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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
The Great Tribulation Martyrs, Part 2
Series Revelation
| Sermon ID | 85171149122 |
| Duration | 48:21 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 7:9-17 |
| Language | English |
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