You have a Bible with you, please take it and turn to Revelation, chapter 19, Revelation chapter 19. It is Mother's Day, and we are continuing on in our study of Revelation. And that is because as much as we love Mother's Day, it is not an invention of the Bible, it is an invention of hallmark. And until they start giving us some gratuitties, we're just going to march along with where we are in the Bible. In all seriousness, though, one of the blessings of preaching through books in the Bible is that you put yourself, we put ourselves as a church in the position of letting the Lord's words speak to us on His schedule. And that's a good thing. You can trust Him that He will give us what we need from His Word. And so we're going to look at verses 10 through 21 of Revelation 19. And if you're able, I would ask you to please stand. Actually, you're going to be looking at verses 11 through 21 of Revelation chapter 19. Beginning in verse 11, this is God's Word, His Holy and Inspired Word, every word of it is true. And it is for our good. Let's receive it in faith. Then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse, but one sitting on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness, he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. And he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. And his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written king of kings and lord of lords. And 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 was 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 worshiped 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 was sitting on the horse and all the birds were gorgeed with their flesh. This is God's word, let's pray. Now a lord we ask that we would receive your word with faith, with reverence, with awe. And with gratitude that this as your word is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training and righteousness, may you do those things for us, Lord, by your spirit we pray. In Jesus' name, amen, you may have a seat. So not the traditional Mother's Day text. If you read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you'll find that there is a great narrative arc across all three books that centers around the longing for a king. A thousand years had passed since there had been a king in Middle Earth. And most of the inhabitants of Middle Earth gave it little or no thought, so much time had passed without a king. The idea that a king would return simply had become for most of the inhabitants of Middle Earth, a non-factor. If that token writes this, quote, but at last that hope, the hope of the return of a king, that hope was forgotten and remained only in the saying, quote, when the king comes back. And that saying was used of some good that could not be achieved or some evil that could not be remedied. So the hope that they once had that a king would come had simply turned into a meaningless slogan. But even so, there were some in Middle Earth who still believed that the king would return and that the crown would once again be worn by its faithful heir. In Christian history, the passage we just read, is almost universally understood to be in reference to the second coming of Jesus Christ, the return of the king. And as we said last week, the event of Christ's return inevitably determines our understanding of the meaning of history itself. It locates us as God's people in the history of redemption and is the promise that the lamb will triumph and complete his saving work. So our hope is all bound up in the promise that Jesus will return. This return is that event which guarantees that all of God's people and all of history do not end in tragedy but in triumph and something to notice that the references in the Bible concerning the second coming of Christ are characteristically more solemn and in some cases more frightening than they are celebratory, which we would maybe expect at first, that they would be more celebratory than solemn but that's not the way they are in Scripture. After all, the second coming, what's it going to be? It's going to be V Day of Triumph for Believers, the Day on which every form of sorrow is going to be wiped away and every form of legitimate, holy, happiness will be experienced to an unprecedented degree. That is worth celebration but we also know whether it's from Jesus' own teaching about his return or what the Apostle Paul writes about the return of Christ for instance in 2nd Thessalonians 1 or right here in Revelation chapter 19, the note of somber warning is accented more than the note of celebration and the effect then is to offer hope for a persecuted church first of all but also to give to the church an appeal that we might be solemnly dedicated to this life of witness that the Lord is given us in this present day. So let's consider a few things that we gain from this passage. First of all, we see that the King will return. The King will return. There's no question about it. It's inevitable. It's written into the story, Jesus is coming back. He will return. That's not just simply some vague unspecified optimism that the Scripture gives us but a very clearly identified event that will take place in space and time meaning the inhabitants of the earth will see the returning Christ. In fact it's been written into the story even before the foundations of world. In 1 Corinthians 15 we read that the return of Jesus involves several things. It involves the resurrection of those who have died in Christ. It involves the taking up from the earth, the whole church to meet the Lord. It involves the final judgment and it leads to the consummation of the age. What have Christians confessed ever since our earliest days, some 2,000 years ago, we believe that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. Look there at verse 11, in John's vision, heaven opens and the glorified Christ appears in majesty upon a white horse, more on the significance of that in just a moment. But one commentator writes this quote, now in the opened heaven, John sees the victorious champion of the church, Jesus, the Son of Man, the faithful and true witness, the Word of God, the Messianic King, the Lamb, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, Jesus' appearance, His names and His companions call believers to rest our hope confidently and completely in His almighty power to vindicate His saints and to finally destroy His enemies. This is the hope that we have. Jesus is returning and Christians we can locate our lives in the meaning of that event. Paul, one of the things that Paul writes in Romans chapter 8 is, I don't see that I can even compare the sufferings of this life to the glory that will be revealed in the sons of God, meaning the glory to be revealed when Christ returns. It says, I can't even compare my sufferings in this life to that great event. The return of Jesus means for us, not only that the Lamb wins, but that He has swept us up into that same victory. So, the King is returning, secondly, the King will be known, the King will be known. Back in Exodus, when Moses asked the Lord, show me your glory. What was the Lord's response? The Lord's response was to tell him his name. I'll show you my glory. Here's my name. In the Bible, names are there to tell us something about the character of the person, or at least names are given as a kind of purpose statement for the person's life. Mary and Joseph were told, you call his name Jesus. Four, he will save his people from their sin. God tells us about himself throughout the Bible in names and in titles. The Psalmist says that God, quote, has exalted above all things. His name and His word. Jesus teaches us in the very first petition of the model prayer to pray these words, hollowed, be thy name, or may your name be treated and seen as holy. So, we can hardly exaggerate the importance of the names by which God reveals himself. And so, surely, it's significance in this passage that we are given several names or titles for Jesus. Several times we're told, and this is his name, or this was written on his robe, or his name is this. And here's why that is so helpful for us here. Particularly when we are reading hard passages with hard truth, like we've just read. Here's why the naming of God in multiple ways, giving him various titles. This is why that is so helpful because you won't understand the Lord's justice unless you understand His character. And you won't understand His character, unless you know how He is named. And notice how the Lord is named and described in this passage. Not comprehensive, but certain things that demand our attention in verse 11 again. He's described his writing on a white horse. That is a symbol of military might, a little bit more on that in a second. But also see there in verse 11 that He is called faithful and true, faithful and true. So, there we have two words, but they amount to a single title. One name, the Lord is faithful and true. As He returns, He is declaring His faithfulness. He's returning just as He said. He's returning just as He had promised. He is faithful. And He is true. He is the summation and totality of truth. And there is nothing in Him whatsoever that is false. Lord Jesus is faithful to His word, faithful to His promises. True to His character. He is good and so He acts in goodness. He is righteous. So He acts in righteousness. He is holy. So He acts in holiness. He is merciful. And so He acts in mercy. He is just. And so He acts in justice. He is true. That is. Verse 12, we are told that His eyes are a flame of fire. Meaning that there is nothing He doesn't see. And on His head we are told our many diadems or many crowns. If you will remember back the descriptions of the dragon, the description of the beast, they have multiple heads and multiple crowns. Five crowns, seven crowns. But here, what are we told about the crowns of the returning Lord Jesus? He has many crowns. The point is this. Whatever authority that the beast and the dragon exercised on earth, it was himden. It was limited. But the authority and the right to rule and the sovereign power of King Jesus is unlimited. He doesn't have five crowns. He doesn't have seven crowns. He has many, meaning a limitless authority, a limitless reign. Gone are the characteristics of a humble carpenter's son. Now we see him as the righteous king and judge. Verse 13, He is the word of God. He is the word of God. The son is the eternal word by which the father created all things. We read about that in Colossians for instance. We read about that in John's gospel in his preamble in chapter one. He is the divine word, the low gospel by whom and through whom all things were made. Here in this passage the returning Christ is pictured with a sword coming from his mouth. A reference to his speech, his word, by which not only he creates but by which he defeats the enemy and he strikes down the nations. That he is the word of God encompasses his power and is authority to judge the wicked. Verse 16, He is King of kings in Lord of lords. Now John, the apostle, was a Jewish man and the Hebrew way of emphasizing something was through repetition to repeat something twice or three times. They didn't put things in a talix or bold. They would repeat them in order to make a superlative. And so here the returning Christ is indeed King. He is indeed Lord but he is the kingliest of kings and he is the lordliest of lords. No other authority compares to his. No other rule is sovereign to the degree to which his rule is sovereign. His decree is eternal and unchangeable. What he says, what he decrees will come to pass. He is the one king. He is the one lord who is able to bring about his will in perfection so that righteousness is done and wickedness is destroyed forever and ever. Now circle back to verse 12. Notice that quote, He has a name written which no one knows but himself. Now this may refer to a specific name that is simply to sacred for fallen humanity to know. That's a possibility. It may also refer to the fact that in this life we simply will never achieve a full and comprehensive knowledge of God. There's a lot of things we can know about God because he reveals a lot of things about himself in his word. But there's so much that we have yet to know about him and cannot know about him in this life. How does John the Apostle in his gospel? Listen, if I were to record everything that Jesus did, there's not enough books in the world to contain it all. Now imagine what it would take to have a comprehensive knowledge of the triune eternal God. So he has a name which no one knows but himself, meaning the knowledge of him, the full comprehensive knowledge of him is just simply too much for us. So in all of these ways, the king will be known upon his return. Even to sinners, they will know who this is. They will know that this is the one who has written his law upon their conscience, the law that they have rejected all of their lives. This is the one who has haunted their conscience, helping them to see that they need a Savior, a knowledge that they have suppressed, truth that they have suppressed and denied, they will now know who it is and we of course will recognize him in a second. The Savior of our souls, the one who showed us mercy when we were in our sins, the one who tracked us down and would not leave us in our condemnation, the one who gave up his life for us. But one who was given by his father, he was given you, he was given me as a gift to the son, we will know this one, the second we see him, correctlyizing. We'll know him. And then the third thing we see in this text is that the king will judge justly. The king will judge justly. As we've already mentioned when Jesus returns, he will not come as a lowly infant surrounded by livestock. He will return with the symbols of royalty, power, authority and military strength all held within his hand. He came first as a saving servant and thank God for that. It's the only reason any of us are saved. And he will return as the righteous judge and warrior. John's first readers would have recognized the significance of the first words there in verse 11 that he appeared on a white horse. John's first readers would have recognized that that is an image always associated with military victory. In righteousness we're told there, he judges and makes war. This is not the sentimental deity of American evangelicalism. This is not the God who allows lovely, nice, well-behaved people to talk about how their God would never do this and their God would never do that over a cup of gourmet coffee. Verse 12, the Lord's fiery eyes indicate his penetrating insight. There's not a single person or act of which he is not fully knowledgeable. His many diadems, his many crowns are symbolic of the fact that his rule is comprehensive. It is universal. There's not a single realm over which Jesus is not bored. Notice again in verse 13 that detail that his garments are dipped in blood. Who's blood? This is not a reference to his redeeming blood. This is a reference to the blood of his enemies. It's a gruesome image for sure, but it is one necessary to communicate the fullness of his victory and the seriousness of rebellion against him. Furthering this warfare imagery, look there again in verse 14, the returning Jesus is portrayed as being accompanied by an army of beings on white horses. And again, this is imagery steeped in military significance. White horses in the Greco-Roman world were ridden upon as ceremonial representations of victories won. So in a Roman triumph, given through the streets of Rome, to a general that had achieved a very specific set of great victories that general would be brought through the streets of Rome on a white horse declaring his victory. So in effect Jesus being depicted on a white horse. The army of the hosts of heaven being depicted on white horses, there is a sense in which the war is over before it begins. The enemies of God have been routed without so much as a battle. Look again in verse 15, here we read more symbolism as a sword is depicted coming from the Lord's mouth. Obviously this is symbolic. It points to the power of his word and in this case his word of judgment with which he strikes down the nations. Those words in that imagery are taken from the great Messianic Psalm, Psalm 2, which tells us that the son, quote, will break the nations with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's lesson. As one commentator writes, quote, despite the preferences of naive, wishful thinkers, at the cosmic level, there can be no true mercy, no genuine redemption apart from justice. Carrying on to verse 16, this clause we read on his robe and on his thigh. He has a name written, king of kings and lord of lords. Now that first clause on his robe and on his thigh can just as easily be translated on his robe in the place of his thigh. What does that mean? Well, either way, it seems to suggest that this particular name is written in the place where the sword would rest on his body. In other words, Jesus is not simply king of kings and lord of lords in some vague ceremonial way, but he is the power and the authority to actually act as king of kings and lord of lords. Martin Luther taught us to sing, Lord Sabbath oath his name, which means lord of lords or lord of armies, his name. There will be no mistaking Jesus when he returns. As a baby born in Bethlehem, clothed as it were in humility and human frailty, he was easy to overlook. But when he returns, Christ will be universally acknowledged as the king, the righteous judge, the eternal living word of God. Now we come to verse 17 and 18, and this is a particular, particularly difficult reference here. Notice how the final judgment is described as quote, the great supper of God. Season angel that calls forth, all the birds of the air, particularly I suppose those birds that feed on carrion, on detritus, on the dead. And he calls that, he calls them to gather for the great supper of God. What a contrast this is to what is described just previously in verse 9 as we saw last week as quote, the great marriage supper of the lamb, which is a picture of salvation and eternal blessedness for all of God's redeemed people. Here we see the unclean birds gather to consume those quote, great and small who made a mockery of God's grace and refused the invitation to the lamb's banquet. And just as in verse 5, where the vast number of the redeemed consists of those quote, great and small, so also among those who are cast away into darkness, they will consist of those both great and small. In other words, God is no respecter of persons. Your wealth or your lack of it, your status or your lack of it, your accomplishments or your lack of them, will not be the measure by which you are saved or judged. Only one thing will matter on that day. What did you do with Jesus? What did you do with the invitation to the marriage supper of the lamb? Did you believe that the truth that God has shown you or have you denied it or suppressed it? What have you done with your knowledge of the gospel? What have you done with the call to believe in Jesus? That is the thing that will matter. We may once at depictions here of vultures consuming the vanquished foes of God, but this gruesome picture of judgment is the necessary prelude to God making all things right. Without the destruction of the wicked, there is no new creation. Without God's judgment upon sin and evil and all those who do wickedness, all of this fall in world without his judgment upon it, there can be no end then to violence and injustice and cancer and abuse and despair. And then finally we arrive at verses 19 through 21, notice how there is no description of a final battle just as there was not a description of a final battle in chapter 17. The beast, the false prophet later on, the dragon himself, are going to be depicted as being cast by the lamb into the lake of fire which is a reference to hell. And all this without them presenting the least threat to Jesus' victory. In a sense then, there is no battle per se. Only a fatal final stand by the wicked against the one whose eyes are like fire and whose word is a double-edged sword. Again, what is brother Martin teach us to sing? The Prince of Darkness Grimm, we tremble not for him, his rage we shall endure for a low his doom is sure. And what does it say? One little word shall fell. The king is coming back. Here in chapter 9, 19, we see salvation portrayed both as a banquet and as warfare, as redemption and destruction. Salvation involves both the intimacies and celebrations of marriage as well as the blood of battle. It is the loving embrace of God for the vast multitude of his redeemed people and the final all out assault against evil. Salvation is all of that. In a moral universe governed by a good God, salvation must consist of both realities. It is a holy God who must eradicate sin before he inaugurates the perfect reality for which he created mankind in the first place and for which he has saved you and I. Two thoughts and then we close. Why do we have passages like this? First of all, because the Lord has given these words to encourage his persecuted church. It is very difficult, challenging, I'll say. To get revelation right, if you're reading it in a place of comfort. It is very challenging to get revelation right if you have never really been persecuted. I'm not talking about whether or not someone has thought you're silly for being Christian. I'm talking about real persecution. Unless you've experienced real persecution and real devastation, it's hard to get revelation right and that's why so many of the goofy interpretations of revelation come out of the comfortable West. Because the very simple direct meaning of it has a hard time clicking with us. The Lord has given these words to encourage his persecuted church. You know, the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12, do not seek vengeance, Christian. And he's writing this to Christians who had been mistreated. Don't seek vengeance. He says, why? Because God doesn't either and we should be like him. Is that what it says? Oh, he says, don't seek vengeance because God will exercise. Vengeance. It doesn't say, don't, don't defend yourself. Don't use violence. Don't seek vengeance. Don't return evil for evil because God never ever will judge or vindicate, either. And we need to be like him. No, he says don't seek vengeance because the Lord says vengeance is mine. For persecuted Christians, that's a lifeline. For those Christians who live in relative freedom and comfort, depictions like this of the Lord's wrath are often jarring, perhaps even offensive to those who find this imagery distasteful. And it is graphic. We ought to consider, however, if our objection to the vengeance of God is made possible because so many of us live lives fairly unharassed, peaceful lives with no real desperate need for vindication. There's a theologian named Marislaw Wolf who's taught in the United States for for decades. I don't really recommend him, by the way. But he's a Croatian who's taught systematic theology in the United States for years. And in one of his books, he reflects on the warfare and the genocide that the Croatian people have endured for generations. And he writes this in one of his books, quote, soon you will discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home and let me just paraphrase him here. It takes the quiet of a suburban home to hold the view that God refuses to judge. He writes, quote, in a scorched land soaked in the blood of the innocent, that idea invariably dies. He's right. John Kidney, we're talking just the other day about this passage and about how excited I was to preach this on Mother's Day. And we talked about this passage and how often many Christians want to push back or even deny passages like this that depict the judgment of God. And John made this statement referring interestingly to the Lord of the Rings. He said, basically, he said, no one feels bad that the orcs are defeated. We just instinctively know that that's a good thing when the orcs are routed. And yet somehow we refuse the same righteous victory for God Almighty. There's this great scene from the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where just as the battle of Helm's deep seems to have been lost to the forces of Sauron, that's the Satan figure. Just as it looks like the forces of good were about to be defeated, this happens, quote, there suddenly upon a ridge appeared a writer, clad in white, shining in the rising sun, does any of this sound familiar? Over the low hills, the horns were sounding behind him, hastening down the long slopes where a thousand men on foot, their swords were in their hands, amid them strode a man, tall and strong, his shield was red, as he came to the valley's brink. He set to his lips a great black horn and blew a ringing blast. Behold the white writer, cried Erragorn, Gandalf has come again. The hosts of Eisenguard, those are the bad guys. The hosts of Eisenguard, roared, swayed this way and that turning from fear to fear, again the horns sounded from the tower, down through the breech, charged the king's company. The white writer was upon them, and the terror of his coming, filled the enemy with madness. The wild men fell on their faces before him. The orcs reeled and screamed and cast aside both Sauron's spear, like a black smoke driven by a mounting wind, they fled, wailing, they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees, and from that shadow, none ever came again. Don't you just want to go out and take it, they'll all right now? I mean, you don't read that and say, I wish the good guys had been a little more nuanced. No, we say yes, because the destruction of evil and wickedness, the complete routing of the enemy is a good, great, and glorious thing. And the suffering church knows that. And then secondly, why do we have words like this so that the church might properly understand her role in the world prior to Christ's return? Passages like this passage served underscore the mission of the church in this sinful world. Passages like this reveal that the progressive vision of a church as a doctrineally in different social services organization is an entirely insufficient vision for the church. When we read about the coming judgment of God in the second coming of Christ, all of these progressive ideas of what the church should be and should do fade away into complete irrelevance. So too is the vision of a church as a as a chaplain for any single political party left or right those visions are too small, you know, the city on a hill campaign are commitment to add more space for more people to welcome, more people to come and no Christ to be discipled. This is an act of defiant hope on our part. When so many places in the West, the church is receding, retreating, hold denominations dying. The church is compromising. Her ministers are mimicking the world, ironically banishing the church to irrelevance. And many hopeful believers in the West have already written the church's epitaph, but we just keep singing the church shall never perish her dear Lord to defend. Yes? Or are we sing this? We long to see thy churches full that all the chosen race may with one voice and heart and soul sing thy redeeming grace. We know that the end of the story involves final judgment upon those who have spurned God's grace. That tells us a whole lot about our mission, beloved. The dragon and the beast would be very happy for us to build and do nice things and meet all variety of physical and social needs to the people around us. The beast would be happy if we were super active in politics, left or right, so long as we did not give our labors to seeing men and women come to Jesus. So long as we left them unprepared for the return of the King. Do you believe that Jesus is returning? Do you believe what Christians have always confessed? I believe that He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you believe that? Then I'll close with these words from Charles Spurgeon. Beloved, why does the Lord give us words like this? This is what Spurgeon says. Oh my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, let not one go there, unwarned or unprayed for. Amen? The King is returning. Let that fill us with hope and let us and let that make us shard for the mission. Let's pray. And now, O Lord, we ask your help that your word would not depart from us but would remain in our hearts and in our minds that we might be coming more faithful people. A people greater in humility than we were before. A people mighty in our witness than we ever have been previously. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.