Antiphonal Celebration

Series on Revelation

II The Viewpoint

E Cycle Five, Seven Messages of Judgment on Babylon

6 The Marvel

Text: 19:1-10

Introduction

Rejoice evermore says the apostle Paul. In 19:1-10 the scene shifts from the desolation of Babylon on earth to heavenly celebration. Many of us are familiar with George Frederic Handel’s “Messiah” the lyrics for which were written by Charles Jennens a laymen, a devoted Christian in the Church of England, and a firm believer in the inspiration of Scripture. He drew the lyrics from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer renderings which differed slightly. His devotion is clear from the fact that it was his hope to discredit Deism which was in the ascendancy and to challenge the advocates of Deism, who rejected the doctrine of divine intervention in human affairs. The climax of the Messiah is the beloved Hallelujah Chorus, which concludes the second section. The First section deals with the prophecies and fulfillment of the incarnation. Section two deals with the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ and the initial spread of the gospel ending in the Hallelujah of victory. The third section summarizes the final redemption, the judgment, and the general resurrection ending in praise to Christ for the final victory over sin and death., with “Thanks be to God,” and “Worthy is the Lamb.” This, in many ways, approximates the book of Revelation. At this point we are at the Hallelujah chorus and in the sections that follow we will see the general resurrection, judgment and the final victory. In fact both the “Messiah” and the book of Revelation are telling the story of our redemption with appropriate intervals of praise and celebration scattered throughout. This then is an antiphonal celebration beginning with a post-celebration chorus, then a pre-celebration chorus, and finally a pronouncement which is a statement of faith or creed.

I The Post-celebration Chorus

The first chorus is a post-celebration of the downfall of the Harlot in verses 1-4, After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” And again they shouted: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!” It is not easy for twenty-first century Christians with their refined sensibilities to join in a chorus rejoicing over the smoke rising from the fiery destruction of other men. I believe this is due to a distorted perspective. We have been sold such a bill of goods about God’s love that we have lost the appreciation for his divine justice. Vengeance and retribution are an important part of God’s holy character. I would liken it to men who have fought in our wars. In the heat of the battle they have no problem rejoicing in the fiery destruction of the enemy. Even if we grant that human conflicts are always tinged with sin and error, when we are engaged in a righteous cause and our friends have been killed and blood has been shed and the enemy has shown no mercy on the battlefield, are we supposed to be sorry that vengeance has been exacted by God? And many of our great military leaders have been men of prayer and devotion who prayed for victory and rejoiced when their prayer was granted. It is only those who sit on the sidelines and ignore the spiritual battle raging around them that can be so removed from rejoicing over the destruction of the enemy. Many of us are sitting on the sidelines and that is why we recoil at the words, And again they shouted: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.” In the years since the Second World War many have debated President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was indeed horrific and a sad testimony to the brokenness of our world. However, I lived through those years, and if you participated in the Bataan death march, or knew about the Empire of Japan murdering civilians, approximately six million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans. Filipinos and Indochinese; If you knew about the torture and murder of allied prisoners of war by a morally bankrupt political and military strategy; you would celebrate. If you knew that the total slaughter came to about 10,000,000, and American soldiers were dying every day you would rejoice that the conflict was shortened by the bombing of August 1945. So you see, rejoicing over the destruction of the great harlot and praising God for the vengeance he exacted is all a matter of perspective.

II The Pre-celebration Chorus

Now that the demise of the harlot has been celebrated in joyful praise to God, in verses 5-8 we have the joyful celebration of the glorification of the Bride, Then a voice came from the throne, saying: “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!” Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) All of God’s redeemed children are invited to the wedding feast and are both the guests and the bride.This is symbolism and there is no slavish dedication to literal detail. However we read that the Bride has made herself ready and obviously salvation is by grace not works, so what can the Bride do. Repent and believe. The bride can prepare herself only when God provides the wedding gown for her, because this garment is beautiful and pure. Her own clothes are but filthy rags, but Christ cleanses and presents her to himself “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish” as we read in Ephesians 5:26 and 27. This is also the message of the Old Testament in Isaiah 61:10, I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. The Bride can provide no clothing because apart from God’s grace she is naked and undone. Now Jesus tells an interesting parable in Matthew 22. It is a wedding feast, and the invited guests (Israel) do not choose to come and so the procedure is changed, and we read in verses 8-14, “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, (Gentiles) the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.” The only solution to explain the parable. Is that, by the command of the king and from the royal treasury, at the very entrance of the wedding hall a wedding robe had been offered to each guest. All except this one person had accepted the robe. This one man, however, had looked at his own robe, had perhaps lightly brushed it off with his hand, and had then told the attendant, “My own robe is good enough. I don’t need the one you’re offering me.” Then, in an attitude of self-satisfaction and defiance, he had marched to the table. In general in the middle east in the days of royalty, people were not permitted an audience with the king unless attired in clothing suitable, and most commoners could not afford that, so it was provided. In the same way nobody comes to the Lamb’s wedding without the robe he supplies. Now Israel in the Old Testament is called the wife of Jahweh and in the new Testament the church is the Bride of Christ but that means they are betrothed, or as we say engaged. In Jewish culture this was a serious commitment which required divorce to terminate it. In a Jewish practice at the time of Christ, there was a waiting period between betrothal and wedding while the bride and bridegroom lived separately. During this period the two families arranged the terms of the dowry. When this sum was paid, the actual wedding followed. On that day, the bridegroom in procession accompanied by friends brought the bride from her parental home to his own home. There the wedding feast was held. Hendriksen shows how this is an exact parallel to the history of our salvation. He writes, “In Christ the bride was chosen from eternity. Throughout the entire Old Testament dispensation the wedding was announced. Next, the Son of God assumed our flesh and blood: the betrothal took place. The price—the dowry—was paid on Calvary. And now, after an interval which in the eyes of God is but a little while, due Bridegroom returns and ‘It has come, the wedding of the Lamb.’ The Church on earth yearns for this moment, so does the Church in heaven.” There is one additional difficulty that may occur to the careful reader. We are told that the Bride’s attire was a gift, “Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” However we read in the same verse that “Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.” How can it be both a gift and an action? The apostle Paul provides the answer in Ephesians 2:10, We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. These righteous deeds are made possible through God’s grace at work in the hearts of the saints. Christ blesses those deeds by perfecting them through his perfect righteousness.

III The Pronouncement of the Creed

In the closing verses, 9 and 10, we have an important statement of faith, Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Scripture is the indispensable foundation for our faith because “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” In John 17 Jesus prays for His bride and in verses 15-18 he says, My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. The only thing that you can depend on as being absolutely true is God’s holy Word. It is truth and Jesus said so and the angel in our text repeats it. But what does that word say, and what does it teach. You may have heard the foolish slogan, “No creed but Christ.” it is foolish because what we believe about Christ is the key to believing in Him. What we believe about Him is a creed. You cannot believe “in” Him unless you believe what he said, as for example, “I and the Father are one.” That is a creed. Or, I came to seek and to save that which was lost and to give my life a ransom for many. That is a creed. What we have here in verse 10 is the most fundamental summary of Biblical truth, “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” That means that the Holy Spirit has inspired prophets in both Old Testament and New Testament eras to bear witness to Jesus Christ through the spirit of prophecy. Jesus Himself did this in His teaching, but Moses and the prophets and the Psalms all bear witness to Jesus. That is what the Bible is about. He said it in Luke 24:44. When he appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Paul said the same thing in II Corinthians 1:20, For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. This is your Bible and this is your creed. It’s all about Jesus, the Christ, the Word of God.