Revelation 20:4-6 (The Losers Who Reign)

If you would turn in your copy of God's word to Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

Last week we started chapter 20 with verses 1 through 3.

This week we're going to be in verses 4 through 6.

The title of the message this morning is The Losers Who Reign.

Now, history is written by the winners.

We usually assume that that's true.

The side with the armies, the side with the power, the side with the victory gets to tell the story, and the losers disappear, and their voice along with it.

Now, from the earth's point of view, Christians in Revelation look like losers.

Rome held the swords, and believers were thrown into the lions, they were burned, they were beheaded.

Jesus himself points to the fact that remember in his letter to the church at Smyrna, that he was telling Smyrna then that there was a future persecution that was coming for them.

So now in our tense, it would be past.

In the church at Smyrna Revelation, it was a future prediction from Christ that their specific church would be persecuted heavily, and that their persecution would worsen, and that some of them would die.

By most accounts, Christianity seems to be on the losing side from its very beginning.

And rightly so, because our very leader was crucified by Rome.

But that's looking at it from a single and very limited perspective, that perspective that one can only see from the earth.

Revelation twenty lets us see this same exact history, but from another vantage point, a bigger vantage point.

We see Christianity and we see the church from the view of heaven.

And there the losers from earth's vantage point, the Christians, are now seen from heaven's vantage point as those who sit on the thrones of heaven and judge.

Now, last week we saw the dragon on the chain in verses one through three.

Satan is strong, Christ is stronger, Satan is not free.

And this week we turn our view from the pit that Satan was thrown into to these thrones in heaven and shows us what happens to the very people that Satan is trying to destroy.

Now, this also goes back to an overarching theme throughout the book of Revelation, and that's found back in Revelation chapter 6, specifically verses 9 through 11.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

The souls under the altar, and what were they saying when we saw this view of heaven in Revelation chapter 6?

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

We see the souls of the martyrs under the altar of heaven, and they had a question.

And this question is a theme throughout Revelation, and that question was, How long, O Lord?

And so we see the souls of the martyrs under the altar of heaven crying out for vindication.

How long until we are vindicated, Lord?

And they are told in Revelation chapter 6 to wait a little longer.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

Revelation 20, we're seeing the unfolding of the answer to that prayer from the martyrs.

How long, O Lord, until we are vindicated?

Well, your vindication is now.

So Revelation 20 gives us an answer to a question that was asked back in Revelation chapter 6.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

The tension has been present all throughout the book of Revelation, and now we're coming to a conclusion of that tension.

So where are we?

Remember verses 1 through 3.

Satan is bound by the nameless angel.

And now John looks and he sees these thrones.

Now, again, we talked about the millennial question last week, the three different views.

Just a short reminder that you are in this church, we are allowed to have differing views of the millennial reign and still be covenanted in the same church together.

The question that comes up for debate in this week's text is the question on the first resurrection.

And remember, my pastoral counsel to you is let's not focus on looking at this as a map.

Let's focus on looking at the meaning.

And so what that does for us as a people is that whether somebody is premillennial, a millennial, or post-millennial, there are common things that we all agree on, the meaning of the text.

And I will encourage you this also.

You may hear those words and be like, I have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't know what I am.

You don't have to be any of those.

I have a view, and I like when I sent out the email, I don't hold it very strongly.

The view that I hold strongly is I am pro-millennial.

However, God does it, I am for it.

And the reality is we don't have biblical assurance that any of those views is 100% correct and accurate.

And so we can sit here and say, Lord, we wait for the return of Christ.

Okay.

And so, but what is helpful is you can hold to a view and we can still agree on the meaning of the text.

Okay.

So that's what I'm trying to do here.

So when it comes to the first resurrection, many premillennialists read it as the bodily resurrection of believers when Christ returns.

All millennial and most postmillennial read it as believers' spiritual life, either the new birth that Jesus talks about in John chapter 5, that we also see Paul talk about in Ephesians 2, or as their reigning with Christ in heaven after death.

John 5 · chapter mention

So all millennial and postmillennial would both hold either of those views.

Here's the point: either way, John's point is the same.

Those who belong to Christ have a life that the second death cannot touch.

That's what it means.

We have a life in Christ that the second death doesn't come close to.

So join with me as we read Revelation chapter 20, verses 4 through 6.

Revelation 20:4–6

Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.

Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.

They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.

This is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection.

Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Okay, let's work to this text this morning.

Firstly, we see in verse four that the faithful are vindicated.

So we see these thrones are set.

I saw thrones, and seated on them were those whom the authority to judge was committed.

This echoes Daniel chapter seven, verse nine, and verse 22, where judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the king, the when the saints possessed the kingdom.

So this is an echo of Daniel chapter seven.

And let me pause here and add a little caveat about Revelation.

One thing about Revelation is John pulls from so many other scriptures: Ezekiel, Daniel, we see Isaiah, Jeremiah.

We see so much mirrored imagery in the book of Revelation that his readers would have been very familiar with.

And also, I've told you before, the culture that John wrote in was a lot more comfortable with apocalyptic literature than perhaps we are.

We see this and we want all the puzzle pieces to fit very well together.

So we want to make this puzzle that John's giving us, but these pieces don't all fit together, and that kind of drives us crazy a little bit.

John is pulling from Daniel 7.

So how does that fit?

In reality, apocalyptic literature in this culture would have had a lot of puzzle pieces that don't always fit perfectly.

But but the readers of what John was reading would have immediately recognized this imagery that John is pulling from.

Oh, that's especially the Jewish audiences.

They would have picked up on that and explained that to their Gentile brothers and sisters.

Oh, that's from that's from Daniel.

Daniel talks about this, okay?

Daniel talks about us sitting on thrones.

And so here's John pulling from that imagery that we have already seen in the book of Daniel.

Um, we see that the world's verdict here is overturned.

So the world was constantly putting believers on trial and condemning them.

We see it immediately.

Jesus himself was put on trial and condemned to crucifixion and then was raised from the dead.

And then immediately after that, what do we see?

We see Jesus' apostles.

We see Peter being arrested and put on trial.

We see Paul being arrested, put on trial.

And for 2,000 years, this has been going on all across the world in different aspects and to different degrees, but the believers, Christians, are put on trial and the world repeatedly condemns us.

And here we see heaven is reversing that verdict.

The accused, who have been condemned by the world over and over and over again, now sit in their rightful place on thrones as judges of the world that condemned them.

So we see this upside down of what is happening here on the earth to reality and what is to come.

Um, 1 Corinthians 6, Paul writes, or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?

And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?

Do you not know that we are to judge angels?

How much more then matters pertaining to this lot?

Jesus says, You in Luke chapter 22, you are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you as my father assigned to me a kingdom that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

We have a promise in Scripture here to reign with Christ and sit as judges with him.

Now I want to chase an appropriate rabbit, an intended rabbit, okay?

Um briefly addressing the practicing of judgment on this earth.

I would argue to you that the quick response to any form of judgment on this earth is you often hear the quote of Christ of what?

Judge not lest you be judged.

But that's not a blanket statement against all forms of judgment.

We as the church are commanded to regularly judge one another as a form of accountability and protection for one another and for the church as a whole.

So when we participate in the biblical command of the process of church discipline, and I will tell you, church discipline isn't just a vote in a business meeting to excommunicate a member.

Church discipline, the process starts with those private conversations that Jesus commanded us in Matthew 18.

That is an act of church discipline, and so many times it remains private.

It remains private within the church, within uh two or three people holding accountable one other member, or elders counseling another member.

That's a form of judgment for the sake of our souls.

And James even mentions this in his word that he encourages us.

If you are one who brings back a wandering believer, that covers a multitude of sins.

So, in order to bring back one another, the wandering believer, to do these things, we have to rightly judge one another as we have been commanded to in scripture.

Now, where we get this confused with the world is when we don't do it according to the biblical process.

And that's where the world says, Well, you're just you're just judging me from an individual to an individual.

But the scripture has given us the commands on how to appropriately judge one another for each other's good.

And if we see this taking place in heaven, how much more so should we have the practice here on this earth for the sake of you and for the sake of the church?

Rabbit trail over.

Lastly, in this section, the how long is answered from Revelation chapter six.

The martyrs under the altar, they are vindicated.

They were told to wait, and here the waiting ends.

God does not forget a single one of them.

Now, many of us in this room have in our adventure to follow Christ, in our journey of following Christ, many times we've been misunderstood, we've been mocked, we've been passed over because we follow Christ.

And I want us to know that the world's judgment is not final.

It's not the final judgment.

And until this time comes, Revelation 20, whichever, whichever millennial view is right, if any of them are, what scripture teaches us that 2,000 years of church history confirms, is that the judgment of the world will regularly be against Christianity.

So until you die or Christ returns, expect it to remain that way.

And your faithfulness to Christ will be rewarded to its fullest extent, not in this life, but in the one to come.

Now, don't misunderstand me.

Christ rewards his faithful here and now.

We do have earthly rewards for following Christ, but we will also suffer to varying degrees.

The fullness of your reward for faithfulness to Christ will be delivered to you when you first lay eyes on Christ.

Whether it be in death or in his coming, that is the fullness of your reward for your faithfulness to Christ.

So remain faithful.

In a world that constantly judges you, remain faithful to Christ.

Secondly, we see the faithful are those who paid a price.

We see that they were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.

And this is the same phrase that John uses for why he is on the Isle of Patmos in Revelation chapter 1, verse 9.

Revelation 1:9

He's writing about his own people to which he belongs, a church that is being persecuted.

We also see that they refused the beast and his mark.

Back in Revelation chapter 13, we see that without the mark that you couldn't buy or sell.

Revelation 13 · chapter mention

We also saw this happening to the early church in Revelation, that if they if they refused to regard uh Caesar as a God and worship him as a God, that they were not allowed to participate in the marketplace, that their livelihood would be taken from them.

And so it would cost them everything.

So we see this pressure of an economic and social status being applied to the church.

And I would argue that what we see in Revelation is something that has already happened to the church, but I wouldn't put it past to happen to us again.

And it's happening to us in certain places in the world, and that may continue to grow.

That we may experience at one time the same thing that the churches in Revelation experienced.

If you don't take the mark of the beast, you won't have a livelihood.

Refusing it costs jobs, it costs standing, it costs money, it costs you your ability to feed your family.

Now, what we see in the book of Revelation here and throughout, we see a lot of compare and contrast ideas.

In fact, um last Sunday night, um, every Sunday night at nine o'clock, the elders and the pastoral interns have a service review where we talk about the service.

We spend a lot of time on the sermon.

And last week, Pastor Kent brought up a lot of comparisons that he saw that I'm going that I'm stealing from him for this sermon that we talked about, that I was like, those are really good.

So I'm gonna steal them and use them here, but they've been credited.

Um, so we see the mark of the beast, but we also see in Revelation chapter 7 and Revelation chapter 14, God's seal on the foreheads of his people.

Revelation 7 · chapter mention Revelation 14 · chapter mention

We see other contrasts in the book of Revelation.

We see last week we saw the key to the bottomless pit that the angel had given to him by Christ, and Christ talks about in Matthew 16, 19 to Peter the keys of the kingdom, giving the keys to the kingdom to Peter, and subsequently to the church.

That you and I have those keys right now, the keys to the kingdom.

Jesus had both, and he's given them away.

He's given the church keys of the kingdom, he gave the angel the key to the bottomless pit.

We also see this comparison of a bottomless pit, a pit that has no bottom, it goes on forever, eternal suffering.

We see this comparison to eternal heaven that is infinitely good, infinitely glorious, infinitely eternal.

It goes on forever, it is foreverly good.

We also see this chain that binds Satan, Satan that's thrown into the pit, this chain from Christ to the angel given to Satan to bind him.

What does Jesus say about what he has for his followers?

He says, My yoke is easy, my burden is light.

And he's talking about the eternal rest that we have.

Satan has no eternal rest.

All of his, uh those who don't follow Christ, don't have eternal rest.

But for those of us in Christ, his yoke is easy, his burden is light.

We have eternal rest.

And lastly, we see this sealed, bottomless pit that Satan cannot undo.

And only Christ can undo it as he undid the seal of the tomb, of the stone that was placed over his tomb.

So we have lots of parallelism that points us to the fact that Christ is all glorious, all powerful, and his uh demands of all things stands.

And that's good for his people.

And we also see that faithfulness is costly, but it's the normal Christianity.

Christian life.

Second Timothy 3 12 says, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

But here's the payoff.

Jesus said in Matthew 10 32, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father.

In February of 2015, 21 Christian men were beheaded by ISIS on a Libyan beach.

Twenty of them were Egyptians, one was from Ghana.

And Isis, the killers, filmed it for the world to see as propaganda to show their power.

And many of these men who were being beheaded were heard calling on the Lord Jesus as they died.

The phrase beheaded for the testimony of Jesus is exactly what happened to them.

Now ISIS thought that that video showed victory.

But Revelation 20, verse 4, says that those 21 men are reigning.

Revelation 20:4

They sit on thrones of judgment this very moment with Christ.

In 2019, Iranian converts to Christianity were seen waving goodbye to their children as they turn themselves in to begin prison sentences simply for their faith, following Christ.

Now most of us in this room don't know what that's like.

I'd say all of us don't know what that's like.

We don't know what it's like to face prison or to face the sword for our faith in Christ.

But we have to know that we have brothers and sisters this very moment, this very day, that have gathered together to worship Christ under that threat.

But we do here, even in America, as the church and as Christians, we all do face the pressure of the mark of the beast.

Go along with culture, stay quiet, and you'll keep your place.

So I would ask you this morning, where is that pressure in your life, at work, at school, with friends that don't follow Christ, with family members that don't follow Christ?

Where do you see that pressure in your life to just go along with the world and bear the mark of the beast in this instance?

And I will say this: we don't know what the future holds.

Nobody can predict it, but it seems that from the book of Revelation, one thing that we can all agree on, except for maybe post-millennialists, is that it looks like persecution against Christianity will increase around the globe.

Which means that there is a feasible reality in which Christianity in the land that we now live in called the United States may be heavily persecuted.

That's not out of the realm of possibility.

And this is what we want.

We want to prepare our church, Calvary Baptist Church, and our children for this.

We continue to build a foundation now and pour into the truth of scriptures and we pass it down generation after generation so that if the day comes where being a Christian in this community is under threat of persecution, that our spiritual descendants who are members of this same congregation will benefit greatly from what we do today to make Calvary Baptist Church a strong fortress for the gospel.

Not a building-rich church, not how many buildings can we throw up, not a cool factor rich, not how modern can our website be and our social media be?

Not what enticing things can we have to attract culture?

We're never gonna be able to compete with culture for entertainment.

We're just not.

There's no amount of fog machines and screens and and music.

There's just no amount of that where we're gonna be able to stand and compete against culture on what they provide the world.

But you know what?

We can provide that nobody else in the world can provide two things: the true gospel of Jesus Christ and a transformative culture in a local body of believers that the world looks at and says, I have no place in my mind to comprehend how that church responds and behaves with one another.

That's the thing that we can offer that the culture cannot compete with, a transformative culture in this church.

Do you know?

I just read this week that the amount of people having people over into their homes from the 1950s to today has drastically declined.

That people are not regularly going into other people's homes anymore.

In the 50s, it was very common.

In the 60s, it was very common.

But now it's just very uncommon for people to be in one another's homes.

This is why I tell you all the time a simple thing that would be very easy to do to contribute to a transformative culture.

Be in one another's homes.

Go to each other's homes, invite people to your home.

You don't have to plan anything.

Just share a meal together, pray together, get to know one another.

Do that regularly outside of any church program.

You can't program that.

I can't, the staff can't program that.

We can foster that community.

And when we do what we can to foster that community, but I want you to do that.

Be in one another's homes regularly, pray for one another, bear one another's burdens.

That's the transformative community that will outlast persecution should it come in this land.

That's what we see in Scripture.

That's what we see the New Testament church doing.

That's what we want to emulate.

And lastly, this morning, we see the faithful reign with Christ.

We see they came to life and reigned.

People who were killed are alive and ruling, meaning death does not have the last word.

Death has no say.

We also see seven Beatitudes in the book of Revelation, and here we see one of them: blessed and holy.

Blessed describes their happiness, and holy describes their standing.

Both of those come from belonging to Christ.

You don't belong to Christ, you will not be blessed, you will not be holy.

If you are in Christ, you will be blessed, and you will be holy.

We see the second death has no power.

This fulfills the promise of Christ to the persecuted church in Smyrna.

I told you at the beginning, remember Smyrna.

Jesus' words to Smyrna were like, hey guys, you're doing great.

I'm paraphrasing.

He said, Hey guys, you're doing great.

I know that you've suffered a lot.

You're gonna suffer more, and it's actually gonna get worse.

That's what Jesus said to Smyrna.

You're doing great.

I know you've suffered, you're about to suffer more.

On the outskirts, not very encouraging.

But Jesus made a promise to them: be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

The first death may come.

We see the first death come a lot.

But the second death, eternal judgment, cannot touch those of us who are in Christ.

And we also see here that they are priests of God and of Christ.

This fulfills what we see earlier in Revelation chapter 1, verse 6, and chapter 5, verse 10.

Revelation 1:6

It's Israel's calling in Exodus 19, verse 6.

Exodus 19:6

It's then given to the church in 1 Peter 2, 9.

You can go and read all those verses later.

I've got them listed there.

Priests have access to God, and they serve in his presence, and they bring others to him.

That work now belongs to all who are in Christ, and that work begins now on this earth.

In the Old Testament, the priests only came out of one tribe, the tribe of Levi.

And so you had the priests, and they were to mediate for the people, and in several ways.

And they were assigned to do certain tasks according to the book of Leviticus, which is where it gets its name from.

And they were the guys who did this and mediated for the people of Israel.

And the biggest one that we see, of course, is on the Day of Atonement, which actually just occurred in the Jewish uh religion.

I think it was last Monday, where the high priest before Christ, one day on the Day of Atonement, would do the ritual cleansing.

And it was on that day of the year that he would walk into the Holy of Holies and offer sacrifice on the ark for the people of God.

But Jesus Christ has come, and there's a reason why when he was crucified, that the veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies completely tore into.

Because the presence of God through Christ is now with his people, we are the temple.

You are the temple of God now.

The Holy Spirit lives in you as a people of God.

And so we are all priests.

There's nothing special about a pastor.

We carry no supernatural office.

We carry no supernatural skills or abilities.

Neither do deacons.

We are all priests of God.

We are all here to do the work of God.

We are all here in Revelation, priests of God and of Christ.

Meaning, you, brothers and sisters, have access to God.

You can walk into the Holy of Holies and not die.

Through Christ, you can do that.

We do it all the time when we pray.

It's just like walking into the Holy of Holies and talking to God.

In the Pilgrim's Progress, Christian's companion Faithful is put on trial in Vanity Fair, and he's condemned, and he's executed.

And we see this picture where the crowd thinks it has won, but then Bunyan describes a chariot waiting behind the crowd that carries faithful to the celestial city.

And so what on the outskirts looked like defeat from the earthly vantage point was actually the quickest way home.

Faithful being delivered to the celestial city.

This is the comfort that we have in the book of Revelation.

Now, make no mistake, this apocalyptic book displays an amount of chaos that this world has never seen, but it's all under the direction of God for the good of his church.

The Smyrna connection matters because Jesus made this promise directly to a church facing prison and facing death.

And the whole book assumes that its readers, that you and I, remember it.

We remember the churches that suffered.

And imagine me preaching this message this morning in Algeria, where Christians today live under the threat of death.

Imagine the comfort that this would be to those who live under actual persecution.

Imagine me having to whisper this sermon because we don't want the neighbors next door to hear that we're participating in a Christian worship service.

And imagine the comfort that that would bring.

Hey guys, at any moment, they can bust through these doors and kill you or arrest you.

But Smyrna saw this.

And Jesus said, You're gonna suffer more.

But he said you're gonna get the crown of life.

It's hard for us to imagine because we we sit here in a completely different culture.

But make no mistake, the first death comes for you.

Just like it comes for the persecuted church.

You may die of old age, comfortable, on your deathbed, but it makes no difference.

The first death is coming your way.

But it's all under the sovereign hand of God and for our good and for his glory.

We have an infinite solace in Christ Jesus.

That's what it means to be his bride, that's what it means to be his church, no matter what happens here and now, wherever we live in the globe, whatever degree of persecution we have, whatever pressure we have to bear the mark of the beast, we are victorious in Christ and will be forevermore.

So here's some applications for you.

Firstly, measure success by faithfulness.

We have to do this every day, in the little ways and in the big ways.

Refuse the mark of the evil culture of the world that is under the influence of Satan.

Refuse it.

Refuse the mark.

It may cost you little, it may cost you big.

Just refuse the mark.

Children, students, identify in your life where you're pressured to compromise your faith in Christ.

If your friends at school make fun of you for being a devout Christian, when your friends laugh at you for this, this is this is part of what comes to us.

Now, for those of you who are homeschooled, if that's your brother or sister, just tell mom or dad.

Because what we've learned is that even at Christian schools, those who stand for Christ get persecuted by their friends.

So young people, kids, stand up for Jesus.

And when people make fun of you at school for it, you're doing exactly what the Bible's called you to do.

Adults, you guys do the same thing.

Refuse the mark of the beast every day of your life.

Don't compromise.

Don't compromise the gospel.

Don't compromise the biblical commands.

You are sealed with the seal of God kept in place by the Holy Spirit.

So go out there and live like someone who carries the seal of God.

Thirdly, face death with hope.

We've buried some church members since I've been here.

You know, they say in pastoral ministry, the way you get to people's hearts is you marry them, then you bury them.

I've gotten to do some weddings, and then I've gotten to do some funerals.

Those who die in Christ are not losers.

They are with Christ.

When you as a believer die, you go to be with Christ.

Immediately.

For the older saints in this room, just know the second death has no power over you.

You know, I don't I don't say this lightly, I don't say it sarcastically, I say it in reality.

I'm going to say two things.

There is there is a real sense where we as a church need to understand this.

That Pastor Henry's Sunday school class is heaven's waiting room.

And I don't say that sarcastically.

We know that most of us don't make it to 100.

And we know that the oldest in our church, or in Pastor Henry's, there is no Sunday school class after that.

Your next promotion Sunday is heaven.

Now, we also know this that Pastor Jason's class can face death, that our youth can face death, that our children can face death, that our nursery can face death.

But if you are in Christ, the second death has no hold over you.

For those of us in Christ, death does something beautiful for us.

It transfers us from the land of the dead to the land of the living.

We are now in the land of the dead.

Not in a zombie movie, but we live among, we work with, we shop with every day.

We see spiritually dead people.

Those who are spiritually dead who will taste the first and second death.

But those of us who are in Christ upon our death will be taken to be with Christ in heaven, where we will for all eternity joyfully dwell with Christ and his people, and the second death cannot touch us.

And we will eternally be in the land of the living.

So we all in here can face death with hope.

And senior adults, that is something that I encourage you to minister to us that are younger than you about what is it like to know that the next thing in your life is death.

I mean, we get so caught up in career and in retirement accounts and and the weekly tasks that we forget that a hundred years from now, all of us in here will be gone.

You, senior adults, have a gift that I don't have.

But you know that death is nearer to you.

What does it look like to celebrate that?

As a believer, as a Christian, and I would encourage you minister to me and the other younger ones in here about how.

To live life for Christ until you see Him.

Fourthly, remember the persecuted church.

Hebrews 13, 3.

Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them.

It is good for us to know about our brothers and sisters around the world that are suffering.

We may not know their names, but we have to remember that our brothers and sisters in Algeria, this very moment in Iran, this very moment that are imprisoned for Christ, that we don't know what they look like, we don't know what their names are.

You are closer to them than you are a non-Christian American.

Because our heavenly citizenship infinitely draws us closer together with them.

We must remember them.

We must pray for them.

Even though we don't know them, you will soon.

You will meet them in glory.

One day you're gonna meet those who are imprisoned at the time that you were here worshiping.

And you're gonna you're gonna know and you're gonna say, We prayed for you.

We prayed for you to have courage.

We prayed for you to have faith.

My preacher talked about you, and I was encouraged to stand strong for my faith when I go to school, and my friends make fun of me for following Jesus because I knew that you were in prison.

And lastly, live as priests now.

Pray for others, worship Christ, bring people to Jesus, do what the priests do.

You don't have to wait for some future ordination or some future ceremony to do that.

You are a priest of God most high.

Serve him now, worship him, tell others about him, bring others to Christ.

History is written by the winners, that's true, but the winners are not who the world thinks they are.

The author of history has already written the last chapter.

And the martyrs are on the thrones, the faithful are reigning, the second death has no power over anyone who belongs to Jesus.

Revelation 6, verse 9 through 11.

Revelation 6:9–11

The question, how long, O Lord?

The answer is not one day longer than God has appointed, and not one of the martyrs is forgotten.

Now I want to close by reading to you very apropos.

Um, Charles Spurgeon has a morning and evening devotion.

It's available in book.

I encourage you to get it.

It's just called Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon.

It's got two devotions for every day.

There's also a podcast called Morning and Evening.

It's about two and a half minutes long.

You can listen to it twice a day, every day.

I encourage you all get the book or listen to the podcast.

But I want to read to you the morning devotion for October 2nd to close this sermon out.

And the scripture passage was Colossians 1:5, the hope laid up for you in heaven.

Colossians 1:5

He writes, Our hope in Christ for the future is the main source of our joy here.

It will energize our hearts to think often of heaven, for all that we can desire is promised there.

Here we are weary and tired, but over there is the land of rest where the workman's sweat will no longer drip from his brow and fatigue will be forever banished.

To those who are weary and spent, the word rest is full of heaven.

We are always in the field of battle.

We are so tempted within and so molested by outside enemies that we have little or no peace.

But in heaven we will enjoy the victory when the banner shall be waved in victory and the sword put back into its sheath, will hear our captain say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

We have suffered sorrow after sorrow, but we're going to the land of the immortal, where graves are unknown things.

Here sin is a constant grief to us, but there we shall be perfectly holy, for nothing defiled will enter into that kingdom.

Hemloch doesn't grow in heavenly fields.

Oh, what a joy! You won't be in banishment forever.

You won't dwell eternally in this wilderness, but will soon inherit Canaan.

Nevertheless, let it never be said of us that we are dreaming about the future and forgetting about the present.

In fact, let the future cause us to use the present for its highest use.

Through the Spirit of God, the hope of heaven is the most potent force for the producing of virtue.

It's a fountain of joyous effort.

It's the cornerstone of cheerful holiness.

The man who has this hope in him goes about his work with vigor, for the joy of the Lord is his strength.

He fights against temptation with zeal, for the hope of the next world repels the fiery darts of the adversary.

He can labor without reward here and now because he looks for a reward in the world to come.

Let's pray together.