I invite you to turn to the book of Revelation. This morning, we are able now to pivot away from different studies that we have done. It was over a year ago that we first started a study on the book of Revelation, and it wasn't very long after that that we moved into other things and turned away from that study for a time. I set it aside, I suspended it, you might say, in order to address pastoral matters that intervened, things that we felt were necessary to address related to the gospel, related to marriage, related to the role of women and other things like that. And believe it or not, there's not a book. little hidden book that pastors have that tell you when or when not to do that. You kind of have to act on your own judgment in relation to your understanding of God and Scripture and the needs of a congregation in terms of where you go, and sometimes you deviate from the course that you had originally set. No one cares about this but me, but I'm going to say it anyway. There is a biblical pattern for that. There is a biblical precedent for that. In the book of Jude, the writer said that he was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, but he said, I found it necessary instead to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Everything in my heart was directed to go in this one direction that I wanted to say and express things to you, but then I had a pressure on me, a leading of the Spirit, certainly in the case of the biblical writer, It told me that I needed to do something else, and so I'm writing on you and teaching you things that are different than what I originally intended to do. And from time to time, I do that in the pulpit, and I just trust the Lord that somehow or another that there is the leading of the Holy Spirit in that, even in unseen ways and things that are not conscious to my mind. But with those things said, we now have the privilege of returning to what we started last year in the book of Revelation. And I wanna just give you a little bit of context to how things are going to progress here. There were about 10 messages, not about, there were exactly 10 messages that we did. We have posted a link on the front page of our webpage, truthcommunitychurch.org, where you can go and easily find all of those messages and review them in anticipation of what is to come. I considered re-preaching them all, but I thought that would be a little bit tedious and more than was necessary. But I do want to just spend this week, Sunday and Tuesday, doing a review that I'm going to explain in a moment, doing a review to get our minds back into the study that we first started. So what I'm going to do this week, today and Tuesday, is I'm going to reset study with bookend messages. I'm going to review the first message that I did on Revelation, and then the last message I did before we departed from that direction for a while, and then we'll return to where we left off in the text, hopefully next Sunday. And so that's kind of the plan. You can go, I encourage you, all of those messages were things that were good and essential and edifying, I believe. And so if you haven't been a part of that, I encourage you to go back if you heard them, but, you know, it's kind of forgotten. Go back and review those messages over the next week or two, and we'll all be back in the swing of things as if nothing had happened and we hadn't lost any time whatsoever. And so today, what I want to address is the spirit in which we approach our study of the book of Revelation. I'm very mindful of the fact that some false religions will use the matter of Revelation as a false hook to get people into their system. Seventh-day Adventists are notorious for that with all of their gaudy drawings about supposed end times events and things like that. And if I can just say one thing, if you've ever flown into CVG and as you're about to exit and as you're exiting the security area and going and getting ready to exit out to the curb to be picked up and all of that, I just have to say this. It is routine to see on the left a table set up by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they have an offer of a free Bible study, and they're standing there knowing that that's a false religion. knowing that they are trying to entice people into a way that will secure the damnation of those that follow them. It's very difficult for me to not walk by that table and not just, you know, overturn it and try to chase them out and say, get the hints. But I don't do that. That's not an appropriate way for anyone to behave, especially a pastor. The Lord had that prerogative in the temple. I don't have that prerogative. But all of that just to say that it kind of helps us understand why I'm doing this message today. Idle curiosity. idle curiosity about end times that is not driven by a desire to truly know Christ and His glory and to repent and to be a godly person. That idle curiosity makes all kinds of people, all kinds of vulnerable, because there's just this carnal curiosity about symbols and things like that that people want to satisfy their intellect without a corresponding heart desire to actually know the Christ of Revelation and to know and to live out the holiness to which He calls us in the book of Revelation. And one other thing here, when we were doing this, and I don't remember who it was, it wasn't somebody within the congregation, and if he gets a hold of this message and recognizes himself, so be it. I just don't care. I just don't care. As I was doing those early messages, I received a message from somebody outside of our region, basically kind of demanding, insisting that I get on with my explanation about my views on eschatology and clarify that. I'm not sure exactly what you believe on these things, and I want to know now. and insisting on things before the text even calls for you to, you know, to make those positions known. I don't respond to that kind of stuff. I didn't answer that email. But beloved, it's the same spirit even within the church. just so concerned to get to the fine points of symbolism, the fine points of eschatology, bypassing the things that we're going to see here today which are of more preeminent importance. Now if you're really, you just can't wait to see what my position on some of those eschatological things are, get my book, When Christ Shall Come, and I lay it all out there in very clear and specific terms. But that's not the focus that we should start with in our study of the book of Revelation. We need to be more concerned at the start because it will frame our reaction to everything else what this final book in the Bible says about our personal holiness, about our sanctification, and that's what I want to readdress and reset here in this review message. You see, the book of Revelation is about the person of Jesus Christ. It says so right from the very start in Revelation 1, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation about Jesus Christ. It sets him forth. And the book of Revelation is about the carrying out of the eternal purpose of God. And the book of Revelation brings a unifying close. It brings the whole Bible full circle, as I explained in a couple of those introductory messages. You see initial themes laid out in the book of Genesis that find their counterpart in the fulfillment that Revelation describes. And so Revelation unites the whole Bible. It ties it all together in a bow. Revelation is full of hundreds of allusions to the Old Testament. And until you take the matters of sanctification seriously and biblical context seriously, you're really just playing games with a very serious book of the Bible. And so that's why we're starting here. That's why we're going in this direction. The book of Revelation excites curiosity with its seeming mysteries. But beloved, the answers and the explanation and the knowledge of this book is closed away from those with hard, sinful hearts, just from a general Biblical principle. Those who have not been born again cannot understand anything in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 2 makes that very clear, as well as Romans 8. But especially in the book of Revelation, the insight that this book brings to us is God does not give that out to people who do not have a corresponding desire to obey Him, to glorify Him. The riches of this book are only for those who love the glory of God and seek the glory of God. And we just need to be very, very, very, very careful. I said very four times there. We just need to be very, very careful about the mindset that just wants to lay everything out in a three-dimensional chart. without coming and saying, Lord, search my heart and reveal sin within me. And this isn't just me talking. It's not just my opinion on this, beloved. The Bible repeatedly over and over again calls believers to holy living in light of what will happen in the end times. You can't study end times, you can't study end times as an isolated unit of intellectual consideration and divorce it from the ethical implications, the spiritual implications that it has for your own life. You know, it is not legitimate. It is not legitimate to have a prophetic conference that considers things about end times and utterly ignore and completely dismiss and not say anything at all about the things that we're going to consider here today. The title of today's message, Revelation and Sanctification. That is not a legitimate thing to study in times and then be oblivious to what Scripture says the consequences of these things are. Now, I want to take you to just a couple of texts to make that obvious to you. Turn back in your Bibles just a couple of pages to 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3. In verse 7, we'll jump in the middle of the context here. where we read, but by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. And so he says, this present heavens and earth is going to come to an end, There will be a coming day of judgment. There will be the destruction of the ungodly. This is what lies ahead. He's looking to the future, not describing something that was then happening in the first century when he wrote. He's looking ahead. and then follow the writer's train of thought. Beloved, if you really, really genuinely care about eschatology, you will let Scripture lead you to the conclusion and the implications that eschatology has biblically, rather than simply wanting to have a peek into the future while still holding on to your sins. Verse eight. Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. There at the end of verse 9, you see the theme of repentance, the spiritual moral implications of talking about the future destruction of the world. And the Lord holds that off. He delays it, as it were, waiting for a full ingathering of his people to be saved before he brings that on. His wrath would justify the immediate destruction of the world at this very moment. in our next breath. It would be justified because that's what the guilt and rebellion of man call forth. But God, in his patience, God, in his mercy, holds back his wrath. He restrains his wrath. He, as it were, has it damned up so that the flood doesn't come down on the valley because he has other purposes that he wants to work out first, the ingathering of his people. But when the day comes, verse 10, what will happen? Verse 10, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. And so that's what the future holds. and talk about climate change. Wow. Verse 11, here are the implications. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, in light of end times, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn? And so in light of that, what kind of person you ought to be? You ought to fear God. You ought to repent. You ought to be seeking to live a godly, holy life in light of these things. And beloved, I've read a lot of books on eschatology, and so many of them say nothing about this. They profess to be so concerned about eschatological accuracy, and yet, somehow don't make the emphasis that we see in Scripture. Verse 13, but according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Verse 14, here we go. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace. In light of these things, you be diligent. You set your heart upon pursuing holiness and sanctification and peace in light of the catastrophic things that lie ahead. And in a shorter context, you can turn to 1 John 3 in verse 2. 1 John 3, verses 2 and 3. You have a look to the future in verse two and then an application in verse three. Beloved, we are God's children now. And watch the future tenses here. And what we will be has not yet appeared. He lays forth the future. He invokes the future about his consideration and what he's writing on here. And he says, it hasn't appeared yet what we will be, but we know this much. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. There is a glorious coming time where we will see Christ face to face. And we don't know the fullness of what all of that's going to be like. We know in a general outline form that somehow we will be transformed by the sight of the risen Christ and we will be conformed to His glorified humanity and be like Him because we are going to see Him as He is. And that's what lies ahead. That's the crowning hope of being a Christian is one day seeing that glorious face of of incarnate deity, seeing it in person, seeing it in love, seeing it in acceptance, seeing it in glory. And that's our glorious hope. And so what's the consequence of that? Verse three, and everyone who thus hopes in him, everyone who has this hope that I've just been discussing, everyone without exception that truly possesses this true hope, what they do is this. He purifies himself as he is pure. There's this recognition that this future glory has implications for today. I look forward to the future glory and the holiness of that. I bring it back and that holiness permeates my life and permeates and perfumes my heart with godliness in response to what is going to come. And so I've said it this way in the past as we come back to our study of the book of Revelation here. Those who come to the book of Revelation with thinking that their pressing questions are, is the beast Jewish or Gentile? Can you be saved if you take the mark of the beast? What does 666 mean? What is the name that Scripture says no one knows? What is that name that the Bible says no one can know? If your question is, how can I dispute a different view of the millennium or a different view of the rapture? You know, I want to get to this so I can get on with my arguments with other people. Beloved, I'll just tell you right now in advance that people with that mindset will not stay with us for this study. They won't because this study is not geared toward those incidental details of revelation at the expense of the greater theme of personal holiness and sanctification. This study isn't designed for carnal debate on peripheral issues. We seek the glory of God and we seek our sanctification. And if in the pursuit of that greater, more important goal, we also happen to deal with those peripheral issues, so much the better. But we can't go directly to the peripheral issues and avoid the central themes that are the obvious point of the entire book. And so, with that said, we just move into a quick consideration this morning of four of the central themes of the book of Revelation that provide a framework for us to consider what we're studying, that give us guardrails, as it were, to keep us in the proper lanes of traffic and to not go over the cliff, and tumbled down in a fatal collision of carnal curiosity. but to pursue these things that are the greater themes for the Christian heart. And so the first theme that I want to remind you of that we see in the book of Revelation is, number one, the glory of Christ, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. The book itself is a revelation from God given through Christ. It is a book about the Lord Jesus Christ, and we see this in Revelation 1, verse 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant, John. And so from the very start, Christ is put at front and center in the focus of these things. and the fictionalized books, the fictionalized movies that turn this into some kind of literary or Hollywood production for entertainment is something that we should see in its proper perspective. This isn't given to us for entertainment purposes. This isn't some serial TV show that we have. This is an earnest word from God that is given to us to make Christ known to us. The opening focus is on Him. And if you look at verse 4, as we continue on, just in chapter 1, I'm not going to take the time to develop this all the way through the book. We'll do that over time. Revelation 1, verse 4. John to the seven churches that are in Asia. Grace to you and peace from him, from Christ, who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth, to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So in the opening verses, before you get to any of the eschatological, eschatology just being a word that refers to the study of end times, before you get to any of that, you see Christ presented to you as the faithful witness of God, the one who bears witness to the Word of God. the one who is the firstborn of the dead, not preeminently about he was the first one to raise from the dead because there were others chronologically before him. He is the preeminent one. He is the regal one ruling over the dead, ruling over resurrection. He stands at the forefront of resurrection life, stands at the forefront of having conquered death and sin. This is the Jesus Christ about whom this book speaks. He's the ruler of the kings of earth. He's the king of kings and the Lord of lords beloved. Do you see it? This is not something, this is not something that you read through quickly to get to the stuff that you're more interested in. You stop here. You bow down here and you recognize this Lord Jesus Christ of whom He speaks, this eternal Son of God, and you go on and you read in verse 7, Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. There at the end of verse 5, I think I skipped it inadvertently. to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood. You have the pre-eternal Christ, the pre-existent Christ who was and who is and who is to come. You have this one who is sovereign over death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the author and perfecter of our faith, the one who has redeemed us by his blood, who humbled himself and came to earth and suffered on the cross and poured out his literal lifeblood to save us from our sins, This One who is developing and making and building His own kingdom that includes us as priests to serve alongside Him, to bear witness to Him. This One who is coming with the clouds. This One whom every eye will see and behold Him pierced and crucified and resurrected. This one who will bring mourning to all the tribes of the earth because judgment has now come at his hand. This one is the one about whom Revelation is written. This is the one that Revelation unveils and makes known to us in a more full way. It's stunning to contemplate. that somewhere in the realm of the universe is one like that. It is stunning to contemplate that one like this is the one before whom every knee will bow. The unbelieving, the unsaved, bowing by compulsion to acknowledge Him as Lord, Those of us that are redeemed by His grace, bowing down in love and gladly confessing that He is Lord. But all of humanity will be united together in that one common confession in the end, that Jesus Christ is Lord, that confession being made to the glory of God the Father. And so if that's not clear in your mind at the start, then you're wasting your time looking at the book of Revelation. But it goes on even further in verse 17. Jesus Christ is the one who is Lord over the church and Lord over individual churches as well. All that is done in the context of a local church should be done with an eye to the glory and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. So in verse 17 in chapter one, we read this. I don't know. How do you skip over verse 12? Let's just start at verse 12. John turned to see the voice that was speaking to him. And on turning, he says, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters." Some of this harkening back to things that Daniel said prophetically in Daniel chapter 7. Verse 16, in his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun, shining in full strength. Beloved, the sun shining in full strength. What is Christ like? What is it like to behold His glory? What is He like when the veil of His humanity is pulled back and the full glory shines forth? It's something like staring into the face of the sun itself, blinding glory. And in verse 17, John says, when I saw him, when I saw that, you know what I did? I fell on my face. I fell at his feet as though dead. It was so great, it was so glorious, but He laid His right hand on me saying, fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. I died and behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and that are to take place after this. And as for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. And then in chapters two and three, we see letters to seven churches that existed at the time. And so Beloved, to contemplate just the first chapter of Revelation is to be brought into the presence of the unspeakable, infinite, great glory of Christ the eternal Son of God, the one who redeemed us by His blood, the one who is Lord over the churches, the one before whom all men will bow and confess that He is Lord. And, beloved, this is designed, in part, to communicate to us a proper fear of God, a proper reverence for the Lord Jesus Christ, And so those of you ladies that are meticulous homemakers and you like your house to be just so, imagine somebody, perhaps one of your kids, and you've just cleaned the house and everything's great, and then one of your kids comes in today after being out playing in the mud and just runs across with muddy shoes across all of it and tramples upon the work that you have done. Well, to a much greater way, to read Revelation without a preeminent concern for the glory of Christ is like running across this book with muddy shoes and defiling and defacing everything about it. You start Revelation with a recognition and a concern and a response to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Full stop. The glory of Christ. Chapter one, let's think about it this way. Let's just keep this as clear and simple as we can make it. When you're reading the book of Revelation, where do you start? You start in chapter one. And chapter one reveals and unveils the glory of Christ, which means this, the entranceway, the narthex through which you walk to get to the rest of the book, you can't bypass it, there's no side door in, you go through the first chapter, you go through the narthex and you see the glory of Christ, have it impressed upon your mind, impressed upon your soul, then and only then do you study the rest of the book. The glory of Christ is that which should consume and always be a reference point, a guide to interpret everything else as we look through this. The glory of Christ is one of the preeminent themes of the book of Revelation. Now, along with that, Secondly, is the fear of God. The fear of God. You know, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 1-7, Proverbs 9-10, you'll see that theme elsewhere. And apart from the fear of God, there is no spiritual knowledge, there is no salvation. There's no such thing as a Christian who does not fear and reverence and love the living God. And part of the call of the book of Revelation is to warn the world of the wrath of God so that men would come to fear Him in a proper way. Now, when we talk about the fear of God, it's a little bit different between the unsaved person and the believer. For a believer, there's a fear that is a spirit of warm obedience, of reverence, of concern for the glory of God, a desire to honor and worship Him and obey Him. There's that fear. For believers, for unbelievers, it's something different. The fear of God is something else. And the fear of God that should mark an unbeliever is this. It is a recognition that the God of the Bible is a threat to your well-being. The God of the Bible has an intention to bring judgment down upon your head for your sin and guilt and disregard of his person and of his laws. And so, as a result of that, Revelation repeatedly shows forth the coming wrath of God and calls on unsaved men to fear Him as a result. Let's look at a couple of texts in Revelation 11. And we'll have time in the future to go through the full context of this. Scripture speaks of two witnesses in the end times that will set forth the Word of God against an unbelieving world, a hostile world. And in verse 7, we read this. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom in Egypt where their Lord was crucified. And for three and a half days, some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth." Now, all of that context simply to read this in verse 11. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them." God had testified to them through these two witnesses. Those witnesses had died. The world rejoiced over their death, and the world observed their dead bodies laying in the street. And then something supernatural from God happened. They were brought back to life. The conquest they thought they had had now failed, and they are now in great fear as a result of seeing what God had done through them. Great fear came upon them. Great fear will come upon the unsaved in these future times that lie ahead. In verse 18, we read this. the nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and those who fear your name." This fear of God is woven into what's going to happen in the future times. It's a key theme in the book of Revelation. Turn to chapter 14 with me, if you would. Chapter 14. Verse six, then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. Notice the universal nature of the call. Every nation, tribe, language, and people come under the sound of this call, of this demand, of this command from God. The angel said to them with a loud voice, fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. To all it goes out, fear God and give him glory. reminds us a bit of Acts 17, 30 and 31. You know, God is commanding all men everywhere to repent, to repent in the context of fearing God. And so the book of Revelation comes, and as it were, it casts its broad sheet over all of humanity and brings them all under this theme of fearing God and giving Him glory and responding to Him. And so there is this universal aspect, this universal warning that goes out through the book of Revelation to all men. One more in Revelation 19. We read in verse 4, the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah. And from the throne came a voice saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great. And so you see the fear of God directed toward the unbelieving. You see a different aspect of the fear of God directed to those who believe, who belong to Christ. But it is universal in its scope and call. It is universal in its application. So that as you go through the 22 chapters and 404, 405 verses of the book of Revelation, something like that, It should be driving you to recognize and honor the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It should be driving you to fear and reverence and respect and revere God Himself, and that these would be the preeminent themes that are reinforced to your heart again and again and again as you go through the different chapters recognizing that this is meant to bring you to a settled attitude and disposition before the God who wrote this book in the first place. And beloved, at the risk of belaboring my point. I just want you to see the contrast. I just want you to see the contrast between that and what the popular attitude so often is. I want to see a chart that lays it all out for me. I want an answer to my question about the beast and the false prophet. I want to know the answer to 666. Well, do you care anything about the glory of Christ as you ask that question? Are you concerned to grow in the fear of God as you raise those interesting speculations and demand an answer from the pastor, from the teacher, from the book? Oh, no. If they answer honestly, well, no, that never even occurred to me. and to which I would say then you haven't even begun to enter into the spirit of the book. If you haven't mastered the ABCs of the themes of the book of Revelation, how do you expect to work out advanced calculus when you can't even recite the alphabet? And see, in this way, in these themes, they humble us. They slow us down. They cause us to reflect on ourselves vertically before we start to ask the speculative questions, so much so that I truly believe that a serious consideration of these themes will change the questions that a believer even wants to ask of the book. You know, the questions that at once seemed important no longer even seem relevant in the bigger scheme of things. The twinkling stars in the nighttime sky that are remote and far away, they fade away when the sun rises and the glory of the sun consumes by its greater light the smaller things that you were focused on. And so, beloved, this is the spirit from which I approach the book of Revelation. It's the spirit with which I will teach the book of Revelation. And it's the spirit that I commend to you to say that your prayer would be, Lord, cultivate that in my heart. Cultivate that in my heart, whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, let me do it all for the glory of God. Let me do it all for the glory of Christ. And let that preeminent, that overarching theme of Scripture and the purpose of man's existence and the purpose of being a Christian, to honor Christ and to fear God, let that inform the way that you approach this book itself. And if I may, I just say this in general, not aiming it at anyone in particular. If those themes are not important to you, on what possible basis do you claim to be a Christian? On what possible basis do you claim to be a Christian if the glory of Christ is not a burning passion and a consuming interest of your heart? On what possible basis do you claim to know God if fearing Him is not a priority in your mind and in your heart and in your response? You know, a consideration of these themes in the book of Revelation, rather than us coming to Revelation saying, I'm going to splice this open and I'm going to explore its deep mysteries and get my questions answered, Rather, what happens, what you find is that the tables have turned and revelation is splicing you open and splicing your heart open and exposing all of the motives and the things and priorities and affections of your heart. We barely even started. And see, in that way, the power of the book of Revelation is more greatly seen and revealed to us. Now, third point. We've looked at the glory of Christ. We've considered the fear of God. Those things should lead us naturally to the worship of God. The worship of God. And we see Revelation in its pattern repeatedly calling us to worship God. And I just want to lay this out before we look at the text. We see Revelation calling us to worship God as Creator, as Redeemer, and as Judge. Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. Those three themes are all to be found in the book of Revelation and prompting us to worship Him in response to His position in relationship to us in those matters. Look at Revelation 4, verse 11. Revelation 4, verse 11, where we enter into heaven, as it were, And we see the worship that is taking place by those that are falling down at the throne. They worship Him who lives forever and ever. Verse 10, they cast their crowns before the throne. And they say this in verse 11, worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." Almighty God, Almighty God, we ascribe glory to you. We ascribe honor to you. We ascribe power to you. Not because we increase your essence and being and make you more perfect than you already are. You're already as perfect as you can be. We can't add to that or make it better. But what's going on here in the worship of God is a recognition of His role as Creator and giving Him the response of our hearts and ascribing to Him the glory and honor and power that He deserves. That's an aspect, a central aspect of true worship. Now, as you continue on, you see another role, for lack of a better term, that upon which the people of God respond in worship. Look at Revelation 5 9. Revelation 5 9. They sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth. Verse 13, I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them. To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped." Here's a different aspect of the work of God, the work of Christ, the glory of Christ that's being honored. In chapter 4, we saw God worshiped as creator. God is entitled to your worship. God demands your obedience and affection to Him based on the fact that you received your life from Him as your creator. And as the creator of the realm in which you live, God is rightly entitled to your obedience and love. For the Christian, it goes even further. We owe Him our love and obedience and worship because as our Redeemer, as the one who purchased us at the price of His blood, delivered us from the kingdom of Satan, bondage to sin, bondage to self, and delivered us into the glorious liberty of the children of God, having forgiven all of our sins and clothed us with His righteousness and adopted us into His family, Oh, yes, of course, we worship God as Creator. We worship Him as our Redeemer. And then in chapter 16, if you'll turn there with me, chapter 16, we see the worship of God as judge. Verses 16, 5 through 7. I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve." And I heard the altar saying, yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments. And so worship being ascribed to God to vindicate His holiness and righteousness in bringing judgment on His enemies. honored as creator, worshiped as creator, honored and worshiped as redeemer, honored and worshiped as the judge of all the earth. The worship of God, and that's before we even get into the climactic worship in chapters 21 and 22, the worship of God is central to this. And so, If I thought I heard people asking these extraneous questions in a spirit of worship and honor for the glory of Christ and in the fear of God, I would have a whole different response to it. But beloved, we have to check our hearts at the door. We have to check our hearts before we step in to Revelation 1.1. Going back to the household analogy, we need to take off our muddy shoes before we presume to walk on the white carpet of these holy and majestic themes. This is not something to tread upon in our carnal ways and our carnal curiosities, the glory of Christ, the fear of God, the worship of God. And those things lead naturally to our fourth and final point, which is repentance from sin. Repentance from sin. The book of Revelation, especially the chapters 2 and 3, call us to a profound repentance from sin. And we, over the next few weeks, we will get in, Lord willing, to chapters 2 and 3, and we'll see this. that what the book of Revelation, what God through the words of the book of Revelation is doing to us as a church, to the people of God, it is calling us to repentance. Repentance not only of bad behavior, but repentance of false doctrine, of false belief. Not only repentance from behavior, not only repentance of false doctrine, but repentance of a lukewarm love for the God of our salvation. A lukewarm love for the God and Christ of the book of Revelation. And this is just evident right on the surface of the book. And when Christ first addresses in this book, He addresses the church first. In Revelation 2 and 3, he's addressing the church, the professing, believing people of God, and he starts there with the call to repentance. Judgment begins with the house of God, not with the unsaved and the dwellers on the earth. And so I just want to show you this in Revelation 2, verse 5. Revelation 2, verse 5, at the church of Ephesus that had lost its first love. Revelation 2, verse 5, Jesus speaking to the church says, remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Twice he says in that verse that they need to repent. Verse 16 at the church in Pergamum. Verse 14, to show you the fact that there's a doctrinal element to some of these things, he says, I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel. Verse 16, for the sake of time, he says, therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. Repent or there will be consequences from me as the Lord of the church." To the church at Thyatira, where there was sexual immorality. prevailing in some quarters of the church. In Revelation 2.21, our Lord says to them, I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works. Revelation 3, verse 3, the church at Sardis, which had a reputation for being alive, but which was dead. Christ comes to them and says, remember what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I came against you. I will come against you. And finally, one more. The church of Laodicea, the lukewarm church, neither hot nor cold. The Lord says he's going to spit them out of his mouth. He says in verse 19, those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent. You can look in Revelation 9, 16, you'll see the call to repentance goes out to the world as well in different matters. We won't take the time to review that again here this morning for the sake of time. But beloved, I trust that just seeing these things that are right on the surface of the text of the book of Revelation gives us a sense of the spirit with which we come. We come humbly to the book of Revelation. We come adoringly to Christ to honor and to worship Him in the book of Revelation. We come to worship. We come to repent. And this study is designed to promote and advance our sanctification through its emphasis on those themes. That's what the book of Revelation does. And to talk about repentance, in repentance, we reorient ourselves from darkness to light. Let me read some words from J.C. Ryle as I close here. He said this about the nature of true repentance. True repentance is no light matter. It is a thorough change of heart about sin, a change showing itself in godly sorrow for sin, in a heartfelt confession of sin, in a complete breaking off from sinful habits, and an abiding hatred of all sin. Such repentance is the inseparable companion of saving faith in Christ. You see, beloved, contrary to those who want to turn salvation into a one-time decision, you pray this prayer and you're good forever regardless of what happens consequent, regardless of whether there's a change or not. True salvation involves a true repentance. True salvation means you come to Christ not only to be delivered from hell, and judgment, but you come to Christ sincerely to be delivered from your own sin. There is no such thing as coming to Christ while wanting to hang on to your own sin, keeping sin in your back pocket and getting a cloak of respectability spiritually placed over your life without any sincere desire to repent and follow Him. It's a thorough change. And in the book of Revelation, we read the consequences that fall upon those who do repent, and they enter into eternal life, and on those who refuse to repent, who are cast into eternal fire and destruction with the devil and his angels. And so, collectively, Christian or non-Christian, we want to heed the call of Christ that we find in this book, being mindful of the words found in John 3. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Beloved, we're at the entranceway to Revelation. Check your shoes before you walk in. Let's pray together. Father, we pray that you would bless our future study of this book and that each one truly saved would grow in their love for the glory of Christ, the fear of God, the worship of God, and repentance of sin and from sin. Father, we pray also that you would use this study to open the eyes of many to see and to have that fearful conviction brought to their heart that says, after all this time, I now see that I am not ready for the judgment of God. I am afraid. And Father, may you use that fear and trembling to lead them to true repentance and faith in Christ, that they might be delivered from the flame, as it were, and brought into that eternal place where the river of the water of life flows freely forever. Father, may you do the work to your glory. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Pastor Don Green from Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find more Church information, Don's complete sermon library, and other helpful materials at thetruthpulpit.com. Teaching God's People. God's Word. This message is copyrighted by Don Green. All rights reserved.