Bible Story Rev: Victory (cp 21-22)

Introduction

This will be lesson number eight as we come to the last two chapters of this brilliant book. Revelation chapters 21 and 22 tell us of the victory we have in Christ, the triumph of truth. And we trust that this series has been faith building to all of us. I would like to close this series with a study of the lessons we learn from the Bible’s last book. In Revelation 21 1, John said, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. Earlier in the book, there was a sea that separated the people from the throne of God. Then in chapter 15, they were getting closer, they were standing on the sea.

Finally, after the devil and the beasts of the sea and the land have been put down and overthrown and shackled, the sea is no more. Nothing separated the people of God from Jehovah Himself. The constant growing triumph of truth. We’re more than conquerors through him that loved us, Romans 8. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world, receive blessing and power and glory and dominion and might forever and ever. Revelation 5. And so as the devil has been destroyed, his power, truth comes to the scene. And it’s always so that when we gain a victory over Satan, immediately the angels of God come and help us. Matthew chapter 4, as in the temptation of Jesus by Satan. It’s much like 1 Corinthians 10 13 that promises the faithful Christian that when we’re tempted, God will provide a way of escape that we may be able to bear it.

What a precious promise from the Lord. In Revelation 21 8, he says, But the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. As the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Nahum taught in the Old Testament, God will in no wise clear the guilty. So shall it be in the day of judgment. If we have entered into the wide gate in the broad way that leads to perdition, we’ll certainly find destruction there. But if we seek first the kingdom of God, Matthew 6.33, and put our faith and trust in spiritual allegiance, we shall overcome. And the real theme of the book of Revelation is if you will overcome, you can come over to live with God.

1. We Must Keep the World Out of the Church

What are the great lessons learned from the Bible’s last book? First of all, we learn that we must keep the world out of the church. Come out of her, O ye my people, states Revelation chapters 11 and 18. Coming out of Babylon, indicative of sensuality, of heathenism, means to take a step out of the world into Christ. The word church comes from the Greek word eklesia, which means the called out. And John 15 19 tells us we’re called out of the world. You’re not of this world. 2 Timothy 2.19 says, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 2 Corinthians 6.17 says, Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. And in Matthew 5, Jesus said, You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.

2. Persecution Purifies and Strengthens

Thus we cannot allow the inside job the devil would like to do within the army of the Lord to be successful. We must step out of the world in the crash, dead unto sin, alive unto God, Romans 6.11. And if any book in the Bible stresses that we must keep the world out of the church, it is the last book, the book of Revelation. The second great lesson we learn is that persecution purifies and strengthens, and that physical death is really not so tragic if we die in the Lord. Revelation 14:13. Jesus said, Be faithful in the face of death or unto death, and I’ll give you a crown of life. Revelation 2.10. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent.

Revelation 3 19. And thus to him that overcometh, Jesus said, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am sat down with my Father in his throne. And though Paul said that the Christians of the first century were the filth and off-scouring of the earth, and that their life was in jeopardy every hour, and the sentence of death was always with them, 2 Corinthians 1 9, still persecution purified and strengthened that peerless apostle. In fact, when he asked for his thorn in the flesh to be removed, the Lord said, No, my grace is sufficient for thee, and you’ll grow strong because of trials, 2 Corinthians 12. In John 15 and 16, both chapters, our Lord taught that men had hated him and persecuted him and would put him to death, and therefore his servants, his disciples, should not consider it a strange thing if men would persecute them and cast them out of synagogues and put them to death.

In Psalm 116 11, verses 67 and 71, David said, Before I was afflicted, I went astray. It has been good for me to be afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. And out of deep anguish, ancient Job said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Once Job said, I called unto the Lord, and he didn’t hear me. Job 30, verse 20. But in the last chapter, after acknowledging that he had heard of God before, but now he’d seen him, and he repented in sackcloth and ashes. We read that God blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. So persecution and ill will, duress, and tribulation purified and strengthened that worthy man of days past. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that should be revealed, wrote Paul in Romans 8:18.

3. The Devil Is Bold and Relentless, but Can Be Defeated

If we suffer with him, we’ll reign with him. 2 Timothy 2 11 and 12. And when we bear in our body the marks, the stigma of the Lord Jesus Christ, Galatians 6, 17, we grow strong, not weak. And the book of Revelation teaches that. The third wonderful lesson in the book of Revelation, and especially the last two chapters, is that the devil is bold and relentless, but can be defeated if we allow Christ to rule and reign in our hearts. In Revelation 12 9 and 20 verse 2, we learn that he is that old serpent, Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. But we’re to resist the devil, James 4, and abstain from those things which cause us to fall into the snare of the devil.

1 Timothy 3:7. We’re not ignorant of his devices, lest Satan gain advantage of us, 2 Corinthians 2.11. We’re not to give place to the devil. And we’re to realize that Jesus entered the strong man’s house and spoiled his goods, Mark 3 27. Thus Christ could say, in view of his death, now is the Prince of this world cast out, John 12 31. He destroyed the power the devil had over death, Hebrews 2.14, when he removed the sting of death, which is sin, 1 Corinthians 15:56, by destroying the devil’s hold over death by living and dying righteously, without sin. And so, though through subtlety the devil lead men leads men away from the simplicity of Christ, 2 Corinthians 11 3, still for this cause was the Son of God made known that he might bring to naught the power of the devil.

4. We Cannot Escape God’s Eyes

1 John 3 8. The seed of woman had come to crush the devil’s power, Genesis 3 15, and now is the devil cast down, Romans 16 20. For we are always led in triumph in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2 14. Though the devil is bold and relentless, the Lord Jesus Christ has more power. And he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. 1 John 4 4. The fourth great lesson we learn from the Bible’s last book, the book of Revelation, is that we cannot escape God’s eyes. Revelation 18 5 says, Your sin has come up to heaven. In Revelation 1, our Lord said, I know thy works. He has eyes as a flame of fire. Thou, O God seest me, Genesis 16 13.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Psalm 139, verse 4. Jehovah looks down from heaven upon the children of men, Psalm 14, 2. Thus we must search and try our ways and turn again to God. Lamentation 3 40. To the church at Ephesus, Jesus said, I know that you have left your first love. Outwardly they were ardent, but their heart was not right, and the Lord who sees everything, knew it. To Sardis, he said, You have a name that you live, but you’re dead. And only the piercing, penetrating eyes of God could tell that.

To Laodicea, the wealthy, pompous church, the Lord said, You say that you have need of nothing, but I say, You’re poor and miserable and blind and wretched and naked. You have nothing. Thus we learn in the book of Revelation that God knows and cares. And we’ll just have to admit with a psalmist in Psalm 69 5, My sins are not hid from thee. Thus we must bring every thought into captivity to Christ, 2 Corinthians 10 5, realizing the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. And when the Lamb’s Book of Life reveals things as they really are, we’ll understand that there’s not any creature that is not manifest in God’s sight. But all things are open and naked before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

5. Men and Angels Are Not to Be Worshipped

Hebrews 4 13. One of the real practical, vibrant lessons to the early Christians who received this letter, the book of Revelation, is the fifth point of our study. Men and angels are not to be worshipped. One of the real problems the early Christians faced was emperor worship. As we have taught from Revelation chapters 13 and 18, concerning the mark of the beast and how that evil men could buy and sell and get gain, while the Christians who had not this mark couldn’t. We learned that emperor worship was a travesty upon the religion of Christ in the first century. And if the Christians would not bow down to the emperor in his temples, they couldn’t be members of the trade guilds, which had their banquets in conjunction with emperor worship.

And thus the Christian who wouldn’t worship the emperor was in dire straits, not being able to buy or sell or get gain in temporal necessities. And so in Revelation 22, verses 8 and 9, John fell at the feet of the angel who showed him these things to worship him, and the angels said, Don’t do that. You worship God. If John couldn’t worship that angel, the brethren surely couldn’t worship the emperor. And you know we’re not to worship men either. We’re not to call them Reverend and My Lord and Holy Father. In Acts 10 26, one bowed down before Simon Peter, and he said, Stand up. I myself am also a man. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, Matthew 4 10.

And so in chapter 4 of Revelation, when the door is opened in heaven and John sees God upon his throne, Jehovah is the one to be reverenced, adored, hallowed, and worshipped. And we’re to worship God in spirit and in truth, John 4 24. It makes a difference what we do in worship. Unless we have authority for the items we engage in, we do it presumptuously. And Leviticus 10 1 and 2 tells what happened to Nadab Nabihu when they offered presumptuously their worship. In Isaiah 6, we learn that we’re to humble ourselves before God and do his bidding.

And Psalm 95 says, Oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for we’re the sheep of his pasture and the people of his hand. Emperor worship was taboo in the first century for Christians, and any worship of men today is also forbidden. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

In one hour, so great riches has come to naught. Revelation 18 17. Treasures laid up on earth will be consumed, Matthew 6. They that would be rich fall into temptation and a snare. The love of money is the root of all evil, which some having coveted after, have erred from the faith and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows, as we read in 1 Timothy 6. And when men are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, 2 Timothy 3 4, they’re like the rich fool who heard God say, Thou fool. Tonight shall thy soul be required of thee. And then who shall these things be which thou has provided? You see, neither silver nor gold will deliver us in the day of God’s wrath, Zephaniah 1.18.

And all the things we have gathered and hoarded in life will be taken away and consumed. All these things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought ye then to be in all holy living and godliness? The haunting question of 2 Peter 3. And the last sweet and great lesson in the book of Revelation is this truth.

6. We Learn What Paradise Really Means

We learn what paradise really means. The word paradise, found three times in the Bible, comes from a Persian word meaning garden, the beautiful serenity of the Oriental Garden. And in Revelation 22, we see the tree of life in the midst of the garden of God, and blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city. In the Garden of Eden, men said, Not thy will but mine be done, and paradise was lost. But in the garden of God, men say, Not I will but thine be done, and paradise is regained. And thus men once purged from the garden because of sin, can now come back to the tree of life through obedience to Christ.

Conclusion

Christ is coming. We need to be prepared. Whosoever will, let him come. The judgment day. We’ll peel forth someday, and may God help us to be wise enough to be prepared.