Gooding, David: 4 - Lessons For Us from the Last Days

If you will, you could open your Bibles now to the book of the Revelation and chapter four, for it is there I wish to commence our study this evening. In studying the book of the Revelation in other sessions, I have emphasized very strongly the matter of chronology. And I have argued strongly, I trust with due deference to those who disagree with me, that chapter eleven, in speaking of Jerusalem, temple and city, is meant to be interpreted literally, and that therefore distinction is to be made very clearly and definitely between the literal Jerusalem city and its literal temple, and the church, which in some sense might be called spiritually a temple, and the Jerusalem that is above, mother of us all. Tonight I approach the book of the Revelation again, and I wish to approach it from a completely different angle, seeking to point out therein some of the broad moral and spiritual lessons that are to be learned by us now from these prophecies. I haven't forgotten, of course, the earlier distinctions that I have sought to make, as between, for instance, Israel of the future and the church. But we can afford to forget that for a while and look at the picture presented in order to cull from it general principles relating to the ways of God with men. For these simple reasons, that sin is always sin, wherever and whenever it is found. Sin will always, wherever found, bring its ultimate harvest. And God being God will always eventually deal with sin. Moreover, God being God, God will have salvation for men. And be it emphasized very strongly that in whatever age God saves men, in the spiritual sense of that term, he always saves them on exactly the same fundamental principles. Salvation is always and ever through the sacrifice of Christ. For men living since Calvary, it is thus. For men living before Calvary, it was thus. The sacrifice of Christ is the sole basis upon which forgiveness was ever, is ever, or shall be ever granted to men. It is to be wholly denied that there is any special kind of salvation at the end of this age that doesn't depend on the blood of Christ, but depends rather on the merits of the particular people that get saved. That is false doctrine. Salvation is always and solely through the blood of Christ. And to the very last, this book of the Revelation insists that they who come out of the great tribulation, crying salvation to our God, declare the basis of their salvation. They have been saved because they've washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, we can approach this book and glean from it principles not only of human sin and its inevitable harvest, principles of those judgments by which God deals with human sin, but also principles according to which God saves men of different times and places. The middle chapters of the Revelation, as we know, are occupied, broadly speaking, with three series of judgments. Those judgments come in the first series as the Lamb opens the seal of a much written upon scroll. And in the second series, those judgments come as seven angels blow upon seven trumpets. And in the third series, the judgments come as seven angels upturn seven shallow dishes or bowls, emptying thus their contents upon the earth. There is to be noticed at once a very big difference between these judgments and the final judgment. Let them not be confused. Indeed, let us not confuse the final judgment with our Lord's coming to execute the wrath of God. You will see that those two events, our Lord's coming in power and great glory to execute the wrath of God, is a vastly different thing from the final judgment. To execute the wrath of God at the end of this age, our Lord Jesus comes in power and great glory. But there is no word of his coming to the final judgment. On that solemn occasion when he mounts the great white throne to hold the final asides, he shall not come to where the criminals are. Indeed, there shall not be an earth left for him to come to, for at the setting of that great white throne, heaven and earth flee away, there is no earth to come to. No more than the judge would rise from his court to seek the drush drug pusher in the local pub, but would get the priest to summon the drug pusher from the pub to the court. So at the final judgment, Christ shall not come to our earth to seek the sinner. Sinners will be called willy-nilly to come to meet the judge upon his throne. Let it be quite distinct in our mind, these two things. Our Lord's coming in power and great glory at the end of this age, he's coming to earth. And that different thing, which is the final judgment at the end of history. There is also this observable difference between the three series of judgments that lead up to our Lord's coming in power and great glory, and that final judgment. The final judgment is described for us in the book of the Revelation and chapter twenty. And five verses, and only five verses, are devoted thereto. Five verses, be it said, in which every word is written with slide rule accuracy and deliberate intention. But simply five verses. God does not revel in the description of judgment for the sake of producing gory and ghastly effects. Nothing can come out of that judgment but its sentence. God will discuss the- describe the matter as briefly as possible and pass to happier things. But the broad judgments that proceed in the loosing of the vial, uh, of the seals, the blowing of the trumpets, and the upturning of the vials. These series of judgments are described at great length and in massive detail. Because here there are things to be learned within history. So profitable is it to learn those lessons that before those judgments even start to begin, we are told about them, that we may be, that we may profit ourselves from the lessons that they would teach. Now, approaching them very broadly and not in detail, we shall find that the three series of judgments have certain elements in common. On each occasion, before the judgments start, we are taken, so to speak, behind the scene and given sight into heaven. And we are taken thus to these heavenly scenes. I submit to you, in order to be shown by God himself why the judgments that are about to fall must fall. It is a remarkable thing in the Almighty that he doesn't just issue his judgments, but stays to explain himself. Like a great merciful father to the child he must chastise. That God's judgments, though they are, of course, reasonable, may appear reasonable and command the assent of every believing heart. And then on each occasion, after we have been taken behind the scenes to observe certain things in heaven, we are told about the judgments themselves. And had we time to look at them individually, we should find evidence that each time the judgments are fitted to the crime. And then, likewise, invariably in the three series, after we have first been taken behind the scenes to see why the judgments must come, and secondly had described to us in detail those judgments coming, we are treated to paragraphs that describe for us God's salvation in the light of those judgments. For they are judgments providential, during the course of which it is still possible for men to repent and be saved. And the witness of this book is that right up till the end, there shall be thousands of people saved. A glorious thing it is. They shall come, a multitude that cannot be numbered for number, crying salvation to our God. They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Let us follow then this line of thought in these three series of judgment. And we come to the first, that are the series of judgments that come under the opening of the scenes. And chapter four and five take us behind the scenes before the judgment comes in chapter six, and then what I have called the salvation chapter in chapter seven. So behind the scenes, chapters four and five. Chapter six, the judgments. Chapter seven, the salvation chapter. Next, we should notice that in each of these three series, when we are taken behind the scene, we are shown certain pieces of temple or tabernacle furniture. For part of the symbolism of the book of the Revelation is based on the ancient Jewish symbolism of tabernacle and temple. He is hoping that you study your tabernacle every Friday and your temple every Monday, and then you will know and be well acquainted with the symbolism that John borrows here for the purpose of his inspired message. And that particular piece of heavenly furniture that is now described in chapter four is, as you'll see from our reading, the throne of God. Let us read some things from chapter four. After these things I saw and beheld, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard, a voice as of a trumpet speaking with me, one saying, come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must come to pass hereafter. Straightway I was in the spirit, and look there. Oh, I wish I could have this revelation played out on the stage by a company of actors. They'd have to be spiritual actors like Drew or Funt, but, you know, real good godly actors, so that we could all see it happening. I went up into heaven, said John, went through this door, and oh, look there, oh, well, there sat a throne. You mightn't have guessed it if you'd been just concentrating on the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, and Belfast Telegraph, or looking at the fairs of the world in general. Being caught behind the scenes, I saw a throne. And look, says John, ah, there's somebody sitting on it. Yes, there is too. It is no empty throne. Oh, I wonder, I wonder who he is. And the description of the occupant of that throne follows. Wonderful reminder. God sits still on his throne. There is a throne, and it is occupied, and it still has the last word in the affairs of men. The throne is thereafter described in a series of geometrical, uh, prepositions. And would that we had the time to consider their significance, for they show us the principles of the government of him who sits upon that throne. Marvelous principles of government they are. But time forbids that we think about those details. For we are looking for the reasons why the judgments must come here in chapter six. We hasten to the crucial point. We are told that around about and in the midst of the throne there are living creatures. And around about the throne, in the full circle of the throne, there are twenty four thrones and elders sitting upon them. And then in verse nine, when the living creatures shall give glory and honor and thanks to him that sitteth on the throne, to him that liveth forever and ever. The four and twenty elders shall fall down before him that sits on the throne, and shall worship him that lives forever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were and were created. Oh, what a glorious, glorious anthem. The throne of God is seen resting upon four living things. Please don't ask me what they are, though I have my ideas, who they are, though I have my ideas. Ask me what they are, then I can tell you, you see. This isn't inference. They are living things. Possessed of different kinds of life. Living. And in the zeal and power and enjoyment and thrill of living! And exercising all the manifold types of life that God has given them, as they thrill with life. They cry, worthy art thou, O Lord God. Mustn't picture the throne of heaven from which those judgments shall proceed as a throne occupied by some elderly gentleman that's grown sick of life and turns sadistic and rejoices in stamping out life wherever he finds people enjoying life. The throne is the very source of every kind and conceivable life you could imagine. The God that lives forever and ever. And the judgments must come because of sin, for sin is the thing that murders life. Satan has put it about that it's the other way round. That if you would really see life, you must break the restraints of the throne of God and swim out on your own. It is the utter reverse of the truth. But then the living creatures observe, thou art worthy to receive the glory and the honor and the power. Why? For this basic and prime reason, that thou didst create all things. That's why. God has the right to receive from his manifold creation all the glory, honor, and power because he made the creation. And what did he make it for? My self-centered heart says he made it for me. And I've got to have a good time, and I judge everything by whether I'm having a good time. The holy living things beneath the throne of God have a different idea. They say he made it for himself. Thou hast the right to receive the honor, the glory, and the power because thou didst create it, number one, and because it was for thy will that it was, and it was created. I don't need to tell you how far creation has wandered from the purpose for which it was made. Made that it might serve the will and pleasure of the Creator. As the Prophet lamented, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. It is not the most lurid thing you can say of a man, but it is the most fundamental thing you can say of human sin. It is the creature going his own way. Why must the judgments come? They must come because of the creatorial rights of him who sits on that throne. So that creation must can be brought back to serve the purpose for which it was originally made. It was made for his will. And not until in every part, from every butterfly's wing and human brain and angelic spirit, that will is done. Not till then will the rights of the throne be satisfied. Do you know why there is chaos in the world and in the church? It is because men put themselves at the center. The world does it. Unrepentantly. And then thinks it can runs its economic system on the principle of competitive greed. Or the tyranny of some bureaucracy or capitalist system. The result is but an ever increasing law of the jungle. We that are Christians, though we have basically repented of it, still have to struggle against the old sin, don't we? It is too easy for us, likewise, to make the criterion whether we enjoy it. So much easier to go in for feeling good rather than being holy. We like those meetings best that make us feel good rather than those meetings that help us to be holy. And it is still a danger if we make ourselves and our enjoyment the center and goal of our spiritual experience. We shall be saved, we shall have to be turned inside out. Learn to live primarily for his will, and let him give us such feelings as he may see fit. Judgment, therefore, must come to put an end to the chaos and the death that has resulted from man going his own way instead of serving the will of the Creator. But then there arises a problem. In the hand of him that sits upon the throne, that is in the hand of the Father, in the hand of the Creator, there is a scroll heavily written on the inside and the outside. It is sealed at the moment with seven seals, but when those seals are broken one by one, the breaking of them will unleash not only the scroll, but unleash a series of judgments that shall deluge Earth. And the cry goes out, who is worthy to loose those seeds? Worthy, Marku, not able, worthy. Any fool could press the button that set going the chain reaction that blew the world to smithereens. We're not talking about who is able to set the judgments going. The question is, who is worthy to set the judgments going? Shall any be found worthy? What man among- what man or woman amongst us would be worthy to judge our fellow man for having lived selfishly for his own will rather than the will of God? John says, I wept much, as well he might. For if nobody be found worthy to execute this ju- these judgments, then this world must do one of two things. It must go on ever getting more chaotic as human selfishness reaps its terrible harvest. Or else Almighty God must blot it out and write it off as one complete and utter loss. And I wept much at the prospect, says John. It was too dismal to behold. And who wouldn't weep? Who wouldn't weep who has felt, in spite of his sin, some glimmer of the wonder of just being alive? Who wouldn't weep who has felt some glimmer of wonder at all the glory and color, the song of the ocean and the bird and the wind and the sun and the rainbow. Who wouldn't weep if the whole thing had to be consigned to ob- oblivion as one disastrous and ghastly failure? But who shall be found worthy to set going the judgment that shall bring back earth to God and make a success of it. One of the angels said unto me, weep not. Behold, the lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I saw in the midst of the throne a lamb, in the midst of the elders, a lamb standing as though it had been slain. Lion of a tribe of Judah. The last words won't please the Kremlin. Solution to the problem of Earth is found in a Jew. Not somebody who comes at this moment, unheard of before, from outer space to serve Earth, say, to solve Earth's problems from the outside. But one who has lived here and lived through it is bound to us by human ties. He is the line of the tribe of Judah. God in Christ, in the world, and in humanity to save it. Wherein is his worthiness to let loose the judgments? By this. They sing a new song, verse nine, saying, worthy art thou to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests, and they reign on the earth. Man shall never be able to complain of any judgment issuing from the hand of Christ. Did not man slay Christ? But in his deaths, we see not one more example to add to the millions of others of the triumph of brutal sadism, of earth's cruelty. Though envy, as Pilate saw, was the force that directed the scourge that lacerated his back. Though the thorns of Calvary seemed to spell the ultimate triumph of the ugliness of human self-will. Christ turned that very death into a sacrifice that shall be the basis of a fairer world. And he's worthy to set loose the judgments on this ungodly world, for see what he has done. Before those judgments delude the place, he has, by his being slain, brought to God, brought back to God what sin had stolen from him. It was made for God's will, but it went astray. And in his sacrifice, he has brought back to God. Not only brought back to God, but made it something for God. Thou hast bought for God men out of every tribe, tongue, kindred, and nation, and made them... made them for God. Made them what for God? Made them a kingdom. People that have learned to obey God's will and to do God's will. A kingdom. Made them priests. People that have learned to live as priests live or should live, to serve God, their sacred and permanent duty, after and through God to serve their fellow men. We need now to dry our tears. Judgments that should just have wiped out the world and left nothing but empty space would have been a defeat not merely for us, but a defeat for God. Would it not? For for God to have started a world that then ran away and he couldn't master it and had to write it off as as a total waste, that would have been a defeat for God, not even this poor old planet. Oh, and when you find yourself at last transferring to the new heavens and the new Earth, I tell you what, it won't be saying to yourself, well, that was a poor show who reminded me of my Sunday school treat, you know. We hoped the weather was going to be fine, and it started out fine while we got down York Street, but by the time we got to Portrush, it was rather dark, and sure enough, at half past twelve, it rained in Torrance, and we tried to put a good face on it, but we got washed out. Well, we said, goodness me, you better be home in Belfast rather than here. So back we went to Belfast to hope we can organize something better. You think God's going to end planet Earth like that? Not the Almighty. He shall end showing what a tremendous success Christ has made of this one. And then he'll say, that's glorious, wasn't it? Well, why won't you fold that one up now, and we'll move on to something more glorious still. How about half a minute? Let me examine our Lord's worthiness to see whether I've got it the right way round. His worthiness to set loose the judgment... is that he has redeemed to God... certain people, made them a kingdom who obey God... and live like priests to God. Who are these people? Me? You? Understand it, do I understand it right that Christ's worthiness to set loose the judgments is to be found in you? That he's made something of you. And that he's turned you into people that obey God. And curing you of your selfishness, he has made you priests that serve God. Is that true? How else can we read it? I wonder what heaven thinks as it waits, and waits, and waits. Waiting for the full worthiness of Christ to be manifest in those whom he has redeemed. That all heaven and earth and hell shall see and acknowledge when he rises up to judge, that he is worthy to judge because he has produced a kingdom of people. That obey God and serve God. The groaning, the creation groans in pains and travails unto now, says Saint Paul, waiting for manifestation of the sons of God. Let me look to my ways and you to yours, my good fellow Christian. Pray God that his Holy Spirit speed in my heart that work of turning me into an obedient member of God's kingdom and a true and selfless priest in his service. Judgments will come. When the Lamb eventually begins to unloose those seals, will not only unloose a book, not only unloose divine judgments, but he will unloose them by letting the restraint go. Fancy that. You read the judgments that come. Conquest, aggressive conquest. War. More territory. Grasping more commodities, with consequent famines and diseases and death. These things have always happened, for sin always in its selfishness produces this aggressive spirit that leads to wars, that leads to famines, that leads to plagues, that leads to persecutions. But in that day, restraint shall be removed, and men's selfishness, like a herd of Gadarene swine, shall bring it to the terrible final harvest of sin of this age. For men must yet be taught what sin is and where self-centeredness leads. And then there is a chapter of really, chapter seven, wherein two examples of salvation are given us in this context, and therefore aptly chosen. There is a company, please don't ask me who they are. We're interested solely in what's happening to them by way of salvation. Chapter seven, they are sealed with the seal of the living God, verse two, For he is told to hurt, for they are told to hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of God on their forehead. Lovely. For to be a redeemed servant of God, it means security from the wrath of God. Sealed, so that they shall not be hurt. No drop of God's wrath to descend upon them. See. See this other company who come crying salvation. We are to see then the sealed and the saved. And crying salvation because they come out of the great tribulation, but they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Ah yes, but see where salvation leads them. It is not only a negative thing, saved from the wrath of God, but a positive thing. Sealed, saved, therefore they are going to heaven to rest from all their labors, never to do a stroke of work again, but to put their feet up on holy divine sofas and sing choruses for the rest of the day. Isn't that lovely? But that's Sankey's version. And scripture, mercifully, is much fuller of life than that. Don't worry, you won't feel old when you get to there. You won't want to sit too long. Possessed of untrammeled life. Unspoiled and unfrustrated by sin. Or you'll be living every twenty four hours of a day. What doing? Serving. Here you say, that's the thing that's often interested me. Why does God have all those stars up in heaven? I mean to say, not a lot of use, are they? Ha, uh. Why does God do all these works? Well, what would you do if you were God? He doesn't have to work to earn his living, does he? What does he do it for then? For the fun of it? What else? For the sheer downright joy and gladness of living and being and doing. Ah yes. What a funny notion sinners put into our heads. We don't want too much work. We don't want to think too much. Oh. Well, perhaps it's understandable. Sin has infected our bodies and our brains. Ah, but in that day they shall serve him. And because they have, uh, learned to serve him day and night in his temple, then he shall make the universe serve them. Now, the universe has an apparent way at the moment of not always serving me. When I want the sun, it goes in, and when I don't want it, it comes out. Sometimes there isn't enough water, and sometimes there's too much. But in that world, they shall hunger no more, they shall thirst no more. Neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, for he that sits on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them, shielding them from every potential danger in this vast and intricate universe, he shall make the very universe in all its elements serve them because they learned to live as they were designed to live in serving him. It's not bad for prophecy, is it? What else? More briefly, I must, uh, take the, uh, second series. And they begin in chapter eight and extend through largely through the middle sections of the, um, book. They are the series of judgments that come when the lamb, when the seven angels blow upon seven trumpets. So we put here our trumpets. But we are expecting chapters that take us behind the scene. You get them. There's chapter eight, and subsequently, for another series, chapter eleven. Two chapters that take us behind the scenes to explain the judgments that now proceed. And when we have finished those judgments and come at length and finally to chapter fourteen, we shall have once more the salvation chapter. Why must these judgments come? Chapter eight begins to tell us, as we are taken behind the scenes and in verse three have our attention called to the altar, that is the golden altar of incense, which, uh, is before the throne. Now, anybody who deserves the name of Christian after the year of fifty years old knows all about the tabernacle. And if that be the ground plan of the tabernacle looked at sideways on, the incense altar stood here before the veil, and the throne of God was there, cherubim on. And those twin vessels went together because when the priest came to minister there, he was in fact facing God who deigned to localize his presence above the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. He came to pray at the altar, directing his prayer to the throne. Yeah. That throne was the ark, of course, and it contained the covenant and was therefore called the ark of the covenant. So in chapter uh eight, to explain certain features of these judgments, your attention is called to the incense altar. And at the end of chapter eleven, it is called to, what would you think? Chapter eleven verse nineteen: and there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in his temple his ark of the covenant. The two heavenly scenes then here described call our attention to the twin functions of golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant. As John looked in chapter eight, there came an angel to this altar, and there was given him much incense, says verse 3, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand. The angel taketh the censer, and he filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it upon the earth, and there followed thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake. Why must the judgments come? These judgments come because of the prayers of the saints. This tells us a lot of interesting things, but this particularly interesting. What happens to prayers that don't get immediately answered? Well, some of them get stored up. With the prayers of the saints, so how many saints? Well, all the saints, right down from Eve after she got converted to Abel and onwards. Maybe a widow, an unfortunate businessman, unjustly dealt with by unscrupulous and ungodly men. Many a persecuted saint in a prison or condemned cell. They prayed. Like that widow who came to the unjust judge. They prayed not for revenge, but simply to be granted the ordinary common rights of humankind. That the enemy should be got off their backs. They come crying, avenge me of mine enemy. God has waited long and not immediately come to their aid. Until sometimes they have wondered whether God has forgotten them, or whether there be still a God to hear their prayers. Prayers of the saints. Not just born out of intolerable sufferings at the hand of the wicked. But prayers that have fastened themselves to the covenants of God, whereby God has covenanted to give certain territories, and indeed the whole world, to Abraham and to his seed. Seed is Christ and all who are Christ. Yet though the covenants of God have proclaimed that the world shall be given to Abraham and to his seed, that is to Christ and those who follow him, centuries have gone by when the heirs to the promise have been kicked from pillar to post, and the seed himself had nowhere to lay his head till finally he rested it as he reclined it on a cross. Dear godly saints, this night languish tortured in Russian cells and in Chinese dungeons. Harassed businessmen in England, beset with the unscrupulous and illegal and immoral doings of ungodly men and secret societies, worried stiff to know how to keep their businesses going justly before God. Their hearts, spoken or unspoken, cry to God for the day when he will fulfill his covenant and rid the earth of those who destroy it and give it as covenanted to Abraham and his seed. Though God is long suffering, yet he will avenge his elect that cry to him day and night. Uh, indeed, he shall avenge them speedily, said Christ. You will find this section, therefore, much taken up with claims of territory. Chapter ten, there comes down a majestic angelic figure, and putting one foot on the sea and another on the land, he bestrides them both and claims them both for God. God beginning to get enough, had enough of the Hitlers of this world and others. Ah, but you will understand... that God is prepared to go a long way to let evil apparently triumph, to let Satan have his fullest fling. Till Satan even himself can go no further. So in this section, you will see Satan at his dastardly work of trying to get world dominion and bag it all for himself through his beast and false prophet. And I stood, says John, on the sand of the sea as he comes to, uh, sorry, and he stood, that is the beast stood, the dragon stood on the sand of the sea, says John, as he comes to the end of Revelation twelve. I watched this beast Beast arise. arrives. Empowered by Satan to come at length to apparent universal dominion, pushing the saints here and pushing them there and beheading this lot and torturing the other lot and making life impossible. They can't buy, sell or do anything unless they receive the mark of the beast. Closed shop tactics to claim the whole world for the beast and his followers, and thus for Satan. How far shall God let him go? Right to the limit. Until Satan seems to have collared the lot. The only opening for any that won't bow to him is forthwith to be killed. Well, what a strain of faith it shall be, still to believe there's a God out there and that the promises of his word mean anything. When the Son of Man comes, shall he find people still believing on the earth? Thank God he shall. And to help them is this prophecy given. For whereas in chapter thirteen God shows you Satan come to the full flood tide of his worldwide empire, seemingly successful, chapter twelve takes you behind the scenes to show you certain things by which you will know that the whole of Satan's empire is built on rotten props. If a general wishes to seize and hold certain territories, there are generally certain strategic points which that general must take and hold. If he cannot take them and hold them, then however much territory he gain, inevitably he will lose it. For these are strategic, commanding points, and whoever holds them holds the key to eventual possession of all the rest. Thus it is with universal dominion. If you aspire to it, there are at least three points that you must get, seize, and hold them. And if you can't get them and or you can't hold them, you are doomed. So before Satan gets to his final work, let's think of three major strategic points given us in chapter twelve. I saw a woman, says John, arrayed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, and she was with child, and she cries out, traveling in birth and in pain to be delivered. Who's she? Oh, the sum total. Ever since the old serpent beguiled Eve, God said to the s- to the woman, the woman's seed should bruise the serpent's head. And all around centuries he persecuted her, and the royal line that came of her through the Sarahs of this world, and the kings and queens of Judah. Ah, but see now, the woman stands ready to be delivered of a child, and Satan, the likes of him is that, to come at a woman in that state, with all his hideous forms of horror put on, as Charles Wesley sings. Some enemy, isn't he? Watch it if you ever get mental or other depression as a result of childbirth or something or other, some great disease. Satan is like enough to try and use the physical thing to, to give you all sorts of doubts about your salvation. That's the like he is, you know. And he stands there waiting for this babe. Ha. Jaws. Why he's so anxious? Well, because the babe that is to be born is destined to rule the all the nations with a rod of iron. And Satan is wise enough to see they both can't rule. Either the child will rule or Satan will rule. They won't b- won't both rule, will they what? So he says, right, well, nip this in the bud, so to speak. We'll just wait for the thing to be born, whoops, it'll be gone. So he awaits. Just at the very moment, when he thought he had his prey, gobbling it down finally, and he was gone to the throne of God. Satan has lost already, you know. It wasn't merely that he sent Herod's swordsmen to kill the infant Jesus. With all his ghastly horror, he stood around that cross and thought he had him, silencing him in death forever, and he rose. And Satan's battle, his war is lost. But there's another thing that you must take and hold if you would have worldwide dominion, that is you must get rid of the Jews. Satan's at it, and a lot of people try to help him. Some theologians. God has destined that he shall, through Israel in considerable part, rule this world. And we are told, not surprisingly, that there broke out war in heaven. Who was fighting? Well, verse seven: and there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon, and the dragon ward and his angels. What a ding dong fight it was too. And why Michael? Well, Michael has special responsibilities in the angelic world, as Daniel himself was informed. He is the great spirit prince that stands up for the people of Daniel's nation, that is the Jews. For there are mighty princes of world authority that behind the scenes control the politics of men, as Daniel was given to see. Real fights go on in that realm, to which I gather we can join if we wish. We pray for all that are in authority, and as we preach our gospel and wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the world rulers of this darkness, spiritual wickedness in high place. For be it known that Satan isn't yet cast down. He stalks the heavenlies yet. Peace be to all those that say he's bound already, but he's in the heavenlies yet. He's lost the war, but he's fighting a good many battles. Now here's Michael, struggling against the dragon and the dragon against Michael, for it's never a one-way thing when you fight the devil, you know. You know, some dear believers are a little unrealistic, don't they? They think they're going to take Sunday school classes and be elders in the church and fight against the devil, and the devil's going to give them beautiful soft time, and they'll be enjoy it immensely. And when they get cracked across the head, then they get upset. So I didn't want a war like that where I get your toes stamped on. No, no. Take it as a compliment, my brother, that the enemy thinks you're worth fighting against. I fought to obliterate Israel. And, uh, Michael prevailed. He shall yet prevail. Satan shall be cast down from influence in those heavenly places, knowing that his time then when he is cast down, not now before his time, before he is cast down, but then when he is cast down, shall he know that his time is short and his calves are up. The third bit of territory to be grasped and obtained and kept. Certain people called the brethren. Verse ten of chapter twelve. And I heard a great voice in heaven saying, now is come the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accuseth them before our God day and night. Why does he bother to do that, do you think? Oh, for one very good practical reason. God is proposing one of these days to take the world out of the hands of wicked men and give it to these here styled the brethren. Now what we read in chapter five, Those that Christ has redeemed. Abraham's seed of all ages and at all levels. And Satan, who is aware of God's sense of moral rightness and wrongness, thinks he sees a weak li- a weak link in this chain. Ha. If God were going to hand the whole thing over to Christ, there is no weak link. But if God is going to hand it over to you and me? Oh, Satan says, I know what I can do there. Ha ha, ha ha. I was watching her the other Wednesday afternoon and him. God, by what moral right are you proposing to take the world out of the hands of such and such? I admit they're sinners. Give it to him. Look at him. Look at him. Go on, look at him. Look how he's doing his business. There was a happy occasion when God himself was able to say to Satan, Satan, when he turned up for the daily inspection, Satan, have you considered Job? Marvel man, says God to Satan, you know Satan, marvelous man. Look at him. Oh dear. Wonder how often, if ever, God is able to say to Satan, have you considered David Gooding Satan? And how often God has to pull the blind over him. They overcame him. How? They overcame him, that is Satan, by the blood of the Lamb. And the word of their testimony. Couldn't shut them up. He threatened them, and he blew all the fire he could, and he he he he he he tried to shut their mouths like he did to Peter, and sometimes he succeeded. They had a high priest who interceded for them as he interceded for Peter. And Satan couldn't shut their mouths. They would talk, and they would keep talking about Jesus Christ, dead, risen again to the throne of God. I say, has Satan shut you up? Don't let it ever be, please God, that I do something that so compromises my morality in the eyes of the world that I cannot thereafter ever preach the gospel to them. Satan will get me there if he can. And if I've done it, oh, let me remember the value of his blood and the efficacy of his priesthood. And let me come repenting to God, confessing it all and confessing it to my fellow men, but mentioning the name of Jesus, who is the answer to my sin. And Satan comes down, he knows his time is, is pretty rough now, his time is short, but putting all his bluff on, he engineers the beast coming out of the sea. His final thing to try and grab earth, but they who read this know, even before he starts, that he's doomed before he begins. And the salvation? One hundred and forty four thousand who are redeemed, bought, the word is, we'll use the authorized redeemed. And then they who are ripened in the harvest. I like God's sense of humor. For in chapter fourteen, we are bidden to listen to a company singing their lovely psalms and hymns, and when we inquire who they are, who says God, I bought them. Oh yes. What's the significance of that? Well, he says, let me explain. You know, Satan, he set up a system in this world, and it was a heavily closed shop system. Nobody was able to buy or sell anything in his world except they had the mark of the beast. Oh yes, says God, but I don't travel about those things. I got these men, I bought them. Oh, the triumph of men and women that have learned to get their values right, and that the value of the blood of Christ, ah, what it can purchase, things that no money can buy. God knows what these things, this world can give him, and he uses his values to get the biggest thing. You won't buy friends by money. You might buy a lot of sugar, but not friends with money. Let Satan have his clothes shop. God bought from this world by blood, People. people. And even those who were required to go through the fierce persecution of these final hours and come at last to the full harvest. The wind blew and the sun shone, and it scorched the corn relentlessly, and what did it manage to do, save to ripen it, ready for the garner. Lovely, isn't it? As Satan put all his forms of terror on, sun, wind, and hail, and snow, and relentless heat. Where there is a true faith in Christ, it shall but ripen the believer for the eternal grant. Nice, isn't it? Finally, I'm not quite sure, I'm going by this tape recorder here, and I think it's the most unreliable guide, but there it's still got some tape left. The final series of judgments are they that come under the trumpets. I'm sorry, not under the trumpets, under the bowls or files, or call them what you will. They were flat kind of dishes. And we are taken first, as usual, behind the scene, Revelation fifteen. And there we are shown two things. We are shown in verse two, first of all, a glassy sea mingled with fire. And them that came victorious from the beast and from his image and from the number of his name standing beside this glassy sea, having harps of God, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. And then we are shown in chapter, uh, uh, the same chapter fifteen, The tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. There came out of the temple seven angels that had seven plagues arranged with precious stones, pure and bright, and girt about their breast with golden girdles. And one of the four living creatures gave unto the seven angels seven golden bowls, full of the wrath of God who liveth forever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and none was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be finished. Here then you meet no specific object within the temple, save it is the temple of his testimony. What you see is the Shekinah glory of God, the temple filled with smoke, as Elijah saw, as Isaiah saw it on another occasion. Just filled with the smoke of the glory and majesty of the personal dignity of God. And outside, a sea of glass. They who stand and sing by it sing the song of Moses, and therefore the sea may well recall the red or reed sea through which Moses took the Israelites when the Israelites were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and they saw the Egyptian dead, they sang the song of Moses. But the sea also conjures up another piece of temple furniture that stood outside in the court. For the great big laver that stood on the backs of twelve oxen, that too was called a sea. And it stands for cleansing by water, for holiness, for sanctification, for regeneration. And the two together tell us of the holiness that becomes God's house. Personal dignity of God, and the cleansing that he demands of all who approach him. Why must the judgments come in this area? Why for those reasons? Well, now we are not merely thinking of creation made to serve God's will. We are thinking of the personal honor of the person of the Godhead. And down on earth at this time are the filthiest couple you ever set eyes on. There's a beast. Blasphemous. Not just going his own way with his little three-room bungalow, two up and one in the back garden. Going his own little residential suburbian way. Not interested in God, not against him, as they say, you know, I've got nothing against God, but you know my carrots and my garden. But a beast on earth whose purpose it is to defy the living God and blot out the name of God and be God. And a filthy, indescribably compromised, evil woman. She's never been near the sea, bath, basin, or anything. Babylon riding the beast, and in the name of God, mixed up and trying to control this godless political system. Why must the judgment come? For the sheer honor and personal dignity of his divine majesty. You know what our Lord taught us to pray? Not only thy kingdom come, but thy name be hallowed. God, the most sacred treasure I have. As he is indeed. Therefore, his judgments outraged by this woman and this beast, they fall not on the earth merely, but on men's persons. For if men will dishonor the person of God, God will dishonor the person of man. What are you, the lot of you, with all your cosmetics? What are you? If there be no God, you're a lot of little worms creeping through the dust. As one melancholy student put it, you're an eczema on the face of the earth. But if there be a God all glorious and all holy, and you are related to him and his holiness and partaker of his holiness, oh, how glorious you are. How would we sinners ever become holy by getting through that labor of regeneration and not not bypassing it by the pagan old doctrine of baptismal regeneration of infants, Babylonish in its origin and to its core. I the labor of personal regeneration made fit to partake the very holiness of God. The judgments come, and is there any salvation in that series? There is indeed. See its fruit in this. When Babylon the old whore was judged, I heard a voice saying, the marriage supper of the Lamb is come. Bride has made herself ready, for Christ loved this bride and gave himself for her, that he might cleanse her by the washing of water, by the word, that he might present her to himself a church in glory, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. To her was granted that she should in addition be arrayed in fine linen, pure and white, the righteous acts of the saints. Her basic salvation given her by Christ, but allowed in his presence by his grace to add the adornments, multitudinous other works that by his grace she did for his glory as she passed through this dirty, filthy world. That marriage supper of the Lamb comes near. He has given us the robe that qualifies us to attend. My dear fellow. How many ornaments have you got to adorn yourself with, in addition to the basic salvation he gave? Now is the time to make them. Now the time for nimble fingers to stitch their works for God and build a true soul that shall make glad the heart of Christ in the day of his espousals.