“After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; 2 BECAUSE HIS JUDGMENTS ARE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and HE HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER.” 3 And a second time they said, “Hallelujah! HER SMOKE RISES UP FOREVER AND EVER.” 4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” 5 And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.” 6 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. 7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” 8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ ” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” 10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” NASB
The first thing the student of the Bible must realize when coming to the book of Revelation, is that there is much symbolism used that needs to be deciphered when possible, and left alone when the information is scarce.
There have been very many attempts in recent decades to decode the prophecies concerning the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ that I think have gone to some extremes and have gotten more than a little off track.
On the other hand there is enough information available to the careful student for a general understanding, if not detailed, of what will soon come upon the world, and what it means for the true believer in Christ as well as the rebellious unbeliever, and the apostate residing in the visible church.
I will tell you now that I do not propose to unpack all of the symbolism presented in the text we’re looking at and tell you with any authority that ‘this-means-such-and-such-and-therefore’.
It will be necessary for us to define some terms and support our definitions; but for the main focus I want to do what the text actually does at its root, and that is to ‘give praise and glory to the Lord our God’, who reigns the Victor forevermore.
AFTER THESE THINGS
It is very significant to our study that we pay attention to the first three words of chapter 19 and consider the transition being made here.
‘After these things’, refers back to all the darkness and gloom that has come before, and bridges it with the light and joy and triumph that is to come. Here are the words of J. Vernon McGee on this transition.
“The destruction of Babylon, the capital of the Beast’s kingdom, marks the end of the Great Tribulation. The somber gives way to song. The transfer is from darkness to light, from black to white, from dreary days of judgment to bright days of blessing. This chapter makes a definite (branching) in Revelation, and ushers in the greatest event for this earth – the Second Coming of Christ. It is the bridge between the Great Tribulation and the Millennium.” Reveling Through Revelation, II, 66. (Parenthesis mine to replace ‘bifurcation’ for clarity’s sake)
In verses 21 through 24 of chapter 18 we have the description of the end of Babylon the great harlot and before going far into our text we need to take a closer look at that. Before we do though, observe that the opening words of chapter 19 are a response to the invitation of chapter 18 verse 20.
“Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her.”
This is the great vindication we all await, believers in Christ. You are going to see that the culmination of the Great Tribulation will be the vindication of all the saints through the ages who have suffered and who have been identified with Christ in this world – who have chosen the reproach of Christ rather than the passing pleasures of sin – and the glory of God and of His Christ.
The voice the Apostle has been hearing calls for rejoicing over the destruction of Babylon, saying that God has pronounced judgment against her, for the saints and apostles and prophets, and even for heaven itself (‘Rejoice over her, O heaven’)! Then there is this description of what John hears and sees from verses 21-24 constituting an interuption in the flow of the text, then we have, “After these things, I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God...’.”
We will come back and take it from there. First a few words about this Babylon, of which is said in Rev 17:5:
“and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
THE FALL OF BABYLON
A reading of Revelation 14:8 and 16:19; especially 16:19, indicates that there will be a physical city of Babylon in the end that will be destroyed with the pouring out of God’s wrath. Older commentators who wrote in decades past speculated much on what actual city was being symbolically designated as ‘Babylon’, some saying they thought it was a reference to Rome and specifically the Roman church. Others say it only represents the religious and political power structure that will exist in the end times.
We know now that Hussein was rebuilding the city of Babylon on its ancient site. Whether that building will continue under the leadership of someone who will come later is yet to be seen. But we do know something now that Bible scholars of the 60’s and 70’s did not forsee; that Babylon as a physical city could very well play a large role in end times prophecy.
It takes very little imagination at this juncture in our history, to picture what are now the most powerful nations of the western world falling into ruin and destitution very rapidly, and a few select countries of the Middle East becoming dominant, economically, politically militarily and religiously.
However things are going to take shape though, and whether Babylon rises as a physical entity toward the end or does not, she certainly represents the powerful apostate church that has always existed in the world and who will come fully to power after the rapture of the true church, and if you read in chapter 17 and 18 the several passages that describe the great harlot Babylon, she also represents the grossest of immorality, greed and hedonism which men worship now and will mourn deeply when she is destroyed.
Keep your place in Revelation and turn for a moment to Jeremiah chapter 51. Let’s read verses 59-64 together, paying specific attention to verses 63 and 64.
“The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Now Seraiah was quartermaster.) 60 So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon. 61 Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud, 62 and say, ‘You, O LORD, have promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that there will be nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation.’ 63 “And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates, 64 and say, ‘Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted.’ ” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.”
Now go back to Revelation and look at chapter 18 verses 21-24.
“Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer. 22 “And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute-players and trumpeters will not be heard in you any longer; and no craftsman of any craft will be found in you any longer; and the sound of a mill will not be heard in you any longer; 23 and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery. 24 “And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.”
Now it should be obvious to us that Jeremiah was speaking of an actual, physical city, since he was sending Seraiah to Babylon to read the words we just read in chapter 51 of that prophetical book; and since it was the place Jeremiah’s people had been taken to in captivity, I’m sure that Babylon meant nothing much more to the prophet than just what it was.
It is here in Revelation that we get the fuller understanding of what Babylon represents, and whether an actual city, or a symbolic reference to ungodliness, or both, this is what the Holy Spirit tells us – she will be utterly destroyed so that she will never be found again.
I find it interesting that according to Micah 7:19 God casts all our sins into the sea. That is poetic. When something is sunk into the deepest sea it is for all intents and purposes lost forever.
Now we know that God is everywhere and there is nothing that cannot be perceived by Him. The language of the minor prophet is an indication that God in His forgiveness of our sins casts them away even from His own memory. So I find it interesting that at the very end of the tribulation – and by the way, did you notice when we read Jeremiah 51 that at the end of the chapter it says those were the last words of Jeremiah; meaning the end of his prophesying as though God was done talking and they had had all the warning they were going to get – at the very end of the great tribulation, when the great harlot and ultimate representation of earthly sin and idolatry and apostasy is taken down, the language used matches that of Jeremiah in that we are told the strong angel threw a large stone like a great millstone into the sea and equated it with Babylon.
I think it is by design that God inspired His authors to speak of men’s sins being cast from Him into the sea, and also to speak of the one who ‘deceived by [her] sorcery (18:24) as cast into the same sea of oblivion.
Here is the point I want to make from all of this for you and it is important, so please be paying careful attention.
This great harlot, this Babylon and the spirit of Babylon is the ultimate representation of man rejecting God and wanting to be his own god.
Remember, this is where the tower of Babel was built. Hence the name, ‘Babylon’. The entire history of this place is based upon rejection of God as the Supreme Authority who is worthy of all glory, praise and honor.
The spirit of rejection of God’s authority and the temptation of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the boastful pride of life manifested in the Garden of Eden and has always been in this world. The spirit of apostasy that tempted Eve thrives even now, even in the church.
Apostasy has to do with falling away; with defection. It is desertion from the truth. This is the spirit the writer to the Hebrews is warning against when he writes:
“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. 6:4-6
And
“For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. 10:26-27
Then in verse 31, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Whether you are hearing me preach this or reading it later, or when you hear other preachers say the same things, please be very certain that you are of the true church and not of the apostate church. Be sure that you are not one of the ones who will eventually fall into the hands of the living God – one of the ones of whom it is written that they have gone on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth.
Let me explain that. These are the people who have heard the truth pertaining to the Gospel, that Jesus died to pay the penalty for their sins and rose bodily from the grave, ascended to Heaven and is one day coming back to judge the world in righteousness, and they have in rejection of that truth and rejection of God’s authority over their lives, gone on in a willful, sinful lifestyle, spurning grace and despising God and God’s people.
Many of them are still in the church, nevertheless. They have come in, they have decided to reject the message of the truth, yet Satan has inspired them to stay so that through them he might wreak havoc among believers and bring dishonor to the name of Christ in the eyes of a watching world.
Of these, the Bible says, ‘there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries’.
The Bible clearly teaches in numerous places that these apostates will be in the church. In fact, I believe that by the time the Rapture occurs, if not true already, there will be more apostates in the church than true believers.
At the Tower of Babel there was one language and one government, in that they said to one another, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” Gen 11:4
Now, as the time grows so very near the return of our Lord in the air to catch up His true church, we can see the world communicating as though with one language, and we increasingly hear talk of a ‘new world order’ and a united government, and in the end my friends, when the Trumpet sounds and the voice of the Archangel calls us up and the true church leaves this world, there will be one world church. It will be the apostate church. No one left here will really notice, because it is the only church the world has ever seen and it will simply continue to exist and thrive unhindered until it is suddenly destroyed under the fire of God’s wrath. It is Babylon the great harlot, and she ‘will be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer! Rev 18:21
THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS
So we finally come to the verses of our text which we will discuss briefly and then move on from there in Part II for a look at verse 11-16 of chapter 19.
This word, Hallelujah, sometimes rendered, ‘allelujah’, in the manuscripts is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word which sounds much the same and means the same thing.
However, its four-fold use here in Revelation 19:1-6 is the only place in the New Testament that it is to be found. Someone called this passage the ‘Hallelujah Chorus of the New Testament’.
And as I pointed out earlier, this is a sudden and drastic change in tone from what has come before. We have gone between the last verse of 18 to the first verse of 19, from earth to Heaven. We are transported from the devastation of a world and a world system succumbing to the fire of the righteous wrath of God, to the presence of what John described as the voice of a great multitude in Heaven. He repeats this in verse 6 where he says again, “Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
Have you ever been close to a large waterfall? If you have you may remember that the closer you got the more difficult it was to hear anything but the fall. Have you ever been in a place where thunder storms go crazy? Here in Colorado, every once in a while we hear thunder, usually rolling off in the distance, and the claps are few and far between as the storms move quickly on. But I can remember some times in Texas when I sat in my garage with the door open and just listened to the thunder roar, one clap close on the heels of the last and another after that, with lightning flashing across the sky so you could read a book in the nighttime if you weren’t already transfixed by the symphony in the sky.
This makes me think that John was struggling to describe what he was hearing. Can you just imagine it? No, you can’t and neither can I. But try. Try to imagine every person who has left this world in Christ, and all those who ever will, finally standing together in heaven before the Throne of the Majesty on high, in unison shouting with glorified voices, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His Bondservants on her.” “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.”
When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!
Now I want to just interject a couple of points here that don’t take away from the focus but might clarify some things before we move on.
If you look at verse 4 you will see that it says “And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne…”
These were first mentioned in chapter 4 of Revelation, and without going into great detail I will tell you that it is generally accepted and understood that the 24 elders represent the totality of the true church. It just means the complete church, which will be assembled in Heaven before all these things begin to happen, which is yet another argument for a pre-tribulation rapture.
The four living creatures are understood to represent, not any particular group of people, but the character and sovereignty of God as expressed in true spiritual worship. There is very much that could be said here and scholars differ widely in their interpretation of the four living creatures. This is one of those places where I say we need to tread lightly and not attempt to be too adamant.
The important thing to note, I believe is that the distinction that John makes between the multitude of voices, and separately from that the Hallelujahs of the 24 elders and four living creatures, lends credibility to the supposition of many that the ‘great multitude’ John first hears praising God constitutes all those who have been martyred for their faith. This is given support in the wording of verses 2 and 3, where they speak of the blood of His bondservants and rejoice specifically over the fall of the great harlot, who according to chapter 18 verse 24 was responsible for the shedding of the blood of the prophets and the saints slain on the earth.
It is not a particularly significant point for the purposes of our study, but just be aware that all who belong truly to God, who are part of the true and spiritual church, will be together at that time and not one will be lost – not one will be left behind – and together they will praise Him continually. In fact, in verse 5 where it says “Give praise to our God”, the specific wording there means ‘keep on praising’.
So you and I may as well begin now, fellow Christ-followers, and get in practice, because praising and honoring and ascribing glory to our God will be our eternal delight.
THE BRIDE MADE READY
Just a couple of words about this mention in verse 7 of the bride making herself ready, and then in verse 8 the description of the ‘fine linen’ she is found in, and then we’re done.
To the Ephesian church Paul wrote:
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” 2:10
And I think that right here in Revelation 19 is just one more confirmation of the inseparable link between faith and works.
The angel in John’s vision has said to him that the bride of Christ has made herself ready. If we of the church symbolically constitute the bride of Christ, and we know from Scripture that we do, then there is a way in which we are supposed to be making ourselves ready.
You may remember the parable Jesus told of the bridesmaids who were waiting for the bridegroom, and when he suddenly came some were ready and some were not. He told that parable, of course, to teach that there is a way in which we should keep ourselves ready for His coming. I won’t go into a teaching of that parable here; it is for a different sermon.
But note that right after the angel says, “His bride has made herself ready”, John writes, “It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”
Now if we believe that we will only be in Heaven because of what God has done, and we do believe that don’t we? And if we believe that we will stand there acceptable to the Father only by virtue of what Christ has done, and we do believe that don’t we? And if we understand that we will be clothed as it were in His righteousness alone and none of our own, and we do believe that don’t we?
Then we have to understand that what John is teaching here from his vision and therefore his understanding of what he was shown, is that the vital and undeniable way in which the church as the symbolic bride of Christ readies herself for the marriage of the Lamb for which she is destined, is to engage in the righteous acts that according to Ephesians 2:10 God has created us in Christ for; the good deeds He has prepared beforehand so that we might walk in them.
This clothing of ‘fine linen bright and clean’ that John saw may very well be part of the reward handed out to the faithful for the works they walked in while still in this world.
So believers, we have handed to us here in the closing chapters of the Bible, one more invitation to be all that we were created to be in Christ Jesus; to praise Him now, to glorify Him now, to honor Him with our lives and not just our lips now, so that we can stand unashamed in fine linen, bright and clean on that day when He finally defeats all our foes and makes His enemies a footstool for His feet, joining with that unnumbered multitude singing the New Testament Hallelujah Chorus and getting ready to follow Him back to the earth to take it back and judge it and rule it in righteousness for a thousand years. It’s coming soon.
The time of His humiliation and the continuance of His humiliation in the body of His true church is almost past. In the gospels our Lord is rejected, humiliated, subject to suffering and death. His true church follows suit in the recorded New Testament and in history.
But soon, and recorded for us here as though something already completed, we will see Him in triumph, in glory, in His Sovereignty and Majesty and as glorified, radiant saints we will sing His praises to the glory of the Father.
Let’s be ready and not be taken unprepared.
For as the angel said to John,
“Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb”
and…
“These are true words of God”.
