At this point in the service, if you're in kindergarten or to second grade, you're welcome to primary church if you're not We pray with me. Let us pray Father, I pray this morning that you would come and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf Every week is we get deeper and deeper into this book of revelation. It feels both more complicated and more simple and I pray this morning that you would make it Understandable. I pray for those who don't know Jesus that you would give them a call Call their hearts open their eyes that they might know you. I pray for those who have trusted Jesus before that you would Awaken them even more that you would convict to their hearts or the truthfulness of the gospel convict their hearts with joy Even father, I pray for myself that you'd be in my head and in my thinking in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking In Jesus name we pray all these things. Amen. Amen You know as I was looking at the text this morning during the week that thought for some reason I thought of my poor mother often times the reason I said my poor mother the many of you who know me know that I grew up sort with ADHD Undiagnosed and in the age when evil cannibal was popular So I think by the time I was in junior high I had broken almost every bone on my body at one time or another except for my collarbone And I got caught doing everything I ever did One of the most heartbreaking things I think for my mom is when she caught me smoking at age 7. I
Mean Brett wanted to do it is my buddy, you know, we went across the street to the fork both those snuck a couple of you know Sigs from our parents and the the the fly in the ointment of course was my little sister Katie She ratted me out for everything I ever did And our parents were not where we got home our parents dealt with us in a summary fashion one But they dealt with it quite differently my parents spanked me one time and it was a guy to spanking it to this day I can remember they spank me one time and they never said another word about it Brett's parents on the other hand Saddened down at the table and said you want to smoke huh? He's our guest so and they put a carton of cigarettes in front of him And said well, you're gonna smoke them. You're gonna sit at this table and you're gonna smoke cigarettes until that whole carton is done And he thought it was pretty cool at the beginning for fire remember correctly until but the third smoke in he started to throw up In other words his parents brought down discipline on him and the discipline they brought on him was it was nothing more nothing less than that which he asked for You want discipline you want punishment? I'm just gonna give you what you asked for the reason I tell you that story is because as we jump into today's text in Revelation By the time it ends it is this this note of somber judgment It's this note of drinking the wine of God's wrath and smoke coming up in the lamb and the his followers watching as people are Punished and tortured and the question has to be as you move through the text is are they getting what they deserve? Are they getting what they asked for or are they getting something that God is just being capricious and he's just being mean and So as we go through the book of Revelation I hope you've seen that there's really two kinds of people as we review this book My up there two kinds of people What are the people that we see in the book of Revelation? They're those who follow the lamb and those who follow the dragon or the beast They're those who have the mark of the beast on their forehead or those who have the mark of the lamb on their forehead And so as we've gone through this book It becomes more and more clear that there there's only one of two ways to go Ultimately, that's either to be a follower of the dragon and we we've defined that those book of Revelation says that is Satan himself or a follower of Jesus and today's text that really makes it clear before we jump into the text I wanted to go through a little review remember the purpose of the book of Revelation in general and Again, it's one of these books that people make very complicated, but I think it's actually less complicated the purpose of the book of Revelation In a nutshell is this it's to teach us the church that Jesus has won in the past He will win in the future and he is winning Right now and by that I mean what did he win in the past? Remember when Adam brought sin into the world He plunged not only all of us into guilt but all of creation into chaos Well at the cross Jesus bore that curse he bore our sin and because and he won completely There's nothing else that has to be done ever to pay for our sin He won already he will win in the future because in the future He's ultimately going to clean everything up and all of creation will bear the the fruit of his death on the cross And not only is he going to win in the future, but he's winning right now and that's the biggest struggle for us Frankly, right do you look at yourself and ask yourself does it look like Jesus is winning right now when it comes to my life Maybe your marriage is hard. Maybe relationships are hard. Maybe work is everything seems like it's not easy Is Jesus winning and what the book of Revelation says that Jesus is winning right now? He's winning. He's executing his plan to win the nations to himself He's executing his plan to win to even in your life all the hard things to work them together for good So that's part of the purpose the other part of the purpose of the book of Revelation is to get the church to wake up and look outward It's not it's really not that complicated Remember the book is written to seven churches the seven churches and Asia all of the churches had a problem And the problem was that they were struggling with being outwardly faced That's my word. They were struggling with bearing witness to those around them Two of them were actually trying but they were being persecuted and it was hard They were faithful the rest of them either weren't trying it all or they were compromising with the culture And so the book of Revelation is constantly pointing out to us a that we are to be engaging the world around us But be there's only so much time left In other words, the book of Revelation should impart to us a sense of urgency And so as we go through and one other thing I want to remind you of is this whole idea of recapitulation If you've not been here, you don't remember that word basically recapitulation is a fancy theological word for repetition In other words, it means repetition so a good example of recapitulation is the are the gospels the story of Jesus That they're told four different times from four different perspectives with different varying intensity And so when you look at the book of Revelation, it's really the same story The book of Revelation ultimately is the history of redemption told over and over and over again Sometimes from different perspectives sometimes with different levels of intensity Remember Eugene Peterson said there's nothing new in the book of Revelation There's nothing new. It's the same old information the same old gospel Given to us in a new way And so that's that's important to realize because remember we went through the seals the seven seals and the seven seals take us from Basically Jesus resurrection until the end of time seven trumpets resurrection to the end of time And we're getting ready and know a couple weeks to look at the seven bowls of God's wrath and right now We're in the middle of this long interlude In between these scenes of seals and trumpets and things we're given interludes and the purpose of the interludes is to encourage the church Because you look at the seven seals and you can get pretty down. He said man, that's a drag Or the seven trumpets. That's a drag the seven bowls of God's wrath really a drag and so in between those times John encourages the church and so we're looking he's in the middle of this vision And that's why the text opens up. He says then I looked Because he's seeing one thing after another and today's Passage in chapter 14 obviously comes right off the heels of chapter 13 which comes off the heels of chapter 12 Chapter 12 were reminded that there's a this one called the dragon Satan who's continually at war with the woman and her offspring That's us And then in chapter 13 you we hear how does the dragon wage war against the woman and her offspring us? Well, he wages war with us by way of Government and the state and things like that but also through religion And that's what we look last week in the mark of the beast and those who follow the beast had his mark and this week intentionally Is a contrast with chapter 13. So if you Are a note taker. I have three points basically for you the first thing we're going to look at today is the lambs army That's verses one through five then we're going to look at what I'm calling the last call and then finally we're going to have a reality check And so for verses one through five the lambs army what do we see the first thing I want you to notice is who they are Who is this these people that I'm calling the lambs army? He says then I looked and behold a Mount Zion stood the lamb and with him 144,000 who had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads So who are these people? This 144,000 they're standing on Mount Zion first of all what is what's going on here? What's the picture well in the Old Testament when Messiah comes when he is conquered everything when he has made everything complete in the way it's supposed to be he stands on Mount Zion And so here's the lamb standing on Mount Zion as the victorious king and the 144,000 they are there with him And notice what they have on them they have their name the father's name and the lamb's name on their forehead A few verses ago we saw that the followers of the beast had his name on their forehead or their hand So they're marked just like the followers of the beast are marked the followers of the lamb are marked But these are the ones who have endured Remember as we looked at chapter 13 when he talked about the first beast the the way John concluded was he said this He said here is a call for endurance and faith of the saints and then last week when we talked about the second beast He ended by saying here is a call for wisdom And when you get to chapter 14 what you have is a picture of those who have endured the wrath of the beast those who have helped survive if you will And those who have survived are part of this this group called the 144,000 We looked at that before when we did chapter 7 and the bottom line is what I've told you at least my perspective my understanding The 144,000 is all of the church is a complete number It's like a census and it's a complete number of all the saints throughout all of history Old Testament and New Testament Every single person that is supposed to be standing around the lamb at the end of time will be standing around the lamb It's a precise complete number of people. Let's who they are The next question is what do they do look at verse 2 and 3 it says he jumps and I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters And like the sound of loud thunder the voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who have been redeemed from the earth So what do they do? So these are the saints who have endured they have survived the wrath of the beast and they are now standing in the presence of the lamb and what do they do?
Answer they sing And not only do they sing They sing loudly In fact, they sing so loudly that when John hears it he says I heard the voice it like like many thunders It was overwhelmingly loud, but it wasn't overwhelming and crushing It was overwhelming and beautiful because it says also sound like harps they're all like they're playing harps up there But you see the saints who have been redeemed spend their time among other things singing and they sing to the lamb What do they sing? They sing what John has called before in here a new song Now, what is the new song? Is it some special information? Is it cryptic and the answer is absolutely not Remember if you want to understand the book of Revelation you have to at some level understand the Old Testament and in the Old Testament Whenever God achieved a victory that was outside of a human possibility That God delivered people when their only chance was that if God intervened They would sing songs and those songs were called new songs In other words a new song just means it's a song of victory and it's not just any victory It's a victory that God accomplished without any help from us It's a victory in which we were hopeless and helpless and at the end of our rope sort of like Israel standing at the edge of the red sea And we've got water on one side and Pharaoh coming at us at the other side. What do you do now? I mean the only thing that could help us now is if God would actually come and park this thing And he does and they get to the other side and they sing a new song The song of Moses we're gonna talk about that next week So what is the song that you and I will be singing throughout history? This new song it's a song of victory and it's a victory that was accomplished on our behalf And it's a victory that we couldn't accomplish by ourself Right remember Ephesians says you and I were dead and our trespasses and sins and there's absolutely no way that we could save Ourself from our sins that Jesus came in the person of God came in the person of Jesus and died on the cross rescued us from our sins and achieved this victory that you and I and our wildest dreams couldn't think of Now here's the beauty of it. This is a new song. It's a song not only about the Lamb But it's really a song about you and me as well Because we're part of the story we're part of the the victory that happened if you were a Christian If you're a Christian what you're gonna be singing about is how Jesus delivered you When you were helpless how Jesus delivered you when you were without a prayer And it's a song that will resonate throughout eternity, but it's also the song we sing right now You believe that if you're a Christian do you believe that And if you believe that why are you so miserable? Seriously, I talked to Discovery class yesterday And I do the same stick every time and I talk about Martin Lloyd Jones and how he says he said to his church 80 years ago we have a problem in our church You said the problem in our church is very few people come to know Christian come to know Jesus And as far as I can tell Martin Lloyd Jones says I would never say something like this Martin Lloyd Jones says the reason very few people become Christians in our church is because you are the most miserable people I've ever seen in my life And he says I think the reason you're miserable is either you don't believe the gospel or you don't understand the gospel And then he explains it to them And what you have here in the first five verses here is this picture of the gospel It's the end you know Steven J. Covey says begin with the end in mind the end is you standing at the foot of Jesus on Mount Zion Singing a song of his victory over your sin for all eternity That should bring some amount of joy to your heart. I would hope So what do they do when they're there? I mean how did they live notice versus form five He says that in verse 4 it says it is these this this army the shirts who have not defiled themselves with women for their virgins And it is those who follow the lamb it is these who follow the lamb wherever they go These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and in their mouth no lie was found for they are blameless So how do they live there's at least three different things we see here first of all we see about the fault these These 144,000 is that they're undefiled That they're undefiled by the world now remember the seven churches would have been listening to this letter as well And the seven churches would have really been struggling with whether or not they should compromise with Rome Who's asking them to worship the emperor and and our own ways were asked to worship and idols of our own But he says these are the ones who are undefiled they didn't give in They didn't they didn't let the world defile them They didn't give in but also it's a picture of what Jesus has done for them Remember chapter 7 when it talks about the 144,000 says these are the ones who are washed in the blood of the lamb Who made the robes white in the blood of the lamb so the reason they're undefiled is not because they never did anything wrong It's because everything that they've ever done wrong has been credited to Jesus account and everything that he ever did right was credited to theirs And because of that and that only are they undefiled but something else is going on here as well The only time you count people at this level in the Bible is when you're getting ready to go to war When you're forming an army and in the Old Testament when you formed an army the men were to abstain from sexual relations before They actually went to war and so there's a sense in which this is a picture of God's army and the picture of God's army Why does God need an army in this world? It's an army that engages the world with the gospel and it's an army not that engages with guns or violence But it's an army that engages with sacrifice and self-sacrifice and words of peace words of hope But mostly this message that Jesus has given his life for sinners What else do they do? Notice it says that they follow him the lamb wherever he goes They follow him wherever he goes What does that mean? Well, if you look back to the to the gospels what it what was Jesus' primary question to people Jesus never said here's what I want you to do. I'm going to get your act together. I want you to be good And when you stop doing all these bad things when you stop being a sinner then come and follow me He basically said some version of this will you follow me Or he'd say follow me, but then there's up to you. Am I going to follow him or not And what the disciple does is they follow Jesus and it says these are the ones who follow the lamb wherever he went Wherever he goes that's where they went because they were disciples And it's also instructive because you know I've remember being in churches before I didn't grow up in church But even in my adult life I've heard you know when people feel like that God is as far away Have you ever heard this that say well God didn't move you moved That's not true all the time If you look at the old testament every now and then Israel God was with them by pillar fire and pillar of smoke And sometimes they would all be sitting around the campfire imagine and the pillar of fire just got up and went someplace else And when God moved you were supposed to get up and follow where God went And here it doesn't say that the lamb follows them wherever they go It says that they follow the lamb wherever he goes and where does the lamb tend to go The lamb tends to go into the trenches the lamb tends to go after the worst of sinners The lamb tends to go after people who are helpless and hopeless is that where we go Followers of the lamb go there. What's the last thing we see about how they live And it says in verse 5 it says and in their mouth was no lie found for they are blameless That was interesting that the culmination of what their lives are like is he says that in their mouth no lie is found Because they are blameless and I think it's because if you look at the whole Bible What the whole Bible says in many ways is just this if you want to know what's going on in your heart Just watch what comes out of your mouth If you if you want to what to see how to the extent to which you understand This thing we call the gospel just look at what comes out of your mouth And I've told you all stories about the tongue exercise right If you want to find out the this ministry called Sunship used to do a minute of exercise called the tongue exercise And basically they would say what we want you to do is take one week and then one week time We'd want you to not say anything negative don't slander don't gossip don't criticize don't be cynical don't do anything negative On the other hand we want you to bless people we want you to tell people about Jesus We want you to encourage people all those and after a week what's gathered together and see how it goes How did it how it went? And I did this experiments when I was working for Eli Lilly during my training time There was a guy that rode with us my my roommate now you know We had these apartments and you ride to the training center and there was a guy that rode with us who cost so much I called him Cartman. I forget his real name And one morning I said Cartman Will you do me a favor? And he said what's that and I said let's do this exercise it's called the tongue exercise And I explained it to him I said just let's do it for you let's you do it a day So for one day, I don't want you to cuss. I don't want you to it's a bad mouth anybody. I don't want you to be cynical I don't want you to criticize people in class nothing And I only want you to to bless people and say nice things about them. He's not a Christian And so we got to the training thing we both went to our classes about eight o'clock and eight forty five They released you to come to go get a cup of coffee and I met him at the coffee maker and he just looked pale
And I said Cartman are you doing all right? And he said I'm going to hell, dude I am going to hell I said why? That couldn't help myself. It just kept coming out You see if you want to know where your heart is with regard to the gospel There's really there's actually two places to look I'm not talking about the one day one is where your money goes, but the other is where your mouth goes And so ask yourself are you one who is defined by telling the truth? I know a lot of people struggle with telling the truth You slander do you gossip all of these kinds of things because if you do Write the disciple follows Jesus, but but if the disciple follows Jesus he or she Also acts like Jesus. I was reminded of this passage from Second first Peter chapter two verse 21 Peter says for to for to you this you for you've been called to this because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example So that you might follow in a steps he committed no sin neither was deceit found in his mouth when he was reviled He did not revile in return when he suffered He did not threaten but continued and trusting himself to him who judges justly And the example we have there don't get me wrong the example is Jesus didn't lie and Jesus didn't revile So you shouldn't revile the example there is that the way Jesus was able to keep from lying the way Jesus was able to keep from reviling the way he was able to keep from gossiping or slander Was that he continued to entrust himself to him who judges justly in other words He believed the promise of God that he would never fail him or forsake him When you catch yourself lying When you catch yourself spinning the truth when you catch yourself slandering somebody or saying something bad about somebody ask yourself this question Do I really trust God Don't say that the right thing or the wrong thing just like so do I really trust myself to him who judges justly And so the next place that John goes he gives his picture right of what it looks like to be a disciple that you're standing in Mount Zion you're singing and here's what they look like you know they they they No lie comes out of their mouth. They follow the lamb and all this kind of stuff and then all of a sudden he takes a turn He actually draws it's almost if he takes a big line he draws a thick line So on one hand here's how the redeem lift you get this vision of the future of the redeem and then you get basically He steps backward in time and gives us what I'm gonna call this thing the last call Right, remember the book of Revelation among other things is all about the fact that there's only so much time before Jesus returns And so what when we talk about the last call There's basically three angels that are given here and the angels are what I'm gonna call gospel angel A warning angel and finally a judgment angel Notice through gospel angel in verses six and seven He says then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell in the earth To every nation and tribe and people And language and people and he said with a loud voice fear God and give him glory Because the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the springs of water So what is this gospel angel talking about? Well for one the angel the gospel angel is either an angel like a literal angel that's flying or it's symbolic for the church It's symbolic for those who would preach the gospel But what is the gospel angel do first all he proclaims to those who still dwell on earth and remember those who dwell on earth Or earth dwellers in the book of Revelation is a technical term for people who do not believe the gospel And so what does he do first? It says he proclaims to them the eternal gospel Now I'm only gonna take a minute on what what this eternal gospel thing is But if you were in a growth group a sermon based growth group that start this week They're actually going to spend quite a bit of time digging deeper into what the Eternal gospel is but but for the sake of argument right now the eternal gospel is just this It what it's saying is that God the gospel Was not God's plan B We think of eternity typically we tend to think of where we are now and look forward But eternity in God's mind is where we are now. It's forward and it's backwards And remember what we look at earlier in the book of Revelation chapter 12 and chapter 13 that who survives It's those whose names have been written in the book of the Lamb of of God before the foundation of the world In other words God's plan from from the foundation of the world was this thing called the gospel to draw a people unto himself to redeem them by his son Jesus the Lamb It's not a plan B. It's not an afterthought. It's not something he just came up with after everything else failed That the gospel is something that that was has been there since the beginning of time and it will continue Till the end of time and what does the angel say? He basically tells people to repent and what does repent mean? It means to turn from your sin and turn to God notice He says fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come And again, there's a sense of urgency He says fear God give him in glory why because the hour of his judgment has come This is the last call it's the last time. I'm going to say anything about your your chance to repent He says because after this it's all over and that's what happens after this these other angels And so the question you have to ask yourself is a arm am I a Christian and be if I'm not a Christian What does this mean for me? Is it the last call Is it can I really should I really have a sense of urgency about this you know It's Jesus really going to come back before all this happens Jesus might not come back before all this happens, but that doesn't mean something wouldn't happen to you And the question is do you know Jesus look at what where it happens with the warning angel He says another angel second followed saying fall and fall in his babble on the great she who made the nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual Immorality Now it's interesting here because there's a sense of what she's given the last call and he's almost anticipating what the person who is not a believer is thinking Because remember what the chapter 13 talked about is those who follow the beast their temptation And what they actually do is they actually put their faith in something other than God And in chapter 13 that they put their faith in the government basically or the state To take care of them and you remember we talked about that that if you put your faith in anything But Jesus you will ultimately be disappointed But what he's saying here is he's making a statement about putting your faith in other things But specifically in the state or organizations And the old testament Babylon was the ones who came through and destroyed the first Temple and in the new testament shortly after the Rome came through and destroyed the second temple the early church We know would have when they heard Babylon they would have heard Rome What they're saying is you might put your faith in Rome and Rome might give you a lot of stuff And you might think that if as long as you support them that you're gonna be okay But what are you saying is at the end of the day fallen fallen is Babylon That state that city that anything that you are actually putting your trust in other than Jesus is so certain to fall He says it in the past tense and he says it twice to make sure you got it Fallen fallen and what does he say about her he says She who made the nation strength the wine of her passion of her sexual immorality That should actually say the wine of her passion which leads to sexual immorality In the picture here is a picture really from the old testament that talks about adultery but not just any adultery, but it's spiritual adultery In other words in the old testament when Israel followed other gods gods other than the one that they were supposed to That was likened to spiritual adultery. It was it was likened to sexual immorality And he says those who have have drank of this wine who have done that The jig is up because after the last call and the sort of final warning judgment comes and that's the last angel Notice what the last angel says You said in verse 9 another angel a third followed them saying with a loud voice if anyone worships the beast in its image And receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand He also will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of anger And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb And the smoke of the torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest day or night These worshipers of the beast in his image whoever receives the mark of his name So it's there's an interesting contrast here because notice the the last warning was basically woe to those who drink of the from Babylon You know who drink her wine and and become engaged in adultery with her He says basically and this is where my friend comes in the story of breath What God is saying says here at the end if you want to drink wine You want to follow Babylon? Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you drink all the wine that you want Notice what he says there. He says he will also drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger In other words in the Old Testament in the Bible basically when people drank wine at dinner or they drank wine with friends They would water it down by about half You only drank wine full strength if you wanted to get drunk And what God says you want to drink wine Here's what I'm going to do I'm going to let you drink all the wine you want and not only are you going to drink all the wine you want But it's going to be undeluted wine And it's the wine of my wrath and there's a sense in which God is saying here So I'm going to let you guys get drunk, but it's going to be dead drunk
You can drink you could you could you drink the wine of gladness or you can drink the wine of God's wrath now Here's the irony to this Is what he's he's promising to people who refuse to trust Jesus is something that Jesus himself has already done for the same people That what Jesus did on the cross was bore the wrath of God and otherwise he drank the full cup of wrath that God had He drank it all the way down to the drags He bore it. It's done. It's completely done That's the good news of the gospel so on one hand if you're sitting in here saying man, that's a drag It's really you know, gosh is that what I have to look forward to and the answers you don't have to I remember years ago I was reading what appeared in name John Owen and it was at his 10th volume as a death of death and a death of Christ and I was reading it and I came across a passage that was still moving to me It literally made me drop the book and I looked it up this morning and it was basically He's talking about Old Testament what the Old Testament said about those who would bear God's wrath And this is just part of it He says this is from the Old Testament says I will smite the shepherd as the sheep of the flock will be scattered abroad He was stricken smitten of God and afflicted and laid upon him was the iniquity of us all It pleased the Lord to bruise him and put him degree He made him to be sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and on and on and on and on in other words I sat there thinking Jesus knew exactly what he was getting into Jesus knew remember the eternal gospel when Jesus became a incarnate when he went to the cross He wasn't going to the cross saying yeah, what was going to happen when I'm up here He came and he knew that his whole purpose of coming here on earth was to drink the full cup of God's wrath all the way down to the Drinks so that you and I would not have to bear that cup And the question is why would you then bear it if it's already been done Why would you carry that around Jesus has already done it when Jesus was on the cross and he said my God my God Why have you forsaken me Most people teach that was at that time that God turned his back on Jesus I don't think that's true The reason Jesus cried out my God my God way of you forsaken me is not because God turned his face away It's because God turned upon him with the full measure of his wrath and the relationship was broken Not because God was ignoring him, but because God was pouring out wrath upon him The wrath that you and I deserved and the question is are you going to let him bear it? Are you going to bear it yourself because if you're going to bear it yourself there's more news here for you He says that the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest there night These worshipers of the beast in its image whoever receives the mark of his name and the language here is basically that of Sodom and Gomorrah Of God continually raining down smoke fire torment on those who refuse to trust the beast Have a good day church. That was planned for the dramatic pause Let's continue So what's interesting is word of verses 12 and 13 fit in Because on one hand he gives his glorious picture of the future as far as the church goes that they'll be in the You know, I'm out Zion with the lamb singing his praises and then they give this great warning passage And here's what it's in store for those who refuse to trust Jesus and then suddenly he you're in a different place Because notice verse 12 he says Here's a call for the endurance of the saints those who keep the commandments of God And their faith in Jesus and in verse 13 he says I heard a voice from heaven saying right this Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on blessed and indeed since the spirit that they may rest from their labors for their deeds Follow them So what's going on here? There's a sense in which John he's given us his great picture of heaven He's given us this horrible picture of hell and now he gives us a reality check And others verse 12 brings us back to reality where we live right now And where we live right now he says this is a call to endure and why is it a call to endure?
It can only the only reason he would give the church a call to endure is if he expected them to actually go out and engage the world with this message In other words if you never go out if you never engage if you never Bear witness to the gospel outside of the four walls of the church you really don't have to endure anything do you? In fact, most of us spend a lot of time trying to avoid having to endure anything because that means suffering Yet John's expectation here is that you've heard this what's going to happen on one hand You have this this picture of blessing on the other hand You see what's in store for those who don't know Jesus and the assumption is is that you will engage And that will be hard and because of that This is a call to endure and I love this last part where he says a verse 13 the promise of blessing He says and I heard a voice from heaven saying Blessed are those right this blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on blessed indeed Says the spirit that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them You know Those of you who know me well certainly my family knows this and my wife knows better than anyone at all Almost anything I do one of the first things I do is I just think I can't help but think through what's the worst case scenario People say we you know if we do this or that my immediately my mind just immediately begins to calculate the worst case scenario What's the worst case scenario and can I live with it now often the worst case scenario involves some kind of death That's true as you can I live with it though with a very worst thing that could happen I die Then what I'm a Mount Zion singing Then I'm with the lamb then there's no more tears then there's no more crying that's not really bad scenario is it And I think what John is giving them here is this promise of blessing That what's it when you think about engaging the world With the gospel of Jesus what is the worst possible thing that could happen You get killed Another day at the office, right But in reality, what's the worst case there is that you would get killed and here's what he says for those who are killed in the line of duty If you will sharing the gospel he says right this he wants them to specifically put this down Blessed are the dead who died in the Lord from now on blessed indeed says the spirit that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them Now notice he doesn't say their deeds precede them that God's letting them in because some some good they've done He says they have they've brought to heaven and their deeds follow them And I think it's just his way of saying I know what you have been through I know what you've gone through I know what you've sacrificed and blessed are you that's a be attitude by the way There's seven be attitudes in the book of Revelation Never not have time to talk about it, but it's it's just like blessed are the poor he's saying here blessed are those who die in the Lord It's a blessing to happen. So where does that that leave us? I think really all of chapter 14 at the end of the day Is a call to discipleship and it's a call to death It's called the death in a number of ways. Let me read to mark chapter 8 verses 35 and 36 I think Well start at 34 Jesus says if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for whoever would save his life Will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's sake will save it For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life for what can him and give in return for his life In other words what Jesus tells his disciples is this he says if you if you want to gain your life You you must lose it If you want to be blessed you must lose you must die And that's not just I think in the context of the gospel if you think it ever every other area in our life Think about your marriage you want a successful marriage you need to learn how to die You want to be a successful parent you need you probably need to learn how to die some you want to be a successful employer or an successful boss You probably need to learn how to die some not physically, but certainly die through your sin die to your desires die to everything that defines you in or that you may gain In Jesus in chapter 14 does the exact same thing that he's done in chapter 8 of mark He says will you follow me basically On one hand that there is this the scenario that you do follow that you don't follow Jesus and ultimately you bear judgment Or the scenario that you do follow Jesus and you die in the process, but you bear blessing which will be In other words, it's another way of counting the cost on one hand It's the cost of the gospel such that you're willing to bear and it's the outweigh the cost of not following Jesus the second half of that what we looked at today Think about that. Let me pray for us Father, I pray that just as we continue to look at this book of Revelation it tends to get deeper and deeper But it gets simpler and simpler and I pray that we leave this place asking ourselves