So we're in a difficult chapter. Is there a non-difficult chapter in Revelation? Maybe not. But 19 is a tough one. It's not tough to unpack. It's tough to read. It has to do with judgment. And the first part of the chapter is a lot of praise. And we'll look at these songs of praise. I'll probably spend quite a bit of time there. And then the second part of the chapter deals with the final judgment. And it's hard. It really is hard. So let me pray and then I'll read this section about these songs of praise. We'll look at a couple of them here. Our Father and our God, we do praise you. Lord, you're an awesome God. And we pray that as we read and study chapter 19 of Revelation, you'd let us see a glimpse of who you are in all your glory, all your splendor, and even the splendor of your judgment, Lord, for everything you do is right and true. So Lord, we pray you'd teach us this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. So we start with a song of praise, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 5, and then we'll kind of unpack it a little bit. But this is Revelation 19, 1 to 5. After these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments, because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her. Again, they said, alleluia, Her smoke rises up forever and ever. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who sat on the throne saying, amen, hallelujah. Then a voice came from the throne saying, praise our God, all you his servants and those who fear him, both small and great. So we get this vision again, and a lot of times John the Revelator is telling us what he saw. It's a vision. I saw this. Here it begins with what he heard. It's this great multitude in heaven. And if we want to get a little deeper understanding of what that multitude might have looked like, I'll take you over to Hebrews, the book of Hebrews. In chapter 12, verse 22, Well, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven. And I think I might give us some insight into what John heard. It's probably an innumerable company of angels, along with the saints that have gone before, that are there in glory. But he hears this loud voice, verse 1, of a great multitude. And you'll see repeated over and over again in the text, Alleluia. Hallelujah. That's the praise language of the church. Hallelujah. Right? It's a transliteration of the Hebrew into the Greek. Hallelujah. Right? Hallelujah in the Hebrew means praise. Yah. is what? It's an abbreviated version of Yahweh, the covenant God. So hallelujah is praise ye the Lord, right? And don't we say that as a church? We should say it all day long, every day. Praise you, oh God, almighty, my covenant God. And they praise God for a couple things. You might miss it, and I want to focus on it. First of all, they praise God for what He has done. And if you're ever wondering, like, well, it's been a rough day, what could I praise God for? Well, you can praise God for what He's done. I was reading a little excerpt from something last night, and they were saying, if you got out of bed, the first thing you can praise God for is that you just got out of bed. Lord, it's another day. I woke up. You gave me another day of life. Another day to enjoy the beauty of this world and to be a blessing to somebody. And probably to be blessed by somebody. Praise you. Just start your day like that. Here they praise the Lord for what He's done because He's the God of salvation. That's what they say to Him. That He's the God of salvation. Salvation belongs to God. And that's a theme you'll see throughout the Psalms. I think I counted over 60 Psalms. that give God praise because he's the God of salvation. And so maybe after we thank the Lord and praise him for the fact that we actually got to breathe air and wake up and had the strength maybe to turn around and sit up in bed and sit up straight, stand up and do our day, we can praise God that he saved us. Because if anybody didn't deserve salvation, and none of us do, I certainly didn't, I remember when I came to the Lord, because you didn't know me back then, people were shocked. Absolutely shocked that God would save somebody like me. I mean, it's just shocking. We just recently went to our sixth grade get-together. We always get together with our sixth grade peeps. And it might have been the last time. It was two times ago. I went there. And there was a kid that knew me. Of course, he's an adult now. And his wife came up to me. And she was shocked. And she said, I heard you're a pastor. You got saved. And I said, I did. And she goes, how did that happen? I said, somebody shared the gospel with me. I mean, I had never heard it, and that time I heard it, and it just struck home with me, and I gave my life to the Lord, and the Lord saved me. So yeah, praise God for salvation. Out of all those 60 Psalms, let me just read you a couple of them. Psalm 1846, let the God of my salvation be exalted. Psalm 20 verse 5, we will rejoice in your salvation. Psalm 62 too, he only is my rock and my salvation. Psalm 95.1, let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Isn't that praise? You have nothing to praise God for, then you're not thinking about who you were and what he did to save you, to send his own son to die for your sins. And he rose victoriously for our justification. How can we not praise him for that? Even on the worst of days, when everything seems to be going against you, we can at least lift our eyes to heaven and say, well, Lord, Thank you that I'm alive and thank you for my salvation. And that's what the song says. And then they praise him for who he is. And that's an important thing for us to focus on. We need to know God as he truly is, as he's revealed himself to us in scripture, right? They praise God for his glory. In my New King James, it says honor. That's probably not in the better text. As a matter of fact, NIV, my wife's an NIV lady. It just says glory and power. And we can attribute praise to God for who he is, his glory, his power. He's all powerful. He's glorious. I thought, well, what does that mean? I've studied the subject of glory. It's not an easy subject. It has to do with weightiness, the substance of who he is and his divine being. So you ever want to do a little rabbit trail on your own and study, what does it mean when we talk about, Lord, you're glorious. We praise you for your glory. I looked it up in a theological dictionary, and they gave a stab at it. They said, it's the display of his divine attributes and perfections. I tell you all the time I like that website gotquestions.org. I do like what they put on there and they defined it this way. The glory of God is the beauty of the spirit. It is not an aesthetic beauty or a material beauty, but the beauty that emanates from his character, from all that he is. It's just praising God for who He is. You're altogether glorious, Lord, and just letting them know so. Do you remember in the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, Moses finally asked God the big one, the big question. He says, Lord, show me your glory. And God says, nobody can see my glory and live, Moses. I can't show you. You'd be incinerated. I can't show you that, but I'll show you my goodness. If you remember the story, that's what God does. But I get the heart of Moses, and I think the Lord, if the Lord smiles, I think He smiled at that. That Moses, He didn't say, give me riches, or give me a wife, or whatever. He just said, show me your glory. That's what I want to see. Right? We're all looking forward to that. In John 1.14, It says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John at the Mount of Transfiguration, along with others, got to see a little peek of the glory of God in Christ, right? And if we want any vision of some gloriousness, we look to Christ, right? We look to Christ. So His glory they praise God for, and His power. His power. He's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. And when I read that I thought of the book of Romans. Because this is what Romans says, and I go to this a lot I know, but this is Romans 1.20. He says, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. So they're without excuse. Nobody could say, well, Lord, I didn't know you existed. It's like, have you ever taken a walk in the woods? I mean, I hope you appreciate the power of God when you're looking at nature. I was thinking that this morning. I was looking out my window. When I was a kid, I had an aunt that lived in Odenton. And we used to go over to her house. And she just sat in her house all day smoking cigarettes. I mean, that was my aunt. And she had a picture on her wall of this beautiful wooded scene. It's the woods, and it's all green. And I thought, I live in that. I live in that picture. I get to live in that environment all the time out here in West Virginia. And it speaks to us the glory and goodness of God, just looking at the beauty of nature. And that's what the Bible says. Nobody's going to say, well, you should have known. And actually, the Bible says they did know, and they just suppressed it in unrighteousness. They suppressed it. Philip Hughes writes, the true reality is now absolutely plain to all. Salvation and glory and power do not belong to the pseudo-divine world city Babylon, though the nations of the earth have been deceived into thinking otherwise, but to God and to God alone. And that's the world we live in. We live in a world, I had to go to Las Vegas this week. You want to find a city where it's hard to find somebody looking upwards and giving praise to God, that place is a mess. But we know as God's people that he's the one who's all powerful. He's the one who's all glorious, right? We give him all the praise and glory for who he is and for what he's done. And then thirdly, praise him for his wisdom. Verse two, for true and righteous are his judgments. He's judged that great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication. This satanic political system and power. And he says, and he's avenged on her the blood of his servants, because she shed their blood, the martyrs. But what I want you to hone in on is true and righteous are his judgments. And that doesn't matter if you had plans to go to a Volkswagen convention and God divinely said, nope. You know, God's judgments, what he does is always right. And what he calls us to do is not run around trying to create history. He calls us to be faithful to him as life unrolls before us as a scroll. is that He would find us faithful. He would find us full of faith and praising Him. Even when the day is dark and things go on that we really struggle with, and we go, but my God's all-powerful, and His judgments are perfect, they're soaked in righteousness. Everything my God does. And that's a good place to live, to know that. In the book of Genesis, Abraham, if you remember, he's visited by these individuals and they say, well, should we hold back what God's going to do from Abraham? Abraham was a friend of God's, which is just an amazing thing. He says, I'm going to tell Abraham what I'm going to do. And so Abraham's told that God's going to judge Sodom and Gomorrah and destroy it. And do you remember that? Abraham starts bargaining with God a little bit. Well, Lord, what if there's 40 righteous people in that city? I mean, you wouldn't destroy the city and just sweep away 40 righteous along with everybody else, would you? Do you remember that story? And he keeps whittling it down. Well, Lord, one more time. What if there's 10? What if there's 10 righteous? And God keeps saying, no, if there's 10 righteous, I won't do it. But then wisely, in the midst of all of that, Abraham says this, Genesis 18.25, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? And when God brings judgment, when God does what God does, the judge of all the earth does what's right. And when things don't go our way and things are painful in our lives, I would suggest you memorize that. Won't the judge of all the earth do what's right? And the answer is, of course he will. Of course he will. It's OK to weep. It's OK to get to your knees in prayer and say, Lord, I don't understand any of this. I'm hurting. But you're a righteous judge. And so often we don't know what's coming down the pike. I see that in my own life with my wife. We've raised five kids, and I can't see what's coming 10 years down the road. But later on, sometimes I can see the wisdom of what he did way back here when I didn't like it. And I'm like, Lord, now I can kind of see where you were taking things. And Lord, forgive me for my... my lack of faith that you were doing what was right. He always does what's right. Always, right? We need to rest in that. All heaven praises God for his salvation and in this song for his judgments, right? For bringing judgment on Babylon. He's praised for both there, right? And we see that really in the cross of Christ, don't we? I mean, here we see salvation. You look to the cross and you're like, why do you have a cross? Well, it's a symbol of my salvation. Well, what happened at the cross? Judgment, right? Jesus, who knew no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, right? Judgment took place on that cross. But in our stead, it was Christ that was the bearer of our sin. The Bible says that he became a curse. Cursed is everyone who's hung on a tree. He took our curse upon himself and paid for our sins and then rose victoriously. So the cross is the place we look to say that's my salvation, but it's also the place of judgment. Don't forget that. So the severity of God's judgment, why? Well, it says, because she led others into sin. Talking about Babylon, she led others into sin. And also, it says literally in the text, she corrupted the earth with her fornication. She enticed people to sin. And because she martyred God's faithful, she was opposed to the church. And you see that with corrupt government today. A corrupt government will rise, a despot, a dictator will take over a country, and the first thing I want to do is silence the church, right? Quiet the church down, right? And yet the church always prevails because God will cause her to prevail. And she begins meeting behind closed doors somewhere in somebody's basement, right? Well, the government says you can't meet. Well, yeah, my Lord said not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some, right? So we press on. But that's what's going on here, so she's judged because of those two things. At least that's what the song says. The second song we have begins in verse 6, and I'll read it down to verse 9, and this is a wedding song. So we get the praise song and now a wedding song. It says, I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come. and his wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, Write, Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true sayings of God. Lord God omnipotent reigns. That's a nice thing to have in the back of your mind constantly. No matter what happens, no matter who says they're going to oppose you. I get a lot of that in my business world. I just think the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Okay, whatever. I serve a powerful God. He does all things well. His judgments are perfect. They're steeped in righteousness. But he's the all-powerful God. It's not corrupt governments. They think they're the all-powerful government, or the all-powerful king, or the all-powerful pope, or whoever. No, the Lord God is omnipotent. We serve the living Lord. It's a repeated theme. Revelation 11, 17, We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is, and who was, and who is to come, because you have taken your great power and reigned. It's a picture of the consummation of the kingdom. We're not there yet, right? God reigns supreme and omnipotent now, but he'll reign visibly. There'll be a new heavens, a new earth in which we'll be brought, right? Where sin has no place, right? Only righteousness will be made glorified by God when he returns. And this is what it's really picturing. And we long for that day. I see so much wrong, so much evil. I want to bring up what I saw in Las Vegas. It's horrible. And I think one day this is all going to be gone. All of this. And my soul longs for that day. I'm sure yours does too. But he's the Lord God omnipotent. He's all-powerful. He'll cause his purposes to come. What he's promised in his word will happen. Will happen because he's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. Then you see here the bride in her beautiful apparel. And it speaks of this beautiful dress that she's wearing. This fine linen is actually the righteous acts of the saints. And you could say, well, that's works righteousness. No, that's not what's being conveyed here at all. And I think Robert Mounts, the commentator, does good with this. Listen to what he says. The adornment of the church consists in her obedient response to the many opportunities for compassion and loving service. This is not a doctrine of salvation by works. It is rather the thoroughly biblical principle that the true people of God must of necessity live transformed lives. They act righteously because they are in fact righteous in Christ. A testimony of faith unsupported by a changed life is fraudulent. Now, beloved, we're not perfect. I mean, we sin. Read 1 John. It gets into that whole coming to the Lord and cleansing yourself with confession and the blood of Christ cleanses us and all that. But we're saved. We're not bouncing around between salvation and lostness. But we get our feet dirty at times. Jesus said that in the upper room. You don't need your whole body washed. You've been cleansed by my word. But Peter, I'm going to wash your feet. You've got 30 feet. I mean, there's a little bit of that going on in that whole story. But the bride in her beautiful apparel is because she's been transformed. We're not who we were. We're not yet what we will be. But praise God, we're not who we were. We're different. We're transformed. A Jewish wedding was, at least in two parts, according to what I know of it, There was the betrothal. And that was different than the engagement in America. Somebody could say, well, I'm engaged. This is my fiancee. And then next week, you're like, what happened to Alice, your fiancee? Oh, yeah, I dumped her. I got this. This is my new fiancee. And that's the patheticness of American relationships. It wasn't so in the Jewish culture. When you betrothed somebody, that was a legal binding act. You had to follow through with that marriage. But after you were betrothed, you were preparing for marriage and maybe getting your house ready. And then you would come, and you'd gather your betrothed to yourself. And then you would become married. But betrothal was a serious matter. And quite honestly, engagement should be a serious matter in our country. Me and my wife, we took that very seriously. We had a long discussion when I asked her to marry me. I took it as serious as a Jewish betrothal. I was like, this is it. But you see that in the story of the bride of Christ. We're called the bride of Christ now, but in a sense, it's a betrothal. In other words, when Christ returns, that's why the marriage supper is future. We're looking forward to that. We're celebrating at the marriage supper because the marriage is occurring. He's come to consummate the marriage, to bring the bride to himself. And you actually see that if you have that in your mind when you read a lot of what Jesus taught like this. And if I go to prepare a place for you, think about it, you're betrothed, he's going to prepare a place for you. He says, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also. Jesus has that kind of a thinking when he's saying these things. And we look forward to that. And that's the beauty of the wedding song here. Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad, let us rejoice, let us give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come. The marriage has come. And that's the picture in the church of what we have to look forward to. And the Lord's Supper points towards that. Then there's this warning in verse 10 against misdirected worship. And this is going to happen again in chapter 22, so if you think John the Revelator was perfect, he's not. He was fumbling around here, you know, he hadn't been glorified yet. So it says, "...and I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, See that you do not do that. I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. I'll unpack that in a second. He was going to give worship to an angel. You guys ever read the book of Colossians? You see, the church was prone to that. A lot of the stuff going on in the culture in Colossi, there were worshiping angels and whatnot. The book of Colossians deals with a lot of that stuff. But the angel redirects his worship. And the idea is that we give worship to God and to God alone. We don't go to Jesus through Mary. We don't pray to the saints. We worship God. We go directly to God in Christ. Jesus says, anything you ask in my name. And so we come to the Father through the Son. That's what he taught us to do. Our Lord taught us that. All worship must be 100% directed to God and God alone. We have to be careful of that. In Matthew chapter 4, I alluded to this passage the other day. Matthew 4, chapter 4, verse 8. Again, the devil took him up to an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me. And Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. Right answer, right answer. So what's this whole, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Robertson, the Greek scholar, in his commentary wrote, the possession of the prophetic spirit shows itself in witness to Jesus. In other words, when the Spirit was at work in the true prophets of God in the Old Testament, or in the apostles in the New Testament, and we were getting fresh revelation through God's servants, the prophets and the apostles, it will always focus that message on the person of Jesus. That's how we understand the Old Testament. It was hidden and cloaked until Jesus came on the scene. And we go, wait, let me reread the book of Hosea in light of Christ. And suddenly it comes to life. You're like, this whole book's about Jesus. And you find that to be true in every book of the Old Testament. The spirit of prophecy is Jesus. It's focused on Jesus. And in the New Testament, you know, days and today, You know, when prophetic utterance is given, it's not fresh revelation. It's some pastor or some preacher going to the text, to the closed canon of Scripture, and unpacking that. And if he's truly doing the work of a pastor and a teacher, it's going to be Christ-centered. Because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. So this last section, I want to read in its entirety, and I'll come back and say a few things about it. It's tough, guys. It's a tough passage. It's God's Word. But it's pretty staggering. So let me read it. This is verse 11 down to 21, the end of the chapter. Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, And he who sat on him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood. And his name is called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, And he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great. And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army. Then the beast was captured and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone, and the rest were killed with a sword which proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh." That's a grisly picture. That's a grisly story, that's a grisly future that's coming. And that's what we warn people, right? That's what we warn. So this rider on his steed, the Lord Jesus Christ, right? The color of the horse is white. Makes us think of what? Purity, holiness. It's our Lord. The rider is called faithful and true. It's our Lord's character. All of the judgments that we read in this chapter are flowing from the character of Jesus Christ. He's faithful and true. And in righteousness, he judges and makes war. He's doing what's right here, right? Even if it makes the hair on the back of our neck stand up reading it. His flaming gaze, his eyes are like flames. He sees everything. It has to do with nothing will escape his vision. He sees everything. Nobody's hiding what they've done. He sees it all. On his head are many crowns. His sovereignty is unlimited. This is the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. He has a name that nobody knows but him. And again, this is Kendall Easley, I thought he did a good job of that. He says, because Christ is infinite, unknowable aspects of his attributes will always remain. Humans, even in their eternal glorified condition, may know only what he chooses to reveal. And his secret name reminds us of that. It's good for us to know that we're never going to know God exhaustively. We can know him accurately and truly, but we'll never know him exhaustively. And that's a good thing. He's God. We're finite. We're creatures. His robe has been dipped in blood. And this isn't a symbol of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. This is the blood of his enemies, where he's destroying all who opposed him and his bride, the church. And it is a grisly scene. And it's some language here that's borrowed out of the book of Isaiah. And just to underscore that this is the blood of his enemies, God speaks through Isaiah in Isaiah 63, And the question is asked in verse 2, why is your apparel red and your garments like one who treads in the wine press? You can imagine, you know, when you have a bucket of grapes and you get in and you're smoshing them and squishing them and it's splashing up on your robe, right? Why is your apparel red and your garments like one who treads in the winepress? And here's God's answer. I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me. For I have trodden them in my anger and trampled them in my fury. Their blood is sprinkled upon my garments. And I have stained all my robes, for the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come." That's a foretaste, a picture of the judgment that's to come that we find here in Revelation 19, and Isaiah prophetically is speaking to it. Although he was speaking to situations in his day, ultimately he was looking forward to the return of Christ. He's also known by a name that he reveals to us. His name is the Word of God. Doesn't that make you immediately think of the Gospel of John, right? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then you get down to verse 14 of John chapter 1, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. His name is the Word of God, right? The Logos. A sharp sword coming out of his mouth to strike the nations. Well, that's Jesus. I mean, you go back to the beginning of the book, Revelation 1, verse 16. Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. This is our Lord. A rod of iron by which he rules immediately made me think of Psalm 2. Psalm 2 promises, it's a messianic psalm, that the Messiah would rule the nations with a rod of iron. He's the ruler. He's going to beat down anything opposed to him and cause his bride to prevail, his church. And it mentions here the winepress of God's wrath. And Philip Hughes writes on that, the threefold imagery here of sword, rod, and winepress signifies warfare. subjugation, destruction, the ultimate demonstration to the impenitent that God is indeed Almighty. Well, if you can't read this and study it and pray about it without looking at a world that's shaking its fist at God Almighty, there's no God. If there was a God, why doesn't he just strike me with a lightning bolt? I'm thinking, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. And I've heard people say that. I'm thinking, he might not strike you with a lightning bolt, but you'll be brought before the throne of judgment. I can tell you that right now. Any time I've ever talked to anybody out in the streets and they start mocking, and I tell them, this event right here is going to play on the screen when you stand before God. And God sent you somebody to talk to you about the Lord, and you mocked him. I've never had anybody do anything but shut their mouth when they hear that. I'm not saying they came to the Lord, but I'm not playing around. God sent you somebody to share the gospel with you, and you're going to mock that? No. This is a reality that's coming, His judgment. And I do love, on His robe, on his thigh, King of kings, Lord of lords. That's who we serve, beloved. He's not meek and humble Jesus that came and allowed sinful men to pluck out his beard and put him on a cross. He's coming back as King of kings and Lord of lords. You know, nobody's going to stand up. You notice there's no battle details? How long do you think this will take? For the Lord of the universe to come and defeat His enemies. I mean, I think, like, instantaneously. He's going to slay them with the sword of His mouth. All He has to do is say a word. All things were created by Him, through Him, for Him. He's Creator God. How did He create? He spoke it into existence. Let there be light, and there was light. Let there be dogs and there were dogs. I mean, He spoke everything to creation. You don't think He can slay His enemies with one word? That's what the Bible is saying. That's the Lord we serve. Those who follow... Notice that the armies that follow in verse 14. The armies in heaven follow Him. They're clothed in fine linen, white and what? Clean. They're just observers in this battle. They're not fighting this thing. This is the Lord's battle, right? It's the Lord who's bloodied his garments because it's the Lord that's taking care of business here. And my translation puts it a little bit different. I think NIV words the supper properly, the great supper of God, right? So you have these two. The thing that's really kind of striking, and I think it's meant to be that way in chapter 19, is you have this beautiful marriage supper of the bride, and then you have the great supper of God, which are birds devouring the flesh of God's enemies. And that really sums up the entirety of chapter 19. So John zeroes in on a little bit of detail. The beast, the false prophet, they're cast alive into the lake of fire. That satanic agency that was deceiving the whole world or done with, right? They're cast in the lake of fire. The rest of God's enemies are utterly defeated. And Christ is victorious. Altogether. I mean, He was victorious at the cross. Satan was defeated at the cross. Beloved, we're a church that's living in the betrothal state, waiting for Him to come back and to take us to the marriage supper. And thank God He saved us. We're not going to be on the menu, right? We get to go to the feast and praise the Lord for that. It's only by His grace. None of us deserve it. It's all by His grace. Well, let me close with that. Father God, we thank you for your word, Lord, and that is a difficult chapter. I get no joy out of seeing people judged, but Lord, I get a joy out of seeing your perfect will performed, because you are the Lord God omnipotent. And Lord, help us to remember that as we go forth with the gospel to warn people that this day is coming. And Lord, thank you for your grace. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll receive the blessing of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Jesus Christ, carrying the gospel to people that desperately, desperately need to come to the kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.