THE TRIUMPHANT CHRIST

Religion

This sermon is from our expository study of the Book of Revelation and was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Palm Sunday, April 13, 2014 by Pastor Paul Mims. You can hear this sermon at www.csbccl.org

Revelation 19:11-16Today is Palm Sunday. It is so named because of what the Apostle John told us in his Gospel in 12:12-15. “The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!’ Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written, ‘Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion: your King is coming seated on a donkey’s colt.’”
This called “The Triumphant Entry” of our Lord. But there is another one coming that is more triumphant than that. When he entered Jerusalem on his way to the cross he was acclaimed as King of Israel. There was another crowd that at the end of the week shouted, “Crucify him!”

The Apostle John writes of another triumphant entry. This time he is not coming to be crucified but to be KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. The portrait that John paints of Christ at the end of Revelation is that of his final victory over evil. The first triumphant entry was to win the battle of redemption through the cross. This is when he returns to earth to not only win the battle for believers, but to destroy evil forever. He now leaves heaven and descends to earth to judge and eradicate evil so that his people will never have to contend with it ever again.

This is the second time that John says, “I saw heaven standing open…” The first time was in 4:1 when he said, “…I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.” These are two important places in the vision of John as he received the unveiling of Christ.

I. THE SCOFFERS
They are among us now. The Apostle Peter wrote, “…you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:3-9)

The scoffing goes on. Recently, I tuned in to a local radio station and heard an international New Age program. A former Pentecostal evangelist who had lost his faith was debunking the gospel and saying that the Apostle Paul was the Anti-Christ. Others were calling in questioning the Deity of Christ.

II. THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO EARTH
Jesus is portrayed as riding upon a white horse rather than a donkey as on Palm Sunday. This symbolizes his return as a conqueror. He is called “Faithful and True.” Although his promises and warnings have been rejected by many, he is faithful to his saints and true to his word. He comes not with vengeance, but with justice. He appears on earth this time to judge with justice and to wage the final war of history. All of the times when his servants have been unjustly scorned and persecuted by unbelievers will come to light as he will bring the justice of which they were deprived. Mercy has been offered to all through his grace and those who have rejected it will now receive justice.

But some will say, “This is not the picture of Jesus that we read about in the gospels. He is meek and lowly and loving.” But read again the words of Jesus in Matthew 23-25 and you will see that he describes the same things that John is saying about his return to judge and destroy evil.

John describes the triumphant Christ: “His eyes are like blazing fire.” My mother used to say that her father could shoot fire out of his eyes when he was displeased. But this means that Christ sees and knows everything and has the power to make things right. “On his head are many crowns.” In that day, it was not uncommon for a conquering general to wear the multiple crowns of the countries he had conquered. “He had a name that no one knows but he himself.” John is saying that as much as we know him there is a part of him that is unknowable because he is so transcendent of us. “He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood.” This means that he won the victory for us at the cross and Worthy is The Lamb to fight this final battle. “His name is the Word of God.” He is the fullest expression of the Father and what He says happens.

III. THE ARMIES OF HEAVEN
In this great drama Christ is pictured as riding on a white horse and the armies of heaven are following him riding on white horses and are dressed in fine linen white and clean. In the Book of Jude, the last one in the New Testament before Revelation, it is recorded: “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts thy have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These men are faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.” (Jude 14-16)

The Apostle Paul wrote of the same event in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10:

This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.”

Do you think that the world deserves this? In 1863, Abraham Lincoln thought so. He said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

IV. THE VICTOR
With his armies of angels our Lord confronts the enemies of God and destroys them. Jesus said: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” (Matthew 25:31-33)

John is just affirming what Jesus told the disciples when he was on the earth. At the last he is the warrior Christ and the judge of the nations. John Bunyan wrote “Holy War.” Commenting on the book Alexander Whyte says, “Holy Scripture is full of wars and rumors of wars: the wars of the Lord: the wars of Joshua and the Judges; the wars of David, with his and other magnificent battle-songs; till the best known name of the God of Israel in the Old Testament is “The Lord of Hosts;” and then in the New Testament we have Jesus Christ described as the Captain of our Salvation…And then the whole Bible is crowned with a book all sounding with battle cries…till it ends with that city of peace where they hang the trumpet in the hall and study war no more.”

John continues to picture Christ: “Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.” The only weapon in his arsenal is his word of Truth. Every nation has their religion, their philosophies by which they live. Satan has managed to lie to the nations and the truth is the weapon by which they will be judged. The judgment will be administered through his word of truth. All of this battle imagery is not with military weapons such as humans use.

The truth comes to us today through the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Oswald Chambers said: “Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses the conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God.”

“He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.” The “iron scepter’ refers to the total victory that Christ will have over falsehood. Can you imagine what it will be like to live in total truth? No religion offering untruths anymore, no government lying to its people, no business with shady practices, and no lies between friends, spouses, or any other person. When the Kingdom comes there will be absolute truth.

The Antichrist and all of his cohorts will be destroyed. Heaven and earth will be without demons, Satan, or any evil influence. The power of his Word will accomplish this.

“He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.”

The end-time battles that the nations will engage in will cause much blood to be shed. Isaiah saw that day when he wrote in 63:3; “I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments.”

“On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” Jesus will be the absolute ruler of earth and all the creation. At long last, “The increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

As we approach this Holy Week let us view it in the light of this scripture that we have studied today. Be ever reminded that the victory won at the cross and at the tomb makes possible the great end time victory when we will have a new heaven and a new earth.

There is a Hymn that we sing when we think of the meaning of Holy Week that comes from African-American slaves. It asks the question:
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble!
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when he rose up from the dead?
O! Sometimes I feel like shouting glory, glory, glory!
Were you there when He rose up from the dead?

Yes, you and I were there. Our sin put us there. But now we are free!

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!

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