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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.
Thy Kingdom Come
Series Revelation
| Sermon ID | 71191633442 |
| Duration | 1:01:05 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 19 |
| Language | English |
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