We'll be reading the entire chapter. So Revelation chapter 15, hear the word of the Lord. And I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last for with them the wrath of God is finished. I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire. and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you. where your righteous acts have been revealed. And after this I looked and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues clothed in pure bright linen with golden sashes around their chests. And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. And the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. And no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished. May God bless the reading of his holy word. Please be seated. Please be in prayer for our senior pastor as he's away tending to his family. But I'm thankful and privileged to bring the word of the Lord to you this morning. But let's go to the Lord in prayer before we begin to look at his word together. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word as revealed to us through Apostle John and Revelation and the unveiling through the many visions you gave him, Lord Jesus. Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would attend to us now and lead us into what is true. That opinions of mine will be forgotten as we leave these doors. We desire that, Lord, your word, your truth would shape us and shape our hearts. Lord, we need to be encouraged in places we need to change, in places we need to repent. And you know that. So Lord, would you rightly apply as the perfect surgeon of the heart? One of us, we look at your word this morning. Above all, we ask that we would see Jesus and him glorified. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Now this is, Revelation's been a book that I have, been slowly working through, broken up over time, so obviously I can't hold you to remember the last time we talked about this, which was months ago, in Revelation chapter 14. But only that if you hear me refer to Revelation 14 and some even 16 today, just take that as an encouragement that as you get home today, read 14, 15, and 16. Because these are somewhat, well they are, interconnected. And let me use an example which In fact, I could be faulted for having used this before, but I can't find a better one. I remember growing up in the schoolyard, school, going out for sports, whatever you do, and you go out and play basketball or whatever, and the kids would all get together, and we'd play a game which no one plays anymore. It's called Red Rover. And everybody would line up on two teams, and you'd hold hands. Red Rover, Red Over, you'd call out somebody's name. Tim, Tim, come over. Anyway, that kid will then run and he'll try to break through that line. If he does, then of course, you know, it's good for their team when you add those people and on it goes. And so now the boys would do this, I guess the girls would do this sometimes, but I mean, I remember the boys and I remember that, you know, it's easy to break this kind of connection. But if you take your arms and you kind of overlap like this, it's this interlocking grab, that was just really devious. It was really hard to break that one. And so we would kind of inch up and grab each other's arms that way. And the reason we probably don't play this game anymore is because a lot of disjointed sockets and broken bones. But that overlapping picture of that is just a visual picture to me of what's happening here in Revelation 15, because what you're gonna see, just so you know as you read this, starting with verse one, we're gonna have what John typically does is when he describes another scene that he's getting ready to go into detail with, he says, then I saw another sign in heaven. He's kinda letting you know, here's another one. And then the funny thing is, in verses two through four, he kinda goes back to the previous vision of chapter 14. And then starting verse five, he's gonna resume with the new one. That's why I'm saying it kinda overlaps. You've got 14 and 15 kinda doing this for a little bit. They're overlapping each other until you finally get to 15, which is gonna lead into 16, chapter 16. And you'll find this other places in Revelation, chapters eight and nine. And I just wanna let you know that as you read this because if you don't understand, that's a device that he's using because he wants to bring emphasis to the fact that that this vision, and the one previous, I know we're not gonna talk about today, in 14, that they dovetail together. And we're gonna have this picture of these people singing, who in chapter 14, they were worshiping the Lamb on Mount Zion. The scene slightly shifts, and now they're by this glassy sea. Just to let you know, you're getting different perspectives of much of the same event that's taking place. So you get the full-ordered picture of what Jesus is giving in this vision for his people to understand. So let's start with, let's start with verse one. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. And we could also, just so you know, we could also translate that, the wrath of God is also brought up to the full. completed in its scope. So it's very easy to, again, look at some of these scenes and think they're actually chronological, to read Revelation in a chronological order. 14 happens first, and then 15, and then 16, and you're going to be very confused if that's the approach you take. Instead, again, we're looking at another perspective of God's wrath, which has already been revealed in the seals earlier on in Revelation and in the trumpets. And so we're getting to this more full-ordered picture, which is going to complete, in a sense, the picture of wrath in this sense. Why is it so important that Revelation is bringing to us this picture of God's wrath? Earlier on, Revelation asks a question. It has a picture of the saints under the altar, and they're crying out, how long? Lord till our vindication how long we're the martyrs crying out from under the altar they've been persecuted for following the lamb many have given they've given their lives and then those that haven't lost their lives are suffering under it and the cry is Lord how long till you set things right how long till you're gonna stop evil you're going to address this and so here we see in Revelation the picture form of the answer to that question that's been echoing through the entire book how long oh Lord Psalm 13 echoes this well. We opened worship today with the last part of Psalm 13. But Psalm 13 begins with four repeats of how long, O Lord, till you hear my cries? How long? This is an important place in Revelation. I would argue the whole book is important for the church in distress, but this is an important chapter for us even to focus on, especially if you feel in any sense unstable or distressed about what's going on around you. You remember the Apostle John, you wanna talk about some stress. I mean, he's already exiled on Patmos, receiving this vision, which he's been recording to give to the people, but we're under Domitian, who is persecuting and killing Christians in vile ways, even using them for street lamps, with a little bit of pitch and a little bit of fire. So worship is hidden in many cases. You're looking over your shoulder. What in the world is the Lord doing? Why has he brought us to this? It's gotta be the questions they asked back then, and maybe are similar to some of the questions you even ask now. So again, back to verse one. It's this introduction of this new scene, this new sign in heaven. of the wrath of God being brought to its fulfillment and completion. And so, like I alluded to, now we're going to, in verse 2, he's going to shift gears a little bit. We're going to go back a little bit, kind of recast the picture that we saw in chapter 14 of all of the saints worshiping the Lamb on Mount Zion. In verse 2 he says, And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire, and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. Now he's going to call back a bunch of pictures from earlier in Revelation chapter 13, the beast that comes out of the sea and all of its deviousness and its distraction this beast with its image and its number 666 which is the famous number you hear about and have studied and how it represents this unholy Trinity never reaching perfection but always short of the perfect Trinity which is God the Father Son and Holy Spirit but this false Trinity 666 one short of seven and here we have this beast he's come out of the sea and yet here we have pictured People standing on this sea of glass, they've conquered. These are the ones who've conquered the beast in his image and the number of his name and all that that represents. All the deceptions of the world and its distractions. They have held faithful and true. They've been made to be faithful and true. And now they're standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. They're singing praise. This is a picture of worship. Now, let's just look at just some of these pictures again. If you've read this before or heard this before, just so that we're all on the same page. The sea, for the Hebrews, was this place of great evil. That evil came out of the sea. The beast in Revelation 13 comes out of the sea. The New Testament even talks about our sins being cast into the sea. So, the sea is not really a typical good picture in Scripture. I actually, I love the sea. But symbolically in the picture, the sea is the place where evil comes out of. And it's a place of frustration and torment. It's a place of tumult, winds blowing and storms. And so here you have this sea, it's pictured as a sea of glass. And you know a pane of glass, it's smooth. Smooth as silk. What's happened to this sea? This sea has been stilled, not by the lion, but by the lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ who was slain for his church. And now this beast has been conquered. There's no more tumult. There's no more storms coming out of this sea. Evil has been dealt with. And here we have God's people who've overcome this, and they're praising God, literally standing by the sea. And one of the things about Revelation you'll see is, again, a lot of times this is actually even written in a tense, a Hebrew tense that can mean it is happening, It has happened. It will happen. There's this whole idea that this is all happening at once. You can read this and think, well, that's just future. Well, it is future, where God's people are going to stand after everything is complete, but there's also the sense where God has so promised it to happen that it's as if it has already taken place, that God's people are literally already standing in that position where evil has been defeated. They're literally standing, beside the sea of glass, which tells you they're not standing in a sanctuary, which is, you would think, a very perfect place, perfectly protected. They're still standing in the midst of the place of danger. And yet it's been stilled. It's a very encouraging picture for God's people. Yet in the very place you and I stand, which seems like danger, the reality is it's stilled. And God's concern in his economy, in his mind, And the truth is, it means nothing. The nations are but dust on the scales, and all that they stir up is nothing compared to the Lord our God. And he has accomplished this victory through Christ the Lamb. So that's the singers, that's where they're located. By the sea, holding harps and singing. So what about the songs they sing in verse three? And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the lamb. We've got two songs. And what's the picture here? We could have just said, John could have said, well, they're just singing the song of the lamb, I guess. And we would say, oh, well, that's earlier in Revelation. We know the song of the lamb. Worthy, worthy is he. that open the seals, and to carry out all that God has planned for the world. To carry out all the plans for the nations, all that He has decreed to happen, worthy is the Lamb who was slain. But yet, they're also singing the song of Moses. What is that? Why is that significant? Well, we read that for our Old Testament reading this morning, Exodus 15. And this was a recounting of God's rescue of his people from the hand of Pharaoh from Egypt. It ends of course with Yahweh the Lord will reign forever and ever of the section we read this morning, but it recounts the failure of Pharaoh. The horse and the rider are thrown into the sea all of Pharaoh's pursuing army and yet God's people cross on dry land and they are rescued from their bondage to Pharaoh and his oppression. It was sung every Passover at the slaying of the Passover lamb. So this wasn't just a one-time song, it was always to be remembered the great and mighty works of the Lord that he had accomplished on behalf of his people. Now, one of the things you'll note about the stanzas that we're getting ready to look at in verses three and four is they're going to recount a lot of scripture. And they're also, this is going to paint a picture of you have the Song of Moses on one hand, which recounts what God has done in the past for his people. The Song of the Lamb, which in a sense, Christ ultimately rescued his people, both spiritually and physically in an even greater way than Moses. It's not like, it's not two equal songs in a sense. It's like one song, Moses' song, is a great remembrance and it needs to be remembered. but the Song of the Lamb just only takes that but then builds on it and trumps it. And so they're singing this song which in these next verses is absolutely just saturated with Scripture, of Old Testament references. Now if you read this actual song, Great and Amazing Are Your Deeds, O Lord God the Almighty, you can find references from the following places. You can find echoes of it back in Scripture, of the following books of the Bible. Obviously Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32, 1 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Malachi, and a handful of Psalms. This one tiny little song is going back to Scripture, recapturing the very word of God where he reveals about himself and putting it into song form here in the vision of John here in Revelation, is God's people are standing before the throne, worshiping him. It makes you think, Campbell, it makes you think, you know, if you wanted to write a hymn, and you're like, well, where can I find some guidance to write a hymn? Here's some. It's full of scripture. Singing God's word back to him of who he truly is. Now before we move on to look even more at some of the content of just the song, or what I'm calling the stanzas, I don't want you to forget that this song mentions the song of Moses, and that's a picture of, it's gonna bring the memory back to Egypt and the plagues. Those plagues you're gonna find to be very familiar when you look at chapter 16 in the bowls of judgment. A lot of parallels to the plagues. that were poured out on Egypt. It's like, well, why bring up the Exodus at all? Why have this whole theme of Egypt overlaid on top of this, and this ancient history? There's just so many themes in Revelation layered one on top of another that you just have to keep following to get the full picture of it. So I just don't want you to forget that. Egypt and Pharaoh and the plagues are there in the background. So here we have Christ's work on behalf of his people as the Lamb of God is now part of the song of praise and recounting of God's awesome wonders on their behalf. And the Exodus delivery was physical, it was spiritual, but Christ's rescue is total in scope and greater and far exceeds the song of Moses. And so now we come to the actual words, which are recountings of scripture from the Old Testament. Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God, the Almighty. Now let me read it with a little bit of emphasis. Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. I think you can tell from what I've emphasized what's the emphasis of this song. It's on you, the Lord, and His work, your work, your holy, your righteous acts, your deeds, your true. Nowhere in this song is mentioned the fact that we overcame, we did it. Look what we did. We're the faithful ones. Who is given the glory in this song? God's people, as they stand beside the calm sea, have long given up on any idea that they will accomplish any of this in their own power, that all glory belongs to the King, to the Lamb. He's the one, is the Savior. We're not the Savior. He's the one who redeems and restores and corrects and renews even His creation. We're not the ones who do that. Now, of course, the Lord can work through means and use us, but ultimately this recognizes where the power is. who deserves the credit. How easy it is for us, it's easy for us to say, of course, well, of course, God, to God be the glory. We know that, right? What's the slogans? One of the slogans of the Reformation. We all know that, pastor. But how often do we engage in things, asking God to do something, but yet we give lip service and say, well, it was the Lord's work, but secretly we pat ourselves on the back and say, at least I'm one of the ones that did it. It's subtle. The beast, as he's pictured in 13, he's a powerful beast, but his work is very pragmatic and very efficient and very subtle. So you have this stanza and this song that they're singing in worship to the Lord, and we could say, as you read different commentaries on Revelation, people are trying to find, you know, what is the theme? That holds this whole book together that we can organize it by that this is a parent that comes off the page and Worship is one of those You can see Revelation to be a book calling the Lord's people to worship starting in chapter 1 You have the picture of the ancient of days Christ himself is pictured as a vision, but it's calling God's people to worship Revelation chapters 4 & 5 they worship around the throne of the Lamb Revelation 14 is worship on Mount Zion. Here we have 15, worship by the Crystal Sea. 19, and it ends in worship. It's all about the worship of God and the importance and primacy of the worship of God. And here we have a song emphasizing that this worship is God-centered. It's not according to our work or our accomplishments. It's according to His work. In fact, it's mentioned that many times, your deeds, your ways, your name, you alone, you, you, you. Not me, not me, not I, not I, like the old country song goes. There's a value in our worship in that by the grace of God, it helps reorient our hearts to what's important. So we have the proper framework of what's really happening in the world. You and I go out in the world each week. We've got to work. We've got to find solutions. We've got to fix things. We've got to take care of people. There's all kinds of things that you, you, you, and I have to do. It's very easy to begin to become distracted by that, that I am doing these things. It's up to me, and if I do it well, it's me. I've done it. Our whole shift focuses on what we do. In worship, we're called to come together and stop looking at that. We focus on what God has done for us. I'm thankful for that. Especially if you struggle with sin. You wanna focus on what you're gonna have to do to correct your sin? Are you gonna lay before the Lord Jesus, who's your only hope and salvation of changing your heart? The focus is on him. And so we move to the sanctuary, verses five through eight. And so we have the singer singing the song of Moses and song of the lamb, centered on God and worshiping him by the crystal sea. And now in these verses, we have the beginning. We go back to verse one in the sense where this was set up. Now we have the beginning of the judgment bowls of God's wrath. And this vision is setting up what's getting ready to happen. After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness, or the tent of the testimony in heaven, was opened." And here we have a picture of the tent of the testimony. We have other places where John has said, chapter 4, he says, I saw a door in heaven opened. And then he goes on and he says in chapter 11, I saw the temple opened. And you could see what was happening behind the scenes on a cosmic, in a sense, level. What's happening in heaven at that vision. Here we have in 15. We have it's open this time and what's emphasized the end of witness that the testimony You have God's law the Ten Commandments Being pictured here open to be seen you have this picture of the holiness of God and his very character But those Ten Commandments represent who he is and his character is now open to be seen and out of that Out of that perfection and that holiness here come these angels seven again the perfect number of with the perfect amount of play, which is the perfect amount of judgment. They're clothed in pure, bright linen, again to emphasize the holiness of God, his very character, with golden sashes around their chest, which hearkens back to Revelation 1. The Lord Jesus Christ is pictured as having a golden sash. It's his picture of his authority. And so out of the authority of our Savior, Now that the authority of God and his holiness, these angels are coming forth to do their appointed task. One of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. The sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. And no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished. And so even though this begins to enter into chapter 16 and Lord willing, We'll look at that next week. I want you to observe this one thing. That it's out of the very character of God that judgment comes. This is not, and I don't know about you, but sometimes when I think of judgment and wrath, I immediately think of my own human anger, which can sometimes go unchecked. You know those times you get angry and maybe you're right to get angry? yet you kinda go overboard, and now you wanna really just stick it to, I mean, and you realize it's wrong, after the fact, usually, that you've exploded. A lot of times I think we think about anger in that sense, and we think of God's wrath, and God is not wrathful as in the sense some beast that's foaming at the mouth, out of control, just destroying wantonly. It's very ordered. It's perfect. It's measured perfectly according to the sin, It's done with great authority and done out of holiness, out of his character. I mean, the Apostle John says God is love. We'll talk about more of this when we get into chapter 16, but to have a loving God means you also have a God of wrath. If you don't have a God of wrath, you don't have a God of love, because it means that he's not zealous. for His creation, for His image, for the things that He's made beautiful, for His decrees. If He truly loves it, then He will make it right, and He will correct where it's been destroyed, marred, and corrupted. And so this is what's leading into the outpouring of these bowls of judgment. So let's take a moment and let's say, what do we do with this? How do we apply this or think about this for us today? Again, we see, to me, jumping off the page is just the centrality of the worship of God's people. Again, you get that back in chapter 14 and here again. And surrounding the worship of God's people is the judgment of God being carried out. He is making things right in the world. He is taking action. And God's people are focusing on his action and not their own. How tempting is it when you and I experience things falling apart in the outside world that we really immediately go to what can I do? What must I do? What will we do? What are we gonna do? And yet, this text, this vision is calling God's people, you know what you do? You worship. That's what you do. Worship, come on, you don't do anything in worship, do you? Does that really change anything? You sing some songs, you hear God's word, that's great, but does that do anything? Come on, let's do something. We're pragmatic Americans. Let's be efficient, let's use our time well. Can we forego worship for a while and get involved, get our hands dirty? This is a corrective to that very thought, which I would say plagues our nation right now, and plagues the church. It's not that what we're called to do isn't important, for the Lord Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the first command. And the second one is this, love your neighbor as yourself. We're called to love our neighbor. We're called to speak to injustice, and to love the ones in need. We're called to get our hands dirty, no doubt. But what comes first is the worship of the Lord, and that takes primary place You don't get involved with the second part until you've done the first. This will get us completely out of whack and out of balance if we co-opt and begin to change or forfeit God's worship by trying to do something even well-intentioned in the community. There's a couple ways this can look, and it is very popular right now. They say, well, what is the church doing? How are they involved? Some people get frustrated. This church I'm attending is not involved enough. They're not changing the world. That doesn't seem to be their main focus, so they go and they leave and they go find a place that's gonna do that. Then there's some, a little more scary, that say, this church isn't doing enough. I'm gonna stay and I'm gonna change it. and I'm going to make its worship and everything. Of course, they're not like snidely whiplash. They're not sitting there. They're well-intentioned, but they've got, let's get everybody revolved around my ministry that I think is important. We need to be doing this, and slowly. It's a very subtle line. Worship gets, that line gets crossed, and worship is just, well, let's just, we're gonna have a short worship today, and then we're gonna go out to the homeless shelter, which I've actually heard before. it gets co-opted. Now, we're gonna go all the way back to Pharaoh and the Exodus. Why is it important that not only we keep worship as central and first in its place before we put our hands to the plow and begin to work and serve the Lord on his behalf? Pharaoh, you remember, as you remember the old song, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, let my people go. I kind of think that's about the, And a lot of times, if we just think of it as a cursory glance, that's about all we remember. God commanded his people to let go, and that's enough. Pharaoh should have observed that command and obeyed it, but he did not. But why were God's people to be let go? They could go to the beach. The next is five. Then they said, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three day's journey into the wilderness. that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. Let us go so that we can worship. They say later, it's rephrased, let us go, we can hold a feast to the Lord. Pharaoh says no, and in addition to the fact that they're held oppressively, they're being forced to work for his public works, which I'm sure he thought were great for the betterment of his community. They're not allowed to worship. He prevents them and obstructs them from being able to worship. And as a result of that, the plagues are poured out. God obstructed God's people. A pharaoh obstructed God's people from worshiping. And the plagues were the result. I don't know about you, but if that's a stern enough warning, I'm gonna take it. Even God's own people say in Exodus, let us go to worship the Lord, or else we fear that he may pour pestilence on us. The worship of the Lord is so primary and important that we dare, we endanger ourselves to neglect it or to co-opt it with some other program. While as well-intentioned as it may be, worship comes first. So finally, I just want to recall this again, go back to this picture of all the things You think about all the things that maybe we think from our perspective. What is it you want to hear when things are coming unraveled? When the foundations feel like they're being destroyed? What is it a lot of humans want to hear? You think, well, okay. I don't think we would say that the answer is a vision of worship. I don't think maybe at the first cups, but I think that's what revelation does for us is it gives us this vision, this corrective. That this is what the Apostle John gave his people through Jesus Christ. That you're being persecuted. You're being killed. You're being prevented from worshiping. In fact, you're having to hide to worship, but yet you're doing it. And what is it you need to see? The people are worshiping. The beast has been conquered and the sea is stilled. It's a call. for God's people to worship and have hope that the Lord is at work. Even as we read in 14, 15, and 16, surrounding all these pictures of God's people of worship, justice is, judgment is being poured out, judgment is being done. The Lord is changing things. He is at work. Just because you think, well, I'm not doing anything in worship. Yes, you're worshiping the Lord. That's the most valuable thing. he is going to accomplish it on behalf of his people, so that we will feast in the house of Zion. That is as good as if done. And we're gonna picture that this morning as we take part in the Lord's table. It's a picture of how we will feast, just like they asked, let's go make a feast to the Lord in Exodus, Pharaoh. We're gonna have a taste of that future feast, which is now and is to come. Let's pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we thank you for your word. And again, Lord, we pray that it's your spirit that brings us into truth, that makes changes and corrections in our attitudes and in our hearts. Father, we desire for joy-filled worship. It's joyful. We wanna sing of your greatness because you love to sinful people. who had rejected you. And Father, apart from you, we would still reject you. We would still follow the beast in the number of his name. We would still find reasons to do our own way. But we thank you, Lord Jesus, that you, the king, the lamb who was slain, has not only conquered the beast and stilled the sea, but you've triumphed over us. our sinful hearts, our sinful nature. You will not let your bride go astray. You will bring her back, and you will woo her from the desert, singing songs of love, calling her back to you. Lord Jesus, you're so faithful, and we are not, and yet you've bestowed your love upon us. We give you thanks and praise for that. Help us to worship you rightly. Help us to give the importance to our time with you. And Father, then as we worship you, after by your spirit and in truth we've worshiped you, Lord, would you help us lay our hands to the things that need to change in our neighborhoods, in our homes. Help us to love our neighbor and give glory to you. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.