The Last Battle - 51

Dale Wallace, the pastor of Damascus Baptist Church in Statesville, told me a story about his father.

I think it was his father-in-law. A woman in the church came up to him after a sermon, and she said to him, Oh, Pastor Wallace, you must have great times of inspiration before God. And he said, no, more like great times of desperation. Great times of desperation. Well, I was not fully prepared to preach this evening because we were anticipating Laverne Waugh being with us, but in God's providence.

She is sick, and I am here. I think this is a time that I'm reminded of one of the advantages of expositional preaching. As you're preaching, you have an eye toward what's next because it's in a context. So even though I hadn't had the time I typically have to prepare for tonight's message, I've been preparing for tonight's message. I like to have the message pretty much outlined in my mind, and I like to give it a week or so to kind of marinate.

I have found that it's more clear and more fruitful, but I haven't had that time. But be as it may, we're here tonight in the will of God, preaching from Revelation chapter 19. I don't know how this passage strikes you, but it's a sobering text. It's an arresting text. It's an astonishing text. It's a gruesome text.

It captures your attention. Again, let me read these verses. Then I saw, this is John, 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. And I saw the beast, 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 worshipped his image.

These two were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone, and 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. We're not going to make a change in midstream. We're going to continue to interpret and seek to understand the word of God here in the book of Revelation. By looking at this, we're seeing symbolic, figurative language. This is not literal language.

We've not adopted that hermeneutic throughout our study, and we're not going to begin that tonight. This is to be understood symbolically and is to be understood figuratively. But when we're talking about, well, if it's symbolic, what does it symbolize?

And I think that's an important question, and we'll get to that this evening. I want to tie what we're studying here tonight with verse 11 that I read earlier. Verse 11 says, Now I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse and he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. We're seeing Christ come at the end of the age to make war and to bring judgment. But we see there in verse 11 his name, two names attached to him, Faithful and True.

And I think it's important to understand the context, to understand and appreciate why those words and those titles are there. He's faithful and true in the context of judgment, in the context of being faithful to his promises. So Christ is faithful. He's faithful to his people. He's faithful to his word.

He's true to his people, and he's true to his word. So as we're seeing this description of events that are to take place at the end of the age, let's be reminded that the Bible has spoken of these things in the Old Testament. And let me just mention and read a few passages to you to remind you. And again, as I'm doing this, we're thinking about Christ being faithful and true. Faithful to his promises, faithful to his word, true to his people. Psalm 9 verse 8, And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in unrighteousness. Psalm 72 verse 2, He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.

Psalm 96 verse 12 and 13, Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.

Psalm 98 and verse 9 says, For the Lord cometh to judge the earth with righteousness, shall he judge the world, and the people with equity. And then Isaiah chapter 11 verses 4 and 5 say this, But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. And then here's a passage from the book of Ezekiel that is being drawn upon here in Revelation chapter 19.

As Ezekiel writes, and listen carefully how closely these words reflect what we have already read in Revelation 19. And as for you son of man, thus says the Lord God, speak to every sort of bird, and to every beast of the field, assemble yourselves and come. Gather together from all sides to my sacrificial meal, which I am sacrificing for you. A great sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams and lambs, of goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan.

You shall eat fat till you are full, and drink blood till you are drunk at my sacrificial meal, which I am sacrificing for you. You shall be filled at my table with horses and riders, with mighty men, and with all the men of war, says the Lord God. John, here in John chapter 19, receives a vision. And this vision is of an angel that is summoning the birds of heaven, vultures to a future battlefield. Notice again verse 17, John 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.

For the supper of the great God. This is a vision that John receives. And the main point of this vision is to figuratively depict the certainty of destruction for those who oppose Jesus Christ now, and will face Him at His glorious return in judgment. Again, it's a symbolic picture of utter destruction and defeat of the enemies of Christ by Christ at the end of history. Notice with me, verse 18, That you may eat the flesh of kings, this is the birds of the air, 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. What is the point of this imagery, this vision, this symbolism?

Well, here's the point. The point is that divine retribution for sin is just as certain to happen as is the arrival of vultures to devour flesh that die in the desert. You know, when you're driving down the highway and you see a bunch of vultures circling the air, why are they there?

What are they doing? Well, there's something dead that they're over top of. It's a picture of death.

The picture here is that of a huge battlefield strewn with millions of corpses. And the only movement is that of birds pecking and tearing at the flesh of the dead. Jesus said in Matthew 24, 28, Wherever the corpses are, there the vultures will gather. I don't want to dwell on the gruesomeness of this picture that John was given, but it's part of the Word of God, and it's there for our understanding.

So let me make a couple of points of observation. Number one, note with me the contrast between the marriage supper of the Lamb in verse 19, verse 11. The marriage supper of the Lamb, where the called, the chosen, and the faithful will dine as guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The contrast between that feast and the supper of the great God, where the vultures will feast on the ungodly and the wicked. Now notice with me, there in verse 17, this description, Come, gather together for the supper of the great God.

Now there's a textual variant there. The adjective great in some manuscripts magnify God and some magnify the supper. The New King James is magnifying God. Gather together for the supper of the great God. Some manuscripts say gather together for the great supper of God.

I don't know that it makes a whole lot of difference, but here is the point. The point that God is equally glorified in salvation and in judgment. That there are two destinies where every single person is heading. Two feasts, one or the other you will be at. You will be a part of one of these two feasts.

There are no others. And it all depends upon a person's response to Jesus Christ and his gospel. And I think it bears asking the question, which destiny are you headed towards?

Which banquet will you be a participant in? A second observation. There's this foundational contrast that pertains to every single person regardless of distinction. Again, verse 18. The flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses, those who sit on them, all the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great. The foundational contrast pertains to every single person regardless of distinction.

What's the point? Earthly distinctions will not matter at that time. They will be inconsequential on that day. We are fundamentally unified by one thing, by the guilt of our sin. The entire human race is pictured there in verse 18. And we make an awful lot about earthly distinctions about the rich and the poor and the tall and the short and the well-dressed and the not-so-well-dressed and the various social classes and economic places people find themselves in, the slave, the free, children, adults. But when the judgment comes, those who have refused Jesus will find that their earthly status matters not at all.

It will not matter in that day, whether you were rich or whether you were poor or whatever other distinction we might point to that divides people in our culture. So, in verses 17 and 18, we have the anticipation of the last battle, and that's the title of my message tonight, the last battle. The anticipation of the last battle. In verse 19, we have presented to us the battle itself. Earlier in the book of Revelation, it has been described as the battle of Armageddon. Chapter 16 in verse 16. We're not talking about a new event here. We're talking about something that has been mentioned before because of the cyclical nature of the book of Revelation and how it's structured.

We've seen this before. Revelation 16 verse 16 says, And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. So it's mentioned there in 1616. It's mentioned again in reference to Revelation chapter 17 in verse 14 that says, These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings.

And those who are with Him are called chosen and faithful. Again, this is symbolic language. And I raised that question that I raised in the introduction, symbolic of what?

Okay, you're telling me this is not literal. This is symbolic. It's symbolic of what?

This is what it's symbolic of. At the end times, worldwide persecution in which tyrannical government power is joined with false prophecy in the church to seek to eradicate the Christian church. A worldwide persecution will take place prior to the return of Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus warned about in Matthew chapter 24.

Listen to the words of Jesus. Matthew chapter 24, He says, talking about the great tribulation, for then, verse 21, Matthew 24, for then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time. No, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.

But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. There will be a time of great deception, and the deception will be so clever that even the elect would be deceived if that were possible. But that is not possible, according to the words of Jesus. The beast, the man of perdition that Paul spoke of in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. He will seek to destroy the church through worldwide persecution. And I don't know where we are in terms of the church and God's redemptive timetable, but I think you would have to be foolish not to recognize that even in this country where we've been spared the most severe expressions of persecution, that persecution has ramped up. We are facing opposition.

It is more vocal, it is more intentional, it is more obvious to us. And that will continue until the end of time. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 8, Paul says regarding this wicked one, that Christ will consume him with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy him with the brightness of his coming. We know this.

We've been told this. The scriptures announce this to us. Psalm 2 tells us that the kings of the earth, they set themselves and the rulers, they take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. There's great opposition to Christ and to his church.

And this will continue and will intensify as we move closer and closer to the end of the age. So we're thinking tonight about, number one, the anticipation of the last battle in verses 17 and 18. Verse 19, the suddenness of the last battle. Notice it says, John says, And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth and their armies, gather together to make war with him who sat on the horse and against his army.

They're on a fool's errand, folks. I saw the beast, the kings of the earth and their armies, gather together to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army. That's the suddenness of the last battle. Notice verse 20 that speaks about the immediate aftermath of the last battle. It doesn't talk about foot soldiers being shot and killed.

No. What's it tell us? Verse 20, 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 worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. There is an unholy trinity that we discover and meet in the Book of Revelation. They are the beast. They are the false prophet. They are the devil himself who will meet the same fate in the next chapter in verse 10 as the beast and the false prophet. And they are seeking a following. They're seeking those who will worship them, who will believe them, who will follow them.

And they do indeed have a following. But the question tonight is, who are you following? Are you following King Jesus? Are you on the victor's side? Are you in the Lord's army? Are you one who is opposed to him? One who is standing against him? One who has taken up arms in opposition to Christ and his church? Are you an ally of the beast and the false prophet?

I trust not. I trust you are in the Lord's army. Notice what it says about these two, the beast and the false prophet. They were captured. And then we're told that these two were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. Folks, I would just challenge you to make note that throughout scripture, fire is reserved by God to speak of wrath and judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone. Here, the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. And they are thrown, it says, alive into the lake of fire.

What are we to make of that? Well, they're thrown there not to be eradicated. They're thrown there to suffer the just penalty of sin. And as I said, Revelation 20 verse 10, let's take a peek at that. Revelation 20 verse 10.

It says, the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. One of the lies, one of the deceptions that makes its way in academia and other places is the false doctrine of annihilation. That when a person dies, they don't go to a place of fire and eternal torment. They just cease to exist. That's a lie. The Bible doesn't teach that.

The Bible teaches about a place of eternal torment where people live in conscious awareness forever and forever. You say, well, why would people invent a false doctrine of annihilation? Well, because there's a number of reasons.

Number one, they don't like it. It doesn't comport to the God that they have envisioned in their mind. Well, my God would never do this. Therefore, I've got to invent a God who will do what I want him to do. The idea of conscious torment forever and ever and ever that a man never ever can pay his sin debt ever seems difficult to explain to some.

But I think maybe the biggest reason is just the emotional aspect of it, the emotional aspect of it. As we talked earlier about the contrast between the great supper of the lamb and then this supper of the great God of judgment and how God is glorified in both. And we readily rejoice when God is glorified in salvation and we even as believers wonder, well, how is God going to be glorified in the punishment of the wicked? Well, God will be glorified in the punishment of the wicked in that justice will be served. Sin will be paid for.

Nobody will get away with anything is the idea. So the beast and the false prophet and the devil himself and all of his cohorts, all of his allies, they will be, according to the text of scripture. They will be tormented day and night, forever and forever. No exit from this place of eternal torment.

Once a person goes in, there is no exit. There's so many lies, so many false teachings that people imbibe and embrace. I don't know why it came to my mind, but the whole doctrine of purgatory, that there's this place where you go where you're not in heaven, but you're not in hell and then people who are alive on the earth can do this or that and affect where you end up. All to do what?

All to generate money. The last verse of our text says, and the rest and 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. The last verse tells us that those that these two false prophet and the beast do not go to the lake of fire alone.

They are joined there by their allies. And again, it's a gruesome image. But all of this to show us the solemn judgment that Christ will execute upon his enemies when he returns. Now, I want to show you where in my studying I read men who are of a post-millennial persuasion. I read men who are of a pre-tribulation persuasion and those who are of an all-millennial persuasion. Let me show you how a post-millennial person would interpret this passage and then show you why it's a wrong interpretation.

Listen to this commentator. Christ, by his victory, being the warrior, cleanses the earth of the influence of the beast and the false prophet. And this, combined with the fall of Babylon and the binding of the dragon, inaugurates a period of unprecedented power for the church.

Now, what that man is communicating is, he has failed to put this passage in its historical context. He is saying that this is the evidence of the church militant and the church marshalling power to defeat Christ's enemies. This passage is in the context of the end times. Now, let me show you, chapter 4 through chapter 16, the end of chapter 16, is covering the church age. When we get to chapter 17, we've entered a new time period in terms of our understanding of what's happening here in the book of Revelation. Let me show it to you in chapter 17 in verse 1.

John says, then one of the seven angels, this is Revelation 17, 1, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters. So what begins in chapter 17 and runs all the way through the end of chapter 19 is the judgment that comes at the end of the age. The church age is not being included in these chapters. And that, I think, is a very important distinction, because the church has made errors in the past in assuming a posture that was unwarranted. God has not given the church the sword to bring in the kingdom. Probably the worst example of that is in the Crusades of 1099, where Muslims and Jews were put to death, their blood flowed in the streets, all to what? Martial in the kingdom, bring in the kingdom.

No. That is not our place. Our place in bringing in the kingdom is to be about the work of the gospel, heralds of the gospel. We go forward with a message of grace, speaking to men and women who are estranged from Christ. We've not been given the sword. That is the Lord Jesus's responsibility when he comes to this earth in judgment. Again, these descriptions are of the final judgment when Christ returns and not instructions for the militant church to assume as its posture to the unbelieving world today.

And one way, I think, to gauge our attitude is when we're reading this, what emotions surface in us as we're reading this? Are we rejoicing? Are we, yeah, I've been waiting for this day. I've been waiting for justice.

I've been waiting for...really? That's too much, I think, of a post-millennial view that is not...it's hard to square with the Scriptures. What does the Lord require of thee? But to love justice, to love justly, to walk...I'm sorry... to Micah chapter 6 and verse 8, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. We are to be men and women who love mercy. Well, we love mercy when it's extended to us, but we're a little less reluctant when we see it being extended to people that we think ought to be judged. And the more that we witness injustices going on and sins going unpunished and people getting away with this corruption and that corruption, I think the more this spirit rises up in us, just wait, just wait, your day's coming, your day's coming. Where's the meekness? Where's the pleading?

Where's the heart of mercy for sinners? I think we've got to guard against that. We should not have hostility and antagonism toward the world around us. We are in a culture war. We do have to stand up against evil and push back against the pressures to bow to the corruption and the assaults that are upon our worldview. But that does not mean that my neighbor, who is an unbeliever, is my enemy.

He's not my enemy. We wage war in this age of grace primarily through the gospel. We wage war and we conquer by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.

So our outreach of love and mercy is to be extended and expressed to the ungodly around us. I'm going to mention a woman and give some account of her conversion. And when I mention her name, her name will resonate with you because we've studied, we've read her books, they've been in our book room. Her name is Rosaria Butterfield. In her book, she describes herself as a leftist lesbian professor. She despised Christians above all, and she despised the Bible for what she saw as Christians in the Bible, their politics of hatred against, as she would say, queers like me. She was a tenured professor at Syracuse University in charge of the feminine department.

She was a lesbian, taught queer theory. And in 1997, she wrote an article for the local newspaper attacking the values of the Christian men's ministry known as Promise Keepers. And she got a lot of mail in response to that article in the newspaper.

People applauding her, yeah, yeah, I agree with you. And then a lot of response from professing Christians and a lot of hate mail. But there was one letter she got that really got her attention, written by a conservative, reformed Presbyterian pastor. And she simply wrote this to her.

Are you aware that the presupposition of your argument do not fit with your claims as a postmodern secular humanist? I would be happy to discuss with you the hermeneutics of the article you wrote. Well, in her book, she says she was torn. She had two files when mail came in.

One was to keep, one was to throw, and this letter moved from both boxes. But she could not get away from the spirit of this letter, and she answered the man because he wanted to discuss the hermeneutics of the article she wrote. Well, she was a hermeneutic professor at Syracuse University. She finally responded to the letter, and that began a relationship that led to her conversion to faith in Jesus Christ. Now, listen to how she responded in a book that she wrote about how the pastor and his wife had responded to her. She says, they entered my world, they met my friends, we did book exchanges together, we talked openly about sexuality and politics.

They did not act as though our conversations were polluting them. When we ate together, Ken prayed in a way that I never heard before. His prayers were intimate to a God he knew.

He was vulnerable. He repented of his own sin in front of me. He thanked God for all things.

His God was holy and firm, yet full of mercy. She said, they did not sugarcoat my lifestyle. They told me that God would judge the very sinful lifestyle that I defended and promoted and was living. She says, that pastor and his wife knew that God had commissioned the church to a warfare of grace, and they were to be heralds of a gospel of forgiveness. She says, the time is coming that Christ will return and he will wield the sword of justice and judgment against all unbelief and evil.

Now, in response to that loving witness, Rosaria became friends of this pastor and his wife. She found herself reading the Bible, honestly. Her friends opposed her.

There was a conflict of world views going on within her. But she said this, one Sunday morning, I rose from my sin, and an hour later, I was sitting in the pew of the Syracuse Reform Presbyterian Church. I began worshipping the God that I had previously reviled. I confessed my faith in Jesus at the cost of my academic career and my academic credentials. My colleagues turned against me.

My friends abandoned me. Yet, I became a follower of Jesus Christ and began a new life with him. It's a powerful story. And it's a person who's lived a lifestyle that we revolt at.

We have a hard time engaging people without being angry, without being judgmental. And her antenna, it was up big time with any hint of that. But here was a pastor and his wife who simply saw themselves as instruments of mercy. And he reached out to this woman and through, how do I say it, a gospel of friendship, saw her come to faith in Christ. And she's now a pastor's wife in Raleigh.

I don't know if she's still in Raleigh, whether her husband's still there or not. But we would highly recommend you reading. She's written, I think, three books.

We've featured them all in our book room. I think the last book was The Gospel Comes with a House Key. And she's advocating a ministry of hospitality, having an open door, using your home as an instrument, as a tool of evangelism.

And I can't think of the other two titles of the books, but you can Google her name and find those. But here's my point. My point is, let's be careful and not find ourselves in taking on the role of Jesus. Jesus is coming at the end of the age, and when He comes, He's bringing judgment. That's not the church's role. The church's role is to be active in gospel proclamation, to be active in this time of harvest, in this time when today is a day of salvation.

Now is the accepted time. The age of grace is still present with us, and let's be earnest about that. Let's not find great joy, sinful joy, in the promise of people's judgment because the Bible makes too much a place when it's speaking to Christians about reminding us of our past.

And I wonder, why is that? Remember who you were. Remember what Christ did.

Remember why He did what He did for you. Well, I think we're to be reminded of what we were so that we can be sympathetic to people who presently are the way we used to be. If God had mercy on us, who are we?

We deserve judgment, but God showed mercy on us, so why would we not joy in the extension of mercy to others who are just as bad as we are, or were, or maybe even worse? So this passage was a challenge to me. We've come to the end of the sixth cycle in our study of the book of Revelation. We begin a new cycle in chapter 20. It's been an interesting study.

It has been a challenging study. I think I've mentioned to you I'd like to go back and start all over again with the understanding that I presently have that I didn't have when we started into this. I started into this with fear and trepidation, but God has been faithful. We need to be earnest in our seeking of Him, and He is faithful to illuminate our minds that we might understand the Scriptures.

So we've got some exciting things to cover in chapters 20, 21, and 22, but believe it or not, we've come to the end of chapter 19. Shall we pray? Father, we thank You tonight for Your word.

We thank You for its efficacy. We thank You for its power to convict, to reprove, to correct, to instruct us in righteousness. And Lord, we do thank You that You have revealed what is going to unfold in the future. We're not left in the dark. We don't need to wonder about how things are going to turn out.

We know exactly how things are going to turn out. King Jesus is going to be victorious, and when the dust settles, the only thing standing will be our Lord and His church. So we pray, our Father, that You would encourage us with our study, that You would help us to be men and women of mercy and of grace, convict us of a spirit of judgment and rejoicing in future judgment coming for the wicked. Lord, may we have a longing to see men and women who are estranged from You, bow the knee to King Jesus and come and embrace the Savior that You have worked in our hearts to embrace. Again, thank You for Your church. Thank You for our time this evening. Strengthen this Father in the inner man and cause Your Word to live among us. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.