Open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 11. If you're not sure where Revelation chapter 11 is and you have your Bible, it's the very last book of the Bible. If you don't have a Bible, you should have one in the pew right in front of you. And it'll be at the black book. And just pick that one up and turn all the way to the back. And we are going to be on page 194. Page 194. I try to remember to do this on occasion just to help people. You have large numbers, which will be the chapter number, and then those small numbers next to it are the verse numbers, and so that is how you're able to find your way around the Bible relatively quickly. So go to page 194, and there you will see chapter 11, and then you want to find verses 14 through 19. For those of you here last week, this introduction is going to be very brief, but it will also sound very familiar because it's the same one. It captures the essence of what we need to hear so that we can get into our text. So I thought, why come up with a new one? We'll just do it again. So hear now the word of the Lord, starting in verse 14. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. And the seventh angel sounded, and there arose loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, we give thanks, or we give thee thanks, O God, the Almighty, who was, or who is, and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. and the nations were enraged, and your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to your bondservants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to those who fear your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth. And the temple of God, which is in heaven, was opened. And the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and the earthquake and a great hailstorm. May the Lord bless his word. Now, as I said last week, We are going into now the second half of the book of Revelation. It's a strange book for many people. I always remember how my wife, when she was not a Christian and she first started reading it, she thought whoever wrote it must have been on drugs. And it is because of the nature of the style of the writing. It's prophecy, but it's also written in what's called apocalyptic literature. So it's got very, very unique symbolism and pictures painted for us in the words. And we need to grasp that, and we need to allow the things which are symbolic to be understood as what they are, symbolic, and read them for the intent that they were written. So here we're moving into that second half, and we will see many, many strange-sounding things over the next several weeks. But remember, chapter 1 just introduced this book, and it talked about that it was broken down into three things. That which was, that which is, and that which is to come. And we've been focusing the bulk of the time in Revelation in those things which are to come. Things that have not yet occurred. In chapters 2 and 3, he dealt with things which were. He dealt with seven specific churches, each one of them in a unique situation. Some of them doing very well, even though they were suffering greatly because of their faith in Jesus Christ, yet he told them to endure. In each one of those, he gave them a promise that if they endured, if they were found faithful, certain things would occur at the end of time. But the bulk of those churches had something wrong with them, something seriously wrong with them. In fact, he was threatening to spit one of them, so to speak, out of his mouth. He was so disgusted with what they had become. And in doing that, he captures the essence of the church throughout ages, where we ebb and flow with our love and faithfulness to Jesus. In chapters 4 and 5, he then brings us into the future by having his vision of the throne room of God and how Jesus was the one who was prepared to bring about the judgments of his Father, the judgments of God upon humanity. This all came about through the breaking of these seals on the scroll. On the scroll was written God's judgments, what would happen, what was to come to pass, how he would make all things right. And so from that point on in verses or chapter seven through nine, we read about how each seal was broken. And as each one was broken, more things came to pass, more events took place, things that had humanity had no control over. And yet it was just simply the beginnings, if you will, the birth pangs of the wrath of God upon those who are in rebellion. Along with that, we saw that at the breaking of the seventh seal, that these trumpets then began to sound. Trumpets that were sounding out for the judgment of God. And we saw most of them sounded out, all but one. And then in chapters 10 and 11, we have this interlude, a pause, a break in the action, a break in the telling of the story, where we are given some very important information before that final trumpet sounds, which we'll look at today. From that point on, in chapters 12 through 15, the interlude will continue, but it's a different one. And in it, he is going to begin to show you things that are happening behind the scenes that you and I are not usually aware of. We're going to see a little bit of it today in just this sermon. But chapters 12 through 15, he's going to make it very, very blatant. And he's going to help you see that there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. And this is why we need to be very serious about what we claim to be our faith. Now, what's helpful and important to remember is that until we get to chapter 16, what we are looking at are broad spectrums of time. So it's not necessarily what we're reading is something in the future. Some of it will have already happened, some of it will be taking place right now, and some will be coming. So I'll help you work through those things and show you how it works when we get to that. But this passage is one of those, one of those that is taking a massive amount of time. In fact, last week I said it's taking all of time from the beginning to the end. And it's telling us what's happening. This passage that we just read views what is the kingdom of this age. The kingdom that you and I live in and among the reality of the power and powers to be that are constantly pressing in on us, even though we don't necessarily grasp that. But it also views what is to come, and that is what's known as the kingdom of God. where God reigns and he puts all of his enemies under his footstool and judgment is pure and right and sin and Satan and death are destroyed and everything becomes new ultimately. So there here's this broad overview And then we'll see of the kingdom of God coming into being. And then what will follow will be much greater detail. So if you have questions about what the kingdom of God will look like or what it is or isn't, you're going to have to wait and allow the book of Revelation just to continue to unfold. And a lot of those questions will be answered. Well, with that, we'll get into the text itself. And we have it very simply. Verse 15 then speaks of the seventh angel sounding. And the thing that he sounded was the trumpet. And so as he blows the trumpet and it's heard, it immediately brings out this loud voices in heaven. And so in the blowing of the trumpet, immediately what follows upon it is the crying out of loud voices in heaven making this great announcement. So all sorts of things are happening and all all of what's happening here is going to stretch into the rest of the book of Revelation First we hear though these voices whether they're angelic or they're human people who are already in the presence of God We don't know it doesn't say we just have these voices in heaven but what stands out very clearly in this is almost that there's like a sense of anticipation of That heaven is waiting. All of heaven is waiting for that last trumpet to be sounded. And they can't wait. And finally they hear the trumpet coming, and here is the final woe, which is a bad word. A time of great destruction, a great hardship, but it's also a time of great glory and joy. And all of heaven, all of a sudden these voices just erupt in this announcement because now is the time. The trumpet has sounded. They've been waiting for this sound. And when it comes, they immediately cry out with joy, not sorrow, with joy over the truth that is behind the sounding of the trumpet. What you have here is in heaven, that they are declaring what actually has been going on behind the scenes in human history. Maybe you wonder, what goes on? Why is it the world is the way it is? Why is it that things work out the way they do? Perhaps you're constantly surprised. Maybe you thought this election might make things different. Or maybe you thought last election for our president might make things really different. Maybe you thought that certain events in the world were going to fix it all and take care of it. What's going on? Why is it that everything ultimately breaks down? Why is it that everything never delivers? Well, I want you to remember, those of you that come here regularly, we preach through the book of Ephesians. And in that book, I talked about the idea of something called real reality. Do you remember that? I talked about the fact that the book of Ephesians is declaring something far greater than just our salvation, that what is happening is that God is playing out, if you will, a drama. on stage. And God has all of these various entities and persons and beings and actions and activities that are taking place. And as they're unfolding, God is inviting the Christian to come up onto the stage and play his part. Well, what's the play? The play is simply this, God declaring his victory over the forces of evil. Showing that he is truly the king and that he has conquered and he's done through it through something that appears foolish and weak it's through the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ and That's the real reality and so what Christ is doing and what you and I are doing whether we know it or not is that we are to be declaring by our actions and our choices and our words that We are declaring to the satanic forces, the demonic spiritual realm, that we will not bow to it, that we do not buy into their lies, that we are shaking our fist, if you will, in rebellion. When we sing that last song, Behold Our God, we are declaring to all those who hate God, who resist Him, who want Him to go away, who want to pretend He doesn't exist, we are declaring to them, whether they're seen or unseen, no. We have come to worship our God. I talked about the idea that too often what you and I do in our life is we try to make sense of our world and our situation, but it's like we only have half the picture, half an orange. You're trying to describe what an orange is, but you only have half of it. The other half is spiritually seen. You can't know it. It's this realm of spiritual beings, angels and demons and forces. And the Bible says that these forces are constantly exerting themselves upon our world, our nations, our people. And we're oblivious to it. We're just oblivious to it. We shouldn't be, but we are. And so we keep thinking that if we fix something here, If we get the right person, if we just pass the right laws, or we stop having laws of certain type, then things will be better. It won't, because we're not factoring in that whole other half of reality, which is this demonic realm that is actively at war with us. It's so easy for us to understand that in abstract. I think that if I were to sit with most of you and just ask you, do you believe in demons? Do you believe they exist? If you're a Christian, at least, you're going to say, yeah. Yeah, I do. And so then if I were to ask you, how do you see them functioning and working in your world where you live in? I think that you would probably have some difficulty. I mean, you might say some very broad things, but you really would struggle with giving a concrete sense of exactly how these powers that are present and are actively at war with those who are believers, how they function. And so you might go to some horror flick, right? You might do something where somebody's demon possessed and puking up green pea soup, right? Or you might think about something really big, or maybe it's some demonic activity that you read about in the Bible. But if I were to ask, how do you see the powers that exist, that are present, how are they affecting you? How well could you actually answer that? I think we would have a hard time often because we lack eyes to see it, and we lack ears to hear it. And it is something that we need to learn to understand by faith. Go back, if you will, keep your fingers there, but go back to 2 Kings. 2 Kings. It's on page 277, if you're using the Black Pew Bible. 2 Kings 6, verse 8, Now the king of Aram was warned against Israel, and he counseled with the servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, saying, Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Arameans are coming down there. And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God had told him. Thus he warned him so that he guarded himself there more than once, guarded himself there more than once or twice. Now the heart of the king of Aram was enraged over this, and he called his servants and said to them, will you tell me which of us is for the king of Israel? He understands somebody's fine. And one of his servants said, no, my lord. King but Elisha the prophet who is in Israel tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom and So he said go and see where he is that I may send and take him and was told him saying behold He's in Dotham and he sent horses and chariots and a great army there and they came by night and surrounded the city and Now when the attendant of the man of God, the man of God is Elisha, when the attendant or servant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots were circling the city, and his servant said to him, alas, my master, what shall we do? Now check out good old Elisha. And so he answered, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Now that alone, you're like, I count one. Me, and I'm just a servant. I'm not really good at this. So imagine the terror. That's you and I. That's our hard reality. We're in a terrible accident. We're struck down by horrible sickness. We are being afflicted in every way at work, though we're being faithful. All sorts of things are happening in our life. And we're feeling very, very, very alone. That's what this servant is feeling. He is attached to this powerful man of God, and yet now he knows one thing. He is about to die. And the man of God is not afraid because he says there's more with us, but there aren't. And then Elisha prayed and said, O Lord, I pray open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, strike these people with blindness, I pray. And so he struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. That's reality. That's the real reality. Let me tell you how it works as a pastor. Oftentimes when I'm talking to people and they're frustrated and they're trying to do something, they don't know what's going on. They don't know how it's why it's not working out there. What they're trying to do is good and right. And yet they seem to be frustrated in every way. And I simply ask them one question. Have you prayed about that? I ask this question a lot. Have you have you prayed about? You may or may not be surprised how often the answer is no. I said, may I suggest you do so? What's happening with the person in that situation, whether it's with sickness or with school or work or whatever it's going to be, their children, their marriage, is that they have fallen into the trap that only what they see exists. If my wife would just fill in the blank, if my husband would begin fill in the blank, if only this, if only that, why can't I? And we're going to try and try and we will do it to the point of utter exhaustion and never once give any honest thought of the second half of reality, of this spiritual war that's going on. All we see are the things that are around us and we do not recognize that our Lord has promised that he will never what leave us nor what forsake us. But we don't act like it do we. The moment adversity strikes us we're ready to abandon. In 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 18, Paul says this, we wanted to come to you, the people in Thessalonica, the Christians. He says, we wanted to come to you, I, Paul, more than once, yet Satan thwarted us. Now, he would be right theologically to say that God prevented it, but the way that God prevented it was by Satan in this one. God was not actively resisting this. He was working it through Satan himself. And Paul just understood it, that he kept trying and trying and trying, but for whatever reason, God was allowing Satan to thwart him in it. And he not saw it, and he understood it. We ourselves do not grasp this, and as a result, I think we ourselves struggle at times to understand that there's a lot more going on than simply what's happening in like North Korea. And we get all nervous and we forget that there's far more taking place here than just some short little man who keeps on wanting to threaten to utterly annihilate us. There's demonic things at work as well. And so what we're going to see over the next few weeks is what's really going on, what's really happening behind the events, what's going on both big and small that have occurred and will occur. But these voices, all in this great anticipation where they know what's been taking place, they've been present and have watched what's been happening behind the scenes, they rise up and they declare that the kingdom of this world has now become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. I want you to notice something there in verse 15. It doesn't say the kingdoms, the King James does, but It's incorrect. It's not the kingdoms of the world. It's the kingdom, the singular kingdom of the world. Why? Well, some actually try to say, well, that's because the kingdom of the world here is the church. Remember how we talked about how there's a desire to try to make the church Israel. And in many ways, they will see symbolisms that relate to the church that really should not be connected to the church. And this is one of them. All they're saying here is, well, the kingdom of the world, which is the church, has now been swallowed up into the full kingdom of their Lord and Savior. But that doesn't fit the context in any way. That's simply reading into the text. Far better would it be to understand that there's a multitude of kingdoms. Yes, we all know about it. There's a kingdom called the United States of America, and there's a kingdom called North Korea, and there's a kingdom called China. We know about that. We know about the old kingdoms of England and of the Greeks and of the Romans and the Medo-Persians. We know about those kingdoms. We've heard about them. But the point is that from the perspective of God and from the perspective of that second part of reality, there are not many kingdoms. There's just one kingdom. There's the kingdom that belongs to Satan. He is described in the Bible as the god of this world or the god of this age. In fact, turn, if you can, to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 4, Remember last week, we saw that the good news that Jesus came preaching at the very beginning, what John the Baptist was preaching, what he was, was repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. that the gospel of the kingdom, the good news that God's kingdom was coming, that was what was being preached. Now, keep that in mind in 2 Corinthians 4 to see how the other part of that reality, the satanic spiritual realm works. In verses 3 and 4, Paul says, even if our gospel is veiled or hidden, What he means there is he talks to people, he shares the gospel with them, and they look at him like he's dumb. They look at him with blank eyes or dead eyes. They just don't care. They get offended. They feel it's narrow-minded, not tolerant, all kinds of things that can happen. He says, even if our gospel is veiled, he says, it is veiled to those who are perishing. Now, what is one of the marks of the one who is perishing? He says, in whose case the God of this world, not the gods, but the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving for what purpose? So that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord or as King, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus's sake." So here what you see is we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel that Jesus is Lord, that he is king. I made it clear last week. You don't have the option of coming to Jesus as merely your sin bearer, but he is your Lord. You are bowing before him. You are declaring that he alone is king. He is your king. You follow him first and foremost. Nothing else gets in front of him. Nothing else compels him or compels you. It is God and his word. You have that, but when you preach that and you tell people, and they're saying, so what is it you believe? I mean, you're not the same person. You're different. Or you say certain things, or you react in a different way than other people. And people start wondering, what is it that is about this? I want to know more. Ultimately, what you are telling them is that you follow a different king. And they're like, well, I don't see him. Well, you don't see your own king. And I can say that to you if you are here and you don't know Jesus Christ. Whether you know it or not, or whether you like it or not, the Bible says that you have a king, and his name is Satan. The Bible would say he is your father, and that is why out of your heart you do the things so naturally that you ought not to do, because you have as a father Satan. He is a god of this age. He is the king of this world. And there is but one kingdom, ultimately. And so in John chapter 12, Jesus talks about Satan as the ruler of this world. Do you grasp that? Do you grasp, beloved, I'm asking you who are Christians, do you see this in your workplace? Do you see this in your home? Do you see it out in your neighborhood? Have you eyes that can see? And if you honestly before the Lord say, I don't have eyes that see, then may I plead with you to pray. Pray that God would give you eyes to see the truth of what 1 John 5 says. For he says that apart from Jesus Christ, the rest of the world lies in the power of the evil one. What's coming out of Hollywood, what's coming out of the book publishers, out of the internet, out of the newspapers, all of it is under the power of the evil one. Do you see that? You say, well, I listen to Fox News because I think they give a better perspective. It still lies in the power of the evil one. Others are shocked that you would ever look at Fox News or fake news or whatever you want to call it. And they say, CNN is my choice. And I look at it and I laugh. I'm like, it's the same garbage. It still lies in the lap of the evil one who was a liar from the what? the beginning. You believe that, right? Satan is the one who lies from the beginning, and yet you get angry when you find out that the news you're hearing is a lie. Why? When it comes from the one in whom they are comfortably cuddled up next to. We have to get eyes that can see, beloved. We've got to stop thinking our salvation is here. And you have got to start looking at some of your friends, some of your family, and stop pretending that they're in some place of neutrality. They are not. There are but two kingdoms. Two. That's it. The kingdom of this world and the kingdom of the Lord. In addition to all these points, there's the reality that the Antichrist will come and he will establish himself over all the world, and we'll see that here in Revelation, where he will become a one-world government. All of the nations will come and profess fealty to him. So here is this kingdom manifesting itself, known as the kingdom of this world. manifesting itself in all kinds of different shapes and sizes in every land and in every heart since the beginning of the world once sin entered in. It's a kingdom in rebellion. It's a kingdom in resistance. It's a kingdom that seeks to push away the true king. A kingdom filled with evil and deception. It's a kingdom that always ends in death. It's a kingdom under the judgment and the wrath of God. It is a kingdom that promises the moon, but only delivers heartache and damnation. It is this kingdom, the kingdom of the seed and offspring of Satan, that has resisted and kills even today the people of God. Its time has come, in this passage, beloved hear me, its time has come to be taken over and replaced by the true king. Is it any wonder why the voices are crying out from heaven? This kingdom that you on good days are actively resisting because you see it for what it is and you hate it. And on your bad days, you've forgotten about, but you wonder why is your day is the way it is. This kingdom filled with so much evil. It's done. So he calls it the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. The trumpet blast is not just noise. The trumpet blast becomes something for both groups. It's a sound of horror for one group, and it's a sound of utter triumph and life for the other. It is a sound of victory and defeat. It's no longer going to be Satan's. And as we work through here, what you're going to see is that happening. He's going to be cast out of heaven. He is going to be bound ultimately for a thousand years while Christ reigns on the earth. And then at the end of that thousand years, he'll be released for a short time where he will then be utterly destroyed and cast into what we call the lake of fire. Most people call it just hell. Where he will be forgotten, which is a great word. He will be forgotten. No one will remember the name of Satan. And he will be destroyed. Today is not the time to lay out everything that's entailed in that. But it is sufficient to note that this is where the end of everything we know begins. It begins by the capturing of the coming judgment of Satan, the binding of Satan, the establishing of the earthly reign of Christ. It's the release of Satan, the final judgment where everything is judged and all things are made new. All of that's captured in these first few verses. and says that He, God, will reign forever. Now again, this helps show what I talked about last week about how complex the doctrine, the teaching on the kingdom of God is. Because on one hand, God has and always will reign. But from this perspective, remember, we look at the kingdom of God and we see different aspects. So from one aspect, we say, yes, God reigns always. But there's another aspect that He does not reign right now in a certain way. He does not exert that kingly rule. Rather, he has given the world over to Satan, and the God of this world currently reigns. But there is a time in the future which we are called to hope for. It's described in the Bible as the blessed hope. We are to eagerly await and yearn for the coming of Jesus Christ, where this new kingdom will come into being. And so this phrase, the kingdom of God and His Christ, this whole section here in Revelation 11 is actually causing your mind, if you know your Bible well enough, to go back to Psalm 2. Now listen, it says, the kingdom of God and of His Christ. You could just as easily say it this way, the kingdom of God and of His anointed, because that's what Christ means. The anointed one, the one anointed to become king. Psalm 2 says this, why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain or futile thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed or against his Christ. That's the image that's going on. It pictures then how, even now, the nations resist and hate God. That's what's taking place, is they don't want God. They don't want God to reign. They don't like His power. They don't like to be frustrated. And so they say, let us tear their fetters apart, how God binds them. And the nations are saying, let's cast away their cords from us. And he who sits in the heavens laughs, and the Lord scoffs at them. And then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury. All of that is coming to fruition here in Revelation 11, where the nations think they're all that. where everyone's talking about their toys and how big their toys are and how destructive their toys are and how powerful they are. And then when it comes, all they find out is that the true king of all time, God himself, is just laughing at them. But he's laughing as he prepares to hurl his fury in all of its might upon them. What's key in our passage, though, is the reaction we see in heaven to this trumpet sound. If you remember back in Chapter 8, when the Lord broke that seventh seal, there was absolute silence in heaven for about a half hour, they said. And I talked about how it's a collective holding of the breath in anticipation. It's an awareness of what's to come, how bad it's going to get. that all of a sudden now the wrath of God is going to begin to unfold. And so there's just this silence. Well, now we have the seventh trumpet being blown, and there's no silence. Instead, not now will there be this quietness. No. No, instead there's noise. There's joy. There's worship. The response in verses 16-18. We see the angelic beings falling down and worshiping. That's what these 24 elders are. They're a type of angel. They're on their thrones, and they fall on their faces, and they're worshiping God. They're filled with overcome and overcome with awe. They're filled with the power and the glory of what is happening, with the glory of what's going on. Because for them, they understand it. See, they see both realities. They see that side that you and I have to fight to see. And they see the side that you and I live in. They know it, and they see it. And they realize that that trumpet has been blown, and that means that night has now turned to day. That death has been turned to life. That evil is destroyed. That Satan is banished. That God's people are no longer victims to be reviled. No, they are now vindicated. Whereas Paul says in Colossians 3 and one of my favorite passages that when Christ is revealed in his glory as king So too shall we be revealed And so what has been faith by faith right now all of a sudden will become sight for us And so what do the angels do they do what they must do they worship they they worship because now they see how the plan of God has come together and They understand what God's been doing and they see it come and work. They give thanksgiving in verse 16 and 17. True thanksgiving that comes from hearts that are humble and rightly related to God. That's yours, a struggle of mine. A proud heart will never give thanks or at least seldom. And only when it works out your way. But pride is not a point of stumbling. They hear the trumpet, they see the work of the Lord, and the immediate response in their worship is to give thanks, and it comes out of their mouth. Think of how many millennia the angels have watched and waited and wondered and sought understanding. Beloved, understand, the Bible makes it clear the angels are not told how everything works. They're left to wonder and to observe, and the Bible says that they actually watch us very closely to see how God works. It's not like they have a little book up there that says, okay, this is how God does everything, and so they're never surprised. They're in a constant state of surprise as they see God work. They marvel that the first advent, where the Son of God took on the likeness of sinful flesh and was born, The angels were there to minister and care for Jesus after his temptation by Satan. After 40 days of fasting where he's tempted in every possible way and stands clean and pure unlike Adam. They came afterward and cared for him. Imagine the whisperings that they must have done as they saw their beloved God in the weakness of humanity sitting there taking all of this garbage from the enemy. All of that hardship and weakness and then they rushed to his side to care for the shock that must have been there When he's on the cross he is able to say that if he wanted to he could bring down More than 12 legions of angels to rescue him. Can you imagine what the angels were doing at that point? They're like, yeah do it do it do it. We're ready. We're ready. We will come And you won't let him come He's going to die instead. He's going to take our sin. He's going to be faithful. What he could do is not what he does. What he should do is not what he does. Instead he becomes sinful and his father turns his back on him and he dies the death that you and I should have died and takes on the wrath of God that we should have had. Think of the amazement when it finally says that he gave up his spirit and he died. And the angel saw that. Imagine their joy when they saw the father raise him from death. And the joy of the angel announcing this as people went into the tomb and found that he was gone. And now, millennia later, thousands of years later now, they rejoice and they're giving thanks because everything is now coming to pass. Now, notice the details of what they say in verse 17. We give you thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was. It's all King stuff. He is the Almighty One, meaning all-powerful. Power belongs to Him. Nothing can resist Him. Nothing can hold Him back. And so He is exerting His authority now upon this world. This world that thought for all these thousands of years it can do what it wants, He is saying, no, you can't. The best, and it's not much of an image, but the best I can give you is where your kid is being a pain. Is just disobeying you and disobeying you and you're overlooking it and you're allowing some grace there for whatever reason and he just really thinks he's full of it and Then all sudden your patience comes to an end you like to stop now And you take a hold of him and all sudden fear is in that little boy's face because they realize I don't know Where that line was, but I know one thing I'm over it And I know my children all cross that line on one occasion or others. And I remember with great terror in my mind the times I crossed it with my father, where it was like, no more. It stops now. Well, that's what's happening here. He's the Almighty One. In verse 17, they talk about His reign, that His reign is for eternity. Notice, though, how it's written, because in verse 4 of chapter 1, it said of Jesus that He is the one who is, who was, and who is to come. But notice here that last part's not there anymore. Why? Because He's come. The kingdom is now the Lord's, and so He's come. And I love the way it's rendered, because you have taken your great power And you have begun to reign. They're worshiping him. They're crying out with thanksgiving. And they're saying, you have taken your great power, that power that he withheld and did not utterly destroy in a moment all of creation, though he had the right to. That power, he says, you have taken it and you have begun to reign. Listen, I lack the ability. I pray that God will help us. The fact that you're not weeping right now, shows you how abstract that is to you. The fact that I can't, that I can still talk right now shows you how cold my heart is to those realities. We can talk about it. But we are far too content with this age. that we can look at those words that you have taken your great power and you have begun to reign and we can nod and maybe make a couple of notes in our book, but our hearts are not filled with the joy of what is to come. We do not see the greatness of this statement. I always have had this picture in my mind of some great enemy of Christians, maybe in Indonesia. For some reason, it's always there. I think it's because of the story that I read of one where two Christian women were coming down a path. They were Christians and they were set upon by these Muslims who hated them and hated Christ. And they captured them and they beheaded them. They took their heads and they just laid them between their feet as a point of shame and dishonor and they went on their way. These two women were doing nothing. They were just coming back from the market and all of a sudden they're beset upon and a sharp knife is hacking at their neck until their head is taken. And in all of the fullness of the dishonor of that moment, they look to be weak. And in my mind, I keep having this picture. It's not like some vision, it's just how my brain works. That there will be a day where somebody will have a hold of some poor Christian woman that will have her hair in their hand, and they will be laughing and cursing and mocking, where is your God now? and they will be bringing that knife down, and on that day, and on that moment, Christ comes. And everything's changed. She's now revealed in the fullness of who she really is, not some poor victim, but the one who is the more than conqueror. That she is the one who serves the Almighty King. And that the kingdom of this age that despises Christ and his people has become the kingdom of the Lord. That's what they're saying. At this point, everything becomes resolved. There's no more pain, there's no more suffering, no more evil. It's finished. And he confronts the nations in verse 18. This idea of the rebellion of the nations is something you see throughout the Bible. Go into Genesis 11 where they were told to don't turn there, but just in your brain go there. They were told to scatter and fill the earth. No, they're not going to do that. They're going to all stay together and build this great big, huge steeple. Ziggurat is what it's called, and they're going to rise it up to the heavens. And so God comes down and he confuses their language to force them to scatter. They just don't want to obey. They don't want to listen. We see it in the kingdoms resisting God when they captured Lot, and Abraham had to go and do war with them and rescue him. You see the kingdoms who are being confronted when the Egyptian army hates and enslaves God's people. And in each succeeding empire, each rising and falling at the will of God, all of them are enemies of God. Finally later on in Revelation, you'll see this explicitly Described in the end just before eternity where all the nations come at the behest of Satan and all of them rush to destroy Christ and it says a great fire from heaven came and devoured them and It was done He also talks in verse 18 about the reward of the Saints and where we see the goodness of God as he welcomes his people into their rest. He sees them and gathers them. It's described in the Gospels in a great way where we enter into the joy of our master. What was tears is now filled with the joy of our Lord. And we find their rewards. And everyone wants to know, well, how are these rewards worked out? And the Bible won't tell us. So there's all kinds of questions, but we do know that God will reward people in accordance to their faithfulness and in accordance to what they did and didn't do. How that's done and what is done is unknown, but it's sufficient to know that it's going to come from the Father who loves us. He breaks this down then into various groups who are worth noting. He talks about the prophets, which are referring to the prophets of the Old Testament, their servants. They were so often hated and reviled. They were so often persecuted and executed, as they kept going back to the people of God, proclaiming the way of life and being ignored. Then he talks about the saints, who is us. Everyone else who believes in God, who is resting in the finished work of Jesus, who are Christians. They're saints because they're set apart and holy to Jesus. They're holy under the Lord, and they're also described in other ways. There are those who fear the name of God. They are the great and the small. None are missed. In other words, none are missed. All of them are brought in and all of them come into the presence of the Lord. And so like that one hymn says, what a day of rejoicing that will be. And God's judgment is rendered in verse 18. Those who hated Christ, those who hated and ignored His people, they're all going to be judged. The destroyers will be destroyed. Everyone who is yawning and shrugging and spitting and hating the people of God and the things of God shall find themselves bowing before God. Let me say it to you very simply. Some of you I know for a fact that you are actively Bored with God I Know it and you know I know it, so I'm talking to you and anyone else who fits into that Do not think you're getting by with anything Do not think that somehow you can escape the scrutiny of the Lord do not think that you can hate and ignore and treat as nothing and the king of the universe and then somehow on that day get by with it. And do not be a fool that will think I will do it tomorrow. On that day when that trumpet is sounded there will be a lot of people who wish they had one more day. And they won't. Jesus is Lord, and they will confess that but they won't confess it to their salvation. They will confess it to their damnation and So in verse 19 the heavenly temple responds, so what's happening? It's very simple Though the reality is anything but simple. It's the coming of the judgment of God that now the heavens is revealed and opened up the Ark of the Covenant of where God is shown His faithfulness and His promises are seen. All of that is showing and coming forth out of the heavenly temple is judgment. You can read about it in chapter 15. In verses 5 through 8, it's similar in Romans 118 where it says the wrath of God comes from heaven. We like to think of heaven as a happy place, but it's also a place where judgment comes. And here in this text, with all this lightning, the sounds, the peals of thunder, the earthquake, all of that, all it's picturing is God has now entered into our time and space and he is dealing with us. So in conclusion, all we have here is, it's amazing, but we have the unveiling of the final victory of God. And what we're gonna do over the next several weeks, Lord willing, is unravel that as we go through the rest of the book of Revelation. But the takeaway from this, if you've got one thing to take away, it's that the battle is done. In this word, in this short word, it is that we have entered into the fullness of our salvation. We have not seen that yet. But we're given a glimpse of what it is here in this passage, and that's what we ought to do.