My name is Tony Martin, and this is Study 7 of the New Creation Winter School 2010. It's also the third of four studies from the Revelation, so without wishing to go over too much what the previous sessions on the Revelation have been about. Just to put this session in its context, Kim yesterday afternoon presented to us the picture of the woman clothed with the sun about to give birth to a male child and the dragon crouched ready to devour that child. And both the woman and the child being protected by God and the dragon in his fury setting off to make war on the rest of her offspring, the people of God. And Simon, following that, brought to us the frightening picture, from one point of view, the frightening picture of the two beasts, one from the sea and the other one from the land, both being energized and empowered by the dragon who straddled both the sea and the land as he stood and tried to, at least in some sense, and we mustn't say that his power isn't real because it is, but tried to exercise a dominion over all of the nations. Indeed, a certain authority was granted to them, if I can put it that way, to do that. And so that puts this study in its context because it's actually straight after talking about those two beasts and the dragon in all his fury that we see the lamb on Mount Zion. And it's actually put right into the middle of all of the strife quite intentionally as we'll come back to see later. And so this study is entitled The Cosmic Conflict 3, The Victors. And you'd think after looking at chapter 12 and 13 with that unholy and ferocious and murderous trinity and the great authority that they had, you'd think that the victors might be them. But actually the victors are the people of God. and that's supposed to be strange and it's supposed to actually catch us off guard that in the midst of all this ferocity there's actually a people who are the victors and they are protected from that ferocity and yet they're called to go into it. and that's indeed what this passage is all about. I wanted to say a couple of things. Kim introduced to us the way that we are to understand apocalyptic literature, but a couple of points which come to bear on this passage here. The first thing is that apocalyptic does strange things with time and space. as strange to our Western ears anyway and our Western minds. However, I did actually wonder during the week whether there's not really any culture which would have found this particularly normal. I think apocalyptic's supposed to break into our usual way of seeing things and our usual patterns and open up to us something new. But what happens, one of the things that happens is that you're not really sure when you're listening to it whether you're listening to something which is happening now or whether you're listening to something which is happening at the end. And in the end, it's both. because it's as though the end has been brought back and made real in the present, and the present is working its way to the end, and it's all kind of there. The second thing that happens is... Sorry, I could just clarify that. I think that what we're looking at in this passage is the whole sweep of history. It's not actually something which is just going to be in the future, and I don't think it's something even for just a select group of the church at a particular time and place, but actually covers the whole reign of the Lamb, from His death, His resurrection, His ascension to the end. And that's why it's of value to us. At the same time, it also comes into the particular situation in which we find ourselves. And if we don't hear something this morning of what this means for us here and now, then we've kind of missed the point, or I have, or both. The other thing that apocalyptic does is that it mixes up locations, so you're not sure exactly where you are. Well, in the end you are, but what happens is you're not sure whether you're looking at a heavenly scene or an earthly scene. and the two are kind of blended together and in fact it's both once again and we just have to accept that and not worry too much about trying to sort of philosophically put it all together and say well something's going on here you know is heaven breaking out into earth is you know Paul tells us we're seated in heavenly places with Christ we have no problem accepting that Jesus said, I'm going to the Father as he ascended. And he said, I'm going to be with you always. You don't have a problem with that, do we? And so when it comes to us this way, let's not have a problem with that either. Let's just say, yes, that's how it is. And the Lord wants to reveal something to us. So in this particular passage, the 144,000 are with the lamb who's on Mount Zion. And Mount Zion is an earthly location. don't get the idea that Mount Zion is sort of up there somewhere. Actually, Mount Zion is the place where the King reigns on the earth. There's all sorts of action in heaven as well, but let's not miss that point, that Jesus doesn't actually reign from a remote location. He actually reigns over the earth, and that's good news. That's the first thing actually that John sees in this vision, is the Lamb. And it's because of the mention of Mount Zion, it's very obviously a mention of and an allusion to Psalm 2. And so if you can just keep your finger in Revelation 14 or your thumb or some other implement, go to Psalm 2 and we'll have a look at that now and see how it impacts us. Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Let us break their chains, they say, and throw off their fetters. The one enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them, and then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, I have installed my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have become your father. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter. You will dash them to pieces like pottery. therefore you kings be wise be warned you rulers of the earth serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling kiss the son lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way for his wrath can flare up in a moment and blessed are all who take refuge in him So this passage in the Revelation is meant to bring to our minds the fact that the Lord has installed his King on Zion. Now originally this would have been David or perhaps Hezekiah or Josiah or somebody like that. But ultimately and conclusively it is the Lord Jesus who is the King who is enthroned and we know that it is the Father's Son who is placed on the throne and actually the throne is not mentioned here but Zion is the place and the seat of power. You know we talk about Capitol Hill don't we? Not here in Australia, is it, but is the Parliament House on a hill? I've never been to Canberra, but there you go. Geography lesson, yeah. So this is the installation of the Father's Son as the King over all the nations. And we are supposed to call to mind Psalm 2 because we're supposed to know it. And if we don't, we look it up and we remind ourselves of it and we bring it to our thinking. And you see, later on in the passage, the king who is installed there has to confront the nations in their conspiracy. And if you ask, what are the nations in their conspiracy? Well, that's Babylon. as they gather against the Lord and his anointed one. And if you ask what are the beasts, the beasts are the kings of the earth opposed to God. And so the writer John picks up on all of that and we are to see that there's this great battle and we are to see that the battle has been won by the lamb. It's the one who gave his life for the forgiveness of sins. It is the one who died and submitted to and allowed evil to do its worst who is actually the victor. So when we look at the ferocity of the beasts and their murderous intent and the dragon and his fury, it's an incredible contrast to the lamb. and let's not get the wrong idea about that, however. Let's remember that the lamb isn't sheepish. Nevertheless, we have the frightening beasts and the lamb, and here he is as the Father's Son, as the Father's appointed King, and he reigns over the creation as a man. I've had to stop myself saying at times, you know, Jesus was a man, because he still is. And please don't take me as denying his divinity, but I'm saying that when he reigns over the nations, he reigns as a man. with the lamb this 144,000 who had his name and his father's name so they have the name of the lamb and the name of their father written on their foreheads now this is the same 144,000 as were back in chapter 7 who were sealed before a certain series of judgments was to come on the earth. They were sealed and back in chapter 7 we didn't know what the seal actually was, but now it's been revealed to us in this chapter. It is the name of the Lamb and the Father's name and it's been written on their foreheads. You know, a lot's been said about the mark of the beast, hasn't it? We've all heard people talk about the mark of the beast. Well, when the beast plopped his mark, it was only him copying God who had already sealed his 144,000. And the devil has no new idea, actually. He can only try and copy what God is doing, and perversely so. And here's the mark of the 144,000. It's that the lamb's name and the father's name are written on their forehead. So they belong to the father and to the lamb, and they are there with him. They're not on their own. And I've noticed in my life that one of the strategies of the evil one is to try and isolate us, not just from the lamb and his father, but from each other. You ever just get the feeling, I'm on my own? And then we sort of think, oh, well, it's all up to me. I better do it. Well, there we are. Now, I've already sort of been assuming that the 144,000 is us, and that's where I'm coming from, but I don't, and I can't actually be too dogmatic about this point. because there is considerable debate amongst people who I respect and admire, and I don't want to disagree with, that this 144,000 may not be the entire people of God. It does mention the expression that this is the first fruits. Now, it could be first fruits in the sense that the first fruits was one with the rest of the harvest. But that's one sense in which it could be the first fruits. But the other sense is that first fruits were wholly devoted to God. And that certainly is brought out by the faithfulness of this group. And so if this is just a group, and I can't say that this is a select group, I think we have to reject that idea, that there's somehow some select group that might be the 144,000 and then there's just the hoi polloi below them stumbling away. But if this is the first fruits, then the rest of the harvest is the same. The rest of the harvest will be there as well. So either way, I can see myself there. I hope you can. I'm not sure whether I'm number 122,000, but that's us. That's the people of God. and another part of the revelation there called the multitude that no one can count. And here they are counted. Okay, fair enough. But see, 144,000 actually speaks to me of completeness. But as I say, I don't want to be too dogmatic about that, so it's going on the tape, isn't it? Yeah. But look at their character. In verse 4, These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure. Actually, what it says is, these are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they are virgins. So it's a strange passage because it's only men who couldn't defile themselves with women and usually it's only women who are virgins. So, you know, is this a repudiation of marriage? Not at all. We take this as symbolic. but real, as we've heard, that this is talking about their pure and utter devotion to the Lamb and the Father. It's talking about their faithfulness. And it goes on to say, they follow the Lamb wherever He goes. That's an eye-opener in itself, isn't it? If you're out in the churches, you get the idea that the church is the one which is doing it and on the move, and Jesus sort of follows us around, for lucky. But actually, they follow the Lamb wherever He goes. So He's on the move. And I did a little bit of a search through the Revelation during my preparation, and I couldn't find anywhere where the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, was sitting down. Now somebody might be able to correct me on this, but I couldn't find anywhere where he was seated. He's either standing as he is in this passage, or he's walking amongst the lampstands as he is in chapter 1, or he's riding out from heaven with the armies of heaven behind him. He's on the move. and the 144,000, the people of God, go with him wherever he goes. No lie was found in their mouths, verse 5. They're blameless. Now you would have to say, when you've heard that one, that this is the character and this is righteousness given to us by grace. And that would be true. It is the Lamb who has taken all of the sin of this 144,000 and dealt with it so that they are clothed with His righteousness. And yet it is also true that once clothed with that righteousness, then they are called into the action of that. And so that's the way they live. We'll see later that that's part of patiently enduring. It's actually living out what God has made us. And I think if we looked at all the New Testament instruction from the apostles, it's pretty much live as you are. If you look at their injunctions on how to live, it's live the way God has made you. And we have a pretty easygoing attitude to that in the churches today, don't we? We just think that grace is something that we can use which gets us forgiven so we can go on being just the way we want to be. But actually it brings us into that righteousness and then it's lived. And guess what they're doing? This 144,000, they're singing. And this is where the commentators kind of lose their way a bit, if I can put it that way. because in verse 2, it says, I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. So you get this sound coming from heaven. The 144,000 are with the lamb on Mount Zion. And yet the sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. So that's coming from heaven. And then it says in verse 3, and they sang a new song. And you think, well, who's they? It can't be anybody else but the people with the lamb on Mount Zion. And not only that, the weird thing happens is they sing that song before the throne and before the living creatures and the elders. Remarkable. then we have the message of these three angels. So let's turn our attention to that in verse 6. This verse 6, then I saw another angel flying in midair and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language and people. This is the only place in Revelation where the word gospel is mentioned. I think the gospel permeates the whole book, but this is the only place where it is mentioned. And it comes as a strong and short, shiny command. The sum of the gospel here is, fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. Well, the gospel is a command. It's not just, you know, that the revelation sometimes puts things a bit more boldly than other books. The gospel is a command. And people are still cut to the heart when that command comes to them. We've all, at one time or other, that command hit us, didn't it? and see it's a command which comes out of what the lamb has done and the fact that the lamb reigns. And so he issues that command to the nations. Notice that that gospel goes to all the nations. It goes to Babylon. and Babylon is mentioned in verse 8. And the surprising thing about it, the second angel brings this message and says, fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. This is the first time in the revelation that we've heard of Babylon. And as we're being introduced to her, we're told that she's had it. Now later on, we know that Babylon is going to do some abominable things. And in fact, we find that she's drunk with the blood of the saints. So great persecution is going to come from the nations gathered against the Lord and his anointed one and against this 144,000. But her demise, her ultimate judgment has been forecast. And so her fate is sealed. And that ought to be of immense encouragement to those who want to patiently endure. It means that when we confront the whole world system in all its ferocity or its seductiveness or both, that we can be certain that the promise has been made that all of its opposition will ultimately amount to nothing. And it gives you courage. There's a second warning from this third angel. If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he too will drink of the wine of God's fury which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. It's not cruelty by the way, it's just It's just the Lord visiting upon people the reality of what they've done. It's actually God honoring people and making them fully responsible. We have a sentencing act in our state and I think in probably most of the Western world which has all these clauses in it which can mean that a person, if they've committed a crime, is not held fully responsible for it. but there won't be anywhere to hide. There won't be any clause or sentencing act or anything like that. It'll just be the full consequences of what we've done, of what the human race has done. Anybody who worships the image, that's the dire warning. And so let's not sort of gloss over these things. Do these warnings get carried through into our proclamation or have we softened things a little bit? or a lot. The people in the Revelation, the people of God, give thanks and praise for the judgments of God. Verse 12 and this verse is not part of the vision. Now my Bible college lecturers told me that whenever you get this verse which is sort of inserted, it's not part of the narrative, it's inserted in there, it's something very important that we have to pay attention to. It's a bit like in Genesis 2 when you've got the story of the man and the woman and the woman being made from the man and then you just get this verse which says, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother. It's a verse that's not part of the story. but it's a very important verse which is coming out of the story which we are to take note of. Well, verse 12 is like that. This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. Now, this is not the first time that such a call has come. In fact, if we go back to the very beginning of Revelation in chapter 1, In verse 9, this is how the book is introduced to us. I, John, your brother and companion, in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. So right from the outset, this sets the tone for the book. It's written so that we might patiently endure. I had to teach the revelation to a year 12 Bible class of mine. I'm a school teacher. And I took them straight to this verse and I said, if you want to know what the revelation's about, this is what it's about. It's about the kingdom. And they all sort of went, okay, fair enough. And I said, and in the kingdom there's suffering and patient endurance. They hung in there with me, surprisingly, but I was breaking all the educational rules in doing that, wasn't I? You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to sort of hook people in with something interesting, attractive, but that's what the book is for. The kingdom for the people of God involves a suffering and a patient endurance. and I may not be able to capture you and attract you to patient endurance, but I do know the Lord's calling you to it. Three of the seven churches in chapters two to three are commended for patiently enduring or words to that effect. That's where that expression is specifically used. A couple of the others are also commended in different ways, but each of them, every single one of those churches is told, to him who overcomes. If you look at each of the letters to the seven churches in the final couple of lines, it's to him who overcomes. Now, you and I know, and if we've been listening to the speakers, that we can only overcome because the Lamb has overcome. But then there is an overcoming to be lived. In the Lamb's overcoming, we are to be more than conquerors, as the other scriptures say to us. In the Revelation, history is described as a great tribulation. That's not really the Western world's view of history. We don't want it to be that. And all of the pressures that come to bear on the church and on our families are to try and stop history being a great tribulation. Many of us weren't raised to be in a battle. for that reason. I don't know whether it's because of the shock of the Second World War and the bloodshed of all of that, but something's happened where we just don't want to fight. I wonder sometimes whether that was behind a lot of the Vietnam protest. So what exactly is patient enduring? Well, the text tells us, if we have a look at it, back to chapter 14. This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. Enduring is remaining faithful and it is obeying God's commandments. Very simple actually, isn't it? The hallmarks of patiently enduring are obedience and faithfulness. It's kind of, when you think patient enduring, you kind of think that that's fairly sort of grit it and bear it kind of stuff. Let's dig in. But actually, it's the action of the lamb and following him wherever he goes and obeying him. And that obedience is dynamic. And as we'll see at the end of the passages, that obedience is actually of eternal value. Our deeds will follow us. How about that? Now, I'm not preaching a works righteousness. I'm just saying what the scripture is saying. And endurance is actually given an even sharper focus because the call to patient endurance comes straight after the dire warnings about Babylon's fall and about not worshipping the beast. So if you want to know what patiently enduring is, it is actually resisting the beastliness and Babylonishness that comes against the people of God. That's what patiently enduring is. It is to refuse to be captivated by Babylon. It is to refuse to be bullied by beastliness and to be spooked by it. If we looked, I think, at the seven churches, we would see that at least some of them were in danger of not patiently enduring. and they were called to account by the Lord Jesus, the, was it the captain on his, no, the general on his troop inspection, yeah. They're the usual suspects, the things that actually threaten to undo our enduring are false teaching, lovelessness, immorality, and getting mixed up in idolatry, which Andrew spoke to us powerfully on last night. it continues in this passage. And you see the context of this is very important. The lamb is planted on Mount Zion in the midst of all the activity of the two beasts. And it's followed, chapter 15 and 16 has another round of the judgments of God, but then in chapter 17 we find the horrible picture of this adulterous woman, Babylon, who's riding the beast and she is drunk with the blood of the saints. So in amongst all of this persecution and opposition, the lamb actually reigns. we saw that the beast, the dragon stood on the seashore so that he had one foot, what was it Simon, one foot on the land and one foot on the water, but the lamb stands on Mount Zion. So the dragon's just at the beach. but the lamb is on Mount Zion, the seat of power. So when we talk about the authority given to the beasts and the dragon and the authority of the lamb on Mount Zion, the authority of the lamb is of a totally different order. And somehow, and this is the mystery, isn't it, that we have to live in and not try to nut out, somehow the beasts exercise all of that authority under the authority of the lamb. And I'm not going to sort that one out for you this morning because I've given up trying to sort that one out, I'm just trying to live in it. So there is work to be done in resisting beastliness and Babylon. And, you know, if we don't actually see that the Lamb is on Mount Zion and if we don't actually see that the Lamb is enthroned and that He reigns over the nations in all their opposition and their rage, I think their opposition, their rage is because He reigns. But if we don't actually see that, then we can easily fall into some pretty serious errors. The first one is that we can get paralyzed. because we're spooked by whatever is beastly. And we can get spooked by political correctness, which is one of the faces of beastliness. And so we sort of retreat into our shell or retreat into our holy huddle. We try to retreat somewhere, but we find its tentacles still get us. And we live in fear, actually, of the nation's opposition and our own culture's opposition to the Christian faith, which is ramping up, isn't it? It used to be subtle. You don't have to be subtle anymore. The other mistake, if you don't see and live in the reality of the lamb on Mount Zion, is activism, where we think we better get on with it. We better start reigning. So we try to reign ourselves and really we become a royal pain, don't we, when we do that? But we also, and this is the temptation for the church, we take on a form of activism that Babylon will approve of. And I've noticed over the last, probably only a few years, that there used to be a distinction between the liberals, the liberal church, and the evangelical church, the conservative church, call it what you like. There used to be a distinction about things like social justice. The liberals did social justice, we proclaimed the gospel, at least we said we did. But now, there's no difference. And you know, the world will pat you on the back for social justice. and it comes with a whole agenda, by the way, and I'm not saying that justice and some, you know, the truth is in there somewhere, I know that at times, but it comes with a whole agenda which is beastly. And I just have watched the church sort of accommodate itself so that whatever public activities it does, it has the approval of the world. And, you know, we cannot underestimate the power of idolatry in our culture. Oh, it even goes as far as to say that the power of idolatry comes to us in the culture. That's the form in which it comes to us. It is expressed in the deeply held values of a society, of a group of people, which are its ideologies, which it holds with religious fervor. And if you want to see anger, speak against an idol. And we see that anger in the churches when ministers dare to do it. But you know, idolatry is at the heart of our culture. And I'd have to say that the church has been caught napping. And I think, if I can do a little bit of social analysis, I think it's because the church has been tightly connected with the culture for a long time in the West. And so as the culture has gone pear-shaped, the church has just gone along with it. There was a time when I actually think the gospel and Christianity had a wonderful effect on Western civilization, but that's all gone. But we don't recognize that it's gone. I think we're still trying to hang on to something of Christendom. but there isn't any safety in the culture anymore, if there ever was. None of the institutions of our society will serve us as the people of God serve us well. None of them will help us to patiently endure. In fact, they'll be beastly and Babylonish. You know, the beast doesn't want us to buy and sell. He puts a mark so that you can't buy and sell. So, you know, we can easily sort of think of this idolatry as something which is in a kind of a spiritual realm, but it actually gets us in the day-to-day activity in where we live our lives. And that's where that opposition comes. But into that great battle, and that is the battle that we're called to, and let's not shy away from it. Proclaim Christ. Live out the righteousness. Obey God's commandments. Why not obey all of them? Let's not say, well, you know, so long as we proclaim the gospel, we don't have to worry too much about the other stuff. We'll just sort of quietly let that go without realizing that the whole life that we live is an outworking of that gospel. And so we have to live the whole lot in the face of the ferocity that comes against us. People will not approve. They won't like us. They will say that you are a traditionalist, that you are patriarchal, and other horrible, horrible things. Well, we're called to patiently endure. And I'm not standing here this morning telling us to look inside our own resources and try and gee ourselves up and bring ourselves to, you know, spur on new action. Let's get a Christian party going or start a Christian school or something. By the way, there's nothing wrong with those things, but, you know, we can actually do that and be still just playing the world's game. And I think we need to be a whole lot less political and more public in what we do as the people of God. And you see, the only thing that will give us the confidence and the surety and the security to do that is to see that the Lamb is on Mount Zion and He reigns over the nations. And He was able to walk into the ferocity of all of that demonic, beastly dragon activity and defeat it. And we are the victors.