All right, let's pray that we'll get into it. Gracious Father, we thank you for this evening and the privilege that we have to gather together and help us not to take for granted the freedom that we have, the access that we have to your word, the church, the fellowship that we have.

We know, Father God, that these are not things that all our brothers and sisters around the world have free access to. So help us, Lord God, to be good stewards of all that you've given. Help us to be students of your word, to learn, to love, and to cherish it, Lord God, to have it in our hearts, to worship and honor you.

We pray for your blessing over this time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so chapter 19, we're only a chapter away from the millennium. We talked about that from the very beginning, that everything that we've been talking about up to this point is kind of leading, obviously, to the end.

Today's study is about the marriage of the lamb. Well, a portion of it is marriage of the lamb, but everything that God has been doing from the beginning is leading up to this point, that at the very end, it is a consummation of what Christ has done on the cross by bringing the church to himself.

And so when we think about the second coming, he's not just coming to condemn, he's not just coming to bring us to heaven, but ultimately it's a marriage ceremony. So I know we have a lot of weddings at our church, and we have two coming up this weekend. And you know, like those of you who've gone through that or been a part of a wedding, you know the craziness that works up to the wedding ceremony, right?

Especially the last week and the last few days before you get to the wedding ceremony, you know, the great day, you know the chaos, but at the same time, the payoff on the wedding day itself. And so that's kind of how it's been. The craziness starts and then it increases and then it gets utterly chaotic, and we've seen that in chapter 16, 17, and 18, and then chapter 19, we're kind of almost there.

We're not quite there yet, but we're almost there. And then chapter 20, God takes us into the millennium, and then eventually 20, 21, and 22 is going to describe the eternal state, which was all what everything that Christ has done was leading to. So today, Revelation chapter 19 is going to be divided into two parts.

The first part is the praise, the three hallelujahs, right? The kingdom of heaven is breaking out into praise, and then the second part is the three separate visions at the end. And so that's how it's going to be organized tonight. First part of it, if you remember, again, connecting this to chapter 18, chapter 18 was the downfall of Babylon and the judgment, the intense judgment that came upon the world and through the destruction of Babylon.

At the end of chapter 18, if you remember, the Antichrist, thank you. Yeah, the Antichrist and the prophet and the kings, sorry, sorry, the Babylon is thrown into utter destruction. And so chapter 19 is in response to God's judgment, right? And so God's judgment causes people to break out into worship.

So worship is a response in Revelation of God, not just Revelation of God's mercy and grace, God's justice is also reason for worship. So the whole chapter 19 or a big chunk of chapter 19 basically is a response to the revelation of the wrath of God. So again, we typically think that when we break out into praise or worship, we're always praising God about his goodness and about his mercy and his righteousness.

But if you look at the Psalms, a lot of the Psalms is very similar to chapter 19. A lot of the Psalms is praising God for his wrath against the enemies, for his justice and also for righteousness, right? So whenever God himself is revealed, so again, the thing that we need to be cautious about is again, when we just kind of pigeonhole and think like the only time that we worship God is when God is being merciful.

But that's not how the Bible describes worship. Worship is any time God's glory is manifested, whether it is in wrath or it is in mercy. And so we see that in chapter 19, right? His wrath is what initiates this intense worship. So the first hallelujah we see in verse one and two, it says, "After this, I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of the great multitude in heaven crying out, 'Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belongs to our God.

For his judgments are true and just, for he has judged a great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her blood of his servants. Once more, they cried out, 'Hallelujah.'" So verses one and two is the first hallelujah we see, right? Hallelujah literally means praise Yahweh.

You probably have been singing that all, maybe if you grew up in the church all your life, but that's the literal meaning behind it. It's two words, alel and Yahweh. So hallelujah means praise Yahweh. So the first step of the end times is judgment. So when Christ comes, the scripture says the very first thing he's going to do, he's going to judge the righteous and the unrighteous.

And so that's what we see, right? He comes and he judges the world, and as a result of this judging, his people break out in praise. God's glory is revealed in his wrath. So we're going off of, he says, "Salvation and glory and power belongs to our God," right?

And that's the foundation behind the breaking out of worship. So salvation, right, initiated through judgment, God's glory revealed in his wrath, and his power demonstrated by his act. And then he brings it to a close by saying God's judgments are just and true, or true and just. Ultimately, God's judgment alone are true and just.

He's not saying that of all the many other things that are true and just, God's character at its core is true and just. You and I do not have the ability to determine right and wrong. So ultimately, they look at the judgment of God, and they're not looking at the judgment of God and asking, "Is this fair?" They immediately understand that this is just, this is righteous, because only God has the ability to be able to make that determination, right?

And again, we're going to be talking about that later. That's one of the discussion questions that we're going to ask is, "Is hell just?" And that's a common discussion that we have even sometimes among the Christians, "Is God just?" Because we're trying to determine based upon what we know, based upon what we think is fair, is what God doing just?

Is that fair? So this is a praise and worship that's breaking out in context of God's intense judgment upon the world. And the first thing that they recognize, he's true and just. So you and I do not have the ability to be able to judge what is right and what is wrong for two reasons.

One, you and I lack knowledge. We don't have the ability to be able to judge what is right and wrong, even among us, because we don't know everything. We don't know the context. We don't know their heart. We don't know what caused them to get there, right? We don't know why they did it.

All we know is the act itself, right? How many times have you seen something and thought that that's right or wrong, and then later on, having found more knowledge, found out that you were absolutely wrong about the situation, right? You know what I'm talking about? For sake of time, I don't want to get into it, but you and I don't have the ability to determine right or wrong.

Like ultimately, right, because we will always -- we're not omniscient. We can't know all things. We don't know why. If I did this, all we know is how it affects me. But sometimes this may be happening because God has an all bigger plan of something down the road. Just, again, a perfect example of that is Job.

Job, all he sees is the suffering that's coming upon him. He doesn't know the big picture of what God is doing, right? And sometimes God may be doing something to affect what's going on 10 years later, maybe the next generation. We don't know that, right? And so we are not able to judge like perfectly because we lack knowledge.

Secondly, we lack the ability to be unbiased, even if we had the full knowledge. What we consider right or wrong is always based upon my point of view, right? My sins, my pride, my sins ultimately. So I determine what is right and wrong based upon how it affects me.

So because we lack these two things, because of our own personal sins and because of lack of power to know everything, every judgment we make is always going to be flawed to a certain degree, right? Because we do not know everything and because of our own sins. So only God is ultimately just and true.

And so just and true, this worship that's breaking out here is referring to what? His judgment, right? He's not saying his cross, he's not saying about mercy, he's talking about the judgment that's coming upon the world is just and true because only God is able to be omniscient and omnipotent and completely without bias, right?

God is not prejudiced. He deals with sin. And so even in his wrath, he's completely just and true. The second hallelujah we see in verse three to five. Once more they cried out, "Hallelujah, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever." And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne saying, "Amen, hallelujah." And from the throne came a voice saying, "Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him small and great." The smoke clearly is in reference to the judgment of Babylon that we saw in chapter 18, 9 and 18.

At Babylon, the great city was thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. And so again, this praise that's breaking out, again, praising God for what he has done, praising God for the judgment upon Babylon. And then this very common scene that we've seen in Revelations already, the 24 elders again respond with four living creatures in worship.

So in my mind, one of the clear things that Revelation, one of the clear principles that we've seen up to this point, that if I was to illustrate it, I would have two, you know, like in the screen cut in half. The top portion of it would be heaven and the bottom portion of it will be earth.

And the earth is burning, hail, plagues, and people suffering and dying, a third of the earth being wiped out, right, and blood, famine. And that would be the description of the earth that we've seen. And then the top portion of it would be heaven. And in heaven, the scene is again consistent, is a place where there's consistent worship.

God is on the throne, the 24 elders with the four creatures surrounding, holy, holy, holy, right. And that's the consistent scene that we have seen all throughout the book of Revelation, that in the midst of the judgment of God, that God is perfectly in control, right. And so we see that again in all these verses.

And then not only the elders, but the voice from heaven calls out for the rest of creation, all of his servants to praise God, right. So praise for God's judgment is to be repeated on earth as it is in heaven. So as I try to picture heaven in this one particular scene of heaven and earth, Jesus' prayer and told his disciple, this is how you ought to praise it, is that pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, right.

So the work of the church is to bring down what is happening in heaven on earth. God is looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth. So what's happening in heaven, it is what he is seeking down here, right. And so that's the proclamation, that's the command of the voice that comes.

That scene that you have seen up in heaven, what the elders and the creatures are doing, that this is a call to the rest of the world to do as well. And so you probably, again, heard the phrase from John Piper, "Let the nations be God." Evangelism exists because worship does not, right.

If God's ultimate purpose of salvation is to restore worship, if that's what we lost at creation because of the fall, God's primary purpose of evangelism is to restore that worship, right. So what we see in heaven will be repeated on earth. And that's what we're going to see in the millennia.

When Satan is bound, you're going to have a thousand years where Christ himself is going to directly reign, okay. And that's coming in chapter 20. The third hallelujah, we see in verse 6 through 9, "Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, 'Hallelujah!

For the Lord our God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, 'Write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' And he said to me, 'These are the true words of God.'" You can see in the third hallelujah that the praise, at least in the language, it intensifies, right?

It's almost kind of like the music is getting louder and louder, right? The call to worship is growing, it's intensifying. Again, this is where it says, "Like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty praise." Again, the third hallelujah is a call to worship, again, more intensified.

And the praise is specific to the marriage lamb, marriage of the Lamb. And again, as I mentioned, marriage of the Lamb is a picture that we've been given all throughout the New Testament about salvation. So again, we mentioned this many times before, but the purpose of salvation is not to simply save us from hell, right?

That's obviously a huge byproduct of saving us, but the purpose of salvation ultimately described is to bring us in a marriage relationship with Christ, right? So it's a very intimate relationship. So God didn't save us, simply have a legal relationship with him, right? That's why salvation ultimately, glorification is described as a marriage, right?

So every time we have a marriage ceremony, we try to remind the congregation and the people that everything that we're doing in a marriage ceremony is to reflect the marriage supper that's going to happen at the end times. And that's what Christian marriage ultimately is. Everything that we do in a Christian wedding is kind of a playing, right?

So playing what we will ultimately see up in heaven, right? The image depicts the Lord's relationship with his church, and again, we see that over and over, 2 Corinthians 11 too. I feel divine jealousy for you for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

That's why Jonathan Edwards in his book, Religious Affection, he said one of the greatest evidence of salvation is genuine affection for God, right? He said that's the top evidence of salvation. Not if you attend church, not are you, you know, versed in theology and how many verses you memorize and how, you know, how often you evangelize, all of these things can be faked, right?

All of these things can be done in order to please other people, right? To be man pleasers. But he says the greatest evidence of genuine salvation is affection for Christ, right? And that's exactly how it's described. Paul says his purpose of evangelism and salvation was to betroth them to Christ, to have an intimate relationship, to restore what was broken, right?

Ephesians 5.25, again, this is a famous verse that you guys all know, right? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So this is a relationship between Christ and us, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, right?

Not simply to release her from sin's bondage, but to release her for what purpose? So we can be betrothed to him, right? So it doesn't make sense. It's only partially, partial understanding of salvation where we think of salvation as just our penalty for our sins have been paid for, right?

It's been paid for for a reason. Because of that sin, we couldn't be married to Christ. Only way that we could be married to Christ is by paying of that blood. But the purpose of it is to bring us to him, right? And that's how salvation is described. Again, we see the marriage of the lamb.

If you remember, before all the judgments happened, right, what was the first scene? In chapter five? Before the seal judgment happened, what was the first scene that we saw in chapter five? They're all crying because the scrolls were sealed and no one could open it, right? They're weeping. Who's going to open this?

And then they say, "Don't worry, the Lion of Judah is coming." And they turn around. What do they see? The Lamb of God standing there as slain. So the beginning of the judgment started with the Lamb of God. And then at the end of the judgment, it brings us to the Lamb of God, right?

So it's kind of like the bookend, the bookend of the judgments. It begins, he opens the judgments, and then he closes the judgment, okay? So this is an interesting scene here. In John, in verse 10, he's hearing all these fantastic things, and he sees the heavens opening up and praising God.

And then John's response in verse 10, "And then I fell down at my feet to worship him, but he said to me, 'You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to this testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'" Now he's doing this in response of seeing heavens just opened up and praising and worshiping God because of his mighty deeds, because of his judgment, and they see his glory.

And so John basically is overwhelmed by this scene and sees the messenger, the angel, and he naturally is on his knees to worship, right? Remember what worship is? Worship is a reaction when you are confronted by something much greater than you, right? Worship is a reaction. Worship is not something that you tell yourself and say, "You know what?

I'm going to really worship this." You end up worshiping. God has created us to be creatures of worship. So whenever something that you are attracted to, right, something magnificent that's beyond you, we usually, typically, our natural reaction is to worship. So that's what John does. John is in the presence of this messenger who's giving him this fantastic message, and his natural reaction is to bow down and worship, and he gets rebuked for it, right?

Clearly, because this would be a breaking of the top two, top commandment. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And so immediately, right, the angel is not flattered by what he is doing, but it's almost like a panic. "Don't do that," right? "Don't do that. I'm a servant just like you.

You need to worship God and God alone." Now why is this so significant? Because at the core of Satan's rebellion is this, right? At the core of Satan's rebellion is he wanted to be in the place of this angel and have creation worship him. And so this angel stands there and sees John worshiping, and he's not flattered by this.

This is dangerous. He needs to correct him immediately. In fact, you can fill that out, "Worship the messenger rather than the creator," okay? Even though it's only one verse and it kind of says it in passing, this is a very dangerous scene, right? I mean, if you understand the larger redemptive history that this is what triggered all the rebellion, right?

So think about it. In John's perspective, he may have just done it in natural instinct. He didn't think like, "Oh, should I worship this angel?" He just immediately in reaction, because so much fantastic information and vision was coming through this angel, his natural reaction was to worship, right? Now the danger behind it is that it is so subtle.

Because we are creatures of worship, we naturally bow down and honor and adore things that are greater than us, right? You don't think about that. You don't... That's not something calculated. You don't sit there and say, "You know what? I'm going to worship this rather than God." Worship happens, right?

When you are exposed to something that you automatically think like, "Wow, this is awesome," whether it's sports, right, or whether it could be another human being, whatever it may be, when something in your heart is naturally attracted to that and is bigger and greater than you, our natural response is worship, right?

But the danger behind that, right? John himself explains later on in chapter 22, that very scene that we just saw in verse 10, he said, "I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me.

But he said to me, 'You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers in the prophets and with those who keep the words of this book.'" And he says, "Worship God," right? In Colossians 2, 18 and 19, Paul himself warns, "Let no one disqualify you, insisting on cynicism and worship and angels," going on in details about visions popped up without reason by his sensuous mind.

So again, Paul, even when he was writing the New Testament, says there was already a temptation to worship angels, right? And not holding fast to the head, right? Instead of holding fast to the head, and who is the head? Christ, right? Instead of fixing their gaze and worshiping Christ, it was the messengers that they were beginning to worship, right?

Where do you see that temptation in the New Testament? It was causing all kinds of problems. Maybe not in the form of angels, but possibly worshiping the messenger rather than Christ himself. Where do you see that in the New Testament? Corinthians, right? Where all kinds of chaos and division was coming into church because they were saying, "I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Peter," and so they were loyal to the messengers rather than Christ.

And so that was causing all kinds of divisions in the church. And on the surface, it may seem like a godly division, right? Peter was the leader among apostles, so of course we should follow him. Paul was anointed to the Gentiles and all these ministries were happening through Paul and so much fruit was coming through apostle Paul, of course we should follow him.

Apollos was the articulate orator and he was the great speaker and he was probably bearing a lot of fruit whenever he went. Maybe people were being attracted to his preaching, so of course we would follow him, right? It seemed like for godly purposes, but in the end, it was destroying the church.

And that's exactly what he was saying. Instead of holding fast to head, they were worshiping angels. So this is the danger of the Catholic church. The Catholic church subtly takes the power and the glory away from God himself and then you have to go through these mediators, right? They pray through these saints to get to Christ.

And so the danger in that is you start elevating everything other than Christ himself, even though with the intention of getting to Christ, right? Everything that we uphold in place where Christ needs to be eventually ends up becoming an issue, becomes a problem. If there's anything that I learned as a pastor in the last how many years that I've been a pastor, is that God will not share his glory.

He will not share his glory. And if there's any lesson that I need to, like greatest thing that I need to make sure that I don't do is that I touch his glory, right? Whether it's the preaching or whether it's fellowship, whatever I do, if at any time I begin to think to myself, I did this, that is because of me, because of my gifting, I'm in the most dangerous place because my job as a servant is to point to Christ.

So if you fall in love with me, that feels good, right? But it's dangerous. You can have a church filled with people who are magnifying the preacher rather than Christ. So the ultimate goal of preaching is to have you fall in love with Christ, not with the ministry, not with a person.

So it's always dangerous. And I meet people all the time where you talk about theology and they're always quoting people. They quote MacArthur, they quote John Piper, they quote Tim Keller, they quote books that they read, and they're always quoting people, right? And we can talk about, you know, they're excited about this form of Bible study and that form of Bible study and this form of church and that form of church, but it's not affection for Christ, right?

You can talk about things of Christ without talking about Christ, and that's the danger. So even though this is kind of one verse in passing, if you think about the larger picture, this at the core is the rebellion of mankind, giving glory to creation rather than the creator. And so the angel immediately recognizes that and he corrects him or rebukes him.

Do not worship me, worship God, right? Number six, the vision, right? And then after that break, he sees three specific vision. The first vision is the one sitting on the white horse. It's pretty clear that this vision is the vision of Christ of Revelations 1, 12 through 16. Jesus is called faithful and true.

He's faithful to his promises and proven true by his fulfillment, right? He's faithful because everything that he has promised, he fulfills. So ultimately he is faithful and true. I'm not going to read that, but just for your reference, the description that we see of the one sitting on the white horse is the almost exact same description that we saw when Christ was introduced in Revelation chapter 1.

He says he will wage war in righteousness, verse 11. So Jesus came the first time as a humble servant to save, right? And here's the mistake that sometimes the church can make because we have this lasting image of Christ on his knees, washing the feet of the disciples, being crucified, cooking a meal for his disciples before he ascends into heaven because that's what we see in scripture, right?

That's what we see in the gospel. Jesus is not in his glorified state when he ascends into heaven. But the picture that we see of Christ in heaven is not that humble servant. It's the picture that we saw in Revelation chapter 1. That's the present state of Christ. Even in Philippians chapter 2, remember he says he's humble, right?

He took on a human form. He humbled himself even to the point of death on the cross. And as a result of that, right, he will be exalted. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And so his reward for his humility, God exalts him.

So he's in an exalted state, right? And so when we talk about one of the foundational books that we read is lordship salvation, right, is that a lot of people have this mentality that when you get saved, now you have Christ for the rest of your life serving you, right?

He wants you to have your best life now. He wants you, what do you desire? And then you pray, and then God answers your prayer. And so not that any of that is wrong, but fundamentally, fundamentally you have a wrong view of Christ, right? We serve him. He doesn't serve us, right?

So he comes the second time, not as a humble servant, but as a conquering king, a warrior. He will come as a king of kings and the Lord of lords. So if people had this image of the servant Christ who's going to come and wash our feet, not that he won't, but that is not the image that we are seeing, we are shown in the scripture.

He's going to come as a conquering king, right, in his full glory. Says the writer's name is the word of God. And he's the word of God because in Revelation chapter, Hebrews chapter 1, 3, he's revealed as God's revelation. So Jesus himself said, if you want to know, it is not what you put into a man, but what comes out of a man that defiles him, right?

Because it reveals what's in his heart. So the words are the revelation of that person. So the scripture describes Christ as his word. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and word was God. Who's that in reference to? Jesus, right? Jesus himself is called God's word.

The reason why he's God's word is because the words are the revelation of who God is. Christ is a physical revelation of who God is, right? John 1, 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glorious of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.

So God revealed himself through visions and through prophets, but in the last days, how does God reveal himself? Through his son, right? Where before he sent messengers saying, this is who God is. Had prophets saying that this is what God told me to tell you. Where in the New Testament, Jesus himself is the word, right?

The direct word of God, he's revealed. Does that make sense? Before we got, basically you're playing, you know, it's not tag. Is it called word tag? When one person says something, the other person says something? You know what I'm talking about, right? So basically in the Old Testament, that's how we knew God.

God spoke through his servants. God spoke through visions. He spoke through his spokespeople, but in the New Testament, God himself comes as the word, right? So what we see in Christ is the clearest revelation of God himself, and that's why he's called the word of God. First John 1, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our heads concerning the word of life.

So Christ comes as the word. God's word himself comes, and we are able to not only hear him, but see him, right? Again the verse that I quoted, Hebrews 1, 3, he is the radiance of the glory of God, right? So if you've seen Christ, what does he say?

Remember the disciples asked, just show us the father. And what does, remember what Jesus said? If you have seen me, you have seen him, right? He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprints of his nature, and he opposed the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for his sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So Christ himself is a revelation, right? The word of God. And then he says, he's going to come, treading on winepress of the fury of the wrath of God, which is prophesied in Isaiah 63, 1 to 3.

Basically you see the crushing of the wine, right? Which, again, let me read, Isaiah 63, 1 to 3. Who is this who comes from Edom in crimson garments from Bozrah? He who is splendid in his apparel, marching the greatness of his strength. It is I speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.

Why is your apparel red and your garments like his who treads on in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood splattered on my garments and stained all my apparel.

So again, the final vision that we see is Christ riding on the white horse, right? And he's come to declare war, right? The final and great war. And at that, his judgment is going to be like crushing of wine. It's going to be completely crushed. And so you see the picture of the grapes just bursting.

And so that's the picture. So again, this is a description, right? Oh, I thought I was at the end. I'm not at the end. Okay, the vision of the angel standing in the sun calling for birds to devour the flesh of all things. This is a vision that points to utter destruction and rebellion.

So when you see the corpse lying on the ground and the birds coming, basically there's so much destruction, so much death that they don't have time to bury their dead. Their line is kind of like if you ever see a war movie and you see bodies laying down, you know, there's so much death that the birds just come and attack.

And that's the scene that is described at the end, right? Let me just read Jeremiah 7.33. "And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away." So all of this is prophesied in the Old Testament.

And then the final vision of the beast and the earthly king. The beast, we've already studied, that is the Antichrist, and he rules the greatest kingdom and Christ is going to come and crush him. Kings of the earth, we saw that the ten kings that represent the ten horns that follows the Antichrist, and they will also be crushed.

And their final state is the Lake of Fire. It is the first place that is mentioned, first place that's mentioned in Revelation, and the beast and the kings will be thrown in it. And this description of this Lake of Fire we see in Isaiah 66.24, "They shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me, for their worms shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be abhorrents to all flesh." Again in Matthew 25.41, "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire, prepare for the devil and his angels.'" All who rebelled against God and followed these demonic forces, they shall all be cursed.

Mark 9.48, "Where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." Again this is a direct quote from Isaiah 66. So this is the end of man's rebellion. It's not the final end because there's a thousand year reign of Christ and after that there's going to be the final judgment, the great white throne judgment before we enter into eternity.

But this is the judgment that takes place and then you'll see in chapter 20 where Antichrist and the kingdoms and Babylon, all of them has been destroyed. So the only rebellion that's left is Satan himself and Satan is bound and you'll see that in chapter 20. He's bound for a thousand years and after the thousand years he will be let go for a period to purify, so to deceive and then at the very end of that he's going to throw Satan into hell for eternity and then those who rebelled even in the thousand years will also follow him.

So there's going to be a second purification before they enter into eternity. So again that's chapter 20, 21, and 22. So we're very close to the end. Discussion questions for today. Again when you see the scene in heaven, ultimately God's purpose of everything that he's doing is to restore worship.

So our very first vision in the church is to have God-centered worship and not man-centered. So God's ultimate goal in your life is to restore what was lost at the fall, God's image in us to worship. So there's nothing, we could say biblically there's nothing more important in your life than worship and there's no greater worship that you give to God than your corporate worship where the whole body of Christ comes together.

So Sunday worship should be taken very seriously because that's the ultimate purpose of salvation is to restore us into that worship. So what we do on Sunday is a reflection of what we do in eternity. So yes private worship is important but what we will do in heaven is ultimately is a reflection of what we do on Sunday.

So therefore again I want to highly encourage you guys. I know that we are blessed to be able to travel and to do various things but I think it is unwise and unbiblical to see Sunday worship as an option. And I know some of you guys work on Sunday and so you might have to go to worship at night time or you might have to find some other options but corporate worship is not something that you can just kind of have when you can and not when you don't want to.

So we highly encourage you even if you are traveling to do your best to find corporate worship somewhere. Now having said that just attending worship doesn't make it good worship. Basically showing up on Sunday doesn't mean you came to worship. Worship is something that happens in spirit and in truth.

So the first question is what helps and hinders your Sunday worship? You may say well maybe the air conditioning, parking, or the preaching or the singing, whatever it may be. But we are talking about you specifically. Something that you can control. What helps and hinders? What are some of the things that you are engaged in that helps you to worship God on Sunday?

What are some things that you are engaged in that doesn't help you? I know some people, especially you collegians, there's no collegians here. I know some of the collegians, they are in a habit of sleeping at 4 or 5 in the morning and then they wake up at 10 o'clock to come and worship and then they are just out of it and I know who they are because I see it from up here.

So that's a habit that needs to be broken. So if you are in a habit of like yeah you know all we have to do tomorrow is Sunday worship so therefore I don't have to be 100%. If Sunday worship is the most important thing that you are doing throughout the week, shouldn't that get your most undivided attention?

So I'm not saying that you can't do this on Saturday, you shouldn't stay out late, I'm not saying that you can't do that, that's a judgment you need to make. But if you are regularly in a habit of coming into worship, just dragging yourself in, tell me that doesn't affect your spiritual life.

Tell me that doesn't affect your affection for God and your fellowship and building up for the kingdom and evangelism it does. Because at the core of what we do is worship. So your private prayer life, fellowship, building, evangelism, all of that, the foundation of all of that is worship.

So if you have a biblical worship as your foundation it will affect your Bible reading, it will affect your fellowship, it will affect your marriage, it will affect everything else. So that's the first question. Second, in what way has Jesus proven to be faithful and true in your life personally?

And I'm not talking about world affairs, I'm not talking about someone else's life, but you personally, how has God proven to be faithful and true in your life? Thirdly, some argue, and this is a question I brought up before, some argue that literal hell is unfair when compared to the brevity of our lives.

So the typical argument, this is, you know, like sometimes Christians, even Christians will argue, you know, our sins are committed during a limited period of our life, 70 years, 80 years, no matter how long we live, but punishment is eternal. How is that fair? Right? And so a lot of debate happens because of that question.

But clearly, don't twist what the Word of God says. The Word of God clearly says it is eternal. The Word of God clearly says that it's going to be quenching the gnashing of teeth. So the description of hell is clear. So let me encourage you. When we did hermeneutics, I went through this before, but when we discuss about things that are difficult to understand, you have to separate between exegesis and philosophy.

So the order in which it has authority is one is exegesis. What does the Bible say? Right? But sometimes when we have a hard time understanding what it says, we start to twist what it says. Oh, it can't mean this. It doesn't mean that. And then all of a sudden, because you have a hard time putting God's sovereignty and man's free will together, so therefore this must not be, and then you start reinterpreting what the scripture says.

Okay? So first, exegesis. What does it say? Don't change what it says because it's hard for you to understand. Second level is historical theology. Historical theology is what is the theology that's been passed down to us, right? Meaning generation to generation, the church fathers, the denominations, what is the consistent doctrine of hell, again, hell as an example, that has been passed down to us, that's been tested, argued, written, right?

Exegeted, preached on throughout the generation. So we can't ignore that. That's not the final authority, but it has to have some authority in our life because it's been passed down to us. So exegesis is always on the top. What does the Bible say? And then compare that to historical theology, right?

I skipped something, systematic theology. Systematic theology is basically a compilation of exegesis, right? All right. For the purpose of my argument, let's skip that for now. So exegesis, systematic theology, historical theology, and then it's philosophical theology. Philosophical theology, here's a theology that clearly is stated in scripture, systematically it's talked about and taught and all throughout scripture, it's consistent teaching.

Historically, this is the theology that we've been given from generation to generation, right? So philosophical theology is how do we understand this? How do we make sense of this? Do you understand what I'm saying? So you can't go from your authority cannot be, your final authority cannot be do I understand it or not understand it.

Does that make sense? You can't reject theology based upon does it make sense to you? Does it seem fair to you? Is it logical to you? That's a philosophical argument, right? Because the authority of God's word does not depend upon you understanding or not understanding it. The authority of the Bible comes to us does God, did God say it or not say it, right?

If God told Jeremiah to lie on his side for 360 days, Jeremiah doesn't say why should I do that? I don't get why you're doing that, right? God calls Isaiah to go preach to people who are not going to listen. He doesn't say well that doesn't make any sense, why would you do that?

All he asks is are you the Lord? And if you're the Lord then I obey. I don't understand it but I obey, right? So what I'm asking you to argue or to talk about is philosophical, right? This is a philosophical argument of how do we understand this? What is already written, clearly written in scripture, systematically has been proven, historically has been given to us, how do we reconcile this, right?

You understand my question? Okay, so I want to set that as a base so that your argument doesn't go all over the place and then the end result is, ah we don't believe in him, right? I want to make sure that that's not where this discussion goes because the Bible does clearly teach that and historically that's the doctrine we've been given, okay?

All right, let me pray for us and then I'll release you to your small groups. Gracious Father, we ask Lord God that you bless the time of our discussion. Help us to be open, be honest, even with our lack of faith, some things that are hard to believe, help us Lord God to be honest so that our faith may be genuine.

Help us not to live by fear of man but to fear you. We ask Lord God that you bless the time of discussion, help us to clearly understand that we may sharpen one another and so we entrust this time to you Lord, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.