Well, today we come to a new section in Revelation. It is the fifth section. And the first was the letters to the seven churches. You have the prologue that's kind of part of that in a way. And then the letters to seven churches in chapter two and three. Then was the seven seals that is in chapter four to chapter seven. The seven trumpets from chapter eight to chapter 11. And then the fourth section, that's the middle section, which is kind of the one that gets the dominant spot, you know. And what was in there? It was full of Christ, wasn't it? Remember, it began with the woman that was with child and Satan was trying to destroy the child before, you know, before he came forth. All those years in the Old Testament, it was a quick summary of the whole shebang and how that Satan was trying to destroy him and could not do so, that he ended up reigning. Satan was trying to get rid of him after he was born and all along the way, and he was unsuccessful. He overcame and was exalted to reign. It said just very, very briefly and succinctly, And then his reign was opposed, as we saw, by the sea beast and by the land beast. And finally, of his ingathering of the harvest was seen in chapter 14. And that was a very encouraging section when he gathers those to destruction and those to eternal blessing. With the fifth section that we're at now, beginning today, 15 to 19, chapter 15 to 19, we come to the seven bowls, which show the destruction of Babylon, which I think is referring to Jerusalem, but it presents the same time period from a different perspective. Here the angels are dressed in a different way. They're dressed in priestly apparel rather than royal clothes with swords and things like that. Instead of having swords, the angels have vials or bowls such as were used in the tabernacle and the priestly services. So rebellious Christ rejecting Jerusalem is called Babylon in Revelation. and it is called the great city where our Lord was crucified. You know, we've had it clearly identified. It is presented as a harlot who is supposed to be God's priestly bride. She's dressed in the sort of priestly colors and things, but she's as a harlot in league fornication with Rome and the many nations that make up the empire to go against Christ, to go against his people. What we have today is an introduction to this section where she is brought to where her destruction is described, her divorce, really. She's she was the bride of Christ, Old Testament, the Old Testament church. And then she completely apostatized. Of course, a remnant was brought out, the apostles and. Paul and other Christians, Jewish Christians that came forth. But the city as a whole was brought under severe judgment the way that the Lord Jesus said it would. So we saw, we see here today an introduction to this section. And interestingly, we saw very similar introductions to the trumpet judgments. given in the last half of chapter 7, that introduction was in the last half of chapter 7, and in the first part of chapter 8, and we saw a similar introduction to the seals, where that introduction was given in chapter 5. So each of these sevenfold judgments is introduced by the church worshiping before the throne of God. which is quite interesting. There's a worship service, and then these judgments ensue, these sevenfold judgments. It's a pattern, isn't it? We're gonna talk about that in a little bit more detail later on. But the passage is Revelation 15, one through five today, so I'll go ahead and read that now. This is the word of God, Revelation 15, one through five. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark, and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the saints. Who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy, for all the nations shall come and. I'm sorry, for for all the nations shall come and worship before you, for your judgments have been manifested. After these things, I looked and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And we're in the reading there. Thanks be to God for his precious word. See how our gracious Lord assures us here that He has a plan regarding the establishment of the kingdom of His Son. A plan that will be carried out. Very important for us to know that. We get right discouraged when we forget that, don't we? John calls it another sign. Indeed, it is another sign of the work that he is about to do. Why another and another and another? As I mentioned in the introduction, it is a sign of the judgment of the great harlot who worships the beast. Spiritual adultery. Instead of Christ, her Messiah husband, who she's supposed to worship. What John sees are signs of future things and signs of spiritual things that are invisible. And I remind you of this from time to time as we go through Revelation. Some of the things we see are more historically descriptive, but things like we're looking at today, these are signs, it says. They're signs of spiritual things that are invisible. By these signs, he shows us how heaven restrains God's enemies and protects God's people, not so that God's people do not get to experience the blessing of persecution and martyrdom, or the testing and stretching of their faith, we get to experience that. God doesn't deprive us of that. But so that the church is also, through all of that, preserved, even when it looks like it's not going to be preserved. It looks desperate and hopeless. God's ultimate plan for her dominion is never foiled. That's what we have to remember. It looked so desperate when Jesus was here, didn't it? I mean, think about it, you know, when he was crucified and stuff, and the disciples were all running away and hiding, and, you know, they weren't really that well-grounded, they didn't even understand what he was doing yet, and everything just looked kind of like, okay, this is kind of falling apart, I don't think this is really going to go anywhere, if you looked at a human evaluation. But if we look at it from a standpoint of heaven and God's promises, then we get an entirely different perspective. And this is how we have to look at history. So this is a sign concerning roughly the same time period as the other sevenfold initiatives that we've looked at. The seven seals and the seven trumpets. The seals proceeded and led into the seven trumpets. So they were a little bit of a different time. The seals came a little bit first, and then the trumpet judgments followed. The bowls, though, I think do overlap with the trumpets, more or less. They go in different places, but showing the same actions, as I mentioned before, from a different perspective. This is not needless repetition. It's like you remember Joseph in the Old Testament when he had his dreams and he had kind of a similar dream twice with the stocks and the other ones bowing down and then with the sun and the moon and the stars. And it was the same dream kind of twice. And you have the same thing with Pharaoh's dreams. that he had that Joseph interpreted. And Joseph said why it was twice. I don't know if you remember. He said it was to make it sure to you, to show that the matter is certain, that it cannot be altered. So Revelation presents these things twice to God's people. John calls it a sign that is great and marvelous. And so it is. God graciously multiplies these signs to support the faith of his people. His people were at the time of John's vision. Think about what they were like. Think about what was going on with the people that we've seen as we've studied this period of time. They were being systematically wiped out by the unbelieving Jews and the Romans. Where was John Wright at this time when he wrote this? He was in prison. This wasn't like he was like a nice little academic guy, you know, that had a university position and he was writing books and stuff and everybody was coming to talk to him in his little office there. No, this was a rough time. And you know, there it looked like the church might not even continue when Nero is trying to wipe everyone out. And both the Jews and the Romans were systematically trying to wipe out the church. They had hostilities somewhat with each other. But during this time period, when John was alive and writing these things, it was It was a difficult time. Humanly speaking, it looked doubtful that the church could survive. Now, I'll say to you what I always say to you about Revelation. If you see this as a later time period, fine. Just listen to the principles, because this is how it was. If it was pre-70 AD, this is how it was during the Neronian persecution, and you can draw application from it, whether it's this period or another period. But yeah, John's in prison, this is what's going on. But here were seven angels. Okay, while all this is going on, here are seven angels having seven last plagues to bring the final judgment against those who rejected Christ, the nation that rejected Christ. the final wrath of God, the cup was full, as Jesus has said, and now all of that was going to be poured out on this generation, he said, and they're trying to wipe out the church, these ones. And these angels are going to launch these seven judgments at the appropriate time to complete the divorce of Israel from their God. God had a plan that the people could not see. But he showed it to John by these visions. That's what the visions were for. To show them things that they could not see. It was not at all what it looked like. You need to learn from this. God has a plan at every point in your life, in history, whether you can see it or not. You need to be confident that God will work. Heaven is active and things are going on there that you don't even know about that are going to affect us here. It's easy to lose heart when we look only at what's going on in the world around us. and forget that God rules on that sovereign throne that John saw earlier in Revelation. We see many churches going astray. Doesn't look good. Say things are falling apart with the gospel. We see our society crumbling, falling into blindness and unbelief. Just saw an assassination attempt that occurred yesterday. We see all kinds of trouble. Opposition against true believers is on the rise. We bear the reproach of Christ, like we talked about this morning. You go places and you try to work on it, and you've got opposition for just following Christ. The scripture is given to help us today. This scripture that we're looking at is given to help us today, just like it was given to the people that were actually in the situation it's addressing. It's to help you maintain your faith in hard times. It helps every generation since it has been written. to hold on to their faith in hard times. Remember, John promised a blessing to those who read and understand these prophecies. Remember that at the beginning? Blessed is he who reads. There's a special blessing for those who read these things and understand them. It's not that you have to understand all the prophecies of this book. Some of you are saying, oh no, I don't understand so much of Revelation. No, you just have to understand this overall thing I'm talking about right now. God is working, he has a plan, he's gonna fulfill his plan and the things that he has told us that he would do. God, to use the cliche, God plans his work and works his plan. That's what's going on. Take heart, heaven is not idle, heaven is not inattentive, heaven is not without resources. Heaven will act when the time is right to carry out the next phase of God's plan Whatever that plan may be in the history of the world, his plan will not fail. You can go forward without wavering if you hold on to that. Let's talk about the pattern a little bit, a little bit more. Seven seals, seven trumpets, and now seven bowls that were preceded by what? What were the trumpets, the bowls, and the seals preceded by? They were preceded by worshiping saints. All three times, before the angels were sent to launch God's work, John first saw a vision of faithful saints trusting him, worshiping him, praying to him. There is definitely a pattern that is established in Revelation. What is true of our personal faith is also true of our corporate faith. with personal faith, how it works with personal faith, God does not pardon us first and then we believe. Rather, we believe and call on his name and he pardons us. Now, he works in us before that to bring us to, to effectually call us. This is how he works in our conversion. This is also true, though, in our sanctification, isn't it, as Christians, as we go on. He does occasionally work apart from our cries to him for help. But usually, when we've kind of dried up and things are not going, he first brings us to a place where we see that and we're burdened by it, and we begin to cry out to him. We begin to trust his promises. We begin to look to him. And then he comes and visits us and restores us. That's how he usually works. He waits for us in a sense. to call on him, to trust him before he operates. Revelation shows us that he operates the same way with the church's corporate faith. So when God's people begin to yearn for the blessing of God and see that they're missing the blessing of God and they're in a mess, and they begin to call on his name, that's what he usually brings them to to bring about his work. When the church grows cold and indifferent, things begin to get worse and worse, don't they? Not only does God turn us over to confusion and heresy, this is what's been going on in our part of the world for a while. God turns us over to confusion and heresy, and He raises up enemies to oppress us, governing authorities, enemies inside the church. They just come all around because, you know, we're just cold and indifferent. It often takes a lot before we get desperate and start to cry out to Him sincerely and earnestly for deliverance and seriously looking at what He has promised. Think about this sometimes with young adults in the church that grow up in the church. Why is it so many of them go astray before they get serious about the Lord and then they come back? You see this all the time. That should not be necessary. I think it's because They're not ever really calling on the Lord. They don't care about their walk with the Lord that much. It's not that important to them. And so after a while, they just kind of drift into this coldness, and they dry up, and then they kind of pull away and go away from God. And then eventually they realize, like the prodigal son, you know, I can't live here. I can't do this. And by God's grace, they go back. God is very gracious. But why not? Why not earnestly pursue and seek the Lord and cry out to Him whenever your heart grows dry, all the way from the time that you're a baby until the time that you're an old man? Why not? Why not go on in the Lord? He usually doesn't launch a deliverance until people trust Him and cry out to Him. My sermon title reflects this. Faith leads to worship, and worship leads to God's action. And of course, worship includes prayer and everything, it's prayer faith. This is what we see in this passage. Verse two, we see the faithful worshipers. In verse three and four, we see their worship. Then the angels are sent forth in response to this worshiping faith in verse five and following. We're not gonna look at that today, verse five and following, except just to mention that it's there as a result of their worship. This is seen in the Old Testament as well. Repeatedly. Repeatedly. How many times? Like, read the book of Judges. Over and over and over. They don't care about God. They're walking away from God. They don't care about serving Him and pleasing Him. So He sends famine. He sends enemies. He sends oppressors. And then after a while, they can't stand it anymore. And they say, OK. And then a judge comes and leads them. They go back to God. And then they repent. And they come back. And then it goes back again. Back and forth like that. It's just, you get tired of it when you see that. Why? Why keep doing this? This is not how we should live. So this is what we see in the Old Testament. Early in the service, we read about Jehoshaphat, and we saw the pattern there, didn't we? He was one who did trust the Lord. So when the enemies came, went to God, cried out to Him, and then they prayed. and then they worshiped. And then God delivered them from their enemies and then they gave thanks. It was a beautiful thing. That's how the church should be functioning. So look then at how the faithful are described in verse 2 as we go through this passage. Do not rest until you're like them. Don't be willing to be indifferent about God. Don't rest until you are like these people that are described here. Verse two reads, and I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of gold. OK, what is this showing us? First of all, what is this sea that they are standing on? We have seen previously in Revelation that the sea is before the throne of God. It's in front of the throne of God. In the Old Testament, the sea was there for many washings, baptisms that they were required to perform. They're being unclean. They had to be washed and purified as they had to purify certain things that they used in the service to God. Surely this speaks of the cleansing that those who come before God have that is symbolized by baptism. Remember, John's vision also consists of signs that represent spiritual things that cannot be seen. And I keep reminding you of that. We're looking at signs here. So these folks have been baptized by the spirit. You can't see that, can you? But we're shown that. They're united to Christ and cleansed by His washing. So there's this great sea of glass, and they're there upon the sea, standing before God, justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Righteous before God, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. But note well, this sea also is said to be mingled with fire. Does our Lord not speak about baptism with fire, with the Holy Spirit and with fire? Does the Holy Spirit not burn away the dross from our lives? Yeah, he destroys the wicked too, but he destroys what is wicked in those who are God's people out of our lives, the work that purifies us from our sins. Sanctification is this refining work, which is also brought about by union with Christ by faith. And when we come to Him, we die to sin and we're made alive to righteousness. Okay, so we're now in a position where we can live a new life. And then we go forth serving God, sometimes more faithfully, sometimes less faithfully, right? We go along ebb and flow many times. What is left when God's work is complete, though? OK, after the refiners fire, after the washings, cleansings of sanctification, washing and renewal, all of these things, what is left? What pleases God is what's left. That's what he does. He adds things that need to be added and he takes away things that need to be taken away in his refining process. But what is left is that there is this, the corruption is taken away. I mentioned a moment ago, there are times when the church is dull and indifferent, and times when she is faithful and full of grace and zealous. That's how she is standing on the sea of glass, with fire on that glass. We are told here, next, that these worshipers are those who are like that. How does it tell us that? Because it says they are overcomers. They are the ones who have victory over the beast, over his image, over his mark, and over the number of his name. Their allegiance is not to the beast, as so many of their fellow Israelites were, and the things that the beast stands for, but their allegiance is to Christ and his cause. They overcame him, the beast, by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. and by not loving their lives unto the death. Revelation 12, 11. They are the ones who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Remember when we looked at that? They continue in God's ways and they hold on to Christ, trusting in Him alone. Revelation 12, 17. So they are standing on the sea because they have been cleansed by Christ. They are the people of faith who have come before God on the basis of Christ saving work. And now they are walking with God. They are the ones whose prayers. Reach heaven. OK, each of them is shown to have a harp of God. This symbol speaks of those who, as it says in Ephesians 519, make melody in their hearts to the Lord. Literally what Ephesians 519 says is they pluck the strings of their heart to the Lord, pluck the street, they make melody in their heart as they pluck those strings in their heart to the Lord. This is not a heart that man makes. This is a harp that God, who enables us to worship Him sincerely from the heart and not just with the mouth, gives to us. Some people try to justify the use of musical instruments in New Testament worship and say, well, here is an example. There's no examples of New Testament worship with musical instruments. And they say, well, here it is. But happily, they don't ordinarily try to justify stationing oneself on a sea of glass mingled with fire in order to play those instruments. That would be right uncomfortable. To be in a sea of fire and a sea of glass. We're looking at signs and symbols here, is my point. Signs and symbols of the worship of God. These are harps of God. This is not talking about anybody can play a harp. This is talking about something that God gives that no one has. It's the change in you that you're able to worship rather than to sit here as a log, maybe even moving your mouth and doing what everybody can do too. Everybody can mouth off the words. They maybe can even sing with a beautiful voice if they're capable of that. That's not what we're talking about. That's not what God's looking for. He's looking for the strings of your heart being played before Him. This is what instruments represent in the Old Testament and why the apostles and the early church fathers did not accept instruments for the first six or seven centuries of the church. So we're looking again at signs and symbols. OK, so see that you worship God. With this sincere faith, that's what's being described here. Many believe that these worshipers are departed saints who had already died and gone to heaven. Definitely they may be there, but I think it's better to see them as the saints on Earth whose sincere faith and praise reaches heaven through Jesus, the mediator. In other words, the reason that they are seen stationed before the throne of God is because our worship in Christ is before the throne of God in Christ. We're seated in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus. The worship is certainly mingled. When it goes up to heaven, it's mingled with everything that's in heaven, with the angels that are there and the departed saints and however they might be. I don't even know what they're doing, how they're worshiping or what. But the praise that God waits for is the praise of the church militant. in order to act where the church militant is. Okay, the saints that are alive on the earth. That's what is the concern here. We who are still on earth in the midst of the battle are the ones that need to have faith like these described here. Okay, so I know that many of my prayers never reach heaven. But I am confident that those that I truly offer up in faith, leaning upon Christ with sincere desire for what I'm asking him for, reach heaven. And so do yours, because God assures us that they do. He tells us that they do. We are told, on the other hand, that if we regard iniquity in our heart, he will not hear us. We're told that plainly. Likewise, if men do not dwell with their wives in an understanding way, don't expect your prayers to be heard. They will be hindered. Also, if we bring to God vain repetitions, just saying our prayers, or if we pray to be seen by others, he won't regard that either. So let this encourage you to look to Christ that you might overcome. and that you might be numbered by His grace with those who stand, that you might be one of them, in other words, one of the ones that stand on this glassy sea with a harp of God. That's what we want to be. Okay, now let's look at this song of these faithful worshipers. They're said to sing two songs, the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. The song of Moses is a song about overcoming, about God's people overcoming the beast of Egypt. Remember, the beast is Satan's agents, his agents that he sends into rulers and empires. It's the same beast, isn't it, in Daniel, of all four kingdoms. There's a beast right up to Rome. And the emperor is, each emperor can be called the beast. The nations and empires themselves can be called the beast. And then there's a demonic being who is called the beast. So the Song of Moses is a song about overcoming in Egypt. God opened the Red Sea for Israel to cross, and then he closed it to drown the Egyptians when they pursued them. We have seen that these New Testament saints had the same thing when they got deliverance during the time when Jerusalem was under siege. Jesus told them to flee to the mountains, and they did that. We have historical accounts of it, when it was opened up for them to be able to go through the valley that had actually been made by the great rift by the Mount of Olives, and they went in the earthquake, and they actually escaped and got to Pella, And they dwelt there, Eusebius and others tell us about that. And so Satan was sending a flood to destroy them. And it didn't work. And instead, the flood ended up, all the wrath that he stirred up, ended up causing the Romans to destroy the Jews with whom they were in a league. The apostate Jews, I should say, not the believing Jews. It all got vented on them and said, anyway, I don't need to go into that whole passage. But those who overcame the beast did not think that they had done it by their own might or their own power. They overcame by faith and they knew that the Lord had given them the victory, their song of victory. is a song of praise to the Lord. That's what they did, isn't it? When they came across the Red Sea, they praised God for the victory that he had cast the rider and the horse into the sea. And so that's the same thing that these saints do as they come before God, before these judgments are unleashed upon their their adversaries. The song of the lamb is surely the song of pardon for their sins that he accomplished for them as the lamb that was slain. It is the song that he taught them when he came back from the dead and declared that he would sing praise to God in the midst of the assembly. Psalm 22, because God, his father, did not despise the affliction of the afflicted one. Who was the afflicted one? He's talking about himself. He was the afflicted one, afflicted for our transgression. He says, he did not despise the affliction of the afflicted one, but when he cried, he heard. That hearing meant that God received his sacrifice as our priest. He was interceding, offering sacrifice, and God heard and answered so that the whole church was accepted by his sacrifice. This is when He, as our priest, went before God's throne and the Father did not reject Him. He accepted this sacrifice and so brought salvation to all. The Song of the Lamb is a song of forgiveness and acceptance, isn't it? So that all nations can come before God and worship Him through the Lamb. I say this is the Song of the Lamb because we've seen it before. That's what the Song of the Lamb is, because we've seen it before. It was said, you are slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth. Revelation 5, 9 and 10. Each of these songs can be expressed in many different ways. But the heart of the first song, the Song of Moses, is of God's deliverance from our enemies. And the heart of the second psalm, the psalm of the Lamb, is God's forgiveness through redemption in Jesus Christ. Those are the two core praises that make up our praise to God. That's what's here as we come before God, singing whatever praises we're bringing. Forgiveness through Jesus Christ by the mercy and grace of God and deliverance from our enemies by the mighty hand and power of God. This song that is given here is one of great encouragement in hard times. OK, we're given particular a particular song here. John and his vision saw that the church would bring a song like this where before the Lord. I mean, when he would bring it before they would bring it before the Lord that poured out his wrath on Israel, the harlot who is trying to destroy the church. You get the point? They don't do this after he destroys the one that was trying to destroy them, but before. And it brings God to do that. First, look at the song's contents and be encouraged with it. Help it to help you coming before the Lord. First, the faithful church believes and sings. Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty. When our faith is sound, we confess that his works are a marvel to behold. When we're dull and lifeless, then we don't really care about God's works. Doesn't mean that much to us. We hear about salvation, oh yeah. We hear about God delivering something, oh yeah, whatever. He is the Almighty who can do anything and for whom nothing is impossible. We're confident when our faith is what it should be that He can overcome the strongest enemy and raise us up when we are pitiful, helpless, and weak. We can look like we're just right on death's door, the whole church, I mean. And we trust God that He's not going to let the church be destroyed. He's going to bring us up. Second, the faithful church believes and sings, verse 3, just and true are all your ways, O King of the saints. Again, when our faith is sound, we do not question God's integrity. as so many people do today. That's what causes people to stumble. They start saying, oh, I don't think it was quite right for God to do that. Why did He do that? What's He doing? And we look at Him in a questioning way. That's what Satan wants. Did God really say He couldn't eat from all the trees? Like, what's that about? What are you talking about there? I don't get that. That's the way temptation comes. But you see, instead, when our faith is sound, we admire His righteousness. It's an amazing righteousness. It's not like anything that we see on the earth. Seeing how He has dealt with us in righteousness, justifying us by the sacrifice of His Son, we have solid grounds for confidence that He's always just. He's ever just. When we doubt this, it's because our faith is wavering. and we're pulling away from Him. What an encouragement it is when we are surrounded by corrupt leaders to know that He's not corrupt. He's holy. Our King is holy. We've got this emperor. You see, they had this emperor at Rome. Was he holy? Was he just? Was he right? Was he doing the right thing? No. Do we have leaders that are just and holy? No. But we have a King. King in heaven, and He's holy. This is just and true your ways, O King of saints. Then the faithful church believes and sings, who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name, for you alone are holy. You know, we wonder that all that do not have, that everyone doesn't have him. We wonder that everyone doesn't come to Him and serve Him as their God. That's what it means to fear God. It means to serve Him as your God. When you fear God, you serve Him as your God. We don't understand when we've got strong faith why people wouldn't do that. Why don't they come to God? Why won't they? He alone is holy. He's the only one who's God. That's what that means. He's the creator. He's infinitely superior and higher and better. He's way above the creation, not even any comparison between the creator and the creature. He has no equal, none can even come close, can't even approximate close, not even begin to threaten him, not anywhere near. What possible grounds does anyone have for not having him as their God? Who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name? But alas, when our faith is weak and wavering, then we ourselves can wonder whether we want to keep serving Him. It can get that bad. When that happens, the best thing to do is flee to Him for mercy and don't let Him rest until He hears you. Fourth, the faithful church believes and sings, for all nations shall come and worship before you, for your judgments have been manifested. What faith the church has, even in her times of greatest weakness, When from all human view, it looks like it is ruined and nearly demolished. And she says, for all nations shall come and worship before you. OK, so it looks like even the church that's there is not flourishing. It's not. It's not doing very well. It's really weak and pitiful and anemic. And they're there saying, Lord, all the nations are going to come and worship you. That's faith. That's the kind of faith we're talking about here. Even in such times, she asserts her faith. She believes this because she sees his judgments. She knows how he works. She knows that he will put all things right that are twisted and wrong, that he'll bring down his enemies, that they will not prevail. She, the believing, overcoming church, has confidence that when his work is complete, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. She may debate about how God will bring that up, how he'll bring that about, but she believes I'll be the end. OK, however it gets there, it's going to get there. OK, and nothing can stop God. He's going to do that, though she lies in dust and ruins at times, as it says in Psalm 102, that her very dust to them is dear to God's people is dear because the promises are in the dust. The faithful believing worship of the church has result. This faithful believing worship that I've talked about has a result. Remember what I told you the result is. That's what we come to now. We do not know just how long it went on, but it leads to God opening the temple to send forth his angels to act. Verse five says, after these things, that's an important phrase for what I've been talking about. After these things, after we see this worship going on, this strong faith going on that leads to worship, after these things I look and behold the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven places. Heaven is on the move. Heaven is getting ready to act in behalf of earth. Now we'll look at that next time, more at that next time. But today I simply want you to see that the church's believing worship is what brought about the advancement of Christ's kingdom. Their faith has made them ready to give glory to him when he does his work. If you don't have faith, you won't give glory to God when he does his work, because you won't even recognize it. You say, oh, look what happened. I wonder how that happened. What's going on? Oh, that we would have the faith that is described here in our text today. This is the faith that is needed before we can expect to see God's mighty hand displayed in our world, in our own country, in our city, in our home, and even in our individual lives. Do not content yourself with anything less than this faith that we have seen today. The Lord calls you to be an overcomer by faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord encourages you to be an overcomer by faith in Jesus Christ. We need to minister to each other because we're in this together. Believers in our church, in our city, in our nation need to have the faith and the faithful worship that will bring God to us in his saving power that will open heaven and bring the angels down to do the work that God has appointed for them to transform things. See this faith and be diligent to stir one another up to it. Get a vision for this faith and stir one another up to it, and most of all, stir yourself up to it. Don't be indifferent to God. Please stand and let's call on His name. Lord, we thank you for the place that you brought the early church to. We know there was a time, even around the time of John, a little bit before that, when the church had grown kind of lax and wasn't really doing so well, and the Neuronian persecution broke out, and many people continued to be somewhat indifferent. And then over time, The zeal began to grow and we see how they cried out to you and how they trusted you and believed that you would act even though it looked like the church was going to be destroyed. They believe the promises that Jesus had made, that it would not be destroyed. And even though it was a tiny little remnant that couldn't defend itself in worldly terms, it was a mighty power that no one could move because your hand was upon them. And we thank you, Lord, that in your grace that you did move their hearts so that they cried out to you, as we saw in this passage today. that they cried out to you and you heard, you answered from heaven and you opened heaven and you poured out your judgments on their enemies and delivered them from the wrath of their enemies and gave them victory. You brought them forth in order that they might serve you and that the church might advance and go forward into a time of of great evangelism that occurred in that century after the destruction of Jerusalem. And we pray, Lord, that we might see your mighty hand today, and that you might work in our lives, that you might work in the church today. Father, we're so far from this faith. We're not standing on the glassy sea that is mingled with fire, with the harp of God. We want to be. We pray, Father, that you would make it so that you would do your work and help us to care about this and help us to promote this and help us to help one another to to come to this place that we might praise and honor you. Oh God, thank you so much for the way you've worked all through the history of your church, all through the ages, again and again and again and again. You have shown yourself mighty on behalf of your people when they call upon you and trust you. Make us like the people we read about in the time of Jehoshaphat. We thank you, Lord, for the confidence that we can have that you are God and that you will do your work and that your church will never fail. Even when we do get very weak and cold and indifferent, it doesn't mean the church is going to be wiped out because your promise is in us and you will not let that happen and you will preserve us and you will keep us and you will restore us again. Father, restore us today. Sometimes nations, when they start to decline like ours, they just don't ever turn back. But we pray, Father, that you would turn us back. It's something that you're able to do. And we look to you, Lord, to do it. We look to you to make us those catalysts, those ones that you would raise up to encourage and bring others to that repentance and that zeal for you. We pray for our families and our homes. There would not be indifference with covenant children. there would be zeal for godliness and righteousness and for knowing you and serving you and seeing your power in your hand. We pray, Father, that you would be that you would prevail among us. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. The blessing of our God. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Lord be with you all. Amen. Man.