You know, that song was one of the beginning songs this morning, and it summarized the whole message: “Meekness and majesty, what a mystery.” This King that we have—my theme this morning, if you will; I am not too good at themes—is seeing the King.
As we gathered this morning, we saw the King in all of His humility, and we worship Him for that. This King of humility—there is no other King like this. Never on this earth has there been a King like our Lord Jesus Christ: so humble, in humility dying on the cross for our sins without a word, without any rebukes. He died for us.
He is the One who washed the feet of the disciples. Amazing. No other king would ever do that, or even consider it. It would be beneath them. They would lose their position of authority. But with our Lord Jesus Christ, His authority and position were secured in heaven, not only as the King in humility, but as the Lord of lords and the King of kings—the King of glory, the Author and Finisher of all this creation and all that He is going to do.
As was on my heart, Jim shared a couple of weeks ago, “We need to have a vision of the King.” Kenny was talking about those who hold the testimony. I think this is critical in the hour in which we live. We do need to see the King.
And, strangely enough, the ones who will really see the King are the ones who hold the testimony. Now, we have referred to them in the past as the overcomers. So may, this morning, the Lord refresh our hearts. May He open our eyes to see something of His majesty, this King of glory, and His great plan for the universe.
Well, let us begin with a word of prayer.
Lord, we come to You this morning. Lord, no one can see You except, Lord, You give us the ability to see and to hear Your words. Lord, we are counting on Your anointing. We know that true understanding, true seeing, only comes when God opens our eyes and when God opens our ears. Otherwise, Lord, we just have knowledge that tends more to death than it does to life.
So, Lord Jesus, we come to You this morning. Lord, on this day in which the whole world—at least in the United States—we call it a time of Thanksgiving, Lord, we come to You, and we do give thanks that we have been introduced to the King. Lord, we ask now that You would once again give us a glimpse of this great majesty that You are. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, I do want to begin by reading a few Scriptures, first out of Psalm 2, the second Psalm.
Psalm 2:6-8:
Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree:
The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
Now let us go to the book of Revelation, chapter 5. Revelation 5:5-7:
And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not:
Behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,
Hath overcome to open the book and the seven seals thereof.
And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures,
And in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain,
Having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God,
Sent forth into all the earth.
And He came, and He taketh it out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne.
Now, Revelation 22:10:
And He saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book;
For the time is at hand.
The urgency of the time is at hand. God told John not to seal up what he had seen and what he had written down, for the time was at hand. It was something that He wanted to give to His church, something that His church greatly needed: this vision, this revelation, the apocalypse—the unveiling of Christ, the King in glory.
He wanted His church to see this. Up until this time, the church had known that Christ was the One who came in humility, the Lamb of God. He came to this world to die for the sins of the world. They knew Him in His humility, and they knew that He had risen to the throne.
Toward the end of the first century, God thought it was necessary that His people—His bondservants, He called them, those who loved the Lord and wanted to follow the Lamb—have this revelation of this King in glory: the things that were in the past, the things that are, and the things that are to come. He felt that His church needed to know it.
So this morning, I would like to share just a little bit concerning this King. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth with a mission. The mission was to overthrow the prince of this world and to recover it back to God and to God’s purpose.
It was God’s purpose that His Son, Christ, reign and rule over all things; that all things would be in submission to Him, and all things be at His feet. Our Lord Jesus came with that mission on His heart.
Now, if you notice in the Word of God, God divides mankind that He wanted to recover into three groups:
The Christians—the church—are to be the bride of Christ. The Jews, the nation of Israel, are to be that earthly testimony on this earth. Finally, there are the Gentile nations. These are the three groups that God sees, and they were to be brought to the feet of Jesus.
Now, we know that the Word of God says that Satan is the prince of this world. He has usurped the authority and taken over most of the world, and now uses the world to try to destroy the testimony of Jesus and any mention of Jesus. That is why we have seen such turmoil in the world, and even in the United States in recent years. It is all an effort to overthrow the testimony of Jesus on this earth.
Well, He came to this world. He came as a baby. He came to identify with man. He needed to overcome, not just as God, who could wipe it all out with one word, but He came as a man. He was going to overcome as a man.
Unfortunately, Adam failed. But this One—this is God’s second Man—comes to recover and to take back what the enemy has usurped.
This One, this God, the One who is unapproachable light, where men could not even approach—He comes to this earth, and we find that He is very approachable. We can see Him in that earthly body. They were able to know the Lord Jesus, God, in a very personal way. The crowds flocked to Him when they heard His message of the kingdom.
And near the last days—as I think I spoke on recently—a few days before He was to be crucified, our Lord Jesus went into Jerusalem as the King. He presented Himself as the King. He presented Himself as the lowly King, riding on a donkey into Jerusalem.
Now, brothers and sisters, this is the fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9. Let us turn to Zechariah 9:9.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion;
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem:
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee;
He is just, and having salvation;
Lowly, and riding upon an ass,
Even upon a colt the foal of an ass.
This was prophesied five hundred years before Christ was born. Brothers and sisters, a lot of people wonder whether God is real. If they would just read His Word, they would see that five hundred years before Christ came, it was prophesied that He would come as a King riding on a colt, a donkey, into Jerusalem. And He fulfilled that prophecy. He was the King—the King in humility.
The crowd shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is He, the King, the Son of David.” But the Pharisees understood well, brothers. They knew prophecy. They understood what was going on here. He was going to come, and probably they were going to lose all of their position and power.
They began to turn on Him and hated Him, looking for ways to kill Him. The religious system was out to destroy Him at that point.
The crowds who sang and shouted “Hosanna” eventually turned on Him. Why did they turn on Him? Because He did not meet their expectations as the King they were looking for. They were not ready for a King of humility.
Brothers and sisters, when the Roman government whipped Him, beat Him, and brought Him in judgment before the crowds, they said, “This cannot be the King we are looking for.” Eventually, they said, “Away with Him! Crucify Him!” Even the crowds turned upon Him. His own people turned against Him.
The Roman government, brothers and sisters, executed Him on the cross of Calvary. This King, this humble King, died on Calvary’s cross.
For the world, they thought this was the end. For the crowds, they thought this was the end. For the Pharisees, they thought this was the end of this One who claimed to be a King. But the battle, brothers and sisters, had just begun.
From the Word of God, we know that our Lord Jesus went into Hades, and He took the keys of hell and death from Satan. He overcame the principalities and powers of darkness—Colossians 2:15—and made an open show of them. He conquered them there on Calvary’s cross, brothers and sisters, in His death.
And He rose from the dead, showing that He was victorious. Satan, the prince, no longer has the keys. Brothers and sisters, we need to realize this. It may not appear this way, but the prince of death no longer has the keys of hell and death. Our Lord Jesus Christ holds those keys.
The principalities and powers, which are so upset and so against Christ and all of Christ’s own people, no longer are in power, brothers and sisters. Our Lord Jesus Christ is.
Our Lord Jesus took all that Satan could throw at Him, and He overcame, brothers and sisters. Now, in triumph, He rises from the dead. He has won the battle of the ages.
This was the fulfillment of prophecy made four thousand years before in Genesis 3:15. These are the Lord’s words to Satan himself in the garden after Adam had fallen:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
And between thy seed and her seed:
He shall bruise thy head,
And thou shalt bruise His heel.
The bruising of the head is the bruising of Satan’s head. The bruising of the heel is the spikes that went through the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross. Brothers and sisters, this prophecy was fulfilled at Calvary.
The point being that the decisive battle to recover mankind and the creation back to God had been won at Calvary’s cross.
For forty days, He walked this earth as the risen One, and He showed Himself to those around Him. At the Mount of Olives, He ascended back to the throne and sat down at the right hand of the Father.
Ten days later—which happens to be Pentecost in the Jewish calendar—He was anointed in heaven King of kings and Lord of lords. In that anointing, He received double glory: not only as the Son of God, but as the Son of Man. He is King.
That anointing comes down upon all of His own. When He is anointed, that anointing flows down to all of His own—the Christians, the ones who believe in Him—and the church is born. The church is born out of that critical battle.
The Lord has the keys now. He is the One in absolute authority. The enemy has received a fatal blow from which—listen—from which he will never recover. He is defeated.
But, brothers and sisters, in all of his pride, he will not give up. Though he has received a fatal blow, he fights to the end because his pride will not let it go. He resists, and we see all the resistance down through the years.
Based on His victory at Calvary, when the Lord Jesus returns to the throne, God has the deed book to the universe, the deed book to creation, the deed book to mankind, in His hand. He said, “Who is worthy to open this book and to bring back and restore all things to My original purpose? Who is worthy?”
It says none could be found worthy. Then finally they said, “Oh, yeah, here He is: the King, the Root of David.” He has been found worthy to open the book, to take the deed book to the world, to the universe, to mankind, and to begin to open the seals.
In opening the seals, Christ as King of glory begins to recover what Satan had usurped. He begins to recover and secure what the enemy had taken.
The enemy had received that decisive battle blow. He has not yet given up. I remember in World War II, the Japanese had lost the war, and they had given up and victory had been declared. But on some of those islands, those Japanese warriors would not give up, even though they had lost the battle. I think they found some hidden in caves as much as twenty years after the war.
The point being, Satan, though he has received that fatal blow, is still operating, trying to gain back what he knows he will lose.
So the Lord is now moving, as He opens the seals, to recover and secure three things:
Firstly, with the church: out of Calvary’s cross—remember, His side was pierced; blood and water came out. The blood was for the remission of sin. The water was that His life might be poured out, that we might receive His life.
Through that action of Calvary, through belief on our part, we become living stones through which the house of God can be built—not dead stones, but living stones, brothers and sisters—that His church might be built, that He might have the bride that He is looking for.
Out of His anointing as King of kings and Lord of lords, the church is actually birthed. It is brought into unity through Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The church is born. It is not organized. It is not an institution of the world, but it is a heavenly institution that is born out of the cross.
We see in Revelation 1-3 this reigning King. Remember, perhaps sometime we will share on that. We see Him in all of His glory: clothed in righteousness, with that golden girdle, the tongue that comes out, the eyes of fire, and the feet of brass.
Brothers and sisters, we see this King among the churches, the seven churches in Asia. He is looking, correcting the church, judging her, disciplining her, and bringing her into conformity with His image—not only as individuals, but as the body of Jesus Christ. Every living stone is brought into conformity with Himself, brought into God’s original intention for mankind.
But we see, as we go through those churches—and Jeffrey recently spoke on them—that when we come to Laodicea, which is the last church age right before Christ returns, the church is in poor condition. She is lukewarm. She feels like she is okay because she knows Christ, but she is far from being conformed to His image and to what God desires for His bride, for His Son.
Where is this beautiful bride that Christ is looking for? He wants to come back, but His bride is not ready. Brothers and sisters, if you look at the situation, it appears hopeless.
But we come to Revelation 12, and we see this picture of the woman with a man child. The woman is the church universal, but within that church, which is so weak and so lukewarm, there are those whose hearts are really for the Lord, who really follow the Lord, and they become the man child. It comes forth from the woman, and they are raptured to the throne.
They hold the testimony of Jesus, and they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes. These are the ones that Christ is looking at: the overcomers, the man child.
Brothers and sisters, they are not spiritual giants. They are actually like you and I, but they are not lukewarm. They have a passion for the Lord, a passion that the Lord’s purposes and heart be fulfilled.
What they do have, it says, is that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb. They need the blood because they are not perfect, brothers and sisters. They are frankly as weak as anybody, but they need the blood, confess their sins, and trust in the blood.
They are the ones who have the word of the testimony. They hold the testimony of Jesus. They have a word of testimony because the testimony lives within them. They submit to the work of the cross. They love not their lives unto death. They are willing to have God deal with them and conform them into His image, and they are willing to lay down their own life.
He looks upon these ones as representing the church, and that is how He begins to gain His bride. He raptures them to the throne.
As we near the end of this age in which we are living—soon; it could be today, tomorrow, we do not know—He will rapture them to the throne. They will go through the air and clear the way, a pathway for the Lord.
There will be a great war between the angels and Satan and his forces in the air that surrounds this earth. Satan will actually be cast to the earth, and it will be the start of great, great upheavals as he is cast to this earth. He will bring about a tremendous assault on anything that holds the testimony of Jesus—any Christian—and upon the Jews. There will be a great assault. It is called the tribulation, the great tribulation.
But these ones, near the end of this time, will escort the Lord back to the cloud.
When He does that, the trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ will arise. Those Christians who remain, who were not actually raptured to the throne, will rise from the earth as well to the cloud. Then there will be the judgment seat of Christ.
The Lord Jesus will judge them—judge us. He is the King. He is worthy. He came as a man. He overcame as a man. He is the King of glory.
Now mankind, the Christians, come under the family judgment, as I refer to it. It is not a matter of judging whether you go to hell or not at all. It is not a matter of life and death, but it is a matter of reward.
Those in whom He is pleased, and to whom He can say, “Well done, faithful servant,” will be able to enter the millennium age, the thousand-year period that will follow Christ’s return. They will be able to enter in and be a part of His governmental administration over the nations of that age.
The others—the Word of God is pretty serious—says they will be in outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. These are Christians, brothers and sisters.
God’s heart is that we all be overcomers, because He is the Overcomer and has made every provision for us to overcome. But some will not. Yet the Lord is full of mercy. This is mercy, brothers and sisters, because the anguish that they sense and feel is because they realize how much they have missed, how much they have disappointed their Lord and King.
There will be great anguish, but the Lord is merciful. You know what He will do in those thousand years? Through His discipline and training, He will bring them through. He will bring them through, brothers and sisters. Every brother and sister in Christ will end up in the New Jerusalem. You need to know that.
So the Lord uses those thousand years to really complete all of His brothers and sisters. After the thousand-year period, we see the new Jerusalem. There is a new heaven and a new earth, and we see the new Jerusalem coming down. It is a bride adorned for her husband. At that point, the Lord finally has the completed bride.
The Christians, the believers, He has secured to Himself, and they have become His bride.
Not only is He the King in humility, which set the groundwork for all of His victory and triumph and His ability to secure everything back to the Father and at His feet, brothers and sisters, it is through this that the Lord Jesus is now able, as the King of glory, to bring all things back to Himself and under His feet.
Well, we have the Jews. You know, the God of glory appeared to Abraham, and God selected Abraham. A special nation would come out of Abraham because of his faith.
It says that the God of glory appeared to Abraham and told him he needed to go on to the promised land. Abraham left, not actually knowing where he was going. He moved out in obedience and in faith.
Brothers and sisters, we know that when he was, I think, one hundred years old, and he had not yet had the promised child, the Lord said, “It is all right, Abraham. I have things in hand. I am the King of glory. You will have a child. You will have that promised child that you have been looking for.”
It says Abraham believed Him, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. He is the father of faith.
Now, remember God’s promise to Abraham. He said he would have children as the stars are in the sky and as the sand is at the seaside.
Brothers and sisters, the stars are the heavenly ones. You see, Abraham is called the father of faith in the Word. So He looks at the faith of Abraham, and He says all those who have faith like the faith of Abraham will be the heavenly people—the stars of heaven, the Christians.
But there is also the sand of the sea: His earthly people, the descendants of Abraham through Isaac, brothers and sisters—the Jews, or the nation that God chose among all the nations to be the ones to receive His covenant, His law, and His promises. They were a privileged people.
But they did not keep the law, nor did they honor the covenant that God had made with them. They turned from God to idols. When the Messiah did come, they did not receive Him or want Him, but rejected Him. So God temporarily set them aside as a nation.
Now, we need to remember that those early Jews who did accept Christ became Christians. Remember that? In Christ, there is neither Greek nor Jew. But the Lord was still dealing with the Jews as a nation.
God had told them in the prophecies that He would scatter them because they had turned to idols in unbelief. He would scatter them among the nations, but He did not leave it there. He said, “I am going to restore you. When the time is right, you will be restored. I will gather you from all the nations, and you will become a nation again.”
Remember, the Jews were overrun by the Gentiles with the Babylonian captivity. They were scattered among the nations and remained scattered until near the end of World War II.
Now, in World War II, the enemy went out on an all-out assault to destroy the Jews and the Jewish nation. Well, it was not a nation then, but to destroy all the Jews. Six million Jews were annihilated in the gas chambers in Germany, brothers and sisters. Millions of others were killed too, not just Jews, but six million Jews were destroyed during that war.
But God is a God who is faithful to keep His promises. Out of that war, sympathy arose among some of the nations for the Jews. That great tragedy God used, brothers and sisters.
It so happens America was one of those nations. The United Nations—well, I cannot go into all the history—but basically it was under British control at that time, and they pulled back out.
When the British left the Palestine area in Jerusalem, the nation of Israel declared, because the resolution was coming up in the United Nations, that they were the nation of Israel once again. They declared themselves to be a nation. The next day, the President of the United States ratified that and said he agreed that they were a nation.
Brothers and sisters, they became accepted as a nation once again on May 14, 1948. That was an absolute miracle. I will tell you why: the very day that that happened, all of the surrounding Arab nations rose up and said, “We are going to destroy Israel.”
Under overwhelming odds, Israel defeated their enemy. Brothers and sisters, it was nothing but the hand of God that they survived that war, and they stand even unto today.
Now, the Lord had prophesied, if you read in Matthew, that Jerusalem would be trodden under foot of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles should come to an end.
Interestingly enough, in 1948 Israel still did not control all of Jerusalem. But in 1967, once again, the surrounding nations had plotted a plan to come in and destroy Israel. Israel, hearing of the plan, made a preemptive strike. Actually, it is called the Six-Day War.
In the Six-Day War, they regained the Golan Heights and a lot of territory that was previously Israel and stands today. Brothers and sisters, this is the signal that the time of the Gentiles is coming to an end.
We see that. We see the nations trembling under economic distress, brothers and sisters. Things are greatly changing. But this was only a political recovery. God was after a spiritual recovery. Christ was after a spiritual recovery in Israel.
From their very beginning, Israel has been surrounded with enemies, brothers and sisters. Even today, Iran is building a nuclear arsenal with one goal in mind: to wipe out Israel. I understand that they even write that on the heads of their missiles—different places in Israel.
In our recent history, even the United States has backed off from supporting Israel. Now, that may change a little bit in this interim period, but brothers and sisters, the need for security will prevail in this. Their primary need is for security.
She is basically alone in the world, with all of her enemies out to destroy her. This is her national concern. Why is there such hatred for this little nation? Israel is just a little bit bigger than the state of New Jersey. What in the world is all of this animosity about?
I will tell you what it is about. Remember, God said when they came out that He was going to lead them to a place where He could put His name, where He could have His temple of testimony. That was Jerusalem. That is why there is so much hatred, brothers and sisters: because it was the testimony of God, the nation of Israel.
But she did fall in her testimony. As I said, Babylon was allowed to come in and destroy Israel and the temple, and they were in captivity for seventy years.
Then they returned. A remnant, just a remnant, returned to rebuild the temple. But we know that eventually even the remnant fell away. When Christ came, as I said, brothers and sisters, they rejected Him. He cursed them.
Now, you say, “Really?” Yes. When He cursed the fig tree, that was representative of Israel. He came, and there was no fruit on the tree—just leaves, just outward show. The Lord will never live with that as His testimony. So He had to set them aside, as I have said.
Brothers and sisters, all through this time, Israel has had no real friends. One thing she does have, even if she does not realize it, is the promises of God. God has made His promise.
He had promised to restore them as a nation. He has done that. He promised that their fields would produce fruit and flower once again, and that has happened. It is one of the economies that exports a lot of fruits and vegetables out of Israel. God has done what He has promised, and He will restore them spiritually as well.
How will He do this? How is He going to restore them spiritually? Well, when it comes to national security, Israel really has no hope. Their only hope is God. The problem is, they have not discovered that yet.
Spiritually, they are looking for security, not realizing that God Himself is their only security.
In the near future, a leader will rise up in this world. He will be very charismatic and seemingly have a plan to save our world, our world economies, and to unify the nations. The nations will follow after him.
He is called the Antichrist in the Bible. According to Daniel 9:27, we do not need to read that, he will sign a seven-year peace pact with the nation of Israel, guaranteeing their security, and they will believe him.
I think they will believe him because he is so charismatic, has so much power, has brought the nations together, and things seem to be going great. Israel will say, “Okay, we will sign this peace pact for seven years.”
During the middle of those seven years, as we know from prophecy—around three and a half years in—the Antichrist will turn on Israel. He will break the covenant he has made with Israel and seek to destroy and obliterate her.
The Jews will enter the period, its last three and a half years, called Jacob’s trouble. The Antichrist will go all out to destroy them.
But in Revelation 7, as they go into Jacob’s trouble, it says the Lord secures 144,000 Jews. Now, whether there are exactly 144,000, or whether that is representative—which I think it is—these are those whom the Lord will be able to seal.
They are not sealed with the seal of the Lamb, but they are sealed with the seal of God. In other words, these are godly Jews who love God and know Him as the living God. They do not know Christ, but they know Him as the living God. God will seal them during this period, keep them, and preserve them.
In Revelation 11, we see that God will send two prophets to strengthen those Jews who are going through Jacob’s trouble. Most likely Moses and Elijah; some people think it might be Enoch. Regardless of who it is, the Lord will send these two to encourage the Jewish people.
They will have great power and exercise it, but eventually it says the enemy overcomes them. They lie in the street for three days. There is great rejoicing among the nations over this. They even send gifts to one another.
Then, after three days, they arise and go back to the throne. Brothers and sisters, it startles the nations. This time, called Jacob’s trouble, is also called the great tribulation for the Gentiles.
The Antichrist during that period will set up his image, probably in the temple. He will demand that everybody bow down before his image.
Well, these Jews, these godly Jews, will never do that. The Christians who have remained until that time, brothers and sisters, will not bow down before that image. Many will be martyred until the number of the martyrs is fulfilled, as the Word of God says.
During that time, they will not have the seal and the mark of the beast, and they will not be able to buy and sell. Many will starve to death, brothers and sisters, and give their lives to stand for the testimony of Jesus. Even during the tribulation, the Lord will have those who overcome.
At the end of that three-and-a-half-year period, from Zechariah 14, we know that they will be surrounded by the nations. Jerusalem will be surrounded, and they will actually break into Jerusalem and have some success.
But as that is happening, the Lord Jesus will break through the clouds. He will come as lightning. It says every eye will see Him. He will put His feet on the Mount of Olives, and it will split in two. There will be a great earthquake, but that will provide a roadway for those in Jerusalem to escape.
Then the Lord will take over the battle, and the nations that are in battle against Jerusalem will be destroyed. It is the Battle of Armageddon. A great mass of people will die in that battle.
Then it says the Jews will see Him with their own eyes, and they will weep because they had rejected Him. They will repent and be washed clean, and Israel shall be saved.
Then God shall set up His millennial kingdom, and all the promises He has made to Israel will be fulfilled. It talks about the lamb and the wolf lying together. There will be peace on earth.
During that period, the nation of Israel will be the earthly nation that actually becomes a nation of priests, as they were originally intended to be. They will go out through the earth preaching Christ during the millennial kingdom.
After the millennium, it is very interesting: we find that the twelve gates of the new Jerusalem have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. All the Old Testament saints and New Testament saints will be there. Christ will have secured His own—the Jews.
Okay, give me grace to finish here. The third thing is the nations. We need to know this King of glory. He has now secured His bride. This King of glory has secured the Jewish people, and now He will secure the nations and bring them under His feet.
From Revelation 5, we know that when the Lord ascended to the throne after that decisive battle over Hades, and He has the keys of hell and death, having basically defeated the prince of this world, God gives the deed book to the earth to Christ.
Its deed is sealed with seven seals. He begins to open the seals, and in so doing begins to bring the nations into subjection at His feet.
This is the fulfillment of Psalm 2, where He says:
I have set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
As He opens these seals to secure what He has won in the victory at Calvary, there is great resistance to Him. We see that, even though the mortal blow has been given to Satan’s head, he is still resisting.
In the first four seals in the apocalypse—it is called the horsemen, the four horsemen of the apocalypse—there are false prophets, war, famine, and pestilence. It has been going on for thousands of years, brothers and sisters.
But when we come to the fifth seal, we see the martyrs under the altar, the martyrs down through the centuries. There have been more martyrs in this last century than all the centuries before.
Brothers and sisters, they are praying a prayer. In the beginning, in the early days, the martyrs were praying, “Lord, forgive them.” But here the martyrs’ attitude has changed. It is the right attitude; I do not want to get you wrong. God is a God of mercy and love, and He reaches out, but there comes a point when the Lord says, “Enough is enough.”
The prayer begins to change in the fifth seal. Frankly, I think we are very close, if we are not already there. The martyrs begin to pray, “Lord, how long before You avenge our blood?” That is their prayer.
He says, “You must wait for a while,” and we know that while will be the tribulation, where many more martyrs will come into the kingdom of God. They must wait for a little season.
Then in the sixth seal, there is a great earthquake. It shakes everything: the sun, the moon, the stars. The people become so frightened that it says they ask that the rocks might fall upon them and kill them because they cannot stand what is going on.
They want to hide from the Lord’s wrath, but they will not repent. Brothers and sisters, they know it is the Lord’s hand. They know what the Lord is doing, and yet they will not repent before Him. They will not yield their knee to Christ.
When the seventh seal opens, there are seven trumpets, and they begin to blow. When you come to the fifth trumpet, it is when Satan himself is cast to the earth.
I believe, and I think most scholars believe, this is the beginning of those three and a half years, the last three and a half years of the tribulation that we talked about earlier. But we know that the man child has been raptured to the throne at that point, in that great war in the air.
Let me see—I do not want to get too far ahead of myself. Okay?
Then we know the bowls of wrath begin to be poured out. It ends in the Battle of Armageddon. The armies of the nations involved in that battle will be destroyed.
It says then that the Antichrist and the false prophet will be thrown into the lake of fire. Satan will be bound and sealed in the bottomless pit for a thousand years.
Then there will be the judgment of the nations—Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats. The nations favorable to God and His people—I do not know where they will be, but the Lord knows—it says they will be saved and go into the thousand-year millennium period as nations upon this earth.
The King will rule over them, along with those who have overcome, who were raptured to the throne. All the other overcomers will reign and rule with Christ during that thousand years, the millennial reign of Christ.
The goat nations will go into everlasting judgment. That is what the Word says.
As I mentioned, in the millennium Christ will reign and rule in righteousness and with a rod of iron. We know our Lord Jesus is the Lamb—the gentle One, the humble One, the loving One, the caring One—but here we see a rod of iron.
It is justice, immediate justice, righteousness—any unrighteousness immediately dealt with. Brothers and sisters, this is a King with whom we are not quite familiar. We always know Him as the merciful Forgiver, but here, in all of the judgments, He is righteous in all of His judgment.
That is why I like that song we sang: “Meekness and majesty, manhood and deity, in perfect harmony.” There will be harmony. There will be great mercy, great love, and yet there will be righteousness and discipline.
There will be peace. There will not be any wars. Even the wildness of creation will be taken away. That is why the wolf and the lamb will be able to lie down together, brothers and sisters. This is what God had intended in the beginning.
It says even children will be able to sit on the adder’s nest, the snakes, and not be harmed.
Then, near the end of the millennium, Satan will be loosed—not for a thousand years; I am sorry—at the end of that thousand years for a short period. There will be another rebellion, believe it or not.
Satan and those who have followed him will be thrown into the lake of fire. Then there will be the great white throne judgment. All the dead who are not in Christ will be raised from the dead, and God will judge them based on their works.
Anyone not found in the book of life will join Satan in the lake of fire. The old earth and heaven will be burned. A new heaven and earth will come. The new Jerusalem will descend upon the earth, and it says the nations will walk in the light of that city and bring glory to God.
There will be nations. Christ will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. He will have secured His bride. He will have secured the Jews, and He will have brought the nations to His feet.
This is the vision that John saw. John saw this vision at the end of the first century. At that point there was great darkness in the church, brothers and sisters.
Even Paul said before he died—I cannot remember what year it was, but I think around the sixties—that the church was no longer the pillar and base of truth, but it was a great house with vessels of honor and dishonor. Things had changed greatly from those early days that John had known, with all the glory in the new church.
When we read the book of Jude, we see there was apostasy and false teachers filling the church. We see that today, brothers and sisters.
At that time there was great persecution, and John was exiled to the Isle of Patmos because he was faithful to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. It was at this time that God gave that vision, brothers and sisters.
He knew that John needed it. He knew that the church needed to see, brothers and sisters, the King of glory who is in control. He is in control. The throne is in control, not the prince of this world, as much as we see that seems to be opposed to that. It is true that this King of glory is in control.
Now, as I have shared all of this with you this morning, it is not the events that matter, even though I think the Lord wants us to know what they are. It is written to those who are His bondservants, to those who really love Him and want to follow Him. That is why we need to know about this book.
But really, only those who really want to know the Lord and follow Him will really see what is in here. What they will see is not so much the events as they will see the King of glory—this King who is in control; this King who will secure His bride; this King who will fulfill all the promises He made to Abraham and the Jews; this King who will bring the nations to His feet.
It says every knee and every tongue will bow and confess that He is Lord and King, and it says His glory will fill this earth.
Brothers and sisters, I do think we need to see the King of glory, as well as the King of humiliation that we worshiped around this morning. He wants us to see who He is.
That is what the book of Revelation is about: an unveiling of Jesus Christ. He wants us to know that the heavens do rule and that He has full authority over everything.
Brothers and sisters, is He the King of our lives? Does He have full authority? Is He ruling? He does have the keys, brothers and sisters. He has got it.
He has the deed book, and He is securing, as He said He would. He said, “I will build My church.” We look at the church today and say it is hopeless, but He says, “I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail.” He will have His bride.
He said He would restore the nation of Israel, not only politically as a nation, but spiritually as well. He has done that physically, politically. But soon He will restore her spiritually, brothers and sisters—very, very soon.
He will bring the nations to His feet.
I am a bit humbled that this King would even bother to share this with us. I am humbled that I, a flake of dust on this earth, would have the honor of knowing the King, to possibly have the honor of being with the Lord in the thousand-year millennial reign.
This King, this glorious King, who knows my name, the hairs on my head, loves me so much. He has shared this with you and me.
I hope that, as we are in this period of Thanksgiving, it will touch our hearts. We will say, “Lord, thank You. Thank You, Lord. Thank You for loving me so much.”
“Thank You for revealing that You are the King, not only the King of humility, but the King of glory. Lord, You have the keys. Everything is in Your hands, and no matter what I encounter in life, Lord, You are in control. You are in charge.”
May we see the King.
Lord, we come back to You this morning. We say, “Lord, I think it is a bit overwhelming, what You revealed to John and what You desire to reveal to us.”
Lord, it is so overwhelming that You would die for us. Lord, when we see what Your plan is, the glory that You are coming to, we are amazed, Lord. Lord, I am amazed that You include us.
Because, Lord, You do call us. That last call to the church was for overcomers. Lord, we have a part in what You are doing as overcomers. Lord, may You have Your overcomers, that Your purposes might be fulfilled. We pray in Jesus’ name.