A Pause in the Mercy of God, Part 1

Every time the Antichrist's guillotine blade fell, God says, in effect, I've got the victory in that one.

And the Antichrist at the same time is saying, that's another victory for me. In the world's eyes, these believers were considered losers. They were captured, imprisoned. They weren't with it. They were out of step with the world. And because of it, they were reviled. This is where God turns everything upside down.

They are the winners. I know it's not pleasant to think about, but imagine that you were killed for your faith. You became a martyr. The people who did it to you might be laughing at you or taunting you. And when it was over, they likely would think that they had won.

They got you. One less Christian in the world. But who would really be the victor in that moment? As Stephen Davey mentioned a moment ago, the victory would be God's. And even though evil men don't understand that, we understand it from God's Word. This is Wisdom for the Hearts.

Today, Stephen takes you to Revelation 15, with a lesson he's calling, A Pause in the Mercy of God. On Sunday, October 30, 1938, millions of radio listeners were shocked when radio news alerts announced the invasion of Earth by a species from Mars. Remember that?

Of course you don't. 1938. But how many of you actually lived and heard that broadcast?

Yes, OK. Well, you've probably heard about it. Orson Welles and his cast effectively fooled millions of radio listeners in their adaptation of a novel by H.G. Wells entitled War of the Worlds. The script unfolded by interrupting a musical variety, a program normally run on CBS Radio Network, at a time when most people, pre-TV days, sat in the living room and listened to music and a variety of radio programs in the evenings. Well, the musical program was interrupted with the news that at 8.50 p.m., a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a farm in the neighborhood of Grover's Mill, New Jersey, 22 miles from Trenton. The musical variety program then continued and then it was interrupted again, this time with a lengthy eyewitness account. I read what that reporter, supposed reporter, said, and it was chilling. Trust me, it was frightening as he gave this eyewitness account of slimy Martians emerging from this disk, this flying saucer who had then by that time begun shooting people with their laser guns. Now even though Orson Welles began the show by telling people this was an adaptation of H.G.

Wells' novel, and even though several times throughout the program it was repeated to be a fictional adaptation of this novel, people only caught bits and pieces of it and then hit the panic button. They didn't listen to the whole broadcast. So all across the United States you have this reaction and millions of listeners panicking. Many in the New England area around Grover's Mill, of course, were especially concerned and so they loaded up their cars and fled.

People improvised gas masks. People were hysterical. They thought the end was near.

Scores of people around the country flocked to churches to pray. When they learned the truth, millions of course were infuriated and Orson Welles was sued by many and that actually catapulted him to fame until the truth was found. The idea wasn't really new.

In fact, it wasn't original in its concept with him. I, as I researched this, found that in the late 20s the British broadcasting system had pulled a similar hoax. Although it was a little different, they gave a play-by-play of a mass riot that was reaching London and beginning to sweep through it and it caused mass hysteria and widespread panic then, too. You think, well, that kind of thing can't happen today.

We're just that much smarter. Well, about 15 years ago radio listeners to KSHE in St. Louis, Missouri, heard that tone, you know, interrupting the programming, that jarring signal of the emergency broadcast system. The radio disc jockey then, by the name of John Hewlett, came on and said, Your attention, please. This is not a test. The United States is under nuclear attack.

I repeat, this is not a test. Instead of verifying the report through other outlets or even turning the radio down to see what other people were doing or saying, scores of people in and around St. Louis left work, dropped everything, raced to get their children from school, raced home, called on the telephone that's coming so that they could be together in the basement or wherever when the bombs arrived, wiping out civilization as they knew it. About an hour later, station managers came on profusely apologizing for John Hewlett, who was disciplined, because of his prank, and he said he thought it would be a good idea to jar people into realizing the horrors of nuclear war.

Not very discerning of him and probably unemployed not long after. The idea of announcing imminent danger as a hoax can be traced back even further. And I got on the subject and spent way too much time on it.

Trust me about that. And went all the way back. You go back to Aesop, right? And his fables.

About 500 years before the birth of Christ, he compiled. Some of them were probably his. Of course, one of the most famous ones was the boy who cried wolf. Young shepherd boy, a little bored with the whole affair, and he decided to shout wolf. And then he amused himself, Aesop wrote, with the panic of the villagers who ran to help him protect their sheep.

And he did it several times. And then a wolf showed up and he cried wolf and nobody responded. And the flock was scattered. For millions of people, the announcement of coming doom sounds a lot like a CBS radio drama from the 30s. Only in the Word of God, it isn't a hoax.

It's the truth. But the church that takes the Bible seriously, especially the Book of Revelation, is just viewed as another version of some drama. You know, they preach that stuff to get better ratings. Maybe they can get more people to come out of fear. You take the average person to the Book of Revelation and the warning of coming world wars and global epidemics and tidal waves and hailstones the size of golf carts, and the average person will think you fell out of a tree and hit your head. You must just love fiction.

You must be some kind of fanatic. That's what they said to Noah, who preached and warned as he built a barge in the middle of nowhere, on dry land, that water would fall from the sky and the world would be wiped away through water. And so the coming idea of fire is viewed with just as much suspicion.

But every warning is true. The human race will discover too late that God does not amuse himself with panic-stricken people. Ladies and gentlemen, God never cries wolf.

Never does. This is not fiction. This is real. And we're given the future in just a few verses in chapter 15 that tell us that it's only going to get worse. Look at verse 1 of chapter 15. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous.

That is, this is amazing. Seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished. Now these are some significant phrases we don't want to rush past too quickly. Seven plagues, which are the last. And that phrase at the end of verse 1, in them the wrath of God is finished.

The meaning and the tense of the Greek verb teleo, to finish, means to be brought to a conclusion, to a completion. There are those that believe the rapture is going to occur before these seven bowls occur in chapter 16, because that's when the wrath of God is, in their view, going to come to the planet. They reject the view that the church will be raptured prior to the beginning of the tribulation period, which I teach from that perspective called pre-tribulationalism. Instead they hold what they call a pre-wrath view, because among other things they believe this scene in chapter 15 previewed here is when the wrath of God really begins to be poured out. So they hold that the rapture will occur just prior to this, allowing the church to be rescued from the wraths to come, which Revelation chapter 3 verse 10 promises the church. But John the Apostle does not write here that the wrath of God begins with these plagues. He writes, the wrath of God is finishing up.

It's coming to a completion. In fact, it's been going on now for some six years or so as the tribulation period revealed and unfolded the wrath of God. John is writing that these particular plagues are the last expressions in the tribulation period of the wrath of God. This is the last of three series of cataclysmic events.

We studied the first series beginning in chapter 6 verse 1, the seven seals. And then in chapters 8 through 11 we studied the second series of cataclysmic judgments, the trumpet judgments. The earth has been deluged with horrific disasters and epidemics and tidal waves and pestilence and death.

In fact, already nearly half of the world's population is dead. Sounds like the wrath of God to me has already been occurring. But now you have this final series previewed in chapter 15, detailed in chapter 16 and onward. This image of seven bowls which are going to be poured out on earth as the wrath of God is brought to a conclusion. Christ returns, ending this epic of time with the establishment of his kingdom on earth for a thousand years as we'll see later. Okay, so we're given this awe-inspiring scene of seven angels, seven plagues, the wrath of God culminated. And then the scene suddenly shifts to heaven. Verse 2, I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name standing on the sea of glass holding harps of God.

That is, they're rejoicing, they're celebrating. Now we have seen this sea, S-E-A, already in Revelation chapter 4. And now again here where the throne of God is set upon it and surrounded by what John says here looks like a sea of glass. You notice he is not saying it is a sea of glass. I saw something like a sea of glass, which means he's trying to find vocabulary that will describe to us something that he sees. And to him it looks like this tranquil sea of shimmering, reflecting glass.

Must have been an awesome sight. This is transparent crystal, chapter 4, shimmering, reflecting the glory of God's brilliant throne and presence. Moses also had a vision of this when he and the leaders of Israel saw, Exodus 24 says, under the feet of God what appeared to be a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky itself. Ezekiel described it as something like an expanse, like the sky, like the awesome gleam of crystal, Ezekiel 1-22. Perhaps hued like the sky blue, Carolina blue.

Wouldn't that be just right? Some of you would look forward to heaven even more if I said that. So there before him, then standing on this sea of glass, what looks like a sea of glass, not a small pond by the way, but a sea, is this company of martyrs who have been faithful to Christ, having died at the hands of the antichrist before whom they would not bow. Now John adds a visual description to this sea of glass that didn't appear in chapter 4. He writes again in verse 2, and I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire. Now fire is often associated in the Bible with God's judgment. Hebrews 10-27 refers to the terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of fire with which God will consume his adversaries. In Hebrews 12-29 we're told our God is a consuming fire, a reference to his holy judgment. So here the impending judgment of God is now pictured as swirling into and around this sea of glass mixing red fiery hues to the crystal sea upon which his throne stands. Can you imagine this? It becomes a terrifying description of his anger and his judgment.

It's collecting, it's swirling, and it will be poured out upon the planet in this final devastating series of events. But here you have, standing on this sea of glass, mixing with the image of the judgment of God, a group of people singing. How do you not faint?

How do you sing? How do you not run? Well, because these are among those who are safe in the justifying grace of God by faith in Christ. They have no reason to fear. This holy judge is God their Father. Some time ago I had to go to the courthouse downtown Raleigh and see somebody regarding my excessive haste. My passion for ministry.

My single mile, never mind, you know. I knew one of the judges, federal judges, normally held court downtown and so I came downtown and after I had given my investment to the great state of North Carolina, which I love, I stopped by his courtroom. I had told him I was coming by and he said, Dave, when you do, come by and say hello. I stepped inside the door and his courtroom was filled with people, people standing seated. He was up there behind the bench, on the bench behind the desk and he was in his black robe, the bale of standing there, armed to the teeth. In court, some kind of federal trial was going on.

Court was in session. So I thought, I'm not going to interrupt him. And so I went to step back outside the courtroom and he spotted me. He said, come here. I did one of those, me? You know, I've already seen one judge today.

I don't want to see two. He said, no, no, come on, come on. So I walked down the aisle, every stops, lawyers turn around and look at me. I'm walking down the aisle, walk through the swinging gate.

Right here to my right, seated, are four men shackled together wearing orange jumpsuits. They look up at me and I look down at them and how you doing? Just didn't seem fitting. And so I, I just kept walking, got up to his bench and he leaned over, he said, hey, pastor. And he shook my hand and he said, courts in recess, hopped up. He said, come with me. Went back to his chambers, talked a while, prayed about something.

He was, he was heavy on his mind. We left, he got back on the bench and I left the courtroom. You know, I, I didn't stick around, but I can just about guarantee you, he never shook the hand of those four men.

I doubt he invited them back to his chambers. To those men, he was a judge. To me, he was a judge.

But he was also my friend. So those who are standing there, yes, he is an awesome, holy judge and reflection of his glory shimmering the width of a sea. But he embraces them. They are his friends. Although you have a picture of a judgment swirling red like fire around the bench of these superior judge of the universe, these saints are filled with joy and they're singing because of their invitation by means of faith in the Son of God. Now, John describes these believers. One more point about verse four before we move on.

He describes them rather interestingly to me. He says of these, they are those who have been victorious over the beast. That's the Antichrist. They're victorious over him. His image, the number of his name, which we learn, that's the mark of the beast. Letters have numerical sums attached and adding them up, you come up to the sum total of his name, 666. We don't know what the letters are, but they refused to have his name stamped on them.

We will not worship you. So he puts them to death. They're martyrs. But he refers to them here as these are they who had been victorious over the beast.

This is where God turns everything upside down. They are the winners. Every time the Antichrist guillotine blade fell, God says in effect, I've got the victory in that one. And the Antichrist at the same time is saying, that's another victory for me. In the world's eyes, these believers were considered losers.

The ultimate loser. They were captured in prison. They weren't with it. They were out of step with the world. And because of it, they were reviled. They wouldn't worship the true God who had already shown his miraculous splendor.

Who wouldn't? But because they confess Jesus Christ as Lord alone, the Antichrist comes against them. And listen, at the moment of their execution, would there be any other moment like that one that would indicate these people are powerless? Helpless.

Insignificant. Stripped of everything, even life itself. And yet the moment after the blade falls, they're announced as victors over the beast. God turns the feet upside down. You see the perspective of heaven here? The Antichrist is under the delusion that he is demonstrating absolute power. He's ridding himself of his enemies. Frankly, all he's doing in reality is running a shuttle service to heaven.

Right? The Antichrist thinks he's worthy of worship. But from the perspective of heaven, one author wrote it this way. The Antichrist is nothing more than an elevator boy.

I love that. He's delivering saints, as it were, up to glory. Down on earth, the Antichrist seems to be winning. In the presence of God, these who died are announced.

Oh, we have another victorious one who's just arrived. Join the choir. Now, the lyrics will follow the titles to these two hymns.

Let's look first at the titles. Verse three. And they sang the song of Moses, the bondservant of God, and the song of the lamb. More than likely, the song of Moses tracks back to Exodus chapter 15, verses one to 19. This is where the children of Israel celebrated their exodus from slavery. This is where they celebrated and sang of their great deliverance away from Pharaoh.

This was the song of their exodus. It was stamped upon the memory of every Jew. In fact, it would be sung at every Sabbath evening service in the synagogue. And to this day, Orthodox Jewish services include one of two prayers.

Two prayers. Actually, one of the two prayers references the song of Moses. Now, we've already been introduced to the song of the lamb earlier in Revelation.

But in chapter 15 here, you'll discover just a few nuances are added and a stanza or two to this great scene of praise as people sing of their redemption from the slavery of sin having been brought now into the promised land. The song of Moses was sung at the Red Sea. The song of the lamb now is being sung at the Crystal Sea. The song of Moses was triumph over Egypt. The song of the lamb here is triumph over Satan. The song of Moses sang of how God brought his people out. The song of the lamb sings of how God brings his people in. The song of Moses is one of the first hymns in Scripture.

The song of the lamb will be one of the last. The wonderful British expositor John Phillips wrote that the lyrics of these great hymns begin with, effectively, how great thou art. Notice verse three. Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God the Almighty. How great thou art. But not only how great thou art, how good thou art.

Notice next. Righteous and true are your ways, king of the nations. Not only how great thou art and how good thou art, but how glorious thou art. Verse four. Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?

Listen to them sing. Not one word of their suffering. Because now it is seen with a perspective of glory.

Not one word of complaint. Even they who died horrific deaths following torture and ridicule and abandonment and suffering greatly, all they can sing about is hymn. As this marvelous choir of Revelation 15 breaks out in song, their hearts and lips are filled with the praise of God. That's an important reminder for us. There's more for us to learn from this chapter of Scripture, but what we don't have more of is time for today.

So we're going to stop right here for now. When we come back on Monday, Stephen will finish this lesson from Revelation 15, and it'll also be the conclusion to this current series. On tomorrow's broadcast, Stephen will be answering some questions that have come in from listeners.

Tune in for that tomorrow. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. If you joined us late, or if you want to hear this lesson again, it's posted to our website for you to access anytime. Just go to wisdomonline.org and you'll see a link for today's broadcast right on our homepage. We recently received this note. My wife and I have been enjoying the daily devotions in the Heart to Heart magazine, and we're excited to join your ministry family to be able to continue receiving this resource.

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