+ INJ End Time 3A: Saints Triumphant 16 & 17 November 2008 +
Revelation 19:1-9 After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” And again they shouted: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!” Then a voice came from the throne, saying: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!” Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
Get ready for the Lamb’s Feast!
I. We’ll join to celebrate his victory II. We’ll join to celebrate his wedding
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3-5)
How long, O Lord, how long? It’s the cry of believers throughout history. How long, O Lord, how long? My soul is in anguish. Psalm 6:3. How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Habakkuk 2:1 How long, O Lord? How long will you hide your face from me? Psalm 13:1. How long before my suffering is over? How long before God finally judges evil and puts a stop to it? How long must God’s people suffer under persecution and attack and betrayal and violence and injustice? How long will God hold back his hand, and appear to do nothing? How long, O Lord? In our text from Revelation chapter 19, we get an answer to our cry. God’s answer isn’t one we can put on our calendar – no one knows the day or the hour. But God’s answer does give hope to the weary heart and strength to the suffering soul. It’s the same answer as in today’s Gospel: Believers, hang on! No matter how long you wait… the Bridegroom will come. Jesus will return, evil will be condemned, and the believers will be escorted into the wedding hall. Doors will open, bells will ring, trumpets will sound. The wedding feast of the Lamb will begin and never end. So get ready. It’s coming. Get ready for the Lamb’s feast! At last, we’ll join to celebrate his victory. We’ll join to celebrate his wedding.
St. John knew that cry of believers, too: how long, O Lord? He himself was suffering persecution. He was in exile on the island of Patmos. And there he received a vision from God that’s recorded in the book of Revelation. This vision was intended to encourage the believers of John’s day and of every age who were testifying about Christ, suffering persecution, and asking how long? These believers were suffering a great deal at the hands of their enemies, and pleaded for God’s judgment.
And who’s been causing so much trouble for the believers? Thee great prostitute, according to our text. Prostitute? Who’s that? We learn from the rest of Revelation that the great prostitute is actually part of the visible church. Think about it. The picture fits. Remember how the holy Christian Church is pictured as the bride of Christ? Remember how God often calls it adultery when his people are unfaithful to him. So, how does the Bible picture the church gone bad, the enemies of the church within the visible church itself? What else? A prostitute, corrupting the earth with her adulteries, her false doctrines. Just think of all the damage done to God’s church – false doctrine, violence, and persecution – by enemies within the visible church! Those enemies are pictured in our text as the great prostitute. And how long will God allow her foul work to corrupt the world?
We hear the cry again, from the martyred believers in heaven, in Revelation chapter 6, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Revelation 6:10). But here in our text from Revelation chapter 19, John is hearing a different cry, a different sound. The huge sound John hears in our text is the sound of a celebration, a party, a huge, loud, deafening chorus of voices cheering in heaven. Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. It’s a victory celebration! It’s the saints triumphant, cheering and celebrating God’s victory. God is the one who worked salvation through Jesus alone; God is the one who deserves all the glory alone and holds all the power alone. No matter how long the believers waited in faith, their faith in God was vindicated. God’s ways really are true and just!
And so they joined to celebrate God’s victory, celebrating the defeat of the enemy! He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. No more. No more. How long had God held back and pleaded with them to repent and be saved? How long did God’s people endure the prostitute’s vice and violence, praying for her conversion? But no more. God finally drops the hammer. Judgment. Condemnation. And the saints in heaven celebrate it, because they agree with it. At last, God’s promises fulfilled; God’s threats carried out. Condemnation of God’s enemies means victory for God’s people! And again they shouted: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” The enemy’s defeat is not just a temporary setback. The enemy’s city has been conquered and burned to the ground and the charred ruin continues to smolder and burn forever. The defeat is total and eternal. The victory of the Lamb and his people is total and eternal. And so the saints in heaven join to celebrate God’s victory! The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!” The saints join together with each other, and with the angels, at the Lamb’s feast of victory.
Have you ever asked the Lord, how long? How long will this go on? How long will I go through this? How long before you return and make it all right? How long before all the suffering of the world is over? How long before the church is free from all the false doctrine, false teachers, and false brothers? Today we have an answer: victory is on the way! Get ready to celebrate! Get ready for the Lamb’s feast! No matter how long we wait, let’s trust that God’s judgments are true and just, though we often don’t see that in this life. Let’s trust that God’s victory is total and eternal, though we don’t experience it yet. The Lamb will come; the enemy will be condemned eternally; and we will join to celebrate God’s victory.
The first part of the text emphasized God’s victory over the false visible church. Now, in the second part of the text, the celebration continues to grow. Then a voice came from the throne, saying: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!” Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.” Now, it’s now longer just the believers rejoicing; the Lamb himself speaks from the throne and invites the saints to praise God even more.
And then the celebration shifts its emphasis. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come. It’s been a celebration the whole time, but now! Now! It’s really time to celebrate! The Lamb and his bride are united at last, never to be separated again. Remember how weddings worked in Biblical times? The bride and groom were formally betrothed as husband and wife, but then waited for a number of months while preparations were made for the new household. Then a huge celebration was held when the husband came for his bride and escorted her home for the first time. That’s what’s going on in Jesus’ parable in the Gospel: everyone was waiting for the Bridegroom to arrive and the celebration to begin. The groom, of course, is Jesus himself. The Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world has returned for his bride. For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Christ’s bride, again, is the holy Christian church, the believers of every time and place. And she’s all ready for her husband. And just like today’s brides, getting ready meant finding the perfect wedding dress. Only this bride had a big problem. Her past was just as scandalous as the prostitute’s in the first part of our text. She had been unfaithful, time and time again. She was covered in sin. She could never hope to appear before her holy husband wearing those filthy rags.
But then it says: Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints – or more literally, the righteousnesses of the saints). The radiant white clothing given to the bride is the righteousness that God requires for eternal life. Yet we do not and cannot supply our own righteousnesses; we are completely sinful by nature. The righteousnesses that the church wears are a gift. It’s the righteousnesses of Jesus, that he gave to her through faith in him. It’s the same beautiful imagery found in Isaiah 61:10 [My God] has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Paul uses the same picture in Ephesians 5: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-27). The picture is of a bride getting ready. But actually, we do nothing to make ourselves presentable to the Lord. Jesus himself, by his perfect life for us, his death on the cross for us, and his resurrection from the dead, has earned our forgiveness, that pure, spotless, white clothing that we wear only by faith in him. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s grace!
And let’s not forget to read the caption at the bottom of this beautiful picture of the Lamb’s feast: those words the angel told John to write down, words that he said are the true words of God. ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ Blessed are we indeed! Forgiven through in Jesus, clothed by our baptism in his perfect, radiant righteousness. And yet the encouragement still applies: keep watch. Get ready. Like those 5 wise virgins, we want to keep waiting and watching for him, ready to celebrate with him when he comes. One wonderful way we get ready for the Lamb’s feast in heaven is by celebrating the Lamb’s feast here on earth. In the Lord’s Supper, we get a sweet foretaste of our wedding with the Lamb. Jesus unites with us in Holy Communion, joins us to himself and to each other and to the whole Christian church on earth. And at last, he’ll join us forever to himself and to all the saints triumphant as his beautiful bride.
How long, O Lord? We still don’t know exactly how long. But we do have an answer. The Lamb of God says, Behold! I am coming soon (Revelation 22:7). So get ready. Get ready to celebrate. Get ready for victory! Get ready to be united with Jesus forever! Get ready for the Lamb’s Feast! Amen.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
