Transcript

Let’s go to Revelation chapter 19. As you’re turning there, let me remind you that we focused earlier in our series on the imminent return of Christ. That involves the Lord coming as the Scriptures say in the air and in the clouds and he will catch up, the word literally means, he will gather up to himself in the clouds his church. That is his imminent return; that is, there is nothing for us to look for first. There are no signs, wonders or miracles that we are to be expecting that lets us know, “Hey, the coming of Christ for his church is at hand.” No, it will come like a thief in the night. It will come without warning. But then after that event, we will be waiting for the permanent return of Christ where Christ will return this time to the earth and establish his kingdom.

I want to look at this and then say a few more words of introduction and then we’ll get to the exposition. John in Revelation 19:11 records what he has seen in a vision and he says,

11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.

Now verse 16,

16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

Two weeks and one day ago, being significantly jet lagged, I woke up about 3 o’clock in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep so I tossed and tumbled and sufficiently good enough to keep my wife from sleeping and then I decided it’s about 45 minutes before daybreak, I’m going to go and get in my truck and I’m going to go to the farm and I’m going to get on my tractor. That’s my therapy. I’m going to burn up some energy so I can sleep better. As I went to my truck, I sat down and then I realized that I had forgotten something and I don’t even remember what it was. Have you ever done that? I don’t remember what I forgot. I jump out of the truck in haste, slam the door hard and slam it on my finger. Now, that’s been two weeks and a day ago and God’s been teaching me things through this one inch of one finger that I sufficiently crushed in the door. First of all, he taught me that I might need to slow down a little bit, that I don’t have to be in such a hurry all the time, that if I had just been a little more settled in my spirit, I might have been more careful and that might not have happened. Secondly, God has been teaching me afresh and anew that no matter how bad this hurts and what a difficulty it is, it is nothing compared to what a lot of people deal with every day. Some people don’t have an arm or are paralyzed or have a loved one battling cancer. We could go on and on and on and what ever ailment you or I, especially I have had, it’s nothing. It’s nothing compared to what so many deal with all the time. But a third thing as I was preparing this message just shouted out at me is this: you are so weak. You are so limited. You are so frail. It’s as if God said, “I can smash one inch of the end of one finger and put you out of commission. You’re not so big and strong,” because the text that we’re looking at today shows the incomparable, unrivaled Christ. It’s good to know what we are compared to what he is. We are limited and we are weak and we are small and we are feeble and we are frail. The Bible says that we’re just a mere breath and we’re done. But one day he’s coming back.

Now, while the Bible does not allow us to be dogmatic in all the events of his returning, as I told you when we just began this sermon that we may disagree on some of these things and that’s okay. We still love each other and serve the Lord together. While the Bible doesn’t dogmatically give us an ironclad sequence of events, the Bible does give us a very clear description of the one who is coming. It’s as if the word of God says, “Don’t be fascinated with dates and sequences and charts. Be fascinated with my Son. Look at him.” And so when we come to this end of the tribulation period, you see the rapture has already taken place, the church has been with the Lord in the glories of heaven, an amazing wrath has been pouring out upon the earth. You think these are hard times, nothing ever on planet earth, I think you could say, add up all the great horrors and calamities of time in the ages and they can not compare to what will be poured on the earth during those seven years of great tribulation. But at the end of the great tribulation, Christ will come to the earth. The rapture has occurred. The marriage of the Lamb with the church has occurred. And then Christ comes with his church to the earth and then we will have after that, the whole millennium where I think that’s a picture of the marriage supper of the Lamb. The marriage of the Lamb being Christ’s marriage with his church made up primarily of the Gentiles and then God will not forget his promises to Israel and return with his church and a redeemed nation of Israel will receive their Christ and they will be in on the marriage supper. A glorious reunion on the earth.

When Jesus came the first time in John 12:14 and 15, the Bible says, “Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.'” Now liberals and the worldly would like to leave Jesus right there, meek and lowly, seated on a donkey’s colt. Everything about that is to evoke humility and meekness because that’s what he was doing in becoming the Redeemer for his children’s sins. But when he comes again, he will not come like that. Let’s look at it and let’s look at it from this text. I. from verse 11, notice he’s coming as a promise keeper. He’s coming as a promise keeper. In verse 11, the Bible says, “heaven opened, and behold, a white horse,” a white charger, “and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True.” You see, he is the one who is faithful to his word and he is the one who is true to his character even to the execution of judgment. He was faithful in his covenant promises with Noah. He was faithful to his covenant promises with Abraham. He has been faithful to his covenant promises to David. And he will be faithful in his covenant promises to Israel to redeem her, to return her and to reign with her on the earth. And he will be faithful to his covenant promise to his church to return for her and rapture her up to be with himself avoiding the great wrath of the tribulation. He is coming. Faithful to his word. True to his character. To pardon those who received him as Lord and Savior and to punish those who rejected him.

Behold, the Lord God is a man of war. It all started with the breaking of the seal judgments in Revelation chapter 6. Then we had the trumpet judgments that followed that. Then the bowl judgments that followed that. Now he is personally returning to make war against the earth and the earth’s inhabitants. For centuries, he’s offered peace through his shed blood but now he makes war over that blood. Human sin has reached the high water mark. It must be put down by force of arms. He is faithful and true. He is coming as he promised in his word and it is seen as expressed in the prayer of godly Isaiah in Isaiah 64:1 and 2, “Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, That the nations may tremble at Thy presence.” Wow, what a prayer. “Come down so that, literally, the kings of the world would tremble when they see the greatness, the majesty the power and the glory of you our Lord and our God.”

He is faithful and true. You know, every single one of us cannot claim that title. The most faithful father has at one point or another failed to keep his word. You know, one of the reasons why even good men can’t be truly faithful and true is because we’re not omniscient. When you say, “I will do so-and-so,” you may be dead this afternoon. You can’t be faithful and true because you’re not omniscient. You’re not omnipotent. You are limited and finite. There is only one who is the true promise keeper. His name is Jesus Christ.

Well, number 2, not only is he a promise keeper, he’s coming as a promise keeper. We’re to glory over him and marvel over him because he is a principled avenger. A principled avenger. Being an avenger here has the idea of he’s coming to inflict punishment as an act of retributive justice. He comes to bring retribution against the violation of holy justice. This is the Jesus that you’ll never hear Joel Osteen preach about. This is the Jesus that the liberal wants to leave out, the one who comes as an avenger of God’s truth and God’s holiness and God’s justice. The Bible says in verse 11, first of all, he’s principled in the righteousness of his avenging. In verse 11, “in righteousness He judges and wages war.” Now, the writer it is not named here but we know from all the attributes that this is the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Psalm 45:3 and 4 speak of him, “Gird Thy sword on Thy thigh, O Mighty One, In splendor and in majesty! And in Thy majesty ride on victoriously,” notice, “For the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness.” Righteousness. In other words, his cause is fully righteous. It is fully right.

Now, others have warred in the name of righteousness but none are righteous as he is righteous. I mean, we are all creatures. We are all the fallen created and when we war one against the other though there is a place for that, there is what we call a just war and we have to do that from time to time. If I might say as a side note, I don’t want to wade too deep into these waters but how can we say we’re not going to put boots on the ground in these is Islamic countries that are working feverishly to destroy us? How can we say that we’ll not commit ground troops when they are beheading our people one after the other? Here’s my point: we don’t know what we’re going to have to do to justly defend ourselves in this country and that’s just an illustration that there are just causes and just wars but none are just as his cause. None war in righteousness as he wars in righteousness because we’re the creatures and one creature against another creature, but he is Creator. He has final and absolute right over all of his creation and his holy character leads him only in righteous acts. His holiness is the criterion by which he judges and wages war. He is all righteous in his person, his personal being, and in his actions, everything he does. He was perfectly righteous in mounting the donkey’s colt and coming into Jerusalem and being condemned by a kangaroo court and nailed to a cross, suffering the wrath of God for the children. And he will be perfectly righteous when he comes the second time, mounted on a white charger. Not in meekness or humility but in authority and in crushing judgment because everything he does is righteous. Having all righteous mandates, he judges and having all righteous mandates, he also has all power to mete out that judgment.

In the study of Scripture, you come to three kinds of righteousness that God has: God has mandatory righteousness whereby he mandates all his creatures must be righteous or be punished. He mandates it. There is no exception clause. All humans. It is mandated by God that we’re righteous but none of us are. There is punitive righteousness whereby by the very righteous upstanding of his being, he must thoroughly judge all unrighteousness. But praise his name, there is redemptive righteousness whereby he has ordained the only righteous means, that is through his death and shed blood, whereby the unrighteous can be claimed to be righteous in his sight. Mandatory righteousness, punitive righteousness and redemptive righteousness. Well, he comes to this earth when the great, great majority of mankind have mocked him, denied him, put a spin on him and his truth to make him look like themselves and in a million and one other ways, dishonored him. So in righteousness he comes to judge and wage war.

Notice in his judgment how principled he is. That’s B in our outline. The Bible says in verse 12, “His eyes are a flame of fire.” These are the flaming eyes of introspective judgment. His eyes penetrate to the core just as a fire burns all that is within its touch. All will be exposed before his eyes. Now, the Bible says this: we can’t penetrate to the heart and the intent and the motives of a man. That’s why the Scripture says that man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. You remember the context, don’t you? Saul was tall and handsome and strong and had charisma. Men said, “That’s the kind of king we want right there.” God said, “That’s where you messed up because you look on the outward appearance but I look on the heart and Saul’s heart is all about Saul.” If they had any real biblical spiritual wisdom, if they could see as God sees, they would see there was a little shepherd boy out on the hillside, the runt of the family, that nobody thought anything would ever come of but God had been dealing with his heart out there as he kept the sheep and fought off the wolves and faithfully fulfilled his father Jesse’s instructions. David. A man after God’s own heart.

But we’re impressed with the Sauls but God is not like that. Do you know when Jesus returns, there are going to be untold millions who were sure they were righteous. Who were sure they were in good standing. Who were sure that they were so helpful and did so many good works and were so congenial and so kind and so whatever. But God’s judgment is perfect in righteousness. He sees it all. I remember that story, it’s quite humorous really to me that in 2 Kings, the king of Assyria, King Aram keeps trying to attack Israel and every time he attacks Israel, Israel’s troops are there to thwart the attack. He can’t find a secret strategy to defeat them and the king calls in, King Aram of Assyria calls in his advisors, “Alright, which one of you is a spy? Which one of you is telling the king of Israel where we’re going to attack because they are ready for us every time we try and attack?” One of them said, “You don’t understand, King. They’ve got a prophet in Israel named Elisha and every time you plan an attack, Elisha knows what you think in your bedroom and he tells the king of Israel where you’re going to attack and they get ready.” King Aram in effect has to conclude, “Can’t fight against that when an omniscient God is fighting for them.”

This is the omniscient, all-knowing, all seeing God who comes to make judgment. These eyes that are a flame of fire will expose man’s guilt. Romans 3:19 says, “every mouth will be closed and all the world will be accountable to God.” Are you listening to me? When Jesus Christ returns, the most confident, proud and arrogant sinner will have his mouth shut. The guilt will be so glaringly obvious he can do nothing. Nothing. All the paper façades of self-righteousness will be burned up and removed. All the excuses and all the arguments will be stripped away and every man will be exposed as the vile sinner that he is; a great offensive violator of the holiness of the one true God. This is self- righteousness, not true righteousness. For centuries man has paraded the earth in his pomp and in his pride, forming philosophies and religions to cover and excuse sin. You listen to me: I don’t care how silent even the confessing Bible-believing evangelical churches today on moral truth and moral absolutes, when God comes, it will all be judged. Wrong is always wrong even if everybody is doing it and celebrating it. And right will always be right even if nobody wants to technically claim it. His eyes are a flame of fire and he will reveal it on that day. His penetrating eyes will not be fooled by the façades but will penetrate and remove it so as to reveal the fool beneath the façade.

Well, he’s coming as the true promise keeper; he’s faithful and true. He’s coming as the principled avenger; he will avenge in retributive judgment against all the sin of all the earth of all the people of the earth. He will avenge in righteousness and in true judgment. Thirdly, the Scripture tells us that he comes as the preeminent potentate. Potentate just means the head, the authority. That’s why the Roman Catholic Church calls that guy in Italy the pope. I’ve been amused at the popes through the years. The last one was so weak and so frail they almost just had to prop him up like a stick man when they carried him around in his little cart. I mean no disdain to him personally but the whole concept of we’re going to give someone the title potentate, listen to me: there is only one head of the church and his name is Jesus. I’m just a shepherd, an under shepherd, obligated to him.

Whatever authority the elders of this church have, we have it under him. Servants under him. He is the preeminent potentate.

The Bible says in verse 12, “upon His head are many diadem’s.” Remember dealing with that a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the judgment seat of Christ? Diademos, the great word. It means the royal authority; kingly crown. He’s not wearing the stephanos. The stephanos is the crown of reward for works done. That’s not what this is. He is not getting a crown for the works done, he has a crown because of his inherent authority and position. It’s the diadema, not the stephanos. The Bible says many crowns belong to him because all royalty belongs to him. Many crowns also signifies the greatness of the authority that belongs to him. On our earth, we have kings that wear crowns: the pope of the Roman church in Italy wears a crown; the antichrist kingdom is symbolized by crowns; even the ten kings of the tribulation, the Bible says, will have crowns. What are they doing? They are trying to usurp his place. But all authority will be removed from all of them and it’s all going to be given to Christ. He comes not only as Warrior and Judge, he comes also as King and on that day when he comes, listen, the King of heaven will become the King of earth. We sing it in the hallelujah chorus, “The kingdoms of this world, they will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” First he came wearing the Redeemer’s crown. That was the crown of subjugation and humility as he had forced upon his brow the crown of those long, sharp, Judean thorns and as they crammed it down on his holy brow, blood came down his face and dripped down his body. Next time he will come wearing the ruling crown.

The Father has crowned him King. He is the Prince of God. He is God’s only begotten Son. He alone is fit to be crowned King and those chosen for him, he has paid for with his own blood and through his death, he has also reclaimed the entire physical universe from Satan. Remember over in Revelation chapter 5, the Bible speaks of some scrolls. It speaks of those assembled in heaven that are weeping because the Bible says that no one was worthy to take the scroll. The scroll is the title deed to earth. Then the Lamb walked forward and took the scroll because he was worthy. Here is what he is saying, “It was mine when I made it the first time and it’s doubly mine when I pay for it the second time with my own blood.” So Jesus has the title deed and he is sitting on the edge of his seat up in heaven right now and here’s what he’s doing, “Father, you give the word and I’m going to go and get our land back.” He is going to descend from heaven and set his foot back upon the Mount of Olives and he will take his throne there in Jerusalem and he will be King of earth. Even so come Lord Jesus, amen.

The Bible says, “He has a name,” verse 12, “written on Him which no one knows except Himself.” This is a beautiful expression. What it means is that there are aspects of his person that are incomparable. They are incomprehensible. They are unknowable. In other words – now listen – if you had a perfected mind and all of eternity, you still can’t know the great infinite glories of our God. So God in his infinite understanding and God’s Son Jesus, in his infinite understanding, have a name. Name means the character. In Israel a name expressed something of who you are. They have a name that is beyond knowing. J. Seiss says in his commentary, “When he comes forth out of heaven for war, he will come in vast unknowableness of greatness, in heights of great majesty and glory which no one knoweth but himself.” Brothers and sisters, just a point of application here: be done with calling anyone a great preacher because everything they preach is knowable. Are you hearing me? To preach Christ in truth means we preach things that boggle the mind. We preach things that you say, “Oh God, that’s too big for me to wrap the arms of my brain around.” Good! Because you’re humbled and he’s exalted. That’s what this means. He has a name that no one knows because he exists in such great unknowableness. That’s the one who is coming.

Number 4: not only has he come as the promise keeper, as the principled avenger, as the preeminent potentate but fourthly, as the authentic and awful destroyer. The authentic and awful destroyer. Look, if you will, in verse 13. The text tells us that he comes, “clothed with a robe dipped in blood.” Now, I’ve got it marked in my Bible but if you want to go to Isaiah 63, Isaiah 63 is a prophecy of this very event and we’ll look at verses 1 through 6. “Who is this who comes from Edom, With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, This One who is majestic in His apparel, Marching in the greatness of His strength? ‘It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.’ Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? ‘I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment. For the day of vengeance was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come.'” Hold right there. Hold right there. In one verse Jesus says, “I am the one of vengeance and I also am the one of redemption.” Now you listen to me: don’t you teach your children or your grandchildren that he’s just the Jesus of redemption. He is that, hallelujah, amen! He’s also the Jesus of vengeance. Let Jesus be who Jesus is. Preach him in truth so that we’ll all be humbled and he would be exalted.

“For the day of vengeance was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come.” Aren’t you glad vengeance is covered in a day and redemption takes a whole year? There is a figurative truth there. He gets his vengeance on earth over with but the glories of his redemption last forever for his saints.

Isaiah 63:5, “I looked, and there was no one to help, And I was astonished and there was no one to uphold.” What he’s saying is there is no one who understands the great, great offensiveness and the great, great need for just retribution to be poured out against the earth. He said, “I had to do it by myself. Nobody else grasped it.” “So My own right arm brought salvation to Me, And My wrath upheld Me.” In other words, “In me coming back to the earth, I proved and demonstrated that I was the true Savior. That I am the true God and the only true Judge and in the way that I came with the wrath, made it very clear to everyone that that’s who I was. That I am the authentic one. The true one.” Verse 6, “I trod down the peoples in My anger And made them drunk in My wrath, And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

My friends, that is Jesus. He is coming back on a white charger and his robe is a robe dipped in blood: the blood of retribution, the blood of his enemies that will be splattered upon the earth and is splattered on his own raiment. The just retribution of a holy God against sin. You say, “I don’t know if I like that preaching.” Go somewhere else. Go somewhere else. I will preach the truth no matter what and not because I’m special but because there is this constraining on me that I didn’t put there.

Who is this one who comes with a robe dipped in blood? How is it that he comes to judge sinners and slay them, splattering their blood in wrath? He’s God the Son, co-equal with God the Father as John 5:22 says, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son.” For days and months and years and decades and centuries, God has reached in love to man through the death of his Son but man has callously rejected God. Man has callously ignored God. Man has callously despised God. And man has callously denied God. I was just this week listening to a sports talk radio station talking about a bunch of foolish nonsense but I like sports. And somebody called in about some of these problems they’re having in the NFL. You’ve heard about some of those, some of the players with child abuse, spousal abuse? It’s awful. It’s awful what’s being reported. Of course, I’m a little dismayed that one man first reported he spanked his child with a switch and then it was reported that he beat his child with a branch. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s a great difference between spanking with a switch and beating with a branch. Sign me up for the spanking with the switch part of that equation and not the beating with the branch. Now I don’t know which one it was and he may be very well guilty of child abuse and need the full force of the law to punish him but in that context, a man called into the radio station and brought up a basic biblical truth and he barely got this basic biblical truth out of his mouth and the guy who was the host of this sports call radio show just blasted him. He just cut him off and said, “You can’t do that. The Bible is full of symbolism and metaphor. It doesn’t apply.” That’s what this world is, is it not? It’s not like they will allow you to intellectually discuss what a good exegetical grammatical historical interpretation of the text would include as far as moral absolutes. That’s out now. You don’t want that. The moment you bring it up they deny it.

Folks, God is going to judge that. God is going to judge that and every one of us if it were not for the grace of God. Man has mocked his name, taking it in vain. Let me say something about taking the name of God in vain. That’s not just when you use one of our culturally “profane” or curse words along with the name G-O-D. Taking God’s name in vain means any time you speak of God in a manner inconsistent with what he has revealed about himself in Scripture. In that truth, Joel Osteen takes the name of God in vain every Sunday when he preaches. Now, I’m not picking on Joel it’s just that he is the most pristine example of sinful counterfeit Christianity that there is in the world today. That’s taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. I guess preachers do it more than anyone if they don’t stay closely latched to the text. If I preach to you accurately all the glories and all the wonders and all the joys of Christ’s love and grace and forgiveness and I must preach that, but if I did not preach this also, I would be taking the name of the Lord our God in vain.

We live in a world that calls good evil and evil good. Rebellion against parents and authority is called healthy self-expression. It’s amazing some of the ridiculous nonsense that’s being taught by so-called educated people about not telling their child they are ever wrong; you might somehow thwart their creative development. Some of them need a little creative discipline on their rear ends is what they need and it would make them better people for the glory of God and the sanity of the home and the community. Adultery has become an affair. Fornication acceptable, applauded, it’s an understandable part of dating and courtship. Sodomy, a celebrated alternative lifestyle with all the rights of everyone else. Listen to me: when a culture abandons Judeo-Christian absolutes, something has to fill the void. Then what you have is what you might call sociological law. We no longer have moral absolutes in Scripture. You can’t do that so now sociological law where there are some thoughtful people, some respected people, that are beginning to say, “Well, the Islamic extremists may be cutting people’s heads off but in the end, they are not understood and maybe that’s awful but it has to be done to reach another means.” How did they get there? Because we’ve thrown out objective absolutes and now it’s subjectively that everybody’s viewpoint is as valid as anybody else’s. So it’s sort of mob law which every mob gets the power they can enforce their sociological law because there is not an objective absolute standard we all agree to. That results in anarchy and chaos in a culture. All of that is taking the name of the Lord our God in vain because he gave them all absolutes and they are extensions of his very character and nature. He is judging every bit of that. He’s coming to judge it. There is no way I can get within a tiny atom, if you will, of expressing the greatness of God’s just cause in splattering the blood of sinners for what they have done to him. It can’t be verbalized.

Psalm 50:16, 17 and 21 gives an example of how ancient Israel did this twisting of God and to me that’s the worst kind of taking the name of the Lord your God in vain is when you sound Orthodox and you sound biblical but you put a spin on everything to teach your man-centered conclusion, not God-centered truth. They were doing that in Israel. They went through all the religious motions in Israel. They said they were pleasing God. They talked about his statutes but notice what God says in Psalm 50:16, “But to the wicked God says, ‘What right have you to tell of My statutes And to take My covenant in your mouth?'” In other words, going around using Scripture and God says, “Shut up! Stop using my word. All you do is misuse it.” That’s what God is saying here. “For you hate discipline, And you cast My words behind you.” In other words, “You spin my words so that you can always indulge in the wanton desires of your flesh instead of striving with the new heart I give you at regeneration to want to please me and honor me and obey my word.” Verse 21, “These things you have done and I kept silence.” Here’s the phrase, look at verse 21, the middle phrase, “You thought that I was just like you.” That’s the great, great error of planet earth. We’ve brought God down to where he’s just kind of like us. Did any of you all see the humorous outtake of Joel Osteen’s wife talking about how God just wants you to be happy and you don’t need to think about God, you don’t need to try to please God, really just be happy, that’s what God wants? That kind of twisting, God said, “You thought I was just like you,” that’s going to be judged. Friends listen: it is my total heart’s desire that if you sit under this pulpit that you leave here thinking, “God is vastly infinite to everything I can understand. God is so much greater. So much more holy. So much more just. And all I can know is that in grace through his Son, he has completely saved me and forgiven me but he is so awesome in my thinking.”

All of this and all other sinful rebellion will be judged. The time has come. The cup of wrath runneth over. Sin has indeed reached the high water mark. No more seal judgments. No more bowl judgments. No more trumpet judgments. As awful as they’re going to be, Jesus himself will come and get involved. A true and holy God is returning and all those not covered in his redeeming blood, will be slain in judgment and the blood of righteous retribution will be splattered, the Bible says, up to the horse’s bridle.

But finally, and we’ll close with this, I have to leave some out and pick it up next week. He comes with a robe dipped in blood must also speak of redeeming blood; the blood he shed to justify and save his own. The Bible says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren and should any demon or devil himself accuse Jesus of unjustly pardoning some because they were his chosen and elect and not saving others, then he’ll just say, “I wear the blood. My blood has cleansed them.” You see, the blood is the seal of the Redeemer and the blood is the seal of our redemption. Just like in ancient days when a herald was sent out by the king to all the cities and communities in his kingdom and he gave a royal edict through that herald. How where the people to know that the herald was genuine and how were they to know that the edict really came from the king, the one who had absolute authority over them? Well, the herald would show them the paper and there would be a wax droplet on that paper and the king’s signet ring would put an imprint in that wax and that was the seal of authenticity. When they saw that, they knew this is the authentic message from the one true king over us. That’s what this blood is.

The Lord returns from heaven on a white charger and there he has on himself the blood- stained garments of redeeming grace for his children and that’s the seal of authority and the seal of authenticity. In Mark 13:27 the Bible says, “And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven.” Then he will establish his earthly kingdom. Now, we’re coming with him as the church and and when he gets to the earth, he’s going to call all of redeemed Israel, and some say Gentiles, together as one nation of redeemed people and he wears the authentic seal of Redeemer in his very clothes, the blood that cleansed every one of them and made it all possible. So what right does he have to claim earth and a people out of the earth as his redeemed to establish his earthly kingdom? He comes bearing the authenticating seal of a Savior King: a robe dipped in blood. Not just any blood but his own precious blood, the blood shed at Calvary.

Let’s pray together.