Let's turn now to God's Word. We'll have a little more time than we had last week, so we'll take what we have. Let's go to our last book of the Bible, and that is Revelation. We're going to read some selected verses, and this is the way it's laid out for our Adventure Club. I know they're facing the same challenge we are here. There's a lot of scripture that they're packing in, and all of it's good, and so there is no possible way we will probably even have time to read the scripture, much less to examine it carefully. But before I read what's in Revelation, let me just remind us all, as we think about prayer, and we've just prayed, And we're taught the model prayer, and y'all are well familiar with that, it's called the Lord's Prayer. And you remember how that starts. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Hallowed means holy, sacred is your name. So it begins with addressing God as the Holy Heavenly Father. He is set apart, holy, holy, holy. And in the very first request, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. And of course, there's a present aspect to that. We're praying that God's kingdom would come in a sense right here, right now, in the hearts of people, that Christ would rule as king in our hearts, in the hearts of unbelievers, that they would come to know him and submit to him and honor him. But that really has a forward look to it, doesn't it? We pray for this day when Christ the King is going to come and bring his kingdom into its fulfillment in all of its greatness, in all of its glory. And the wonderful thing is we're included in the plan. So this is a glorious, glorious theme. Jesus will return. Now you see where we've been over the last nine weeks Some of these studies have had to do with the person of Christ, and then some with what is often referred to as the work of Christ. And that's a convenient way to think about the doctrine of Christ. And oftentimes in books of doctrine or theology, that's the way it's set up, the person and then the work of Christ. And that's a logical order, isn't it? because he does what he does and will do what he will do because he is who he is, right? He is the son of God. He's the God-man. We dealt with that. He's truly God, truly man. He is without sin, perfect in character. He is Lord. He is Messiah, the anointed one. And then he preached the gospel, performed miracles, forgives sins, and loves his people. And now we come to the last segment of our study, and this is by no means exhaustive. You know, in a study like this, and remember, it's really designed for our children and families, but these are the broad brush strokes, so to speak, of Christ, nature, and his work. All right, let's read in Revelation 19, beginning at verse 1, we'll read the first 10 verses. And after these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments. For he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication. and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshiped God that sat on the throne saying, Amen, Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and all ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come. and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him, And he said unto me, see thou do it not for I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Magnificent scene, isn't it? And so here we see the praise given to God and lifted up because now is the great culmination of his plan. Looking at the notes here, underneath number one, which describes what we just read, at least in part, this runs down through all the chapter, what's going to happen when Christ returns and We see the praise. Countless voices in heaven will praise the Lord Jesus Christ at his final return to earth. Scripture describes a large choir of voices praising God for the long-awaited final judgment. The 24 elders, verse 4, and four angelic beings that you may have noticed in King James is the word beast. That's really a much misleading word because we think of a beast as an animal or some such. So it's a living creature, and obviously in the context, it's an angelic creature, like cherubim or some seraphim, something along that line. So not an animal by no means. We'll all fall down and worship God on his throne. It's a great scene of worship and praise. Their shouts of amen express their agreement for God's justice on earth. Their cries of alleluia exalt Christ for his work to save sinners. Alleluia is an alternate spelling of hallelujah, which means praise be to Yah, shortened form of Yahweh. So praise be to God. God's victory demands praise from all his servants who fear him both small and great, verse five. Loud and majestic voices will roar like mighty waters, praising God for his omnipotent reign. We read the phrase at the end of verse six, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, you may recall from Handel's Messiah. Remember that phrase? Did you know this? By the way, we didn't sing anything. Well, we sang a part of one song that had that little bit of Handel's Messiah. But did you know, some of you do, but maybe not everybody, and I think you want to know this. All of the lyrics, all the words in Handel's Messiah are right out of Scripture. Nothing but Scripture. And it's a marvelous work of music and praise. Tremendous. All right, back to our notes. The time for the marriage of the Lamb And who is the Lamb? None other than Christ. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. We know from John 1. The Lamb has come and the bride of Christ, the church, has made herself ready. These visions of the future prompt believers today to worship Christ because He alone is worthy. So, the Lamb, a much-used title in the book of Revelation, for the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, of all the titles, all the names, the title of the lamb, as we see here, is most used of all the titles in the book of Revelation. So that, I think, tells us how important that is. That's what will be exalted, that title and that truth, that it was his sacrifice, His ransom, His price that He paid for redemption. And that is the cornerstone of the praise in heaven. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and honor and so on and so forth. Now let's read a little bit. We've got a few more minutes. Picking up now in verse 11, this speaks of judgment. Now saw heaven open, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Now this is Christ on the white horse. He is the Faithful One. He is the True One. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture, dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. That takes you back to John chapter 1 verse 1, doesn't it? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Verse 14. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God. That you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. And the beast was taken. The beast is referring to the Antichrist who is earlier revealed as such. So this beast is the Antichrist. and then the false prophet part of the satanic trinity that we read about in Revelation, that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire, burning with brimstone. Brimstone is sulfur, so burning sulfur in a lake of fire. and the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth, and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." So here it is speaking of Christ in judgment. So when he comes back, he's not coming back at all as he came with his first coming. His first coming, he came, of course, as a babe, helpless and weak, defenseless and needy. But when he comes back, he will be anything but that. He will come back in all of his power, in all of his glory, in all of his splendor, and he will not come back in meekness, he will come back in might. He will come back in righteousness. First time he came to provide redemption, to give himself a ransom for many Matt referred to in the prayer. But when he comes back, he's coming back as the righteous judge. And you know, there's something in all of God's people that cries out for that. There is a yearning for justice, isn't there? There is a yearning for wrongs to be made right and for justice to be served. And so in a just order of which God presides, this is what is fitting. And he tells us that time is coming. Let me just interject here and ask, isn't there a meeting of parents or those going on the trip? And that's going to be right after. So we're going to cut this off at least in time to make the meeting, because I don't want any of you to be late and trying to be time sensitive here. which I don't always do from the pulpit. So the people here on Sunday don't come on Wednesday night. They're missing it tonight. Sometimes I can cut it off. So let me just point out, you have the paragraph there. Then you have part two. that will refer to Christ putting an end to sin. There's going to be the final judgment. And then there is going to be the new heaven and the new earth and the conditions of that. And he is presiding over that, of course, as the bridegroom and the city is all ready for us and for him and The heaven of heaven is going to be not the golden streets, not the gates of pearl. No, it is the presence of the Lord, the presence of the Father and of Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit. And we are there. And this is how the story ends. Some additional notes that I drew from a wonderful book and You'd be well served to get that if you're serious about Bible study. It'll have you digging for years. It'll be a great source book for you, edited by John MacArthur and his associate for many years, Richard Mayhew. And I just took parts of what he had to say about Christ's return, His second coming. And you'll see there some of the words that are used and the unique nature of those words that depict Christ's coming. And then that last paragraph is what I was talking about, the presence of the Lord, communion with him in heaven. So with that, let's bow again. Father, we rejoice in what we sang about earlier. We have victory in Jesus. We have victory over our own sin and bondage, victory in terms of our own salvation, But then in a much larger degree, we will participate Lord in your victory that you will win and ultimately defeat every foe, even the devil himself. And you will reign, you will reign over all and your glory will be known by all. And we'll be in that gathering and we'll see you in all of your glory as much at least as we can take in We will be glorified as well. And we so look forward to that time. Help us to do as the scripture tells us, Lord, to set our affection on things above and not on things of the earth. And we pray this in Christ's name.