We are in the middle of the study of the book of Revelation, and I don't want to waste any time. I want us to dig right in. So please open your bulletin, and let's begin with the beginning of Revelation chapter 5. I have just loved this. It has been such a great week for me to study this text. Actually, the last several weeks as I've read this text every day, and it's been a hard text to study just because when I finish reading it, I don't want to go study and start writing. I want to just pray and worship and thank the Lord. It's an evocative text in a lot of ways, and I hope the Lord will bless it for you today. I think, let me just say a few words of introduction to this text because it's important. Everybody knows, right? Everybody who's grown up in the church and spent a lot of time around churches, you know the book of Revelation is kind of the book. It's the hard one. It's the one with the tough stuff in it, right? And it is, it has got some difficult things for us, especially because we're not used to kind of interpreting dreams. That's not, you know, all of our dreams are weird. We don't spend a lot of time thinking about them. We're too smart for that. You know, we know that dreams don't really mean anything, yada, yada. We're just way too smart for things like dreams and revelation. And so, We don't tend to read it. And when we do read it, what we find is the first six chapters or four or five chapters or so are kind of easy, right? And you begin to get lazy and you think, I get this, this isn't that hard. I don't know what people are telling me. This is where it gets hard. Actually, the next chapter is where it gets hard. Chapter six is where you just kind of go, what in the world? And what I want you to understand is chapter five explains it. Okay? Chapter 5 of Revelation, as I've studied this week, I've become convinced that not only does this chapter explain the book of Revelation, this... Okay, I'm about to say a lot. This chapter kind of explains human history. This chapter, in a lot of ways, tells you what the whole Bible is about. And I want you to hear it and try to take the cynicism off your ears. And as we go into it and we listen to it, I think it will affect you. And I think you'll leave today seeing some things that maybe you haven't seen before. So hear the word of the Lord from Revelation chapter 5. John is talking about his vision in heaven that we started last week. He's seen the king on the throne and he says this, Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll. written within and on the back and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy to open the scroll and to break its seals. And no one in heaven and or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly. Because no one was found worthy to open the scroll. Or to look into. Let's stop there for a few minutes. Then we'll do things a little differently. Usually I read the whole text, but I want you to kind of get into the drama of this text, okay? A few years ago, a movie came out. It was very popular, but it was intense. And I don't get to go watch intense movies in the theater because that's not Bianca's cup of tea. So I have to kind of wait for a while to see them. And so I was a little bit late coming to the party to see No Country for Old Men. And when I finally saw it, it was obvious why it was such a popular movie, because it was intensely cool. Okay. The bad guy was And the good guy is Tommy Lee Jones. He's got the best Southern accent in Hollywood. And he's a great actor. If he's not your favorite actor, you got real issues. And so he's cool. And the whole movie, you're kind of watching it. And Tommy Lee Jones is this grizzled, experienced lawman. And he's figuring everything out. And he's going to get him. And you're kind of waiting for him to get him. And then comes this huge climactic scene where Tommy Lee Jones is waiting for the bad guys in the hotel room. The bad guy's about to come in. He's gonna finally shoot him and get this over with. Except he picked the wrong room. And he didn't shoot him. And Tommy Lee Jones went home and he realized that this job was really too dangerous. And he retired. And the bad guy went and hunted down an innocent widow, young widow, and she was pleading for mercy. And he shot her in cold blood and wiped his feet off on the mat, and the movie ends. And I remember thinking as I watched that movie, okay, I see why this is so popular, because it is cool, but it is dark. Is that really life? Is there really no mercy? Is there really no hope? Would the good guy really be better off just taking care of himself and going and retiring and living in comfort? Is there really no justice for the wicked? That's not the kind of movie our hearts cry out for, right? Our hearts cry out for movies like, You know, a beautiful mind where you have someone who's stricken with this terrible condition, but through the faithful and sacrificial and brave love of his wife, is able to overcome and ends the movement in a scene of glory. That's what we like. We like movies like that where there's redemption, Rocky, Invictus. We like movies that end with joy and reconciliation and glory. But are they true? Is life like that? That's really the question for us, isn't it? It's not, what do you like or what do you not like? What does our heart prefer to see? I mean, it's obvious. Movies that have happy endings typically make more money, but it's not what do you prefer to say? It's not an issue of entertainment. What's true? Is there hope? Or not. And what this text teaches us is that there is hope. And there is joy, and there is glory, and there is healing, and there is completion, and there is redemption because Jesus was worthy to execute the plan of God. Because He was worthy to bring it to fruition, there is hope. That's what's going on here. You see, the scroll in the Lord's hand, that's not just like a book. He wasn't reading, you know, Moby Dick and sealed it up, and nobody can unseal it. It wasn't His diary. It's a picture of him. He was on the throne is in the hand of him who's on the throne. And here is his his royal edict. This is his decree of what he wants. And we know what the Lord wants. We turn to the end of Revelation and we see what he wants. He wants a world where there is healing, where there are no more tears. where He is dwelling in the presence of His people, and His people live under His intimacy, and they love each other, and they're forgiven with each other, and they're reconciled with each other, and they're reconciled to Him, and there's nothing to fear. And there's nothing to be ashamed of. And there's no scars that we're continually living under the impression of. For everything is healed. and where everyone experiences joy. That's what the Lord has got wrapped up in the scroll. That is his decree. That's what he wants to have happen. And the question of the entirety of human history is who is going to execute the decree? Who can bring that to about? That's the story of the Bible, right? Adam was unworthy. He could not do it. Abraham was faithful. He's going to be the one who saves us, right? Except he goes and, you know, has some sexual immorality issues with his kitchen maid and kind of messes everything up. Well, then it's going to be Moses. He's going to lead us out. He's going to be the one who is worthy, except he gets tired of these bickering, pouting, whining Israelites. And he asked the Lord to kill them. That's not how you save people. And so it's going to be King David. David is going to conquer our enemies and he's going to be the one who is worthy. Except, you know, he decides not to go out and battle with, you know, the other kings because he's a little bit old for this and takes a walk on his roof and sees a woman taking a bath and thinks, her. And he's sexually immoral and an adulterer and a murderer. He's not worthy. And John begins to see that, and he begins to feel that. He hears the voice crying out, who is worthy to open the scroll? And he begins to weep. He begins to cry loudly, he said. Because nobody's worthy. Nobody can open the scroll. There's no hope. This world is broken, and it's always going to be broken. And so, for the young girl who's diagnosed with cancer this week, we say there's no hope. You're going to be sick your whole life, and then you're going to die, and there's nothing. And for the little boys who were exploited by someone they trusted, We say, you're gonna be scarred your whole life. You will never experience love. You'll never be able to really give yourself away and trust. And then you will die and it will never get better. And two, the young children in Stillwater whose fathers died in a plane crash this week, we say, you'll never know your daddy. You'll never get him back. You'll never know the love of a father. There is no hope. There is no hope. It's never going to get better than this. Because nobody is worthy to open that scroll. That's why John was weeping. This isn't some kind of weird theological far off distant thing for him. He gets it. He sees the pain and the misery in this world. He feels that yearning in the core of our being when we want to say it's not supposed to be this way. And he realizes if no one opens the scroll. Then it will never be better than. No one is worthy to open the scroll. And so he weeps, and he weeps. And then what? And one of the elders said to me, weep no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered. So he can open the scroll and it's seven seats. In the midst of his weeping, this elder comes to him and says, Don't cry. The lion of the tribe of Judah. The descendant of Judah, the descendant of Abraham, he's worthy, he's conquered. He is conquered. He has conquered everything that enslaves you. He has conquered everything that holds over us. He's conquered it. And so he can open the scroll so he can bring the plan to fruition. That's the story of the Bible, that Jesus is the one that we were waiting for the whole Old Testament. That's why in the songs of Advent that we're going to start singing next week, we sing songs of expectation. O come, O come, Emmanuel. Come, thou long expected Jesus. Come set us free. He's come and he's broken open the scroll and he's brought God's plan to fruition. How? By conquering. He's conquered for us. What does that mean? It means that we're no longer slaves. It means we're no longer slaves to our sin. It means you're no longer slaves to death. There was a famous bishop named Terry Waite, and he kind of started giving his life to this cause of negotiating with terrorists and trying to free hostages. And back in the 80s, he went into Lebanon, I believe, and he tried to negotiate for the freedom of some American hostages. And so they took him captive. They enslaved him. And he described that year of captivity where he was in solitary confinement, handcuffed to a pipe 24 hours a day. He would only get freedom when they would come and take him to the bathroom. And so they would come and they would unlock his handcuffs and they would take him to the bathroom. And he described days where he said, they would sometimes forget to chain me up when they dropped me off in the bathroom. But I knew I couldn't escape. And I knew if they found me unchained, they would beat me. And so I would take my handcuffs and I would chain myself to the pipe. Can you imagine that kind of enslavement? Where you would your best option is to handcuff yourself to the pipe. I think some of you can imagine that. I think some of you. are so enslaved to your habitual sins, you're so enslaved to your stomach, you're so enslaved to your self-gratification, you're so enslaved to your greed, you're so enslaved to however you've allowed yourself to become, you're so enslaved to your anger that you're not even gonna try to be better again. You've tried so many times to free yourself. You've tried so many times to experience freedom. You've failed so many times, and failing hurts worse than the enslavement, so you're not even gonna try again. It would just be better to just be a slave, wouldn't it? At least that way nothing's changed. If I try to get better and fail, then I have got the belly flop and the slavery, so let's just stay a slave. I think some of us feel that way. And what the message here is that Jesus has conquered, he has conquered, he has come in as a lion and he has set his people free. That does not mean, if you have the mentality in your mind of kind of a slave auction and he's come and he's purchased us, get that picture out of your mind. That's not the picture of the Bible. The way he has freed us is the way God freed Israel from Egypt. They were enslaved under Egypt. And so God came to Pharaoh and he didn't pay him. He didn't give him a large sum of money and say, okay, I'll take these people now. He crushed him. He utterly destroyed his entire kingdom until Pharaoh said, please take them, go. And that is what God has done to our enemies. He has crushed them. He has crushed death. He has crushed slavery. And he has set us free. He has set us free. He has freed us from the slavery of thinking life is never gonna get better. He has freed us from the slavery to death. When we lose people that we love and we can know we will see them again. And we will see them without the ugliness of sin and the disappointment and the discouragement of not really knowing if we're reconciled here and all the uncomfortableness that comes from human relationships. We will see them in complete freedom and forgiveness and joy and pleasure and delight. He has freed us from wondering if things are ever going to be any better. He has freed us from wondering if we can ever truly love. He has freed us from wondering if things will ever be what they ought to be. He has led us like a triumphant king. And how does he do it? How does he do it? Here we see an example of revelation being like a dream. It says in verse six, between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain. And with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Jesus hears, don't weep, the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. And so he turns around expecting to see what? A lion. And he turns around and he sees a lamb that has been slain. Now it's weird if you've never had a dream, but if you've had a dream, you know this, right? You're dreaming that you're out in the yard and you're shoveling snow and then your wife calls you in. So I go into the house and I open the door and all of a sudden, it's not my living room, but it's a classroom and there's my sixth grade teacher wondering where my homework is. And without blinking, you go and you start looking for your homework, right? That's the way dreams are. You know, they're not linear. You don't always see what you expect to see. And we've already seen this in Revelation. John hears the voice of a multitude and he turns around to see the Son of Man. We're going to hear it again next chapter, very important, when he hears of 144,000 and he turns around, he sees what? An innumerable multitude that no man can count. So John hears the line of the tribe of Judah and he turns and he sees the lamb who's been slain. He turns and he sees the lamb. It's a lamb with absolute power. Horns throughout scripture are the symbols of power. And this lamb has seven horns, he has all power. But he's laid it aside. and allowed himself to be slain, allowed himself to be sacrificed. He's a lamb with absolute knowledge. He has seven eyes. He's all seeing, has the seven spirits throughout all the world. He's ever present. He's everywhere. This lamb is God himself. And he's laid it all aside to be slain for us, to be sacrificed for us. God himself has been sacrificed to bring his plan to fruition. So let me explain to you why this makes sense to you. I want this on a deep level to resonate with you. Whose fault is this broken and screwed up world? When you're in moments of honesty and you are mad that the world has turned out the way it has turned out, who do you blame it on? At the core, your first response is to blame it on God, is it not? God, why did you make this crummy place? And Jesus says, okay, I'll take the blame. And he was crucified for it. God himself took the punishment for this broken world. He took it. He laid aside his power. He laid aside his wisdom and he was crucified. He was beaten and nailed to a cross. He took the blame. He says, okay, I'm punished. Will you come into my better world now? Will you let me give you hope of a better world? That kind of makes us go back, doesn't it? And we go, well, Lord, The problem with me coming into a perfect world is I would mess it up. Lord, this crummy world is not really your fault. It's my fault. Because I'm selfish, you know, anything I touch, I try to manipulate so that I make it for my own pleasure. One of the fun things of raising children is, if you have several children, then you get to watch the absolute conflict of sin that goes on in a child's heart when their sibling is having a birthday. Because on one hand, you're really, like, you like this guy. You know, it's kind of fun to sing happy birthday. It's fun to eat cakes. Hurry up and eat your cake. But on the other hand, man, it's hard for everything not to be for you. It's hard to watch everybody celebrate somebody else. And it is hard to watch somebody else open presents. And there's this conflict that goes on. I want it to be for me. And it's amazingly consistent. Every birthday, a sibling is gonna get disciplined. You know this if you grew up with brothers and sisters. And if you're the youngest and you're like I am, and you're used to everything always being for you, man, it's hard. It's hard. I got spanked in my own birthdays it was so hard. Because I corrupt everything I touch. My selfishness, my desire to use everything for me, it corrupts everything I touch. And if God were to bring me into a perfect world, I would ruin it. It is my fault. I'm the problem. And Jesus says, I know, I know. I was stained for you. I was crucified for you. I know that it wasn't my fault. I took the blame. God himself allowed himself to be crucified and took the blame for destroying this world, but he knew it was you. He knew you were the one who broke it. but he also knew you could never pay for it. You could never bear the burden. You could never pay to replace what you had destroyed. You could never do it. You just wouldn't, in a million years, because you don't have the strength, because you don't have the seven horns, because you're not all powerful, because you're not all knowing, your sacrifice would never have been worth it. So he took it for you. He paid the debt for you. He suffered in our place for us. So what? So what? What does John go on to see? He says, And he went on and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for your slain. And by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and they shall reign on the earth. And I looked and behold around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, number numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands singing with a loud voice. Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. How are you not clapping right now? I don't get it. That's amazing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in him saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might and forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen. Amen. And we're going to not be Presbyterian today, and the elders fell down and worship. And the elders fell down and worshiped. We're not slaves to death. We're not slaves to darkness. There is light. And He has made us a kingdom of priests and we shall reign. He's made us a kingdom of priests. And we shall reign forever and ever on the earth. There's so much theology in that that you're going to have to come back all spring long for me to explain it to you. He has made us to reign on this earth forever. As priests. As priests, what does it mean to be a priest? It means you have access to the holy of holies. It means God is yours. You can go to him. And it means that your purpose in living is to bring others to him. It means you make intercession, you pray for people. And it means you bring people. And you explain to them that, yes, this world is broken, and I'm not gonna fake it, and I'm not gonna look like some kind of porcelain doll who's always smiling and got a Bible answer for every question. This world is broken, and sometimes it just stinks. And it's heartbreaking sometimes. But there really is a better world coming. Because God who made this world has suffered to make it better. There is hope. And so we give our money to make intercession for others. We give our time, we give our reputations, all to bring other people to Christ. And to give a gift that's gonna keep giving for millions of years. I want you to believe that. I want you to believe that you're going to reign on this earth forever with everyone else who loves the Lamb. I want you to get a vision for it in your head. Worshipping with other people. What does that look like? It looks like in 10,000 years, you know what I want you to do? What I want to happen to you? I want to broaden your vision. In 10,000 years, I want this to happen. I want someone to walk up to you and go, I've been looking for you. 10,000 years ago, way back in 2011, you started sponsoring a child through Compassion International. That child was my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. And she believed the gospel because of you. And I'm here because of you. I'm here because of you. Thank you for being a priest. And you know what you'll say? You fool. You're not here because of me. You're here because the lamb is worthy. You're here because Jesus opened the scroll. Let's worship the Lamb together. When musicians come forward, we're gonna respond by singing this glorious song that we're gonna be singing forever. And can it be, could I possibly be someone who would gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Really, for me? And while we're singing that, I want you to spend some time in self-examination. Is that your song? Have you gained an interest in His blood? Is this your future? Are you still under the darkness of no country for old men? Is that where you live? Or do you live with a hope, a sure and certain hope of a world where there is healing and where there is love and there is freedom? And if you don't know that, I want you to come and let me pray with you. Please pray with me now. Father in heaven, Worthy is the lamb who was slain. We'll sing it now, we'll sing it forever and ever. It will always be our song. Would you come? Would you convince us more deeply that that hope and that joy and that healing is real because of Jesus? Would you invite us to come and take pleasure in it? Amen.