Kingship of Christ in Revelation 11:15-18

Reading Revelation 11:15-18

0:00 Revelation 11, 15 through 18.

0:35 And the seventh angel sounded, and there followed great voices in heaven. And they said, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders who sit before God on their thrones fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thanks, O Lord God the Almighty, who art and who wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and its reign. And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets,

1:23 and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth.

Review of the Series So Far

1:35 We come this morning to what will probably be the last of our studies on the theme of the kingship of Christ in the book of the Revelation. In the course of considering the glory of Christ our Redeemer as prophet, priest, and King, we have come to this point in our study of his kingship, where we are examining the theme of the kingship of Christ in this magnificent, this fascinating, this oft-times puzzling book of the Revelation. We have noted that the kingship of Christ is one of the fundamental themes of the entire book, and the reason, of course, being that the church in its suffering

2:23 state, the state in which it was when this letter was sent to the seven churches in Asia Minor, needed to know in the midst of its suffering something of the majesty and glory and implications of the great truth that Jesus Christ is King upon His throne. In seeking then to examine this theme of the kingship of Christ in this portion of the Word of God, having laid some basic foundational principles with respect to interpreting and understanding the book of the Revelation, we then noted this dominant theme, first of all in the greeting, verses 4 and 5 of chapter 1. Christ is set before us as the ruler of the kings of the earth.

3:14 Then in the initial vision recorded in chapter 1, verses 10 through 18, we have recorded for us this setting forth of the glory of Christ in all His majesty as the great king and ruler and prophet and governor, protector and admonisher and judger and all of these other things in the midst of the lampstands, Christ in His majestic glory as King over His church, in the midst of His church. And then for the past two Lord's days, we contemplated the kingship of Christ in the vision of chapters 4 and 5, a vision in which Christ is seen as the Lamb in the midst of the throne

Transition to Revelation 11

4:00 who is worthy to break the seals and to open that road, to administer all of the decrees and purposes of God in human history with respect to the designs of God for His Church. Well, we come this morning to this passage which has been read in your hearing, a passage in which once more the great theme of the kingship of Christ is set before us for our comfort and for our instruction. First of all, then, consider with me, as we have done in our previous studies, something about the setting of this vision recorded in verses 15 through 18. And in attempting to lay out the setting of this vision, I'm going to begin with an illustration.

The Photo Album Illustration: Revelation in Recapitulating Cycles

4:50 Now, usually I begin with exposition, and then occasionally buttress the exposition with illustration. Well, I want to begin this morning with illustration. For unless we grasp something of the motif of the book of the Revelation, we will not be able to put this part of the vision in its proper perspective. So we're concerned, first of all, with the setting of this vision.

5:15 And the illustration that I lay before you derives from a fact of our own congregational history during this summer. One of our families made a cross-country trip in a converted fire wagon. And some of you remember us praying for that family as they made their way from New Jersey all the way across to California and back again. Now imagine, they didn't do this, but imagine for the sake of illustration, if before they left, the head of the household of the family that made the cross-country trip in the converted fire wagon should hand out four cameras to four different members of the household.

5:54 As he hands out camera number one, he says to household member number one, now this camera is loaded with film, and what I want you to do is starting right here in our own backyard, I want you to take a picture of all of us who are going to be making the trip, and all across the country and back again, your camera is the people camera. I want you to take pictures only of the people whom we meet and with whom we have interaction from New Jersey to California and back again. Then he takes a second camera and hands it to the second member of the household, and he says, now the camera's loaded, and your camera is the place's camera. You're to take no pictures of people unless they just happen to be there, but you're to take pictures of all the specific places in our trip.

6:43 I want you to start with the backyard, taking a picture of this particular place, including the fire wagon and then as we move across Route 80 Delaware Water Gap and all the way across the Plain States and out to the West Coast and back again everything in your camera is places. Then he takes camera number three and he gives it to household member number three and says you have a loaded camera and yours is the unusual events camera. If we get a flat tire on Route 80 take a picture of the flat tire. If along the way we happen to see an unusual Your camera is the unusual events camera all the way from Jersey to California and back again.

7:22 And then he has a fourth camera that has a zoom lens. And he says to this person, you're to take very, very careful consideration of any circumstances which would demand a real close-up with lots of detail. You're to use the zoom lens, whether it's people, unusual people we may meet, unusual places that we may visit, unusual events. You're to have the zoom lens job.

7:50 Well, then, they start out on their trip, and each one is careful to use his camera and his film as directed by the head of the household. Well, they come back from their trip, and they take all of this film down to the local film store, and they get it all back, and they sit down, and they hurriedly go through, and then they say, now, how are we going to preserve the memories of our trip? So they go out to J.C. Penney's and they find there's a special on some of the photo albums in which you can preserve your photographs.

8:20 And so they sit down and they start to arrange them. They say, but wait a minute, we've got to have some kind of a pattern of arrangement. And someone says, well, let's take all the people, places, unusual events, and the close-up of those people, places, or events, and let's arrange them chronologically. So when anyone looks at our photo album, when they turn to page one, they'll see all the people, places, events, and up-close incidences that started here in Jersey, that moved on to Ohio and the Plain States and California, so that when you come to the last page in the photo album, you will have us right back at New Jersey with all the people, places, events, and close-ups together.

9:01 Someone else says, well, I have a different idea. Why not put them in cycles? Let's take all the film and all the developed pictures from the people camera and let's put them all together in the first three pages. So we'll have all the people that we met from New Jersey to California and back again.

9:22 So when you come to the end of page three, you've gone all the way to California and back again with us looking at people. Then starting on page four, we'll have all the places. and from Jersey out to California and back again, all the significant places. So that way we'll be able to take people with us pictorially all the way to California and back again a second time.

9:45 Then beginning on page 7, we'll have all the unusual events pictures. And so we'll start with that flat tire that greeted us right out in our backyard at the beginning of our trip and then we'll go all the way out the unusual events and back again and then we'll have the Zoom lens, some of those incidents and people and places which we needed to preserve in great detail, and then we'll have them in the last section. Well, if the head of the household said, I like that second idea better, why his decision would overrule everyone else's, so if you were to go then to their house and say, my, I'd love to see the pictures of your trip to California and back, what would you find? Well, what you would find would be this, that you would have this recurring cycle of the entire trip from Jersey to the West Coast and back again.

10:36 But each cycle would have a different dimension of emphasis, one focusing upon people, another upon places, another upon events, and then some of them enlarging some of those people and events and unusual circumstances which you had already encountered in the earlier part of the book. Now, without seeking to be overly simple, that's precisely what you have in the book of the Revelation. You have the history of the church in its conflict with Satan and all the hosts of hell. From the New Testament era, that is, from the very point in time when John wrote this letter to the seven churches,

11:22 all the way down to the consummation when Christ will come and destroy the wicked and the beast and the false prophet and he will usher in the new heavens and the new earth. And no fewer than six and possibly seven times in the book of the Revelation, you are taken all the way to California and back again. But some people try to read the book of the Revelation as though from chapter 4, What you've got is Jersey, and then you've got Pennsylvania, and then you've got Ohio, and then you've got Indiana, and all the rest. And when you get to the end, then you have the last day.

12:00 No, no, God did not give it to us that way. The head of the household said, I want to comfort my people not just with a lineal description of all the future. No, no. What I want to give them is these varying dimensions of emphasis of the church in conflict with its many enemies.

12:23 And I will show them again, and again, and again, and again, and again, that though the church is in the midst of conflict, and though various enemies will rise up against her under various figures of the beast and the false prophet, And though there will be all of this tremendous upheaval, again and again God says, all will end well. And He brings us to the consummation six or possibly seven times in the one book. Now why do I say all of that? Well, for the simple reason that that will help you, I trust, to put the vision of Revelation chapter 11 in its proper setting.

Setting the Seventh Trumpet in the Sequence of Visions

13:08 For we read in verse 15, the seventh angel sounded. In our study last Lord's Day, we noted that it was Christ who breaks the seven-sealed book. And it's when Christ breaks or opens a seal that there follows this description of events. Well when you come to the seventh seal you been brought all the way to the end of time It is under the sixth seal as we noticed last week in verses 12 to 17 that the final judgment is described in this graphic way The kings of the earth and the princes and the chief captains, they cry out, hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne

13:58 and from the wrath of the Lamb. Then we have this glorious description of the redeemed in chapter 7. Climaxing in this wonderful statement, verse 15, These are they that serve before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple. And He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them.

14:23 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun strike upon them nor any heat. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Does that language sound familiar? It's the same language that you have in chapter 22, only there you have the zoom lens.

14:47 There you have more detail of the throne of God and the Lamb and the river of the water of life coming out of the throne. But here we are taken right to the end after the sixth seal is broken, the judgment of the wicked, the vision of the glorified saints, The lamb in the midst of the throne feeding them. Now notice verse 1 of chapter 8. And when he opened the seventh seal, there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

15:19 Why? Why, there's nothing more to come. After the breaking of every seal, there was this tumultuous activity, climaxing in the judgment of the wicked in this beautiful picture of the redeemed. And now when the Lamb breaks the seventh seal, there's silence.

15:36 Why? Nothing more to come. We've been taken from Jersey to California and back again. Now then, the next cycle of the unfolding of the church's conflict is under the figure of these seven angels, verse 2 of chapter 8, that stand before God and they are given seven trumpets.

15:56 And then they begin to sound their trumpets. And then things begin to happen. And now under a different set of figures and with different strands of emphasis, the same truth is brought forth. There will be wars.

16:12 There will be famines. There will be conflict. There will be opposition to the people of God. There will be death.

16:19 There will be bloodshed. There will be martyrdom. But now we come to the sounding of the seventh angel. And with that, we have this wonderful and glorious description of the consummation.

16:33 All right, do you feel something of the setting now of the vision? It's as though we're coming through the second phase of our trip from Jersey to California and back again. Now then, look at the substance of the vision. Having considered the setting, now the substance of the vision.

Substance 1: The Proclamation of the Great Voices

16:51 There are two main ingredients which form the substance of this vision. We have, first of all, the proclamation of the great voices in verse 15. And the seventh angel sounded, and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdoms of the world, or the kingdom of the world, is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Ingredient number one of this vision is the proclamation of the great voices.

17:32 Who composed these great voices? Well, the text is silent, so I must be silent. But in the light of the previous pictures, such as we have in chapter 5, in all likelihood, these great voices are the combined voices of the entire intelligent universe, composed of angels, redeemed ones, cherubim and seraphim, and all of the moral and intelligent creation, joining in this great proclamation. Now, what do they proclaim? Two things. Look at the text.

18:09 They proclaimed first of all the arrival of the universal kingdom of God and of Christ And secondly they proclaimed the eternity of the universal kingdom Look at the language These great voices say The kingdom Which is the better rendering If you have the old authorized version you will have the kingdoms But there is better textual evidence that it is kingdom singular The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Lenski has translated this particular part, The kingship of the world became our Lord's and his Christ's.

18:57 The form of the verb is what we would call in the English a past tense. They proclaim this as something, an event already accomplished and come to pass. And it is a proclamation that the universal kingdom of God and His anointed has arrived. The kingdom of the world became that of our Lord and of His Christ.

19:27 The universal kingdom then has arrived. Secondly, they proclaim the eternity of that universal kingdom. And He, that is, the Christ of God, He shall reign forever and ever. Now this little phrase, forever and ever, is the phrase that is used in Scripture to describe endlessness, or the word we commonly use, eternity.

20:01 Having asserted the arrival of the universal kingdom, they say that this kingdom shall extend timelessly. It shall extend into the ages of the ages. This is the precise language that is used to describe the state of the wicked in hell. In chapter 20 and verse 10, They shall be cast into the lake of fire and shall be tormented day and night Unto the ages of the ages that is forever and forever Now if you have been following this series of studies with any degree of intelligence and faith and retention You ought to have two questions at least beginning to form in your mind

Reconciling Present Reign with the Arrived Kingdom

20:49 And the first one ought to be this Is not Christ the universal King now? Pastor, haven't you expounded to us such passages as Ephesians 1, which state that Jesus Christ right now has been exalted far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, and right now has been made head over all things? Have you not expounded unto us those passages which speak of His present universal dominion? Why, I hope I have done so, and that your ears have not deceived you, and that your eyes have not deceived you, when you have seen those truths asserted in the Word of God.

21:36 In what sense, then, is it right for this proclamation to come, the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Has it not always been a universal reign from the time of his resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father? Has he not had universal sway and dominion, all authority in heaven and upon earth? And the answer, of course, is yes.

22:06 But now listen carefully. It has been a disputed rule and reign. And Huximah dared to preach through the book of the Revelation and did an admirable job. When he was preaching on this very question that ought to arise said this, In answer to this question, it must be said that God is indeed sovereign all through the history of the world.

22:34 There is nothing, no creature that can thwart his will. All are in subjection to him. Even the devil and his host and all the wicked world can after all do nothing against him, even though they so imagine in the wickedness of their heart. But although in this sense he is sovereign, absolutely sovereign, yet it is not true that his sovereignty is undisputed.

23:00 Even though we tremble at the thought, it is true nonetheless that the devil conceived of the plan of becoming sovereign in the place of the Most High, and that he has employed other angels and men to realize this plan of his own sovereignty. He therefore with his agencies, the host of the devils from the abyss in Babylon and the Antichrist on earth, rise in rebellion against the sovereign of heaven and earth. Psalm 2, the kings and rulers gather together against the Lord and His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder. Let us cast away the cords of divine government.

23:36 You see, the divine government is real. It is universal, but it is disputed. It is opposed. It is hated.

23:44 The devil wars against God to wrest his sovereignty from him. And the full and complete sovereignty of God Almighty shall not appear until all these rebels have been subdued and utterly destroyed forever. This destruction of the enemy, this final subjection of all rebellion against God, the seventh trumpet shall bring about. So you see what we have here in this proclamation of this great aggregate of voices is a proclamation of the arrival of the universal kingdom undisputed.

24:26 The arrival of the universal kingdom unrivaled, holding absolute sway through the entirety of the new heavens and the new earth. Right now, you see, Psalm 110 in verse 2 is being fulfilled. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. In that day it will be rule without the presence of thine enemies.

24:58 And then the second question that ought to come is, Pastor, didn't you teach us from 1 Corinthians 15 that after the wicked are destroyed in the last judgment and the saints of God are glorified, Didn't you teach us from 1 Corinthians 15 that the Son himself should be subject to the Father? That there will be an adjustment of inter-Trinitarian responsibility and administration? Yes, I did teach that because 1 Corinthians 15 teaches it and I had to teach it. There will be an adjustment in certain aspects of the rule of Christ.

25:34 Why? Well, prerogatives and powers were granted to him consistent with that condition of having to rule in the midst of his enemies. But when all the enemies are destroyed, those prerogatives and powers are no longer needed. And there will be adjustments in the nature of his rule.

25:56 But when all the adjustments are made, look at the text, he will still reign forever and forever. And he will be forever the Lamb in the midst of the throne who shall lead his people as a shepherd. And so the first ingredient of this section of the vision is a proclamation of those great voices with a twofold announcement, the arrival of the universal kingdom, the eternity of the universal kingdom. Now the second major ingredient of the vision is the worship of the four and twenty elders, verses 16 through 18.

Substance 2: The Worship of the Twenty-Four Elders

26:42 Look at it if you will, please.

26:46 And the four and twenty elders who sit before God on their thrones fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who art and who wast, because thou hast taken thy great power and its reign. And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came in the time of the dead to be judged, in the time to give their reward to thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name the small and the great and to destroy them that destroy the earth In their worship they focus their thanksgiving and praise on the very events which surrounded the ushering in of the universal and the everlasting kingdom.

27:36 Do you see it? When they hear the sound of the great voices announcing the universal kingdom is come, And that universal and undisputed kingdom over the new heavens and the new earth will be an eternal kingdom. The four and twenty elders who have been sitting, having heard such an announcement, they are now found prostrate before the throne. And they engage in worship.

28:03 And the focus of their worship is thanksgiving to God for those events which ushered in and accompanied the great reality announced in verse 15. In other words, it was these events which forever banished from the kingdom all that would keep it from being an undisputed universal kingdom and which established all the members of that kingdom in their final state of glory. Look at the things that form the basis of praise. You have taken your great power and it reigned.

28:44 The nations were wroth and your wrath came. The time of the dead to be judged. The time to reward your servants. You see what these events are.

28:56 Wrath upon the angry nations. Judgment upon the dead. Rewarding the righteous. And then the ultimate destruction of the wicked.

29:06 to destroy them that destroy the earth. It was the accomplishment of these events which ushered in the reality of verse 15. And what we have then in this vision is nothing more or less than what we have in the plain language of many passages in the New Testament. A passage such as 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 7 through 10.

29:32 You that are afflicted, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire with His mighty angels to take vengeance on them that obey not the gospel and that know not God, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. And then he goes on to say in that day he will be admired in his saints. Or what we have in the language of 2 Peter 3, 10-13, in which Peter speaks of the Lord coming and consuming in fire the present order of things. And we, he says, look for a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

30:17 We have what is given to us with the zoom lens in chapter 20, the judgment of the wicked, and the zoom lens in chapter 21 and 22 of the glorified state of the redeemed. You see, the worship of the elders focuses upon God's dealings with everything that oppose the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Now then, having tried to give you the setting of the vision, the essential substance of the vision, in the third place, what's the significance of all this to us? This is all well and good, but what does it say to me, sitting here this morning, August 27, 1978?

Significance 1: Admonition and Warning to the Impenitent

31:01 Well, let me suggest it says at least three things to us. First of all, it contains a pointed word of admonition and warning. Put yourself back in the first century And seated there in a congregation at Ephesus or Smyrna or Pergamos A letter is being read by one of the men in the congregation And that letter comes to this scene In which the sound of the great voices is announced The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our God Of our Lord and of His Christ And then the elders fall down in worship because the time to judge the dead and to destroy them that destroy the earth and to punish the wicked is come.

31:48 My friend, if God announces those things as being such certainties that He can put them in the past tense as already accomplished, there is contained in that vision a pointed word of admonition and warning. King Jesus is absolutely determined to bring to pass this universal undisputed rule over the entire universe. Do you hear me? King Jesus who reigns now is determined to continue to reign until His universal reign over the entire universe is realized in the full glory of the vision of Revelation chapter 11.

32:33 In the language of our Lord in Matthew 13, that's going to necessitate a purging of all the foreign elements from that kingdom. And in Matthew 13 we read, verse 41, The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

33:13 You see, the righteous will not be seen to be what they really are in all the glory of the redemption imparted by grace until all these foreign elements are purged and banished. And my friend, what a frightening thing, what a frightening thing to come under the frown and the judgment of the Almighty. God is determined that His beloved Son shall rule over a universal, undisputed kingdom of righteousness. and if you will not bow to the Son and own Him as your Savior and Sovereign God has no choice I say it reverently

34:00 but to banish you to that place that is the junk heap of the universe that place called hell Gehenna because God is going to have a kingdom that will cause the aggregate of all intelligent beings in heaven to say the kingdom is become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. God is going to have it, my friend. You can spit and fume and kick and oppose, but the hour is coming when this chorus heard in vision by John will be heard by the ears of all the redeemed. They shall join in it.

34:48 Let me illustrate something of the danger of your plight, you who are unconverted. Picture with me a wealthy man who owns acres of land, choice land. And he's a benevolent man, and he wants to make the best use of that land for his and subsequent generations. And in cooperation with the government, he's decided that a certain area would make an excellent lake, and they'd make a dam that would provide electricity.

35:14 and he has before him the long-range vision of what he wants to do with that land, to adjust it and to renovate it and to alter it so that it will not only be beautiful to the eye, but present a maximum usefulness to the community. Well, in his benevolence he has allowed certain wandering people to be squatters in that land, and so some of them have built little houses and little shacks and others, more substantial homes right in the depressed area that he plans to turn into a lake. And he allows them to be squatters on his land. They have no rights to it.

35:52 It's his land. He allows them to hunt off that land. He allows them to plant and to reap off that land. None of it is theirs.

35:59 It's his. But in the benevolence of his heart and kindness of his disposition, he allows them to do this. But he sends out an announcement to all of them saying, on such and such a day, the engineers will have completed all of their work. The dam will be complete.

36:14 And waters are going to be let out from a certain place and that whole area is going to be flooded. Now I am determined that I will make this use of my land so that it will reflect something of my own artistic sensitivity. It will reflect my own benevolence and concern for the well-being of others. So he sends out this announcement to those who have been using his land.

36:37 They have no rights to it, no claims over it, yet they've been living off it. But he says, on a certain day, water will come and inundate that whole area, and he gives them an eviction notice. There's a bunch of smart alecks there who say, who in the world does he think he is? I've been eating off this land.

36:56 I've been living on this land. I don't believe in such things as dams and lakes. It's all a lot of hogwash.

37:05 And you have some others that say, well, you know, it's nice. He's a nice guy. I appreciate his concern for others. But man, it's uncomfortable to pick up and move.

37:12 I've really gotten settled in here. I know the best places to hunt, and I know the best little...

37:17 I don't doubt that, you know, eventually this is going to happen, but just don't talk about it. Just don't talk about it. Let's just hope it goes away.

37:27 My friend, the hour will come when the water will be let loose, and every squatter and all of his belongings will be inundated.

37:40 Do I need to make the application for you? You live on God's earth. It's His world, not yours. It's His breath, not yours.

37:53 And Almighty God calls upon you to recognize that He's determined that His world, in which there's been a rebellion led by the devil and the host of hell, and now the following of all of the seed of Adam, who have not repented and believed the gospel, they're determined to say, we'll turn this entire world into that which we want. And God says, no, you won't. I may allow you in my long-suffering squatter's rights.

38:29 And that's all you've got, friend. In the mercy and long-suffering of God, you've got squatter's rights. But the same God has sent out the announcement that the hour is coming when He's going to renovate this heaven and this earth so that it will cause all the intelligent creation to break out. But now the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.

39:00 Oh, my friend, what a sober warning. What a warning! And in the name of the God of heaven, I plead with you this morning, don't smart-mouth God. All the smart-mouthing of the squatter Will not turn back the floodwaters When they inundate the depressed area There are some of you You don't smart-mouth these things You believe them You just put them out of your mind And hope that out of mind Out of reality My friend, you'll perish As surely as the open blasphemer Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.

39:45 Call upon him while he is near, while the door of mercy is open. And this God who is determined that his Son shall have a universal kingdom, he yet stands beckoning you to come. Oh, what a pointed word of admonition and warning. But thank God for the people of God.

Significance 2: A Powerful Summons to Adoration

40:06 There is in this vision a powerful summons to adoration. And I trust in spite of the oppressiveness Impressiveness, you'll just gird up the loins of your mind with me now, child of God. I say this vision contains a powerful summons to adoration. For you see, with this section that we've expounded this morning, the picture of Christ's kingship in the book of the Revelation is complete.

40:30 Everything else simply expands upon it. Now look at the picture. In the opening vision, there was Christ under the figure of that august being like unto a Son of Man, in the midst of the lampstands, with His feet of burning brass, ready to crush His enemies and the enemies of His church, clothed with a garment down to the feet gird about the breast with a golden girdle all the signs of His royal majesty He in the midst of the church And the first message comes to that first church saying Thus saith He that walketh in the midst of the candlesticks or the lampstands.

41:18 What a wonderful thing to know that King Jesus is in the midst of His church to govern, to guide, to protect, to rebuke, to withhold and restrain its enemies. He is in the midst. Then we went to chapters 4 and 5, and we saw the Lamb in the midst of the throne breaking the seals. The one who is king in His church is king over the nations.

41:42 He governs and administers history. He is the one who uses wars and death and famine and martyrdom and all of the things that come out of the seals that are broken. He, the Lamb in the midst of the throne, is worthy to break the seals and to open the book.

42:01 So the picture becomes fuller now. He's not only king in the midst of the seven lampstands. He's the Lamb in the midst of the throne administering history. But now the question comes, where will it all end?

42:16 Now the picture's complete. It will end in the universal and everlasting undisputed kingdom of Christ Over the new heavens and over the new earth And my friend, once that stroke has been added to the picture What more can we need? What a beautiful picture And God gives us that picture to draw from our hearts That which was drawn from the hearts of those four and twenty elders the representatives of the church of the Old and the New Testament, the people of God, the general assembly of the church of the firstborn, enrolled in heaven. Child of God, do you adore?

43:03 Do you know what it is in prayer to give yourself to adoration and to bless Him who under the figure of chapter 1 is in the midst of the church, who under the figure of the Lamb in the midst of the throne administers all of history. Do you know what it is to adore and to magnify and to worship Him as the One who will indeed subdue all of His enemies until He is King All-Glorious to every intelligent creature in the entire universe? Put yourself back in the first century. There is the Roman ruler demanding that he be acknowledged as God.

43:49 There he is exerting his power, and the world is full of sin and crooked political leaders and bloodthirsty people who oppose the church. There is no new thing under the sun.

44:02 What do the people of God need? They don't need to waste their time running to so-called prophecy conferences while people tell us that Gog and Magog is Russia and the kings of the east of China and there's going to be 200 million horses and the Russians are already now a man. Oh, that rubbish! She rubbish!

44:25 And the souls of the people of God find no comfort in that kind of drivel. No, no, my friend. We need to be prostrate in holy adoration before our glorious Redeemer King. The one who loved us and loosed us from our sins in His own precious blood is the one who walks in the midst of the lamb stands.

44:50 He's the lamb in the midst of the throne. He's the one whose kingdom will be universal and unrivaled. Surely this is the essence of worship, is it not? To have our hearts run out to this Christ here and now.

Significance 3: A Precious Salve of Consolation

45:08 And then finally, there's not only this pointed word of admonition and this powerful summons to adoration, but what a precious salve of consolation. We go back to those churches in their suffering, in their persecution. God says, look, my children, it's as good as done. John writes what he heard, and what he heard was great voices saying, The kingdom has become.

45:41 And so God is saying to the saints in the first century, Although years, although millennia may pass, Until this is realized in actual history, it is as good as done. All the enemies of Christ and His people shall be destroyed. Child of God, suffer on. You are through much tribulation to enter the kingdom of heaven.

46:08 If we suffer with Him, we'll reign with Him. When John addressed the church, he said, I, John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom. Oh, what a blessed conjunction. Tribulation and kingdom.

46:27 Tribulation and kingdom. and as surely as we are partakers in the tribulations that arise out of our attachment to Christ, we'll be partakers of the glory that arise from the consummate glory of His kingdom. No tribulation without the kingdom. No kingdom without the tribulation.

46:55 Isn't it amazing that when Paul and his companion went back to the young converts, Luke says that one of their main sermons was this. They told them that through much tribulation they must enter the kingdom. Not that they had not already entered, but speaking of the kingdom in this dimension, in its consummate glory between here and there, there is to be much tribulation. So when the reader would read on about the beast and the false prophet and the oppositions against the people of God and their apparent conquest for a time, what feeds the faith of the child of God.

47:33 It's what he heard from chapter 11. The kingdom is become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Ah, someone says, you Christians, you've got nothing but a pie in the sky by and by religion. Well, my friend, you can call it that if you want, but that's pretty good pie to me.

47:52 To dwell with the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne. to have the joy of seeing Him face to face, the One whom we've loved unseen, the One whom we've served so poorly, to see Him face to face, to find when His lips open to give us commandments that not only will our hearts leap at the voice of our Beloved, but there will be no lead in our feet. Every last bit of lead will be taken from our feet. Every bit of heaviness from our step.

48:31 And the Scripture says we shall follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Oh, what a precious salve of consolation.

48:41 Ah, you say that's religion for weaklings. You bet your boots it is, my friend, because that's what we are. Weak as water before the devil. Weak as water before our sin.

48:55 weak as water before a seducing world, but more than conquerors through Him who conquered for us and who gives us to share in His conquest and says to Him that overcometh, I will grant to sit down with me in my throne even as I overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne. God has had strange dealings with us as a congregation. He's allowed some of our number to pass through deep waters. Waters which seem to have no bottom and no other shore.

49:32 And we've been called upon to suffer some individually. Some of us to empathize with others who are suffering. Opposition, misunderstanding from relatives, friends. Some of you who are going into the waters of baptism today have already felt the point of the sword of separation.

49:51 from loved ones whom you think would rejoice in your obedience, but instead they would oppose. Oh, dear child of God, here is the salve of consolation. The hour is coming when nothing but the will of Christ will reign in the entire universe. The new heavens and the new earth, and we shall be with Him.

50:12 A few more sighs, a few more tears, a few more disappointments, A few more pains, a few more aches, a few more puzzles and unanswered riddles. And then He shall come. The time to judge the dead shall come. The time to reward thy servants, the great and the small.

50:35 And then the chorus will peel out of heaven. The kingdom is begun. Oh, my friend, do you have half an ounce of grace within you? there's only one thing you can say.

50:48 Even so come, Lord Jesus. Even so come, Lord Jesus. My friend, if that is not the reflex response of your heart, you're like those squatters.

Closing Prayer

51:06 You better get off that territory and flee to Christ before God makes you a monument of His holy and just wrath. May God help us as we ponder this glorious vision of the kingship of Christ to receive its consolation, to be prodded to adoration, and to be admonished to repent and flee to Christ. Let us pray. O Father, what thanks can we render

51:53 that we have in our hands and have been privileged to set before our eyes this morning those things which would never enter into the heart of man except they had been revealed. how we bless you that we know where human history is going. We thank you that we need not consult the so-called fortune tellers nor the great ones of the earth who profess to be able to predict by human wisdom that which the days to come will hold. We bless you that we have a more sure word of prophecy and we thank you that everything in our lives today

52:42 is all leading to that hour when the kingdom shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. God grant that the warning may prove effectual to some who continue to use your gifts and squander them to their own carnal ends. Strike fear to their blinded hearts. Break the chains of the foul fiend of hell, that arch rebel who has led them in the train of his rebellion against your government, O Lord Jesus.

53:18 Conquer them by your grace. Give them such a sight of your glory, your infinite love in dying for sinners, that all of their defenses will melt away. and they with Saul of Tarsus will cry, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Pour in, we pray, the oil of consolation to those of your children who are under unusual affliction.

53:46 O God, come and make this word a word of consolation that will nerve them in the midst of present trial to believe that it will not be long before he that comes will come and shall not tarry. O Father, teach us to be worshipers. Help us to break through the veil of sense and time and in our spirits to join those four and twenty elders prostrate before your throne lost in wonder, love, and praise. hear our prayer and seal the word to our prophet

54:33 and to the praise of your name through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen

54:59 Thank you.