See, in this text you have the promise of his first coming as a baby who grew up to become a crucified savior, resurrected and ascended Lord, and his second coming to do what? It is as literal as his first coming. He will come, just as he came literally, he'll come again and he will sit on David's throne. He'll rule over the house of Jacob, meaning the regathered, ethnic Israel nation, Israelite nation. And that kingdom, including you and me, will last forever and forever.
Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today Stephen concludes a series he's been working through from the book of Revelation called, The Trumpets of Seven Archangels. As we glimpse the future through the inspired pen of the Apostle John, we see a wonderful worship scene. We're going to look at that worship today. Stephen will show you how that worship unfolds and what it involves. The time that Stephen's teaching about today will not be a pretty sight for those who refuse Jesus Christ as king, but it will be a glorious day for those who know Jesus as savior. All immediately, the sound of a hundred million angels singing this, they fall on their faces in worship to God.
Can you imagine this scene? Handel did communicate a sense of it in his work we call Handel's Messiah. I went back and reviewed a little bit of the history of that, and most people don't realize that he had only recently suffered a stroke which paralyzed the left side of his face, causing intense pain to some of the rest of the left side of his body. He was already fairly poor. None of his works had sold well. He could barely afford rent and food, and now his health was broken, his prospects dim, discouraged and anxious about life. One of his friends went to the Bible and pulled out some texts about the prophecies of the Messiah, put them in a folder and handed them to George one afternoon and said, you know what?
What you ought to do is maybe just sit down with these verses and compose something that weaves them together. George wasn't interested. He looked them over that afternoon and evening in his little apartment, tossed them aside and crawled into bed, but he couldn't sleep. Eventually he got up and he went to his piano in his little apartment and began to write. He was left-handed, and because of the pain in his body, it made his scribbling almost unintelligible and the notes and the script hard to read, but he carried on.
For three weeks he carried on, hardly stopping to eat or sleep and certainly not to entertain any visitors. For 22 days a friend of his gained entrance into his apartment, found the composer at his piano, sheets of music strewn everywhere, and as he walked over, George looked up at him and tears then poured from his eyes down his cheeks as he said to his friend, and I quote, I do believe I have seen all of heaven before me and the greatness of God himself. Well in the text, Handel chose, you can imagine, how he electrified it with just a taste of what these millions of angels will sound like.
In 1741, when the Messiah was first performed in London before an August crowd, a royal crowd in fact, as they arrived at the Hallelujah Chorus, England's King George removed his crown and stood up, for in that culture one never sat in the presence of a superior, and thus the tradition of standing at the Hallelujah Chorus began and continues to this day. Just a taste, just a sense of the glory of the scene as the angels are rehearsing the greatness of the sovereign and the singularity of his kingdom and the certainty of his reign, and now the church represented by the elders, they can't sit either. However, they simply fall down before the throne of God and they worship him and they begin to praise God with this unbelievable hymn of thanksgiving.
Let's look at this hymn briefly, and let me give you five aspects of this hymn that I believe will encourage your heart as it has mine. First, they will praise God for his attributes. They sing in verse 17, we give you thanks, oh Lord God, the almighty, who are and who were. We give you thanks because you are almighty. At a day and in a culture and an era when they could have doubted that he was almighty, and maybe you're doubting the same thing today. Maybe you're not quite sure he is really, truly almighty. He is, and they sing to it.
But I want you to notice something interesting. It says, from him who is and who was and who is to come. Well, that's actually from chapter 4 verse 8. You keep looking at that text there, let me read you what it says in chapter 1 verse 4. From him who is and who was and who is to come. So John repeats that here, well almost. Notice again, the final phrase is left off.
Who are, he simply says, and who were, you could render it, who is and who was, and there is no reference to and who is to come. Why not? Because he has come.
That's why. He's come. They're singing of it as an historical reality. So they're not saying who was and is and is to come, they're simply saying who was and is and he's already come.
You fill in that blank. He isn't going to reign, he is reigning and so they praise God for his attributes. Secondly, they praise him for his triumphs. Notice verse 17, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. Begun to reign is the perfect tense which means or pictures the permanence of his sovereign control. One author put it this way, the almighty one until this time allows anti-Christian power to control the world but after this future climax his direct control will be in place and remain forever.
You have taken your great power. This isn't just some coronation ceremony and a pretty robe and an ice throne and an interesting looking throne. This is permanent, active, hands on ruling. Let me illustrate the difference. Let me read you what one of my favorite commentators who happens to be a British subject, I think he might even have dual citizenship, his name is John Phillips.
Let me read you what he wrote as he commented on this text. On June 2nd, 1952, Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey. At one point during her coronation, the Archbishop of Canterbury turned and asked the people and of course they were there in mass, do you take Elizabeth to be your true and lawful sovereign? The multitude rolled back in a single word, aye.
I imagine that's yes but that's what they said, aye. She then took the coronation oath, received a Bible, took communion, was seated on the coronation chair, anointed, clothed in a robe, woven of gold, given the ring, given the scepter and crowned with the glorious crown of St. Edward. At that cue, the guns of London fired a salute and then the new monarch left the Abbey in grand procession for a banquet of state. But from that day to this, and it's been a while, Prince Charles is still waiting, right? From that day to this, Queen Elizabeth II has never made a single decision affecting the government of her kingdom. The Prime Minister of England and the members of the English Parliament do all of that. All she does is sign their decisions into law.
Why? Because this is a constitutional monarchy, a monarchy where the king or queen is sovereign in name alone while all the power belongs to the people. You know, as I read that, I couldn't help but think this is vastly different than what we find here in Revelation 11. And it is very different from the average person's thinking when it comes to God and I fear it's crept its way into the average Christian's mind. We say we believe in God. But what we really mean is we have a constitutional monarchy. He is sovereign in name only.
We're gonna dress him with cathedrals and steeples and we're gonna furnish him with a little money and we're gonna nod at his ambassadors and maybe help them as they go around the world representing him. But outside of the church, outside of the ceremony of religion, he is king in name only. The real power belongs in the hands of the people. And we really like it when he just kinda stays on his throne. And we expect our will to simply be signed into law by our constitutional monarch. Far from it, ladies and gentlemen. I think the average person on the street would say they believe in God but if you burrow very deeply, you'd find out that they believe at best in a constitutional monarch whom they might see periodically in royal dress.
And they might hear about it every so often. But he is not their sovereign Lord. And furthermore, they expect him to fulfill their will.
No. Verse 17 again, you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The power is not in the people. The power is in God alone. So the believers praise Christ because of his attributes. They praise him because of his triumphs.
Thirdly, they praise him because of his judgments. Look at verse 18. The text reads, and the nations were enraged and your wrath came and the time came for the dead to be judged and the time to reward your bondservants, the prophets and the saints and those who fear your name, the small and the great and to destroy those who destroy the earth. This last phrase, by the way, destroy those who destroy the earth, is not a reference to destroying people who pollute the environment.
Okay? You won't believe how many pastors in my research even this past week who are now taking this text and that phrase to preach environmental messages that God is going to destroy people who destroy the earth. Now this is a reference to people who pollute the earth with unrepentant sin which brings about the destruction of earth by the wrath of God.
God is not judging these people because they won't recycle. He's judging these people because they won't repent and there is a bit of a difference. Now remember, John's vision here and what I just read you isn't a close up of the details.
It's a wide angle shot with a fast shutter speed. He's sort of putting everything in together and so he speaks of judgment although we know his revelation will give us details. There are several judgments. There's going to be a judgment of those who leave the tribulation and end of the millennial kingdom. There's going to be the great white throne judgment at the end of time as God condemns and judges the unbelieving who have lived in every time period. He also speaks of rewards, rewarding the prophets here. He talks about rewarding the saints and he does not distinguish between the New Testament Christian's Bema Seat, the time of reward or the rewarding of faithful servants in the kingdom.
It's just all sort of condensed as he gives you an aerial view of one end to the other of this future day. In fact, these verses condense the activities of the entire tribulation period, the millennial kingdom and they even hint at the eternal state. Did you catch, by the way, the attitude of the unbeliever toward the reign of Christ in verse 18? Did you notice how they responded to that? Look at verse 18, and the nations were so pleased.
Oh, maybe your translation is a little different. The nations were what? Enraged. They're literally enraged at the thought of Christ reigning. Listen, at this point they know. They recognize. They'll see it.
They'll get it. Put a gun in their hand and they'll try to shoot God. Their hatred of him is so deep and their rebellion in their unrepentant sinful state is so hardened. In fact, they will mount armies to fight against the person of Christ one day. This all brings their hatred to sort of this fever pitch. You have crowning in heaven. You have cursing on earth.
You have rejoicing in heaven with 100 million angels plus in the church, but you have rage on the planet that will not allow Christ to rule without a fight, even though they have the rest of the book and the rest of the story. Somebody sent me a link to Fox News. By the way, I appreciate all the links and all the emails and all of that.
It's wonderful. You give me so much information and hundreds of you every week. It's all filtered out and I get the half a dozen I'm supposed to read. No, I get it all or most of it. Keep sending it. But this past week, somebody sent me this link and I found it fascinating, a discussion on a new ad campaign by the American Humanist Association for Christmas Time.
Did you hear about that? This is the association of atheists and agnostics and humanists which happens to be, by the way, the kind of people we talk about being blinded by the God of this world. They happen to be people we want to reach. They're not our enemy. They are our mission field. They're people you work around, live around, you pray for and you share the gospel with.
Just for you, this is for the assembly in here. It just amazes me how they will mount this to bring discredit to certainly the name of God. But the ad simply says this.
It's a billboard that's going to go on the side of buses here in just a few days. The ad simply says, why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness sake.
How's that for Christmas cheer? Why believe in a God and we know which God they're talking about because of the timing of this ad campaign. Why believe in that God? Just be good for goodness sake. In other words, you don't have to be good because there's some kind of accountability certainly. We wouldn't want a hold of that or because he's actually informing mankind of what good is and what evil is.
But just be good for goodness sake. The Humanist Association has literally poured tens of thousands of dollars into this campaign. Not enough money to do all the city buses in all of our cities and so they have targeted the Washington DC transit system.
It's going to be on Washington DC buses only and the Washington DC transit system agreed to carry the ads which was really shocking to me that they agreed to do that. Now remember, the believing church is singing the praise of God who delivers both rewards and wrath. And if the world will have a problem with the suggestion that God has dictated what good and evil are, you can't imagine the unbelievers rage over the claim that Christ is going to rule their planet. And they will mount an army to fire missiles and bullets and whatever else happens to be around at that point in time in the future to try and kill the Son of God. Well here in this paragraph, we're given a secret.
It's out. Christ will literally run on the earth. The unbelieving world will rage against him and he will reward his own and usher into the kingdom. Now let me quickly mention another secret or two of verse 19. And the temple of God which is in heaven was open and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm.
Now for the Jew this was stunning news. They believed the ark of the covenant would be lost forever. Well here you have the original, in fact it is heaven's original, the image is copied by Solomon and those with the arks that appeared in the temple system.
But it hasn't been lost. The image of the ark in the temple of God is specifically dedicated to the nation of Israel and God is sort of pulling back the curtain and showing them this amazing sight. Here's the ark.
This is the original. This is made by my hands and this is a call again to the nation. This is the regathering of his covenant people and the keeping of his covenant promised to them and once again you get back to the Jewish nature of the tribulation. You get back to the nature of Israel as an ethnic people being called.
That's why it meant something to them. The ark, a reference to the worship of God through the system of the ark in the temple and we know the millennial kingdom will have a temple and that ark will be a memorial to our Lord, the Lamb of God who died to pay for our sins. So just as the promises of Christ's first coming were fulfilled, what we have here basically is a promise that goes back to the prophets who speak of a second coming. And since I mentioned Christmas, let me close by taking you to a text where that promise is often missed and it happens to be the traditional reading of the Christmas story. So you can leave Revelation and go back to Luke's Gospel quickly in chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. Let me point out something here. This is Gabriel making the announcement to Mary and most of us know the first part, not many of us take time to consider the second part which is what we're studying now in the book of Revelation. We missed this.
Let me recommend you get out your pencil and be prepared to circle something absolutely stunning. Now notice Gabriel's announcement to Mary in verse 31. In fact, let's back up to verse 30. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high. Isn't that wonderful? Great prophecy.
It all came true and that period is put at just the right point. No, there's no period there. What is that? This is not a trick question.
Tell me, what is that? A semicolon. This is not deep.
Here, you're an educated crowd. I know this isn't over your head. That's a semicolon. It's not the end so let's read on. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. You see, in this text you have the promise of his first coming as a baby who grew up to become a crucified savior, resurrected and ascended Lord and his second coming to do what?
Well, that doesn't matter. We don't need to take that literally. We take the first part literally but that second part is just some ethereal reign somewhere.
Oh no. It is as literal as his first coming. He will come just as he came literally. He'll come again and he will sit on David's throne.
He'll rule over the house of Jacob, meaning the regathered ethnic Israel nation, Israelite nation and that kingdom, including you and me, will last forever and forever. They're both literally true. Now, I want you to go back and circle that semicolon. Circle that semicolon then draw a line out to the margin of your text if you care to and simply write 2000 years because that's how long the semicolon has lasted thus far. I could preach a message on that semicolon. You're saying, please don't.
Okay, I won't. However, you get the point. The story's not finished. What came prior to that semicolon came true literally. What follows that semicolon will come true literally. We happen to be living in the period of the semicolon, now 2000 years. Okay, I said I wouldn't preach on it so I'll stop.
All right. God has revealed to us though what the rest of the story looks like. This is the panoramic view. This is the vault of heaven open for us who care to see. Sinners are enraged and judged. Oh, how tragic.
Even though they have the book. The nation is regathered. What a surprise. Saints are rewarded. What grace. The kingdom has come. What glory. The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. With that, Stephen closes out this series through this section of Revelation.
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