We come this evening to what most of us, I think, would agree on, and that is the climax of the book of Revelation as we come to chapter 19. It's a wonderful chapter. The first ten verses deal with events in heaven preceding the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then verses 11 to 21, the events on earth surrounding His return. Please open your Bible to Revelation chapter 19. Notice the exclamation of the Lord's victory in verses 1 through 6.
After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication. And He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her. Then they said, Hallelujah, and her smoke rises up forever and ever.
And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne, saying, Amen, hallelujah. Then a voice came from the throne saying, Praise our God, all you, His servants, and those who fear Him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. The exclamation of the Lord's victory.
There is a thunderous outburst of worship in heaven before our Lord returns to earth. It really is in response to the invitation in chapter eighteen and verse twenty. Just look back there and notice what it says. Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints, apostles, and prophets, for God has avenged you on her. Now in the context of our study we know that her refers to Babylon.
Both religious Babylon, which was destroyed, described and destroyed in chapter seventeen, and then the socio-economic, political Babylon of chapter eighteen. This system of economics and government which will dominate at least the western world and be controlled by the antichrist. God destroys that whole system in chapter eighteen. Heaven is invited to rejoice and responds by saying, Hallelujah. Four times you notice that word used in the text we have read.
As a matter of fact, these are the only four occasions when that word is found in the whole New Testament. It's found quite a bit in the Old Testament, especially the book of Psalms. But only four times in the whole New Testament and right here in these six verses. There's a meaning of course to Hallelujah. It's more than just an exclamation. Hallel is the Hebrew expression for praise. And Yah, Y-A, excuse me, J-A-H, is the abbreviated form of Yahweh or Jehovah.
And so it simply means, praise the Lord or praise Jehovah. What we have here truly is the Hallelujah Chorus. And you can see some of the phrases in Handel's work coming out of this text. It is a special word. It seems to be reserved at least in the New Testament for this point when the kingdom of God is about to be established upon the earth. There are two groups that seem to be speaking. The first group is called a great multitude.
It speaks in verse one and then seems to repeat itself in verse six. We would understand in the context of the book of Revelation this great multitude referring to the tribulation saints who had been martyred. They were seen earlier in chapter seven in verse nine. Some of them were under the altar of God. They were crying out to God for vengeance because of their martyrdom. They cried out to God for judgment on those who had persecuted them on the earth.
And now it is this large multitude that praises God that judgment has indeed come. The second group is found in verse four. It's the 24 elders. And they are joined by the four living creatures. Now you will recall months ago in our study of the book that the four living creatures are four heavenly creatures. They are some high form of angelic beings, so it seems, who are around the throne of God and they sing praises to Him.
The 24 elders, in our understanding of the book at least, symbolize the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, all of those who are saved in this period from Pentecost until the church is taken out of the world at the rapture. This is the last time in the book of Revelation that this group is called the 24 elders by that name. They are called after this the bride, if our assumption is right in their identity, that it's the church of Christ.
And so we have the two groups in heaven sharing praise and worship of God preceding the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. They praise God for His works, for His salvation, His glory, His power. They praise Him for His judgments, which they describe as true and righteous. And then they praise God for His authority, His control over the universe and over all of His enemies. It is He who sits upon the throne. He is in control. And in verse 6 it says, the Lord God omnipotent.
That word omnipotent is an adjective describing the Lord God. And what does it mean? All-powerful. All-power belongs to Him. There are several omnis that theologians use to describe God. One of them is omnipotent. All-power belongs to God. And what is said here, the Lord God omnipotent reigns, anticipates the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth. Now in verses 7 to 10 we have the declaration, or I would like to rename it on the outline of the celebration actually, of the Lord's wedding.
Beginning in verse 7 we read about this marriage and the supper. Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And He said to me, write, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And He said to me, these are the true sayings of God.
That is a way of underlining and underscoring the significance of what is written here. And I fell at His feet to worship Him, but He said to me, see that you do not do that. I am your fellow servant, says this angel, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus, worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Marriage is used often in the scriptures to describe the relationship between God and His people.
In the Old Testament it was the relationship between Yahweh the Lord and Israel His people. Israel as we know sadly was an adulterous wife to the Lord, unfaithful to Him spiritually. And therefore God set Israel aside and is calling out a bride for His Son, the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ in this age. Of course, God is going to deal with His Old Testament people again. He is going to call them back to Himself.
And they will be the focus of Christ's reign on the earth as He will restore Jerusalem and Israel to its Davidic promises from 2 Samuel chapter 7 and other places. But here in the context of Revelation 19, the bride refers not to Israel but to God's people, the church. As you understand the invitation to the married supper, it might be good for us just to review in our minds some of the traditions surrounding an oriental wedding, such as was the case here.
In the first place there was the selection of the bride by the father of the bridegroom. That's the way it was done. We see little samples of this in oriental culture yet today. In Japan there was a very important wedding this last week. A young lady had been selected to be married to the crown prince of Japan. At least at first, according to the news reports, she was not very excited about that because she would lose her freedom.
She would lose her own life fitting into the culture of the royal family of Japan. Her basic purpose would be to reproduce the next heir for the throne of this dynasty. What is it? The dynasty of the what? I can't hear you. You don't know. That's what you were saying. Neither do I. I heard it this last week. It was a rather intriguing name. As I recall, it's 1,800 years old, something like that. So imagine a dynasty, a reign of a family for that long. Well, that's her purpose. She was selected.
Well, you see that's oriental. In the days of the New Testament, that was normal that the father of the bridegroom would select the bride for the son, and a dowry would be paid. We have an example of this that's even more ancient than the New Testament days in Abraham. When Abraham sent his servant, Eliezer, to look for a wife from his people, and Eliezer brought the wife back after selecting her.
In this age, it is the work of God by His Spirit to be calling out from the world the bride of Jesus Christ. If you're a saved person tonight, if you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, God, the Father, in His own wisdom and sovereignty as the one who rules and reigns, has selected you to be a part of this group of people who are called the bride. You have done nothing to deserve that. It's of no merit of our own that we have been called. It is simply the grace of God.
And we have been called and set aside to be a part of this body. Well, then in the Oriental weddings, there was the period of betrothal often. This is stronger than our engagement. This was a legally binding period. There was a contract that was signed. This was the period that Mary and Joseph were in, in their relationship, when the Holy Spirit caused her to be with child. The period of betrothal. It was in between the selection and the actual consummation of the marriage.
And today, that's the period that we are in. God has selected us. He has elected us to be a part of the church. Ephesians chapter 1. And now we are in this betrothal period. It's a legally binding period. And we have received the Holy Spirit who is the first fruits of our redemption. He is the seal. He is the guarantor that what God has called us to be, we will become. And nothing can stop us.
Nothing can hinder us from one day arriving at that point where we will be married to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a legally binding period. And the Holy Spirit is superintending this and preparing us and bringing us toward that day. Well, the third step in the oriental wedding was the coming of the bridegroom to the bride's home in order to take her to his home for the wedding. Now, that obviously has a parallel. Jesus said, and if I go away, I will come again and receive you to myself.
That where I am, the Father's house, there you may be also. And so in the rapture of the church when he comes, according to 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, when he comes for his church, he is going to take us from where we live now back to his Father's home. And there we will enter into this wonderful ceremony of our marriage to the Lord Jesus. This was followed then by a marriage feast. The feast was for all of the friends and the guests, of course, to attend.
It was a celebration that the Father gave on behalf of his son and his bride. Now it is that marriage feast or supper that is specifically in view here in these verses in Revelation chapter 19. We have here the assumption that the marriage has taken place and now the marriage feast is about to occur. The marriage itself takes place, it would seem, in heaven, in the Father's house. It will take place sometime after the judgment seat of Christ.
When we are caught away to be with our Lord, the very first thing that takes place will be our personal examination before the Bema seat of Christ when we will be called to give account for our lives. And though that is terrifying in one sense, and Paul saw it that way, it is a thing that we fear and should have respect for and plan for as we live in this world.
There is another side to it though, and it is that little phrase, I think it is in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, where Paul says, then shall every person have his praise of God. And so in that examination period, God is going to find an appropriate place to praise each of his children for their life in this world. And after that examination, we come to this place where we are married to our Lord. Following that comes the supper.
And it seems as though this supper takes place upon the earth, which we will get to in a moment. What is it that we wear to the wedding? We have just been through a wedding a few weeks ago, and believe me, that is a big deal, a lot bigger than I ever thought. What do you wear to a wedding? Well God tells us exactly what we are going to wear. It is fine linen, verse 8, clean and bright. And it explains to us symbolically what this white clothing will stand for.
He says it is the righteous acts of the saints. Some translations put it the righteousness says of the saints. Therefore there are some who believe it is the justification righteousness that we have in Christ. I don't think that is to be the case. We are declared legally righteous in the sight of God, thank God, and that is our salvation. But he is talking here rather about our works, our righteous acts, our deeds in the world, which will now have been judged and examined.
We have been through the marriage, or through the judgment seat of Christ. And so now as it were our clothing is all prepared, it is all sewn together, and we are prepared now to enter into the marriage itself. The marriage feast seems to be in connection with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and the beginning of the millennium. Bible teachers vary as to where this will occur, but it seems to me that the weight rests upon the argument that the marriage feast will occur on the earth.
And there are some who even understand the millennium, the whole thousand year reign of Christ, as being the marriage feast. That it will not be merely an event, but it will be a thousand year celebration. How appropriate that would be for the Son of the Eternal God to have that kind of a celebration. But it does seem at least to be initiated by an event that is called the marriage supper. Have you seen that delightful painting?
I think it is entitled the marriage supper of the Lamb, something like that, where a table is beautifully and royally set, and it stretches on and on and on in the painting as far as the horizon. The sun is coming up. And the whole idea in this glorious painting is the table is set. Everything is ready for the marriage feast to occur. And the bride is the honored guest along with the bridegroom. Certainly the bridegroom is the center of it. But he shares his glory with his bride.
J. Vernon McGee says there is this marriage supper and then, quote, the honeymoon lasts for a thousand years, close quote. So that's the mother of all honeymoons, isn't it? Now it indicates here that there are guests at this occasion. Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. So it seems that not only is there the wife and the Lamb, but there are guests who come and who are also a part of this. Who are these guests?
Well, it seems the best understanding of this is the guests are all of the redeemed of the ages apart from the church, the church being the bride. We have here the redeemed of the ages coming together, the saints out of Old Testament Israel, the saved Gentiles from the past, those saved in the tribulation period will all be a part of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and will share in this event that will kick off His glorious reign. John Walvard puts it this way in one of his writings.
I'm going to broaden my reading just a bit. He says, one of the false interpretations that has plagued the church is the concept that God treats all saints exactly alike. Instead, a literal interpretation of the Bible distinguishes different groups of saints. And here the bride is distinguished from those who are invited to the wedding supper. Instead of treating all alike, God indeed has a program for Israel as a nation and also for those in Israel who are saved.
He also has a program for Gentiles in the Old Testament who come by faith, come to faith in God, and in the New Testament He has a program for the church as still a different group of saints. Again in the book of Revelation, the tribulation saints are distinguished from the other previous groups. It is not so much a question of difference in blessings as it is that God has a program designed for each group of saints which corresponds to their particular relationship to His overall program.
Here the church described as a bride will be attended by angels and by saints who are distinct from the bride. John's response to this whole explosion of revelation and praise from heaven is one of awe. He makes the mistake of bowing before the angel for which he is rebuked. The angel tells him to worship God and then says that essentially the study of prophecy should witness to Jesus.
Again Walvard says the very nature or purpose of prophecy is to testify of Jesus Christ and to bring glory to Him. Thus the statement, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Now we come to the second part of this chapter which deals with events on earth surrounding the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the appearance of heaven's armies and their leader. We have the angelic invitation to another supper, quite different than the one we just talked about.
And finally the arrest of the beast and the false prophet. It says in verse 11, I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he who sat on him was called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the word of God.
And the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should strike the nations and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God and he has a name, he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
So John sees heaven opened and there is this white charger that is there, reminds us of chapter 6 and verse 2 where another white charger is seen with a rider but quite a different figure. There it is his opposite. It is Antichrist who is going out to conquer the earth. It is clear from the whole context that the white charger here is the one that carries the Lord Jesus Christ. He is described as faithful and true as the executor of all of God's program. He is faithful.
He will bring all of it to pass. Every promise, every warning will all be fulfilled. All is true and all will be faithfully fulfilled. He says that he judges and he makes war with righteousness. This certainly is in contrast to his first coming when he came to save. In his second coming he will come to judge. His first coming was a coming of grace and truth, kissing together. His second coming is justice being fulfilled. His person is described. His eyes are like a flame of fire.
This corresponds to what John saw in chapter 1. It refers to his holiness and to his absolute knowledge of all things. There is a penetrating quality in the eyes of the Son of God as he comes now to bring judgment to the earth and its citizens. He is crowned with many crowns, many diadems. He has authority to rule. It is absolute. He is the monarch. He is the king. He is the majesty of the ages.
He has names which are unknown yet, referring perhaps to his infinite glory that finite man can never fully know. He has clothing which appears to be dipped in blood. This seems to be drawn from the language of Isaiah 63 in verse 3 where Isaiah sees this one who is coming, this figure who is coming, his clothing stained with blood. Where are you coming from? He says he is coming from judgment. Here the Son of God is coming and he is coming to bring judgment to the earth.
This of course is not the first time that we have seen this kind of language in the book of the Revelation. He is called the Word of God. This obviously refers to that first bit of the Gospel of John where the same apostle writes about in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who came as the Creator, who came to redeem the world and now who comes to execute judgment.
He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that is written on his vestment. His is the place of supreme authority. Over all kings and lords of the earth he reigns. Notice that he leads the armies of heaven who are said to be clothed in pure white. Notice how it is put, fine linen, white and clean. Language very similar to what we saw in the previous paragraph. This leads me to conclude that the armies that are seen here must be us.
It must be the body of people who have been united in marriage to the Son of God and who are now coming with him to the earth in this tremendous movement that will bring judgment. He speaks words, the sword that comes out of his mouth refers to a long sword. It is even used of a spear sometimes, it is symbolic and it means that his word, what he speaks will destroy his enemy. Here is a war that will be won instantly.
Here is a war that at the word of him who sits on the charger, the armies, the thousands of soldiers gathered for battle there in Israel will fall dead. They will be slain by the very word of his mouth and he is seen as one who will reign with a rod of iron. In Jesus coming for the church, it seems that his coming will be invisible to the citizens of the world. There surely will be fallout from it, but they will not observe it. Not the case here.
Every eye will see him as he returns on this occasion. The people of the earth will witness this scene. Let's go back to one text just quickly, to the words of Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 24 where he talks about his coming. Verse 29 of Matthew 24, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
All of this is further elaborated upon in the book of Revelation as we've seen. Down to verse 30, then the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the cloud of heaven with power and great glory. So make no mistake about it, the coming that we see described in Revelation chapter 19 will be a very public coming and all the peoples of the earth will observe this along with that sign in heaven.
Well there are those who believe that television is that which makes all of this possible and that is a possibility but I think a remote one. I think God is quite capable of making all of this visible without the help of television. His return to the earth will conclude a great world war. It will already have been in progress for several weeks so it seems.
With the armies of the world now in Israel battling back and forth up and down the length of the land, this will be a time of great trouble for the people of Israel. It is called the time of Jacob's trouble in the Old Testament. This war will culminate their suffering. This war will take place in the land that they today are so adamant about defending.
And it seems that on the very day when Jesus Christ will return to the earth and every eye will see him, there will be house to house fighting in the city of Jerusalem according to Zechariah chapter 14 and verse 2.
And as these armies united together for this world war culminating in Israel, as these armies fight with one another, having been gathered together, may I remind you by the demons that were unleashed earlier in our study of this book, they will be deceived, the armies of the world are brought together for a world war against each other but now they will be congealed, they will turn their attention toward this heavenly army that will be coming at them and of course they will be utterly slain.
The result of that is a great deal of carnage. We have seen before the description of the blood flowing in the land of Israel.
When we come to the angelic invitation to the supper of God, it says, then I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a loud voice saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all people, free and slave both small and great.
In conjunction with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there will be a judgment for all the peoples of the earth. In Matthew chapter 24 again, the angels are sent throughout the earth and they gather together the people of God, they also gather together those who are not the people of God.
There is a difference made between them and those who are God's people and are still alive will enter into the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and they will repopulate the earth in that thousand year reign so that by the end of the thousand years, it's hard to imagine what the population of the world will be because death will be restricted, there will be disease will be restricted and so on, the population will mushroom in the millennial reign of Christ.
But those who are the lost, those who have rejected Christ and are not a part of this army that's destroyed will themselves be slain by the sword as an act of judgment in their rebellion against God so that only the righteous will enter into the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. The result of all of this is tremendous carnage and the birds of the air are called to what is called the great supper of God.
This is God's way I suppose of cleaning up the carnage around the earth and the fowls of the air will be responsible for that. It's a gruesome scene isn't it? Some people have a hard time identifying this kind of language with God but we had best remember that God is a God of justice and righteousness and judgment as well as a God of salvation and mercy and grace and here we see his judgment fiercely carried out upon those who reject him.
Well that brings us to the conclusion of the chapter which deals with the arrest of the beast and the false prophet. I saw the beast, that's the end of Christ, the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army. Then the beast was captured and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.
If you've been with us in our study you understand what is being said here. We have a religious leader who is going to deceive the nations of the world into thinking that this person called the beast here is Christ when he is anti-Christ. He is still alive at this point. He was not destroyed with the religious system that we saw in chapter 17. He survives that, he's above that apparently.
He too has used that religious system now to establish for the last part of the tribulation this worship of the beast and his image. These two individuals, it says, are cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. Now we see a terrible place described here that is new to us. This is not the fiery hell that the man in Luke chapter 16 went to. There is a Gehenna that Jesus warned about.
There is a hell that lost people go to today, but it is a place, a temporary place of terrible and awful suffering. But hell will give forth all of those people who are there, and they will be brought back for their final accounting before God. We'll see that in the next chapter. And all of the lost will spend forever in this place that is called the lake of fire. The first two residents of the lake of fire are the beast, Antichrist, and his cohort, the false prophet.
It says, the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. And so we have a picture here that is a terrible picture. It is a picture that describes to us the end of the world as we now know it. Mankind that boasts in his pride and rebellion against God now will in this day be fully dealt with. It is interesting, as we shall see in our study next time, that this is not the end of human rebellion.
But it is the end of the rebellion that is in process today and tonight. It is a time when God is going to be vindicated in the world. When man has said no to God, he leaves himself no destiny but hell and ultimately the lake of fire. Certainly, the picture that is here is a warning to every person who is outside of Jesus Christ to turn immediately to the Savior who still today has his arms open and on his lips the invitation of grace to come to me.
But there will come a day when his arms will be folded as a judge and the words from his lips will not be words of invitation, but words like these, depart from me into everlasting fire. Depart from me. I never knew you. They will be cast into their place of judgment. Well, it is an ominous way to end the service and to end this chapter.
For the child of God, this chapter has tremendous glory and hope and expectation for those who are not children of God, a warning that is written in red letters and underscored, a warning about continuing rejection of Jesus Christ. If you be here tonight without Jesus Christ as your Savior, surely this chapter alone from the Word of God should be enough to warn you of your destiny, should you persist in your unbelief.
Oh, that tonight you would trust the Lord Jesus Christ and receiving him be saved from this awful judgment that is coming upon all of those who reject Christ. I would like for us to close tonight on a happier note than that.