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Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190006B
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00:01 In that marvelous scene of the crisis in heaven
00:03 where John is weeping bitterly because no one can be found 00:07 in heaven or earth to open that scroll with seven seals, 00:12 and then a strong angel is going to appear with a solution. 00:15 But before we get to the solution, we want to understand 00:18 what does that scroll really mean? 00:21 And we've been looking at Jeremiah. 00:24 In the midst of a crisis in Israel, Nebuchadnezzar's armies 00:28 beginning to surround, Jeremiah is told to go 00:31 buy a piece of property, to get the deed, and to have it sealed. 00:35 And of course, that seal means it belongs to Jeremiah. 00:38 And you can't have the property unless, of course, 00:41 Jeremiah gives you permission. 00:42 But if the Babylonians are coming in and they're about to 00:46 overthrow the whole Judean kingdom, 00:50 what good is it going to be? 00:51 And you can hear this conversation between 00:53 Jeremiah and God. 00:55 Jeremiah is very puzzled by this. 00:58 And so he says, "Ah, Lord God, behold, You made the heavens 01:03 and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm." 01:08 In fact, that's what you hear in Revelation 01:10 about God being the great Creator. 01:12 "There is nothing too hard for You." 01:15 And then he talks about how God brought the people of Israel 01:18 out of Egypt with signs and wonders. 01:21 And then he talks about how they did not obey God's voice, 01:25 and He's caused this calamity of the Babylonians to come on them. 01:30 And then he says, "Lord, look at the siege mounds. 01:35 I mean, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar 01:37 are building siege mounds." 01:41 This thing is a calamity about to happen. 01:44 It's a crisis of great proportions. 01:47 And then He says, "What You have spoken has happened; 01:50 and there You see it!" 01:52 And then he says it almost incredulous, 01:56 he says, "And You have said to me, O Lord God, 02:02 'Buy a field with money, and take witnesses.' 02:07 What's going on here? 02:09 And yet the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans, 02:12 just like You said it would be." 02:14 In other words, Jeremiah is saying to the Lord, 02:16 "Look, this trouble is so great and so big 02:20 that this is worthless. 02:22 This deed can never be delivered. 02:25 I've spend money for nothing, 02:27 and it's going to come to nothing. 02:29 My children," if Jeremiah had any, or his relatives 02:33 who would be his descendants, "they'll never be able to get 02:37 the benefits of this." 02:38 Why? Because the Babylonians are taking over the place. 02:42 But God answered Jeremiah. 02:45 And this is what the Lord says to Jeremiah. 02:49 He says, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh." 02:53 And then God says, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" 02:58 And after recounting the terrible history of 03:00 Israel's failure, God goes on to say, 03:03 "I will bring them back to this place. 03:06 They will be My people, I will be their God." 03:11 And then He says, "And fields will be bought in this land 03:16 of which you say, 'It is desolate, without man or beast; 03:21 it has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans.'" 03:23 Said Jeremiah. 03:24 But God says, "Men will buy fields for money, 03:28 sign deeds, and seal them..." 03:34 Jeremiah, of course, was known as the weeping prophet. 03:37 The book of Lamentations, the book of Lamentations 03:40 Jeremiah weeps over Jerusalem. 03:43 So John is weeping. 03:46 Jeremiah wept because he thought there was hardly 03:48 any hope left for Israel. 03:50 But God says, "No, Jeremiah, the deed will be fine. 03:54 Even though you don't think it will be any good, 03:56 it will be fine." 03:58 I think this answers, at least for me, what's happening here 04:03 in Revelation chapter 5, this deed that God the Father 04:07 holds in His hand, this scroll, I think is the deed 04:11 to our heavenly kingdom. 04:13 And in that deed is written all the story of ancient Israel 04:18 and the future of the Christian church. 04:22 Was ancient Israel a success? 04:24 I think we would have to say, no, it was a failure. 04:26 And then look at the Christian church. 04:28 If you go through the information or the instructions 04:31 given to the seven churches, you'll see all kinds of 04:34 challenges that the churches had. 04:36 I mean, they had Balaam, they had the Nicolaitans, 04:39 they had Jezebel; they had all kinds of problems. 04:43 And one of the places is even where Satan's seat was. 04:46 That's where they were at. 04:47 I mean, there's all kinds of challenges. 04:49 And then you've got the Laodicean church 04:51 just before Jesus comes that thinks its wealthy, 04:54 and it can see, and it's got all these good things going on. 04:58 The Lord says, "You're miserable, poor, 04:59 blind, and naked." 05:03 When you look at Israel and you look at the church 05:05 you say, "I don't think, I don't think this is going to work." 05:12 You see, Jesus went to Calvary's cross and He paid the price. 05:19 And the devil knew that He'd paid the price. 05:21 But the war isn't over. 05:25 He's still got to deliver the Christian church. 05:28 And for whatever reasons that we can't always understand, 05:31 the devil, I think, is saying, "You can't deliver that deed. 05:35 There are conditions that have to be met, 05:37 conditions that I have insisted on and You have agreed to." 05:43 We're going to get into that. 05:44 We'll talk about the seven seals in our next program. 05:48 And so, here is this scroll. 05:51 It's got the deed. 05:52 But if you can't meet the conditions, if you can't 05:55 break the seal, the saints will never get everlasting life. 06:00 They'll never get the deed to the city. 06:03 And everything Jesus did on Calvary's cross 06:05 would have been for nothing. 06:07 No wonder John wept bitterly. 06:11 If the deed to the new earth was lost, 06:14 if the deed to the eternal inheritance 06:16 couldn't be delivered, what would that mean? 06:21 But God has an answer. 06:22 And we're going to see that beautiful answer 06:25 to John's weeping in Revelation 5:5-7. 06:29 "But one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. 06:34 Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, 06:39 has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.' 06:45 And I looked, and there in the midst of the throne, 06:50 of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders 06:54 stood a Lamb, a Lamb as though it had been slain, 07:01 having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the 07:07 seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 07:11 Then He came and took the scroll out of the 07:15 hand of Him who sat on the throne." 07:19 Now Jesus is pictured here in two ways. 07:22 The Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the Lamb that was slain. 07:27 Jesus really is both. 07:30 The Jewish leaders wanted the Lion of the tribe of Judah 07:34 who would come and deliver them from all of their enemies. 07:37 But what they got was the sacrificial Lamb, 07:40 the Lamb that was slain. 07:42 Many today are looking for Jesus to come back 07:44 and everything is going to be just wonderful. 07:47 But they forget that He's coming back in judgment. 07:50 He comes back as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. 07:55 The lamb is the self-sacrificing one. 07:57 The lion is the king in the judicial power. 08:00 But the focus here is on that slain Lamb 08:04 with seven horns and seven eyes who takes on the 08:07 great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns 08:11 and overcomes him. 08:13 Seems like an uneven match. 08:14 But the slain Lamb has power. 08:18 And He has power to break those terrible seals 08:23 on the deed and to deliver that to all of us 08:26 when Jesus comes again. 08:29 Because of the slain Lamb's ability to take the scroll 08:33 and to open the seals, the beings in heaven 08:37 begin to sing a new song. 08:38 And this is what they sing in Revelation 5:9-10. 08:42 You can hear the song. I wish we had the music to it. 08:45 But it says, "You are worthy..." 08:47 They sing to the slain Lamb, the Lamb that had been slain. 08:51 "You are worthy..." There's that word again. 08:54 God the Father has said, "You are worthy because 08:56 You created all these things." 08:58 The Lamb has said, "You are worthy." 09:00 And here's the reason why. 09:01 "You're worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals. 09:05 You were slain and You have redeemed us 09:08 to God by Your blood 09:10 out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 09:14 and have made us kings and priests..." 09:16 So they're saying, "Because You've redeemed us, 09:18 because You made this great sacrifice, 09:20 You're worthy and You've got the power 09:23 to open these seals." 09:25 You know, "worthy," means that He has a lot of weight 09:29 and a lot of power. 09:30 And when John looked in heaven and earth 09:32 there was no one but the slain Lamb who had the power 09:37 to open these seals, and the right to open these seals, 09:40 the authority to open these seals. 09:43 Not even God the Father who sat on the throne 09:46 had the authority to open the seal, 09:49 because He was not the one who was slain 09:53 and redeemed planet earth from Satan and his evil angels. 09:59 So Jesus is highly qualified. 10:01 And so heaven breaks out in song 10:04 because Jesus has ransomed the earth, He's paid the price. 10:08 He took it back from Satan who had taken it from Adam. 10:12 And then heaven breaks out, "Worthy..." 10:14 I love this. There's a song about this. 10:16 We don't have the music that they had, of course. 10:19 But we do have in the hymn book, "Worthy is the Lamb 10:22 who was slain." 10:24 And then the universe breaks out into song, 10:26 singing both to the Father and to the Lamb. 10:29 And you can hear what they say as they say, 10:32 "Blessing and honor and glory and power 10:36 be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, 10:40 forever and ever." 10:41 John is not weeping anymore because 10:44 there's somebody that is able. 10:46 Heaven is happy because there's somebody 10:50 that's able to break those seals and to deliver the deed 10:55 to planet earth. 10:58 Now those seals have tough conditions. 11:02 That's what those seals are about. 11:04 And I mentioned those. 11:05 We'll talk about that in our next program. 11:08 What are those conditions? 11:11 And how does the Lamb of God break those conditions. 11:16 The conditions are going to be tough. 11:18 There not going to be easy. 11:20 Those conditions are put in place over the next 11:24 2000 years, if you please, of Christian history. 11:28 It was not history yet, it was in prophecy at this point. 11:31 And there was going to be a great contest between 11:34 Christ and Satan over breaking those seals. 11:40 And breaking that final seal, 11:42 and getting the people the deed to the streets of gold, 11:46 to the New Jerusalem. 11:49 So Jesus is able, though, because He's been through 11:53 some tough conditions. 11:55 It's something to be born as a baby in Bethlehem, 11:58 to grow up in this world, and never sin. 12:02 To resist all the temptations of the devil, 12:05 to resist a selfish world, to resist all of this. 12:09 That took some stamina. 12:12 And to go through Calvary's cross and all of the conditions, 12:17 to bear the sins of the world, Jesus is tough. 12:22 And He's wise. 12:24 And He's got the power to break these seals. 12:28 And so I want to appeal to all of us. 12:33 God's church may face great difficulties, 12:36 but we have a mighty Savior. 12:38 We have the incomparable Jesus. 12:42 No one has ever been like Him. 12:44 Every time He's met Satan on the battle ground 12:47 Jesus has been invincible. 12:49 Yes, there are a lot of battles to fight through Christian 12:52 history, and yet to finish before Jesus comes. 12:56 But there's no one like Jesus in all the universe. 13:00 If He can break those seals for His church, 13:05 that means He can break the seals in your life. 13:07 You know, the devil puts seals on all of our life. 13:09 He says, "You can't have this person unless 13:12 these conditions can be broken." 13:13 But Jesus has power to break the seals 13:17 that hold us back from life everlasting. 13:21 And He can break those seals and deliver to you 13:25 and to me personally the deed to everlasting life. |
Revised 2019-07-10