And as we fix our eyes on Christ, we have much to rejoice on. And so I like that phrase in the first verse, from the shifting shadows of the earth, we will lift our eyes to him. And that's what the book of Revelation really helps us to do, is to get a new perspective on the things that are happening, even the discouraging things, such as persecution and martyrdom. A reading from page 22, Revelation 7, 9 through 17. After these things, I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from all ethnic nations and tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palm branches in their hands. And they shouted with a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God. who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. And all the angels stood around the throne, and the elders, and the four living beings, and they fell down before the throne on their faces, and worshiped God, saying, Amen, the blessing, and the glory, and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honor, and the power, and the strength to our God forever and ever, Amen. And one of the elders reacted, saying to me, Who are these that are clothed in the white robes and where did they come from? So I said to him, my Lord, you know. So he said to me, these are those who come out of the great tribulation. They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his sanctuary. And he who sits on the throne will shelter them. They shall not hunger anymore, nor thirst anymore. The sun will absolutely not strike them, nor any heat. Because of the Lamb who was in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of waters of life and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Amen. Father we thank you for this your word and it is our desire to grow not only in our understanding of it but in our transformation by it. And so by your Holy Spirit, we pray that you would open our eyes and our lives to hear from you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. In his book, The Harvest of Humility, John Siemens told about a German soldier who was wounded in battle and was told to report to the military hospital. And when he got there, he noticed that there were two doors on the hospital, one for the severely wounded and one for those who are only mildly wounded. So he went through the mildly wounded door and there was a long hallway and another two doors at the end of that hallway and one of the doors said for officers and the other said for non-officers. He went through the non-officers one and yet another long hallway and two more doors and At the end of that hallway, he saw over the one door, it was for party members, and over the other door, it was for non-party members. Well, he was not a party member, so he went through that door and found himself out on the street. Obviously an apocryphal story, but Seaman says that when the soldier returned home, the mother asked him, well, how did it go at the hospital? And he said, well, they didn't even see me. But wow, you should have seen their organization. Many churches have tremendous organization. Their people are very busy, got all kinds of programs, but apart from the Holy Spirit's ministry in their midst, that's all it is, an organization. And this passage, I believe, gives us a wonderful snapshot of what the ideal church looks like. Now granted, it's in heaven, but that's the whole point. It is still a church in heaven, and it is a perfected church in heaven, and this is really the upward calling that the church has to become more and more like that church. Now last week we looked at the martyrdoms, and we looked at the numbers of people, we looked at the eschatology of this passage, and today what I want to do is see what this upward calling for the church looks like. And the first and most obvious thing that we can see is that this ideal church is international, intercultural, and interracial. Verse 9 says, after these things I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from all ethnic nations. Now, the Identity Movement needs to read that statement. It does not say, from all white ethnic nations. It says, from all ethnic nations and tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne. This is as clear a rebuke to racist forms of Christians as you can get. To come before the throne is to worship, and in verse 11 it explicitly says that they were falling down before the throne in worship together. together. It was not even mildly racist. It was not a group of Asians, you know, worshiping over there and a group of Africans over here and Canadians and Confederates and Yankees over here. No, they were not united around social issues, racial issues, or cultural issues. They were united around God's throne and around Christ. So they had a new identity that drove them. And if that is the ideal church in heaven, then should it not be the model for the church here on earth? In a previous sermon, I demonstrated that earth really needs to have its worship patterned after heaven. In heaven, they have singing, so we ought to have singing on the earth. They had musical instruments in heaven. We ought to have musical instruments on the earth. They had responsive readings. You go through all of the different parts of worship and you see that heaven is the model and the pattern for the earth. And this means that our churches should strive to promote racial reconciliation through the gospel. We should strive to have more international unity, cultural unity, and interracial unity. The church is not supposed to be a club that unites around social causes. And really, this cuts across the grain on every level. This is not a Republican Party church. This is not a Constitution Party church. This is not a Christian Liberty Party church, even though we've had members that are in all three of those parties. Now, it's not as if we don't preach on politics. Obviously, I do. The Bible speaks to all of life, and we apply it, and there may be political issues that we will repent of. But it is not politics that drives what the church is about, but God's Word. It is not cultural ideas that we bow to, but God's throne. And racial division makes no sense whatsoever, since we really are a new race in Jesus Christ, the second Adam. I think this is just a fantastic, beautiful picture of a worldwide church being perfectly united in Christ. Now, the same verse indicates that this church in heaven is of incredibly vast proportions. We saw last week several reasons why this crowd of martyrs was in the multiplied millions, and we aren't even past 80-66 yet. If the infancy of the church was already in millions, what will the future of the church be when it is mature? If the mustard seed of the church is so huge, what will it be when it's the full-grown bush? You know, it really is staggering to see God's loving kindness poured out upon millions of people who were former rebels fighting against God. And it's even more staggering to see that the increase of His government and of peace, there will be no end. That's what Isaiah says, at least from A.D. 70 and on. Throughout the rest of history, He will continue to pour out more and more of His grace. And if it keeps growing from multiplied millions, what will the end be? Well, the end of the book shows a completely converted planet earth. Paul says that where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. Well, I'm going to state an application that may seem hard to believe to some of you, but it really does flow from that concept that where a sin abounds, grace abounds much more than that sin. After studying the trajectory that scriptural prophecy places on history, Reformed writers like B.B. Warfield, Charles Hodge, R.L. Dabney, W.G.T. Shedd, and many others are convinced you're going to be looking back on history and realizing, wow, the vast majority of mankind is saved. There will be more people in heaven than there will be in hell. Now, it's only hinted at here, but by the time we get to the end of the book, I think it will become a growing conviction. Now, what is the immediate response that people give when you make a statement like that? It's always one verse. It's Matthew 7, verse 14. It's very understandable that they would bring this up. Jesus in that verse said, narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it. And so they conclude that that verse means that there will be relatively few people in hell compared to the number of people that will be in heaven compared to the number of people that will be in hell. So their view is that God is not nearly as generous with His grace as B.B. Warfield thought that God was. But Matthew 7, 14 does not mean what they say it means. Jesus was saying that there were few in His day. He's using the present tense Few in his day that were being saved. The vast majority of Israel had rejected his message, but you keep reading and just a few verses later, he contrasts that word few with the word many. In Matthew 8, 11 through 12, he says, and I say to you that many will come. So that's future to A.D. 30, it's a future tense. Many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. Now when were they cast out? It was in that war of 66 through 73. So already in the first century, the few was being changed into the many, and it was that many that we looked at last week. Though a majority of that many were martyred, The 144,000 were protected in order to start witnessing all over again throughout the empire so once again Christ's kingdom would go forward and there was going to be this attempt to Christianize all the nations. And really that's the eschatology of the Bible. That's the eschatology of Romans 9 through 11. Romans 9 through 11 moves from few to many, from the remnant to the fullness, remnant of Gentiles to the fullness of Gentiles, remnant of the Jews to the fullness of the Gentiles. That's the eschatology of Acts, which begins with 120 in the upper room. And then at Pentecost, 3,000 people are saved. Boom, just like that. And a few days later, 5,000 are saved. And then a multitude is saved in chapter 4 verse 32, then it says, believers increasingly were added to the Lord. Multitudes of both men and women, chapter 5 verse 14. And then the statement that these apostles are making a mess, they're turning the world upside down. And every section of the book of Acts ends with that theme statement that the word of God was triumphing, it was moving forward, believers were multiplying. And so what that is setting up is a little picture, it's a microcosm of what's going to continue to happen after AD 70. This is the eschatology of Christ's parables that speak of the growth of the kingdom. leavening what? The whole lump. This is the eschatology of Ezekiel's miraculous river that starts off as a tiny little trickle coming out of the temple on Pentecost and it keeps moving forward through the years and it gets deeper and deeper until finally you can't swim over it and then eventually it brings healing to the whole world. That's the eschatology of Daniel's image in Daniel chapter two, this image of man The last part of it representing Rome and this stone cut without hands comes from heaven, smashes the image at its feet. So that's the kingdom of Christ and that stone grinds this whole image to powder. Eventually the wind blows it all away. There's no more memory of that image. of those kingdoms, and it says it grows into a great mountain, eventually that mountain fills the whole earth. So yes, there were few in AD 30 who were entering by the gate to eternal life, but that changes to many, to multitudes, to vast multitudes that no man can number in AD 66, and the trajectory of this book keeps going until everyone is a Christian at the end of the book. But this passage also shows that the ideal church is theocentric. Theocentric means God-centered. And it is Christocentric. It is Christ-centered. And you might wonder, how can you be both theocentric and Christocentric? Well, the only way you can be theocentric is if you are approaching God through Christ. So you've got to be centered on Christ in order to be centered on God. So they're not self-absorbed at all. Notice their focus. They could have been so overwhelmed with their healed bodies and the exquisite pleasures that they were enjoying in heaven that they would have been focused on all of those pleasures. They could have been so overwhelmed by the beauty of heaven that they would have been focused on all of the expensive stuff that was around them, but something far more captivating and heart-grabbing had captured their attention, and they were standing before the throne absolutely mesmerized, adoring, gazing at the glory of the triune God. You see, the more we mature, the more we're going to be like those saints in heaven, wrapped up far more in the giver than we are in the gifts. Now that doesn't mean we don't appreciate the gifts from God, we do. We very much appreciate those gifts, but our admiration for the triune God will far outshine our admiration for anything else. And so our goal should be to become more and more God-centered. And I think there's a reason why John emphasizes the fact that they are before the throne and why they bow before that throne in verse 11. I think it's to emphasize the fact that they are in submission to God's lordship and to His kingdom and not to their own. In fact, It was their radical submission to Christ and to God that led to their martyrdom. They were unwilling to call Caesar Lord. You read the church fathers and they said that. That's why the martyrdoms happened. They were unwilling to call Caesar Lord. Now Caesar's coins, made constant reference to Caesar as either Lord, or God, or High Priest, or Son of God, or Savior, or Provider, or other blasphemous claims that all of life must bow before him. Caesar was willing to let you have your freedoms so long as you bowed before his throne, and Christians refused. It was God's throne that was the center of their life, not statism. And we as a church must aspire to be more like the church of heaven, seeing Christ's lordship over every square inch of life and over every square inch of planet earth. Joel McDermott has an absolutely fabulous article on the passage where the Herodians and the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the high priests had all conspired together to try to trap Jesus by asking him, Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? Okay, they're trying to get him to say yes or no. If he says no, we shouldn't pay taxes to Caesar, then they're gonna get him in trouble with Rome. If they say yes, we should pay taxes to Caesar, they'll get him in trouble with the crowds, and they thought that they had him, and he calls them hypocrites, and he proceeds to show their hypocrisy. He asked them to produce a coin. They did so, and he asked for all to hear, whose image and superscription is this? And McDermott comments, the denarius itself, most likely a coin from the current emperor, carried not only his image, but an inscription that read, Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus. Tiberius Caesar, august son of the august god. And the backside continued, Pontifex Maximus High Priest. If this was not a graven image of a false god, nothing is. And Jesus made it a point to enter these facts upon the record. They were carrying false gods in their pockets, and because they worshipped money, they bowed down to Rome. And by the way, they were in the temple when Jesus asked them to produce the coin. Now, the Pharisees would have been squirming because they were the most opposed to Roman idolatry. And yet here they are handling idols right there in the temple of God. The Sadducees would have been squirming because they claimed, hey, nobody can bring any Roman money into the temple. And we're going to help you out. We're going to have a money exchange. Now, you can't go to anybody else. This is gonna be a monopoly because they wanted to enrich their pockets through this, so they were not opposed to bringing Roman money into the temple. This started about 40 years earlier. They were not opposed to bringing Roman money into the temple for purity's sake. It was purely to get wealthy through their extortionist policies, and Jesus Christ called it a racket, called it robbery. And so they exchanged Roman coins for coins that had no images on it. But the hypocrisy was that their theological justification for it was that God doesn't want idols in the temple. Yet here they are carrying this money with the idolatrous inscriptions on it right there in the temple. What hypocrites. McDermott points out they had tables and bags filled with Roman denarii throughout the temple courts. In fact, the money changers all wore one of these coins in their ear as a mark of their trade. They have ears, but they cannot hear because of their idols. You can imagine that passersby and pilgrims to the temple saw plenty of display of these images right there in the temple itself. So they were hypocrites. They were enriching their own pockets with their extortionist and monopolistic money exchange. So I believe the Sadducees were squirming. All the crowds would have immediately caught the hypocrisy. But rather than repenting, what do they do? They try to kill the messenger who exposes their sin. Now, the high priests were squirming because they had, well, there was the inscription on the coin of Caesar being high priest. And every one of those high priests was appointed by Caesar. And everybody knew it. This is very common knowledge. They weren't priests of God. They were high priests of Caesar. They were hypocrites. The Herodians were squirming because Herod was far worse in his taxation than Caesar. In fact, his taxes were so high that Caesar actually commanded Herod to cut it out. Herod refused. and there was a little bit of a tussle there. While all four groups were statist, the Herodians were proudly statist, proudly so. Yesterday a friend sent me a quote from a Presbyterian pastor in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the pastor said this, If the state legislature passed a law declaring Jesus Christ Lord of the state of Tennessee, I would oppose it with my whole being. That is blasphemy, but that pretty much sums up what these four groups were all about. All of these people were in one way or another bowing before the throne of Caesar and calling Caesar the Lord of life while pretending not to like it. They were enriching themselves through statism while trying to trap Jesus with a false dichotomy. Do you support Caesar or do you support the rebels? They were hypocrites. And Jesus, in effect, said, hey, if you're Caesar's servants, if you belong to Caesar, then you have no complaints when Caesar taxes you. But if you are gods, you must render everything to God. The Gospels make clear that these Jewish leaders wore phylacteries. You've got pictures of them on your outlines there. That the high priests who were there also wore a meter on their head that said, holiness to the Lord. Now the phylacteries had a little piece of scripture on it. It was the Shema Israel. It was Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, which demands that we love God with everything that we are and have, that we be devoted to God with everything that we are and have, and that we teach others to be devoted to God with everything. And the implications are obvious. It's the exact opposite of the implications that many people use of that passage. They say that that passage, Jesus teaches that there is a huge secular part of life, and that belongs to Caesar. It does not belong to God. They're like our Presbyterian pastor. We're not going to do anything about that part of life. And then there's the sacred part of life. That belongs to God. That's what many people claim Jesus is doing, but the inscriptions on the Roman coins do not allow for that interpretation. Those coins made the blasphemous claim that Caesar was Lord of all. Jesus no doubt held up the idolatrous coin and said, give back to Caesar what belongs to him. Caesar created the coin, he can have it back, which is the more literal rendering of the Greek actually. And then Jesus no doubt pointed to the meter on the high priest's heads and the phylacteries that were on everybody's heads and hands and said, give back to God what belongs to God, what belongs to God, everything. right? Everything. And neither the Herodians, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or the high priests were acknowledging that. The high priests were puppets of Rome, total puppets. And when Jesus pointed to the blasphemous inscription on the one side, Pontifex Maximus, or high priest, The true high priest, Jesus Christ, was standing in front of them and they were rejecting Him. See, it's important to realize Jesus was not, He was not acknowledging the legitimacy of the inscriptions on those coins. Those are blasphemous inscriptions. His kingdom fights those inscriptions with everything that is in it. When Jesus pointed out the blasphemous inscription on the other side of the coin, August son of the August God, the true son of God was standing before them and they had rejected him. Jesus was setting up the true battle that they were AWOL from, a conflict between the throne of Caesar, which encompasses all of life and does not acknowledge the lordship of Christ, just like that Presbyterian pastor, and on the other side is the throne of God, which does encompass all of life and is being advanced through Christ's mediatorial reign. And the particular Greek word that is used in Luke is powerful, give back to Caesar what is his, and then you will be free to give back to God what you have previously robbed from God's jurisdiction." And it was because Christians refused to call Caesar the Lord of life that they were martyred. I have a commentary that points out rather cogently that this book from cover to cover would have been considered treasonous in the eyes of Rome. The very fact that the salvation belongs to God and His Son would have been an offense to Rome. The very fact that the throne of the universe belonged to somebody other than Caesar would have been an offense to Rome. And thus Christians were considered subversives because they wanted all of life, including Caesar, to bow down before the throne of Jesus and swear allegiance to Him. May it be so. May it be so here in America at some point. There are some states that are rising up in defense of North Carolina. There is some pushback that is beginning to happen, but we are living in tough times. Anyway, verse 9, their righteousness was symbolized by the white robes and their victory was symbolized by palm branches. Palm branches were used at the Festival of Tabernacles, which speaks of the growth of the kingdom, and they're remembering their deliverance from Egypt. And in the same way, these martyrs rejoice over their redemption by the blood of the Lamb of God and the righteousness that Christ has given to them. But those two things are always linked. They're always, always linked in Scripture. The church will never have victory, that's the palm branches, without holiness. That's the white robes. A carnal church is a church that will be cast out and trampled underfoot of men according to Christ in Matthew 5. I want you to notice too where the glory goes in verse 10. And they shouted with a loud voice saying, salvation, and it's literally the salvation, belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Now the original exodus out of Egypt was so miraculous that even those hard-hearted people would not have even dreamed of saying that they were responsible, they had the power to do the ten plagues or to be redeemed out of Egypt or to cross over the Red Sea. And in the same way, despite the incredible sacrifices that these martyrs had engaged in, They have no illusion about who got them through it. It is God alone whom they want to glorify. And that should be our burning passion as well, that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we will do all to the glory of God. But as I mentioned last week, verse 10 is a slap in the face of the messianic state of Rome. Ascribing salvation exclusively to God is just as much a slap against Rome as ascribing the throne, that is sovereignty, exclusively to God would have been. Rome claimed to be Savior, and many of Nero's coins call him Savior. You know, it's very, very clear on the coins. But in this book, the church declares war against anything that robs God of glory. Salvation is the exclusive domain of God. It belongs to God, which means that Rome has robbed God by its status pretensions. And if the church on earth is to imitate the church of heaven, we must not merely acknowledge God's lordship and Christ's lordship or throne over all of life, but we must also acknowledge that God alone can save in any area of life. Unfortunately, evangelicals have a tendency to use the word salvation only for our conversion, justification. But salvation covers everything from election past to our glorification of our bodies in the future. It even includes the new heavens and new earth. It goes far as the curse is found. It goes almost, I mean, it goes further even than Caesar's. Caesar didn't talk about a new heavens and a new earth. But he did hold to a universal claim to salvation. Now we saw that starting with Claudius Caesar, Rome began having agencies for everything because they saw the state as needing to provide salvation in every area. And some of the coins promise economic salvation. Others claim to be the provider of welfare. Others claim that Caesar will save militarily. Others claim that a state alone can bring peace. And I don't think we're much different today. We have the same pretensions in America. Everyone goes to the state for salvation. Even evangelicals do that. And I want to illustrate that for you. If you look at the federal government's website, usa.gov, you will see myriad federal organizations that promise to save us from every conceivable problem. And going in alphabetical order where they list it, let me just give you a few of them. The AbilityOne Commission promises to create job opportunities for those who are blind. The Access Board promises to provide accessibility for people with disabilities. The Administration for Children and Families promises to provide family assistance and welfare to children and families, including child support, child care, Head Start, child welfare, and other programs. The Administration for Community Living provides for the needs of the aging and disability populations with long-term services. The Administration for Native Americans says that it, quote, promotes self-sufficiency. Ha, what a lie. They're doing the exact opposite, creating absolute dependency. But anyway, it says, it promotes self-sufficiency and cultural preservation for Native Americans by providing social and economic development opportunities through financial assistance, training, and technical assistance, unquote. The Administration on Aging is designed to help rescue vulnerable old people with education about the services available to them. The Administration of Developmental Disabilities claims that they give individuals with disabilities numerous, quote, forms of assistance that promote self-determination, independence, productivity, integration, and inclusion in all facets of community life. I think you get the point. And I've just barely dug into the page that deals with the A's. It goes A, B, C, all the way through the Z. I don't know if there's any Z's in there. But there are literally hundreds of agencies, commissions, departments, committees, councils, and services that not only act as a throne, in other words, they're regulating all of life, but they act as a savior. In other words, they're providing and delivering in every area of life. And it is my prayer that the church would become more and more patterned after the church in heaven that recognizes that salvation is the exclusive realm of God and of His Son. In other words, we must look to His Word and to His grace for the patterns of deliverance. Ironically, those who don't acknowledge Caesar as Lord and Savior end up getting martyred. some Savior that is. Citizens may not know what is at stake, but the state definitely does. Now if martyrdom is bad news, why are these martyrs rejoicing? And that'll be the focus of the remainder of this sermon. And obviously, the first reason is they're in heaven. Heaven's a glorious place. I mean, there wouldn't be any reason not to rejoice when you get into heaven. It would be impossible not to rejoice. And the point is, we ought to look forward to heaven. For sure, we ought to desire that more of heaven would become characteristic upon earth. And we do that by praying, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. but we also do it by living out what we pray. Now the second reason that they're rejoicing is the number of martyrs present shows that Christ's kingdom has been growing victoriously despite incredible opposition. It has encircled the globe. And I won't repeat what I said about that last week, but we too ought to rejoice that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is the power of God unto salvation. It is totally sufficient to accomplish the Great Commission. Thirdly, they are rejoicing because they're not of the world. They were redeemed from all nations, et cetera. And the word from is literally out of. It shows a separation from. Now here's how Jesus worded it in John 15, verses 19 through 21. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me." So, you know, you can look at it this way. The persecution that they were receiving was an evidence that they were truly saved. They're not of the world. The world has to hate them, right? That's plenty to rejoice in. And Christ's words that I quoted show that we ought to more and more self-consciously see ourselves as not being part of the world, but being part of a new world that Christ is creating in which dwells righteousness. We are revolutionaries in one sense of the term who are called to invade earth with the patterns of heaven. Fourth, the description shows that they were victors who bring God great glory. Rome and Satan did their utmost to exterminate Christianity or to make them, force them to acknowledge Caesar's lordship and salvation. they could not get them to bow the knee. They were not successful. They are now the victors. Fifth, it shows that these martyrs were righteous. Now, sin brings misery. This is an important point to understand. Sin brings misery. Holiness brings great joy. And this is not simply true in heaven where no sin remains. It's true on earth where we progressively are being saved from our sins. In John 15 verse 11 Jesus said, These things I have spoken to you that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. Now you want to have a cup full of joy so you need to look in the context. What things has He been telling them so they could have a cup full of joy? He's been telling them about holiness, keeping His commandments. And so, if heaven is joyful because of the absence of sin, the church on earth can increase their joy as they are united to Jesus and bear His character of holiness more and more. Sixth, it shows them as being in God's presence. Great reason for joy. If God's presence would produce such rejoicing, I think we ought to seek God's presence here on earth. Psalm 16, verse 11 says, in your presence is fullness of joy. Jude 24 says, now to him who was able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Now we can approximate the incredible joy in heaven when we actually press into God's presence in the worship service here or in our private devotions. Devotions are dry. They're dusty without God's presence. But when God's presence invades our devotions, It's like the whole thing is transformed. It fills our hearts with joy. And learning how to enter into God's presence was a very, very important discipline for the Puritans. One of the papers that I highly recommend is Joel Beakey's paper on Puritan meditation, but it really is their discipline on entering into the presence of God. Now that relates to the next point as well, fellowship. They're joyful because of fellowship. Verse 15 shows that these martyrs shared in fellowship, shared in ministry. Eighth, it shows that taking dominion and serving God in heaven will be very pleasurable. There are going to be no boredom. No weakness, no tiredness, no irritation in their service. Verse 15 says, Therefore they are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary. Now service on earth can approximate that fulfillment that they experience, but only as Christ is doing that service through us. only as His Holy Spirit is empowering us. By the way, that's one of the purposes of the filling of the Holy Spirit, is to empower us for service. Very rarely did people in the Old Testament, as usually kings or prophets, there weren't very many people in the Old Testament who had the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit. Every believer has the opportunity to be filled with the Spirit, which means every believer has the potential to find supernatural fulfillment in their boring jobs. Okay? Isaiah 61 speaks of the Holy Spirit's anointing of Jesus, and then goes on to indicate that all believers can enter into ministry in exactly the same way and find success, fulfillment, satisfaction, joy. Yes, even in plowing and vine dressing. If service is a drudgery to you, study Paul's admonitions to the slaves in Colossians and Ephesians. And I don't think you could probably get more boring jobs than what those slaves had. Study what he said to them and how they can serve Christ with their mundane day-to-day jobs and find fulfillment if they will do it as unto the Lord by the power of the Spirit. Ninth, this passage shows God's protection. Now that too is a great reason for rejoicing. It says, and he who sits on the throne will shelter them. In heaven, they're perfectly protected. But on earth, we still face persecution. So we say, okay, there's no way that we can imitate heaven on that. But just consider this, in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, God says he'll protect us on earth to this extent, that he will never allow you to be tempted or tried beyond what you are able to bear. And in 1 Peter, he says that he will provide his supernatural joy in the midst of persecution and all of the provisions that are needed to glorify him. And so there's a sense in which we are protected to that degree. And if we die as martyrs, obviously we have been delivered from the enemy completely, forever. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Not persecution, not famine, not death. So in that sense we are sheltered. But as Christendom spreads, Revelation promises that the church will be more and more sheltered from persecution until finally Satan himself will be bound in the pit. Tenth, verse 16 shows that the rejoicing of heaven is in part because of the absence of pain and distress. Hallelujah, we won't have any more pain in heaven. They shall not hunger anymore, nor thirst anymore. The sun will absolutely not strike them, nor any heat. Now the word anymore obviously shows that they had been suffering, While on earth they experience pain and distress. So on earth we do not perfectly experience this, but the trajectory of history is to increasingly remove pain and distress. And certainly long before that happens we can rejoice that heaven is our reward. The first part of verse 17 I think shows in a marvelous image God's tender care and refreshing provision for them in heaven. It says, because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of waters of life. That's just an incredible switch in metaphors. The Lamb has become the shepherd. I think that's just so cool because The fact that this shepherd is also a lamb means he can identify with us lambs and the suffering that us lambs have gone through. He's not gonna be a cruel, a harsh shepherd. No, he identifies with us. He went through everything that we went through and now as shepherd he knows exactly how to provide for our every need. And so it speaks of his tender care and refreshing provision. Now we're gonna experience that perfectly in heaven. Why not trust him to provide that right now? Psalm 23 says that His shepherd's heart even now is willing to tenderly care for us and provide for us in our difficulties, to refresh us and provide drink for us. And then the final reason given for their rejoicing is that heaven is the time when tears will be exchanged for joy, par excellence. It says, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Now usually you think of a parent picking up a child and just wiping away their tears after they've, you know, scraped their knee or something like that and bringing comfort, but this is God himself doing that individually as these martyrs go to heaven. He's wiping away their tears. See, dying is not a loss. It is a great exchange. And when you see all that is exchanged, it ought to make your heart look forward to heaven. We're gonna be giving up pain, distress, persecution, and tears for untold glories. And so this passage really gives us a whole new perspective on death and on martyrdom. Martyrdom's a privilege. It is a tremendous privilege. God gives special rewards to those who are martyrs, and he ushers them into the most glorious existence that you could imagine. So we ought not to fear martyrdom, But you know, some people fear even dying a natural death. Dr. Barnhouse lost his wife when his daughter was six years old, and he had a hard time getting over it, but it was even more difficult to help his daughter to process through her loss And one day while he and his daughter were standing at the corner at an intersection waiting for a traffic light so they could cross, there was a truck that suddenly rushed by and temporarily blotted out the son's A light, and it really scared the girl, frightened her. She started crying. And to comfort her, he quickly picked her up. And in that moment, it dawned on him how to explain the death of her mother to the daughter. He asked her, when you saw the truck pass, it scared you. But let me ask you, had you rather be struck by the truck or by the shadow of the truck? She said, of course, the shadow. He went on to explain, when your mother died she was only hit by the shadow of death because Jesus was hit by the truck. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil. Amen? So this passage gives us marvelous perspective on death. It gives us a whole new perspective on what's important in life. Caesar tries to convince us that his comforts and his provisions are all that matters. But this passage says if we're loyal to Christ, we're going to ignore Caesar. And when he persecutes us, we realize that even when riches and homes and life itself is taken away, it is only gain. To die is gain. And it's only what we can take with us into heaven that is of ultimate importance. And so this passage helps us to realize really what our priorities in life should be. This passage also gives a whole new perspective on heaven. It involves worship, yes, but it involves dominion and service. And I praise God for that. I just can't imagine being in heaven strumming harps all day long. That doesn't sound too... I mean, worship I love, but there is worship, there is fellowship, there is service. And as we progress through the book of Revelation, we're going to see all kinds of different dominion facets that we're going to be doing throughout eternity. It's going to be incredibly fulfilling. There won't be any boredom in heaven. In fact, heaven is going to restore everything that was lost to Adam plus much more. So I think it's just one of many passages that's worth meditating on and worshiping God over. And then finally, this passage gives us a whole new perspective on the victory of Christ's kingdom. If even those first century saints were victors contributing to the advancement of Christ's kingdom, we can too. This group of people was sold out to Christ's purposes and in the process received a crown of life from Christ Himself when they got to heaven. And it's my prayer that we would be just as passionate in seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness. Amen. Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your rewards. We thank You for heaven. We thank You, Father, for Your provision in life, Your provision in death, and all of Your provisions in the afterlife. You are so generous. Having given us the Son, we believe Your Scripture that with Him You freely give us all things. Help us, Father, to find total satisfaction in being focused on You, seeking Your kingdom, and seeking to find our chief delight in You and not simply in the wonderful, wonderful gifts that You give to us. Help us, Father, to adjust our priorities and our visions, and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. you