Rev No.13 The Omega Point

Good morning and welcome. We're glad to have you with us on this lovely sunny Sunday morning. Revelation chapter 10.

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud with a rainbow above his head. His face was like the sun and his legs were like fiery pillars.

He was holding a little scroll which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke.

When the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven say, seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down. Then the angel I had been seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven and he swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said there will be no more delay. But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished just as he announced it to his servants the prophets.

Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more, go take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land. So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, take it and eat it.

It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey. I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach turned sour.

Then I was told you must prophesy against again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings. May God help us to understand that word. Revelation 11, I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told go and measure the temple of God and the altar and count the worshipers there, but exclude the outer court.

Do not measure it because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months, and I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lamp stands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain.

During the time they are prophesying, they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will attack them and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

For three and a half days, men from every people, tribe, language, and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, come up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies looked on. At that very hour, there was a severe earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed.

Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second war has passed. The third war is coming soon.

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven which said, join me. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. Continue.

And on the twenty-four elders who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying, let's emphasize this, we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was. Because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign, the nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets, and your saints, and those who reverence your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth.

Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the Ark of his Covenant, and there came flashes of lightning, rumbles, peals of thunder, and earthquake, and a great hailstorm. And I'd be glad if you'd have your Bibles open at these two chapters. I have a book in my office, amongst the many volumes that are there.

It's a paperback, and it's got the racy title, What on Earth is Going to Happen? Do you ever ask yourself that? What on earth is going to happen? There is a philosophy of history that some historians believe in. It was really enunciated by a man called Hegel, and taken up by Marx and Lenin. It's the idea of history in terms of one revolution being countered by another revolution, a thesis and an antithesis, and the merging together of both, and then a breakaway, and so on and so forth, a continuing cycle until ultimately, or so Karl Marx thought, that what's happening in Eastern Europe seems to deny man would one day step into utopia.

There are those who don't really seem to feel that there's going to be any end to the human saga, but that is a decreasing number of historians in their philosophical approach. The second law of thermodynamics tells you that this world has an in-built time scale, and there will come a moment when it is no longer. I have another curious book written by a very brilliant scientist on my shelf.

He doesn't come at science or at the Bible from the viewpoint of a Christian as far as I know, and he concludes in his final chapter that in the end the bugs will win, that they'll just be insect life left, and that man will blow himself into obliteration. Well, are these pessimistic comments, or these optimistic comments, are they right? What do you think is going to happen? Do you care? What does the Bible say? Does the Bible care? Well, of course the Bible cares, because the Bible has the thumbprint of God upon it, and it is his revelation to human folk like you and me. That's the reason for Bible study.

It's the reason why we make the Bible central, why this whole church is built around the place where the Bible is explained, because generally speaking, God speaks generally through his Word, and the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God in the first century and in the 20th century. Now, when you come to the book of Revelation, you discover that here is a man, which are to be shown to the servants of the Lord, verse 1, chapter 1, the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him, John, to show his servant what must soon take place. And when you look into the teaching of our blessed Lord, you will find him on many an occasion speaking about the end.

He sets up eschatological parables, that means parables that describe the end times, and he talks about the day, that great day when he shall return. It's so important that you be about your business with your eye upon heaven, because there's a fool who's only concerned about making money. The day comes when that man's soul is taken into the presence of God.

The day comes when there will be those engaged in their ordinary human occupation without a care for God, and they'll suddenly be summoned before him. Not to meet him as Saviour, but to meet him as Judge. This world is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and ultimately he will achieve that reason for why he brought the world into existence in the first instance.

So I say to you that the question, what should confront the thinking person of every rank in our society? Now when you come into the book of Revelation, you get great help, and in one sense there is a great challenge, because as I mentioned before, and as Tim has in his very helpful addresses shown us, the book of Revelation is full of symbols, parables, allegories, and it's not too easy to know where literalism takes over and where it is figurative language. That's the reason why Luther cowed away from writing a commentary on the Revelation. It's the reason why you have several views about specific things, but the most important aspect of the book of Revelation is plain for all to believe, and for all to see, and that is that God is in control.

I sometimes think of the book of Revelation, as I mentioned by way of illustration earlier, as the headquarters of some commander-in-chief, who's got the whole of a battlefield set out in terms of a plan, with something of a contours and the shapes of the terrain in front of him in this large-scale map, and there are flags, and there are little indications that are meaningful to him and to those who are around the table, but are not too clear for the casual bystander who happens to come into the control unit. So there are symbols, flags, allegories, parables in the book of Revelation, and it's our task to try to unravel some of the symbols. It's our task to try to understand some, if you like, of the flags and the allegory.

Now, one of the things that we've already discovered is that the book of Revelation is not chronology. I mean by that, it's not like an Agatha Christie, that starts with your main plot, and then begins to unravel it, and unravel it, and you get to the end, and abracadabra, you find who did the murder, and every chapter is impinging upon the other. Sometimes the book of Revelation will take you to the beginning of time, and it will take you to the end age, and then it will come back in the next chapter, and have a rerun, and it will show you from a different perspective.

So there is chronology in it, but it's not sequential, and when you come to these 10th and 11th chapters, you find again we're given some great pictures of what will happen just at the end of time, and also we're given a picturesque presentation of the sort of conditions which will confront the church at all times, during the whole period between the two perusias, the first advent of Christ, and the second coming of the Lord. I will adopt a policy which I had the other week, but I'm not suggesting I'll make this regular from the preaching of the pulpit here. For the preaching of the pulpit, we'll start at the end, the Chinese way to homiletical outlines.

Let's take you to the to the 15th verse of the 11th chapter, because here we are given some insight into the final moments when, to quote the old-fashioned hymn, the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more. And if you understand nothing else, then I ask you to run through that hymn in your mind, because it goes on in its chorus to say, I'll be there. And the most important thing is for you to be in such a faith relationship to Jesus Christ, that you will know that at the consummation of all things, when this Lord Jesus comes back, you are His.

There's an indissoluble bond between you and Him, and all the things that happen in our world, though of interest to you are but of passing interest, because you are destined for that new heaven and that new earth to be His eternally. Well, the seventh of these, and last of these seven trumpets sound, and they bring in the eternal era. Look at the heart of the 15th verse, which is well known through Handel's Oratorio, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.

We're at a point beyond the end of time, when our Lord Jesus takes up His universal government. The kingdom of our Lord, the kingdom of Jehovah God, it's twin to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, because the two are one, as the three are one, and instead of a plural to complete that verse, they will reign forever, you read He will reign forever, for God is Trinity, and yet God is one. There is no explanation of that in Scripture.

It asks that you accept what is beyond human comprehension, and so at the end of time, we have the representative company of the redeemed of the Old Testament, the twelve patriarchs, and the redeemed of the New Testament, the twelve apostles, coming together as twenty-four elders, seated on their thrones before God, falling on their faces, and worshipping the Lord, saying, we give thanks to you Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who was, because you have taken your great power, and have begun to reign. Paradise was lost within the early hours of the history of this world. Man had hardly been on the scene for days, before his copy book was blotted, and the ideal purposes of God were frustrated, but the Bible tells you that God has not distanced himself from this world.

He has stepped in through time and space in our Lord Jesus, and now he pervades the world with his Holy Spirit, and there is within the world a very cycle of nature, the indication that the end is not yet. The Apostle Paul speaks of the world as though it has personality, and he says in Romans chapter 8, the whole world, the whole of creation, groans for its redemption. It looks for that day of the rejuvenation of all things.

The Apostle Peter, in the letter, the second letter that bears his name, and the third chapter, and the final verses, talks about this heaven and these earths melting with a fervent heat, and he uses this apocalyptic and nuclear language, and goes on to suggest that from that, no, not to suggest, to certainly predict that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, organically connected with what went before, but rejuvenated, without any semblance of sin and inadequacy whatsoever. And if that's a hard concept for you to grasp, then here is an illustration from the Old Testament, where the earth was destroyed before, you remember? And the waters came across the face of the deep, and God cleansed the earth, to the extent that in one sense, it was a new earth, that met Noah and his sons, and their wives, as they stepped out from the ark that saved them. So typically, you have encapsuled in the Old Testament, an illustration of all that is in front of you, as Christian people.

Then he shall be King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and every segment of iniquity shall be banished from this universe. And if this is right, if what I'm telling you is right, then in one sense, nothing else matters. And the only thing of consequence for you on this earth, is to obey this God, and to live your life in such a fashion, that it brings honor and glory to his name.

You keep your eye on the King, and you work for the establishment of that universal kingdom. It comes secretly through the church. He's already our Lord, in one sense, we're already in heavenly places, but all this is going to have its final consummation, as the Lord Jesus Christ comes back.

And in those final moments of great cataclysm and catastrophe, you will know that God is in control, and he who created by his Word, will recreate by the authority that is his. The nations were angry, verse 18, your wrath had come. They did not want to subject themselves to the gospel.

They would not humble themselves, but now the time has gone, when there is any possibility of salvation. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets, and your saints, and those who reverence your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth. What's gonna happen in the end? God will vindicate his Son.

What's gonna happen in the end? The garden of Eden, and all its potential, all that it stands for, shall be reformed. You and I, as sons and daughters of the living God, princes and princesses of his, are destined for an eternity. So blissful, the scriptures say, that eye has not seen, nor ear heard the things that God has in store for them.

You ask why there isn't a greater representation, apart from picturesque language, of what lies beyond, and the answer is this, the human mind cannot contain it. Human words wobble, when they try to put across what God will do with this world. So here is the final destiny of humankind, brought in as the angel sounds the seventh trumpet, and brings in the eternal era, which will also mean the third and final woe, for all those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ, and the salvation of our God.

And do you notice that tucked away at the end of the 19th verse, you are given an insight into the temple, and you are seeing one piece of furniture, which is of vital importance, the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant, in the Old Testament days, if you read in the book of Exodus 25 and verse 22, you will discover, is the place where God would meet with his people. And it's sin that stops you and I having intercourse with God, but at the end time, as you see into the temple of the heavenly, so to speak, so the Ark of the Covenant is on display, indicating this, that man and God, in holy communion, can enjoy one another forever.

The Ark of the Covenant speaks of our Lord Jesus, who in his bloody sacrifice on the cross, made an atonement for sins, thus making it possible for you to approach God. And forever he will be the wonder of heaven, because he has done for us what was not done for fallen angels. He has made our eternal destiny secure through the outpouring of his life.

What a Savior! Hallelujah! So I take you back now, having whetted your appetite, to the tenth chapter, where we were given a picture of this giant angel, who comes down from heaven. His face, which is all-glorious, stares into a cloud and as a result, the interaction is a rainbow around his head. His sunny face also gives way to the rest of his body in the description.

We read that his legs are like fiery pillars. He's able to stand astride the earth with his foot on the firm land and his foot on the sea. And he has something to say that is of such universal consequence, that he speaks with a loud voice.

He planted his right foot, verse 2, on the sea and his left foot on the land. And he gave a loud shout, like the roar of a lion. And in response to what he has to say, there are seven thunders heard.

They stand for certain communications made to John, which he's not allowed to write down. Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down. And then the angel, to whom our attention has been directed, this magnificent creature, this picture that puts to death the cartoon of flimsy, ghostly creatures, as being the atypical angel.

This mighty representative of the Lord raises his right hand to the heavens and says something which is of great import to record of all time. As he swears by him who lives forever and ever, who creates the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said there will be no more delay, the purposes of God are about to come to their own final consummation. We've already seen some of the redeemed community asking the Lord before the throne, how long? And in the epistle of Peter, you will read in the verses I referred to about the renewal of the heavens and the earth, the scoffers say, well things are just as they've always been since Jesus was around.

If what you say is true, then why isn't God in a hurry to bring about his final purpose for the world? The answer is that God withstays his judgment so that there is the possibility of mercy to as many people as will respond by his grace to his gospel. But now the time has come. There is no more time.

There will be no more delay. In the days when the seventh angel, now we've already looked into what the seventh angel has done and the effect of what he has done, so here it is in anticipatory form, verse 7, in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished just as he announced to his servants the prophets. What is one of the greatest mysteries in the world today? You're a Christian person? Then look in a mirror.

You are part of that mystery. The greatest mystery is this. How will God, a holy God, redeem to him a broken sinful people? How will the image of God be replaced in man who was the greatest of God's creative activity? And the answer is he will be renewed by God's great grace.

And how he would do it had been announced, and the word is from the Greek verb to evangelize, has been evangelized to his servants the prophets who in the Old Testament get some understanding of what God will do in Christ Jesus. Then verse 8, the voice that I heard from heaven said to me, go take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land. So John goes towards this remarkable angelic figure and he takes the scroll.

Now the language of course is picturesque. What does the scroll stand for? It's sweet to his taste. The psalmist will tell you something about this in the 103rd verse of the 119th Psalm.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Ezekiel will tell you in the second chapter of the book that bears his name that he too eats the Word of God for that is what is meant by the scroll. And the gospel tastes sweet to those who hear it.

I can still remember my Sunday school teachers telling me about Jesus when I was a kid of five. I can still remember the American comic that first set in cartoon fashion the Old Testament to pictures so that children like myself in those days could read it. And going through that comic again and again until those stories became woven into the very fabric of my life.

But I can still remember the displeasure of the gospel as I thought about the many people to whom I've shared it and many of my relations who've heard it from my lips but have rejected it. And that gospel which is so sweet and precious to me has become to them the message of condemnation. The scroll is a sweetness and a sourness as the gospel is a two-edged sword that brings some into heaven and underlines condemnation for the others.

Those who reject the Word of the Living God. And this is what John sees in all this symbolic language. Then I was told, verse 11, you must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, language and kings.

In other words, the contents of the scroll and the purposes of God have to be proclaimed throughout the whole of the future of mankind's story on this earth. And so just to the point where you thought that everything was going to take you to the end time. John, once again, is compelled to pause and he's given a vision of the church age and all that will happen prior to what is contained in the 15th and following verses of the 11th chapter.

Now John's done this time and time again. We should almost be familiar with his style now. So here we have a picturesque demonstration, in my understanding, of the history of the church.

As John is told, given a reed like a ruler to go and measure the temple of God and the altar and count the worshippers there but exclude those in the outer court. Do not measure it because it has been given to the Gentiles and so forth. What is the temple of God? You cannot understand this literally in terms of the Jerusalem temple.

It wasn't standing when John wrote this. There's so many things in this chapter which if you took reference to the temple literally you would be in great confusion. But the New Testament writers do not hesitate to exploit the symbols and not just the symbols, the actual literal things of the Old Testament and to spiritualize them.

So here's the Apostle Paul and he's speaking of you and me and also Corinthian Christians and he says you are the temple of the living God. We are the Israel of God. We have like faith as Abraham had.

What the temple literally symbolized has been worked through experientially in our day, in our knowledge. So the temple of the living God is none other than the aggregate of all Christian people around the world. Now the days which ought to be described are days of great problem for the world.

Intensifying right up to that moment when our Lord Jesus shall return. Thus the pouring out of the vials, thus the breaking of the seals, thus the horror of this book that causes people not to want to read it. But there are those in humanity, you remember the symbolism of previous chapters who have been sealed.

They bear the mark of the Lord Jesus. They wear his name upon their foreheads and here the symbolism is changed. We are referring to the people who have been measured, the people who have been marked out.

These are the people of God. Here is the Church of Jesus Christ kept safe during all the turmoil of what is yet to be. So John measures this temple because the number of the elect is known.

Those who are called, he justified. Those he justified, he sanctified. Those he sanctifies, he will one day glorify.

God knows who are his and that's the point of these introductory verses. John is called to measure the temple at the time when the redeemed community have been trampled upon. The 42 months there is just again another picturesque way of describing the church age.

1260 days is the figure used in the third verse. Later on you'll see the the figure expressed in terms of three and a half years. Here is the time before the first advent of our Lord Jesus or since the time of the first advent up to the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And there are those in the world who are his witnesses and thus the reference to the two witnesses that God brings into the world. Verse three, and I will give power to my two witnesses. Interpreters have vied with one another to try to work through a literal fulfillment and to suggest some interesting names from the Old Testament as to who these witnesses may be.

We've been given Moses and Elijah. We've been given Enoch and Elijah. We've been given the Old Testament scriptures and the New Testament scriptures.

We've also been given the law and the prophets. Well to whom does this reference refer? You remember how in the book of Deuteronomy right at the beginning of the Bible is set down this particular dictum in terms of giving evidence in a court. Deuteronomy chapter 19 and verse 15.

One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. When our Lord sends his disciples out on the first missionary journey, he sends them in twos.

He's very concerned that they go in company one with the other. I'm suggesting to you that on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down, there was the fulfillment of the prediction. When Jesus tells the church that on the day they are filled with the Holy Spirit, you will be my witnesses to the uttermost part of the earth.

And what will these witnesses be doing? They will be telling nations, kings, queens, influential people of what is contained within that scroll. And their ministry will receive differing reactions. They will know the empowering of the Spirit of God and so we get a switch from the metaphor of the witnesses to the metaphor of two olive trees and two lampstands which are associated one with the other.

The olive trees producing the fuel for the lampstands as the Holy Spirit produces the fuel so that the witnesses of God can go around the world proclaiming his gospel, agreeing as to the essentials of what it is for a man to be born again. Diocletian was an emperor in the opening centuries of Christian history. He did his level best to eradicate the church of Jesus Christ.

He had Christians burnt at the stake. He had the early parchments burnt. He struck a medallion which indicated the death of Christianity.

And that persecution was to be known time and time and time and time and time and time again to the extent that in the 20th century we have greater persecutions against the church of Jesus Christ than there have been at any time. You say you know nothing of it. Well, a shame on you for not reading a little more carefully what is happening in our world.

George Carey said in Canterbury Cathedral, if I've got him right, I didn't hear the whole address that there have been more people martyred for Jesus Christ this century. Did you say that? Than there have been in any other century or all the rest of the centuries put together and the man is dead, right? This is how anyone, however, verse 5a and 5b, who wants to harm them must die. If you fight against the people of God, the witnesses of God, ultimately you will discover that the power that you seem to have is paradoxically not your power in as much as there is a superior power which is directed against you.

These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying. They power to turn the waters into blood to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. Metaphor, yes, rich, grotesque, almost frightening.

But is it any more frightening than to give a man the authority that whoever sins you will be remitted and whoever sins you retain shall be retained? And Jesus gave that authority to the church. He gave it to the original bunch of eleven witnesses. Meaning what? That as they proclaim the gospel and people respond, they have a right to say, on confession of your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, you are sealed through time and eternity.

You are destined for the eternal era. You are measured amongst the people of God. But the flip side is this, that every time you preach the gospel and people do not respond, you bring a plague upon them.

Did you know that? I know one man who couldn't take it in China because the Chinese church in the 1940s was so small and he could not think of the idea of so many millions of people going to a lost eternity, so he came back on the ship to the United Kingdom. And in one sense you can sympathize with his reactions. Those of you who proclaim the gospel, which should surely embrace everybody here, do you know the power that you have when your relatives refuse? It's a plague upon them.

The gospel is a two-edged sword. The benefits flow one way, the deficits flow another. This is why you can't preach on hell without tears in your eyes or even offer the gospel of redeeming grace as I and Tim do so frequently in this pulpit, without realizing the enormous responsibility that is ours, for we've told others who have not responded about the plagues that will one day befall them.

Satan attempts to resist the proclamation of God's Word, the seventh verse, from the abyss the beast comes up and will attack them and overpower and kill them. And this has happened time and time again. Men have been tortured, men have gone as martyrs to their death in the first century, in the 20th century, and the time is coming, so says the book of Revelation, when there will be such terrible persecution leveled against the Church of Jesus Christ, it seems as though the witnesses have died.

But in that great city figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, in other words, our world, our world in which our precious Lord, verse 8b, was crucified, the world where it seems that the purposes of God have been continually and finally frustrated, this world will know what it is for the witnesses to be revived. This world will know what it is for the gospel message to be sounded so clearly in terms of judgment, that every eye will have perceived that when God speaks, He demands our awesome assent, and He, the Lord of the universe, will laugh at men and have them in division. So you take your Stephen, and you take your stones, and you damn him to death, or so you think.

But the heaven opens, and Stephen sees the risen Lord, and commits his spirit to Him, and the death of Stephen becomes the birth of Saul of Tarsus, and one witness goes, and another witness is brought to the forefront, and what a witness Saul becomes. The blood of the martyrs becomes the seed of the church. There's this general cycle, you see.

You snuff out the witnesses, and more witnesses come, because there is this great God whose trade is resurrection, and you all represent resurrection miracles. For we have been lifted up, raised from the death in which we were in Christ Jesus, we have been born again. And so you move down to the wards, the middle, and for our purposes, the end of our study this morning, as you see once more, the Lord God vindicating Himself.

God enters into our world. The witnesses stand on their feet. Terror strikes those who see them.

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven, saying to them, come up here. And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on. The eternal destiny of the redeemed is as sure as the shed blood of Jesus.

The earthquake, verse 13, the death of people in the city, a foretaste of the great destruction that's impending. As people out of fear give glory to the Lord, as they recognize that something is happening, and yet they do not fall upon their knees and ask in mercy for His forgiveness. And so you get encapsuled in the most striking symbolic language, the story again of a church, the witnesses of our God, His hand upon them, your destiny and my destiny sealed by His authoritative decree, and though all the powers of hell endeavor to reduce the church of God and make it non-effectual, like some paralyzed limb, there is within that church, there is amongst those sealed people, those measured people, the power of God.

And He will come, and He will vindicate all the promises that He made in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. And when men have done their damnedest, the second and the third woes come. The angel sounds the trumpet, and time is no more.

The kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever. What on earth is going to happen? That's what is happening, and that indicates the finale of all that's destined to take place. So the question is still the one that I posed 35 minutes ago.

Are you prepared? Are you living your life in terms of the end? Do you realize that you're a sealed part of a sealed community, to live as light, to live as salt, to have the Holy Spirit's oil within you? Do you realize that as part of the church you're invincible, you're indestructible? Do you realize that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds? Do you realize your eternal destiny? Do you value the precious blood of Jesus Christ? Are you around the table of the Lord? Are you around the Word of the Lord? Or are you living carelessly? Are you like people in Vanity Fair with no concerns at all, really, about this Christian thing? It's there on a Sunday, it's comfortable to be in a tab on the Sunday morning, at least when the preacher is on something else but the book of Revelation. Are you living your life as a blood-bought child, realizing that one day you will be in His immediate presence, and that there is an eternity to gain, and a hell to shun? This is the message of Revelation, and never was there a time, my Christian friend, when it's needed to be proclaimed and to be heralded, as the time demands today. So quoting you, Luther, in a different context, here I stand.

I can do no more. I've shown you my understanding of these two chapters, and I ask you to make a response to all the understanding that God may have imparted to you, as I've endeavored to expound them. Let us pray.