18 Feb, 2001

Testimonies For God

Rev. 15 & 16

For the last two weeks on Wednesday night, people have been giving testimonies. This last Wednesday night, the statement was made; "Everybody has a testimony," and that's true. Everybody does have a life experience where they will have something to say about their relationship to God. Some people have a positive testimony, and other people have a negative testimony. Some people can testify that they have had a wonderful life, perhaps they had gracious, godly parents, they responded to God at an early age, and they have walked with God for a long time.

Other people have not had it so easy, either because of something they did themselves or because of what other people did to them, but they still responded to God's mercy and grace, and came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Other people have a different sort of testimony. Some people never respond to God at all but they still seem to lead a charmed life, they have every possible worldly benefit and nothing bad ever seems to happen to them.

And then other people seem like they're always up to their armpits in alligators and they blame God for all their troubles. There are all kinds of variations of those different situations, but the bottom line is, everybody has some sort of testimony concerning their relationship to God.

Today we get to hear from different people on both sides of the fence, and even from those above the fence, and think about how it applies to us.

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to Revelation chapter 15 and verse 1: "And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
Rev 15:2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God."
These are the people that we read about back in chapter 12 who were said to have overcome Satan "by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death."
These are the martyrs of the tribulation, the ones that valued their testimony more than their lives. Satan took their lives, but now it is coming down to the last few days, and they are the victorious ones after all.
You have probably heard the phrase: "Win the battle and lose the war?" During the tribulation, Satan will get real good at that.

Verse 3: "And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."
Obviously these people have a testimony for God, and it is a testimony in song, which is kind of different and neat. Especially when we think about their immediate situation, and how they got to be where they are. They have just come through a situation that had to be terribly traumatic, maybe they had their heads cut off, maybe the last thing they saw on earth before they were killed was the death of their loved ones, but is that what they are talking about? "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways; thou King of saints." They're not focusing just on themselves and their experiences, they are singing that the things of God are great and marvelous, and just and true. Apparently they approve of what God has allowed to happen to them, Amen?

Also, they appear to feel that in spite of what happened to them, God has everything under control. Look at verse 4: "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgements are made manifest." Their testimony is about God, what He is doing, and what He is about to do, that's the thing they want to talk about. Or sing about. Let's look a little closer at what they are singing: The Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb: What is that about? What are those songs? How do they fit together, the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb?

Turn to Exodus chapter 15 and verse 1: "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
Exo 15:2 The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him."
Proverbs 25:2 tells us: "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter." Since God has made us a nation of kings and priests, we honor Him when we search out the things He has hidden. And He has hidden something glorious in the Song of Moses.

Moses and the children of Israel had just come across the Red Sea by means of a miracle, and by the same miracle God had drowned all the armies of Pharaoh, and it was a wonderful time to sing songs of praise to the Lord, but the way they phrase it makes it extra special. Notice the second part of verse two here: "He is become my salvation." If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you are probably aware that God had revealed Himself to the Israelites by various descriptive names. Adonai, which means Lord or Master. El Elyon, the Most High God. Jehovah, or YHWH, literally the self existent one, the I Am. There are enough different names of God to make a study several weeks long, but for right now, I want us to notice just one wonderful name that the Lord has chosen for Himself. "He is become my salvation." Jehovah has become my salvation. Does anyone here know how to say "salvation" in Hebrew? Yeshua. Does anyone in here know the Hebrew pronunciation for Jesus? Yeshua. Same word.
Yeshua Ha Mashiach. Jesus the Messiah. Jesus the Christ.

When you speak the name of Jesus in Hebrew, you say salvation. The song of Moses is also the song of the Lamb, because when you sing about the salvation of Jehovah, then you sing about the Lamb, because the Lamb is the only salvation that Jehovah has ever had for any of His people. The Song of Moses is that Jehovah has become my salvation, my Yeshua, Jehovah has become my Lamb.

Sometimes I hear people talk about how they don't want to come to God because they had this wonderful old godly grandmother, and she never hurt anybody, and she got cancer and died and how could a loving God let such a thing happen, and why didn't God do something? God did do something. God the Son became a harmless, innocent Lamb and died for that sweet old grandmother to deliver her from her sins. God became her salvation. God died in her place. God rose again from the dead for her justification. And they have the nerve to say that God wasn't good to your Granny? They must not be paying attention.

Turn back to Revelation 15, verse 5: "And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:" We are not the only ones that have a testimony. God has a testimony too. There is a testimony in heaven that testifies of who God is, and what He has done, and why He has done it, and depending on whether you are for Jesus Christ or against Jesus Christ, that testimony in heaven will either sustain you, it will lift you up, or it will put you down.

I think it is fascinating that the things of God in heaven have a spiritual reality that God sometimes has us imitate here on earth. Just think: God has an ark, a repository of His covenant with mankind in heaven, and it is so important to us, and our relationship with Him, that He also wanted a replica, a duplicate of it on earth. God has a testimony of His promises to us.

After Moses had been up on Mount Sinai, and was going to build the tabernacle, he had to be careful to build it a certain way. God told him: "See that you make all things according to the pattern that was shown thee on the mount." God apparently does things in specific ways for important reasons, and obviously man is not at liberty to change things around to suit himself. Have you ever noticed that sometimes your little children will imitate the things that you do, even if they don't know what you are doing or why you are doing it? As long as we are doing the right things, it's good that the kiddies imitate us, Amen? That same principle applies to the things of God and His church. If there are things in the Bible that we don't understand, perhaps sometimes we don't know why God wants things a certain way, think about this passage. We need to be obedient to obey the things of God in our daily lives even if the reasons why are not always perfectly clear to us. There are spiritual realities going on that we don't always see. Just because we haven't figured them out yet doesn't make them any less valid.

Verse 6: "And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.
Rev 15:8 And one of the four beasts - that would be one of the Cherubim- gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled."
When Moses finished building the tabernacle in the wilderness, the glory of God came down like a cloud and covered it, and no one could go into it. When Solomon finished dedicating the temple, the same thing happened. I believe that what we are seeing here is God about to finish His work of judging the earth, cleansing it out, and preparing to set His Son on the throne of David, and once again, God's glory is filling the temple, this time it is the temple in heaven, the place of His testimony. For thousands of years, God has had a Mercy Seat, a place of atonement for sins, a place for the Blood of the Lamb to be sprinkled for cleansing of sins. God has had a salvation Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and millions of people have trusted in Him for salvation.

What we are seeing now is that from the same holy place where the Blood of the Lamb atoned for the sins of all that would believe and receive Him, there now comes forth judgement against those that refused to let God be their salvation, refused to let Jehovah be their Yeshua. A very sobering and terrifying thought for those that refuse and reject God. God has waited for thousands of years, but the days of His waiting do eventually come to an end. A testimony of God's patience, and of His ultimate judgement on those who reject His mercy and His salvation.

Chapter 16: "And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth."
Something that always fascinated me in the story of the Exodus, even in the movie with Charleton Heston and Yul Brynner that I enjoyed back before I got saved, and still do, was how Pharaoh was so stubborn to reject and struggle against God, and then even after the Israelites had gone, he went out after them and tried to bring them back. He was so irrational that he sent his troops out between the walls of water in the sea, and they were so irrational that they went down into such a death trap. Something that I want us to notice today is how the attitude of the followers of antichrist, and all rebels against God, are like the attitude of Pharaoh.

There is also a similarity of the plagues of Egypt with the plagues of the Tribulation, and that's because they serve the same purpose. All of those Exodus plagues were designed to show that the gods of Egypt were helpless and useless against the God of Israel. They were not random terrorist actions by God against Egypt, they were judgements against the gods of Egypt, demonstrating their lack of power, showing them up for nothing more than the demonic fakes that they were. The plagues during the tribulation serve a similar testimony against the antichrist, that he is just a fraud and a pretender.

Verse 2: "And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome - or painful - and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image."
Up until this point in the tribulation, the followers of the beast who had taken his mark could pretend they were the religious elite. If you had the mark of the beast, then you were a good religious person. God says no. God uses this judgement to demonstrate that those who have the external mark of the beast also have an internal corruption. During the plagues of Egypt, the dust that Aaron scattered from the altars of the idol worshipers caused sores on their bodies, and now a very similar thing happens here. You worship a false god, you pay the price.

Verse 3: "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
Rev 16:4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
Rev 16:5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
Rev 16:6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy."
Another testimony. This time it is an angel in heaven that testifies that the followers of the antichrist got what they deserve. Since the holy angels of God have had several thousand years to watch things on earth, and since they are intelligent and not sinful, this is a good honest intelligent testimony.

Verse 7: "And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments."
This voice out of the altar is the voice of one of the martyrs giving their testimony. This is not vindictiveness, just a simple statement that those on the earth are getting what they deserve, and the Lord is righteous to give them these judgements. They were bloody minded? God will give them blood.
Donald Grey Barnhouse has a wonderful comment on the significance of these plagues: "That which had always been the symbol of salvation in the midst of life, becomes the symbol of condemnation in the midst of death...They had refused the salvation that would have come to them from the Blood of the One who is Life; they now receive condemnation from the blood that symbolizes death."

There is something else that goes along with this. God is a covenant making God, God makes covenants with men, and this drinking of blood symbolizes that the people that live on the earth at that time will have broken all of God's covenants, even going back before the Ten Commandments. The first covenant was God's covenant with Adam in the garden. The second covenant was when God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden and made clothes of skins for them. The third covenant was God's covenant with Noah, turn to Genesis 9:1 "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
Gen 9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." Starting from the days of Noah, there is a prohibition against eating blood, and that prohibition is continued in the New Testament. In Acts 15, the question had come up about whether gentile Christians had to keep the Laws of Moses, and the answer was that "they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood." Flesh with the blood still in it, and from blood itself. One of the things that no one should do is to eat blood. Whether you are a Christian, non Christian, whatever, even way back before the Law of Moses was given, God told mankind in general not to eat blood.

God uses blood as a part of atonement, and He tells man not to eat it or drink it, because He wants the atoning Blood of His Son to be unique, a very special thing in all the earth. For Christians to take communion, symbolizing the partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ is a unique symbol in all the earth, and even from the beginning, God wanted it to have a special significance. Now it comes to a time when the earth is so reprobate, so corrupt, that God Himself illustrates for them that they have broken every covenant, they have totally turned away from God's laws. Therefore, God gives them the wages of their behavior. He gives them a symbolic reminder that they have broken all the covenants He ever made with them.

Verse 8: "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory."
I believe that this is down to the last few days of the tribulation before the Lord returns, and this is the time that the prophets have spoken of. Turn to Isaiah 30:26 "Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." Something is going to happen to cause the sun to be much brighter and hotter for a time. What it is, we don't know.
Isaiah 24, verse 6: "Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left." This is what happens during a time of total rebellion against the rule of God over the earth. People talk about global warming: imagine what would happen if the sun suddenly got seven times brighter?

Turn to Job 38:22 "Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,
Job 38:23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?"
The word treasures here means a store house or an armory, literally a place for storing weapons. When the sun suddenly scorches the earth with unusual heat, the polar ice caps will melt, snow capped mountains will melt off, the seas will rise, and there will be the most terrible storms that you could imagine. Literal weapons of hail being used for God's battle and war against the followers of the antichrist.

Let's turn back to Revelation 16: 10 "And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
Rev 16:11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds."
Here is another testimony. People who would not respond to the gospel of God, the mercy and grace of God, will not respond to the chastisement of God either. The hand of God is heavy upon them, and all it does is make them curse Him all the more. Jesus was crucified between two thieves. One repented and received salvation, one reviled Him and cursed Him. Some things in life don't change. There are people on this earth that choose to go to hell with a curse on their lips rather than receive the mercy of God. This is their testimony, one that will come back to haunt them on the day of judgement.

Verse 12: "And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared."
The nation of Turkey has built a series of dams across the Euphrates river, it is now possible for the Turks to shut off the flow of water any time they want to. It is more likely that the Euphrates will dry up for supernatural reasons, but it is now possible in our day for it to happen by purely man made reasons.
The important thing is not the river drying up, it is that the kings of the east will have an easy way to cross the river. When God brings all the nations of the world to the battle of Armageddon, He brings all the nations.

Verse 13: "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
Rev 16:14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Skip to verse 16.
"And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon."
The unholy trinity of Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet know that they are in serious trouble. Back in Revelation chapter 12, they saw the armies of Satan's angels defeated by the angels of God, so they realize that there is no hope there. Now they plan a last desperate strategy. Satan knows a lot about the Bible, and he knows that Jesus Christ will soon be coming back to Israel to take control. Consequently, this unholy trinity sets out to gather all the armies of the world to come to Israel and do battle with the Lord when He returns.

Have you ever been around a liar that got so caught up in their deceptions that eventually they came to believe that their lies were true? I think that something like that is happening here. It is so obvious that God is in control and Satan and his followers have no chance of success at all, yet they still continue their insane plans.

Armageddon. It is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Word "Har Meggido," which means "Rendezvous Mountain." Whoa... Appropriate name. Not a rendezvous any of us want to be at.

In the midst of all this judgement upon the earth, the Lord Jesus Himself interjects a few words of encouragement and exhortation for those believers that are still alive on the earth.
Verse 15: " Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." What does the Lord mean by this? What is He trying to tell us?
Picture the kind of things going through the minds of any believers during this time. Just a few Christians left, trying to stay alive, hiding, starving, the world is literally coming apart all around them, and they are probably thinking: "What should I do?" "Is Jesus really going to come back soon? Will I really survive? If I take the mark, I might at least be able to feed my family, but if I don't, we will probably all die. Do I throw in the towel and just give up?" Right at this time, at the climax of the worst plagues of the tribulation, Jesus tells them: "Watch! Be looking for Me! You don't know when I am coming, but keep watching, don't lose your testimony when you are this close!"

The temple in Jerusalem held fabulous amounts of money. All the tithes that were brought in were a tempting target for robbers, and the Levites had their own security guards to patrol it at night. Periodically, one of the priests would go out and check up on the guards, and if a guard was caught sleeping, the priest would set the guard's clothes on fire. After all the screaming and hollering and excitement had died down, the end result would be that the humiliated guard would have to leave the temple mount naked and go home the best way he could. His shame was an object lesson to everybody that he had not been watching like he was supposed to, but he had been asleep. Not a good testimony!
Jesus is speaking to these believers here encouraging them to hold on, keep their testimony, don't get this close and then shame themselves when so many others had been faithful to the death, and would receive a special reward in heaven.

Verse 17: "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done."
Anybody remember what was the last thing Jesus said when He hung on the cross? It is finished. Jesus shed His blood on the cross, and our salvation was accomplished. There was nothing anybody needed to do, or could do, to add anything to our salvation. God's judgement against sin was finished, and salvation was provided for all that would accept it. Now we come to a different type of "It is finished." The end of God's physical judgement against the earth. The angel pours it out into the air and proclaims; "It is done." God's physical judgement of the earth for sins is finished. Spiritual judgements on individuals come later.

Verse 18: "And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
Rev 16:19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Rev 16:20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
Rev 16:21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great."
We are not told where the earthquake takes place, but the effects of it are incredible. It changes the shape of mountain ranges across the earth, islands disappear beneath the sea, if the old legends about Atlantis sinking beneath the sea are true, this would be a similar thing, only worse.

Along with this are terrible storms that produce enormous hail stones, with weights up around 100 pounds. I was trying to imagine what would happen if we were to ever have a storm like that around here, and I think that there would be very few survivors. Imagine hail stones half as big as this pulpit. Where would you hide? What sort of buildings would provide any shelter or protection? I'm not sure I know of any. For those that reject the salvation of God, there will truly be no place to hide. If there is any one here today that is in any doubt about your salvation, any doubt about your standing with God, you come and talk to me after this meeting is over, and let's make sure that there is nothing between you and God. God has provided a Lamb, God Himself has provided our salvation, it is a free gift, you cannot earn it, all you have to do is receive it. If you have any doubt, any questions, come and talk to me this morning.

Before we close today, turn back to Revelation 15, verse 2. Notice that John speaks of a sea of something that looks like glass, and all those that had gotten the victory over the beast are seen standing on it.
God delivered Noah through the waters of the Great Flood.
God delivered the Israelites through the waters of the Red Sea.
Jesus told Peter that he could walk on the water, and then when Peter started to sink, Jesus snatched him back up and saved him from sinking. In this sign from heaven, God shows all these redeemed believers delivered alive again from death, safe in Jesus, standing on a symbolic sea of something like glass mingled with fire. Water is a neat symbol for the believer, even our baptism is like that. We go into the waters, we come out of the waters, God's salvation brings us through the waters. When we get to the end of the book of Revelation, in chapter 21, we find that God will make a new heaven and a new earth, and at that time there will be no more sea, but God will still keep a sea of something like glass as a remembrance of the waters that He brought His people through.

We will be able to do what Peter wanted to do. There will be a sea that we can walk on. Do you know what we will do while we walk on it? Share our testimonies. Tell each other what God has done for us. Maybe it will go something like this.
(Song: God Leads His Dear Children Along)