Now if God will be gracious to
me and you this morning and enable me to preach what is contained
in this chapter, it will be one of the most glorious messages
you've ever heard. And certainly not by any cleverness
on my part, this is just one of the most glorious scenes that
a man could imagine. Now I know how people normally
approach the book of Revelation. It is a mystery. to almost everyone
and was a mystery to me for many years, and I don't even claim
now that I understand everything it says, but it's a mystery to
most people because they approach it as literal. That is, they
approach it as though it is a literal description of historical events,
but that's not what it is. These are symbolic visions that
John received to teach things that were already revealed in
other places in the Scriptures. It's just a different style of
saying the same thing that you can find everywhere else in the
Scriptures. That's why the title of the book,
the Bible's title of the book is, The Revelation of Jesus Christ. It's not a revelation of the
future, it's a revelation of the once and forever reigning
king of all the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now according
to some commentaries, Commentators it contains seven visions and
every one of these visions is a description of the whole what
we call the gospel age from the time that Jesus Christ came into
this world until the time in which he shall return and bring
to an end all that God has purposed. And yet even though every one
of those visions contains or refers to that whole period of
time, it's not like it's given us a sequence of events that
are happening in that time. It's not like we can look and
say, well, now this is referring to about 1100 A.D. when this happened. You can't
find that in this book. It's talking about great movements
and the great battle that goes on all the time between the Lord
Jesus Christ The lion of the tribe of Judah, he's called the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world. His battle with
the dragon, Satan, the enemy of God and the enemy of God's
people. And how that at every time, every time that those two
come into conflict, the lamb wins. And every time the Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ is engaged in battle with the Lord Jesus
Christ, that is, along with Him, the Church is victorious with
Him. Do you realize the Church of
the Lord Jesus Christ never loses? And that's because the Lord Jesus
Christ never loses. In Revelation 19 we see a vision. It says, I saw heaven open and
behold a white horse and he that sat upon it was called faithful
and true and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Who
is that? That's the Lord Jesus Christ
and he's been making war ever since he left here. And it says,
and all the armies which were in heaven followed him. You know,
in today's battles, the generals stay back there and send the
soldiers out. Here we have the general right
at the front. Here we have the captain leading
the point. And by the time he's done, there
are no enemies left for us. It just says the armies of heaven
followed him upon white horses, dressed in white linen, fine
and clean. And there is not one enemy that
gets past the Lord Jesus Christ, and we stand there with our swords
in our hands and nobody to kill. No enemies truly to face. In fact, as one commentator pointed
out, I believe it was Spurgeon, made this remark concerning,
yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
he said, the shadow of death is all that shall ever confront
the believer. Not even that great enemy of
death shall be left for him. For Christ has conquered death.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. And by the time death gets past
the Lord Jesus to us, it's just a shadow. And as the shadow of
a sword cannot kill, neither can the shadow of death destroy. That's why David could say, Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll
fear no evil. Shadows can't hurt you. And it's
only a shadow because Christ has conquered. That's what this
book is about. Now here, last week, we looked
at Revelation 4, and there was a symbolic vision of heaven. And we know it was symbolic because
it gave us a visual description of God, and yet God cannot be
seen. Bible says, No man hath seen
God at any time. God is a spirit. You can't see
a spirit. And yet it describes God in visual
terms. And that lets us know this is
a vision full of symbolism. And in this vision we see God
and His throne surrounded by a rainbow signifying that with
all His holiness and righteousness, yet He's the God of the covenant.
Way back yonder in Noah's day, God gave evidence of His covenant
of grace and mercy by putting a rainbow in the sky. And so
here the throne of God is encircled with a rainbow. And that tells
us that all of God's sovereign power, all of God's sovereign
purpose is encircled by His gracious covenant to redeem His people
and save them. Now men should well be terrified
at the concept of a sovereign God, that He does whatever He
wants, that He accomplishes everything He purposes. There's no failure
in Him, absolute authority over the most minute things of the
world. And I tell you, if you had to face God as nothing but
the sovereign, that would be terrifying. But we face Him not
simply as a sovereign. We who trust in Him, we face
Him as the gracious sovereign, the covenant-making and covenant-keeping
sovereign. He made a covenant of grace with
Jesus Christ that involved all the chosen people of God, and
that covenant directs the sovereignty of His
throne. And God, therefore, in His absolute
sovereignty, is ordering every individual event of this world
to this great end to bring about the salvation of God's people
according to His promise. I tell you, if we could ever
lay hold of that, if we could ever really get a hold of what
Paul means when he says, and we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, who are the called
according to His purpose, if we could ever really Believe
that everything that's going on, absolutely everything, what
we call the good and the bad, if we realize that all of it
was being ordained and directed by God to bring about our salvation
in Christ, why, we could look at every event with joy. We could
look at every event with wide-eyed wonder, how's God gonna turn
this to my good? I wanna see it, and it'll happen. Most of the time, life looks
like failure. And that's because most of the time we fail. You
see, that's the wonder of God's grace and His sovereignty. That
which we see as failure is His success in bringing us to Himself. God deliver us from being a success.
Because I tell you, the only thing that man is good at is
rebelling against God. We're good at that. And most
people make a success of it. God deliver us from such success.
He makes failures of us. We fail in that which is natural
to us. We fail in all of our natural
hopes and desires. And by the time God is done with
us, He's made absolutely nothing of us. He has crushed us down
to powder. Why? That He may raise up His
glorious purpose in us to make us like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the essence of worship is a recognition of God for who
he is and what he has done. You cannot define worship by
some particular emotional state. You cannot define worship by
a certain organization of a worship service like this. That's not
how you define worship. Here is worship, both in the
hearts of individuals. Here is worship when the church
gets together. It's the only time worship happens when this
happens, that God is recognized and honored for who he is and
what he's done. Now that's worship. Now we could
arrange the music right and we could get people in kind of a
cranked up state of mind and they could feel all warm inside
and even get that ecstatic feeling, you know, as though they're outside
themselves. They could have all those things and not be worshiping
God. Worship in Chapter 4 is described
in this way that the elders cried out, Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. And then later
all these, well the four beasts declared that and then the elders
declared you are worthy our Lord and God to receive glory and
honor and power for you created all things and by your will they
were created and have their being. Now, if you remember from last
week, those 24 elders, that represents the whole church of God in all
the ages, and all of them are worshiping God this way. And
those four living creatures, those four beasts, are the preachers
of God, those that God has sent out to preach His gospel to the
four corners of the earth. And they are all with one voice
declaring the greatness of God. And, friends, that is worship. And you want to know something?
Everybody is going to worship God. Even the ones that hate
him. Devil won't ever worship God.
Oh yes he will. For he will be brought to bow
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and declare him Lord. Every demon. In fact they already
do. Our Lord came to that demoniac
there in the tombs and they cried out and they said, we know who
you are. You're the Holy One of God. And they worshipped Him. Oh, they didn't like it. They
hated it. But I tell you, when God, when
the Lord Jesus Christ, our God reveals himself and people know
who he is, they worship him even though they spit out his name
in hatred. Because they know who he is. In chapter 4 we see the worship
of God as just simply God, the Holy and the Eternal One in verse
8 and the Creator in verse 11. God's essential nature, His undeniable
sovereignty, and His creatorhood are the most basic truths about
God, and that forms a platform from which we worship Him. And
without an acknowledgment of those things, there is no worship. Take away any of those things,
and there's really no compelling reason for us to worship Him. I can tell you right now, and
it isn't difficult, I can tell you right now what's wrong with
popular religion. You know, that is in our country.
I mean, there's many of the fruits of popular religion you can recognize
as wrong. The prophets on TV are a bunch
of false prophets, they're money-grubbing, covetous, self-serving scoundrels,
is what they are. But that's not, there's that
because they see no compelling reason to worship God because
they don't see God as he is. They don't believe that he's
holy. They don't believe that he dwells in a light to which
no man can approach. They've got a vision of God that's
just kind of a buddy that comes alongside to help us just whenever
we get in trouble. And that's the God they preach
to people. It's no wonder that people don't fall down on his
face to worship. I don't fall down on my face
to worship you. You're my good friends. And we enjoy a lot of
good times together. And if you're in trouble, I'd
be there to help you. And if I was in trouble, you'd
be here to help me. But I don't worship you on that
account. You're just like me. And I don't worship things just
like me. People worship things that are above them and beyond
them. And that's what's meant by the holiness of God. He's
above and beyond. He's out there. Too great for
us. Men don't worship God in our
day because for so many generations now they've been told that essentially
God did not create the heavens and the earth. He may have got
the thing started, but He didn't really make the heavens and the
earth. He didn't fashion the sun, moon, and stars. As the
Bible says, it's the work of His fingers. He didn't form a
man out of the dust of the ground and breathe into his nostrils
the breath of life. He is not the one-on-one creator,
so to speak, of the universe. At most to them, God is some
disinterested, out-there person who wound the universe up like
a clock and is just letting it run out to see what happens. They don't worship Him. Now, the essential difference
And you'd think now on a scene such as we see in chapter 4,
there's God on his throne, his sovereign throne with the covenant
of grace surrounding him. There's the 4 and 20 elders,
the whole church, you and me, around that throne, sitting on
thrones. There's the 4 living creatures,
the preachers going out into the 4 corners of the earth declaring
the gospel with the boldness of a lion. with the face and
character of a man and all that. You say, boy, things just can't
get any better. Yes, they can. That scene is glorious. But chapter 5 presents an even
more glorious scene than that. And the only difference between
chapter 4 and chapter 5 is this. Look in verse 6 of chapter 5. Then I saw a lamb. See, the difference between chapter
4 and chapter 5 is this. In chapter 4, there is no Christ. You read the whole chapter, He's
not there. It's heaven, but there's no Christ in it. It's the right
place, and the right things are going on, but there's no Christ
in it. In fact, We look at the scene there in
chapter 4. And if we look at that with some gospel-trained
eyes, we're going to kind of wonder how that can even go on. We see God in His sovereignty. That we can understand. But how
come this rainbow around the throne, this covenant, with no
surety of a covenant? How can there be people dressed
in white robes with golden crowns of victory on their head. Why, you and I know what we are.
You can describe us a lot of ways, but white's not one of
the words you'd want to use, is it? We aren't white so far
as righteousness is concerned. We're filthy. Why in the world would there
be a crown of victory on my head? I don't get to do anything I
want to do exactly like I'd like to do it. Are we victorious? Do we control things? One person
says, what is this about the free will of man? He can't even
stop a toothache by his free will. Have we ever been victorious
over anything? You want to know how victorious
man is? You want to get a picture of the glorious victories of
man? Go south of town and look at the cemetery. There is man's
victory. That's all there is to it. He's
born in this world and thinks he's something. And most of his
life he goes through the world like he's terribly important
and going to go to wonderful, great things. And then finally
they dig a hole and stick him in it and he turns into worm
food. That's man's great victory. What in the world is there a
group of people in heaven wearing a crown of victory when there
is no victor? Why is there worship going on
there when we know full well that the hearts of men and women
are opposed to the worship of God? Something very strange about
that scene in chapter 4. And then chapter 5 opens this
way. And the strange thing is, how did that happen without Christ?
We're at chapter 5. John says this, Then I saw in
the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll, with
writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. Now don't get
your mind that this is all some big mysterious thing. It's very
plain. Who's Him that sits on the throne? That's God. What's
this scroll He's got in His hands? It is His everlasting decree
of all that shall come to pass. It says it's written on both sides.
What's that mean? It means it's full. There's nothing
to be added to it. It contains everything. Written
in that scroll is the mighty motions of political powers throughout
the world. Kingdoms that rose and fell and
other kingdoms took their place. Written on that scroll is the
fact that you'd be here this morning. I don't know how much longer
that scroll goes. I don't know if we're getting near the end
of it or not. I know that my part in that scroll won't go
on a whole lot longer. For along my name will disappear
from that scroll, at least so far as any connection to this
world is concerned. But all the events, the ones
we call good and the ones we call bad, written in that scroll
is the name of every president that's ever served in the United
States of America. You know what else is written
in that scroll? Every president that ever will serve. We're going
to vote next year, but the winner has already been
written down. It's in there. It was written in there that
great and glorious times of peace and prosperity would come to
pass. And it's written there that men
like Adolf Hitler would rise up and wreak havoc over a great
portion of the earth. It's written in there that children
will be born and it's written in there that they'll die. It's the scroll of everything. It's God's eternal purpose. There
are no blanks in there left for our free will to fill in. It says it's full of writing
on both sides. God has not left one minuscule
portion of history outside of his sovereign will. I keep reading
these people on the internet, well God chose to give us free
will. Well that means there must be some blank spots on this scroll. And on that day Joe will exercise faith and then
again maybe he won't. We'll leave that blank and he
can fill it in. On that day the Republican will
win or maybe the will of the people will go for the Democrat
this time. There are no blank places. No room for you or me or an angel
or Satan or anybody else to even so much as add a dot to an I
or a cross to a T. It's full. Notice this. This thing is sealed up. It's
full but it's sealed and with seven seals. What's that mean? Well, we know that seven is the
number of perfection or completeness. And here's what he's saying.
This scroll of history has been rolled up and completely sealed
up. Nobody can open it. And that
doesn't mean... Well, part of it means nobody
can open it to see what's in there. But not only that, nobody
can open it to bring it to pass. God has this glorious decree. And by the way, part
and parcel of that decree, in fact it's the whole purpose of
this decree, is the glory of Christ and the salvation of His
people. And that decree is rolled up
and nobody can bring it to pass. It's like God has written a play,
but the book is shut and nobody can open it, nobody can perform
it. It'll never happen. And I saw, verse 2, and I saw
a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, Who is worthy to
break the seals and open the scroll? Now, long ago, they'd
write a letter and they'd roll it up. And then the king would
seal it with a wax seal. They put wax on there and the
king had a ring that only he was allowed to have. It was called
a signet. We get our word signature from
it. And by taking that signet and
pressing it in that warm wax, he would seal it with his signature. And that seal carried the authority
of the king. And you dare not break that seal.
unless you are authorized to do so. And it says that God wrote
that eternal decree. He rolled it up, and He didn't
just seal it once. Seven times to mean it is perfectly,
completely shut up with His signature until somebody who is authorized
can open it up and bring it to pass. And that angel said, is there
anybody out there worthy to do that? Oh, this isn't just any
letter. This isn't just any scroll. This
is God's scroll who in heaven, earth, or hell could be found
worthy to break a seal that God had made. John says this, verse 4, I wept
and wept. because no one was found who
was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Here people say
there won't be any tears in heaven. There was this day. There was this day. And I'll give you the big reason
why. There was heaven, but there was
no Christ in it. in heaven without Christ is no
happy place. And a wonderful decree, a glorious
message of salvation for sinners, wonderful it is, is no happy
thing unless there's someone who can bring it to pass. And
they looked in heaven, and they looked on earth, and they looked
under the earth, they looked throughout all creation And they
couldn't find anybody worthy to break the seals and open that
scroll and bring to pass God's eternal purpose of salvation
for His elect. No wonder John wept. I would
too. Can you imagine having this Bible
in your hands? And you read through it and you
read all these glorious truths of grace And you read about sins
forgiven, about hearts made new, about being joined with God in
fellowship and being made one with Him. You read all these
wonderful things, and your heart's filled with joy at what you read.
And then somebody says, but you know, it can't happen. It can't happen. Why? Well, there
was nobody ever found that was worthy to make these things happen. Or if you ever found out that
the things recorded in this book couldn't ever come to be, wouldn't
you weep and weep? That's what John was saying.
I wept and wept. That book couldn't be opened. All those glorious things just
can't happen. Then, one of the elders said to me, Do not weep. Do not weep. Here's one of those
who is representative of the whole Church of God in all the
ages and the Church knew something that John didn't know at this
point in the vision. Remember, John's going through
these visions and experiencing them in real time. But this representative of the
Church of the Lord Jesus Christ came and said, Do not weep. Behold! the lion of the tribe of Judah,
the root of David has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll
and it's seven seals. They found someone. They looked
and looked and looked and the angels came back and said, I
looked and I looked in heaven. I looked on earth. I looked under
the earth. I looked in hell. I looked everywhere I could think.
I couldn't find anyone. The elder says, Somebody's been
found. Looky here. The line of the tribe
of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed. Oh, I love the word triumph,
don't you? Victory. Here's these 24 elders
going around with crowns of victory on their head. How in the world
do they get that? Here's the victory. here's the
one who won here's the one who triumphed here's the one who
prevailed over all of his enemies and by that glorious triumph
he was found worthy to loose those seven seals and open up
that book and bring all its glorious decrees into reality He's called
the Lion of the tribe of Judah because a lion goes forth and
nobody stops him. He's called the Lion of the tribe
of Judah because he goes forth with such power he needs no help. He's called the Root of David
because promises were made to David that there would be one
of his ancestors who would sit on the throne of God forever. And that ancestor is Jesus Christ. He's the root and offspring of
David, the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament.
And as a lion, he went out and he destroyed the enemies of God. He has triumphed. He's triumphed
over all of his enemies. None who withstood him survived. We look there at the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and if there ever was a thing that looked
like failure, that was it. That's what all his disciples
thought it was. They thought it was the end of
all they had hoped for, not realizing it was all the fulfillment of
what they'd hoped for. That thief on the cross there,
as he He was cursing Christ. Both of the thieves on the cross
were cursing him, but somewhere along the line the Spirit of
God went out and opened the heart of one of those thieves to understand
what was going on there. And he saw something that evidently
nobody else saw. He realized that that man on
the middle cross was none other than the Son of God come to bring
to pass and to bring to pass all that was written on this
scroll. He'd come here to fulfill God's covenant. He'd come to
become a king. And he looked at the Lord Jesus
and he said, Lord, when you come into your kingdom, remember me. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
with the authority that only a king can, this day you will
be with me in paradise. Can you imagine how stupid that
line sounded to everybody else? As a Roman soldier standing there
with his spear in his hand, you know, he drew this duty today. So he's guarding the crosses.
And he hears this conversation go about a thief and a murderer
dying, crucified there, just hanging, his life going out of
it. And he looks at another crucified man and says, when you come to
your kingdom, remember me. And he goes, oh, good grief,
these guys are idiots. Kingdom? What kind of kingdom
can he have? And then the man on the middle
cross, he hears him saying, well, this day, you will be with me
in paradise. And our Lord Jesus Christ, and
I'm laughing about this, not because of the suffering of our
Lord's a laughable thing, but you can imagine how this looked
to anybody that with unbelieving eyes, you look and here's our
Lord. He's been beaten to a pulp. They have given him the 40 lashes.
They have shred the flesh off of his back. His blood is pouring
out. He, his strength is flowing out. His life is going out of him.
He's nailed to a cross and he says, today you will be with
me in paradise. What are you talking about, you
fool? You're not going to paradise, let alone taking anybody there
with you. Oh, they saw a crucified man. They didn't realize that
this one they had nailed to the cross was none other than the
Lion of the tribe of Judah. It was said of Judah as Jacob
was blessing his sons and Judah was his firstborn. It says, Judah,
the scepter, the authority shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh
comes. Who is Shiloh? That word means
the one to whom it belongs. And the authority over God's
people passed from all the sons of Judah down, finally got to
David. David was one of the sons of Judah. It kept going. And then finally the one to whom
it belonged came. And the scepter was handed to
him. And it's his forever. And he was a king on the cross.
Everything they did, they did under his rulership. He didn't
die as a victim. He says, no man takes my life
from me. He says, I lay it down. They came to arrest him, and
he who is the lion of the tribe of Judah said, who are you looking
for? And they said, we look for Jesus.
And he said this, he said, I am. I am. And identified himself by the
name of the eternal God. I am. And you know what those
soldiers did? It says that the utterance of that glorious name
of God, they fell backwards. I don't think I could have pushed
any of those guys down. I bet you they're pretty big guys.
I mean, you don't pick the temple guards, you know, The wimps. You pick the big guys. You know,
like the linemen. We were talking about that. The
linemen in the NFL. How would you like to run into...
I'd like to push one of those guys down. That's what they're
like. They're the front line of a high priest, you know. And
they come to arrest Jesus. And all he did was tell them
his name. I am. And they fell backwards. And then he let them get up again.
And he allowed them to arrest him. And he allowed Pilate to
command that he be flogged. And he allowed that Roman soldier
to flog him. At any minute he could have stepped
up and snuffed the life out of any one of them, or all of them. He was the king. And when he was on that cross,
he said, today you'll be with me in paradise. How's that? Because I'm going to win. I'm
going to defeat all my enemies right here. And he did. There
on the cross he dealt Satan a mortal wound and Satan has never gotten
over it yet. And he won't. People worry that Satan's going
to win. Satan's making progress. No he's not. He's on the run. Jesus Christ has rode forth conquering
and to conquer. And He conquers everywhere He
goes. And in the end, He'll take the whole host of His enemies
and bind them up in one bundle and throw them into the lake
of fire. The line of the tribe of Judah has prevailed. He said
to His disciples, when Peter identified who He was, He said,
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Lord said flesh and blood didn't
reveal that to you your name so far it's been Simon but now
I name you Peter and that word means a little rock and he says
and on this rock Petra which means a massive rock what was
he rock rock was he talking about then who he is the truth of who
he is he's on this massive rock I will build my church and the
gates of hell shall not prevail, they'll not triumph over it.
Does he mean the gates of hell will not triumph over the church?
Well, sort of. That's sort of what he means.
Here's what I believe to give you the whole picture of what
he means there. That Jesus Christ would go in, and when it says
the gates of hell, it's not talking about hell as that place of punishment.
The word actually means the realm of the dead. Death will prevail. Our Lord Jesus Christ died. He
went in there to the realm of death. Now the gates of death,
they're not there to keep people from getting in. They're there
to keep people from getting out. The gates of that horrid place
are shut up and nobody that goes into death ever comes out except
this one. And our Lord Jesus Christ went
into death. He went into that awful place
and he busted out. The gates of death could not
prevail against him and when he came through the whole church
came through with him. The gates of death, the gates
of hell could not prevail against the church, couldn't hold them
in because the line of the tribe of Judah, the root of David,
he prevailed over the gates. And he is able to open the scroll
and it's seven seals. Now notice this, that I saw a
lamb. Now you heard about a lion. He says, don't cry, John. No
use for weeping. I know things look bad, but hear
this message. The lion of the tribe of Judah,
he has prevailed. And that's the message of the
gospel, friends. That's why the elders are telling it. The church
knows about this. Jesus Christ isn't trying to
do anything. Jesus wants to save you if you
just let him. No. That's not the line of the
tribe of Judah. Jesus is saving everybody he
came to save. It's happening. And you and I
are witnesses of it if we just open our eyes. Every last one
of the sheep of God is being sought and found by Jesus Christ
and there is not an enemy out there that can stop him. He prevailed
over the worst of the enemies and all the other obstructions
of the salvation of God's people are just like so many little
pawns to flip out of the way on his way to finding his people.
That's the good news of the gospel. And it comes to us by the lion
of the tribe of Judah. But when John looked to see him,
what did he see? Then I saw a lamb looking as
if it had been slain. I've got a beautiful picture
in my study at home. Believe it or not, it's a Pepto-Bismol
poster. When my mother worked in a doctor's
office, the Pepto-Bismol salesman came through and he left this
poster. It's just a wonderful picture, just wrongly applied. The little caption under it was,
Strength where you least expect to find it. And I asked my mom
for it. When I describe it, you'll see
why I asked my mom for it. I got it framed, and it's sitting
there. And here's the picture. There's a little lamb. I mean,
just a little old lamb, a little sweet thing, harmless. Wouldn't
strike fear into anybody. Little white woolly thing, standing
there on the side of a stream. With a grin on his face. If a
sheep and a lamb can grin, he's got a grin on his face. In the
reflection, in his reflection of the water, is a lion. Now they were trying to make
you think Pepto-Bismol is a whole lot stronger than its pink appearance
and sweet taste would suggest. Well I don't care much about
Pepto-Bismol. But I looked at that picture and I said, there's
my Lord. Oh, he's meek and lowly of heart, and you'd never expect
such strength out of him. He is kind and compassionate,
and he draws to him the off-scouring of the world, the tax collectors,
the sinners, the ne'er-do-wells. And he subjected himself to the
abuse of men, and people looked at him and said, That's just
like a lamb being led to the slaughter. Those old covenant sacrifices,
they'd take a lamb and they'd just walk him over to the altar
and the lamb was too stupid to know what was about to happen
and didn't have the strength to resist. And they'd slit its
throat and pour its blood out and they'd say, oh poor pitiful
lamb. Well that was the truth for most
of those lambs but that wasn't the case with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Don't you ever pity the Lord Jesus Christ. He went as
a lamb to the slaughter knowing full well what was going on.
In fact, he was seeing to it that it happened. And they, as it were, slit his
throat. They killed him. And when they
did so, they thought, what a pitiful lamb. He thought he was something,
but we put an end to him. And they cut his throat, and
they met the lion of the tribe of Judah. They didn't know what was inside
that land. They found there an invincible
power. Oh, it was in Christ crucified
that the power of God is revealed. The Jews look for a sign, says
Paul, an evidence of power. Jesus Christ is the power of
God. He looked like a lamb, but in
truth, he's a lion. And this lamb, looking as if
it had been slain, was standing in the center of the throne.
That doesn't mean the center, you know, standing up there on
the chair. It's talking about the throne, the platform. I don't
know how it's pronounced. It's dais or dios or whatever,
but an elevated platform. And he was standing there right
in the middle of it, encircled by the four living creatures.
and the elders. He is the center of the church.
He is the center of all preaching. Every man God sends out to preach,
preaches Christ. Those four living creatures,
they got no message but Him. And the church is circled and
gathered around the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, you know,
I'd like to find a church. Maybe you live in an area where
there's no church. But you'd like to find one. I'll tell you
how you can find one. You find a people that's gathered around
Christ. You find a place where Christ is the center and all
eyes are upon Him. Then you found the church. It's
not known by the name out there on front of the door. It's not
necessarily known by all the theological distinctions they
like to put on it. It's known by this. It's Christ
right there in the middle. It's He in the center of the
throne. Do they recognize His authority? Do they recognize
His sacrifice? Do they see Him as the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world and the Lion of the tribe of
Judah who's bringing to pass the whole decree of God? There
you have found the church. And there you may sit down as
one of those four and twenty elders. And you may listen to
one of those four creatures, those four living creatures,
declaring the glories of God in Christ. That says of this lamb that he
had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of
God, sent out into all the earth. Boy, I wish we'd stay here to
one o'clock, but I ain't going to do that to you, but we'll
try to hurry through the rest of this and at least give you
something of the vision that John saw here. Here's our Lord. A horn is always an emblem of
power, and it says this lamb, had seven horns. Now that would
make a really grotesque looking lamb. But here's what he's saying,
this lamb that looks so sweet and mild, he has all power, perfect
power. Nobody can stop him. Of this
same person Nebuchadnezzar of old says, he does as he wills
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth
and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what do you think
you are doing? This is the Lord Jesus Christ
of the Bible. He's not this pitiful guy out
there trying to do something that men won't let him do. He's
not out there with desires and wants and plans if you just let
him bring them to pass. He is a lamb with seven horns
of invincible power. And it says seven eyes. He knows
all. He sees all. And this is the
seven, it says the seven spirits of God, or as we point out, the
seven-fold spirit of God, the perfect and fulfilled or the
perfect, complete Spirit of God. Here's what is representative
of our Lord, that as He goes out to save, conquering and to
conquer, as He goes out to save, He goes with invincible power
and perfect knowledge, and He comes into this world, and He
finds every one of His sheep, and no power can stop Him, no
deception can fool him. No resistance can be mounted
up against him. And some of you are evidence
of that. Satan had many of you very safely
tucked away in religion. You were safe from Christ there,
so he thought. He had you tied up in a legalistic
religion And you thought everything was okay, and you were doing
good. And there was enemies of God
surrounding you in the form of preachers, in the forms of those
other, of false believers, and they'd encircled you with a protection
of religion. And Satan would have got you.
but that this lamb with seven horns of power and seven eyes
of wisdom and knowledge come busting through. He prevailed
with you. The gates of death held you in
and he busted them down and brought you out. And there wasn't anything
that anybody could do. They could get all their elders
together They could get all their church together. They could put
all the pressure they wanted on you to keep you from confessing
the name of Christ. And they couldn't stop you because
they couldn't stop Him. And friends, that's the good
news of the gospel. You and I, we have every reason
to worry if we'll make it. You know, sometimes don't you
ever think that, I don't know if I'm going to make it to the end. I tell you,
I'm so weak and I've had so many failures You know, I don't know
how much longer I'm going to live, but if it's much longer,
I'm sure somewhere between here and there, I'm going to deny
Christ and I'm going to forsake the gospel. Well, friends, if
it's up to you, that's exactly what's going to happen. But your
salvation is not dependent on you, a little weak sheep bleating
out there in the wilderness with no help and no hope. It depends
upon the lion of the tribe of Judah. It depends upon a sheep
with seven horns of power and seven eyes of wisdom and knowledge.
And he will succeed. And notice what it says about
this lamb. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of
him who sat on the throne. Now who else could do that? Here's
God and he's got this scroll in his hand and he's sealed it
with seven seals of sovereign authority. And he's got it in
his grip. Satan tried to get it out, couldn't
get it out. All the demons tried to get it
out, couldn't get it out. All the free will religionists
have tried to get that thing out of his hand. They couldn't
get it out. And here comes the lamb with seven horns and seven
eyes, and he just takes it. That's mine. And God said, that's
okay, it is yours. It was written for you, and you
have the authority, and you have the power to bring it to pass.
Verse eight, and when he had taken it, The four living creatures
and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb. And I tell you, when
people, and my heart is full, I hope I can get it out, when
people see Jesus Christ, the sovereign, ruling Christ, the
all-powerful, all-knowing, all-successful, all-victorious Christ, with the
purpose of God firmly in His hands, they fall down and they
worship Him. And they declared the glories
of his name. And when he had taken it, they all fell down.
Each one of them had a harp. And they were holding golden
bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song. David said, I have waited patiently
for the Lord. And he inclined his ear and he
heard my cry. And he lifted me out of the pit
and out of the miry clay. And he set my feet upon the rock.
And he put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to my God. And that's what's being represented
in this vision here. When Jesus Christ took that scroll
out of the hand of God, He became the Savior of all God's people. When He took that scroll out
of their hand, He lifted them out of the miry pit, and He set
their feet on a rock, and a new song was put in their mouth,
a hymn of praise to their God, Jesus Christ. Old Thomas said,
I'm not going to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead
until I see the prince in his hand and the scar on his side
and all that. And the Lord said, all right,
Tom, look, take a look. And he fell down before our Lord
and he said, my Lord and my God. The Lord Jesus put a new song
in Tom's mouth, Thomas's mouth that day. And here's the new
song, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals
because you were slain and with your blood you purchased men
for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God and
they will reign on the earth. I won't try to give details of
all that that means but he's saying you're worthy because
you did all that. And at the declaration of the
victory of Christ, at the declaration of His worthiness to open these
seals, I looked and I heard the voice of many angels numbering
thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000. They encircled
the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice
they sang. I tell you, if you know anything
about this lion of the tribe of Judah, if you've got any inkling
about who is this lamb with the seven horns and seven eyes, you
in your heart say this too, worthy is the lamb that was slain to
receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor
and glory and praise. You find a bunch of people patting
each other on the back. You find a bunch of religious
people talking about how good each other is and how wonderful
and declaring each one another's accomplishments. You haven't
found this group of people. They don't have a word to say
about themselves. They aren't bragging on the elders.
They aren't bragging on the four living creatures. They aren't
bragging on the angels. They're bragging on Jesus Christ.
Worthy is the Lamb, and nobody else is. And I like that. It's exactly
the way I want it to be. And God grant, and that's the
way this church will be. We're trying to make our church
by the grace of God is much like this heavenly scene as is possible. Worthy is the Lamb, not worthy
is the deacons, not worthy are the elders, not worthy is the
pastor, not worthy is this or that. Worthy is Christ. And there you have perfect worship. then I heard every creature in
heaven and on earth and under the sun earth and on the sea
and all that is in them singing and wouldn't you like to hear
this to him who sits on the throne and to the land be praise and
honor and glory and power forever and ever would you like to hear the whole
world praise your God and praise your Savior here's how you do
it you praise him you start with worthy is the
lamb who was slain and with what you say and how you live you
let this world know that all of your affections on him all
your praise is reserved for him and when a church begins to do
that the world begins to sing along back when I was in high school
coca-cola had a commercial I like to teach the world to sing in
perfect harmony and all that. And they had the naive thought
that a bottle of coke could make everybody just get along. There's
only one message that's ever going to reconcile this world,
and that's the message of Jesus Christ. Well, when this was done,
the four living creatures said amen. And I tell you, this one
of the four living creatures said amen to all of that. All
that is so good, to hear about Christ in those terms. Tell me
about Christ like that, and I'll say, Amen. So be it. That's how
it is. And the elders, the whole church,
they fell down in worship. If you want the church of God
to worship, it's easy. It's easy to make them worship.
Honor their Lord. Talk about the glories of the
Savior, and they'll worship. All right, we're going to observe
the Lord's table.