinah glory of God dwells
on the other side of this curtain hanging here, but you can't come.
That curtain hung all the way down to the ground, telling you,
you can't go in there. What happened to that veil at
the moment Christ gave up the ghost? That thing was torn in
two from top to bottom, six or eight inches thick. It was just,
That didn't happen by accident. God Almighty ripped that thing
in half, top to bottom. You know what He was telling
us? Now, in the sacrifice of Christ, in the person of Christ,
anything, anyone, tall or short, skinny or fat, anyone, the way
to God is wide open through the person, the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He's opened the way. And you
can come to God at all times. And this priesthood is so much
better than the priesthood of Aaron. Aaron, on the Day of Atonement,
he went into that Holy of Holies with that blood. But I'm telling
you, Aaron went in there full of fear. And the people standing
outside, listening, were listening, they were full of fear. Aaron
went in there with those bells around the bottom of his robe.
And the people, Aaron was out of sight. They couldn't see him.
They knew what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed
to be sprinkling the blood on the mercy seat. And here was their fear. Is God going to accept this blood?
If God doesn't accept Aaron, my priest, he's in there with
my name on his breastplate. If he doesn't accept Aaron, he's
not going to accept me. He might just wipe this whole thing out
right now. The only way he won't is if he accepts the blood of
this sacrifice. And they listened for Aaron. They listened every
time he moved, those bells would ring. They listened for those
bells. If those bells quit ringing, they knew they got to drag him
out of there. The Lord killed him. The Lord didn't accept the
sacrifice. For the believer who's made a
priest, there's no fear. The sacrifice has already been
accepted. There's no fear. We don't come before God full
of fear. We're His children. Haven't your
children come to you full of fear? Of course they don't. How much more should we not as
children of God come to Him full of boldness, full of confidence?
Because of the death of Christ, His sacrifice has been accepted,
we come boldly before the throne of grace with confidence. Of
course, you know that means come humbly, come reverently, but
come confidently that you might obtain mercy and find grace to
help in time of need. Come confidently because of the
blood of Christ. We've been made priests. And
someone will say, well, you know, we don't offer sacrifices anymore,
so we're not really priests. Oh, yes, we're really priests. We don't offer blood sacrifices
because That's not necessary. Christ has already offered the
only one that's necessary. But we still offer sacrifices.
Sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving that are acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ. Now, Christ has offered this
sacrifice. He's made us kings of praise.
He's redeemed his people. How effectual was it? How effectual
is the sacrifice of Christ? Well, he saved a number. Perfectly,
wholly, completely, he saved a number no man can number. Verse 11. I beheld and I heard
the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts
and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times
ten thousands and thousands of thousands. Now that, I suppose
you get a calculator and calculate that. That's what Brother Henry
used to tell us, that's a definite number for an indefinite number.
It's a number no man can number. That's how powerful, how effectual,
how perfect the sacrifice of Christ is. That enables us to
worship, doesn't it? I could fit in there. That's
a sacrifice for a sinner like me. And then here's the fourth
thing. The theme of heaven, the theme
of our preaching, the theme of all true worship is this. Christ is all. That's just what
it boils down to. Christ is all. Verse 12, saying
with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive
power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory
and blessing. And every creature which is in
heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in
the sea and all that are in them heard I saying blessing. and
honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the
throne and unto the land forever and ever. Now the redeemed don't
give Christ these things. What we're doing is we're saying
Christ already has all of these things because he is all. Now remember this vision that
we're looking at here, the book of Revelation is divided out
in seven different visions. This is the second one. And this
vision is a view of man's time on earth from heaven. It's the looking at the completion
of man's time on earth from heaven. And this is written for our comfort.
This is written for the comfort of suffering saints. And this
is how it's comforting us. It's reminding us at the end
of all things. Christ is all. He's all. He has it all. He is all. So
He's all you need. If you've got Him, you've got
everything. Christ has all power. All power
is given to Him in heaven and earth. Why? That He may give
eternal life to as many as the Father's given Him. He's got
all power. He's not going to fail to do
it, is He? He's got all power. He's going to bring all of His
people to glory. Christ has all riches. The riches
of His grace will never run out. Never. He's got untold riches. Christ has got all wisdom. He
has all wisdom because He is wisdom. He's wisdom personified.
Only Christ is wise enough to provide a full salvation that
both satisfies the law and gives mercy to sinners. Only in Christ
can you see how God can justify and forgive sinners at the same
time. He's got all wisdom. Nothing's
going to sneak up on Him and derail His purpose of redemption
for His people. He's got all wisdom. And Christ
has all strength. He has the strength to uphold
all things by just speaking by the Word of His power. Do you
feel like your troubles and trials sometimes are just going to knock
you off your feet? They're just going to sweep you away? Well,
you just rest. You just rest in Christ. He has
the strength to hold you up. If he upholds all things by just
the word of his power, if the government of the whole world
is upon his shoulder, I believe puny little old me is safe in
his hand, don't you? He's got all strength. Christ
has all honor and glory. He's crowned with glory and honor. And He's not going to lose any
of it by allowing even one sheep for whom He died to perish. If
He allows one of this innumerable host that He died for, if He
allows one of them to perish, He'll lose all of His glory and
honor. He's not going to do that. He
will never allow that to happen. If you're in Christ, if you believe
Him, your end is sure. And then Christ has all blessing.
He is blessed forevermore. All nations of the earth are
blessed in Him. The blessing that He gives His
people can never be lost. Because it's Him. It's Him. Because of the weakness of this
flesh, Far too often, we think about the blessings that God
gives as things He gives us in this earth, or even different
spiritual things He gives us, understanding, gifts, and so
forth. Here's the blessing. It's Christ. If you have Him, you've got it
all. You've got everything. And right
now, Christ sits upon the throne of glory because he sits there
forever, ruling and reigning for this purpose, the purpose
of that book he took from the hand of his father, to ensure
the salvation of his people, to ensure everyone he died for
is brought to glory. So whatever it is that's going
on in our world now, I don't care what it is, whatever it
is, I can tell you why it's happening. because our Savior willed it.
That's exactly why it's happening. If he didn't will it, it wouldn't
happen. And it's happening just exactly the way it's happening
because he willed it to happen from his sovereign throne. I
don't understand how he's going to work this out to accomplish
all that in glory. But I know he is. I know he is. None of his purpose is ever going
to fail. So even when I don't understand why he's doing what
he's doing, I know what he's doing. And I trust him to do
it, to accomplish his purpose in the redemption of his people.
That's the song of heaven. That's the message of the gospel.
That's at the heart of all true worship. That's the gospel. Now, when the redeemed hear it,
what do they say? They say, amen. Verse 14. And
the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders
fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever and ever. Amen. So be it. I like that. I like
what Brother Henry said about this passage. He said we got
a sorry future, sorry past. We got a sorry past, but we got
a glorious future. Amen. Amen. Oh, I hope the Lord
bless that too.