Matthew 24, the Bible does not change, and that we're thankful for, that the Word of God is unchanging and always is current, never out of date, never obsolete. All right, Matthew 24, 10-13. If you have your Bible open, you can stand for the reading of God's Word. And I'm going to read 10-13. We're in Matthew 24. I'll read, and you can just follow along quietly as I read. And then shall many be offended. In fact, let me back up to verse nine, I apologize. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you and you shall be hated of all nations for my namesake. And then shall many be offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. Father, we thank you for this text. Help as we look into it for us to be edified, to be encouraged, but also, Father, to consider the end. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Right this week I'm going to preach a sermon on this text called The Final Inquisition. The Final Inquisition. Now if you know history you know of the Inquisition and you know that that was a department, if you will, under the Roman Catholic government where they, in Spain and other places, went about to persecute anybody that was not conforming, not lining up, not joining in with Roman Catholicism. And you probably, if you've read history, know of the atrocities that were committed by the Inquisition against people very much like us, Baptists, in fact, and others that were not conforming to their religion. Persecution, and that's why I'm calling it Inquisition and using together some words that begin with I to describe it unto us, but as we talk about persecution, Just to set this message in terms of the series, there's really three signs, we'll talk about it tonight, that we have. Political, that was the Antichrist and the wars that followed his ascension. Physical, which is pestilence, famine, and earthquakes. Three, persecution. So that's how we got here. This is a sign. You say, well, persecution has always been around, even since the time of Christ. And that's true. but it will intensify and roll into a worldwide persecution in the tribulation period, just to set things up. But as a history of persecution of Christians, we would understand and should know that all believers will suffer persecution. That comes from the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 2.12, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Which is to say all true Christians will suffer persecution, not necessarily false Christians and false professors. And I've had to tell people this over time as I've talked to them in counseling, it's your godly living oftentimes. There's really two things that bring about persecution, godly living and preaching. Godly living and preaching. Godly living sets you apart. from other people and makes them look bad. And that oftentimes brings about the persecution in our life is just living godly in an environment where people are either offended by it or they're making them look bad, or they will try to persecute you to make you do bad things or wrong things to bring you down to their level. And that can happen too. But the godly testimony, living godly before people brings persecution. And that we go back to Matthew 5 at the beginning of the Beatitudes. It says that you're persecuted for righteousness sake. For righteousness sake. People that claim to be a Christian and don't live godly, they're not going to just today suffer persecution just because they have a Bible, for instance, or go to church. But if you live godly, And that's normally happening at home. That's normally happening within the family context. Because someone in the family begins to change their lifestyle. And they don't want to drink. And they don't want to carouse. And it's not a matter that you're trying to judge everybody around you, but you're withdrawing yourself. from these things that are wicked in you. The Bible says that they think it's strange that you run not to the excess of riot, 1 Peter explains. Because in 1 Peter he's explaining the nature of this persecution is coming because you're strange. You're weird. You don't go there anymore. You don't want to participate in this anymore. And so just by virtue of a changed life, they think it's strange concerning you that you run not to the excess and the riot. But secondly, persecution can be brought about by preaching. And that's when you take it in hand to tell somebody about the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a nature of that preaching that seems to bring about a negative reaction where people will want you to stop it. They'll want to quell it, or they'll want to set up the expectations ahead of time saying, look, I just don't want to hear about that. And then when you go to the door, a lot of times it'll end at a certain point and they'll just say, I don't want it anymore. And so that's very light persecution when someone kind of shoos you away or looks down at you for preaching. But we understand that there's a long history of preaching bringing about persecution. So there's two ways that it comes about. And it tends to be progressive. Persecution tends to be progressive. And when Jesus introduced persecution as an idea that the kingdom was gonna suffer persecution, which would have been something they didn't think. But in Matthew five, when he introduces it in five, 10 through 11, let's look there in the Beatitudes at the very beginning of his ministry, he mentions about persecution in five, 10 through 11. And in verse 9, I think is the reason, blessed are the peacemakers. You say, well, why would someone want to persecute a peacemaker? Because people that are peacemakers are those people whose lives have changed themselves and they're trying to preach the gospel of peace. And that way, they're trying to turn and take it. Because people would say, well, would you just leave your religion to yourself? Just keep it to yourself. It's off limits. But a peacemaker is that kind of person that's saying, no, I have peace with God, mercy and righteousness. In full bloom, he talks about these in the Beatitudes. You have, on the one hand, mercy. and pure in heart in seven and eight. And it's like when mercy and purity come into full bloom in your heart, you can't be quiet about it. because you feel an overwhelming state of, these people don't, they're gonna go to hell. They're gonna go to hell in their sins, and if I don't raise my voice, I'm not merciful, God is merciful. So God wants me to raise my voice on behalf of mercy, this mercy that's in my heart, and also the purity side kicks in too, where you're saying, I don't like the sinning going on around me, and something needs to be done about it. So I'm going to raise my voice to preach. And in that case, he mentions persecution for righteousness sake. But Jesus is blessed are ye in verse 11 when men shall revile you. So this is the progressive nature of persecution. It starts verbally, all right? So this is, we're at the beginning of this right now, revile. That's the first thing that people do, and they will do. Reviling means to speak disparagingly or insult a person in a manner that is not justified. Peter tells us in his epistle that we need to follow Jesus' example who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. So it often starts with an unjustified insult. And if you look at the history of persecution in Acts, the first thing that the Jewish leaders did was they said, these men are unlearned. They were unlearned, ignorant men. That wasn't true. But it was a way of saying, they're bumpkins. Don't listen to them. They didn't go to the school. They don't have a degree. They don't have education. So oftentimes, the first thing that gets leveled in persecution is We'll see if we can make something up or insult them. Secondly comes false accusations. You say revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. So then comes lying, throwing, speaking lies against you and everything about you, saying things that are not true as it relates to you. And that's hard to bear. even though it's verbal, whether you're being insulted or you're being, and they did that to Jesus. They said that he was of Beelzebub. That's a pretty big insult to say that by the devil he cast out devils. But This didn't stop him, and it can't stop us either, the verbal persecution. And he mentions in here, persecute, that word means to pursue or put to flight. The intention of this is to put you to flight, to chase you away, to get you to stop. So the insult The false accusations are for the purpose to harangue and harass by any means necessary to put an end to it or put you to flight, to create fear. Well, that's how it happened. The second thing in persecution verbal to physical. It turns physical. And Jesus talks about this in Matthew 10. And we're not going to go there, but if you remember the messages in the mission discourse, he said things like, they will scourge you, which is 39 lashes in the synagogue. They will scourge you. And that came true in Acts 5. I will have you turn there to see when it turned physical. So Acts 4, it was verbal. Acts 5, it turns physical. And this is in the progressive nature of persecution. So at first they said, hey, let's just tell them, knock it off, intimidate them, say disparaging things about them. That did not work. So they continue on. And we have to continue on in the face of persecution. So Matthew 5 in verse 40, they decide to go physical. And it says, and to him they agreed, that is Gamaliel basically saving their lives. And when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ." So you see there, they took it in hand to beat them. 39 times was the Jewish beating that they were allowed to dispense. And the reaction that you see is that the disciples considered themselves privileged. Now, that's not a normal response. we have to agree that being publicly, they said in the synagogue when they did this they would have the guard come, you know, our security guys, I'm never going to call you to flog anyone, so that's not going to happen. But they would call the security guard to come up And then another man would shout, one, two, three, because they were very fastidious not to lose count, because if they beat him 40 times, they violated the law of Moses. Which, beating an innocent man doesn't seem to violate the law, but if you beat him 40 times, so they were very fastidious to yell the numbers as the lashes were received upon these men. And yet, it didn't stop them. It did not stop them. They considered it a privilege. Of course, Jesus was flogged by Romans, which is much more cruel, because they had bits of glass and bone and sharp things. And they had no mercy. They had no laws like the Jews had. So they thrashed Jesus until the skin was off his back. However, in the Tribulation period, persecution will be much more intense, coordinated, and widespread, resulting in mass martyrdom as never seen before. You might say that a Tribulation saint, a person that comes to Christ in the Tribulation, will have a very short, intense walk with the Lord. It's pretty interesting that someone so recently saved would be willing to die. But everything's sped up in the tribulation period. False professors have to be separated from true Christians fast. Everything's sped up. Everything's more intense. And you can see how a worldwide persecution can happen. One of the most interesting books I ever read was about Deumag, which is the German branch of IBM. And they talked about how the Holocaust could have never happened without IBM. IBM's German counterpart was, their best customer was the Third Reich. And the Third Reich desired to punch card everyone. And it was by use of punch cards. They had like nine punch cards by which they classified everyone. And of course, one of the punch cards was Jew or Gentile. So you say, on the night of the broken glass, how did they know where they all were? Well, they lived in Jewish ghettos, but they had amazing technology. And the trains ran on technology. And all this technology made it possible to essentially eradicate a whole race of people within the German Empire. And so, to say that it could happen, this is going to happen quickly. And a widespread, worldwide persecution of Christians is going to arise. That's what we're talking about as we talk about this text in verse 9. Now, the first thing I want to talk about is its intensity. We're skipping the verbal and physical steps here, and we're jumping right into martyrdom almost instantaneously in a three-step process. So the first thing I want to regard here is the intensity of the persecution, and that is in verse 9. Then they shall deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you. Okay, so I made a simple outline. Arrest, afflict, assassinate. That's a simple program. First you gotta gather them up and arrest them. The word deliver here means arrest. That's what it's talking about. And I'm thankful I've never been arrested. I know I had to answer that question often if you fill out a job application or other things in life. Have you ever been arrested? Which is an interesting question, because it doesn't say if you've ever been convicted. It asks if you've ever been arrested. That's a question that you often have to answer. And I'm thankful I haven't, but I can imagine that it's very scary to be arrested. And to think that you could be arrested for simply being a Christian. That's what we're talking about. The cuffs, like the bulletin. Cuffs. Because Christians, by our nature, are naturally law-abiding citizens. We don't think that we'll get arrested because we don't break laws. At least we shouldn't. Peter said, don't suffer as an evildoer. So we shouldn't be doing anything that would ever get us arrested. But this is an arrest to be turned over to the authorities. it will be a crime to be a Christian. Because it says here, if for nothing bet in verse nine for my name's sake. That's it. You identify with them, you consorted with them, you assembled with them, you're one of them. That was enough to get you arrested. Afflicted. This happened in miniature in the city of Rome under Nero. A political ruler, that is the Emperor Nero, used Christians as a scapegoat. And I have to believe that something similar is going to happen during the tribulation. How convenient that Christians should be his scapegoat. If you remember the story, the city of Rome burned. And there needed to be somebody to blame for it. So conveniently, he chose to blame Christians It worked fabulously for him because Christians were generally poor in the city of Rome, living amidst the dregs of civilization, and they did not resist arrest or fight back. You say, well, shouldn't we fight back? That is not what the Bible has ever said, as it relates to Christians, is to fight back or resist it. It says, resist not the evil. Now, it's not to say that you can't, if you have legal rights like Paul as a Roman citizen had, you can't mention that you have rights and seek legal defense. But I'm saying in terms of taking up arms of vigilante style, that is not, they didn't do that. The historian Tacitus describes Emperor Nero's persecution of the Christians on this wise. He says, accordingly, first, those were arrested who confessed they were Christians. Next, on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. They're haters. And see, that's what the world wants to turn Christians into, is haters. Because you're not accepting of their lifestyles. You're not accepting of the sin. You're not accepting of the pride movement. You're not accepting of abortion. You're not accepting. So you hate. You hate. And that's a hate crime. So the original hate crime was what Nero said, that being a Christian was, he convinced people that these are hateful people, when they never did anything. But it was convenient. This is a false accusation. The steps were these. They arrested all those who confessed of what? Being a Christian. Secondly, they tortured them and asked for information for others. Are there any else like you? Give it up. Give them up. And they tortured them brutally. And then finally, they convicted a vast multitude of Christians for being haters of the human race. Now, what happened then will happen in worldwide fashion when the fifth seal is opened. Tonight we'll look more into Revelation, but it's the fifth seal after the first four where this worldwide persecution. And you could say, somebody's got to be blamed. for the economic collapse of the world. Somebody's got to take the blame. Just like in Germany, there had to be somebody to blame for the collapse of the Germans in World War I. Well, they found someone to blame. And in the end times, they're going to find it's Christians that are to blame. So they arrest and afflict them. And finally, they assassinate them. When Nero was working for him politically, he put Christians to death in the most horrific manners for the amusement of the citizens of Rome. And while the ghastly way in which the victims were put to death aroused sympathy among many Romans, most felt their execution justified. Just imagine that, walking down the street at night and a person burning on a post. body was filled with oil, doused with oil, set to flame, and you're sitting there at night with light because this person's burning, thinking, yeah, I guess he had it coming to him. That's the coldness. You can see it at the end of our text here in verse 12, the love of many shall wax cold. People will be cold-hearted about it and think, yeah, probably needed it. just shows how wicked humans are, how wicked people are, to think that that's okay to do that. And that happened just one generation from Jesus Christ. Now it's not the fulfillment of this because it wasn't worldwide, but the application is irresistible. Would you be convicted? How many preachers have said over the years, is there enough evidence or witnesses that could be brought to convict you of being a Christian, if it were a crime? Would people in your neighborhood say, oh yeah, he's a Christian, I know. I know because of this. I know because of that. People in your workplace come out of the woodwork saying, oh yeah, he's definitely a Christian. He's always talking about the Lord. He's always doing stuff on Sunday. He's always talking about what he's learning at church. Family members and friends say, oh yeah, he's been like that for so long, going out, talking to people about Christ, living godly. And so there would be no shortage of witnesses that would come to the stand to convict you if you're a true Christian. Well, that's the intensity of it. Secondly, it's brought about by internal enemies, verse 10. And then, shall many be offended and shall betray one another and shall hate one another. It actually is made possible by defectors. That's how they get the information, is by defectors, just as Judas was an enemy within the assembly. The Antichrist will find many co-conspirators to help him quickly identify the saints. Jesus predicted in Matthew 10 that brother shall turn over brother, parents will turn in children, and children will turn against, or the word there is rebel, against their parents, deciding to side with the establishment. Can we not see that today? Can we not see that young people in mass are starting to turn against their parents? And so in the tribulation, it's just going to be further along than it is now in the sense that, oh, I can turn my parents in, and they'll do it. Because they're siding with the establishment and saying, oh, well, yeah, they're a troublesome person. They're hate people. And they'll think they're doing something good. Worse yet. they're going to turn from being offended. The word offended there means to fall away or to turn apostate. So there will be people that were associating with Christians. Maybe the world's falling apart. People start looking for answers. They start joining with Christians who will be recently saved. And they start saying, wow, maybe this is the right explanation for why everything's falling apart. And no sooner do they all start gathering together that it becomes a crime to do so. And they say, these are hate people. They're brainwashing you. That's what they'll say. You're being indoctrinated. And they'll turn on the true believers. These shooting stars are mere professors, false Christians, darting across the sky for a moment until they burn out. See, what it takes a long time in our present era is sped up, sped up. In our present era, 1 John says they went out from us because they were not of us, that they might be made manifest that they were not of us. But it takes years to identify a false professor in our day and age. But in the tribulation period, we don't have time for that. So this has to happen. It's heaven's fifth seal. that rips and causes this, because God has to identify who's real and who's not. So some that consorted or assembled once with those that were hearing maybe the gospel for the first time will become, as it says here in verse 10, betrayers and shall hate and shall hate. So they will turn to persecutor. So the defectors will turn from turning them in to then being part in betraying them to hating them. And say, yeah, those people need to go to probably some indoctrination camp and get their brains fixed. Because that's what people think about Christians. This is going to finally come out, that there's something wrong with those people because they're only one way. They're one-way people, and we can't have one-way people in the world, because every way has to be accepted. There's something wrong with them. I hesitate to say this, but the one time I had an evaluation that was in the process, when we were younger and we were getting ready for becoming parents and all this stuff, I had this evaluation, and the evaluation, and the guy said, You know, you did this and this, but you're a very narrow-minded person. I said, that's because I'm a Christian. There's only one way, the narrow way. Oh, I suppose that. But the world looks at it as if it's a defect. But there's only one way. There's only one kind of marriage. There's only one faith. There's only one baptism. There's only one truth. There's only one Word of God. We cannot accept everything. That'll make us defective. So the answer is, how will God separate the true from the false, the wheat from the tares? Well, he says it in verse 13, but he that, or the one that shall endure unto the end, the same one, the same shall be saved. Now when we interpret that verse, we don't understand that we're saved by enduring. We have to understand the Bible in the context of itself is that there's no work of the flesh by which we can be justified. All works of the law, none of them, none of them will justify us. So we're not justified or made righteous because we endure, but a saved person will endure. A truly saved person will endure, and it reveals or manifests that their faith is real, and that the real Holy Spirit dwells in them. But the short time, or shooting star variety, that takes, like in the parable of the soils, they have to rise up and grow, would be like for months, and then the sun beats on them, and then they wilt. But we don't have time for that. So it's basically like, if you're willing to die for it, you're real. But if you cave in, in the time of persecution, you are not real. You don't really believe. A sham or shooting star professor will easily be discouraged and dismayed. And that's what the word means in verse 10, that many be offended. To be offended means to be falling away, Jesus used the term to the disciples of John the Baptist when he was in prison. And they came to him and asked that question about Jesus. Is it he? Or do we look for another? Remember they asked that in the persecution of John the Baptist. And Jesus said in Matthew 11 6, blessed is he who is not offended in me. That's the same word, the same idea, is to be discouraged or dismayed. Because the disciples of John the Baptist are thinking, he's going to die. He's rotting in a prison cell. This can't be happening. And Jesus says, it is happening. You have to turn to me. You have to turn to me. John's going to die. You have to turn to me. And that's what every Christian is going to have to do, is not be offended. Now, our lives are longer. A tribulation saint saved fairly quickly, probably going to die for his profession. But our lives, our endurance is a longer endurance. It's like workout. You have the long workout marathon, and then you have the short, high-intensity workouts that you can choose between, or you can just not work out at all. The longer one is like, you know, that's our lives right now. It takes years of endurance under maybe less weight of affliction that we endure. But these will be that short, high-intensity burst. Like, as soon as you're a Christian, you're just learning verses for the first time, and then you're going to have to make a choice. Am I really willing to die for this? But if you're convinced that the end of time is upon you and you're reading this text, you're thinking, well, this is what God said was going to happen. There's nowhere to hide. It's worldwide. Today, we obviously have persecution. We have parts of the world where there is persecution. But most of the world, it's not intense like this. This will be worldwide. There's no way you can run. Because the Bible says to be wise as serpents. and harmless as doves, and you can always run somewhere else, like the Pilgrims. They ran to Holland, and then from Holland to the United States. But there's not going to be any new world to run to at that time. There's going to have to be an acceptance, and it's the internal enemies that are going to make it happen. So why does this happen? That is, why do people defect under pressure? Why is it that people who thought about it for a while decide, nah, I'm gonna side with the establishment? The first is because of imposters, verse 11. And many false prophets shall rise. You see, not only will the gospel be out there, but they'll be counterfeit. They'll be the every way kind of version of it. And these are going to be promoted by very persuasive ministers of deceit. And we should expect no less, since Satan himself can appear as an angel of light. There's going to be a deceptive false gospel that's going to delude many. And I'm not going to try to take away Brother Glenn's thunder, because I know he's there. But I'll simply refer you to 2 Peter 2.17. When it speaks of false prophets as wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, which I interpret to mean thunder with no rain, wells with no water, people with no substance. It says, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever, 2 Peter 2.17. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, which is emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean, or as the marginal reading says, for a little while, escaped from them who live in error. So what he's talking about is defectors. So the idea is, some people listened to the Christian message for a time, thought maybe this is the answer, but then some slick, well-presented false teacher that is representing the establishment comes along and says, no, believe like me. Believe this new world, this new gospel where it's going to be OK. We're not going to make you give up your lifestyle. We're not going to do that. We're not going to judge other people. It's going to be very attractive because these people themselves are wicked. And they're false. They're charlatans. They're snake oil salesmen. They're slick. And they're going to convince people that there's another way that doesn't involve dying. That's pretty attractive if you think about it. Can I take the way that doesn't involve dying? I'll take that. Amazing impostors, so seductive in speech, so smooth like oil, they allure these shooting stars with what Peter calls damnable heresies. You know what a damnable heresy is? It's something that will send you to hell. Every false gospel has that capability to send people to hell. And that's why we have to stand up for the true gospel, because every gospel that denies the full unreserved lordship of Jesus Christ over a believer's life is a sham. And that's what 2 Peter says, denying the Lord that bought them. The Lord despot, the ruler of your life. The one-way Gospel says Jesus is taking over your life. You're His now. But they're going to deny that. They're going to say, well, you could say, is this false religion going to be Christian? It's going to have some elements of it to attract and deceive people. But it's not going to involve unreserved lordship that would look like dying, for instance, like the apostles did, and this tribulation saints will also have to do. You know what else goes with being imposter is at the end of the verse 11 says, and shall deceive many. You know what the false gospel is going to be? Besides being preached by imposters, it's going to be inclusive. Isn't that the word that everybody's in love with today? I mean, it almost makes your stomach turn. Doesn't it? It's just, oh, we're so inclusive. But yet, that's what it's going to do. In fact, in the book of Revelation, and we're not going to detail it out for you, but in chapter 17 of the book of Revelation, the final false religion is described. If you want to look with me there at verse 15, we'll just see one little element of it. Of course, it's referred to as the great whore, which is to say that it's definitely bad, false, And we don't have time to develop everything about the great whore, that wicked ecclesiastical Babylon or that false religion that will be so seductive. But the idea of it being inclusive is found in verse 15. And speaking of that horrible false religion, or the whore, it says in verse 15, And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. In other words, it's finally going to bring everybody together. And that's what we have to be worried about. That's what we have to be careful about. Because this idea towards inclusivity is what is going to be the attraction or the allurement of the final false religion that these defectors switch sides and they go to because it's so inclusive. You mean they don't say anything about sexual perversion? That's what I mean. They don't say, this is sodomy, this is wicked. They say, we're inclusive. We include that. It's included in this. There's nobody that's, in fact, not included. In fact, the people that would say, the only person that's not included is people that say anything is wrong or bad. They're the ones not included in this. They're the ones that got to go, got to be purged, got to die. And so these defectors will be attracted or deceived, as it says in 11, and shall deceive many because everybody is welcome. Everybody is invited into this. This encompasses every culture, every tongue, every people, every nation, every lifestyle, every perversion. Beware. We're not in the tribulation, but you can see how it's easily headed that way. and that anyone not on the bandwagon is a hater. The old friends, the ones that used to come to church with them, They're going to think about, these defectors are going to think about the ones that they were in that place with, and they're going to start to think about them and start to think, oh, they preach hate there. They're haters. We have defectors like that all around us. Oh, that's a hateful place. They preach hate there, and they're going to start to look on that whole experience, whether that was a week or a month that they were involved in it, and say, man, that's not good. It's polarizing. Okay, that's sort of the opposite of inclusivity. That's so polarizing. It's dividing people. We don't want to divide people. And so they're going to start looking at the true Christians as divisive and polarizing. And that's going to make them candidates for persecution because they're not inclusive. Finally, the final I, iniquity. You know why people flake off? Because they want to sin. Because they want to sin. And that's the allurement of the false religion. Because people and because iniquity shall abound. This inclusive religion appeals to the wanton desires of the flesh, the craven the sexual perversion, and every other form of lawlessness, including blasphemy and bloodthirstiness, it will have mass appeal. It's gonna have the pride flag. It's gonna encompass all that nonsense, all that wickedness. It's gonna be invited right into it. because iniquity is going to abound. People are going to be lawless and that's why they're attracted to it. And that's why they defect it is because they like it. And so their shooting stars will flame out because they were really never surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Well, how can we conclude all this? What does it all mean? Well, let's consider the case of the martyrs. Revelation 6. We'll close here. Because this is the view from heaven. I just told you about a lot of what's going on on earth. And if you're like me, you're kind of bothered by it. You're kind of upset. that Christians are like lambs going to the slaughter. And it bothers you that the world is taking over and craving wanton wickedness. It bothers you that your brethren are dying in mass. And it ought to. But if we're going to reset ourself and bring some hope, everybody's going to die. OK? Everybody is going to die. And the question is, where will you be after you die? Whether you're persecuted, or you just get a disease, or you have an accident, or you just get old and die, everyone dies. And so the question is, where will you be? This shows what it looks like in heaven. Verse 9, and when he had opened the fifth seal, that's what we're talking about today, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. Their bodies are in mass graves, maybe not even buried, but their souls are under the altar. And so from heaven's perspective, God took them home. God got them out of there. And they're martyrs. And their souls are with us. And yes, they may have only been saved a year, But they endured. They made it through. And you can be there, too. You can be there, too, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you give yourself to Him, you can be saved. He will save you from death and from hell and from the condemnation of your sins. If you turn to Him and cry to Him, even at the end of your life. Maybe you're only saved for a day, maybe a year, maybe a week. None of us know how long we have left, but all of us could die today. So we have to turn to Jesus Christ now. And then you will be happy. You will be happy because your soul will be here. And it says in verse 10, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? They're saying, we just got saved, and this happened to us. What of it? What's going to happen? Well, I love the answer. Verse 11, and white robes were given unto every one of them. Saints aren't just like some special class of a person. No, every one of them, even if they were saved for one day or one week or one month or one year, if they turn to Jesus Christ and they were faithful to him and they die, they get a white robe and you can have one too. You can have one too, because it's the robe of the righteousness of Jesus Christ that God will place upon you if you turn to him now. But if you wait, it will be too late. And I love this answer. And it was said unto them that they should rest, yet for a little season. Oh, the rest of salvation. Hebrews says against the false professors, do not fail to enter into the rest that's there for you, like the Israelites failed. Hebrews 4.1, let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Don't fall short of this. Don't fall short of this. You need to be afraid. You need to be afraid. Why? Because it's a fearful thing. Death is a fearful thing. For unto us was the gospel preached. The gospel is here to save you from ending up in hell. It's here now for you. As well as unto them. Who's that? False professors. But the word preached did not profit them. not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Your hearing of the gospel will not save you. It has to be mixed with a faith response. And a kind of response that says, I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna cleave to Jesus, I don't know much, but I know that salvation's in Jesus and I'm gonna grab hold of him. And he is faithful. But don't just do one finger. You've got to grab hold of this and shed any other hope. It's got to be Jesus alone, or you'll fall short. And you do not want to fall short. Because these people, they suffered, they were afflicted, maybe tortured, maybe died, maybe thrown a pit in a pile of bodies. But God says to them, take a rest. It's going to be OK. You're safe. You're here. You're in heaven. Put on your robe and wait. It's gonna be all right. It says, until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. There's more coming. There's more coming. Just take your place, take your robe, sit under the altar, wait and rest because Jesus Christ is our rest. Jesus Christ is our Sabbath. Jesus Christ did all the work for salvation. We rest from our works when we believe in Jesus because we're saying, He did it all. There's no more work that needs to be done. You don't go to purgatory. That's made up. That's imaginary. That's not in the Bible. You go right to heaven or right to hell. Those are your choice. But if you go to heaven, it's not because you work, it's because you rest in Jesus. If you work, you're gonna work your way into hell. Because our works are as filthy rags. They don't impress God, they don't please God, but we can have rest. And he says, wait, there's more coming. Can you just imagine? the flood of souls coming into heaven as they're killed and slaughtered on the earth. Just flooding heaven, thousands and thousands slaughtered, entering heaven until it's all over and this tribulation finally comes to an end. I say unto you, hold onto him by faith. Don't fear what man can do. That's what Jesus said about persecution. Fear not him that can kill the body. Fear Him, who when the body is dead can cast soul and body into hell forever. Fear Him. Someday, if we faint not, we'll wear the robe and rest with our Lord Jesus, and then come back to reign upon the earth in His kingdom. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for God's mercy that although these tribulation saints came to Christ in a crisis at the end, they're still welcomed into glory and given a white robe. They're given the privilege of being martyrs for the cause of Christ, and they're given rest. Father, help us also to strive to enter in. Strive to come to belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray.