Welcome Salvation Joyfully Revelation 19-20
Introduction
The Gaither singer and comedian Mark Lowry and I have at least one thing in common…he said the scariest sound of his childhood was “the sound of his father’s belt going through the loops as he took it off quickly.”
I remember someone telling my dad that he shouldn’t spank us when he’s mad. And his response was, “Are you kidding? What fun is that?”
Punishment at my house growing up was usually dealt with on the spot. This spatula hangs in my office. I asked mom if I could have it, because it was the instrument she used to bring punishment…and I was afraid she’d still use it. The only time she would wait for dad to get home to administer the punishment was if my deeds reached a “nuclear” level. “You’ll never guess what your son did today!” The story would be related. My dad’s head would start to turn red, the vein on the left side of his head would pop out and then the sound. The dreaded Mark Lowry, Rick Burdette feared sound—his belt going through the loops. Quickly.
Listen, I was never abused. Every time the discipline came down I deserved it. The things I did had consequences. One of them was my father’s wrath. My father loved me without a doubt. But there were times he got mad, he administered discipline and punishment.
The wrath of God isn’t a popular topic in our culture today. Maybe it’s a reaction to people like the Westboro Baptist Church who picket soldiers’ funerals with signs that say, “This is God’s wrath against America.” We look at their cold, bitter, judgmental faces as we read…”God Hates ______.”
Maybe we want to make sure that the world doesn’t see us that way. Maybe so many here come from abusive homes with a broken view of the word “father” and those broken people desperately need a whole new concept for that word, “Father.”
Not bad reasons. And my favorite hymn, like yours is “Amazing Grace” but I believe when we avoid the truth of God’s wrath and His perfect judgment we’ve lost sight of something important. We forget
I. God Will Bring Judgment to Injustice
My brother Sam is 10 years older than me. He’s amazing, but has some disabilities. And I’ll never forget the day Gary Cowle got mad and started screaming at Sam, “You’re retarded.” I was 8 or 9 and I got so mad I went after him. I hit him as hard as I could and he just shoved me into the bushes. That’s when I saw Chuck Marks, “Chucky,” go after Gary. Chucky was about 6’4”, two fifty, and he beat Gary to a pulp. Chucky was angry, too. I’d never seen him angry. He was always the one who let me play even though I was so much younger. I’m not promoting violence but on this day justice was brought to injustice.
Revelation 19:1-4
If the book of Revelation has taught us anything so far it’s this: God’s wrath isn’t something we should take lightly. It’s holy and terrible, full-blooded, just, fair and completely unstoppable. But in truth don’t we want a God of wrath? Remember the martyred ones underneath the alter of God who cried out, “How long, Oh Lord, Holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Rev. 6:10)
When we look at some of the things that happen in our world we, too, wonder, “How long Lord until you deal with the evil and depraved?” Ten year old girls sold into sex slavery in Cambodia. Three girls locked up and imprisoned for a decade, beaten, impregnated, abused. Three year old Congolese boys forced to become soldiers and brainwashed to kill. 3,000 moms, dads, sisters, brothers who all went to work one day only to be murdered by hateful Islamic extremists who hijacked and flew planes into buildings…Murders, kidnapping, rape, Iranian pastors martyred, Chinese pastors like Wing Wong thrown into prison, starving children, genocide, drug addicted babies…when will it end? When will it stop? Who will make things right? GOD WILL.
We have a God who is coming to save us. A God who sees the people He loves being bullied and brutalized by Satan. And some day He will bring the “big stick.” He’s bigger than Chucky Marx. And He’ll wade into the middle of His enemies and whip the lot of them. I want a God of wrath. I want a God who will judge those who commit atrocities on the evening news. I want a God who will put Satan in his place. And for “the god of this world” that place is very bad news.
But for those who belong to Jesus that is very good news--to the persecuted churches in Asia Minor, who are surrounded by tormentors and are outnumbered and afraid and need someone to come to their rescue. These chapters 19-20 remind them and us—the hero is coming on a white horse.
Revelation 19:11-12 (p. 871)
You see we can either be part of the whore of Babylon or part of the bride of Christ. For the bride of Christ..
II. Salvation is a Wedding and a Victory in Battle
Last week we met Satan’s ally “the great whore” symbolizing the hedonistic culture of Rome. In chapters 17 & 18 we see her extravagant excesses, her voluptuous materialism, her seductive idolatries and wild orgies of persecution. Rome is a looker on the outside but she’s a diseased street walked in the heart.
Rome was called “the Eternal City” and if you looked at Rome through the eyes of John’s readers you would behold the most powerful city in the world. The coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus still filled with 150,000 spectators. The Temple of Jupiter with its gold-gelded roof dazzling in the sun. Rome was at its peak, enjoying undisputed sovereignty and prestige. No one could envision its fall. No one could imagine that this city would become a distant memory, its buildings turned to rubble. No one except John the Apostle who saw her fate revealed. Read
Revelation 18:1, 2, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19-24 (p. 870)
This is why John tells his readers don’t be seduced by the whore of Babylon. “Come out of her my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.” (18:4)
John knows that people will be tempted by this sharply dressed high dollar whore. So what he does is show them a more beautiful woman. The faithful, spotless, radiant bride of Christ who has an eternal future with her groom.
This wedding will be more joyful than any earthly union. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear (fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s people). Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the lamb.”
Kari and I waited to be one with each other until our wedding day. I longed for her and loved her beyond what I thought was possible. And it was worth the wait. That day, our wedding, the joy with no guilt, the newness, the goodness of God. We used to refer to ourselves as “the King’s couple, each for each other..both for God.” I cannot tell you how rewarding the waiting was spiritually, physically, emotionally. It was just…right.
But our salvation will be the greatest wedding banquet ever imagined, beyond imagination! Why? Because we will become one with the one whose love never ends. Perfect! Hallelujah!!
Let me end by talking about the most lopsided battle victory in history. In Revelation 19 & 20 Jesus faces off against all our greatest enemies. But there is no long drawn out Armageddon conflict. Jesus just destroys them in an instant. The enemies are many, they are horrible and wicked. But Jesus destroys them all in the wink of an eye.
III. Our Final Three Enemies Destroyed
1. Jesus destroys demonic allies-Revelation 19:17-21 (p. 871)
We’ve already seen the prostitutes’ demise and now we see the first beast (godless government) and the second beast (false religion) thrown into the lake of fire.
All the armies gathered with them are slaughtered. Scrap for the birds of prey who eat their bodies as “the great supper of God,” a grim contrast to the wedding banquet of the lamb (19:17)
2. Second Jesus destroys the Devil.
Here’s what Matt Proctor shares in his devotion on Revelation:
“This happens after a “thousand years” during which Satan is bound and Jesus rules with the Christian faithful (Rev. 20:1-6). Some Christians believe this “millennium” is a literal 365,000 days of Christ’s reign (inaugurated at his return) as a global kind on earth, Christian faithful physically resurrected at his side, all while Satan serves a physical 365,000 day sentence in the Abyss. At the end of the 1,000 years Satan will be released, rally his troops for the great battle, and then is defeated by Christ, who at that time establishes the new heavens and the new earth.
Other Christians (including me) believe the “thousand years” like other numbers in Revelation, is figurative, representing the long period of time between Christ’s ascension and his return, the church’s chapter in redemptive history. During this time, Christ reigns from his throne in heaven (as we’ve seen in Rev. 5) with the Christian faithful who’ve experienced spiritual resurrection in heaven, but not the resurrection of their physical bodies on earth.
Satan is bound spiritually during this church age by the preaching of the gospel, which hinders his “deceiving the nations” (Rev. 20:3). As the gospel flourishes, satanic strongholds diminish and the dominion of darkness falters. Right before Christ’s Second Coming, Satan will be unbound, succeed in greater deception among the nations, and gather them for battle. Then in an instant, he will see them destroyed by fire from heaven as Jesus returns to inaugurate the new heavens and new earth.
Either way, the devil takes an eternal swim in the lake of fire. Either way, our enemy Satan is defeated. Either way, Jesus wins.”
3. Jesus destroys death itself. Rev. 20:14 (p. 872)
Death is the universal enemy of everyone. No one escapes it. One out of every one person dies. Hebrews 9:27 says, “Just as people are destined to die once and after that to face judgment.”
But at the end of time Jesus defeats this universal enemy. He throws our last enemy into the lake of fire. Hebrews 9:28 continues “so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many, and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.”
With Christ’s first coming He died and He was resurrected. With Christ’s second coming his people are resurrected and our death dies forever.
When I was younger I used to pray Lord, Jesus come. Just not yet. I had things I wanted to do before he came back—get married, graduate college, have children. I wanted to live some of my life. I look back now that I’ve lived some of that life, and I’m so much like the little boy who heard the preacher exclaim, “If you want to go to heaven, stand up.” And the entire congregation stood up except for this little boy in the first row. The preacher was perplexed. Looking over the pulpit he said, “Son, do you mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to heaven?” And the little boy responded, “Oh, when I die, yes! I thought you were getting a group together to go right now!”
But the longer I live here on earth the more I long for heaven. The more my heart yearns to see Jesus. The more I’ve grown in my love for Jesus, the less attractive this world has become. When I was a new Christian my picture of heaven was a very long church service. And I was attracted to the things on earth. But now I’ve seen the world for what it really is…a place diseased with sin’s cancer. I’m heartbroken and tired of famine, Alzheimers, abortion, murder, deceit, natural disasters, cancer, death, sin. Satan destroying families and lives because He knows His time is short. I believe Jesus is sick of it, too. The day is coming when he will crash through the clouds, the angelic army in tow. Time will screech to a halt in an instant. Armageddon is over. Satan, his allies, sin, death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire. And a new world will be ours. A new heaven. Jeff will share that hope next week if Jesus tarries.
