Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Revelation chapter 15. I hoped to get through this chapter
last week, but I saw we just weren't gonna make it, so I stopped
and we'll try to finish it up today. Revelation 15, four. And we'll go through the end
of the chapter. In this particular verse here,
in verse four, He tells us about men and women coming to worship
the Lord and glorify His name in the fear
of the Lord because His judgments were made manifest to them. Now everybody that truly worships
the Lord has had God's judgments made manifest to him. Now these
judgments of which he speaks here are judgments that's going
on and have been going on for hundreds and thousands of years.
But in particular, with a believer who comes to worship God, it
is the manifest judgment of God upon his son. He sees the judgment
of God against sin. He sees it first in his son,
dying on the cross. And then he sees that judgment
as it falls on individuals all over the world. And what's taking
place here, the picture that John is giving us, this vision
that he saw, what was taking place was a wholesale forsaking
of the glory of God in the salvation of sinners. through the person
and work of Jesus Christ. Now, in almost every movie that
Hollywood has ever made about the apocalypse, the end of time, nearly every movie, and I know
these things are fictitious, and Hollywood knows they're fictitious,
but it's telling about how men really think in their mind about
those days. And in almost every one, every
one that I've ever seen, It portrays the world without
religion. Now I want you to think about
what I'm saying. It portrays the world with the churches are
laying in ruin and men are groveling around like a bunch of cavemen
and they're robbing one another and killing one another and just
taking what they can get and religion is not even in it at
all. But that's not what John sees. This is not how the Spirit of
God reveals these days to John. Religion flourishes. Religion is represented both
in the beast and the harlot. Religion in the beast and the
harlot even portrays its connection with the beast which represents
the world governments. It's not the absence of religion
that brings upon the world the judgments of God, but the presence
of it. Now that's what John's seeing.
He's seeing a wholesale rejection of the glory of God in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. Men have just turned thumbs down
on it. Men have turned away from it.
Men have rejected it. And that's what John's seeing
here. John pictures this world having
fully committed themselves to false religion. They bear its
name proudly. Proudly. Willingly and visually,
they bear its number in their heads and in their hands. 666. I'm not talking about literally,
I'm talking about figuratively here. And that six is the number
of man. And all he's saying here is that
they bear, publicly, willingly, audaciously, they bear a religion
of man, man, man. That's what it's about. You know, in Revelation 17, he
speaks again about this beast rising up out of the pit. And
he says, all the earth stands in wonder of him. The whole earth
stands in wonder of this beast. whose names are not written in
the book of life from the foundation of the world. And then John says,
this picture shows this, just when the power and the influence
of the beast seems insurmountable, you look at what's going on around
you and it just looks insurmountable. What could I do? Reminds me of
a man going over to the high river and taking a cup and sticking
it down in the river. You can't even tell that anything
was missing. And religion, false religion
just seems insurmountable. And when it does, to his people,
God manifests his glory. And rather than seeing the kingdom
of God being swallowed up by the beast, We see the judgment
of God being poured out upon the beast and his followers. What we once saw as the powerful
workings of Antichrist now appears as the hand of God pouring out
his wrath upon those who love not the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness. Look at verse 5 here in Revelation
15. He said, after that I looked
and beheld the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in
heaven was opened. It was opened up. Now let me
see if I can help you here. The kingdom of Christ is sometimes
called the kingdom of God. And it's sometimes called the
kingdom of heaven. And God's church is a heavenly
kingdom. I know He sets up His kingdom
in our heart, His authority. I know that. But everything that's
beneficial to the church is in heaven. Is that right? It's in
heaven. It's a heavenly kingdom. He describes them as the General
Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven.
They're told to seek those things which are above where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God. They're told to set their
affection on things above and not on things of the earth. When
our Lord comforted his disciples before he went to the cross,
he said this. He said, I go to my father's
house to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will return
and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also. The Bible said every good gift
and every perfect gift cometh down from above. You see what
I'm saying? This is a heavenly kingdom. Religion looks for its
perks. It looks for its advantages.
It looks for its goals and things down here. But the church of
the living God, all of its goals and all of its treasures and
everything's up there, he said, don't look down here. That's
not where it is. It's up there. Don't lay up treasures
on the earth, but lay up treasures in heaven. The church looks not on the things
here, which everybody sees, but at the invisible things, which
only God's elect can see. They see these things. And God's
kingdom is a heavenly kingdom, whose king resides in heaven,
and whose power and dominion reaches down from heaven, even
unto hell itself. He rules. Well, what's all that
got to do with this verse? Well, nothing is going to be
opened there. There's not going to be opened
here. And nothing is going to be opened here that hadn't first
been opened there. That's what it has to do with
it. This tabernacle of the testimony, which is in heaven, was opened. And it's not going to be opened
here unless it's opened there. Now when gospel preachers are
sent of God, it's an evidence of the opening of the temple
or tabernacle of the testimony in heaven. He's opening it up. He's declaring before you that
which has been hidden from the foundation of the world. How often did Paul say that?
These mysteries, he said, that I'm declaring to you, they've
been hidden since the foundation of the world. And if a man appears and he begins
to promote himself and his own ways and his own ideas and his
own goals, you can ignore that man. You can just ignore him. But if a man comes and brings
to you the testimony of God concerning his son, you better give that
man a hearing. You better sit down, shut up,
and listen to what he has to say. It could be that what he's
telling you is coming from heaven itself. That man could be there by divine
decree and providence. And if he is, he carries with
him the testimony of God. All right, look here in Revelation
15, 6. And the seven angels came out
of the temple, this temple that was opened in heaven. Having
the seven plagues, God opened his temple in heaven And these
angels or preachers are being sent out and they're carrying
with them, these seven men are carrying, each one has a plague. They're clothed in pure and white
linen, having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And these
seven angels, these gospel preachers, they come out of the temple of
the tabernacle of the testimony and bearing the mercy and grace
of God in the gospel. That's how we think about preachers,
isn't it? They've got good news. They're
coming. Blessed are those who come in the name of the Lord.
They're coming with blessings of mercy, with good news, with
unlocked mysteries. That's how we think about preachers.
But when we think about plagues, we don't think about preachers,
do we? I guarantee you Pharaoh thought about it after he heard
what Moses had to say. Plagues accompanied him. He come down with God's news,
let my people go. All he had to do was let them
go. Wouldn't do it. What happened? Huh? God sent plague after plague
after plague on Pharaoh. God's preachers have come and
they're bearing good news. But for the unbeliever, for those
who reject them, those who won't listen to them, those who won't
submit to them, those who won't account them as messengers of
God, and they reject that truth, they won't listen to that truth,
they harden their hearts, they won't receive God's message,
what happens to them? A plague. A plague. What kind of plague? You mean
they get polio or something? They get leprosy? What happens to them? No, they
get the plague of unbelief. Unbelief. Paul said to those at Antioch
who wouldn't receive him, he got up and preached to them this
good news to these Jews and them Jews went down and stirred up
the people and and said nasty things about Paul and just did
everything to try to tear down that message that he preached.
And Paul said, you be careful that that don't come on you,
which was written by the prophet. He said, you be careful now,
because they won't believe though a man stand and declare it to
them. They won't believe it. Is that not a plague? They carry also the plagues of
God. At the very end of the book of
Revelation, this revelation of Jesus Christ that we're studying,
he says, For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of
the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these
things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written
in this book. This book is the revelation of
Jesus Christ, salvation in him by the sovereign grace of God,
salvation through his blood, salvation through his righteousness
alone, salvation through faith. Now you add to that, I'm warning
you, you add to that or you take away from that. If any man do these things, God
shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. To not receive his testimony
of these things is to make you worthy of the plagues of his
judgment and wrath. And to alter his testimony by
adding to it our own works and experiences, our own feelings,
our own dreams and visions, or anything else is to mark yourself
out worthy. of the plagues which God accompanies
with his preachers. All right, Revelation 15, 7. One of the four beasts gave unto
the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God,
who liveth forever and ever. Now, the only time that I've
ever heard the word vial in my lifetime in common language,
the word vial. I didn't do a word study on this. I didn't go to the dictionary.
I'm just telling you what I've heard in my lifetime, the only
time I've ever heard this word vial used is in science class
or at the doctor's office. And in both cases, it's talking
about a container that's used to measure a certain amount of
whatever he puts in it. A vial. A vial. And something that you may not
know about the wrath of God, his wrath is never pictured as
a passionate outburst. You know, we're all human and
we're all sinners by nature. And everybody's got somebody
they know or went to school with or work with or a relative or
somebody who just don't know when to quit. and they aggravate
and aggravate and aggravate and you take it and you take it and
you take it till you can't take it anymore. Boom! You have a
meltdown and you turn around and before he knows what happened,
you're all over him. That's a passionate outburst.
God's not that way. God's not that way. His wrath is never pictured in
the scriptures as a passionate outburst. His wrath is justly
calculated. And it's measured. It's measured
to suit the transgression. The wrath carried by gospel preachers
is suited for those who reject God's gospel. and refuse to receive
or embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. They turn it away. They reject
it. They won't have anything to do with it. We will not have
this man reign over us. When those Jews took Peter aside
and those that were with him, they warned him. They said, don't
you preach in this name anymore. was right to obey you or obey
God. Peter said, you figure that out.
We cannot but tell the things which we've both seen and heard.
That's what we're gonna do. You do what you wanna do. This
wrath is measured, it's calculated. He told those Jews, our Lord
did. He came and preached in his own
country to those who knew him. He was raised there, worked in
his daddy's carpenter shop. They knew who he was. And they
listened to him. And they wondered at the gracious
words I told you last week that fell out of his mouth. They just
wondered at it. And then they said, ain't this
Joseph's son, a married boy? And here's what he told them.
He said, it's going to be easier on you. And it's going to be
easier on them and Sodom and Gomorrah at the judgment then
it's going to be for you. Because if they'd seen what you've
seen and heard what you heard, they would have repented in sackcloth
and ashes. But you've seen the Son of God.
You've heard from the mouth of the Son of God. And you rejected
it. You follow what I'm saying? Now
here's what he says about his preachers, he that heareth you,
heareth me. Now, you know this. These vials of wrath, these are
golden containers. They're not glass. They're golden
containers. One man said they're bowls. I
don't know enough about the original language to say that that's what
it was or not. I don't know. He took that from
the symbols given back in the old tabernacle, but I don't know
what they are. I just know they're vials, and
they're full of measured wrath, and this wrath is measured I can't even tell you how much
greater that wrath would be that here described as a plague is
poured out on those who will not have this gospel. It's suited for those who reject
God's gospel and refuse to receive and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ,
and there cannot be a more heinous crime than to trod underfoot
the Son of God. What could be more heinous than
that to God? That you trod underfoot the Son
of God, you disregard His covenant blood altogether, cast it aside. And do despite unto the Spirit
of grace. You won't even receive the things
of the Spirit of God. Preaching the Word of God, you
won't receive it. You won't receive it. You do
despite to the Spirit of God. Now he said, those that transgressed
under two or three witnesses under Moses' law, they took them
out and stoned them to death. He said, of how much sore punishment,
suppose ye, shall they be thought worthy who have trodden underfoot
the Son of God? Those who will not believe manifest
a total regard for the Word of God. They manifest a willing
rebellion against the commandments of the Lord and a wholesale rejection
of the ways and means of God. We ain't gonna have it. We ain't
gonna have it. And here in our text, these vows
are made of pure gold. Of pure gold to show us the divine
source of it. These vows that they carry were
given to them. It's not the wrath of the preacher
that he carries. This bowl, this container, this
vial was given to him. He just brings what God gave
him. And it's of gold to show us the unmixed purity of it.
In the chapter before this, chapter 14, we saw that. He pours out
unmixed wrath. So this is to show us the purity
of this wrath, and it's of gold to show us the glory of God in
it. This is not a hateful thing.
This is not something that the preacher sets out to do. It's
something that follows what you won't do. It's a judgment. It's a plague. It's a vial filled
with wrath. All right, Revelation 15, 8. And the temple was filled with
smoke from the glory of God and from his power. And no man was
able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the
seven angels were fulfilled. We believe in and worship the
sovereign Lord of glory. Not only is his temple filled
with grace and mercy, but also with power and glory. There was
a time in that tabernacle when Moses could go in, and there
was a time when he had to stand afar off. When that Shekinah glory of God
filled that temple, you didn't go in. You didn't go in. And there's perhaps two lessons
to be learned here. First, that the wicked shall
not enter in or destroy the temple of God. He can't do it. It's
filled with the glory of God. He said, my church, the gates
of hell should not prevail against it. And then secondly, that because
of their continuous and willful disregard of the gospel, God
has forbidden them to enter into his kingdom and to enter into
his temple. Now that's what the verse says.
They could not go in. He tells us this over in the
book of Proverbs. He said the scorners delight
in their scorning. They delight, they love to do
it. Makes them happy to do it. They delight in their scorning,
and fools hate knowledge. Try to teach a fool something.
You can't teach him anything. He hates knowledge. Now the Lord
said, turn ye at my reproof. You turn. That's another word
for repentance. You turn at my reproof. If you do, I'll pour out my spirit
unto you. I'll make known my words unto
you. Because I've called and you've
refused. Isn't that what happened? The
gospel was preached. Some believed and some didn't. Some delighted in it. Some didn't. Some embraced Christ. He said, I called and you refused.
I stretched out my hand. Can you imagine God Himself stretching
out His hand and you pulled yours back? Huh? Isn't that what He's talking
about here? I've stretched out my hand and no man regarded.
You said it not all my counsel and you would none of my reproof.
Now the Lord said, I'll laugh at your calamity. Calamity's
coming. Oh, yeah. It's coming. It's coming. Then you're going to call on
me. That's what he says. He said, when your fear cometh,
I'll mock you. Then you're going to call on
me, but I won't answer. You'll seek me early then, 4
o'clock in the morning. You'll call on my name, but I
won't hear you. I won't hear you. You'll seek me early, but
you won't find me. You wouldn't have my counsel.
You despised all my reproof. Therefore, shall you eat of the
fruit of your own way and be filled with your own devices."
Those things that you, all them foolish jokes and all that foolish
nonsense and all that rejection and mocking and all that stuff
you did to God, you're going to eat that. In Hebrews chapter 3, he uses
the propagation of those in the wilderness who hardened their
hearts against God. And his servant tells us that
he was grieved with them and swearing his wrath that they
would not enter into his rest. Now he said, the Holy Ghost said,
you listen to me now, harden not your hearts. When the Spirit
of God speaks to you, you don't harden your heart. You listen.
You listen. You obey. You follow His Word. Take heed, brethren. He said,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God. And I'm telling you this, you
can laugh and mock and shake your head and disgust if you
want to. People have and people will. But when they do, they manifest
the judgment of God on this unbelieving world. And that's what this chapter
is talking about here in Revelation. These vials of wrath, these plagues
that follow these preachers that came out of an open temple in
heaven. And they came and brought the
word of God. And you just more or less spit on it and went your
way. Went your way. And now that wrath is poured
out. People with eyes see it. I can
see it. I see it every day. I see it.
I see it all around. It makes me wonder like Paul,
Lord, lest I preach to others and find myself a castaway. I see the danger of it. I see
it all around me. I see it everywhere. Everywhere. Oh, may the Lord
allow us to see it and avoid it and listen when God speaks.