Well, as we go through the Book
of Revelation, I don't know how many sermons we've had so far,
but my objective is always that these should be sermons. I don't
just want to give a sort of a theological lecture. I don't just want to
treat it like a great big spiritual jigsaw puzzle. and we fit all
of these complicated pieces until we have a great big consistent
picture of world history because everybody that's ever tried to
do that undoubtedly fails they always fail there's got to be
a message from God to God's people in these sermons. They've not
just got to be something that fits together, and you go, oh,
that's intellectually satisfying, and you go away with a warm feeling
that you understand a bit more than you did before. No, there's
got to be a message from God to your soul in this. So we come
to chapters 15 and 16, and I'm treating them together because
this is the fifth of the seven visions of the book of Revelation.
And in a sense, it's more of the same. And that's why I'm
treating them together, I don't want to labour it. There's a
new perspective in this, there's increased detail, there's increased
intensity of many of the same sort of judgements that we've
already seen in earlier visions. But as the end of this space-time
creation, do you know what I mean by that? I mean the world, the
universe that God has created, the world where life exists,
this world, as it comes to an end, as the end of it approaches,
as it's revealed in these visions, the intensity of things increases,
becomes more stark, as we'll see when we get to the detail.
Remember the purpose that I told you last week of the book of
Revelation. It's to comfort God's people. It's to give assurance
to God's people that things are not out of control, as some might
tell us they seem to be. In fact, the very opposite. It's
to tell us that the things that people who call themselves Christians
are pleading with this limp-wristed god of theirs to do something
about the dreadful things that happen. And they don't realise
that if they hear what this book says, it's the god who controls
all things that he's doing them. He's doing them to frustrate
the purposes of Satan. He's not sitting on the sidelines,
impotent and helpless. He is doing them. These things,
it gives us assurance. These things are all in the control
of our God. And then it gives us patience.
It encourages patience. Because, you know, The thing
that's most annoying, when there's a delay on the train, is that
there's no information. You don't particularly like a
three hour delay, but at least if you know there's a good reason
for it, and they're doing all they can about it, and it will
take three hours, and then in three hours you'll get going,
you can put up with the three hours better. Well, in the same
way, it gives us patience. These things are coming to an
end. Heaven is coming. When is it? We don't know exactly,
but it gives us patience to wait. This is the patience of the saints.
And it also clearly gives a warning to this world. It gives a warning.
It gives a warning. Flee from the wrath to come.
Anyway, I intend to take this quickly in one message. I don't
want to be too shallow, but I want to avoid wearying you with repetition. Please don't be wearied by this. If we're doing the book of Revelation
we have to stick with it. At the end of the book of Revelation
there's a warning about not taking away anything from these words.
These words all are important, every single one of them. It's
given, remember the very first verse of Revelation. Why was
it given? To show his people, his saints,
the things which must shortly come to pass, the things which
must happen. So let's not be wearied with
it. God will gain the final victory over Satan and his kingdom of
Antichrist as he answers his people's prayer. What is his
people's prayer? Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven. Oh, that there might be the perfect
holiness of God in this creation. And do you know what this vision
shows us, this fifth vision? There will be. There will be. God will bring about His holiness. Thy kingdom come. The seven vials
are poured out. God's people are removed from
this earth, and the church is in glory. First of all, the seven
vials poured out. You know, we saw seven seals,
the seven-sealed book, in the second vision of the book. And
they opened, and again they told us what they were was God frustrating
the purposes of Satan. God frustrates the purposes of
Satan, to bring about his kingdom of antichrist, of bloodless,
of no redemption, of a false heaven, of his kingdom of lies. As God says, that was the original
lie, the deceit of Satan to Adam and Eve. Those seals are opened
and they frustrate Satan's purposes because God's kingdom will come.
He will have the victory. And the seventh of those seals
opened are seven trumpets. Remember that? The seventh seal
was nothing specific in itself other than the opening, the blowing
of seven trumpets. And the seven trumpets blow,
and they continue to provide more frustration for the purposes.
They're the same thing but viewed slightly different perspective.
And the seventh of those trumpets, which blows in chapter 11 and
verse 15, and the seventh angel sounded and there were great
voices in heaven, et cetera, that trumpet unfolds in detail
a seven vials of wrath. Seven vials of the wrath of God. How many times did we read that?
Verse 1 of chapter 15. Seven angels having the seven
last plagues, for in them is filled up the wrath of God. Verse
1 of chapter 16. Go your ways and pour out the
vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. Wrath. What is it? What is the wrath of God? Is
it just You know, we think of like human anger. No. It's God's
holiness in contrast to sin. God's holiness in contrast to
sin. That's what it is. Holiness. The holiness of God compared
with sin. Because we are sinful creatures
living in a sinful world, we don't see clearly what it's really
like. The holiness of God. The purity
of God. How vile is sin. How obnoxious
to a holy God is sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ swept as
it were drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane because
he knew he who knew no sin was about to be made the sin of his
people. And that thought of the Holy
One from eternity, from heaven's glory coming and being made sin
repulsed him, it made him shrink back from it. Nevertheless not
my will but thine be done. This is God's holiness in contrast
to sin. And these vials spell the final
end of Satan's kingdom. It's not the end of the book,
there's two more visions to come after this, the sixth and the
seventh. And in them we'll see other perspectives
and different detail. and we'll get on to them next
week when we move into chapter 17 and we look at Babylon and
the great whore and all that that means but this is an encapsulation
of the fierceness of the end the fierceness of the end of
Satan's kingdom we've seen the end several times before in the
second vision we saw in chapter six when the sixth trumpet blew
sorry, when the sixth seal was opened, we saw a glimpse of the
end. Earthquake. Cosmic cataclysm. People fleeing from wrath. That
was the picture then. In chapter 11, and verse 15,
we saw the seventh trumpet sound. And there was an encapsulation
of final final history of things. There
were lightnings, there were voices, there were thunderings, there
was an earthquake, there was great hail in that one, in chapter
11, verse 15 to the end of that chapter. Last time we saw in
chapter 14, verses 17 to 20, the final harvest And it talked about the winepress
of God's wrath and blood, 1600 furlongs long, speaking of the
total destruction of those who worship the beast and his image. And now, in chapters 15 and 16,
we see the end in greater detail, described by these seven vials
of wrath, which are retribution, payback, God's just and holy
payback. God said, vengeance is mine,
I will repay. This is his vengeance, this is
his just retribution for sin. And then this further detail,
as I said, given in chapters 17 to 19, leading up to the new
heaven, and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem, and the bride
of Christ, and all of those glorious things that we've yet to come
to. So chapter 15, and verse 1. When you read this, when I
read it earlier, You must have been, if you were paying attention,
you must have been chilled at the awfulness, the dreadfulness
of what was said. The terrible things that are
coming in these vials being poured out. And yet, in chapter 15,
verse 1, I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous. These are the instruments of
God's defeat of Satan, these vials being poured out. They're
not literal, they're not bowls literally, it's picture language
of the truth that God will repay the sin of this world. They're
preparations for the coming of Christ. Why are they great and
marvelous? Why are they not dreadful and
fearful? Oh, they're dreadful and fearful
to those who are going to be caught up in them. but to the
people of God, to those who believe, to his saints. It's great and
marvellous. It's a glorious thing. This is
being brought to an end. God is going to be vindicated. God's justice is going to triumph. Here are glorious beings, these
angels, holding the balancing judgements The balancing job. You know, God always says, I
will give you double for your sins. In other words, you know
when you look in a mirror and you say, oh look, you see an image
which is the double of yourself. Well, God says I'm going to repay.
God repays sin absolutely according to strict justice. Not a bit
more, not a bit less. Exactly in proportion to the
sin, his justice repays it. It pours out his wrath. his righteous
indignation against it. These are the balancing judgments
of God to destroy all sin and rebellion from this created order. Now I'm going to skip verses
two to four for now of chapter fifteen and come to verse five. After that I looked and behold
the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven. This
is the holy place in heaven. This is the, you know, where
does God, in the Old Testament dispensation you said where does
God live? In the holy of holies in the
temple, symbolically in the holy of holies in the temple in Jerusalem.
And then there was the outer court and the city and the big
wide world and all the rest of it. But that was where the pure
holy presence of God lived. Where does he live? In heaven,
in the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven. That's where he lived. That place was opened, and out
of it come the seven angels, out of the temple, these glorious
beings, with these seven plagues, these seven vials, and they're
clothed in that which speaks of their holiness and purity,
and their breasts are girded with golden girdles. And verse
seven, one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven
golden vials, full of the wrath of God. I puzzled about that
for a while but then I thought of this in Romans chapter 8 let
me just read this to you where Paul is speaking to the Romans
about there's no condemnation now to those who are in Christ,
a glorious chapter of scripture is Romans chapter 8 but in verse
21 he's talking about this sinful world in which we live and that
the conflict that there is between the sinful world and the glorious
hope of the believer and he says because the creature itself also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groans and travails in pain together until now. Why? Because of sin.
This creation is longing for things to be put right. I said
many weeks ago, the four beasts speak, four, four, number of
creation, the created world, it speaks of this creation groaning
to have these things put right. And I just wonder, I say nothing
definitely, but I wonder, is this saying, yes, even this created
order is crying out for retribution, to have it put right. And he
gives the seven angels seven golden vials, bowls full of the
wrath of God, symbolically, it's picture language, who liveth
forever and ever. And the temple was filled with
smoke. And no man was able to enter into the temple till the
seven plagues and seven angels were fulfilled. God has got to
put this right. Before his heaven is absolutely
established in its eternal state, he's got to put this right. So
then, we go on to verse 1 of chapter 16. And I heard a great
voice out of the temple. This is God speaking. And how does God speak? In the
beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, the Word
was God. And we're going to see him in
a few pages' time, this one, His name is the Word of God.
It's our Lord Jesus Christ. It's the second person of the
Trinity. He speaks. God speaks by his Son. God, who
at sundry times and in divest manners spake unto the fathers
by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his
Son, and he speaks out of heaven. Go your ways, and pour out the
vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And what do we read?
Verse two, the first one went, and poured out his vial on the
earth, and the result? A noisome and grievous sore upon
men, which had the mark of the beast. and then which worshipped
his image. What's that? That's everyone
who doesn't belong to Christ, who doesn't worship him. Who
doesn't worship him? I tell you, we keep hearing in
the news of famous well-known people dying and you think, what
is their state? You know there's been several
of them, another one this morning, I don't know if you heard the
news, Terry Wogan has died this morning. Where's his faith? Where's
his trust in Christ? I tell you, whoever is outside
of Christ, they're heading for these dreadful things. It's absolutely
chilling to hear about it. This is what they're heading
for. The second one was poured out on the sea, and it became
as the blood of... a dreadful picture, isn't it?
And then the fresh water, it was poured out on the fresh water.
And then it was poured out on the sun, on the shining body
up in the sky, so that it becomes virtually impossible to live
here because of the scorching heat of the sun. And all the
time we have in verses five to seven, the angel stops to say,
this is righteous, This isn't vindictive, this is righteous.
Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
They deserve it, they are worthy, they deserve what they're getting,
exactly what they're getting. Then the next vial, the fifth,
verse 10, is poured out on the seat of the beast, that's the
throne of the beast, that's the throne of Antichrist, as he rules
as Satan's agent in this fallen world. his kingdom was full of
darkness. Instead of his kingdom being the wonderful kingdom that this
world thinks it actually is, as you look round it today, it's
darkened. It loses its luster, it loses
its appeal. And then the river Euphrates
again, we see that a vial is poured on that, and it's dried
up completely. It's removed as a barrier in the world. And then
finally, we see over in verse 16 Armageddon the battle of Armageddon
in a sense in these seals there's nothing new. Sorry, in these
vials there's nothing new, compared with what we've already seen
in the seals and the trumpets. They're certainly not sequential
in that one must finish before the next one starts, which must
finish before the next one starts. No. In some ways, they're already
started. But these ones particularly,
these vials speak clearly of finality. They speak of the end
of God's judgments, the end, the finishing of his retribution
for sin in this space-time creation. You know, he winds it up. Seals,
the seven-sealed book, the seals, if you remember, spoke of harm
to a quarter. it says a quarter of men died,
and a quarter of this happened. The trumpets were advancing towards
the end. The trumpets, they harmed a third. You know, a third is bigger than
a quarter. It's getting worse. These vials speak of complete,
full, absolute destruction and harm. The first four the earth,
the sea, the fresh water, the sun they speak of the destruction
of the world as a place to support life you know we're always being
told by the proponents of the kingdom of antichrist in their
falsehood, their science falsely so called that there must be
life, loads of it out there because it happened here without God
and therefore it must have happened just about everywhere else this
universe is teeming with, no it's not No, it's not. Nobody
has one shred, not the slightest grain, despite the billions that
they spend on trying to pursue it, not one shred of evidence
that there is anything approaching life outside of this world and
its atmosphere. That's it. This place according
to this book, is going to be destroyed as a place to support
life. Just like the first four trumpets
said. The first four trumpets talked
about the harm that there would be on this earth as a place to
support life. The Kingdom of Antichrist that
we saw in Chapter 13 has the full support of all, it really
does, except for Christ's people, those who are written in the
Lamb's Book of Life. They don't worship, their life is made very
difficult because they refuse to worship the beast and the
image of the beast. But people in general love this
world, its material comforts, its increasing prosperity. It's
political cooperation. It's economic prosperity. The
wonders of science that have come about in what? The last 200 years? And they're
increasing in speed, aren't they? As the population balloons. Technology
and medicine, all of these things. But these four vials, these first
four, completely destroy these things by destroying the world's
capacity to support life. Then, in verses 10, And 11, we
saw the fifth vial darkening the rule of Antichrist. His people
no longer worship him. You know, just like the effect
of the first four vials increasing towards full culmination, they
undermine his dominion. It may be not such a good thing.
You know, the never-ending march towards universal prosperity
that we saw even 10 or 15 years ago has been fundamentally damaged
by the world economic crisis. And at the moment, the only recovery is a recovery of false confidence.
That's all it is. And eventually, it will be seen
to be what it really is, with nothing underpinning it. And
then in verse 12, we saw this sixth angel pour out his vial
on the river Euphrates. Remember, the river Euphrates
was symbolical of the barrier, the worldly barrier, between
the civilised nations of God and the rest that had never ever
known the true worship of the living God. It's the barrier
between what in this world is not true Christians, but the
world of Christendom, which is actually the world of Antichrist. As we'll see next week when we
get to Babylon, it's all false Christianity. It's the barrier
between Antichrist's kingdom of false Christianity, the so-called
civilised world of Judeo-Christian civilisation, and the rest of
the world outside of that influence, which in Scripture is known as
Gog and Magog. And in verse 13 you see these
three frogs, three unclean spirits, coming from the dragon and the
beast and the false prophet. That's Satan's, the dragon is
Satan. The beast is the world political
things, the false prophet is the second beast, like a lamb
with two horns. The infernal trinity, you know
like there's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. Satan tries to mimic it. there's the dragon, there's
the beast, there's the false prophet. And they send out, they
work miracles, they do anti-Christ missionary work to try and unite
all the nations together in their devilish aim to aspire to heaven
without blood redemption. And in actual fact all they succeed
in doing, because I'm going to skip verse 15 for a moment and
move to verse 16, all they succeed in doing is bringing about global
conflict, the battle of Armageddon, the battle of self-destruction. Now I know this is hard, this
is tough stuff, isn't it? I tell you, of all the messages
I've prepared on this book of Revelation, this one, and it
might be becoming obvious to you who are listening, but this
one has been by far the hardest one. the hardest one by a long,
long way. But it's taking away all barriers
between the Judeo-Christian civilised world and the rest who've never
known that influence, the Gog and Magog of scripture. And we
see it in in the scriptures, such as Judges, don't turn there
now, but Judges 5, the account of Deborah and Barak, and it's
the same sort of thing, they won their victory at a place
near Mount Megiddo, which is Armageddon, that's what it speaks
of, and it's near the valley of Jezreel, which was one of
the great battlefields in Israel for the defeat of God's enemies,
and this is where they're gathered, symbolically, in the book of
Revelation. This is the final destruction of the space-time
creation as the stronghold of Satan and of Antichrist. But
you know, as all these vials come and increase in their intensity
until their final intensity, did you notice how the people
reacted to it? They didn't go, oh, we'd better
take notice, we'd better change our ways, we'd better seek after
God. they blasphemed God. They repented not to give Him
the glory. Again and again it tells us that. There's only one
thing that brings that about, and that's the grace of God.
It's only the grace of God that brings about true faith, true
repentance. Only the grace of God. All of
these vials of justice cause the men and women who are on
this earth with their sin and with their allegiance to Satan
and his principles, all it caused them to do was to curse God,
to blaspheme his name, and they repented not. But I want you
to focus for a moment, and I've written about it in the article,
in the bulletin, verse 17. The seventh angel poured out his vial into the,
this is the last one of the last plagues of this space-time creation. And there came a great voice
out of the temple of heaven from the throne saying, it is done. What is done? I'll tell you what's
done. With the final vial of the seven,
of all of the judgments of God in this space-time, it is done.
God's wrath has been absolutely, like for like, poured out on
all of the sin. It is done. As He must do, by
the nature of the Being who is the God of the universe, He must
He must pay full retribution for every sin, for every rebellion. It is done. It is complete. God's
work of dealing with that sin has been finished. Where else
did you hear those words, it is done, or it is finished? I'll
tell you where. On the cross of Calvary. On the
cross of Calvary, Christ cried out, it is finished. What was done there? Exactly
the same thing. But why? How? Exactly the same
thing. The wrath of God was poured out
on sin. Who? Him, who has made sin. Whose
sin? The sins of his people. It is
done. It's either done, listen, this
is the key thing, In the nature of God, it has to be done. He
is holy. It is either done on the cross
of Calvary for the sins of his people, where he makes retribution
in his wrath poured out on his beloved son, or it is done here
in verse 17 of chapter 16, when he declares, every just retribution
has been poured out and it has been paid for. The end is coming. The end is coming. Are you in
Christ? Are we outside of Christ? Oh,
the blessedness of those. Why does David write again? David
knew these things. King David. 3,000 years ago. King David knew these things
when he wrote, Blessed is the man to whom you will not impute
his sin. He knew these things. How should
a man be just with God, cried out Job, the most important thing.
And he knew the gospel of God's grace. I know that my Redeemer,
I need a Redeemer who will cry it is finished on the cross of
Calvary, that I don't need to be there at Armageddon when God
cries out from heaven, it is done, it is finished. His justice
has been fully poured out. The end is coming. Sin, Satan,
and Antichrist will not be allowed to continue. Look at verses 18
to 21. There were voices, and thunders,
and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake, such as was
not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and
so great. And the great city was divided into three parts.
And the cities of the nations fell, and great Babylon came
in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the
wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Every island fled away,
and the mountains were not found. You see, it's such an enormous
shake-up. And then it speaks, I don't know what this literally
is, but it's talking of a hail out of heaven, where every stone
of the hail stones is 50 kilograms or more. A huge great thing. And men blasphemed God because
of that plague of hail. It's picturing real physical
destruction. You know, the language may be
symbolical, but the effect is real. Real physical destruction. Could the warning be any clearer?
I don't want to speculate. I've already said about the details.
I don't want to say, oh, because everybody that's ever tried it
was ultimately proved wrong. Oh, this is talking about the
Reformation, when the Reformation countered the Holy Roman Empire.
This is about the Industrial Revolution. No, it's not. You
can't fit that together. If you do, it'll only last so
long. Oh, this is the rise of Islamic State in our day. No,
you can't maintain that. You just don't know. You just
don't. Oh, this is climate change happening. No, it's not. No,
no, you don't know. You know, we cannot speculate about these
things. But listen. Listen. If you're not convinced,
and anybody listening, if you're outside of Christ and you're
not convinced by these things, oh, well, I'll wait. And if I
see a bit more of these things happening, then I'll change.
Remember. They just cursed God. They blasphemed
God. They didn't repent. They just
blasphemed God and didn't repent. The vials only stirred up blasphemy,
not true repentance. Anyway, I want to come back to
verse 15. You see, in the middle of it,
before we get to the very end, before we get to the announcement
of the final vial, we hear these words in verse 15, which are
obviously the words of Christ. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed
is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked,
and they see his shame. How does a thief come? You ask
the police. How does a thief come and burgle
your house? He doesn't announce it. he doesn't
put an advertisement in the paper that he's going to burgle your
house he comes when you're not expecting it and in that way
Christ said he's coming as the end approaches God's saints will
find life on this earth harder we don't know how long we don't
know when but before the end Christ will come and take his
people to heaven and he'll come as a thief, it says be ye therefore
ready also for the son of man cometh at an hour when you think
not. Do you think he'll come today?
The Son of Man? Oh, I don't think so. No, I don't
think so. Oh, no, no, no. Be ye therefore ready, for the
Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not. just as the
wheat harvest was taken before the grapes in chapter fourteen
you know they were taken out of the way before that battle
and its blood just as the witnesses of chapter eleven were taken
up to heaven before the seventh trumpet was sounded Christ will
remove his elect before the seven vials reach their full, final
intensity, before Armageddon, when the unbelieving world self-destructs. What are we to do? What are God's
people to do? Watch. Watch. Again and again,
the scriptures tell us, watch. Anticipate. Keep the garments
of salvation. See, he that keepeth his garments,
these garments, what are garments of salvation? Isaiah 61 verse
10, the prophet writes, how he rejoices, for God has clothed
him with the garments of salvation. What are the garments of salvation
with which he's clothed his people? They're the righteousness of
Christ. The seamless robe. This glorious robe is ever new. We sing in that hymn, don't we?
It never loses. It never wears out. It never
fades. It's a keep the garments of salvation. What's that? Keeping the faith
of Jesus Christ. Trusting in him. Living, as we've
said before, on the tiptoe of faith. You know when you look,
are they coming? You know when you go to meet
somebody at the airport, you're on the tiptoe looking, are they
coming? This crowd of people, are they amongst them? Living
on the tiptoe of faith, expecting, anticipating, longing for what
awaits. What is it that's awaiting us?
Now we'll go back to chapter 15, verses two to four. I saw
as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and them that had gotten
the victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark
and over the number of his name remember 666 fall short fall
short fall short and they stood this people on the sea of glass
having the harps of God and they're singing a song it's the song
of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb saying great
and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God the Almighty. Just
and true are thy ways, thou King of the saints. Who shall not
fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou alone art
holy, and all the nations shall come before thee and worship
you, for thy judgments are made manifest. This is reminiscent. You know, you wonder why are
all the accounts in the Old Testament there? Why is there the account
of Israel coming out of Egypt? and wandering through the wilderness
and coming into the promised land it's all picture, it's real
history but it's all picture language of salvation and when
he brings his people out of Egypt how does he do it? he does it
with plagues we've been reading about plagues, he does it with
plagues on Egypt doesn't he? he does it with plagues which
initially have an effect on the children of Israel but the later
plagues don't touch them because they're being taken out of the
way. And the final worst plague, the angel of death doesn't come
near them because they've got blood on the doorposts and on
the lintel. They've got the blood of a lamb
on the doorposts. And the angel of death sees and
he passes over, he goes by. He doesn't go in there. Every
firstborn in Egypt died except where the angel of death saw
that a lamb had died in the place of those people. You see how
symbolical it is? And they come out, the Egyptians
tell them to go, and they give them their riches, and they tell
them to go, and then their heart is hardened, and they pursue
them. And the people are trapped between the Egyptians and the
Red Sea. Oh, what have you done to us,
Moses, bringing us out here? And God says to Moses, wave your
rod over the sea parts. You know, do I believe this?
Scientists, do I believe? Yes, of course I believe this.
God's in control of all things. He upholds all things by the
word of the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely he controls
the forces which hold the material universe. He moved the sea out
of the way. And the children of Israel went
through on dry land. He dried it up. They went through
on dry land. And they stood on the other side. And the Egyptians
pursued them into the sea. Wave your rod over the sea again,
Moses. And the sea went back. And Egypt,
that was pursuing, was drowned. Their pursuers never came after
them again. Egypt never came after them again. Never at all. And that's what
this is picturing. When they stood on the bank,
they looked at that Red Sea, and they sang the song of Moses,
which is a song of rejoicing for their salvation that they
had just seen. That sea was a sea of salvation
for them, but it was a sea of destruction for the Egyptians.
This sea of glass in heaven, where the people of God stand,
is a picture of the sea of the the accomplishments of the justice
of God in redeeming his people by the blood of Christ. Is it
that? I don't know, I'm not stretching
it too far. But they stand there on this thing which is like a
sea. To them it is like the blood of Christ, which to them is salvation,
but to the rest who reject it's condemnation. He that believeth
not is condemned already, for he has not believed in the Son
of God. Just as the gospel of Christ
is a savour of life to some and of death to others, so it is
here. They stand on this sea, in heaven, in glory. Just as
Moses led Israel out of Egypt, that was typical of Christ leading
his church into glory. As the people on the bank of
the Red Sea sang Moses' song, so all his people in heaven shall
sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, one song, one united song
of salvation, a song of praise for the total and final vindication
and victory for the cause of God over that of Satan. Are you
ready? Are you watching? Are you anticipating? Are you looking for Christ? Are
you looking to Christ? Or do you dismiss God's word
as implausible scaremongering? Oh, come on, it's not like that. Oh, come off it, I'm not believing
that load of rubbish. No, no, no. I'm telling you,
if you think the latter, that you dismiss it as implausible
scaremongering, tell me. What in the past has ever led
you to distrust God's word? What has he ever said to you
that has failed the test of prophetic scrutiny? It's all proven to
be true, hasn't it? It's all proven to be true. The
whole of this book has proven to be true. Why should this word
lie to you now? Beware. Flee to Christ. Come
unto me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.