Judgments From Heaven - Revelation 15:1-8

All right. This, as we note in your handout, is the of God chapter. Why? And that is because here in just eight verses, five times, there is something of God. We list those here in the bullets. The wrath of God, harps of God, servant of God, wrath of God, and glory of God.

Truthfully, isn't our position in Christ of God too? What does it mean, of God? What does that word pair mean, of God? What do we mean by of God, since we've made a point of it? Our being in Christ is of God. When we say, of God, it means it pertains to God. In some cases, it means it's from God. In the context, from God, it has to do with Him.

For example, verse 1, the wrath of God is different from just wrath in general. The wrath of God has a different character because God himself has a unique character. So this is the of God chapter here in eight verses, five times of God. Now, let's take a look at verse one. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last because in them the wrath of God is finished.

We made a distinction between different kinds of another. Remember that? And so if you looked at this and thought, well, this must be the allos kind. In Greek, there are two different kinds of another. One is another of the same kind and another of a different kind. And if you thought allos, another of the same kind, good. Okay, you got it right. So this is, I saw another sign in heaven of the same kind. Of the same kind. Similar to the previous signs.

This is now the third and final sign in heaven. Remember there were seven signs. Got to be careful I don't drop the paper. Seven signs, right? And now we're at this third and final sign in heaven. Because of the seven signs, three of them were in heaven. The first two being given in chapter 12. John calls this third and last sign great and marvelous. Massive in significance. When you think of great and marvelous, what comes to mind? God's creation is great and marvelous. You left with us a photo from the Hubble. And it's interesting here, the Hubble telescope catches phenomenal things, photographically.

And yet, doing so only captures a small portion of space at a time. If I get that picture, you know, there are four, between the stars and Orion's belt, and only three of them can shift in that space. Yeah. You take a very small section at a time with this telescope, And yet, wouldn't you describe those as great and marvelous? Even a small shot.

I don't know if you, you know, you've probably been in situations where you can't capture it with a camera. I was at one point in time traveling in Switzerland and I went from Lauterbrunnen up to an area that was kind of the end of the rail ride and halfway up there was a train stop where the train either went the rest of the way up the mountain and actually through the mountain and went through two mountains or it went down into the next town that you could see. But I tried taking a picture And it was one of those things where you just couldn't capture it. It's just like a camera was hopeless.

Because I looked about a mile below me through all these wispy floating clouds and there was this town of Lauterbrunnen. And then I looked, you know, about a mile above me and here's Eiger and Monk and Jungfrau and all these, you know, incredible snowpacks and there was a restaurant up there between Munk and Jungfrau.

And then there was another restaurant a little farther over. There was a town behind me that you could only get to with a cog railway. That's, you know, because they got the gears because the regular railway would just slip. And there was another town across this very large valley that you could only get to at least at this point in time, by taking up four trams in series. And I tried to capture it in the camera, and there's just no way.

So here it says, great and marvelous. We'll often use the word awesome. And this is one of those things, John is telling us, just like my trying to capture it with a camera, he says, this is so big, it's hard to even capture in words. I'll do what I can to capture it in words, but you've got to understand, this is awesome. That's what he's telling them. But unlike where I stood there in Switzerland and looked at this and thought, man, this is awesome and it's really good. John's describing some of it as awesome, but it's not so good. It's not so pleasant. The sign consists of the seven angels. These are the ones who have the seven last plagues. The angels, the specific ones. They're mentioned again in chapters 15, 16, 17, and even in 21. In the New Heavens and New Earth, one of these angels is one that leads John to look at the New Heavens and New Earth. You see that text box there at the lower part of the first page?

Coming to the earth in the last half of the tribulation period are these bold judgments. We're going to see them detailed in chapter 16, as is the pattern with each of the three sets of seven judgments. Between the sixth and the seventh is an interlude. They're going to be detailed in chapter 16. So this is a kind of a get ready chapter. This is a get ready chapter. Yeah.

How did he know they had seven plagues? Did he just know that these guys were plague angels? I think, you know, he tells them that they have the seven plagues. He doesn't say so explicitly. My guess is that he was in some way told that that was the case or perhaps he wrote it down once they're revealed because it's only the next chapter they're revealed. Yeah, so either one is a possibility. It's possible that he noted that because it's only the next chapter that these things are revealed. Or perhaps he was told explicitly that here are the seven and you're going to find out what they are. So either of those are possible. Yeah, good question. John saw a lot of things and he was also revealed things verbally. And so he's getting this all down. In some cases it's tough to know did he see something and get something said verbally? Or did he go after the fact and write this? We don't know particularly what the answer is.

Revelation 15.1 says these seven plagues are the last.

By the way, why would it be important to know that these are the last plagues? Why is that of any importance? Yeah, this better be enough. One of the things that Jesus says, if those days had not been cut short, and it doesn't mean that there was a plan for longer and that those were cut off, that the plan was truncated, It means that there's been a limitation put on these. These are the seven last ones. They are indeed the last ones, but the world could not sustain any more such plagues and survive. These are intense and severe of a magnitude greater.

One of the patterns that we saw, and you can even see it in the chart that we put out with the three sevens, one of the patterns we saw is that second set of seven plagues, the trumpet judgments, frequently use the fraction one-third. The one-third fraction goes away with this last set of plagues.

So the one-third fraction is a big number, but it's not a majority, but it is huge. It's a substantial number, even though it's not over half. But it's big. But that one-third figure that shows up repeatedly in the middle or trumpet judgments, that fraction goes away here. And some of the same or similar kinds of judgments come about, but no longer limited by the fraction.

Yeah, these are the last, and oh boy, it's a good thing these are the last. Because, yeah, we wouldn't survive more. The last is never said of the seven seals and seven trumpets. We make that point because some have suggested that all the judgments happen at once, which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, especially if you look at, okay, does the one-third and then the complete judgment all happen at once? That seems rather odd.

The other thing is the seven trumpets are begun by the opening of the seventh seal. In other words, the way they're spelled out indicates a sequence. The last of each of the judgments opens the next in the first two series of judgments. Okay, the first is looking at the insights from the Greek texts here. The first is the word translated as finished or filled up or fulfilled. This shows up in verses 1 and 8 in Revelation chapter 15.

The Greek word is teleo, which means brought to completion. These judgments are brought to completion with this last seven. That's it. That's the end. The wrath of God is completed, made to come to an end. If the wrath of God did not have a termination point, would there be anything left? No. No. The next word that's an important insight in here is this, it's translated something like or as it were. This shows up in verse 2, it's the Greek word hos.

It's used in describing something unfamiliar with something that is familiar by way of comparison. We saw that kind of language when we looked at When we looked at the very first chapter of Revelation, Jesus had hair that was something like, or compared to, it was white as snow, right?

So there's a comparison with something familiar in order to be able to give people an idea of what something looked like. is like a sea of glass mixed with fire. That's right. In other words, he is saying the sea of glass mixed with fire, he's using words of comparison to try to give us an explanation of what this looks like. And we'll talk more about what does he mean by a sea of glass mixed with fire.

He, at various places, uses this like or as in order to describe things. Because, imagine, here's John. He's looking at things that are phenomenal and he's trying to use things that people are familiar with to describe what he sees in front of him that is difficult to describe.

Then, finally, we have this English word stand. We're going to see in verse 2 the Greek word behind that. means to be established or to be set in place. In verse 2 it's in the perfect tense, passive voice, meaning it's a completed past action. It's a done deal. And it's going to have its consequences following and rolling out. Okay, let's take a look at verse 2 that Stan was making reference to here.

I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire. and those who have been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name standing on the sea of glass holding harps of God." John has said, I saw to us before. Why would John keep saying, I saw? Why would that be something he would do? I saw, I saw, I saw. Why would he keep saying that? Because he had a vision. Pardon? It's part of the vision, okay, and that would be one reason. What would be another reason why we keep saying, I saw?

He was an eyewitness, and that's very important. It is indeed a vision that he's given, but he's speaking as an eyewitness. One of the points we made early on, the first eight verses in Revelation are written in the form of a legal certification of John's day, where he certifies that what he saw was the the actual testimony. It's true.

So he writes in this legal form as a certification and so that's why his subsequent testimony He keeps telling you, I saw, I saw, I saw. And he also uses, in places, I heard, I heard, right? Why? Because that's all a part, you're correct, of his testimony.

He is continuing to write, not just, these are wild, crazy ideas, or, you know, boy, I had something bad for breakfast, or, this isn't just some wild vision he's got, but instead he has been called to testify. The Lord Jesus himself said, write the things, write these things, and that's what he's doing. So he is saying, I saw, I saw, I saw, as a witness, writing testimony.

Now, this sea of glass important to look at. We think of glass, and of course it's not like this stuff, this special rippled glass. We see a glass and we think of glass typically that is clear. As a matter of fact, if you say glass and it's some other, you know, rippled or wired or frosted or something, we typically have to use a description to get that in people's minds. Most of the time In our culture now, we think of a clear, smooth piece of glass, unless you have a further description.

In New Testament times, they didn't have clear, smooth glass. The glass was always milky, bubbly, and usually fairly small. So, he has the sea of glass. John comes up with here is in his days they didn't have smooth clear glass, so he makes a comparison at various places with crystal.

Why? Because you could get a quartz crystal that was smooth and it was clear. Not in every case, but in many cases the crystal was hexagonal in cross-section. And it was often clear enough, at least in some of the smaller crystals, and in a few cases the larger ones, that you could see through it.

So we'd make that comparison. So you've got this sea of glass. And then, mixed with fire. Why would that point be made? Here's smoothness, here is clarity, but here is also fire. Fire would change the dynamics of the glass. Okay. But I don't see why that would have any. Okay. It would certainly be of a different character, wouldn't it? Judgment? Pardon? Judgment.

Yeah, if you look at it, what is fire? Fire is of judgment, but one of the pictures that we see, actually starting from the Old Testament, remember I always said 70% of Revelation is out of the Old Testament? Fire is used to purify things. Right? Fire is used to purify things. When they would take metals or even ores, how would they purify them? They'd heat them up and then ladle off the dross.

As a matter of fact, rejoice when you encounter various trials, right? And some of those trials are even described as fiery. Fiery. So here is the fire is yes, pointed to judgment, but also why? Because it's a purifying fire. So here's the sea of glass and mixed with fire. Fire that certainly at this point in time represents judgment, but also ultimately for the sake of arriving at purity.

And then it says, those who have been victorious over the beast in his image and the number of his name. And those who have been victorious, where are they? Are they on earth or in heaven? Heaven. Yes, you're right. Now wait a minute. This almost sounds contradictory. She's right. They're in heaven. I mean, they're right there.

How can they be victorious? Sounds to me like they lost. Why is that victorious? Here's the thing, from the world standpoint, the people that put him to death, do they see these people as winning? No. The people that put him to death thought, hey, I won. These people just lost. But how does the Lord see it? These people won. They're victorious. Now, how do I make sense out of this? The people that put them to death most certainly don't think these people are victorious. As far as I can tell, these guys are losers. They just lost. They don't understand why they're there.

Yeah, and think of it. What the Lord thinks is victorious is not that they were somehow able to survive. but instead that they would stand. They would stand on the truth. They would stand on the truth of Jesus Christ to the point of death. That's victory! Not surviving in an earthly sense. That's not the definition of victory. The definition of victory that John is laying forth here is victory is standing to the point of death. What is one of the crowns that Christians are promised? A martyr's crown. That's what's promised even to one of the seven churches. To the one who is faithful unto death, I give you a crown.

I think that is a very important perspective for us to get. The world will call something a loss, a loser. The world will call something victory when standing up for the truth to the point of death is what God calls victory. Let's crank this forward another few years. A few years after this time, if time means anything, a few years after this time, how's this all going to turn out? The people that put these saints to death, where are they going to be? In that fire. They themselves will be the losers. These who have, by the world's definition, lost, will be the ones who have gained. Really upside down from the world's thinking, isn't it? Radically different. Radically different. There's something else in this victory over, or victorious over, in the English. Take a look at this box there at the bottom of page 3.

In Revelation 3.10, those in the church were promised to be kept out from this judgment that's going to come upon those who dwell upon the earth, those who are around during the tribulation period.

And we studied this back in Revelation 3.10, which is some months ago now.

Those in the church are going to be kept out These will have victory from. The church will be kept from the tribulation period, be kept from the wrath of God. But those who are martyred during the tribulation period will have victory by being taken out, not kept from. So saints during this time have the promise of not being subjected to God's wrath and not going through the tribulation period. Saints from the time of the tribulation period, which could start today, saints from the tribulation period are instead victorious, not by being kept from it, but by being taken out.

Alright, let's look at page four there. looking at verses 3 and 4, and they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty, righteous and true are your ways, King of the nations, who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name, for you alone are holy, for all the nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.

So there's two songs, aren't there? You see that? Song of Moses and Song of the Lamb. Who does the Song of Moses relate to? Which group of people? The Jews, right? And the Song of the Lamb? To all, including the Gentiles, right? The Song of Moses. When was the Song of Moses first sung? Here God had saved the Israelites coming across the Red Sea. Saved them miraculously.

Until the sea was parted, until that sea was parted, what did the Jews think was going to happen? The Egyptians are just going to kill us. They're going to slice us in pieces every last one. Instead, God opens up the sea, parts the sea, they cross. Did they cross a whole bunch of muck and mire and get their wagons stuck and their feet stuck and lose their sandals in the mud? They cross, I mean, so this was a phenomenal occurrence. This was an amazing, astounding, miraculous occurrence that brought them across. So they get across the other side, it's like, man, it wasn't that long ago, we figured we were toast, you know? And now the Egyptians are all soggy bread.

Has anyone ever figured out how wide that opening would have to be? Someone probably has, but I'm not specifically aware of the place and location. Yes, there have been some studies of those kinds of things that have been done even in more recent times. quarters of a mile than they could. So there's differing viewpoints on how it doesn't say how big the gap was. Yeah, I'm not aware of any statement of it's this wide or that wide. Yeah, or how long the time.

And that's the thing. You could probably bracket you know, with some kind of assumptions and come up with a, it's in this range. But scripture doesn't give you the specifics. You could come up with an estimate making assumptions is about the best you could do.

Yeah. And I would imagine they were kind of moving pretty fast. Yeah. You know, if I had a bunch of Egyptians behind me and I was counting on the walls of water staying up, I would not lollygag around. Okay? And the Egyptians were... Yeah. Yeah, this would not be a time to stroll. Okay? Not be a time to stroll. So they were likely motivated to get across there. I doubt that. Yeah. I'm sure they took mental pictures, but that was about it. Ever have that happen where some very memorable event is just like you took a camera and one click. Yeah.

Also, there's a Didn't Anna have a song? Yeah, I mean if you go through the Old Testament, yeah, a number of different songs and even into the to the New Testament songs, but explicitly this one, and it certainly is glorifying the Lord for his victory for the nation of Israel. And so that's interesting that you have basically between the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb, you have a song that is particularly focused on the Jews and another song that is focused on Gentiles, and of course the Lamb paid the price for the Jews as well. But basically the whole world. And the Psalms of David, I mean, is that not what those all were to? Is that how God intervened in his life and gave him victory in the many different areas that he was struggling? The whole book.

Then here's the Song of the Lamb. And that's given here in Revelation. You have to go to the Old Testament and Exodus to see the Song of Moses. Also in Deuteronomy, Song of Moses is given again there. These are tribulation saints coming out of a time which anticipates the earthly reign of the Messiah on earth for a thousand years. All nations shall come and worship before thee.

The word nations in the Greek is ethnos, where we get our word ethnic, and this has to do with the Gentiles, the focus upon the Gentiles. So the Song of Moses praises God for delivering Israel from Pharaoh, just before Israel went to the land God promised.

And by the way, what came upon Egypt in ten waves prior to this time of them being delivered? What did Egypt experience? Plagues. Ten plagues. And one of the things that's interesting is the similarity between some of the plagues of Egypt and these plagues that are to come upon the earth. And next, the Song of the Lamb. Praise the Lamb for His soon-to-begin reign over the earth from Israel, having delivered Israel again from its enemies during the last half of the tribulation period. Here's verses 5 and 6 at the bottom of page 4.

After these things I looked. Remember, I saw. And now he says, I looked. So John is not just writing things, not just things that kind of swept through his head, but he's saying, I saw, I looked, I heard. He is continuing to speak of observation. And by the way, if you look at 1 John, the book of 1 John, first four verses, he does something very similar.

The things that we heard and saw and touched. He again uses testifying witness kinds of words. After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened. And the seven angels, or the seven plagues, came out of the temple, clothed in linen, clean and bright, and girded around their chests with golden sashes."

Page 5 there. So John is giving a sequence. Following the songs of Moses and of the Lamb, John next is seeing this scene in verses 5-8. So we've read about the temple in heaven before. We're seeing it again. Revelation 11-19 also spoke of the temple being opened. We've read of angels coming from the temple in heaven in chapter 14. John's using the Greek word for temple here that means the inner part of the temple.

The naos, they called it. Remember at the Temple in Jesus' time they had a large outer court and the Jews often gathered there, but it was perfectly allowable for Gentiles also to come in that outer court. But this Naos, the inner court, was only a place where Jews were allowed to enter.

Matter of fact, at each of the entrance gates there was a sign engraved in stone and I'm paraphrasing here, but any Gentile who enters here has himself to blame for his death. And one and a half of those signs have been found in the rubble that the Romans dumped off the...

Pardon? Was that only for men, or could women? The naos, that is, this inner temple court that only the Jews could enter had the front court that was called the Court of Women. In fact, it was only for Jewish women. It was that front court where, for example, you hear about the widow giving her mite, her little small coin. That was done in this front part of the na'as, this inner part of the temple. And that Court of Women is where this collection box was. So that's not the outer court? No, no. This is the front area of this na'as, this area where only Jews were allowed.

This same area was the one where, I remember where Jesus talks about, there's the publican and the sinner, the Jew who says, thank you God that I'm so holy, and then the one who says, Lord have mercy on me. And that takes place also in this front area.

At regular intervals throughout the day there was a semi-circle of stairs and the Levites would gather together a choir and they would stand on the semi-circle and sing. They would also have harps playing. Josephus said ten string, excuse me, ten string harps that would play in this area. So there's oftentimes singing and beautiful music in this area, but only the Jews were allowed to come directly in there.

Not even the Roman soldiers until the final assault by Rome were allowed to come into this area. Then you went into the area where they had the altar and then in the building that have the Holy of Holies in it. So this is the inner temple area. Yes? I've seen the Court of Women looking like they have viewing windows or something that they could see into the rest of the temple. Is that correct? Two things. One is the entry gate was in the middle and it was open so it was possible for the women to look in And the gate was wide. It wasn't some little narrow gate. So it was possible for anyone standing in the Court of Women to see in there. Furthermore, some of the reconstructions, and I've seen a mixed reconstruction, some of the reconstructions have kind of outer courts in this Court of Women that have multiple stories and might allow to see vision over the top. but that's something I haven't seen consistently portrayed.

What's the difference between temple and tabernacle? The temple was what was built with the idea of permanence there on Mount Moriah. The tabernacle was the tent that was out in the desert and what was initially there until the temple was built first under Solomon. The tabernacle is a temporary structure, the temple is the permanent structure. So you've got this tabernacle of testimony here. This entire temple and earlier the tabernacle and its ceremonies and sacrifices were a testimony and a witness to the grace plan of God in Jesus Christ the Savior.

Here is the law written telling them, you will make this part of the temple apparatus out of this and it will be this dimension, giving essentially specifications. You're going to make it out of this material, it will be this size, you will do this with it. All those descriptions were made and here's how you do it under law. The law did what? It pointed to grace. You will do the sacrifice, pointing to Christ, who will be the provision, the gracious provision for us. Isn't that something? So here are the Jews, while wonder of wonders, the law leads us to grace. How about that?

And even in the heavenly temple here, you get that picture. Yes? So, and I don't even know how to ask this, but the tabernacle on earth was a shadow of the real one in heaven. Yes. But since God gives dimensions, which was the shadow, the real one in heaven must also have dimensions. So, in other words, it must not just be a spiritual, you know, epiphany or entity or whatever. It's got to have some realistic value. It has some reality. Yeah.

It must be like the glory Yeah, what's interesting is there are no specifications for how it's made, although we have descriptions in general. Here is the altar, here is this, here is that. So we have descriptions of various things, and yet not specifications. Why would the specifications for the heavenly tabernacle be missing? Why don't we have specifications for how that's made? Why are those gone? How come we don't have them?

Is there something wrong? What's that? Here we are the temple. I'm talking about in heaven. Why would there be no specifications like there are in great detail here on earth? Yes, we will be face to face with the Lord, but it still doesn't explain why there are no specifications for the heavenly tavern. There we go. There we go. If human beings are making what's on earth, you need specifications.

If God says, there's an altar, and he creates it, he doesn't need the specs, right? Doesn't need the specs. Yeah. So he just says, there's an altar, and he creates it. He doesn't need the dimensions and the materials and all that kind of thing. Yes. The temple was to be God's dwelling place on earth. That's right. The earthly temple and the heavenly temple don't mean the same thing. One is made by the hand of man. The other is made by the hand bigger speech, the hand of God. It means no walls. Yeah, it doesn't need walls, it doesn't need specifications. God speaks and it is.

But he chooses to live there because it says here that he went inside when all this wrath was being carried out on earth and he came out. So it indicates here from John, who is the eyewitness, that he does go in and out of this heavenly temple. is being everywhere, you know, and here he is contained inside of this temple. I think as we read through this, it's very important to remember something. Is John taking what he's writing seriously? Yeah, he is. I mean, here the Lord is telling him, you know, John you write, you know, what has been, what is, and what's going to be. And John He certifies that the first eight verses of Revelation, I promise that this is the absolute truth.

You know, it's kind of like, so help me God, you know? And so he is writing down what he sees, even to the point where, remember the seven thunders? Maybe you remember it, maybe you don't. At the seven thunders, he was prepared to write because God had been telling him, you write. And God says, wait, don't write that.

So John takes very seriously what he's told to do, and he carries it out with attention to detail. And I think as we interpret the book of Revelation, it's important for us to recognize and realize how seriously John took this task. He's saying, whoa, I've got an awesome task in front of me. I must write this down with great care. And I think it's important for us to recognize he's not just coming up with a bunch of floaty, wispy ideas that he kind of concocted because he drank too much or had something bad to eat for lunch. He is taking it seriously. He is describing things as clearly as human language is capable of doing. And he wants us to understand, as he goes through this, that he says, I'm taking it seriously as I write. Please listen. And even beyond that, blessed are those who read and hear these words.

Verse 7, Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. Now, we've seen these four living creatures before, but here is, I think, an important distinction. We keep seeing the Four living creatures who are angelic kinds of being, they're like angelic beings of a special category. We've seen them before. And frequently they're described associated with the 24 elders, which we've talked about in our earlier chapters as representing the raptured church. But something very interesting, this is a point of distinction right here in this verse.

The 24 elders are never asked to carry out judgment. But what do we see right here? The four living creatures are given a role in carrying out judgment. Why would the 24 elders representing the Living Church, why would they not be asked to carry out judgment?

It could be, I mean, this is you. Why would you not be asked to carry out judgment? much in order. And my theory would be, not what it says here, but that the four living creatures are on the higher echelon of carrying these things down. Okay, as part of the hierarchy, that's their place, yep. I think you're on target with that. Okay, and what else?

I think a part of it is you see God's grace and mercy in saying to the church, not only will I withhold you from experiencing the wrath of God, I won't ask you to carry it out. Could it be that the Lord takes us home today? And could it be, if the Lord takes us home today, that asking you to take part in this judgment would be asking you to carry out judgment on people that you love and care about, who don't know the Lord? That might be, wouldn't it? It doesn't say so in here, but I can easily see that being consistent with the Lord's character of mercy and grace, and also the Lord's character of withholding from us some of these more difficult things of the tribulation period. The Lord won't ask me to bring judgment upon friends and family members who don't know Him. Also, the souls under the altar, if you remember, they didn't say, when can we avenge ourselves? It said, when is the avenging going to take place?

By someone else and by another authority. Yes, excellent point. Not even the tribulation saints are brought into this judgment. So that's a very important point. The Lord has explicitly made carrying out these judgments something that the angels are repeatedly called to do, but not the saints. Yeah, it's the Lord's to carry out. And He doesn't appoint us for this period to carry out these judgments. Yeah, growing in grace.

Ok, now in verse 8, And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues and the seven angels were finished. Something interesting is way back in the Old Testament, you asked about the tabernacle and the temple. Way back in the tabernacle time, and you see several different references to it up until this verse, There were times when the holiest part of the tabernacle or the temple would get filled with smoke from the Lord. And out there in the tabernacle, the priests are coming out.

It's so smoky in there, they can't even work. They've got things they're supposed to do, but they can't breathe. They're coming out there because of the smoke. And it keeps anyone from doing anything in the temple. That's the character of it. The priests couldn't even go about their duties because of the density and the immensity of the smoke pouring out of the temple building.

Paul writes twice in 1 Corinthians that we church-age believers are God's temple now. And we'll see one of those passages, or we've seen those passages so far. 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17. Believers are a temple as a church body. We're corporately a temple. And in 1 Corinthians 6, 19, each believer is individually a temple.

What's meant by that? That you are the dwelling place of God Himself. You are the dwelling place of God himself. Paul exhorts them in each case to recognize that we believers are his temple, his dwelling place. Essentially, he wants you to live like a two-legged temple. Live like a two-legged temple. You are the dwelling place of God. Live temple-like.

That's his exhortation. Could it be that His glory in us is such that there is room for no other? His glory in us is so immense and so intense, there's room for nothing else. Nothing else can happen except Him. Could it be that His glory, which He so marvelously sharing with those who believe, overwhelms any other presence, duty, activity, or apparent priority in us, you and me?

Okay, we have a couple of appendix items. One is, I talked last week, and it's here, Old Testament quotes and allusions in the book of Revelation. And by the way, this is just scratching the surface. This is not total, but you have six pages of listings. What it does is it goes through the passages in Revelation in sequence and then gives you at least one Old Testament passage there that is connected with it. That's the short list. There are more, but at least it gives you the beginning of an idea of how much of Revelation is out of the Old Testament. We've given the figure before 70% of Revelation is out of the Old Testament.

The other single page appendix items is this one that I had on screen last week and that's a printout of the campaign of Armageddon shown in eight stages. And this is taking not only what is in Revelation but in a great many Old Testament prophetic passages and even in Matthew 25 excuse me 24 Okay, so Have fun look that over And we got people waiting at the back door, so we probably call it better call it quits here Okay Let's pray Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage, as we begin to contemplate what it's like to have this temple so filled with smoke that your holiness, your absolutely pure character allows for no other.

That your glory, your holiness fills all and consumes all. And we pray that we would have recognition in our own hearts and lives of that very truth as we walk the planet, as each of us being, and together as all being, your temple. We just pray in Jesus' name. Amen.