Revelation 19:1-6 (Heaven’s Hallelujah: The Righteousness of God’s Judgments)

Turn with me to Revelation chapter 19.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

We start chapter 19 today.

We'll be in verses 1 through 6.

Revelation chapter 19, verses 1 through 6.

Revelation 19:1–6

So, unless you live under a rock, you know that this past week, we, as in the world, celebrated Star Wars Day on May the 4th.

May the 4th be with you.

And what I was not aware of until this year, as a Star Wars nerd who celebrates May the 4th every year, uh, I was not aware until this year that May the 5th is called Revenge of the Fifth, which is a play on words of episode three, which is titled Revenge of the Sith.

Now, on May 5th, Revenge of the Fifth Day, there's an online store that sells nerdy things like that that I follow, and they were selling this Darth Vader t-shirt for one day only.

You can only buy this shirt on May 5th, on revenge of the fifth day.

You either bought it on May 5th or you lose it forever.

A one-day exclusive happens one day, one time, and then it's gone.

Of course I bought it.

This is not a put it in your shopping cart and come back to it later.

This is a make a decisive action decision.

The exclusivity demanded such drastic action.

And it does that.

Exclusivity.

Exclusivity demands attention, demands urgency.

Now let me ask you, how many times does the word hallelujah appear in the New Testament?

You might expect dozens upon dozens.

It's a word we sing a lot, we say a lot.

That's a very Christian term, hallelujah.

You may think, I bet this word appears a lot in the New Testament.

You've got the gospels, you've got Acts, you've got all the epistles, and you have Revelation.

What if I were to tell you that the word hallelujah only appears in the entire New Testament four times.

And all four times are in our text this morning.

Revelation 19, 1 through 6.

This is the only instance in all of the New Testament where we see the word hallelujah.

And this means that what happens here in these six verses is not casual.

Means that what happens here is climactic, that this is exclusive.

And what we see heaven choose to celebrate, what we see a calling this hallelujah forth should command our attention.

Now the word hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means you all praise the Lord, or in Southern vernacular, y'all praise the Lord.

You all praise the Lord.

And here are some things that I want you to know about the word hallelujah.

The word hallelujah is a command.

It is not a suggestion.

It is not an invitation to praise, it is an imperative.

You all praise the Lord.

Secondly, the word hallelujah uses God's covenant name.

It uses Yah, a shortened version of Yahweh, which is the relational redemptive name of God.

Yahweh is the covenant name of God that he uses to relate to his people.

God has many names.

One of his other main Hebrew names is Elohim.

Elohim is creator God.

And that name is not used here.

But the name that reflects who God is in relation to his people.

And thirdly, hallelujah is inherently corporate.

It implies not a single individual worship, but congregational worship.

It is not a reflection of private worship, but communal liturgical worship of God's covenant people.

Now it is so saturated, especially in Psalms 146 to 150, that these are referred to as the hallelujah Psalms.

But it only appears in the New Testament four times.

And all four times we're going to read today.

So we should pause and know that that communicates a waitingness about this text.

And it should draw our attention like a spotlight to what is being referred to here and what does this mean for the church and the world?

And what triggers heaven's loudest praise, what triggers hallelujah, is not just salvation.

It's judgment.

So follow along with me as we read Revelation 19, verses 1 through 6.

Revelation 19:1–6

After this, I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just, for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.

Once more they cried out, Hallelujah, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever.

And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God, who was seated on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah.

And from the throne came a voice saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

So I want to take you through this passage this morning and look at four aspects about God's judgments.

And we have these four hallelujahs.

What do they tell us about God?

What do they tell us about God's judgments?

How can we connect this hallelujah of you all praise the Lord to this display of God's judgments?

We usually like to separate those things out a little bit.

You know, we want to praise God because of our salvation, but you have no salvation if it's not resting up against the backdrop of God's judgment.

What are you being saved from?

What did Christ die on the cross for?

Why did he take uh why did he become your substitute?

Because he took the wrath of God upon himself for his people.

Without God's judgments, you have no salvation.

What are you delivered from?

So let's look at these in the text this morning.

Firstly, God's judgments are true.

We see this in verse 2.

It proclaims the judgments are true, and we have a trifecta announcement in verse 1.

The great multitude in heaven cried out, Hallelujah! A pronouncement to you all, praise the Lord.

And then this proclamation that salvation and glory and power belong to God.

Those are his, nobody else's.

He's got them.

Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God.

Genesis 1:1

He is the Alpha and the Omega.

God does not bend to truth.

He is the creator of truth.

Everything we know to be true is true because God made it so.

God does not simply recognize that which is true.

He is sovereign over all that is true.

God does not recognize the laws of physics.

He created the laws of physics.

God does not recognize the laws of biology or the cell theory.

He created them to be that way.

God stands sovereign over all of the sciences, all of the arts, all of everything.

Everything is true because God deemed it to be true.

John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he is God.

And as such, everything that Jesus speaks is truth.

It is the Word of God.

Jesus can only speak truth.

So every time he talks, he talks in truth.

I've got to check everything when I preach or when I teach.

Is what I'm saying right?

Am I saying it rightly?

You know, so many times I will have like a killer line up here that I'm just like, yeah, that's good.

That's a really good line.

And I'm like, this is going to pack a punch.

This is going to deliver and land exactly like I want it to.

And then it doesn't.

And I go home and I'm like, hey, Courtney, what'd you think about this line?

She's like, uh, what did you mean by that?

I'm like, well, I meant this.

She's like, yeah, that didn't land the way you thought it would.

You know, I've always got to check and double check and triple check.

Am I teaching right?

Is what I'm saying out of my mouth rightly?

Because nothing that I say becomes truth because I say it.

I'm just an echoer of truth.

And I've got to say it right, because if I don't, then I'm saying a lie, I'm saying a falsehood.

It's not Jesus.

When Jesus speaks, it is truth because it is Jesus speaking.

Because he is God.

Everything he says is truth.

John 14, 6, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

The only way to get to the God over all truth is through his Son, who is the only truth.

I'm painting a picture here so we will all see there is no truth outside of God.

There's no truth outside of Christ.

John 8 32.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Freedom, true freedom, is only found in knowing the truth.

Otherwise, you're a slave to the flesh, you're a slave to sin, you're a slave to the world.

Only in Christ can we find truth and true salvation.

So from that framework, we can now know that all that God does is true.

So when we come to a text like this and we see his judgments occurring onto Babylon, the world that rejected him and indulged in sin, that slayed the prophets and the martyrs, that truth is having victory over falsehood.

Truth is having victory over lies.

What God is doing here in Babylon that we see is a that I believe is a futuristic time to come where we see this final destruction of all that is against God, this final destruction of the world.

This is salvation and glory and power belong to God alone on display.

I will not share my glory with the world.

I will not share my power with the world.

Babylon the Great is falling.

And salvation is found nowhere else.

All glory belongs to God.

All power belongs to God.

This is 100% truth.

And we have to know that God does not ask our opinion before making it true.

It doesn't matter what humans' opinion is, this is the truth.

He said the bumper sticker just needs to say, God said it, that settles it.

It doesn't matter what you believe.

God's not asking for your opinion or your permission for him to be God.

If he says it, we need to believe it.

So what is truth?

What does it mean that God is true and that God has all truth?

Now the word true means perfect confirmation to reality.

So God is completely true means that God never misjudges.

God never has incomplete information.

God never renders a verdict based on appearances.

If Babylon is falling, if the smoke from her goes up forever, then we can know and we can trust that what God is doing here is 100% true and right.

Babylon appeared to be invincible in the church, uh the churches of Asia Minor, Rome looked invincible and eternal.

God sees through every facade of every worldly power and empire, and we can look around the world and we can see not only corruption in our own government, but we can look at all the governments across the world: Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, India, I mean, you name it, God sees through every facade.

Now contrast this with human courts.

Every earthly verdict is provisional.

We'll always have appeals, and it'll go to a higher court.

God's verdicts are always infallible.

They're always perfect.

We even see the highest court in our country, which I would argue is the highest court in the world, the Supreme Court.

We see them make mistakes.

We see them sometimes.

I mean, if you keep up with things they go, you sometimes you read the dissenting opinions, and you're just like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever read.

How are you a Supreme Court justice?

Not even the dissenting opinions, sometimes the majority opinion when they got it wrong.

This is the highest court in the land, and we've seen them make mistakes.

God never makes a mistake.

He never makes a misstep.

If he's passing out judgment, we know that it's rightly given.

God's omniscience, which omniscience is a great word, children, for you to know about God.

God is omniscient, meaning that he has complete, unlimited knowledge.

I know that Miss Casey has taught you, children, that God is all-seeing, that he's all-knowing.

And because God sees everything, God knows everything, then we know that his judgments are 100% guaranteed to be right.

You know, we have to have a trial.

We have to have the facts displayed, we have to have it argued.

Certain things are and aren't admissible in a court of law.

God doesn't need that.

God doesn't have to do a trial.

God doesn't need uh uh someone to present him the facts.

He knows all, he sees all, which means that he cannot be deceived, he cannot be bribed, and he cannot be mistaken.

So, what's the application for God's judgments are true?

I've got four of them for you.

I could have a lot more, but this is where we stopped.

Number one, when the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous suffer, know and trust and understand that God's ledger is not confused, it is simply not yet closed.

And and this is apropos for our brothers and sisters across the world.

Our brothers and sisters in Nigeria are struggling and they're dying at the hands of evil people.

And we look at that and we say, God's ledger is not confused, it is not simply yet closed.

Number two, so many people arrogantly claim, even those who claim to follow Christ, it's becoming more and more popular in so-called Christianity, that God cannot be a God of judgment because that's not loving.

We must understand that there is a complete narrow-mindedness to this view.

We are not the creators of truth, we are not the holders of truth, we simply behold truth and we choose whether we want to believe it or not.

Our belief or lack of belief in truth does not change it one iota.

Truth does not care about your opinion.

Gravity doesn't ask you for permission to make you fall out of the airplane if you're skydiving.

It just does it.

God is infinitely true, and his judgments, whatever he decides them to be, are 100% true.

And so when we come to God's word and we see judgment on those outside of Christ, it's true.

And for those who say it's not true, that doesn't fit in with a loving God, you don't know God.

You don't know what it means to be a loving God, you're not God.

Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, says the Lord.

Thirdly, this will all come to pass, what we read here, meaning God is truth.

So, so you and I have this hope and this assurance.

Like Miss Miss Marilyn passed away yesterday, our sister in Christ.

We do not mourn as the world mourns.

In fact, um, when Henry texted the elders, my response to Henry was, what a blessed day today is for Miss Marilyn.

Because we do not mourn like the world mourns.

We have this hope in Christ that what his word says is true.

So all of us in this room know that it in Christ, if we are to die today, to be absent from the body is to be what?

Present with Christ.

That's our hope.

That's our assurance.

So we trust in these things to be true.

So that also means that when we get to this text, Revelation 19, 1 through 6, and we see this future playing out, we can trust that this is true.

This too will happen.

Just like you die, you go to be with Christ is true.

You hang your hat on it, you rest your hope in it, this also is true.

And if God is truth, then, unbeliever, if you are not in Christ, understand the rest of the word of God is true as well.

And what that means for you, unbeliever, is that he offers you salvation in Christ and in Christ of blood.

And scripture tells us that if you repent of your sins, you confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That is the truth.

That is salvation.

Awaken from your earthly drunken stupor and see the truth of the living God and come to salvation.

That's what the word of God tells us.

Repent of your sins and come to faith in Christ.

And know that Christ.

Christ loves you and he died for you, and the truth is all you have to do is come to him, and Christ is the only salvation we have, and that is a hundred percent the truth.

Now, fourthly, this is for you, the church.

So, believers, if our hope is in this, that God ultimately is the victor, that evil will be defeated, that we as his people will suffer no more and be delivered, then that means that God's word is true.

And if God's word is true, is God's word true?

Is it true?

Amen.

Is it true?

Is God word is his word true?

Then why do we so often ignore it?

If you believe this to be true, when I die, I go to be with Jesus.

The Bible tells me that.

That's true.

Babylon will fall, the smoke from her will go forever.

That's true.

I have deliverance, that's true.

I have salvation, that is true.

Outside of Revelation, the Bible is full of commands and promises.

If his judgments in Babylon are true, then these words are also true.

Love your enemies, do not judge, seek first the kingdom of God, do not be conformed to this world, bear one another's burdens, tame your tongue, do not slander, do not gossip, rejoice always, give thanks in all circumstances, test everything, hold fast to what is good, humble yourselves before the Lord, cast all your anxieties on him, grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.

These are all commands in the New Testament that we so often ignore.

And yet we believe that he's gonna deliver us to Jesus, but we think we can handle all these better.

How dumb are we that we cast his word aside.

I'm gonna hold on to these anxieties, I'm gonna continue to not tame my tongue, I'm gonna continue to um not bear one another's burdens well.

I'm gonna continue to be conformed to this world.

I'm not going to put a lot of effort into growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

You know what the Bible doesn't say?

It doesn't say work yourself up the corporate ladder.

Roll on the hamster wheel.

It goes nowhere.

Meanwhile, the word of God that has proven itself to be true and right, we place our hope in it for eternity, and yet so many things it tells us that would play out now that we so easily brush aside.

Why do we do that?

Do we not trust him?

Do we not think that he doesn't know about our worries and our anxieties?

Do we not think that he understands that?

I mean, we call Jesus a man of sorrow that can identify with us as his people.

And yet we so often drown in earthly things that the Bible has given us commands on how to handle.

If God's word is true, then it's all true.

When we come across these commands in Scripture, we need to pray for them.

We need to pray for wisdom to commit to these things.

How can I be more like Christ and less like the world?

We need to be eager to obey the word of God.

If he can deliver you to eternity, then that means this is gold.

This is golden.

We should hang on to every word that he says.

Don't we don't need to treat these as mere suggestions, as if we found a better way to joy, a better way to fulfillment.

We're just like Adam and Eve.

Don't eat the fruit.

Okay.

I won't eat the fruit, but it looks so good.

I'm gonna eat the fruit.

We just do the same thing over and over again.

I saw a I saw a meme the other day I thought was very funny, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was like uh an archaeologist that had discovered a lot of ancient Israel stuff.

And he's like, Man, I just discovered all the ancient Israel stuff.

Turns out they had a lot of gods, and then Jeremiah's off to the side weeping, and he's like, Yeah, I know.

That was the problem.

I mean, there's a story throughout scripture of God's people doing this over and over and over and over again.

And yet God is so patient and he's so loving and he's so gracious and he's so merciful.

And so when we study revelation and we hold on to these truths, let it also remind us that you know what?

Maybe the word in entirety is trustworthy.

I'm gonna trust him in all these little commands that he gives as well.

I'm going to cast my anxieties on him and all the other stuff we listed out.

I put before you, dear brother and sister, God's word is completely and totally true.

Therefore, all of his commands should be taken seriously by us.

Just as serious as this prophecy of the truth of the victory that we have in him.

All right, secondly, God's judgments are just.

This week we also saw the delivery driver connected with the horrific murder of a little girl, was sentenced to death.

Now, if he had been given a light sentence, such as house arrest, two years probation, or even if he was sentenced to prison for 10 years.

But he wasn't.

He was given the death sentence.

But anything less than that, and I think the world even would have cried out for justice.

The judgment for the heinous crime is just.

We can understand somewhat what God meant when he said to Cain that the blood of Abel cries out to him from the ground.

When we read and hear of stories like this, the blood of the slain cries out for justice.

Humans made in God's image, we have this idea of justice.

Now, the mistake often made in evaluating God's justice and his eternal condemnation on all those outside of Christ is that we often don't recognize how bad the crime is against God.

Therefore, we think that the punishment of eternal hell is too severe.

And what I'm talking about here is what we see in verse three.

The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.

This is one verse of the many verses that points to the eternality of hell.

That hell is forever.

God's judgment is forever.

But the problem is that so many are trying to get away from this belief because they say the judgment is just too severe.

But the problem with that is that our man-centered vantage point is rooted in the same pride that caused us to fall.

Did God really say that?

Now, for God to be just, just means righteous, morally fitting, proportionate to the offense.

The punishment needs to meet the crime.

We have two charges in this verdict here against Babylon.

She corrupted the earth with her immorality, which is spiritual adultery against God, and she shed the blood of God's servants, the persecution of the saints.

Now, understand this.

Heaven is not celebrating cruelty.

Hallelujah are not ringing out at the scene of cruelty.

Heaven celebrates the satisfaction of righteousness.

There is a difference.

The blood of the martyrs cried out in chapter six, how long, O Lord, until you avenge us.

God heard, God remembered, and God acts.

Divine justice is never forgetful.

So the application from this is every act of injustice against God's people is on record.

Not one tear, not one drop of martyr's blood is forgotten in heaven.

God sees everything.

God's judgments are perfect.

And the judgment of God against his people, against the church, has already taken place on the cross of Christ.

Every drop of wrath that the believer deserved was absorbed by Christ on the cross.

The Christian, we do not fear the judgment of God.

It's already fallen on our substitute.

But if you are not in Christ, and for those not in Christ, you should tremble, for they have reason to.

That's why we urgently tell people to turn to Christ.

That's why we urgently tell people be safe.

Number three, God's judgment are final and eternal.

We see the smoke ascending forever and ever.

It signals this irreversibility.

No one's going in and out.

There's no appeals court, no reversal, no second chance after the gavel of God falls.

This is a textual anchor for the eternality of hell.

Now, the identical Greek phrase describing God's eternal reign, we'll see later in chapter 22, verse 5, and Christ's eternal life in chapter 1, verse 18, is used to describe hell.

Hell is described grammatically in the same way that the eternality of God is.

The eternality of hell parallels the eternality of God.

We see that in Matthew 25, 46, the same Greek word used both for eternal life and eternal punishment in the same sentence.

You cannot accept one and deny the other.

Revelation 14, 11, no rest day or night.

This rules out annihilationism, which unfortunately is a growing thought system even amongst Baptist circles.

Annihilationism is this idea that those outside of Christ suffer for a time and then they cease to exist.

The wicked do not cease to exist.

They will exist eternally without relief.

Mark 9, 47 and 48.

Jesus himself, the most loving man that ever lived, spoke more about hell than anyone else in Scripture.

The fire that never goes out, the worm that does not die.

So I want to refute the idea of annihilationism.

Destruction, when it talks about their destruction in Scripture, it means ruination, not extinction.

2 Thessalonians 1.9, eternal destruction is a state that they suffer, not a moment that ends them.

There's a big difference.

Universalism is the idea that all will be saved.

And there's different forms of universalism.

Perhaps there's like a purgatory-like where you kind of pay for your sins, but then once you've suffered enough, then you join the party.

Then you get to go up to heaven.

But our text is very clear this morning that that's also not what's happening.

If we notice the smoke from Babylon that rises up forever and ever, it's rising up while the saints are worshiping.

We have two different groups of people here.

If we're all eventually reconciled, then heaven's hallelujah over judgment would be either premature or incoherent, which we know it is neither.

We also have to keep in mind the justice rationale that sin against an infinitely holy God carries an infinite consequence.

The measure of punishment is not determined by the finite duration of the sin, but by the infinite dignity of the one sinned against.

Now, let me give you a pastoral word over this.

We do not preach this, we do not teach this, we do not proclaim this with glee.

We proclaim this with trembling urgency.

Hell is the still frame behind every gospel appeal.

This is what makes the cross necessary.

People die in our community every single day to go spend eternity in hell.

If you get rid of the eternity of hell, you're gonna get rid of the urgency of the gospel.

And where you find universalism, where you find annihilationism, you're gonna find a decline in the urgency of evangelism and missions.

We have to know hell is real, hell is terrible, and hell is eternal.

Therefore, all the people out here in the community that are destined for hell, they're not getting there until they jump over our bodies first.

We will go and tell our community and tell the world about Christ because of the urgency with it.

We should tremble at the thought of hell.

We don't preach this joyfully.

We preach it with fear and trembling.

And if you don't get it, what's evangelism to you?

When you go and you see people on their deathbed that reject Christ, your heart breaks for them.

Pastor David Mathis captures what our hearts will one day fully understand.

What we struggle to feel now, we will feel complete then in our glorified bodies.

When he said this, when we get to glory, we'll find eternal joy in the God of lavish mercy and uncompromising justice.

In fact, we wouldn't be able to find eternal, ever increasing, ever-deepening joy in a God who is unjust.

Deep down we don't want a God without wrath and power.

We don't want a God who affirms the wicked or simply leaves them be.

We don't ache for a God who stands idly by while evil goes unpunished.

And soon enough the shades of gray will be gone, and those outside of Christ will be revealed as hardened rebels against their creator, haters of the God we love, abhorrers of the Christ that we adore and of his bride.

There's an all stakes war going on for the cosmos, one we ignore to our own peril.

While we may struggle now with how the eternal destruction of the wicked could be a cause for joy, we won't struggle forever.

Yet we can still grow and mature in this life.

What we can't feel now we will feel soon enough.

When the day comes, we won't dodge the truth, but we will delight in it.

No more will we wonder how these things can be so.

We will know and we will worship.

We will not cringe, we will cry, hallelujah.

Application, we must tremble at the eternal judgment of God, and we must urgently tell our fellow man to repent and turn to Christ, lest he suffer in the eternal judgment to come to all outside of Christ.

And then lastly this morning, God's judgments are worthy of corporate worship.

We see in this text the elders, which is twenty-four, twelve tribes with twelve apostles representing the whole covenant people of God across both testaments, the four living creatures that we see in Revelation representing all creation, the entire created order ratifies the verdict.

Together they say, Amen, hallelujah, amen, confirms the judgment as certain and right.

Hallelujah breaks into praise over it.

Amen.

We know that God, what he says is true and right.

Hallelujah, praise him, all you people.

And the voice from the throne then commands the same response from who?

Every servant, small and great.

No one is exempt from this call.

Corporate worship is a covenantal act.

When the congregation says, Amen, together, we are doing what the heavenly hosts do, ratifying God's word and work as true and righteous.

Here's my argument that I'm going to make to you.

While personal worship matters, God places a special emphasis on the gathered worship of his people.

God commands gathered worship, not merely private devotion.

Five are five supporting arguments for this argument.

Number one, creation itself is corporate.

Genesis 2 18, it is not good that man is alone.

I'll make a helper fit for him.

Number two, the Old Testament pattern is gathered worship.

Deuteronomy 4.10, the establishment of the feast, the establishment of the entire sacrificial system.

Psalm 22 22, Hebrews 2.12, Psalm 34, 3.

I think these all should be in your notes to refer to.

The New Testament confirms that in the Old Testament and establishes the assembly as, and this is an intentional word, non-negotiable.

The New Testament establishes the gathering of the saints as non-negotiable.

Hebrews 10, 24 through 25, 1 Corinthians 14, 26, Ephesians 5.19, Colossians 3.16.

Go read them on your free time.

Number four, the Lord's supper and baptism are inherently corporate ordinances.

These are ordinances to be done with the gathered church.

They were established in the New Testament for us to do together as the church.

These were not given to individuals.

Corporate gathering is built into our DNA.

Jesus did it so.

This is why when we participate in the Lord's Supper together, we tell you, leave your eyes open, look around the room.

This is why we do the chairs like this, so that you can sing truths to one another.

We don't darken the lights during the worship.

So it's just like we've created this private, like, like soon enough, churches are going to have like curtains around each individual.

Welcome to your private session with God.

Welcome to your private session.

We don't do any of that.

Lights it up.

Look around.

Sing these truths to one another.

I'm going to proclaim the truth of God to you.

We partake of the Lord's Supper together.

Half of the Lord's Supper is about your horizontal relationship with each other.

You can't do that with your blinders.

You're not a horse.

You don't come to church with your blinders on.

You come to church to be the gathered people of God together.

This is why we don't do Lord's Supper outside of here.

We're not going to do it in Sunday schools.

We're not going to do it in community groups.

We're not going to do it as individual families in the home.

Boy, COVID is just a mess.

It's not going to happen.

The gathered church together.

We're going to do baptisms in a service here for all of you to see a baptism and say, Amen.

Lastly, number five, heaven itself is corporate.

This is much of what Revelation shows us about heaven, especially here in chapter 9.

A great multitude, redeemed, gathered together, crying out with one voice, scriptures, redundant reminders that the people of God are given.

Gathered people points us to the reality of our eternity.

We will worship God in eternity, not as individuals separated, but as a body brought together in unity and perfection.

So I will tell you, this is the great American challenge.

This is the hard, this is one of the hardest things to get Americans to understand, American Christians to understand.

We all hear the people say, I can worship God on the golf course.

I can worship God in nature.

Nature is my sanctuary.

I can go and take a walk and worship God.

You can.

I would encourage you, worship God everywhere.

It's not wrong.

God can be encountered anywhere.

But that person has fundamentally misunderstood what worship is.

Worship at its fullest is not a private transaction between the soul and God.

It is the gathered covenant community with one voice, declaring the worth of the one who saved them.

This is what heaven looks like.

These are all the pictures of heaven, the gathered community, the multitude together, worshiping God.

And the church on earth is meant to be its echo.

This is why we put so much emphasis on covenant community here in our church.

That's why we do all the things that we talked about.

What we do here is an earthly taste of things to come in eternity for us as a people of God.

We are rehearsing.

This is a rehearsal for a time when we will corporately gather together as the redeemed and glorified people of God.

God saves people into a community, and that community is meant to worship together.

You were not saved to worship alone.

Private devotion feeds the soul.

Gathered worship fulfills it.

This Sunday morning gathering should be the highlight of our week together.

All of us as a gathered people of God.

Sorry you missed it.

You can all watch me wear it and be sad that you don't have it.

But the offer of the gospel to join this eternal chorus of hallelujahs, that offer is still open today.

This moment.

But just like every exclusive offer, it will not remain open forever.

I beg of you, non-believer, repent and come to Christ today.

For if you should die without Christ, then I imagine that this very offer, I often think about this.

People that sit under my preaching that don't come to faith in Christ, will the offer of the gospel echo throughout their head for all eternity?

I don't know.

I often wonder that.

When you were given the chance, will the call to repent and turn to Christ echo in your head for all eternity as you suffer because you turned away?

But know that while we look at God's judgment, he is a patient, loving, kind, tender-hearted God, full of infinite grace and mercy for his people.

And he says, all you have to do is come.

Come to Christ.

So profess him as your Lord and Savior today.

The four hallelujahs, the only ones that we see in the New Testament here in the book of Revelation, these are not cheers of a bloodthirsty crowd.

They are a measured, holy, joyful verdict of a universe that has waited long for the righteousness to prevail.

God's judgments are true.

He cannot be fooled.

They are just, he cannot be bribed.

They are final, they cannot be appealed, and they are worthy of worship, they cannot be ignored.

The voice from the throne still calls today praise our God, all you his servants.

And the door to join that chorus is still open, but only through the Lamb.

Let's pray.