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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
I saw in Heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are Your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to Your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
Revelation 15:1-4
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The Book of Revelation is one punctuated by the ultimate bad news as well as the ultimate good news.
The bad news is that God is fed up with the wickedness and evil of the world as people have turned away from Him en masse and embraced a life of sin. In Revelation, we find His patience run out as He sends all who refused to believe in His Son to languish for all eternity in Hell before destroying the earth and heavens as we know it to start over and make all things new.
The good news is that all who placed their belief in Jesus, those who are called Christians, will be saved, rescued from Hell and the destruction of the earth and heavens to take up new residence in the glory of the New Jerusalem, the only city needed in the new earth. It’s this latter truth that reminds us why the Gospel of salvation is literally translated to mean “good news”.
This distinction between good and bad endings for the people of the world was represented in yesterday’s message as we saw two separate wieldings of two separate sickles, each rendering results that were polar opposites of one another.
The sickle used by Jesus, the Son of man, represented the harvesting of all who placed their belief in Him as Savior, those whose names were found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Conversely, the sickle swung by an angel who emerged from Heaven harvested all unbelievers who were represented by grapes that were then placed into a winepress. There, they had the lifeblood squeezed out of them and perished at the hands of the God they disregarded and disrespected.
As we turn from these events in Revelation, chapter 14, we find yet another wonderful worship scene that took place right before God’s final acts of judgment were unleashed in the form of seven angels with seven bowls filled with His wrath. Look again at the first four verses of Revelation 15 and this beautiful time of praise and honor levied toward the only One worthy to receive it:
I saw in Heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed.
And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are Your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to Your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
It’s important to continue that we are receiving a vision from John, the same John who wrote the last of the four Gospels, as he follows the orders of Jesus to write down what he witnesses.
After watching the harvesting of the two sickles, we find John seeing “another great and marvelous sign” as he peers toward “Heaven”. There, he saw “seven angels with the seven last plagues”, the word “last” used because “God’s wrath” would be completed after the seventh bowl was emptied out with its associated plague (more on that in a later message).
John also sees “what looked like” a “sea of glass glowing with fire”. The sight was so amazing that he did his best to try and describe it but it’s obvious it was unlike anything he had seen before. We should recall that John did see something like a sea of glass before but this wasn’t the same (Revelation 4:6).
Around this “sea of glass”, John sees “those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name”. These were the people who remained steadfast in their belief in Jesus as Savior, refusing to bow down to the Satan-led minions of evil, the beast and his accomplice, the false prophet.
The scriptures tell us that this body of the redeemed, “held harps given them by God” and joined their voices together as a mighty choir while singing “the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb”.
What were the lyrics to that song?
Thankfully, the Lord tells us in His Word:
“Great and marvelous are Your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Your ways, King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to Your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
Here, we find a celebration of all the best found in the Lord God Almighty, the Maker and Master of all things. For indeed, we can always praise Him for the following:
1. His great and marvelous deeds.
This truth should draw us back to the words of James, Jesus’ half-brother, who wrote:
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (1:17).
As the saying goes, He (God) is good, all the time, and all the time, He (God) is good, and this good God is always working things out for the good of those who love Him, those who have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). His right and righteous acts have been revealed to all the nations and so no one can say that they don’t know God or of His goodness.
With this, let’s join with the choir of the saved in our passage today and give God our thanksgiving.
2. His truthful ways.
Where Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), God is the Father of truth. He is perfect in every way and therefore sinless. Being deceitful is not in His character and we can rejoice in this for when we come to God, we can do so in absolute trust.
This brings all Christ followers a confidence that we can rejoice and be glad in.
3. He alone is holy.
We already affirmed the perfect nature of God and this is what sets Him apart from anyone or anything else. There is no one or nothing like our God. He stands alone with no rival when it comes to sanctity. And He calls all those who place their faith in Him to seek to be as He is, to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). The only way a sinful believer can begin to separate themselves from the world they live in is to strive to be like the One who is not of this world. When they do, devoting themselves to the Creator more than created things, then He will consecrate them so that they will stand out from those who choose not to believe.
Friends, there is no one like our God and so it’s easy to see how the choir would ask this question in their song:
“Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to Your name?”
Those who know Him will have no hesitation in worshiping Him, the One who didn’t wish for them to perish but rather have eternal life through His Son. As I write these words, I am so glad I’m counted in that number and I pray you feel the same.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be bnlessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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