I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles once again to the last book of the Bible and the last chapter of the last book of the Bible which is Revelation chapter 22. Finishing up a long time preaching series in this book and we come to the next to last message I'll bring from this book. We always have to remember as we come into the church, as we come before the Word of God, as we come into the presence of God, we're always, always dealing with matters of eternity. That we have to think about eternity. And as we look at some of the closing words of this last book of the Bible, that is certainly the case. So as I read and then pray, just please prepare yourself to think during this time. about eternity. Again, I'll be reading from Revelation chapter 22 beginning in verse 12 down to 17. Hear the Word of God as we hear the voice of Christ speaking. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life, that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. The spirit and the bride say come. And let the one who hears say come. And let each one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life. without price. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing on our time in His Word. Father, we thank You for the words of Your Son that are given to us here. And we pray as we think about them this morning that it wouldn't be my voice that Your people hear, Father, but it would be the voice of Your Son through the Spirit and Word speaking to them. Bless us, Father, to that end. Help us to hear what your spirit says to the churches. We pray it in Christ. Amen. Well, last night I just returned from Colorado. I was out the last few days attending particularly the installation service of a good friend, Ed Blackwood, as he became a pastor out in Colorado Springs. And just yesterday at this time, I was driving along after an evening snowstorm with the white-capped Rockies there on my left as I headed north. And as you're there among the natural wonder that the Rocky Mountains are, their immense size and their raw beauty, there's just something about the Rockies that strikes you. You don't just see the Rockies, you feel them. You feel their presence. wherever you go. They do orient your direction. They produce conversation. It seems like it pops up all the time as people are talking just about their lives. The mountains quickly come into their conversation. So much of what people do, whether it's the work they do or the activities that they do outside, all involves the rocky mountains, even the weather out there. is impacted by the Rocky Mountains. Wherever you go, you feel the Rockies when you're there. Well, spiritually speaking, that is what this passage is to convey to us today. That there is a reality so towering, so certain, so awesome that we should feel it every day, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. And it's this. It's the coming judgment of Jesus Christ. It's a certainty. It's a reality. And many people try to go through their lives denying it, putting it away, pushing it out of their minds, even trying to mock it to pretend as if it's not going to happen, But friend, I'm here to tell you today that that's a fool's errand. That would be like me being out by the Rocky Mountains and looking up at Pike's Peak and someone telling me that it's not there. And I can see it. And I can feel it. And you know it. All of you in this room, the Bible tells me this, so I know this. All of you know. All of you do. that this world's gonna end, and that Christ is coming back, and you will be judged. All of us will stand before that towering mountain of judgment one day. And if we fail to prepare, if we fail to respond in the way that God teaches us to do here today, it is really to our own peril. The message of this passage is that the Lord is coming and He expects everyone here to be ready, to be prepared for His coming. So, if the Lord is coming, what do you need to do? Well, you need to watch for the coming Lord. You do need to prepare for the coming Lord. And you need to come to the coming Lord. So that's how we're going to think about it together. First of all, watch for the coming Lord. In every way that Jesus is described in this passage, and in many ways throughout the whole book of Revelation, it is with a sense that we should be aware of His coming. That there's going to come an end to these things, and He's going to be there when we come to that end. Verse 13, He calls Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. This world had a beginning. It had a beginning. And the Scriptures teach us that the beginning of this world came through Jesus Christ as He created this world in which we lived. And so that's why He says He is the Alpha and the Omega. He's the A and the Z of all history. He started history, and He will end history. Because He's the beginning, and He is the end. So even that is telling us that He's coming. We're to watch for the coming Lord because He is the omega, the end, the last. Verse 16, He tells us that He is both the root and the descendant of David. What does He mean by that? Why does He bring that up at this point in time? Well, He's the root of David because He's the one that created David in the Old Testament. He's David's Creator. He's David's Lord. And He made David to be the king over Israel. And God promised that through David, He would have a son one day who would become an eternal king. And that's what we really celebrate at Christmastime, right? We celebrate that the Son of David, born in the city of David Bethlehem, came into this world as a little baby. And He lived. as a king, even in his infancy, he was worshipped by other kings, the wise men that came to see him, the shepherds that came to see him. He left heaven and was born as a king. He's kind of like Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings. He may not look much at the surface, but he's a fierce warrior. who ends up winning the battle, who ends up conquering the foe, and that's what Christ has done. People despised Him, mocked Him, put Him on a cross, but it was by that death on the cross that our death and our sin was dealt with. And the Scriptures tell us that the grave could not hold Him because, you see, He's an eternal King and He was raised from the dead And as I said earlier, He's ascended. He's seated as King next to His Father right now. And He's coming back. And you need to watch for this coming King. Verse 16 also tells us that He is the bright morning star. He is like the sun that after a night of darkness rises to bring warmth and light to the earth. And as dark as this world may appear at times, as evil as it may seem at times, friends, know there's coming a day when all that's going to be taken away. Because Jesus, the morning star, is coming back in all His splendor and in all His glory. And He will deal with that evil. And it will be no more in His eternal Kingdom. Watch. Watch for this coming Lord. And then verse 12. Behold, he says, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done. He says he's coming soon. Perhaps this is what causes people to doubt. For after all, these words in the book of Revelation were written 2,000 years ago. And some might say, well, 2,000 years. He hasn't showed up yet. The Apostle Peter says many just think, well, he's not going to show up. He's not going to come back because he says he's coming back soon. Well, to treat scripture this way is to misunderstand something about the nature of scripture, particularly the nature of prophecy. The nature of prophecy. You see, the book of Revelation in its first pages tells us it's a book of prophecy. And one of the things about prophets, as one person has said, the prophets compressed great events into a brief space of time, brought momentous movements close together in a temporal sense and took them at a glance. In other words, the prophets were rooted in history. John, who wrote this, was rooted in his history. He's speaking about things at his time, but he also has an eye to the horizon. And it's much like your experience if you're driving up toward the Rocky Mountain. From a long way away, it could just look like there's one mountain ahead of you. But as you get closer and closer to the mountains, you begin to see, no wait, there's other mountains behind them. That's the way it is with prophecy. So often rooted in one event, but looking ahead to something future. We see that in the verses that are printed inside your bulletin regarding the birth of Jesus. In Matthew chapter 1, Matthew quotes from Isaiah when Jesus was born saying that a virgin shall bear a child and should call his name Emmanuel. If you read the prophet Isaiah, in his day there was a child born to represent what was going on at that time. But of course, the greater event that that was all pointing toward was the coming of Christ. And this book of Revelation is filled with judgment. that the seven churches of Asia to whom this book was written were seeing in their time pictures of the judgments upon their enemies that will be the case and truth at the final coming. Friends, Jesus is coming soon. It may be too soon for some people. They won't be ready. They won't be prepared. That's why we need to watch out for the coming Lord. The scriptures say it'll be like a thief in the night. You don't expect it. And there he is. And if he's coming and you're watching for it, then you need to be prepared for it. And that's what we need to think about as well. Prepare for the coming Lord. Speaking of mountains, I grew up in the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina. They're not quite the Rockies. but it was a beautiful place to grow up. I grew up at the end of a gravel road, and my childhood years were spent wandering the neighborhood with my friends, catching crawfish in the creek, and having fun exploring in the hills and woods near my house. I'm a hillbilly at heart. But there's one thing I knew. As the afternoon wore on, And suppertime approached, I knew I needed to keep my ear out for my father's whistle. For at some time, he could whistle really loud, I can't. But at some point in time, there would come a whistle. I can't whistle loud. But that would pierce. Wherever I was, I would hear that whistle. And I knew that I needed to get home pretty quick. Because if I ignored the whistle, or delayed in responding to the whistle, I knew my dad would come find me. And if my dad had to come find me, I knew what awaited me when I got back home. I learned that at the right time, I needed to listen to the call of my Father, and if I did not, there would be consequences. Friends, there are consequences for not being prepared for the coming day of the Lord. The picture here in this text is that the kingdom of God is like this beautiful city in which we are to dwell as his people. But if we're not in the kingdom of God and we're outside, then God has some not so flattering things to say about us. And he names the kinds of people and behaviors that are outside the kingdom of God. You'll notice this in verse 15. Outside, and let me just highlight briefly what he's saying about these people, outside are the dogs. And the scriptures, when someone's called a dog, it's because they have disgusting behavior, which dogs are prone to do. And in particular, the types of disgusting behavior are those who believe that their salvation is based upon what they do, and then practice what often accompanies that, which is they might have some outward righteous acts that they do to try to impress people, but inwardly, they are leading degrading, immoral lives. They pervert the goodness and truth of God, whether it's the sex that He's given us to enjoy within the bounds of marriage, which I'll say something about in just a moment, or they pervert the salvation, the purity of the Gospel that He's given to us, those people are called dogs in the Scripture, a pretense to godliness, but not exercising its power at all. Sorcerers, those who practice other religions, those who indulge in witchcraft and the occult, It's interesting, the word here in the original language is the word that we get pharmaceutical from, because often with these practices comes the use of drugs and mind-altering behaviors that are associated with it. If you read the book of Acts, you will see that regularly Paul and the apostles were encountering people that were under these demonic type of influences. And we may think, well, this doesn't go on in our age. Oh yeah, it does. Just this week, the state capital of Iowa the satanic temple puts an altar to Satan in the in the capital building of Iowa and people are falling to the bewitching lies of the evil one by having a fascination with the occult and demonic practices he talks about the sexually immoral I don't know if you've read the Bible lately, but God's pretty strict about our sexuality. Within the bounds of marriage, there's fullness of joy, but outside of that, you're venturing into forbidden territory. Studies show Christian young people are engaging in premarital sex at the same rate as the world, because they're not being trained. I hope that's not the case here. People, and even Christians, are watching things they should never lay their eyeballs upon. Wouldn't it sicken you, the thought of inviting your neighbor into your house and watching them be intimate? We would never do that. But we'll turn on Netflix or go to a computer and website and watch it. I think, Neri, about it. The Bible says fornicators are outside the walls of the kingdom of God. Murderers, those who have no regard for human life. I was talking in the class earlier about how there are so many places, so many churches that are actually pro-choice. They actually tell their people that it's OK for them to go out and put to death their unborn children. Here today, we're celebrating the life, the birth, the joy, the blessing of a child. And in other churches, they are actually teaching their people to go out and have an abortion and then bring their blood-stained hands back in the next week into supposedly the house of God. And God detests that and anything associated with it. Idolaters. People who in their own imagination set up God and worship God the way they please rather than seeking the God of the Scriptures and worshiping Him as He has asked them to do. And then liars. God hits liars with a double barrel, so to speak, here. He says those who love and practice falsehood. We're living in a time where lying is a practiced art. Our politicians are regularly just lying to us. And we can see their lies, because a week ago it was printed this in the paper, and this week it's this. And yet they deny it and twist it and turn it each way they want. But it's not just out there in the world. It's in the church. There's too many pastors lying, living false lives before their people. a prominent Reformed pastor in this state. A man who's quite famous in many circles. He's serving one of the largest churches in Philadelphia. Nine years ago, he was caught in a public park in immoral behavior with a woman in his church. And for nine years, he's been defaming others denying the truth and the reality and finally, finally it's caught up to him and he finally has been made to step down after nine years standing in the pulpit as a liar. And I fear for his soul. I fear for his soul. How can you stand in the presence of God and his people and be a liar? And God says outside the walls are found those types of people. Well, you can't even trust pastors. How do you know where to look for the truth? The true bride of Christ? Well, it's actually not that difficult. How do you tell the difference between a bride and a prostitute? It's what they're wearing and how they're behaving. And Jesus says that His bride, His people who are ready for Him, He describes them in verse 14, are blessed are those who wash their robes. Rather than wearing the filthy garments of this world in the manner that I've just described, He says that those are blessed who have washed their robes. And of course, the question is, what have they washed their robes with? And the answer is, the holy blood of Jesus. And if someone has truly been washed by the holy blood of Jesus, spilt on Calvary's cross, and that person believes that that blood will save and forgive and cleanse them, and they believe that, it will show up in how they live their lives before Him. You see, Jesus has brought salvation in its totality to His people. He just doesn't save His people from the penalty of their sins. When we talk about forgiveness, we talk about not having to stand before God in judgment and pay for our sins ourselves. To do what it's saying here, we're going to face the recompense of our sins We don't have to fear that anymore if we're wearing the blood of Jesus upon us. But if we're wearing that blood, it changes you. You're not the same person that you once were. And the fullness of Christ's salvation makes you to be a holy person, desiring holy things. Notice what these people are doing whose robes have been washed They have the right to the tree of life. They enter the city by the gate. They come into the church. They join the fellowship of the church. And then they live with other faithful people in the holiness of Jesus Christ. That's how you know whether someone's a true Christian or a false Christian. The fruit eventually shows itself. What they're wearing eventually is seen. Is it holiness they're wearing? or the world and its ugliness that they're wearing. A local church is to be a picture of heaven on earth. A place where people come and eat the tree of life by taking of Christ, by taking of his sacraments, by taking of the Lord's Supper and having life and fellowship with the Lord. We need to prepare for His coming. And friends, to prepare for His coming, I call you to come. Come to the coming Lord. You know, the book of Revelation starts off speaking to seven different churches. There are now in the area of Turkey, but back then it was called the Churches of Asia. And Jesus speaks to each one of these seven churches a unique message, but at the end of them, they all end the same. He who has ears to hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. And here in verse 17, we hear a final word from the Spirit. It says, The Spirit and the bride, the church, say, Come. The Spirit says, Come. It's calling everyone who hears this message to come and to take the water of life without price. In other words, it's inviting you that you don't have to do anything to impress God because you can't do anything to impress God. You have to come to Christ. And you have to put your faith in Jesus. And you have to know that either He's going to come one day and I'm going to have to stand on my own righteousness and stand before Him and face His judgments, and you will not be able to stand, friend. You will not be able to stand that day. Or you let the recompense be what God did to His own Son by putting your sins upon Christ. so that you could have the water of life without cost. That you can drink freely from this river of life. That you can eat freely from the tree of life. Earlier in this book, as John sees this vision of a harlot, which is picturing the false people of God, And he sees this harlot about to face the judgments. He calls out to the harlot, the false people of God, come out of her. Anyone who will still listen, come out of her. You've got to come out of your sins, he says. You've got to run away from your unfaithfulness to God. And then you need to run to where God says for you to go. You need to come. You need to come to Jesus. He Himself said that. Come to Me. All of you who are weary and heavy laden, tired of the things of this world, tired of dealing with your immorality, with your idolatry, with all the things that you're carrying, all the baggage that you're carrying, you're weary, you're heavy laden, He says come. Let me take that off of you. You who are ashamed of your clothing. You who are dressed in filthy rags. You who feel unworthy to even be here maybe this morning. Jesus says don't think like that. Come. Come to Me. And I'll make you clean. I'll make you white. I'll make you holy with My righteousness. He says here, if you're thirsty, come. If you're hungry, come. Friends, I'm here to testify to you this morning the truth of what Jesus says when he said in John chapter 7, he who believes in me as the scriptures say, from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Friends, that's a true promise. This world will never satisfy you. You were not made to be satisfied with the things of this world, with the created things around you, your idols. They'll never satisfy you. But Christ will. And Christ does. Because His Spirit is poured out into the hearts of those who believe. And they find rest. feast and satisfaction in Jesus. So, friend, he says to you, come. Come. Please come. Let us pray. Father in Heaven, how thankful we are for the words of your beloved Son. And, Father, they are so very serious and sobering, because we know that He does stand as the one that you have appointed to be the judge of all the earth, the coming Lord. And Father, I plead with you that you would pour your Spirit out upon each person here, that no one would leave here today, Father. I'm sure they're standing on that great day, that they would believe in you, that they would come to your bride, the church, and have fellowship with you and enjoy all the blessings and benefits that you have for your people. Father, help them to come. Thank you, Father. And God, may we not only come ourselves as we see this dying world around us. So, Father, help us to go forth and offer to them as well this water of life. We pray it in Christ our Lord.