General Session 11: Triumph through Preeminence - Steve Lawson
00:00:00.000 | There's really nothing else to say except take your Bible and turn with me to the book
00:00:10.440 | of Revelation, Revelation chapter 19.
00:00:17.200 | I want to speak to you on the triumph of the King.
00:00:23.320 | Revelation chapter 19, I want to begin reading in verse 11, and we'll look at through verse
00:00:33.160 | 16.
00:00:36.920 | "And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse.
00:00:48.700 | And he who sat on it is called faithful and true.
00:00:58.580 | And in righteousness he judges and makes war.
00:01:08.040 | His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems.
00:01:18.360 | And he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself.
00:01:27.620 | He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.
00:01:39.740 | And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, are following
00:01:51.180 | him on white horses.
00:01:55.540 | From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations.
00:02:07.820 | And he will rule them with a rod of iron.
00:02:13.960 | And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.
00:02:25.640 | And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."
00:02:43.020 | In these verses, we see the return of Jesus Christ and the cataclysmic judgment He will
00:02:50.460 | unleash upon this world with all the fury that belongs to Him.
00:02:59.780 | This day of devastation is looming on the horizon, and we have never been so close to
00:03:07.560 | this final day as we are this very moment.
00:03:14.280 | It is fast approaching, faster than any of us realize here today.
00:03:22.420 | Jesus is returning to take back the planet.
00:03:29.820 | He is coming back to take back that which is rightfully His.
00:03:37.420 | And He will not be a meek and lowly Jesus who is coming.
00:03:44.060 | Instead, it will be an angry and avenging Jesus coming to wage war with those who have
00:03:55.580 | lived in open rebellion against Him.
00:04:01.020 | And none will escape the devastation of His judgment in that day.
00:04:08.660 | This planet is spinning through space and is on a collision course with judgment from
00:04:16.660 | this Christ.
00:04:18.620 | And it is inescapable how different it will be in that day when compared to the first
00:04:26.340 | time He came.
00:04:29.220 | This time He will not be riding a lowly donkey, but He will be riding a white stallion.
00:04:39.340 | This time He will not be wearing a crown of thorns, but He will be wearing many diadems.
00:04:46.720 | This time He will not lay down His life for many.
00:04:50.860 | Instead, He will take the lives of many.
00:04:55.700 | And this time He will not be struck across His face with fists, but He will smite the
00:05:03.260 | nations with an iron fist.
00:05:09.180 | How different it will be in that day when Jesus Christ comes back.
00:05:15.780 | The prophet Isaiah saw this day coming when the divine warrior will burst onto the scene.
00:05:27.860 | Isaiah 59, verse 15, "Now the Lord saw," meaning He saw the world scene at the end of the age.
00:05:38.780 | The Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.
00:05:50.560 | So He put on righteousness like a breastplate.
00:05:56.540 | And He put on a helmet of salvation on His head.
00:06:01.120 | And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing.
00:06:07.040 | And He wrapped Himself, Isaiah records, with zeal like a mantle according to their deeds,
00:06:17.740 | so He will repay wrath to His adversaries and recompense to His enemies.
00:06:27.480 | The Lord Himself will put on the full armor of God, and He will come back in battle attire.
00:06:39.180 | And He will shed the blood of His enemies and then stuff them into hell.
00:06:48.360 | In these verses, the apostle John captures for us the triumph of the King, the one who
00:06:56.660 | will have the last word of human history, the one who will bring it all together to
00:07:02.700 | its consummation.
00:07:05.260 | Martin Luther said, "I only have two days on my calendar, today and that day."
00:07:12.900 | You need to have that day on your calendar because this day is coming.
00:07:22.020 | So I want us to walk through this passage, and I want us to take note of what that day
00:07:31.180 | will be like.
00:07:34.340 | I want you to note first, in verse 11, the appearing of Christ.
00:07:40.720 | When Jesus returns, as we will see here in verse 11, it will not be to offer an olive
00:07:47.820 | branch.
00:07:50.020 | It will not be to make a peace settlement.
00:07:54.060 | It will not be to negotiate with His enemies.
00:07:57.860 | It will not be to give a second chance.
00:08:01.980 | He will come back, and He will wage war, and there will be no survivors.
00:08:11.860 | Verse 11 we read, "And I saw heaven opened."
00:08:16.300 | It's not the first time we've seen this in the book of Revelation.
00:08:19.520 | Earlier in chapter 4, verse 1, John saw a door open in heaven, and a voice said, "Come
00:08:26.220 | up here."
00:08:27.220 | And John is catapulted out of his body in this vision into the inner courts of heaven,
00:08:33.460 | and he sees the throne of God and Him who sat upon it.
00:08:40.660 | In that sense, the door was open to let John in, but now heaven is open to let Jesus out.
00:08:53.260 | I saw heaven opened, "Behold," meaning see this, gaze at this, do not blink your eyes,
00:09:02.460 | capture this in your mind, "Behold, a white horse."
00:09:07.900 | A conquering Roman general would return from the battlefield victorious, and he would come
00:09:17.420 | marching back into Rome on top of this white horse, and it would be the triumph procession,
00:09:26.220 | and behind him would be his generals, and behind him would be his soldiers, his foot
00:09:31.700 | soldiers, and behind him would be the spoils of victory that they had taken from nations
00:09:37.500 | that were conquered, and then the defeated foes would be chained to chariots and drugged
00:09:43.700 | through the streets as the Roman general would return back to Rome.
00:09:53.580 | John sees Jesus on a white horse, not in order to come back from battle, but just the opposite,
00:10:08.900 | to head into battle.
00:10:13.220 | And he who sat on it, Jesus, the divine warrior, he who sat on it is called faithful and true.
00:10:25.880 | Faithful here meaning trustworthy or reliable, a man of his word, and he is faithful to his
00:10:33.620 | promise to wage war.
00:10:37.300 | He is faithful to his promise to fight all unrighteousness and to defeat all ungodliness.
00:10:47.820 | These promises that have been made throughout the pages of Scripture were no idle threats.
00:10:55.500 | They were no bluffs.
00:10:58.340 | Jesus now will be the executor of divine judgment on this entire planet.
00:11:06.820 | He is faithful to keep these threatening words.
00:11:13.060 | Psalm 96, verse 13, "The Lord is coming to judge the earth.
00:11:21.820 | He will judge the earth in righteousness."
00:11:26.540 | And in Psalm 98, verse 9, "The Lord is coming to judge the earth.
00:11:33.920 | He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity."
00:11:39.720 | There will not be one drop of mercy in that day.
00:11:43.980 | There will be no patience, no compassion, no love.
00:11:47.540 | It will be sheer, unvarnished righteousness and equity in that day.
00:11:55.380 | Joel chapter 2, verse 1, "Blow a trumpet in Zion.
00:12:01.600 | Sound an alarm on my holy mountain.
00:12:04.880 | Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.
00:12:12.920 | Surely it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.
00:12:19.960 | There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it."
00:12:29.200 | Oh, there was an initial fulfillment in the day of Joel, but this points to the end, to
00:12:34.680 | the ultimate fulfillment, the coming of the day of the Lord, which will be consummated
00:12:39.800 | in the return of Jesus Christ as He comes now to enter into battle with His enemies.
00:12:49.480 | His name is faithful, and it is true.
00:12:56.040 | The word "true" means authentic, genuine, real.
00:12:59.400 | No, He is the real executor and avenger of the honor of His Father.
00:13:10.320 | And He is coming, verse 11 says, "in righteousness."
00:13:13.680 | The word "righteousness" means inflexible justice.
00:13:20.480 | It means unbending equity.
00:13:23.440 | It means an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
00:13:27.440 | So much sin, so much punishment.
00:13:30.780 | It will be all justice and no mercy in that day.
00:13:35.880 | And He will come and unleash the full fury of His vengeance upon this sin-sick world
00:13:43.680 | of reprobates, and in righteousness He judges.
00:13:54.320 | The word "judges" means to separate, to separate the wheat from the tares, to separate the
00:14:01.000 | vile from the pure, and to render judgment and condemnation upon sinners.
00:14:10.560 | In this day, no living unbeliever will escape this day of judgment.
00:14:20.760 | Mark it down.
00:14:21.760 | No sin committed in the history of the world will go unpunished by this divine warrior.
00:14:30.760 | No sin will ever be swept under the carpet.
00:14:33.960 | No sin will ever be hidden in a corner.
00:14:37.320 | Every sin in the history of the world will be brought out.
00:14:42.920 | And every sin will either be punished in hell or punished in Christ upon the cross.
00:14:53.520 | But not one sin will escape the full curse of the law.
00:15:04.400 | In righteousness, He judges, verse 11, and wages war.
00:15:17.920 | Because war is one word in the original, and it means to fight violently with the intent
00:15:26.880 | to inflict great harm and destruction.
00:15:32.520 | It means to enter into battle and to fight to the end.
00:15:41.100 | This is not a happy Jesus who's coming back.
00:15:48.400 | This is an angry Jesus.
00:15:51.400 | I'm sure you've seen the advertising campaign, "He Gets Us."
00:15:59.200 | Oh, He's going to get us.
00:16:08.200 | He's going to shish-kebab us.
00:16:13.320 | It presents some liberal, woke Jesus, another Jesus.
00:16:20.840 | Listen, either Jesus redeems us and reconciles us and forgives us and saves us, or He judges
00:16:31.200 | us and condemns us and damns us and torments us.
00:16:37.080 | There is no other option.
00:16:39.160 | If He does not save you, He will slaughter you.
00:16:45.000 | This is the appearing of Christ.
00:16:49.160 | And this world has never seen anything like the holocaust that is looming on the horizon
00:16:58.960 | that will be executed by this Christ.
00:17:02.240 | Second, I want you to see the authority of Jesus.
00:17:07.480 | In verse 12, as Jesus returns, He sees the world seen perfectly for what it is.
00:17:15.400 | He doesn't misinterpret what's going on here on the planet.
00:17:20.160 | He doesn't miss anything.
00:17:21.720 | He sees everything perfectly for what it is.
00:17:25.600 | Nothing goes unnoticed or unseen by Jesus.
00:17:30.640 | In verse 12, His eyes are a flame of fire.
00:17:36.920 | They're like two blazing torches that are flashing forth from His head, burning through
00:17:45.800 | every external facade, not just seeing into everyone and into every situation, but actually
00:17:53.080 | seeing through with x-ray vision, all sin exposed.
00:18:05.480 | Hebrews 4 verse 13 says, "All things are open and laid bare before the eyes of Him
00:18:11.440 | with whom we have to do."
00:18:17.880 | And on His head are many diadems, many meaning great number, not a couple, not a few.
00:18:30.720 | Diadems just stacked up to the heights of heaven upon His head.
00:18:36.640 | Diadem is a symbol of absolute sovereignty.
00:18:40.960 | These are not stephanoses that would be given to the victor of an athletic contest.
00:18:47.280 | No, these are diadems that would rest upon the head of a sovereign king.
00:18:57.380 | But please note it says "many diadems," just stacked up one on top of another.
00:19:06.480 | This indicates unlimited sovereignty.
00:19:09.680 | A unilateral sovereignty, unimaginable sovereignty.
00:19:16.720 | There can be no successful resistance against this king.
00:19:25.120 | Matthew 28 verse 18, Jesus said, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth."
00:19:37.040 | There is no authority but the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as it has been handed
00:19:42.320 | to Him by the Father, and He now becomes the mediator of the Father's sovereignty over
00:19:47.500 | all the created order.
00:19:51.000 | The word "authority," exousia, means "out of self."
00:19:56.820 | He is dependent upon nothing or no one outside of Himself, and everyone and everything is
00:20:01.800 | dependent upon Him.
00:20:03.920 | And within Himself, He has the freedom to choose to speak and to act as He pleases.
00:20:11.860 | He has the right to do whatsoever He so chooses.
00:20:18.200 | It says "all authority."
00:20:22.200 | Even authorities that governments have is a delegated authority that has come from the
00:20:28.060 | one who has all authority.
00:20:30.300 | Even the authority of a parent over a child has come from the one who has all authority
00:20:35.240 | in heaven and earth.
00:20:39.320 | It is unrestricted exercise of His will, total and complete dominance over everyone and everything
00:20:50.680 | in every place.
00:20:52.200 | There is no place that is outside the jurisdiction of His sovereignty.
00:21:00.280 | This sovereignty extends over believers and unbelievers, as the potter over the clay.
00:21:10.300 | It is over Satan and demons.
00:21:12.140 | As Martin Luther once said, "The devil is God's devil."
00:21:17.120 | Over circumstances and outcomes, over life and death, over heaven and hell, over world
00:21:22.320 | empires and dynasties, over kings and paupers, over big events and small occurrences, over
00:21:28.500 | human minds and human hearts and human wills, there is no place outside of His authority.
00:21:35.560 | As Abraham Kuyper once said, "There is not one square inch of all creation," but that
00:21:42.460 | he says, "mine."
00:21:48.620 | That's how sovereign he is.
00:21:52.700 | But it's more than you and I can even comprehend.
00:21:57.660 | For he goes on to say in verse 2, "And he has a name written on him which no one knows
00:22:02.980 | except himself."
00:22:06.900 | That means he possesses incomprehensible sovereignty, far beyond what you and I can even grasp at
00:22:18.300 | this moment.
00:22:21.420 | However sovereign you perceive Jesus Christ to be, it falls woefully short of the reality
00:22:29.900 | of what it is.
00:22:32.820 | It is an inconceivable sovereignty that is impossible for any human mind to grasp the
00:22:40.660 | full extent of His sovereignty.
00:22:45.540 | Only Jesus Himself and the Father and the Spirit can know how sovereign He is.
00:22:58.460 | Creation is not run by a democracy.
00:23:02.200 | It is run by a theocracy.
00:23:05.460 | This world is not run by democracy.
00:23:10.100 | This world is run by a theocracy, the will of one who towers over all of creation and
00:23:18.380 | who will bring everything to its appointed end.
00:23:24.860 | Third, see the anger of Jesus.
00:23:31.620 | In verse 13, as Jesus bursts onto the scene, He is filled with holy rage and righteous
00:23:45.620 | indignation.
00:23:50.340 | Verse 13, He is clothed with a robe, the same robe that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6, the train
00:24:00.920 | of His robe filling the temple.
00:24:05.580 | Here this robe that is worn by Christ in His return is dipped in blood, literally baptized
00:24:19.060 | in blood, bapto, literally immersed in blood, soaked in blood, drenched in blood, every
00:24:29.800 | square inch of it.
00:24:33.940 | And it's not His own blood.
00:24:37.780 | It is the blood of His enemies, and it pictures the certainty of the coming slaughter upon
00:24:47.140 | His arrival.
00:24:49.820 | He's coming back as the killer King.
00:24:56.100 | The Apostle Paul describes this same scene in 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 7.
00:25:05.300 | The Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing
00:25:16.500 | out retribution to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
00:25:23.280 | These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction.
00:25:30.380 | It will be like a ball of fire descending out of heaven and crashing upon this earth
00:25:40.460 | and then flaming this entire evil world system and every unbeliever.
00:25:50.660 | Again, Isaiah saw this day back in Isaiah 63, and verses 1 through 3, in Isaiah 63,
00:26:03.300 | it's a Q&A, a question, then an answer, a question, and then an answer.
00:26:10.500 | In verse 1, the first question, "Who is this who comes from Eden, whose garments of glowing
00:26:22.260 | colors with bozrah, this One who is majestic in His apparel, marching in the greatness
00:26:32.100 | of His strength?
00:26:33.700 | Who is this who is approaching this planet?"
00:26:40.020 | Answer, at the end of verse 1, "Christ Himself speaks.
00:26:48.300 | It is I who speaks in righteousness, mighty to save."
00:26:58.660 | Verse 2, second question, "Why is your apparel red and your garments like the one who treads
00:27:12.340 | in the winepress?
00:27:14.660 | Why are your robes stained with blood?"
00:27:20.300 | Answer in verse 3, "Jesus, the Messiah, speaks.
00:27:26.440 | I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me."
00:27:36.180 | I mean, who else could be the executor of judging the entire planet and damning the
00:27:43.500 | entire planet but this One who's coming whose garments are stained in red?
00:27:52.940 | I have trod them in My anger.
00:27:57.120 | And the word "anger" here in the Hebrew means "the nostril."
00:28:01.460 | And the idea is the heavy breathing of Christ when He comes back like a snorting bull.
00:28:12.860 | The intensity of His anger that has been building up for these many centuries that will finally
00:28:21.380 | be unleashed.
00:28:24.900 | I have trod them in My anger and trampled them in My fury.
00:28:32.500 | And the word "fury" here in the Hebrew means "heated rage," red-hot rage.
00:28:42.780 | And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment.
00:28:51.060 | Verse 4, "For the day of vengeance was in My heart."
00:28:58.140 | Verse 6, "I trod down the peoples in My anger and made them drunk in My wrath.
00:29:10.700 | And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth."
00:29:20.860 | Never apologize for this Jesus.
00:29:27.020 | There is no dark side to Jesus.
00:29:33.780 | God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.
00:29:37.380 | Look at John 1, verse 5, "Never withhold this Christ from your people as you preach."
00:29:48.780 | Here are sinners in the hands of an angry Christ.
00:29:55.300 | And He is angry beyond human comprehension because He is holy, holy, holy.
00:30:08.460 | Verse 13, "And His name is called the Word of God."
00:30:14.500 | This means that Jesus is the full expression and perfect revelation of all that God is
00:30:22.940 | to mankind.
00:30:25.380 | Colossians 1:15, "He is the image of the invisible God."
00:30:30.300 | Jesus is the outspokenness of the Father, not only in mercy but in wrath.
00:30:43.060 | The full fury of God's righteous anger will be mediated by the Son in this day.
00:30:55.540 | On this day, it will be the dam break of divine vengeance upon this world.
00:31:06.140 | Jonathan Edwards in that sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," 1741 Enfield,
00:31:16.860 | among the many images that he used, he used the image of a river of wrath that is flowing
00:31:25.860 | out of heaven to unbelievers in this world.
00:31:32.300 | And right now, this river of wrath, eternal wrath, is being dammed up by His mercy.
00:31:43.340 | And it is being held back by His grace.
00:31:49.860 | But the longer this river of wrath is flowing and it is being dammed up, it is intensifying
00:32:00.820 | in the force of the flow of the wrath.
00:32:05.540 | And Edwards said there is a day coming when God will remove the dam of His mercy, and
00:32:11.220 | this pent-up wrath of God in full measure will literally devour mankind and this planet
00:32:20.300 | on this day.
00:32:25.340 | His name is called the Word of God.
00:32:33.580 | He is the perfect revelation and the full manifestation of the wrath of God upon this
00:32:43.460 | planet.
00:32:47.140 | You and I are living on a doomed planet.
00:32:54.060 | Fourth, in verse 14, the armies of Jesus.
00:33:07.940 | Jesus does not return alone, but with myriads of myriads, which means ten thousands of ten
00:33:15.780 | thousands, and thousands of thousands surrounding Him.
00:33:23.820 | What a display of power and strength and authority this is, with all of the redeemed of all of
00:33:32.100 | the ages galloping behind this One who sits on a white horse.
00:33:38.860 | Verse 14, "And the armies which are in heaven," please note "armies" plural, "vast numbers
00:33:46.340 | in His armies, all under Christ's command."
00:33:53.340 | These are the glorified saints down through the ages, and here is the church triumphant,
00:34:01.740 | and the church militant.
00:34:06.420 | And they are clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
00:34:13.060 | We know earlier from verse 8 that they are retired in their righteous deeds.
00:34:22.860 | And they were following Him on white horses, ready for battle, coming for victory, stampeding
00:34:35.300 | onto the scene of human history, coming behind their general, the captain of the Lord of
00:34:43.060 | hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:34:48.460 | They serve at His beckoning call, and this one day will be you and me, here all the saints
00:34:57.380 | from all of the ages, dressed in battle attire and full military dress.
00:35:06.420 | And in the battles of this world, the foot soldiers go first, and the general comes in
00:35:13.780 | behind for safety and protection.
00:35:17.820 | But in this day, it will be the total opposite.
00:35:20.820 | It will be the general who will lead the troops into battle, and these armies will not even
00:35:28.100 | lift a finger to fight, because the King will do the fighting, and the King will win the
00:35:37.860 | battle by Himself.
00:35:45.340 | In verse 15, we see the attack of Christ.
00:35:50.460 | I mean, Jesus does more than just show up.
00:35:57.500 | He comes in full attack mode.
00:36:02.820 | And in verse 15, there are three images, all drawn from the Old Testament, and one built
00:36:12.940 | on the next, built on the next.
00:36:16.980 | It is a terrifying sight of horrific judgment.
00:36:24.900 | In verse 15, the first image is a sharp sword.
00:36:35.940 | From His mouth comes a sharp sword.
00:36:42.580 | This word for "sword" is the long, broad sword.
00:36:49.180 | John Knox had one to protect George Hwysart when he was his assistant in the preaching
00:36:53.780 | ministry in Scotland.
00:36:55.060 | It's a long, broad sword.
00:36:57.460 | It's not a little pocketknife.
00:37:01.060 | And from His mouth, from what He says, comes a sharp sword.
00:37:08.340 | It is an instrument of warfare.
00:37:11.060 | It is an instrument used to slay and kill one's enemies.
00:37:17.380 | Remember in John 18, verses 5 through 8, when Jesus is in the garden, and Judas leads the
00:37:24.660 | cohort of Roman soldiers and the Jewish leaders to the garden of Gethsemane, and He says,
00:37:31.180 | "Whom do you look for?"
00:37:32.180 | And He says, or they say, "Jesus of Nazareth."
00:37:37.620 | And Jesus simply says, "I am."
00:37:41.220 | "Ego eimi," "I am."
00:37:44.820 | And just the mere mention of His name, they all fall backwards to the ground.
00:37:53.700 | Here this is the same, but it'll be 10,000 times 10,000 times 10,000.
00:37:59.780 | When He speaks, it is with a sharp sword.
00:38:04.860 | Why?
00:38:06.620 | Why does He speak this way?
00:38:09.380 | "So that it," this broad sword, "may smite down the nations."
00:38:21.300 | The word "smite" means to beat them down into submission, to crush them.
00:38:32.220 | And as it were, with this sharp two-edged sword, to slit the throat of every one of
00:38:37.500 | His enemies, and then stuff them down into hell, so that He might smite the nations.
00:38:51.580 | Russia will not get away with it.
00:38:55.260 | Hamas will not get away with it.
00:38:59.740 | Iran and Iraq will not get away with it.
00:39:03.620 | Canada will not get away with it.
00:39:07.020 | The United States will not get away with it.
00:39:10.380 | The Democrats will not get away with it.
00:39:13.660 | The Republicans will not get away with it.
00:39:16.740 | The abortion clinics will not get away with it.
00:39:19.620 | The pornography industry will not get away with it.
00:39:24.220 | Hollywood will not get away with it.
00:39:26.940 | Disney will not get away with it.
00:39:29.700 | Washington will not get away with it.
00:39:32.540 | The Republic of California will not get away with it.
00:39:37.820 | He will smite the nations and utterly destroy them, because they are vile in His eyes.
00:39:51.980 | And then the second metaphor, the second Old Testament allusion in the middle of verse
00:39:57.380 | 15, "And He will rule them," literally, "He will tend to them with a rod of iron," another
00:40:11.760 | instrument used to destroy another object and to smash it into so many pieces that it
00:40:17.780 | could never be put back together again.
00:40:22.780 | And this imagery is found in Psalm 2, verse 8, as the Father urges the Son, even commands
00:40:30.740 | the Son, "Ask of Me," the Father says to the Son, "Ask of Me, Son, and I will surely give
00:40:40.820 | the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession."
00:40:49.420 | To do what?
00:40:52.620 | Verse 9, the Father commands the Son, "You shall break them with a rod of iron.
00:41:01.780 | You shall shatter them like earthenware."
00:41:07.580 | The Father commands the Son, who is the Word of God, to be the mediator of His wrath, to
00:41:14.060 | be unleashed upon all the nations, all the nations, all the nations of the world.
00:41:22.860 | This is a devastating picture that God the Father commands God the Son to destroy and
00:41:32.620 | damn the nations.
00:41:37.480 | And then there's a third Old Testament reference, there's a third image, and He, the Messiah,
00:41:46.500 | the returning divine warrior, treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.
00:42:05.260 | He treads the winepress.
00:42:07.400 | He tramples down underfoot.
00:42:12.840 | The imagery is from ancient times when grapes would be gathered from the vineyard and brought
00:42:19.600 | to a trough and put into the basin of the trough, and then the farmer would remove his
00:42:29.460 | shoes and just, with his heel, crush all of the grapes until the juice is just being disseminated
00:42:42.960 | like missiles, just being sent out.
00:42:46.820 | That's the imagery here.
00:42:47.820 | The Father commanding the Son, "With your heel, I want you to crush the nations and
00:42:54.000 | smash their lifeblood out of them, that they would live no longer on this planet."
00:43:04.520 | This image is violent.
00:43:08.360 | It is horrific of Jesus slaughtering the last generation upon this planet.
00:43:17.760 | This is like a horror movie.
00:43:21.800 | Only 10,000 times more intense and a million times more real.
00:43:29.200 | Listen again to Isaiah 63, verse 3, "I have trodden the Messiah as the Speaker, the Son
00:43:36.380 | of God, the suffering servant of Jehovah in Isaiah.
00:43:40.440 | I have trodden the wine trough alone.
00:43:45.720 | And from the peoples, there was no man with me; I trod them in my anger, and trampled
00:43:52.520 | them in my wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I stained all my raiment."
00:44:06.920 | And as he does it in verse 15, he does it with the fierce wrath of God.
00:44:21.120 | Those two words joined together, "fierce wrath," that is a deadly combination.
00:44:29.960 | The word "fierce" means blazing hot, like out of a furnace, glowing red and orange,
00:44:40.400 | burning, flaming, fiery, anger of Christ, and completely under control.
00:44:51.880 | That's the terror of it.
00:44:54.160 | He's not flying off the handle.
00:44:56.720 | This is fully measured and rightly disseminated.
00:45:05.000 | This is not a stoic sovereign.
00:45:10.120 | This is one who is enraged.
00:45:14.680 | And then the word "wrath," the Greek word "orge," it comes into the English language
00:45:22.040 | as "orgy," where there are sexual orgies of heavy breathing and intense passion and
00:45:34.600 | exaggerated feelings.
00:45:40.600 | Here the fierce wrath is the unleashing of His holy hatred of sinners and of their sin,
00:45:54.800 | being unleashed like an erupting volcano, spewing forth lava upon God-haters and Christ-rejectors.
00:46:09.320 | It's the full fury of God at the time of the second coming of Christ.
00:46:21.700 | And then John records these last two words, "the Almighty."
00:46:32.160 | This is more than we can get our arms around.
00:46:35.600 | This is more than we can wrap our minds around this.
00:46:42.600 | The fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, the One who possesses all power, the One who can
00:46:58.060 | inflict this devastation without any limitation upon those who are guilty of cosmic treason
00:47:14.480 | against the King of heaven, the sheer force of His power is unimaginable.
00:47:25.040 | It will make the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima look like a firecracker.
00:47:33.980 | The full force of His wrath will be unleashed.
00:47:42.300 | Jesus is not reluctant to do this.
00:47:49.820 | He is commanded by His Father to do this, and as an obedient Son, He carries it out.
00:48:01.480 | Jesus is not acting out of character here.
00:48:08.040 | This is Jesus.
00:48:11.120 | This is the real Jesus.
00:48:15.340 | This is the killer King.
00:48:21.580 | Psalm 5, verse 5, "You hate all who do iniquity.
00:48:30.980 | You destroy those who speak falsehood.
00:48:36.740 | The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit."
00:48:45.460 | Did you hear those words?
00:48:47.540 | "Hate, destroy, abhors."
00:48:54.780 | This is a long way from "Smile, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life."
00:49:04.140 | Psalm 7, verse 6, "Arise, O Lord, in your anger."
00:49:10.180 | Verse 12, "If a man does not repent, he, God, will sharpen his sword.
00:49:17.900 | He has bent his bow and made it ready."
00:49:23.380 | The arrow is already in the bow.
00:49:25.980 | The string is already pulled back.
00:49:28.340 | It is already aimed at the sinner man before this day even comes.
00:49:36.480 | He has prepared for Himself deadly weapons in order to take down those who reject Him.
00:49:47.260 | He makes His arrows fiery shafts.
00:49:51.180 | That means the arrow that's in the bow and the arrow is pulled back and it's taught.
00:49:58.600 | God then dips the arrow into fire and lights the arrow so that when the arrow is shot,
00:50:07.520 | it plunges into the chest case, the chest of the sinner man and then explodes with fire.
00:50:16.940 | And as Charles Adams Spurgeon says in "Treasury of David," "And God never misses His target."
00:50:29.860 | This is the Jesus of the Bible who, when He comes back at His second coming, is going
00:50:40.660 | to be so enraged that He will destroy this planet, those who live in it.
00:50:55.620 | Finally verse 16, the array of Jesus. Jesus is depicted now in verse 16 as wearing a banner
00:51:12.780 | like sash across His chest that drapes down over His thigh.
00:51:22.500 | Verse 16, "And on His robe," the robe that is drenched in the blood of His enemies, the
00:51:33.540 | robe that is doused in the blood of His enemies and dripping wet, hangs a banner like a king
00:51:46.020 | would wear across His chest and on His thigh, meaning it drapes down over His upper leg,
00:51:58.920 | and He has a name written.
00:52:02.580 | A name represents the totality of what a person is, His character, His abilities.
00:52:11.860 | He has a name written, "King of kings and Lord of lords."
00:52:29.140 | He is kinging, kinging over the kings of this world.
00:52:34.380 | He is lording over the lords of this world.
00:52:40.180 | In previous chapters in Revelation, we could read about ten kings coming together to form
00:52:48.700 | a coalition of global power, and one over them like a beast coming out of the sea, having
00:52:58.220 | the authority to control the world's economy, and there could be no buying and no selling
00:53:03.500 | apart from being a part of the system.
00:53:06.900 | And these kings will rise to power in the last days and will dominate the world such
00:53:14.780 | that you cannot even buy or sell or eat or drink without being a part of the system.
00:53:26.280 | And when Christ comes back, He will remove every one of those kings, and He will remove
00:53:35.020 | every prince and every judge and every lord and every prime minister, and He will be the
00:53:42.660 | judge of judges.
00:53:48.260 | He alone will be king in that day.
00:53:53.580 | There will be no other kings.
00:53:55.380 | There will be no other lords.
00:54:01.100 | Every other king will be immediately subjected to His sovereignty, and every world ruler
00:54:07.780 | is removed from office and removed from His throne.
00:54:13.140 | Biden is gone.
00:54:16.020 | Putin is gone.
00:54:18.780 | Pelosi is gone.
00:54:21.300 | Newsom is gone.
00:54:23.800 | Trump is gone.
00:54:26.820 | Christ alone is enthroned.
00:54:34.220 | This is the triumph of truth.
00:54:39.460 | This day is coming.
00:54:43.300 | I don't see how anyone can read their Bible and not give serious thought to how close
00:54:53.780 | we are to this day.
00:54:59.020 | You would have to be like an ostrich with your head in the ground and live in a cave
00:55:08.540 | not to be able to see the signs of the times in which we live.
00:55:16.220 | I have no idea where we are on God's calendar, and that's the surest sign He may return soon.
00:55:25.540 | For in such an hour, as you know not, the Son of Man will return.
00:55:32.300 | This is the divine warrior.
00:55:35.620 | The Lord Jesus Christ Himself who's coming.
00:55:42.420 | He's not coming to save, but to slaughter.
00:55:47.520 | He's not coming to deliver, but to destroy and to damn.
00:55:54.500 | There is grace and there is mercy today, but in that day there will be no grace and there
00:56:00.820 | will be no mercy.
00:56:04.820 | In that day, truth will triumph over the devil's lies and over this world's ideologies.
00:56:13.060 | In that day, the truth of God will be the only voice that will be heard.
00:56:18.420 | In that day, Jesus who is the truth will speak with the sound of many waters and drown out
00:56:27.500 | every other voice, and He alone will be heard.
00:56:34.680 | This is the triumph of truth at the end of the age because it is the triumph of the King
00:56:43.100 | Himself.
00:56:47.260 | I must ask you, do you know this King?
00:56:53.460 | Have you come to see that your only hope of escaping the eternal wrath of God is to flee
00:57:01.260 | to Christ who came into this world on a mission of salvation, to live a sinless and perfect
00:57:08.380 | life, to fulfill all righteousness, and to go to a cross to be lifted up, and to bear
00:57:14.900 | the sins of His people, and there upon the cross that Jesus Christ would make the only
00:57:20.780 | atonement for sin?
00:57:25.700 | There through the shedding of His blood, there is forgiveness of sin, and it is being freely
00:57:31.300 | offered to you this very moment, and if you reject it, you have no one to blame but yourself.
00:57:39.900 | If you were to die today and you stood before God, where would you be?
00:57:45.780 | Where would you end up?
00:57:48.900 | Either heaven or hell, and the only way to be in heaven and to escape all that we see
00:57:55.500 | here, and this is only the warm-up for eternal hell.
00:58:02.620 | Eternal hell will go on throughout all the ages to come, the lake of fire and brimstone,
00:58:09.060 | the place where the worm never dies, where there is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth,
00:58:14.260 | that place of outer darkness, that place of torment, where there is no relief for the
00:58:23.620 | soul ever.
00:58:26.540 | Come to Christ.
00:58:31.140 | He's the friend of sinners today.
00:58:34.100 | He will receive sinners today.
00:58:37.460 | Do not wait till the last day and face this Christ, who is the angry Christ.
00:58:44.500 | Believe in Christ today.
00:58:46.060 | Repent of your sin.
00:58:48.920 | Take that step of faith and entrust your soul to Him, and you will find mercy.
00:58:57.620 | You will find forgiveness for all of your sins.
00:59:01.300 | There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
00:59:04.100 | If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
00:59:08.740 | us from all unrighteousness.
00:59:10.780 | Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
00:59:16.760 | Christ.
00:59:17.760 | For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift
00:59:21.780 | of God, lest any man should boast.
00:59:25.140 | Today is a day of opportunity for you.
00:59:28.660 | It is a day of mercy for you.
00:59:32.060 | It is being extended to you from the King.
00:59:38.540 | Humble yourself.
00:59:40.820 | Deny yourself.
00:59:43.620 | Take up a cross and become a follower of Jesus Christ.
00:59:49.260 | Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to
00:59:56.700 | destruction and many are those who find it, the gate is small and the way is narrow that
01:00:02.460 | leads to life, and few are those who find it.
01:00:07.660 | Jesus says, "He who hears these words of mine and acts upon them is like a very wise man
01:00:14.180 | who built his house upon the rock, and when the rains came and the winds blew and beat
01:00:18.740 | against the house, it did not fall, because it was built on the rock.
01:00:23.660 | He who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them is like a very foolish man
01:00:31.540 | who built his house upon the sand, and when the rains came and the winds blew and beat
01:00:37.020 | against the house, great was its fall, because it was built upon the sand."
01:00:46.260 | That storm of which Jesus spoke in those verses, it's a gathering storm tonight on the horizon,
01:00:59.120 | and you have opportunity this day to escape that storm and build upon the rock of Jesus
01:01:08.720 | Christ.
01:01:10.680 | There is no other place to stand to escape His wrath.
01:01:22.020 | Father, we believe this, and this causes us to shudder.
01:01:38.060 | It causes us to tremble.
01:01:42.420 | How could we be unaffected by this?
01:01:46.940 | I pray that You would use this passage to stir our hearts, to bow before You, and to
01:02:00.340 | praise Your name for those of us who are in Christ, that we will escape this horrific
01:02:10.340 | day.
01:02:12.700 | I pray that You would increase the sense of urgency within us to reach this world for
01:02:19.340 | Christ before it's too long.
01:02:23.980 | You have already once submerged this entire planet in the great flood of Noah's day,
01:02:31.540 | and only eight survived.
01:02:36.780 | You're about to do it again, but not with water, but with fire.
01:02:44.180 | Lord, may we preach the gospel and send forth the good news of salvation while there's time,
01:02:56.340 | because there's also bad news looming on the horizon.
01:03:04.260 | Bless everyone who is here today with the truth of Your Word.
01:03:10.100 | Use it to affect us in a mighty way, in Jesus' name, amen.
01:03:17.380 | Amen.
01:03:18.380 | Amen.
01:03:18.380 | [BLANK_AUDIO]