Book of Revelation chapter 11.
I want to begin reading here in verse 11 and finish that chapter. This is speaking of the witnesses
that were slain. In verse 11, After three days
and then a half, the Spirit of life from God entered unto them,
and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them
which saw them. And they heard a great voice
from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended
up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them. In
the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part
of the city fell. And in the earthquake were slain
of men seven thousand, and the remnant were affrighted, and
gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past, and,
behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel
sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and
of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four
and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell
upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks,
Lord God Almighty, which art, and was, and art to come, because
thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And
the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, in the time of
the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest
give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints,
and them that fear thy name, small and great, and should destroy
them which destroyed the earth. And the temple of God was opened
in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of the
testament, and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings.
and an earthquake and great hail. The seventh trumpet, that's what
we're looking at tonight, the seventh trumpet. This is the
last trumpet that will be blown and it brings about the end of
the world as you and I know it. In Revelation chapter 11, we're
given here a description of the church, the true church of God. She is called many names in verse
1. She is called the temple of God. Ye are the temple of the living
God. As God has said, I will dwell
in them, and I will walk in them, and I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. And you and I look for a day
and time and place when just as that old Jewish temple was
filled with the satanic glory of God, then this temple, this
church in heaven will be filled with God's presence. Not His
mechanical glory, but His real presence. What a day that will
be. And then here in chapter 2, verse
11, the church is called that holy city, as opposed no doubt
to earthly Jerusalem where our Lord was crucified. If you want to talk about earthly
Jerusalem now, then it's really Antichrist. That's the attitude
that dwells there. They hate Christianity. They
hate God. They hate the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And in verse three, the church
is called the two witnesses. We looked at that last week.
The two witnesses, that witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. And
ever since Acts chapter 2 up until this present time and up
until the end of the world, with the exception of these three
and a half days, the church will bear witness of Jesus Christ
and the truth that's in Him. Then we saw in verse 7, the church
was overcome. She was killed. She lies humiliated
in the streets for three and a half days, and that's a short
time. That'll be a short time. that
will live in that day. And it seems like that time may
be approaching. This is the comfort that she'll
have. She'll only lie there in her humiliation for three and
a half days. Then the Spirit of life from
God will enter into her again, and she'll stand upon her feet,
and she'll ascend to heaven, and her enemies shall see it.
But if you want to know what the world thinks about The church,
when she lays humiliated and loses all her power to say or
witness or do anything, but just lay there in her humiliation,
what does the world do? It rejoices. It says, finally,
we've got rid of these two prophets that tormented us with this grace
business. We don't have to hear them anymore.
Peace and safety is what they'll say. Peace and safety. But when that happens, everything
seems to change, and it changes suddenly. This seventh trumpet
begins to sound, and when that happens, things begin to happen
so rapidly. And suddenly, the end of the
world comes. That's what we see there in our
text that I read to you. Let's look at some things here
that take place beginning in verse 12 and look at it from
this way. In verse 12, the church is raptured
and she's glorified. She's changed in a moment in
the twinkling of an eye. In verse 12, they heard a great
voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they
ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies beheld them. That sounds a lot like 1 Corinthians
chapter 15 and verse 52, doesn't it? At the last trumpet, and
the seventh trumpet is the last trumpet. And at the last trump,
the trump shall be sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. The church shall put on incorruption. She shall have a body like unto
the body of her Lord, Jesus Christ. You and I believe in a rapture.
I believe in a rapture. I believe the church is going
to be taken up. I believe that. I just don't believe in a secret
rapture. I think when the church is glorified, when the Lord comes
again, people are going to see her. They are going to see the
graves open. They are going to see the saints
changed. But it all is happening here
so rapidly in our text. Here in verse 13, and the same
hour, that word it means at the same time, there was a great
earthquake and the tenth part of the city fell. And in the
earthquake were slain a man seven thousand, and the remnant were
affrighted and gave glory to God. John sees this earthquake
and the world as we know it begins to collapse. And he says here,
many are slain in the earthquake. And those who aren't slain give
glory to God. Now, we don't know in what sense
they give glory to God. They certainly do not worship
Him in spirit and in truth. It's somewhat like Nebuchadnezzar
when he saw the Son of God walking in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego. He gave glory to the God of heaven,
too, but it was just lip service. It was done out of awful fear
in his heart. Maybe they gave glory to God
by saying what they said in chapter six, the great day of his wrath
is come and who shall be able to stand? And I want you to remember
this when we look how rapidly these things are taking place.
We got to remember that these are visions John is seeing. And when you read about a vision,
you don't get in a lot of detail there. It's just a general description
of the day of judgment and what's going to happen. And what we
see here is an earthquake. Everything is shaking. Men are
killed. Parts of the city fall. And then
in verse 14, the second wall is passed. And behold, the third
wolf cometh immediately. See how quick these things are
happening? And then the seventh angel sounded, and there were
great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ. Now here's something that's going
to happen. We've seen the church taken up. And then we see the
city begin to fall. Men begin to be slain. And now
here we're told that when the last trumpet sounds, not only
does all of that begin to happen, but the kingdoms of this world
are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. This
is the end, isn't it? All the kingdoms now have become
manifestly so, the kingdoms of Jesus Christ. In other words,
He subdued them. He has conquered them just like
He said He would do. Christ must reign. He's reigning
now, isn't He? And He will reign until He's
put all His enemies and all the kingdoms of men and devils under
His feet. Remember the dream that Nebuchadnezzar
had in Daniel chapter 2? He saw this terrible beast-like
image. It had a head like gold. His
chest and his arms was like silver and his belly was as brass and
his legs and feet were iron and clay. And then Daniel saw in
his vision a little stone was cut out of the mountain and began
to roll and get bigger and bigger. And it hit this huge, terrible
image and broke his clay feet. and the image fell and this little
rock rolled over it and ground it to powder and the wind blew
it away. And Daniel interpreted that.
He said God is going to set up a kingdom and that kingdom will
have no end to it and it will subdue all other kingdoms. And that dream that Nebuchadnezzar
had that Daniel interpreted is fulfilled here in our text. All the kingdoms of this world
have now become the kingdoms of the Lord Jesus Christ. The kingdoms of this world, though
they're the enemies of the Son of God now, They will one day
be subdued, and it will all become His. Now, I quoted a part of
this verse a minute ago, but I want you to hold chapter 11
and look with me over in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And look in verse 20. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 20.
Some in this church, in the Corinthian church, were denying the physical
resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Paul proves that He had risen
indeed. And he says here in verse 20,
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits
of them that slept. For since by man came death,
by Adam came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own
order, Christ the firstfruits, afterwards they that are Christ's,
at his coming." That's what we're studying about tonight, isn't
it? The seventh trumpet sound and he's coming. And verse 24,
then cometh the end. When that seventh trumpet sound,
the end is here. when he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put
down all rule and all authority and all power. For he must reign
until he hath put all his enemies under his feet. And the last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death." That's what we see
in our text. All the kingdoms of this world
have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. The difference in the premillennial
view and the view that we take as we study the book of Revelation
is this. So many premillennialists believe
that Christ will sit on the throne of that He will rule someday. You and I look at this from the
position that He's on David's throne now. That Jesus Christ
is reigning right now. And we prove that from Scripture
in verse 25, He must reign. He must reign. He's reigning
now. And He's subduing all of His
enemies under His feet. I love Psalms chapter 110 and
verse 1 through 3, where David said, the Lord said unto my Lord,
set on my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.
And what's the next verse say? Verse 2 says this, rule thou
in the midst of thine enemies. Jesus Christ, the Son of God
is ruling right now. And he will continue to rule
until he has subdued all the kingdoms of men and devils under
his reign. He must reign. And that's what
we see here in our text in verse 15. Now go back over again to
Revelation chapter 11 and look in verse 16. Some of the things that's taking
place and they're taking place so rapidly. Now when you read
this chapter as I just did to you, it looks like one thing
is taking place, then there's a pause, then something else
takes place, and then there's a pause. But this is just a vision
showing us the general view of everything. All of this has now
happened suddenly. It's suddenly taken place. The
church is taken up. And then John begins to see the
earth collapse, men being slain. And all the kingdoms of the world
are now become the kingdoms of God's Son and of His Christ. And here's something else that
takes place in verse 16 regarding the 24 elders. Now we said as
we first saw these in chapter 4 of Revelation, this is the
church. set number that represents that
innumerable company of people, the 24 elders, is the church. And notice now what they do.
And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their
seats, fell on their faces and worshipped God. Now, I love to
read this like this. And the church, resting upon
their thrones, fell on their faces and worshipped God. I think you can read that like
that. They're on their thrones. The word seat means thrones.
And they're setting, so they're resting, and they worship God
on their faces. As I get older, and you're probably
just like me, there are some things that I long for. And I'm
longing for some things. The last few years, I have really
got the longing. There's two things that I long
for right now more than anything else. You know what one of them
is? Rest. rest. I've got this mental fatigue
that I cannot get through for some reason or another. I can
rest. I can sleep. I can get up in
the morning. I've got this mental fatigue. But there's old... I'm getting old. That's part
of it, isn't it? But there's a land where we'll
never grow old. And there's a place and there's
a time when we will worship God, we will serve God with the full
capacity of soul and body and never get tired. That will be
a place of eternal rest. They will reign in life and this
new man that's within will never get tired and these new bodies
will never get tired. They will serve the Lord on their
thrones while they sit there. There'll be all kinds of activity
in heaven. You can bet on that. I don't know very much about
it, but I know we're just not going to go up there and stir
at that. We're going to be serving the
Lord. But we'll never get tired. We'll never get tired. They sit
on their thrones. And the second thing I see here
in this text is this. And that's true worship. I long
to worship God with a pure heart. Don't you? David said, man, it
is the best stage to all to give the vanity. Here I stand before
you reading the Scriptures, trying to explain the Scriptures, and
I have this vanity. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. But there's coming a place and
a time when we will worship God without this burden of sin. There'll
be no sense of sin to afflict us. There'll be no burden for
us to have to bear. We won't be afflicted with unbelief
anymore. We will worship the triune God
with undimmed eyes and an unsinning heart. I long for that, don't
you? And that's coming. That day is coming when the church
will sit upon her thrones and she'll bow and worship God as
she never was able to in this world. That day is coming, brothers
and sisters. It's coming. And I'm looking
forward to it, aren't you? And that's our hope. You notice some of the things
that we don't see here in these elders as they fall upon their
faces and worship God. You don't see any with heads
bowed in shame. Did you see that as I read that?
You don't see one head bowed in shame. You don't see one tear
in any eye. You don't see one heart filled
with sorrow. You don't see anybody with the
least degree of fear and dread and anxiety. This is the day
of judgment. This is the last trumpet that
sounds. But the church is not to live
in dread of that day. That's not a day of dread for
the church. It's a day of victory and triumph
and joy and peace and gladness, is it not? We look to that day
with reverence, with the deepest of reverence, but we do not look
to that day with a slavish fear and dread. Adam and Eve was ashamed when
the Lord approached them, but you know why they were ashamed?
They were naked. We are no longer naked. Believers
in Jesus Christ are clothed with the garments of salvation. They
have the perfect imputed righteousness of the Son of God to clothe their
shame. Now if you believe that, you
cannot believe also we are going to stand there at the judgment
with heads bowed and red faced. We are clothed. And there will be no guilt there. Guilt is what brings shame. But
the saints won't have any guilt, will they? Jesus Christ perfectly
atoned for their sins. He paid the penalty for their
guilt, and He's washed their sins away in that sin-atoning
blood. And there'll be no reason for
the church to stand there with shameful faces and with fearful
hearts. Paul tells us that the Lord Jesus
Christ loved the church, and he's going to present that church
to himself. And how's she going to look?
How's she going to be? Without spot? What else did he say? without blemish or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blame before Him. And you don't see any of this
negative stuff when the elders bow to worship. I know what preachers
have told us. I know they've told us that if
you do this and you don't do that, boy, you're going to be
ashamed someday, buddy. God's going to get even with
you some day. Are you going to tell a Christian that? It's to
make me feel better because some Christian has done me wrong. God's going to get even with
him. Yeah. If you're in Christ, if you're
in Christ Jesus the Lord. Your salvation is of Him. And the only reason you would
think about being ashamed, and the only reason you look to this
day with dread, is that you're not fully trusting in Him. You think there's something left
for you to supply, for you to do. And therefore, until you
get it all done, you can't have this longing to be there with
Him. See yourself in Christ. And you
can look forward to this day. It shall be said in that day,
Isaiah said, Lo, this is our God. We have waited for Him.
Lo, this is our God. He will save us. This is the
Lord. We have waited for Him and we
will be glad, not fearful, not anxious. But we shall be glad
and rejoice in His salvation. He has done everything that's
needful to be done to take away all the fear of that day and
all the anxiety about it and all the dread about it. And He's
given us a good hope to look forward to that day when we'll
worship Him in spirit and in truth without any sense of sin. Now, the fifth thing about this
that we see here on this last day of the history of this world
is found in here in verse 17 and the first part of verse 18.
They fell on their faces and worshiped God. And here's what
they said. The church said this, We give
thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, which art and was and I was reading
the little Greek interlinear today and it said, and you that
are come, you that are come, he's come. There's no need to
say he's yet to come at this time because he's come. Because
thou hast taken to thee thy great power and has reigned and the
nations were angry. Now look at the distinction between
the saints and heaven. and the unbelievers in regard
to God being sovereign. Look at the distinction between
them. That distinction, very plain, isn't it? The saints were
thankful. We thank you, O God, that you're
sovereign. That's what they said, isn't
it? Everywhere you and I turn to in the Bible, We find this
wonderful teaching that our triune God is indeed a sovereign God. Then we look at that Sunday.
When Jehoshaphat was in trouble there in Judah and the armies
of the aliens were coming against him, he went to the temple and
got on his face and said, Lord, are not you God? Do you not rule over the kingdoms
of men? And is there not in your hand
power and might so that none can resist you? Who is he talking
to? A sovereign Lord. And here we
find them again rejoicing and praising Him that He is their
sovereign God. You know something, brothers
and sisters, I can say this without any fear of the scriptures contradicting
me. If our God is not sovereign,
nobody will be saved. Nobody will be saved. This ain't
something black and white. This ain't something that's gray
areas. This is black and white, isn't
it? It's not something that's indifferent. We look upon this
indifferent as what we should eat or drink. What we eat or
drink may be indifferent. You can leave it alone or eat
it or drink it. But when we're talking about
God being God, that's something every last saint believes. You'd think there'd be anybody
in heaven that believed he'd got there by the power of his
will. I doubt it, brothers and sisters. I doubt it. I really
doubt it. Because here you see the church
vowing to worship. And they're saying the same thing
there that we're saying right now. God reigns. And we're thankful,
aren't we? We're thankful. That's the only
hope we have. That He's sovereign. D.J. Ward, the old black preacher
down in Lexington, used to say, I love what he said, he said,
If God had not sovereignly chosen sons, then heaven would have
none. That's true, isn't it? Sovereign grace chose us. Sovereign love redeemed us in
the person of God's Son. And sovereign grace called us
effectually. And sovereignty keeps us. And
sovereignty will get us to heaven. And there we will sing this song
that the church sang. We give you thanks, Lord God
Almighty. For you have taken unto you your
great power. And you have rained. Now, we
just said a minute ago that Jesus Christ is raining right now.
And that's what our text tells us, isn't it? You have rained. Thou hast rained. And He's been
raining since He said, let there be light. But how does this world
feel about this? Well, it says you're the unregenerated
world, said in verse 18. The nations were angry. If you keep that in context,
the church is saying our God is sovereign and therefore that's
one of the things that makes the world angry. They don't lack
a sovereign God. They don't lack a sovereign Christ.
They don't lack sovereign free grace. They lack free will. They want everything left up
to them. They want to hear about human merit and human wisdom
and human power. And that's why they don't like
the church. We cast contempt upon those things. And we say salvation is of the
Lord. From its beginning, its planning,
its purposes, its execution, to its consummation, it's all
of a sovereign, triumphant God. And what does the world say? I hate that, don't they? Have
you talked to any lost person lately? Have you talked to any
of your relatives or neighbors lately? Talk to them, and you'll
find out. They'll start gritting their
teeth at you. These Kalmanians are some of
the worst ones. We talked about them before church.
Kalmanian. I had a pastor friend of mine
call himself a Kalmanian. He's a Calvinist and an Armenian
in some way woven together. That's just like darkness and
light, oil and water. It just don't mix. No way, Wayne
says, no way. And verse 18, here's something
else. And the nations were angry, and
thy wrath is come. Boy, it's already come upon many,
hasn't it? It's fell upon so many individuals. Boy, I tell
you, that's a dreadful thing to fall under God's wrath. The
year it comes upon the world at large. And the time of the
dead that they should be judged. This is the time of the dead.
God's appointed a day in which He'll judge the world in righteousness.
And when this seventh trumpet sounds, that's when that judgment
will be. The time of the dead that they
shall be judged. And that thou shouldest give
rewards unto thy servant. Reward your servants, your prophets
and your saints. And those that fear thy name,
small and great." We're small, aren't we? We're not prophets.
We're not apostles. We're not great, eminent servants
of God. We're just poor, small saints.
Got a little faith and a little strength. But you know something?
Every saint is going to receive their reward. I don't know what
that looks like. I have no idea. I just know that
God is not unrighteous. to forget your work and your
labor of love. I know on that day, he's going
to say to his children, I was sick and you visited me. I was
hungry and you fed me. And it's just recognition from
our Lord. That's enough. That's reward
enough, isn't it? I don't know about rewards. It
says it here. I don't know what that looks
like, but I know this much. God will never forget what his
children does for his glory and the good of his church. He will
never do it. And here we see him recognize
it on the day of judgment. God is not unrighteous to do
that. And the last thing he says here,
he should destroy them. And the word is corrupt the earth. That's the same word that he
used in Genesis 6 when he talked about the ungodly corrupting
the earth. It didn't mean they corrupted
it environmentally. You got your people that just
throw trash out and pour oil into the streams and sewer and
everything else and corrupt our atmosphere. But that's not what
he's talking about here. He's talking about here, their
sins. by their sinning against God
and living and serving and loving their sins. They destroy the
earth. They corrupt the earth. That's
what he's talking about here in verse 19 now. And we'll close
with this. And the temple of God was open
in heaven and there was seen. And there was seen in his temple
the Ark of the Testament. And there were lightnings and
voices and thunderings and earthquakes and great hail. I wrote down
here what Brother Fortner said about this, verse 19. I thought
he was very interested. He said, John sees the sanctuary
of God in heaven standing wide open. Even the Holy of Holies
is open and perfectly accessible. Nothing is veiled. Nothing is
hidden. The Ark of the Covenant, so long
concealed from men, is now in open view. And then he asks this
question, but what does this mean? And then he gives the answer. The Ark with its mercy seat was
the symbol. He says this is the symbol. This
temple being open and the Ark of the Covenant is symbolic of
God's presence and His glory that was revealed in the Old
Testament. The fact that it is now open
declares that God will dwell forever openly in an intimate
and glorious and uninterrupted fellowship with His people. Isn't that wonderful? Just think
about that. And Don quotes Exodus 25 verse 22 talking about the
mercy seat where God said, there I will meet with you and I will
commune with you from the top, the mercy seat. But that place
was always concealed all through the Old Testament. The only place
a person could get in there was at a high priest. But now it's
all opened up and the communion and fellowship is manifested. with this triune living God. And he says this, through the
sin-atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious
person, we shall forever be accepted of God. This opening of the temple
of God and the presence of the Ark of the Covenant means that
the covenant of grace with all of its promises and all of its
blessings is ours forever in Christ. Then he closes it with
a warning to the wicked, and Don says this, But for the wicked
and unbelievers these things mean wrath, banishment, eternal
death. They make the outpouring upon
the lost of nothing but wrath, flashes of lightning, peals of
thunder, and earthquakes and destructive hell that will beat
them down to hell forever. Let all who are wise heed the
words of God's prophet. Prepare to meet God. So we've come to the end, haven't
we? This is the end of the world. And yet it's right in the middle
of the book. Ain't that strange? But this is the second time this
has happened in this book. Remember the sixth chapter, the
way it ended? It ended the exact same way.
Remember that? Men crying, the devil's wrath
has come. And now here we come to the end
again. And we could have stopped here
and said, that's the end of the book. That's it. But there's
more to learn, isn't there? Now in chapter 12, he's going
to take us and begin to look at the history of this world
from a different perspective. And then we'll come to the end
again. All right, let us pray. Our Father,
thank you for this opportunity to look at your word. And Lord,
you wrote some wonderful things. Some things that appeals to our
spirit. Makes us long for that day. When
we'll be able to worship you. Purely. No wonder John said,
come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Oh, blessed Lord, come quickly,
receive us, free us from this prison house. May we be like
Saul, Paul, your apostle. We have this desire to depart
and to be with Christ, which is far better. Remember us, Lord, remember this
little congregation. how we need a visitation of Your
presence. Visit us in our homes. For Your glory we ask. Amen.