Let’s pray together. Father, we do want to, in this moment, recognize there’s no one like You. And You are all we need. And we pray You’d be all we want.
And Lord, every treasure and every need, every hope is in Your Son, Jesus. And through every season of life, You are good to us. You are working out our salvation and sanctifying us. And just drawing us closer and closer to You. So Lord, we pray that we would live in the reality of that. That our faith wouldn’t stale. But that we would live to have renewed hearts and renewed minds daily in Your presence and in Your Word. That we would live all You are.
We thank You for Your grace.
And we thank You for
Your ways. And how Your ways are above our ways. And how You choose to work through weak means. You choose to work through that which seems contemptible. Or unworthy in the eyes of the world. You have been working from the garden until now.
And what is foolishness to man to save us.
Lord, we don’t want to live outside that. We live below it.
And we thank You for how You have us. You have so provided for us as a church. Want to give us a a new place where we can worship You. Where we can learn and grow in our faith. Where we can evangelize. Where we can be Your faithful people. Where we thank You for all You’ve given. And we trust that You’ll give us all we need to complete that. Beyond every grace and spirit that we need to be a church for Your glory. And we pray You would bless our tithe, our offering. And that it would be given in all joy to You. In these things we pray, in Christ’s name, Amen. Amen.
Well, good evening.
Thank you to everyone who’s worked so hard already to kind of get the new building where it is. We’ve made it incredible. We’ve made an incredible jump so far. I’m grateful for that progress. And we’ve all just got to find energy somewhere. I don’t know where we’re going to find it. We’ll find some more energy somewhere to keep working on it and keep doing it. So, I know I’m moving slow, slower and stiffer. I know some of you feel the same way. But it’s the good kind of work, right? Because it gives us a real fruit from all of that. So, thank you so much. It’s exciting times for us to be a church together here. So, we are going to be in Revelation chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19 again. And we were… in verses 11 through 16 last week. And then we will finish the chapter this week in verses 17 to 21.
Revelation chapter 19 verse 17.
John writes, Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, Come gather for the great supper of God to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who is sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who is sitting on the horse. And all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
Did you know that it is illegal to kill turkey vultures? So they’re federally protected. Turkey vultures. And it’s not because they’re pretty. They’re probably one of the ugliest things you ever saw. They’re not protected because they make good pets. They’re not protected because they’re a food source for us. They’re strictly important because of what they provide to our habitat, our ecosystem. It’s in fact been studied and found that where there is a smaller population of vultures, disease and sickness is more rampant among people. So vultures do one thing good. They eat dead things. That’s really it. And they have soft beaks and soft talons and they really can’t hunt like other birds of prey can. Rarely do they do it. Vultures are on the lookout all the time for dead things, decaying things. In fact, they look for, smell for the smell of decay. And so they keep our highways cleaner and our ecosystem healthier. But that’s it. That’s it. A turkey vulture exists for dead, decaying things. That’s why they’re around. That’s what they remind us of is something dead or something about to die. And this passage really zones in on that very thing in the close of this chapter. We find what is a very gruesome, very graphic type of judgment upon the enemies of God. Birds of prey. Birds of prey. That’s what I’m calling this sermon. The previous passage, we saw it last week, was Jesus, remember, he was the white rider on a white horse and he had the three names. He’s faithful and true, which means he’s reliable, not so much about moral, immoral. It’s more of a phrase that has to do with faithfulness to his own covenant. He’s the word of God. So Jesus is eternally past, present, future. All that the Father has decreed, Christ is, is creating, created all things. Jesus, the word, put on flesh, redeemed all things. Jesus, the word of God, will come back someday and make new all things. And lastly, we said he was king of kings and lord of lords. Now we come to this passage and that same rider enacts judgment. This is not for, you know, what has been a long time bad for the church in the book of Revelation, right? We’ve read a whole lot about God’s people suffering terribly at the hands of God’s enemies. It’s finally flipping and permanently so it’s the enemies of God who will pay their due. It is the beast and the fall. It is the false prophet who now must reckon with the Christ. And what’s interesting about this phrase here, this birds of prey reference is it is kind of like a clearer prophecy of a prophecy in Ezekiel chapter 39
verses 17. There it says, As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God, speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, assemble and come gather from around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you. He’s speaking to the birds of prey here. A great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, lambs, of he goats, bulls, and of them fat beasts of Bashan and you shall eat fat till you are filled. Drink blood till you are drunk at the sacrificial feast that I’m preparing for you and you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers with mighty men and with all kinds of warriors declares the Lord. So you have a you have a contrast then and see if you have thought about it yet. Being fair to you, we weren’t in Revelation before the summer so probably don’t click as quickly so think about this it’s in this context God’s enemies are invited even if they realize they’re being invited to the great supper of God where contrast we saw earlier in chapter 19 verses 6 through 10 the marriage supper of the Lamb. So you have two great feasts and you have two great feasts and they’re both awesome they’re just awesome for two very different reasons. One is astonishing for its beauty its grace its sense of longing and hope filled joy that it awakens in us. The other for its sheer gruesomeness ghastliness and grisliness. Three G’s that was not on purpose. Gruesomeness ghastliness and grisliness. We find in the marriage supper of the Lamb a picture of the church glorified the church purified the church resurrected unto new life forevermore every sin trial enemy grief gone it’s eternally passed to never return. The reigning eternal God worshipped among the people and hosts of angels forever for the great things he has done for you for me salvation for his church through you. Christ his son the Lamb the bright morning star of ages gone by the delight of the Father the King of Kings the Lord of Lords now to receive us the bride the church that’s a feast that’s a party that we will be at and I think there maybe we will know for the first time what is this weight of glory that the Apostle Paul says we will know come eternity it’s the bliss of paradise not because it is paradise but because Christ is there you remember John was so overwhelmed when he got that vision he fell down and started worshipping the angel because he was just ecstatic and the angel of course said knock that off you know I’m not I’m just a servant I’m not Jesus so can we think about that that coming day that coming age too much no in fact I’m sure we don’t I know I don’t think about it enough do I wish I had some vocabulary by which I could communicate to your heart and mind the full force of joy and glory and joy that will be there and the answer is no the answer is no the answer is we all get to just have a taste of that on this side and the Hebrew writer said every every saint must do that he talks about how Abraham greeted things from afar remember when he says that they all died in what they died in faith so I want to contrast that then with this vision because this vision the supper of God it’s all too obvious that it’s the contrast of it and I don’t want us to miss it we see here an angel in the place of the sun and you think well why is the angel in the sun well the reference is simply saying to us that the angel is in the place where you would find burdensome of prey where you would find birds that are on the lookout to kill their prey certainly vultures who are looking for their prey things to eat and he gives them all this call to fly high as they fly to come near and to eat
so there’s a certain if you see here a humiliation in it for these great kings and these great military officials and the rest that are with them to arrive at this end
because the antichrist and these generals and these kings they’ve gone on for so long and they think they’re so strong and they think that they’ve conquered the world and they think that they’re in charge and now what is a humiliating not just death but now is a humiliating scene for them in that they don’t even get a funeral we find that they are picked apart just like any given animal that dies in the woods and there is when you think about not to be unnecessarily you know shocking there is a certain vulgarity to it there is a certain savagery to it to read these words and imagine a vulture picking apart a human body vultures at their pleasure and will feasting on the armies of men who have turned against Christ so this is obliteration of the enemies of God and it makes plain does it not who really is in charge who is the real judge here who is the real king here who is the real reigning champ here and who has been all along but I want you to see something in that that I think is really important it doesn’t just say in verse 18 to eat the flesh of important people kings captains mighty men we’re told that they are to come and eat the flesh of free and slave small and great God’s great God’s judgment then it’s impartial the nature of God’s judgment is impartial God doesn’t see people God doesn’t grade people on oh you’re this important oh you’re that important oh you’re in this position it’s all zeroed out here there are simply those who have been for Christ and those who have been against the one true king so we we do see here despite again I think voices that want to soften the edge of that you know blade the you know it’s not so simple as you know God or devil it’s an antiquated idea you know there’s there’s a complexity to spiritualism there’s a complexity for you to arrive you know at you know God’s side it’s more than this that’s that’s one dimensional to see it like this the problem is this is what this is and this says what this says
now I’m sorry it’s in his commentary it’s not true that with the coming of the gospel age the gospel God of the Old Testament decided to prove to people that he really was a gentleman after all and so dispensed with any further recourse to judgment the good news is that people need not bear the just punishment due their sin but that another has paid the price on their behalf only when people refuse forgiveness must they bear the penalty for their wickedness so this passage enforces the same thing the church has always believed that there really is only one team and then there’s this one group of rebels and they’re against God and God has this specific plan to overcome his enemies and people are deceived to being on that team or have we given ourselves to God Christ so I don’t want us to see because it’s not here it’s really not here this callous unfeeling harsh God right and he here he is just like in the Old Testament I knew it he’s coming back around in Revelation and he’s bringing around swords and bloods everywhere and birds are eating people’s you know fingers off and this is this is what the God of the Bible is like it’s not that at all it’s not that Romans tells us that it was in God’s divine forbearance that he didn’t do that to us all along Paul says in Romans chapter three and we’re familiar with this little verse for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith this was to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus
so the lines become very clear here for you and I that God is an impartial judge and he judges according to his righteous standard but God has provided each of us one really good way out of judgment and to salvation and it’s not hoops it’s not elitism it’s not for those who have a bunch of money or those who are really smart or those who are four star generals it doesn’t matter if you’re slave or free or you’re poor or you’re rich or you’ve accomplished a lot in your life or you haven’t this passage really is a reminder to us of the mercy of God that he has been desiring and will desire up till this moment of judgment for many and all no distinction Jew Greek free whatever you are to freely come and receive the gift of salvation
there’s a you know a certain elitism that was had when you were considered a Nazi officer think about what it would have been like to be a Nazi in the 1930s right you were you were on the up and up right Adolf Hitler is the guy and he’s not just running Germany but he’s he’s gonna take the world by force and there was a file with every officer’s name on it and he was and this master file it was the key to the places of honor and authority but it was found and many of those on that list went to prison or for many it was death so friends we can’t see our lives in terms of what we have here or what we have done because what seems so great here or what seems worth us giving our lives to it comes to nothing before the horse and the rider who is partial to nothing except his holiness and his righteousness and that freely offered so use this very dark yes brutal gory picture not to gross you out or to skip over and go I don’t need that passage in the bible let that passage warm your heart so you go backward and you read about the marriage supper of the lamb and this god who would have you come to that feast and be covered and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus and praise god on the regular that that’s the feast that you’ve been called to and praise god that he’s been so kind to you and more than that we should want to invite other people to the right party right nobody wants a lame party nobody wants whatever party this is going on over here in verse 17 because that is one from which you don’t return that is one of great finality and be warm to how much christ has loved you and drawing you to the marriage supper of the lamb and live in the fear of god friends that we would live holy before him but also desire many more to come into the kingdom of christ i think there’s the reminder here that i can’t be you can’t be soft on sin in your life you can’t be soft on sin in the church and that seems that that’s the age we live in if church ages have passed where people were maybe too too willing to go to bat over the smallest detail theology because they knew what they believed and they weren’t giving up on it we live in the opposite where people are saying how much can i dispose of christian theology to make people happy how much can we blunt the gospel down so that it’s acceptable for also i think we can’t do that when we read such a terrible awful end on the enemies of god because each of us will be judged and we certainly can’t water down a gospel called to the world
the gospel is hostile to the kingdom of satan so if i truly desire for people to escape the wrath of god to come in this terrible end it’s only the gospel that’s going to save not a version of it that’s going to be acceptable to flesh because if i’m preaching something and it doesn’t offend it doesn’t make someone realize i’ve actually got to betray the lord of my life i have to rip off my nazi logo as it were and slap on this king’s patch i really have to switch teams it’s not an add-on to my life i have to surrender fully to christ especially when it’s hard and it’s difficult and the bible teaches me things that are hard and it asks things of my life that i would rather not give it becomes that start when we look at the picture of the marriage supper of the lamb and the supper of god and makes us really ask ourselves am i living with great sobriety realizing everyone’s coming to these two great ends one or the other
here’s the second thing the judgment of the writer is impartial but the judgment of the writer is also complete it’s complete
verse 19 and i saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who is sitting on the horse and against his army and the beast was captured and with it the false prophet who is in his presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur so the battle you’re seeing here is what john called earlier in the book of revelation here armageddon you probably heard that word armageddon it’s pulled out of its biblical context and it’s used in popular culture to refer to a number of things and you know fictional tales or sci-fi or just reference to some terrible end but here we see what is true what is real armageddon it’s this final war where christ overcomes both his spiritual enemies and the nations the people that have taken the mark of the beast and you think well this is shocking i mean you read this and you go is this really gonna like is this true like that’s too much but really it’s kind of funny if you’re a christian and you get to this chapter and you’re shocked by it because the bible kind of talked about it the whole time up to this point it’s not like you didn’t know it and you got the verse or chapter 19 in revelation you’re going well there’s eternal judgment and fire you know how much jesus talked about hell a lot jesus talked about hell a lot the new testament right writers talked about hell a lot and the greek word is gehenna
jesus told us we shouldn’t fear the one who can only kill the body jesus said you should fear the one who can throw both body and soul into gehenna that’s what you should really be afraid of jesus says
gehenna is gehenna it was a valley southwest region of jerusalem because it is the place where we read in scripture king ahaz and king manasseh began sacrificing their own children the valley later was also used to burn the city’s refuse and and dead bodies of criminals one bible encyclopedia is reading said that a well established tradition locates the scene of judas’s suicide and the consequent purchase of the potter’s field on the south side of that valley so this is referring to a place both in the minds of jesus’s time and even before that and you know pre new testament times and then intertestamental period between malachi and matthew that 400 year span this is gehenna this is a abominable place this is a wicked place this is an evil place that’s what we’re seeing here again at the very end of the end in revelation fleshed out completely something the bible’s been talking about is here you know and it’s like when simple illustration you know your mama says you better clean your room and if you don’t you’re not going out with your friends this weekend and your mama says again hey i told you if you don’t have your room clean by two o’clock today you ain’t going out with your friends buddy did you clean your room two o’clock rolls around what do you mean i can’t go out with my friends i don’t understand i don’t understand what do you mean what are you talking about weren’t you told multiple times this was coming why are you shocked that’s what’s happening here is the full and complete destruction and judgment that jesus always said was coming and particularly here who he judges and destroys is the beast and remember the beast was the antichrist world government the false prophet was like the world religious system that had everyone worship the image of the beast and the beast and then of course above that the dragon which is satan so that was we called it as many have called it the unholy trinity so you see satan’s game plan unraveling see that don’t pass over that all this discouragement for christians all throughout and then you get discouraged in your life and you have hard times and we spend so much time on all the things that are hard and difficult and how can i make it is god really love me is all this true when salvation coming and then we see a passage like this and it’s like oh that’s nice let’s go home let’s sit let’s can we sit here for a minute satan’s plan is going to unravel he’s going to lose his false christ he’s going to lose his false holy spirit his army is going to be humiliatingly so killed and eaten the corpses it’s a breakdown of the kingdom of satan completely every promise of prosperity pleasure peace and like a busted pot on the floor remember the city of babylon that was that was the beast great city that’s the place that ruled the world it was a celebration of all that was wrong all that was immoral and it is gone it’s gone the prophet isaiah says in chapter 41 behold all who are in sense against you shall be put to shame and confounded those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish you shall seek those who contend with you but you shall not find them those who war against you shall be as nothing at all for i the lord your god hold your right hand it is i who say to you who fear not i’m the one who helps you
sorry about that so you have isaiah and then you have psalm 37 again the psalmist says in just a little while the wicked will be no more though you look carefully at his place he will not be there I want you to see that I want you to see how the promises of god find their fulfillment in christ for the always told the always promised destruction of your enemies here is the fulfillment of the undoing of all that is evil and broken in this world right here right here and I think that the reason why we cling tighter to oh lord are you even even there lord things are so hard and we’re constantly I don’t know living kind of low is because our faith isn’t as high as it should be in the god who will do what he says he will do it’s much easier to barely hang on than just to hold on and be sure isn’t it to be confident in christ daily because when you look around it feels like the talons of the enemy they’re so deep in culture it’s like look at it it’s so bad it’s really hard to imagine it not being like this someday isn’t it hard to imagine all the evils of our time being reversed it’s hard to imagine a non communist china that doesn’t hate and persecute and kill christians right it’s hard to imagine a non muslim nigeria right that’s slaughtering christians in droves it’s hard to imagine what’s good and moral and just thriving in the land isn’t it that feels like some dream somewhere or but it’s here on paper it is here on paper you know touch it in that way those are god’s words on a piece of paper and if that’s good enough for you if that’s good enough for you it’s real it’s real so i think the lord is really kind church to speak so much to us i think we oftentimes in our small little human heads say things like i wish the bible filled in more blanks how come god doesn’t talk about this you know how come he’s speaking to that how did that happen why didn’t he say you know we have questions about things and really that that’s a bit of pride well enough and we should say god you’ve told me more than enough to know what it means to be eternally saved and to be kept in this moment and every moment after and whoa you give me a privy to how the end is going to play out like that is so much it’s on paper or zeros and ones if you read a digital bible but it’s there for you to touch so we have more than enough friends here in revelation to show us that the destruction of evil and our enemies is coming and it’s complete and all evil will be eternally defeated
and kind of a preview of you know what we read in the very very end in a couple chapters we’re told that the day will come when God wipes away every tear from our eyes God’s going to wipe away every tear from our eyes and the psalmist tells us that God keeps all of our tears in a bottle now that’s a hard thing to imagine that every bit of angst anxiety depression fear stress weakness with the stroke of the Lord Jesus his hand he will wipe it away because he has done away completely with our enemies so let’s go on in faith and let’s
all the more then confidently proclaim Christ to a world that hates him let’s all the more live like the victors even while we’re maligned and mistreated let’s all the more do church right like I want to go to church I grew up in church I go to church Christmas I go to church no like let’s do church because church is the thing God is using as a mighty supernatural force on earth to push back the kingdom of darkness expose sinners to the gospel preserve the father’s own people in his son Jesus for the marriage supper of the lamb so how do we get to that place and how do we stay preserved now we do church together we’re interconnected as the body of Christ growing in Christ proclaiming Christ ever in conversation with Christ just all Christ all the time until we see Christ let’s do church and then while everything goes to the father for glory and the son there is a sense biblically in which we should want to make our father proud and we should want to make his son proud when we enter his glory to hear well done so I don’t think it’s wrong to have a motivation not just to say God’s glory yes God’s glory but I want to live up to all he’s calling me to live up to in this life I don’t want to drag my feet as one of his soldiers I want to live the victorious life in Christ Jesus that the New Testament talks about so much as I’m waiting for all things to be made right
and then verse 21 here at the end
John says and the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse
and all the birds were gorged with their flesh so John twice now has told us that thing why does the Bible repeat itself so much on certain things because it wants us to really absorb them and see them for why for what they are we need to live with a vision of a God who is holy and just and does punish the wicked that the word of judgment is coming to pass and it will be impartial and it will be complete and it is a sure thing like a ticking clock that you can’t stop it is coming it is coming
are you ready for that day are you ready will it be as a marriage feast or will it be a blood bath do you look with joy are you indifferent are you careless will that day be for you because it’s made plain that in the end all things will be exposed to Christ who will judge all friends remember there is mercy with this God he would call all of us to salvation if we would respond there is good news for us and the good news is the judge is also the lamb who is slain and the lamb saves and the lamb keeps and the lamb comes back the lamb and the lamb who died when you and watch anyone with you on the inter sabbath to the glory of God.