But this is why we're here. We're here to worship the Lord, to give Him our attention, and we trust that He will speak to us through His Word in very personal ways, practical ways. enlightening our minds. Father, open our eyes that we may behold wonderful things out of your word. Lord, help us to rightly proclaim it. Help us to rightly hear it. Help us, Lord, not to be hearers only, but to be doers. Let us walk in the light as you are in the light, that we might have fellowship with one another. We thank you for the cleansing power of your blood. We thank you for the presence of your Holy Spirit. Thank you that the Holy Spirit is our teacher. And we pray that he would be teaching today and inspiring us, Lord. We do set our hope upon this future grace. You're appearing, you're coming to reign on the earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And we ask this in Jesus matchless name, amen. So we're coming to the pivotal point of human history. It's the day of fulfilling the gospel of the kingdom, the arrival of the King. I've titled the message, The Return of the King. And next to the subject of faith in God, no subject is dealt with more in the Bible than the second coming of Christ. For every verse referring to the first coming of Christ, there are eight times more referring to the second coming of Christ. There are 7,957 verses in the New Testament. 330 of those verses are about the second coming of Christ. That's one out of 25. There are 23,145 verses in the Old Testament. And listen to this, there's 1,527 verses referring to the second coming of Christ. Over 50 times we are exhorted in the Bible to prepare and be ready for the event. And that we're talking about generations throughout the history should be living in the light of what is to come in the future. This shows that there is a resurrection. As the apostle Paul said, if it were just this life, we would be most miserable, but we live in the light of an eternal future and a future for the children of God. We are coming to the climax in the book of Revelation. Jesus spoke about it 21 times. He says that he's coming even in the book of Revelation in the 22nd chapter, we hear him saying again. I am coming soon, I am coming soon. We need to hear this because it sorts out our mind. It separates the fluff, the things that are temporal, really not that important. You don't sweat the small stuff when you know that Jesus Christ is coming back to reign. You don't lay up your treasures on the earth where moth and rust will destroy when you know Jesus is coming again. It affects the way you live because you know that one day when he comes, he's going to be the judge of all and we'll stand before him. We can't boast in our own righteousness. We can't boast in our own works, but there will be evidence shown at the judgment seat of whether we have been regenerated, whether we've come alive, whether we're born again. Those who are born again are going to be presenting the fruits of righteousness. There's going to be an evidence in a changed life that will be our works. We're not saved by works, but we're going to see that our works will be judged. And if there is the life of Christ within a believer, there will be evidence in the way the believer lives, how he walks, how he talks, all of that comes to light in the judgment. So when Jesus says, be ready for my coming, he means that, he means walk in the light. He means walk in the truth, walk in the spirit, walk in love, continue in the word. Don't forsake the opportunities to assemble together. Live in the light of his coming. You're his people. You have a future. Those who know Christ have responsibilities in the future age. They will judge angels. They're responsibilities that we will have. And as I've said many times, we are in training for reigning. And when you're going through a hard time and you're learning patience and you're learning how to endure and how to get the long view in life and you're waiting for certain things to happen, this is all very important in the curriculum of being prepared for the coming of Christ. The book of Revelation began with this. Remember John the apostle said in Revelation chapter one, verse seven, behold, he is coming in the clouds and every eye will see him. Even those who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. So it is to be, amen. So there will be rejoicing and there will be mourning when Christ returns. For the believer, a person who has heaven's thinking, a person whose mind is renewed, it's an event to rejoice over. But for those who don't believe, it will be a time of inconsolable sorrow. all the tribes of the earth will mourn. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." The gnashing of teeth is the expression of regret. Why, why, why did I live my life without a mind to be prepared for the second coming of Christ? Why did I live for the trinkets that are just hollow things when I could have glorified my maker? Think of it. The book of Revelation says, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honor and glory. And what did we give him? Thou has made all things for thy pleasure and for thy pleasure they were created. Did we please the Lord with our lives? Those are questions that will be examined at the coming of Christ. because when Christ comes, he's coming with a forceful intervention at the battle of Armageddon. Hebrews 9, verse 28 says that Christ came the first time to bear the sins of many. We all know that, that Christ came into the world to be the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world. When he was born, it was not every eye shall see him. He was born in obscurity in Bethlehem. And there was no great fanfare. The angels were recognizing the event, but the press didn't. It wasn't covered as a major happening. But believe me, when Christ comes a second time, every eye will see him. No one's going to miss this. So Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear the second time for salvation without reference to sin. Now think about that. There's part of our salvation that is not referencing sin. So it's, fulfilling the purpose of our salvation. What are we saved for? You know what you're saved from, right? You're saved from the condemnation and the wrath that your sins deserve when you trust Christ. But you know that you're also saved too. You're saved to know Him. You're saved to reign with Him. You're saved to be His eternal companion, as we learned last week, the bride of Christ. Now, sometimes guys get a little freaked out by that. What does it mean to be a bride? I guess ladies get a bit freaked out by being a son of God. But the truth is those are not terms relating to gender. So women and men are sons of God. It's a word that refers to legally qualified to receive an inheritance. Ladies, you're qualified just as qualified as men to receive sonship, all the privileges that go with it. And men, you are called to receive all the benefits of being the bride of Christ. Think of a poor girl who's got tons of student loan debts. And then she marries this rich guy. Immediately, all her debts are gone, and all the wealth of the bank account is hers. You know, the same thing is true with the bride of Christ. He takes the full debt. The bridegroom, Jesus, takes the full debt of our sin, our entire debt load, and then he gives us all he has. Only one bank account, we share it with him. That's glorious. So we've seen in this book, the Bible, that Jesus Christ came the first time to be the required Lamb of God. When we see the word Lamb of God, it refers to The phrase refers to Jesus's role as savior. It's a symbol for him being the substitute, the spotless substitutionary sacrifice, the second person of the Trinity, the eternal son of God, whom the Bible declares to be the word of God, the creator and sustainer of all things. He willingly chose to be our redeemer, to be led like a lamb to the slaughter, to take the punishment that our sins deserved, when he knew no sin. And as we saw last week, he's doing this out of love. He didn't have to do this. He did this willingly. We learned last week that there was the creation of the heavenly beings and there was a creation of the earthly beings. There were two falls in history, correct? There's the fall of Adam, the fall of mankind. But prior to that, there was the fall of the angels. Now, we learned last week, are the angels intelligent? Do the angels have feelings? Do the angels get an opportunity for redemption? No. And God is good and righteous and judge in doing that. Now, the issue is, are we intelligent? Well, maybe not as intelligent as the angels, but we have an intelligence. Do we have feelings? Yes. And having fallen, having rebelled against God, are we given an opportunity to be redeemed? Yes. Do we deserve it? No. God out of his grace, God so loved the world that he did for us what he did not do for the angels, that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believes on him should not perish. even though they deserve to perish, but have everlasting life. What if a person rejects God's offer and does not believe in the Son of God? John goes on to say in chapter three of his gospel, verse 36, he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. You know, the wrath of God is being expressed even now in the life of the unbeliever. It's expressed in different ways. We learn in Ephesians chapter two that we are born separated from God, dead in our sins and trespasses and how we are children of wrath. And the wrath of God is expressed in the ways that are described in Romans chapter one, for example, in verse 21, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became what? Fools. This is an expression, this is a manifestation of the wrath of God, the foolishness of the human race. And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. It's interesting, yesterday, my wife and I, we went like where they have that gathering, all the old-fashioned cars, people bring their fashion cars and people are kind of bowing down to these old cars. And it just crossed my mind again, how the order of the apostle Paul describing idolatry is sort of in the progression of the names of cars. We've had the first cars in the form of corruptible man. What were they called? Fords, named after the men. Then we had the form of birds, falcon, thunderbirds, four-footed animals, jaguars, cougars, mustangs, crawling creatures. Cobra? There you go. So you just see, we have idolatries in our culture. That's a form of really the stupidity of man. It's stupidity to be worshiping things when we were created to worship the creator. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. What we're seeing in our society with its gross aberrance from his design for sexuality That's an expression of the wrath of God. God giving people over to their own desires is an expression of the wrath of God that is abiding upon the unbelieving world. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Do you know one out of 25 people are gonna have a sexually transmitted disease? And it wasn't in 2025, that's sort of the estimation. So it's rampant epidemic. People are experiencing the consequences of going their own way. But the judgment of abandonment is mild compared to the kind of judgment that we see in the book of Revelation. Yesterday, we had a series of severe storms, didn't we? And did your house shake with the thunder? Boy, and last week we heard about the voice of God being like a thunder. You know, what we heard yesterday was it's peanuts compared to the voice that will thunder at the judgment. And then, you know, there were hailstones in the southern part of Massachusetts. Some of them were measured and they were just huge hailstones that were denting cars. And there were downed trees and branches strewn about. And on the radio, one person being interviewed said, wow, it looks like Armageddon. Not quite. Not quite. Very mild compared to what's going to happen at Armageddon. You see, Jesus is and always will be the Lamb of God. He came the first time to be the Lamb of God. We see him in the book of Revelation as the Lamb of God who sits upon the throne. He is going to bear for eternity the marks of his suffering on the cross. When we see him in the book of Revelation, enthroned in glory, the glorious Son of God. He will have the nail scars in his hands. He chose to keep them as an emblem of his love. But when we see him, he's a lamb as if he were slain. That's how we will see him. Isn't that interesting? We get bodies without scars, glorified bodies. And the one who paid for our sins has holes in his hands. He's returning. not as a meek lamb. He's returning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So let's look at the scriptures, chapter 19, starting with verse 11. I saw in heaven standing open. I saw heaven standing open. This is what we're looking into now. We're getting heaven's point of view. I heard on the news yesterday, they said, now more than ever, it's important where you get your news from. And you know, it is important where we get our news from, because there's a lot of people who can't separate fiction from fact these days. There's a lot of fake news out there. But I tell you, what we have in the Bible is faithful and true, reliable. It's very important where you get your news from. Let's get it from heaven. I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dripped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried out with a loud voice saying to all the birds which fly in mid heaven, come assemble for the great supper of God. so that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of commanders, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. And the beast was seized with him. And the beast was seized and with him, the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire, which burns with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword, which came from the mouth of him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. It's quite a gruesome picture that we have here, but it is one that we need to take to heart. So let's look at the return of the king We believe that the King is returning. As I've said, it's important in scripture, it's prevalent in scripture and the promises of God demand it. The gospel of our salvation contains the gospel of the kingdom and that means the promised reign of Jesus Christ on the earth. Now, sometimes people fudge on this and they'll just sort of say, yeah, I believe in Jesus, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, but they have no real awareness of the kingdom of God. No real awareness of what it means to know Jesus as their personal Lord and savior who is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. And so let's just take some of the promises of the first coming and let's look at them carefully and to see how they are fulfilled. You remember when the angel Gabriel came to Mary and said to Mary that you will be with child and give birth to a son in Luke 1 31. And you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and would be called the son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end. Did the first part of this prophecy come to pass? Did Mary give birth to a son? Was he given the name Jesus? Jesus meaning God to the rescue. God is savior. He yet reigning over the house of Jacob. No, not yet. Is his kingdom rule undisputed right now? No. You see this part of the promise still has to come. The promises of God demand the second coming of Christ. You remember that there was the covenant made with David, the King of Israel. And the Lord said through his prophet, 2 Samuel 7, 12, when your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you who will come from your own body and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Has this been fulfilled yet? No. Isaiah chapter two, verse four. And remember this is written on the wall in New York city outside the United Nations. Half the verse missing the subject of the sentence. We all know the phrase beating swords into plowshares, don't we? Everybody has that in their utopian vision, but the prophecy demands the return of the king before this can happen. Notice it's Isaiah chapter two, verse four, and he will judge between the nations, the judgment of the nations, which we read about in the book of Revelation, and will render decisions for many peoples. and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation and never again will they learn war. We all know about the prophecy in Isaiah nine, verse six, for a child will be born for us and a son is given and the government will rest upon his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. So Jesus is fulfilling his promise when his second coming, he's coming to reign on the earth, he's coming to judge the nations, all eyes will see him and every person will face this judge in different capacities, there are different judgments. Now we know it's appointed for all men once to die and then the judgment, Hebrews 9, verse 27. And we've learned a little bit about the judgment of believers works before the marriage supper of the lamb. And we learned about that in the past. But there will be a judgment at the second coming of Christ. Just to put it in perspective, and I know this is review for many of you. First, Jesus in the plan of salvation comes to his own. The promise was given to Abraham that through his seed, the families of the earth will be blessed. Abraham, the father of the, the nation of Israel. And so Jesus came to the Jews. He was born under the law. He was of the tribe of Judah, and he came to his own. But John 1, verse 11 says, he came to his own. And those who were his own did not receive him. Now, there were believers who did receive. The first disciples were Jews. But in general, we could say that in his first coming, he was not received by his own. But to as many as received him, to them he gave the legal right to become the children of God. Secondly, he comes for his own. You remember Jesus said in the upper room, using the betrothal speech given in a Hebrew wedding. We spoke about that, how in the process of events for a wedding, if a man wanted to be married to his intended, usually it was a choice that was made, the bride was selected, but the bride had a choice. The bride could say, no, I don't want to enter into this contract, or I do. The same thing, you remember when Abraham sent a servant out to get a bride for his son Isaac, that we know that Rebecca had the opportunity to say no, but she said, I will go, I will go. When you had your marriage ceremony, there is a time where the bride says, I do. There is a consent. So this was not forced upon them. he comes for his own. These are people who are saying yes to the invitation. And then Jesus in the upper room follows through with the tradition of the Israeli wedding, which is that he pours a glass of wine, a cup of wine, and the terms of the covenant are spelled out. When Jesus is with his disciples in the upper room, I'm sure some of them were saying, hmm, elbowing each other. This is like being at a wedding. Because he's reciting these promises, covenant promises. He's saying, you believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house, there are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you. And this is just what a bridegroom would say. to his intended, I'm going to go back to my father's house and I'm going to build a marriage chamber where we will live. And so he's going to leave his bride after a legal betrothal, a covenant that's made And as we said last week, it's a legal covenant. In order to get out of a betrothal contract, you needed a bill of divorce. It was taken that seriously. And then the pouring of the first cup is when the bride accepts the terms of the covenant. And Jesus said, this is the new covenant in my blood. Do you remember that in the upper room? And he was speaking of all the promises given in Jeremiah 31, where your sins and your iniquities, I will remember no more. He's speaking about his role in going to the cross. and offering forgiveness. But then what does he say? He says, and I'm going away. He talked about going away. And then he says, you will not drink this again until I drink it with you in my father's kingdom. You see there are two wedding contracts and there are two wedding cups. There's the cup of betrothal. That's what we see in the upper room. And then there is the cup of the actual marriage supper. And that's what we see in Revelation chapter 19. So Jesus says here, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. He's speaking of a marriage. Ladies, men. You're going to, you're saved for a future reigning with Christ. And the intimacy of our relationship with Christ in every way will surpass what we experience in the best marriages on the earth. Sometimes people struggle with their marriages. It doesn't go easily in their married life. Some people don't get married. Well, I wanna tell you, if you're a believer, you have a marriage to look forward to. It's a utopian marriage. It's a perfect marriage. It's a marriage where there is no sin. It's a marriage where you share in the work of your husband. It is a satisfying marriage. This is the promise. And you know, another thing that happens in the Israeli wedding is that the man has to leave a dowry. The man leaves a dowry saying that I'm gonna compensate the father of the bride with a gift. And so the bride is purchased. And don't we know that the bride of Christ was purchased by the blood of Jesus? But then he gives a gift of earnest, like I'm going to go through with this wedding contract. And what is that gift? It's the gift of the Holy Spirit. And what a great gift we have to assure us that our bridegroom is gonna come for us. And that gift is something that's given to the woman to remember her husband to be. And Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit and he talks about in the upper room about the Holy Spirit bringing remembrance of him. Isn't that wonderful? And then he says, every time you get together and you break bread and you take the cup, remember me, remember me, remember you're engaged. Remember, you're going to meet your husband one day. Remember, he's coming back for you. So you see the two cups now? There's the cup that's in the first covenant of betrothal, and then there is the cup when the marriage is fulfilled at the marriage supper of the Lamb. And so he's coming for his own. And we read about this in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. So this happens before the return of Christ. It has to happen before because of things that I'll tell you about in the sequence of events. Now, I know that their people have different views on the timing of the rapture, but we do know in the sequence it has to happen before the marriage supper of the lamb. It has to happen before the return of Christ because he's going to return with his own in Revelation chapter 19 and the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen. We already knew who were clothed in fine linen. Those are the redeemed. Those are the saints, white and clean with the righteousness of Christ. They were following him on white horses. Zechariah chapter 14, verse four. In that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from the east to the west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half towards the south. You will flee by the valley of my mountains. For the valley of mountains will reach to Azel. Yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. For the Lord, then the Lord, my God will come and all the holy ones with him. I didn't realize I had that on the screen for you. Then the Lord, my God, will come and all the holy ones with him. You see, this is all prophesied in the Old Testament as well. The book of Jude chapter one, verse 14. It was also about these men that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying, behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. So he comes first to his own, then he comes for his own, that's the rapture of the church, then he comes with his own, and this is the second coming of Christ. And when he comes at the second coming, he is going to be separating the sheep from the goats, and there'll be a distinction. There are so many different prophecies that will be fulfilled. Richard Mayhew writes, he says, if the rapture takes place in connection with our Lord's post-tribulational second coming, the subsequent separation of the sheep from the goats would be redundant. Separation would have already taken place in the very act of the rapture. And he has a very good point there. So when he comes to the earth, what is he going to do? He's going to separate the sheep from the goats. If there's a rapture that occurs at the end of the tribulation, the separation would have to already have taken place in that event. And there would not be a need for a separation of the sheep from the goats. So the purpose of his coming again is to establish his kingdom in righteousness. Revelation 1911, and I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he who sat on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness. He judges and wages war. We see him on a white horse. White horse is a symbol of a victor, someone coming to conquer, to judge and to wage war. So when Christ comes the second time, he's coming to conquer, to judge and to wage war. The first time when we see him coming into Jerusalem, is he riding a white horse? No, he's riding what? And this is fulfilling the prophecy in Zechariah 9.9. It speaks the first time he's coming in peace to make peace. Remember he says, peace I leave with you. Speaking of the peace of the cross. Not as this world gives peace, do I give it unto you. I'm giving you peace by dealing with the real issue that's caused the war, sin. And he became a sin offering on the cross. He laid down his life. That's why he came the first time. Humble, meek, riding on a donkey. as the king, as the promised Messiah to make peace. And remember, we saw earlier in the book of Revelation, someone else riding a white horse. Who was that? The Antichrist. And in Revelation chapter six, verse two, we see that this is a little different. This one on a white horse is coming from heaven. Where's this one coming from? The pit. Who is sending the Antichrist in Revelation chapter six? The dragon. And the dragon is? Satan, the devil. So there's a distinction there. But what does the Antichrist come to do? He comes to conquer. He comes as a person who's extending a false peace with a false prophet and a false message and bringing people under deception to want to attack the king. Jesus Christ returns, we're gonna see that mankind is so deceived that they think they can take God on in a fight. They're cruising for a bruising, to put it mildly. So he's coming, first of all, to establish a kingdom in righteousness. Secondly, he's coming to judge the nations. In verse 15, from his mouth comes a sharp sword. Always, this is again, symbolic language. It's apocryphal language. It's speaking of the power of his word. He's going to judge everything by the word of God. What is your relationship to the word of God, church? It's one thing to be hearing these words that come from the Bible, but what is your relationship to them? Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you still a child of wrath? because this sharp sword is gonna divide the sheep from the goats so that he may strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the almighty. And this is all a fulfillment of one of the Psalms that's featured most in the Bible, Psalm 2. Remember, we've come across this as we studied the book of Acts. Many times it's referred to in the book of Acts. But I just want us to go through it. If you have your Bibles, turn to Revelation 2. If you don't have it, excuse me, Psalm 2. If not, it's on the screen for you. But I think it's good to get it through the eye gate. And being that this Psalm is quoted so often in the New Testament, it's good that you become familiar with it. Again, this is speaking about heaven's viewpoint on the events that we're reading about in the book of Revelation. Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. And remember that's capital letters. When you see it in capital letters, it's referring to Yahweh, it's father God. And when you see it with just capital L and lowercase O-R-D, it speaks of Adonai, the son of God, against the Lord, that is against God almighty and against his anointed, speaking of the Christ, saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. Then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury, saying, but as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are those who take refuge in him? Friends, this warning was given 3,000 years ago. God is making it very clear. He is compassionate and he's loving, but he's also just. And if you have a God who's all loving, who always does what you think best, is you're worshiping yourself. You're worshiping an idol. But the God who is, the God who is real is a God who is true. He is absolutely good. He's absolutely holy. He's absolutely loving, but he's absolutely just. And he says, sin must be punished. And it sounds very severe here because it is severe, but so is his mercy. His mercy is absolutely mind bogglingly real. Let's look at the person who's coming again. First of all, he's called faithful and true. This refers to his character. He who sat on it, that is a white horse, is called faithful and true. Faithful means consistent, reliable. It refers to him being a faithful witness. What he says will not mislead you. You remember Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate before he was crucified and Pilate asked, what is it that you've done? Why have they brought you to me? And Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Jesus said, you say correctly that I am a king. For this, I have been born. And for this, I have come into the world to testify to the truth. He is a faithful witness. He is a true witness. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him, what is truth? Jesus did not have to answer, he just stood there because he is the truth. Remember earlier he said in John 19 6, I am the way, the truth and the life. Truth is that which corresponds perfectly to reality. Jesus needs to say nothing, he is. What will you do with this Christ? Pilate said, I find no guilt in him. We've come across this expression, faithful and true, already in the book of Revelation, chapter three, verse 14. The angel of the church in Laodicea was told to write the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God says this. So a faithful witness means one you can rely upon. A true witness means that there's no contradictory statement. So for example, If you can have two statements and both of those statements be erroneous, correct? Or you could have one statement true, but if one statement is true, the contradicting statement is false. That's the law of non-contradiction. He's a faithful witness means that his promises are all true. His declarations are all true. And we as believers can take great hope in this because it means that even the promises that are given to us that have not yet been fulfilled, we can bank on them. Second Corinthians chapter one verse 20 says, for as many as are the promises of God in him, they are yes. Therefore also through him is our amen to the glory of God through us. So we know that he is faithful. He is true. And his judgments are righteous. He never leaves somebody under punished or over punished. He exacts perfect punishment in his justice. We've learned about that already as we've gone through the book of Revelation. Let's look at his eyes. What are his eyes like? His eyes are a flame of fire. It speaks of him knowing us through and through. He doesn't judge upon the outward appearances. He knows what's in your heart. He knows what you're thinking about. He sifts our thoughts. He's a critic of our thoughts. He knows what thoughts are distorted, what thoughts are true. He knows us through and through. His eyes have a penetrating gaze. I also think of his eyes as a flame of love, too, a flame of passion. But it's also, it's a holy fire. We know that the Holy Spirit is called the spirit of burning. and basically burns away the dross, burns away all that is waste to purify. And so his eyes are like a flame of fire. He's all-knowing, he's penetrating in his gaze, he's purifying in his gaze, he's loving in his gaze. Look at his head. This represents his being all-powerful as God. On his head are many diadems. Diadems are ruler's crowns. We have this incident in the Old Testament when David, in 2 Samuel chapter 12, fights against the people of Rabbah. And in verse 30, he says, when he captured the people of Rabbah, he took the crown of their king from his head, and its weight was a talent of gold, and it was a precious stone. and in it was a precious stone, and it was placed on David's head, and he brought out the spoil of the city in great amounts. What does this mean then? This is a symbolic picture. It means the kingdom of this world will become the kingdoms of our God. All the crowns of those on the earth are going to be on him. He's not going to be like that with all these crowns on him, but it's a picture of all power, all dominion belonging to Jesus. That's the head. So we see that this is a picture of his deity. Jesus is God. And we see his prerogatives being that of deity here, because he has a name written known only to himself. And he has a name written on him, which no one knows except himself. Many people ask, what is that name? What is that name? Guess what? I don't know. And guess what? There are a lot of things you don't know and I don't know about Jesus. And even when we get to heaven, there are going to be things that you don't know about him. Someone said eternity is simply the measure of time in which it takes to get to know him. I like that. Deuteronomy chapter 29, 29 tells us that the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe the words of this law. Let's look at his robe. His robe, he's clothed with a robe dripped in blood. Now this is not speaking of the blood that he shed upon the cross. but this speaks of when he exacts justice. It's a fulfillment of a prophecy and the Jews who read this book would understand this is right from Isaiah chapter 63, verse one. Who is this who comes from Edom with garments of glowing colors from Basra? This one who is majestic in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red and your garments like the one who treads in the wine press. I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with me. I also trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption has come. I looked and there was no one to help. And I was astonished that there was no one to uphold. And so my own arm brought salvation to me and my wrath upheld me. I trod down the peoples in my anger and made them drunk in my wrath. And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth." So this is from God's point of view. He looks upon the human race. Remember, he made the universe and he made us for a relationship with himself. And then he does everything that he can possibly do to salvage this humanity. He sends his own son who takes the place of the guilty, takes the punishment they deserve. So the wrath of God against sin can be turned away from the repentant sinner. But if there is no repentance, what else can he do? He's saying here, I looked and there was no one to help. There's nothing else that can be done. So what has to be done? Justice has to be exacted, and that's what we see at the Battle of Armageddon, and we see it at the judgment. So that's what his robe is about. Sixthly, we look at his name, and his name is called the Word of God. Again, this refers to his deity. There are some people I know that when they come to know, they hear a message like this, they didn't know that Jesus' life didn't begin when he was born. I remember someone told me that they were in their church in town here and they saw an open Bible to John chapter one and they read it and they said, I never knew that Jesus had a life before he was born. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And he was in face-to-face fellowship with God. This is who Jesus is. He is the logos, the full thought of God. He's the perfect articulation of truth is the alpha and the omega, which means he's the full alphabet. Everything that is said of God is found in him. He's the truth about God. He is the word of God. Verse 16, and on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Do you know him this way? He's not God in your pocket. He's not Jesus, a little rabbit foot. He's not here to make you have your best life now. And if your best life is now, that means you're going to hell later. because we of men are most miserable in this life compared to what we have. What we have in this life cannot compare to what we have in glory. Seventhly, look at his mouth. From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations. Look at his rod, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. We spoke about this in referring to Psalm 2. It's not going, when he rules, his commands are not going to be suggestions. For those of us who are rightly related to God through faith and have the Holy Spirit, we're gonna love to do what he says. But there's some people who will rebel. You know, there are going to be people who are unsaved in the millennium. We'll talk about that later on. And there will be people who struggle with the rule of God. Let's look at his feet. And he treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. Again, this is making a reference to the Old Testament prophets. In the prophet Joel, you can read it in chapter three. Because of time, I'm going to skip that. But you can read about his feet But let's look now at the partners of the king. These are the saints. We've spoken about the bride. We've spoken about the guests. We see that they're Old Testament saints. We see that they're tribulational saints. And then we see that there's a company of people who've been saved from Pentecost to the rapture, that's called the church. And so we have these armies that are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, that were following him on white horses to reign with him. And that just is a symbolic way of showing our partnership in the kingdom to come. And then we see in the clothes, the actual battle of Armageddon, the presumption of the lost. We see how deceived humanity gets in thinking that it can take on almighty God in a battle. Jesus spoke of this in his Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24. He says in verse 27, just as the lightning comes from the east and the flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the son of man be. wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. So we have this very dramatic picture of a devastation where there are just all these dead bodies. and there are vultures coming to feed on it. Again, this is a symbolic picture of death. Verse 17, then I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried out with a loud voice saying to all the birds which fly in mid heaven, come assemble for the great supper of God. So that you may eat the flesh of the kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both freemen and slaves and small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army. And the beast was seized and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. And the rest were killed with a sword which came from the mouth of him who sat on the horse and all the birds were filled with their flesh. So in the apocalyptic language, we have a contrast between two kingdoms. a contrast between the rulers of this world and the one ruler who's fit to reign forever, the Son of God, the Word of God, whose witness is faithful and true, whose name is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We see two suppers, don't we? There's a marriage supper of the Lamb, and there's rejoicing, and there is a fulfillment of a promise. But we also see that there's a fulfillment of a promise here, but this is a different kind of a supper. It's called the Supper of God. It's basically the realization of destruction. You know, as I've been researching for the new production of New Life Fine Arts, Esther, the Zoroastrians of the Persian Empire, they would have these towers that they built for their burial services. They would be these towers of silence. And what they do with the bodies is they would put the bodies on the tops of these little peaks. And they would have the birds of the air come and just pick away at the corpses. And this is what they thought in Zoroastrian was a means of purifying the spirit. And then eventually, once all the pickings were gone over, they would bury them in pits. But in the minds of the hearers, these images make sense. This speaks of a judgment being exacted and a very stark contrast between those people who choose life and those people who choose death. Jesus says that there are two roads. There's a broad road that leads to what? Destruction. But then there is a narrow road. and a gate that is straight, and that leads to what? Life. And so he basically says, do something. And church, will you please do something with this message? Choose life. Choose salvation. And salvation is more than just the forgiveness of your sins. It's more than being delivered from the wrath of God. It's more than just not perishing. It's about you participating in a future with a king, with a kingdom. History is directional. It has a purpose, it has a destination. Where will you be in the future? Where will you be a thousand years from now? That's a real question. Because as we've learned, there's a real hell, eternal suffering in a place that was prepared for Satan and his angels who cannot be redeemed. And there is a very real place called heaven. Where will you be? And all really depends upon whether you will humble your heart, whether you will see your need, and get to the place when you realize you're not sort of a sinner and need sort of a salvation. You know if you were to die today and God were to ask you, okay, what kind of righteousness do you have? You know that you would have no righteousness to stand on in your own. How many can say amen to that? That the only righteousness we have is the one we sang about when we started this worship service. I come by the blood. the blood of Christ, for I dare not stand in my righteousness. My every hope rests in what Christ has done. By him and his blood and faith in his blood, I come. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are a faithful and true witness. You have told us the truth because you love us. You would deliver us from our deceptions. our self-righteousness. Lord, we are here today to recognize our need for you. Lord, I pray that if there's anybody hearing this message, that they would see that there's an opportunity for them even now to turn from their sin and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the good news. This is the good news that you have provided a way, a way to escape, a way to participate in an eternal purpose, one that far exceeds anything that we could imagine of meaning in this life. We thank you for satisfied hearts and minds that come when we put our trust in you, the faithful and true witness. Lord, I pray that even now we would just bow our hearts as subjects to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And Lord, we just ask that you would reign in us. Rule us by your spirit. Rule us by your word. May we even demonstrate by the way we live this week that we're citizens of heaven. That we belong to you. That people might look at us and see what it's like to be living in heaven. Loving as they love in heaven. Being wise as they're wise in heaven. Making good decisions. Help us, Lord. Lord, we pray for our neighbors. We pray for our friends and our loved ones. We pray that no one would have to experience this destruction, but Lord, that they would hear the good news. Help us to be faithful to proclaim it. We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.