Heaven’s Hallelujahs: Babylon’s Fall and the End of Rebellion

We're back in the book of Revelation tonight, and we're in Revelation chapter 19, as you know.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

And we started talking last week about heavenly hallelujahs.

And we got through, I believe there's five total that heaven rejoices because.

And we got through the first two. Tonight, we might get the next two.

I don't know if we'll get all three, but we'll see. We might.

But here's the next reason why heaven rejoices. And we'll pick up 19 in verse 3 in this chapter.

And it's because rebellion is ended.

Rebellion is ended. Listen to this, verse three. And a second time they said,

hallelujah, her smoke rises up forever and ever.

You see, Babylon's judgment, y'all, provoked the first outburst of heavenly

rejoicing, right, that we talked about.

The aftermath of her destruction actually prompts the heavenly course for a

second time here to say hallelujah at the, if you will, it's at the climax of her judgment.

Babylon, if you remember, was burned up with fire, right?

And sinners mourned. Y'all remember this, as they watched the pall of smoke

rise into the sky, and that the smoke rises up forever and ever, as we see here.

It just indicates, y'all, that this judgment is final.

In other words, it's permanent, right? And it's irreversible here.

And the language here, I don't know if you noticed this, but it's actually similar

to that used of God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, all the way back in

Genesis 19, and also Edom in Isaiah 34.

The flames and the smoke will eventually die out, if we think about that in

that sense, but the judgment is eternal on the souls of the sinners destroyed.

And hell is a place, according to the Word of God, and that's where we need

to go to get our information, right, is God's holy word.

Hell is a place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched,

it says in Mark chapter 9, verse 48, where the damned, listen to this,

Mark 9:48

according to God's word,

will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels

and in the presence of the lamb. Who's the lamb?

Jesus. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever.

And that's back, we saw that in chapter 14.

But the destruction of the last and most powerful empire in human history marks

the end, if you will, y'all, of man's day.

In other words, man has had his day, right? The rebellion that began long ago

back in the Garden of Eden has finally ended here.

Now, there's going to be a futile, short-lived revolt at the end of the millennium,

and we'll see that in chapter 20.

But there will be, boy, this is so amazing, y'all. Think about it.

There will be no more false religion, worldly philosophy, injustice,

unrighteousness, all the sorry results of human depravity will be vanquished.

I mean, that's worth saying hallelujah, right? I mean, for sure,

that's why we see here the heavenly hallelujahs being proclaimed.

And also heaven rejoices here and has those heavenly hallelujahs because God is in control.

God's in control, y'all. Listen to this. We'll pick up here in verses 4 through 6 of chapter 19.

And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God

who sits on the throne saying, Amen. Hallelujah.

And a voice came from heaven, come from the throne, excuse me,

saying, Give praise to our God, all you his bondservants, you who fear him, the small and the great.

Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound

of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder saying,

hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the almighty what?

Reigns. Wow. Y'all, in agreement with the angelic chorus, hallelujahs ring out

from other heavenly residents.

The 24 elders here, they're best seen as representatives of the church.

We talked about that when we first started this back in chapters 1 through 11,

and the four living creatures are cherubim,

and they're a high-ranking order of angels, and we also talked about them in

depth earlier in this series, but these two groups have worshiped God throughout revelation,

prostrate before God's throne, the two new additions to the heavenly course

here cry out what? Amen. Hallelujah.

Now that phrase actually comes from Psalm 106 verse 48, and it indicates y'all

Psalms 106:48

their solemn agreement.

Y'all hear sometimes when you get a preacher preaching and somebody has agreement, right?

What do they usually say? amen right you know what that means literally.

Maybe so, or so let it be. So let it be. That's what you're saying when you say amen.

So there's agreement with the heavenly rejoicing over Babylon's downfall.

And the text here, it doesn't identify the owner of the voice that came from

the throne, but it is likely that it's an angel.

You know why? Because he refers to God as our God in the text.

And the voice authoritatively though

calls another group to join in the

anthem of praise here saying give praise to our god see it all he all you his

bond servants you who fear him the small and the great the redeemed believers

in heaven are described as god's bond servants and also here we see,

those who fear him is in the group, right?

The all-inclusive phrase that we just read, the small and the great,

is included in this anthem.

And it transcends all human categories, if you will, and just,

you know, distinctions that you can come up with to embrace everyone,

basically, that's in heaven, right?

In other words, all the redeemed are called to praise God.

The church the tribulation

saints everyone all of

them and when the redeemed obeyed the

command from that heavenly voice and they added their

voices to the heavenly course that dramatic

sound that john describes here and that he heard what does he say how does he

describe it he says was something like the voice of a great multitude have you

ever heard the voices of a great multitude Y'all ever listened to a massive

choir before or just a massive multitude of people singing?

The loud chorus of praise rose to this deafening crescendo, which the Apostle

Paul here even links here and says, to the sound of many waters.

That rolling of the sea, right? That sound, that roar.

And also, what else did he say? The sound of mighty peals of thunder.

Boom, right? I mean, just shaking. It was so loud.

This is the fitting finale to the heavenly oratorio here of praise.

And here we see the fourth hallelujah, followed by that motive for it.

For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns.

Y'all, that's something we celebrate. God reigns. He's in control.

Nothing ever shakes God off the throne. Nothing ever takes God by surprise.

Nothing ever rattles him. He doesn't have a plan B.

There's only what he determines and says, this is my plan. There is no plan B with God.

And so the evil world system here has been completely destroyed.

God's kingdom has come in its fullness.

This usage here of hallelujah is also reminiscent of other psalms here,

which repeatedly, what do they do?

They offer praise for God's sovereign rule and eternal fellowship with the redeemed.

And the title Almighty, think about that for a minute, Almighty.

You know, she used nine times in the book of Revelation, nine times our god

y'all is in control also heaven heavenly hallelujahs ring here and rejoicing

from heaven and here's the final one i think because the marriage of the lamb is completed.

Come on, the marriage of the lamb is completed, y'all. Listen to this.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage of the lamb

has come and his bride has made herself ready.

It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean for the

fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Then he said to me, write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage

supper of the lamb. And he said to me, these are true words of God.

Then I fail at his feet to worship him.

But he said to me, do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren

who hold the testimony of Jesus.

Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

That's verses seven through 10. So the heavenly praise here continues with a

call for gladness, a call for rejoicing, right?

And giving God glory for yet a fifth reason. And that reason is what?

The marriage of the Lamb.

The marriage of the Lamb. That imagery, think about it for a minute,

of marriage. It's used frequently in Scripture.

You know, marriage was the single greatest celebration and social event of the biblical world.

Wedding preparations and celebrations in ancient times were even more elaborate,

if you can believe it, and involved than those of today, and also lasted longer.

And today, I see some of the things that they do that, you know,

we didn't do back in the day, right, that I think, well, that's crazy,

you know, I'm thinking about it.

But boy, back in biblical time, man, you were really on the extreme, right?

They consisted of three distinct stages.

First was the betrothal, right? Or we would say engagement today, right?

This was an arrangement by both sets of parents contracting the marriage of their children.

And it was legally binding, by the way, and it couldn't be broken except by divorce.

And a betrothal contract was often signed long before children reached the age

here of marriageable age, I guess you would say.

And in biblical times, that was the age of 13 or 14 years old, by the way.

And since a marriage represented the union of two families, it was natural for

the parents to be involved.

And there were years, y'all, of preparation for the time of marriage.

You know, as the boy, for example, prepared for his bride. The second stage,

though, of a wedding was the presentation.

So you got the engagement, the betrothal, or now comes the presentation,

a time of festivities just before the actual ceremony.

And those festivities, they could last up to a week or more. Can you imagine?

Depending on their the economic and social status

of the bride and the groom but and then the third

and most significant stage of a

wedding was the actual ceremony during which vows

were exchanged and and at the end of the presentation you know the the festivities

there the groom and his attendants would actually go to the bride's house and

take her and her bridesmaids to the ceremony And after the ceremony would come

a final meal followed by the consummation of the marriage.

And scripture actually uses the familiar imagery of a wedding to picture the

Lord's relationship with his church. That's us, right?

You know, 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2, it actually mentions there in that passage

2 Corinthians 11:2

the betrothal of the church to Christ.

Paul wrote this, he says, for I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy,

for I betrothed you to one husband so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

You see, the church's betrothal contract was signed when?

In eternity past, when the Father promised the Son a redeemed people and wrote

their names in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Do you get some of the imagery here in the picture here? The Apostle Paul described

the church's presentation in Ephesians chapter 5, familiar passage probably

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

to you, verses 25 through 27.

It says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and

gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her,

having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present

to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such

thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

And that presentation will take place at the rapture.

And speaking of both the present time of preparation, as he makes a home for

his bride, right? He's preparing a place right now.

And the moment of presentation when he comes for her, Jesus actually said,

you remember this one, in my father's house are many dwelling places or many mansions, right?

If it were not so, I would have told you for I go to prepare a place for you.

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. That's in John 14.

So in the imagery of an ancient wedding, the rapture marks the time when the

bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ takes his bride to his father's house.

And yes, I thought of that one, come and go with me. Okay.

But anyway, during the tribulation, the raptured church will be presented in heaven.

But at the end of those seven years of joyous fellowship, wonderful celebration

there in heaven, the time will come for the wedding ceremony,

the marriage of the lamb,

that final union, y'all, of the bridegroom and the bride, it's marked by this great supper.

Remember that meal we talked about, that great supper.

But I will say this, let me just share this, because some have attempted to

combine the marriage parables, all of them,

to all tie in, to try to tie in the ones found in Matthew 22,

Matthew 25, and this one here in Revelation 19,

that they want to try to make it as some sort of marriage theology across Scripture.

But I just wanted to share that because there's a little thing,

when we studied the Bible about interpreting scripture, and this is a big word, are you ready?

It's called hermeneutics. Somebody said, hermene who?

Hermeneutics. And that's just really the study of how to interpret scripture

rightly, to honor the text and to do it responsibly. That's what it's all about.

And this, that type of thinking I just shared with you,

It really violates that hermeneutical principle that doctrine cannot be formulated

by combining elements from various illustrations or parables that actually have

nothing in connection with each other.

And I'll explain that in a minute. I think it's important.

Marriage is incidental in the two Matthew parables.

And I'll explain that. In fact, neither one even mentions the bride in those two.

And the theme of the parable of the marriage feast that's found in Matthew 22,

is Israel's apostasy and rejection of God. That's the theme of that parable.

And the invited guest in that parable in Matthew 22, who rejected the king's

invitation to that great celebration and symbolize Israel,

and the uninvited guest brought in from the streets, they actually symbolize

the Gentile church. That's us.

And so in this parable there, in Matthew parable, the church does not represent

the bride, but the guest in that parable, because it was told for a specific reason, right?

And the parable of the 10 virgins is another one in Matthew 25.

And it actually emphasizes the importance of being spiritually prepared there in that one.

And again, believers in that parable are not represented by the bride,

but the virgins, the bride's attendants, the five foolish virgins,

if you remember, were like professing believers,

unprepared for Christ's return.

In other words, they weren't saved. They weren't ready if the trumpet sounded, right?

The five wise virgins were true believers.

They were genuinely prepared. In other words, the point of that parable is that

professed believers got to be ready or truly saved, right?

They need to know and their lamp's full, right?

And so when Christ returns to set up his kingdom, there'll be no second opportunity,

in other words, for the unprepared or the unsaved in that sense.

For the church, because the day of the Lord's judgment is total and final,

and only believers will survive to enter the kingdom.

And so that's the point, because the New Testament uses marriage to illustrate

such a variety of spiritual principles, not just our relationship as the bride

and Christ as a bridegroom. I want you to get that.

Those illustrations of those other parables there, they can't be used to interpret

this one in Revelation 19, because each parable or illustration,

it's got to be interpreted in its own context.

You know, I always said, and I shared this with you all many times,

never read a Bible verse.

Always read it in context with the verses around it, with the chapter around it, all of it.

Make sure it's in context. Don't just pull out a verse here and there and make up a theology.

That's poor hermeneutics, right? That's not being faithful to the text.

It's not being faithful to God's word or to scripture in any way.

And so to blend together details from those unconnected illustrations with a

common theme It's not the way to interpret the text or any text for that matter.

So the entire heavenly chorus here, including angels, as we see in verse one, the 24 elders, right?

And all the host of the redeemed, the four living creatures too,

is exhorted here, y'all, what?

To rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him because all the preparation

is complete and the marriage of the lamb has come.

Betrothed in eternity past, presented in the Father's house since the rapture,

the church is now ready for what?

For the wedding ceremony to begin.

Wow. That ceremony here will coincide with the establishment of the millennial

kingdom, as we see here in Revelation.

It'll stretch throughout, get this, throughout that thousand-year period to

finally be consummated in the new heavens and the new earth.

And we'll see that in chapter 21. But the idea of a thousand year long ceremony

may seem far fetched, right?

Yet really, if you think about it, it's no more difficult than several thousand

years that we're under now betrothal, right?

I mean, and it must be remembered. We got to remember this. A thousand years

in God's sight are like yesterday when it passes by.

It says in Psalm 90, verse four, and that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand

years and a thousand years like one day in 2 Peter 3 verse 8.

2 Peter 3:8

In the new heavens and the new earth, the bride concept is going to be expanded

to include not only the church, I want y'all to see this here,

but also the redeemed of all ages as the new Jerusalem becomes the bridal city

here. We're going to see that in chapter 21.

And also, I think we should kind of think about this and note that in the old

testament you probably remember this god is the bridegroom of who.

Israel isaiah jeremiah ezekiel hosea speak of this and in preparation for her

marriage to the lamb his bride has made herself ready you see it in the text,

That was not, of course, by her own works, was it? But rather by God's gracious working.

Paul taught us that believers, by God's grace, participate in his work in their

lives. Remember this one?

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only,

but now much more in my absence.

Remember this? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who has at work in you, both to will and to do and to work for his good pleasure.

That's Philippians 2. Hallelujah.

To the Colossians, he wrote, I labor, striving according to his power,

which mightily works within me.

Boy, it just makes me think about Christ in me, the hope of glory,

right? Not Christ and me, Christ in me, the hope of glory.

So the bride has made herself ready in the power of God, by the grace of God,

through the work of the Spirit of God.

She's purged from all sin and impurity.

She's flawless, in other words, blameless, unblemished virgin.

And having been presented glorified, I want y'all to get this because I don't

know that we grasped this yet, so hang on.

She's presented glorified, purified, and spotless before God's throne.

It was given to the church to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean.

Fine linen was expensive, y'all. It was beautiful cloth, like that worn by Joseph, David, Mordecai.

And that word lampros, it just means bright, means glistening,

shining, a radiant color, right?

And that kathoros is just clean.

It's translated as pure.

Those dazzling garments were worn earlier, if you remember in revelation by

angels and will be the clothing y'all of the armies of heaven that's made up

of both angels and the redeemed saints.

That accompany Christ when he returns to earth, by the way.

And we'll see that soon. But the fine linen with which the bride is clothed

in the vision here, it represents the actual, the righteous acts of the saints.

At salvation, think about it, y'all. At salvation, believers were clothed with Christ's what?

Righteousness imputed to them. We talked about that again this morning in the message.

But now the church is clothed, listen, with a righteousness of its own.

The glorified believers are intrinsically righteous, like the holy angels.

No longer will the church have only an imputed righteousness,

but also then here, as we see in this text, they will have an imparted holy perfection.

I think sometimes we forget that, what God's word says.

The promise of 1 John 3, 2, listen, Beloved, now we are children of God,

and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.

We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him just as he is.

That is fulfilled right here.

Then the angel who had been speaking with John and said, said to the apostle,

what did he say? Look, right.

Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This is the fourth, y'all, of seven beatitudes throughout the whole book of

Revelation when it said, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

All, y'all, all of these Beatitudes introduced by the word blessed,

and that just simply means, you probably know by heart here,

but happy, joyous, you know, satisfied, fulfilled.

The recipients of this blessing are those who are invited to the marriage supper

of the Lamb, that they are invited guests here.

It just marks them as a distinct group from the church.

Since a bride would hardly be invited to her own wedding.

These guests here represent Old Testament believers.

Matthew 8, verse 11, Luke 13, verse 28. They both refer, if you remember,

Matthew 8:11 Luke 13:28

to Abraham, to Isaac, Jacob, as being in the kingdom.

And Luke 13, 28 also mentions the prophets.

All the heroes of faith, we looked at this this morning in Sunday school a little

bit, in Hebrews 11, will be among the invited guests.

So will John the Baptist, right? The greatest of all Old Testament believers,

it tells us in Matthew 11, 11, who actually described himself,

by the way, as the friend of the bridegroom in John 3, 29.

And so he's one of the invited guests, right?

All the tribulation saints glorified and still alive on earth and entering the

millennial kingdom will be guests.

The marriage supper of the Lamb. And some may question why the church-age believers

should be granted the honor of being the bride.

You might have asked that or thought that, while believers from the other ages

are merely guests here represented.

But you can also, think about this, you can also equally ask why God singled

out Israel to be the covenant people.

The only answer, I think, to both of those questions is that God sovereignly purposed that it be so.

His ways are not our ways, right? You may not understand all the whys and all

that, but God purposed it to be so.

And also, I think, must be remembered that the wedding imagery that's used here

in this text is just that.

It's imagery that's not reality in the sense of, like, marriage, right?

But it pictures God's intimate union with his people.

There'll be no second-class citizens in heaven, y'all. in God's kingdom, there won't be.

Just as all the participants in a wedding enjoy the celebration, right?

And in the new heavens and the new earth, as we talked about,

the imagery of the bride will be expanded to encompass all the redeemed from all ages.

And we'll see that even in a couple of chapters here in chapter 21,

verses one and two, where it talks about that too.

And so remember, the church raptured. And remember, look, all those in the tribulation,

all the horrible things that happened, yet God still offers grace and mercy.

And there will be people saved in the tribulation.

Israel actually looked forward to this great wedding banquet, by the way.

And let me just share a couple of passages with y'all, if y'all are okay with it. Are you good?

All right. The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on

this mountain, a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined aged wine.

Makes it pretty clear it ain't new wine.

And all this mountain, he will swallow up the covering, which is over all peoples,

even the veil, which is stretched over all nations.

He will swallow up death for all time. And the Lord God will wipe the tears away from all faces.

And he will remove the reproach of his people from all the earth.

For the Lord has spoken and it will be said in that day, Behold,

this is our God for whom we have waited, that he might save us.

This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.

For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain, and Moab will be trodden

down in his place. That's Isaiah 25, 6-10.

And then Isaiah 26, the very next chapter, verses 1-4 records one of those joyous

songs, if you will, that the redeemed of Israel is going to sing.

Listen to it. It says, in that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah.

We have a strong city. He sets up walls and ramparts for security.

Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter.

The one that remains faithful.

The steadfast of mine you will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you.

Trust in the Lord forever. For in God the Lord, we have an everlasting rock. Wow.

And verse 19, by the way, of that chapter, actually describes the resurrection

that'll bring the Old Testament saints to the banquet.

Your dead will live. Listen to it. Their corpses will rise.

You who lie in the dust awake and shout for joy

for your due is as the dew of the dawn and

the earth will give birth to the departed spirits daniel 12

Daniel 12:2

verse 2 promises there the resurrection of old testament believers whose bodies

have long been in decay it says many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground

will awake there to everlasting life but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

The souls of those believers are already with the Lord.

Their bodies will be raised for the kingdom though.

In Daniel 12, 1, it actually connects y'all the resurrection with the tribulation.

Says now at that time, listen, Michael, the great prince who stands guard over

the sons of your people will arise and there will be a time of distress such

as never occurred since there was a nation until that time.

And at that time, your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.

It's best to place that resurrection at the end of the tribulation.

They're raised to be guests at the wedding and enjoy all the festivities of

the glory of the kingdom of God.

Israel's inclusion in the festivities here is a testimony to God's gracious

promise to us to restore her.

Israel was pictured as God's wife. You talked about that a while ago in the

Old Testament. And tragically, what happened?

God's unfaithful apostate wife, read the book of Hosea, illustrates this.

Yet Israel's estrangement will not be permanent. It's not going to be permanent.

In Hosea 14, verse 4, God makes a promise.

Hosea 14:4

He says, I will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely,

for my anger has turned away from them. God said it.

In the kingdom, God will restore his relationship with his unfaithful wife.

And here, in this instance, he's talking about Israel. And Israel will have

a prominent place, as we see here in Revelation, in the New Jerusalem,

as the description given of it here.

And we'll see even in chapter 21 of Revelation.

Let me look at that real quick just to show you this as we're talking about this.

Revelation 21, 10 through 14, listen to this.

It says, And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and

showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal clear jasper.

It had a great and high wall with 12 gates, and at the gates,

12 angels, and names were written

on them, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

There were three gates on the east, and three gates on the north,

and three gates on the south and three gates on the west and the wall of the

city had 12 foundation stones and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the lamb.

So whatever distinctions are made in Scripture, all believers of all ages will

enjoy the full glories of eternity.

Wow. In fact, theologian Henry Morris writes this.

He says, Whatever distinctions may exist between the saints of the pre-Abrahamic period,

the saints in Israel before Christ, the saints among the Gentiles from Abraham to Christ,

he says the saints of the tribulation and the saints in the churches from Christ to the rapture,

such distractions are secondary to the great primary truth that all will be

there by virtue of the saving work of Christ and their personal trust in the

true creator God and his provision of salvation.

And that's from his commentary, The Revelation Record.

So if we think about it tonight, the happy truth or the blessed truth,

however you want to look at it, that God will be in personal fellowship today.

Forever, y'all, with all the redeemed saints, that includes us, of all the ages.

It's so significant that the angel here in this text solemnly affirmed to John,

listen to what he said, look at it, these are true words of God.

You see that in the text? These are true words of God.

You stop and think, to maybe the beleaguered and the age apostle John in exile

on the harsh, Barren Island of, remember where he was writing this book?

Patmos, right? It must have seemed amazing, y'all.

Almost impossible that God's kingdom would even, you know, eventually triumph.

In John's day, the church was being persecuted from without and attacked by

heresies from within, right? And it was crumbling.

And we see kind of the discussion of those seven churches, don't we,

when we started Revelation, right?

In chapters 1 through 11. But the revelation that God's redemptive plan, Eastwood,

cannot and will not be thwarted, brought great comfort, great relief,

and joy to the apostle as the heavens rejoiced, right?

So great was John's astonishment at the angel's message here that he involuntarily

and thoughtlessly just fell at his feet to worship him.

He was just so amazed and overcome with joy. And what happened?

What did the angel do? He corrected him right away, right?

He called him back to his senses, you know, and then he said he gave a sharp

rebuke and he said, don't do that.

I'm a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.

And like John, though, the angel was a servant of God sent to minister to John

and his brethren here who hold the testimony of Jesus, it says,

you know, angels serve all believers.

Particularly those who, like John, are involved in preaching the gospel.

You'll see that later in chapter 22 as well. The angel reminds John that he is to worship God only.

Worship is the theme, y'all, of redemptive history and the purpose for which

believers were redeemed, to worship and give glory to God.

You're talking about a worship party, right? A worship service.

You're talking about praising God and singing praises like you've never heard before.

It's going to be our occupation throughout all eternity.

And I'm just looking forward, y'all. I don't know what else God has.

I know that, hey, there's going to be things out there.

We don't know what's going to happen in the future, how God's going to have

things and what we're going to be doing in this great big, you know,

whatever God has for us, right?

I mean, whatever task he gives us in his kingdom or whatever,

but praise and worship is the theme, right?

Always about him. The angel's final word to John is just a reminder that the

testimony of Jesus, he says, is the spirit of prophecy.

The central theme of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament preaching is what?

Who? Jesus.

Jesus. Until the coming of his kingdom, all who proclaim the gospel,

he's saying here, must be faithful to the testimony of Jesus,

the saving gospel message, which was his message, by the way.

Those who are not faithful to it will forfeit heavenly affirmation of their ministry.

And I hate to say this, but I'm afraid many churches have forfeited heavenly

affirmation of their ministry today.

You see, the glorious reality that God will judge the wicked and usher believers

into his kingdom really should cause all of us tonight to rejoice.

For after all, wrote Paul, listen to this, It is only just just for God to repay

with affliction those who afflict you and to give relief to you who are afflicted.

And to us, as well as the Lord Jesus, will be revealed from heaven with his

mighty angels and flaming fire,

dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not

obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because believers are defined, y'all, as those who have loved his appearing.

It says in 2 Timothy, they are to eagerly await for his return from heaven. Are you ready?

I love that old song, ready or not. Ready or not, right? Are you ready?

The glorious return of Jesus Christ.

And when he comes here, what we're going to see when he comes back to the earth

here, the second coming in Revelation 19, boy, we're fixing to see some serious things happen, right?

And these are some of my favorite chapters, really, in the book of Revelation.

I know we had a lot of content tonight.

Thank you all for hanging on to your seat so we didn't have to split that up in two weeks.