Eternal Thanksgiving
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Intro:
Intro:
Good morning!
We’ve made it to the last Sunday in November.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with your family!
This morning we’re going to discuss our final sermon in our series titled “Thankful.”
So far in this series we have discussed “the root of thankfulness,” “thankfulness in every circumstance,” and having an “overflow of thanks” in our hearts.
This morning, our topic is: “Eternal Thanksgiving.”
We want to spend some time in the book of Revelation this morning, noticing thankfulness that will be our eternal song in Heaven.
Now, Revelation can be a very challenging read — There’s a lot of symbolism in it, and it was written from a perspective that first century Christians could easily understand, but the average Roman who did not have any background in either Judaism or Christianity would not have any clue what Revelation was talking about.
There’s a reason for that! The early Christians could read Revelation, and share it with other Christians to read, and if a Roman soldier intercepted it, he might read a few lines of it and think: “I have no idea what any of this means. Move along!”
This would have been very important during the periods of intense persecutions Christians faced in the first century, as well as several centuries that followed.
The Big Picture of Revelation:
The Big Picture of Revelation:
Yes, Revelation is a very challenging read if we’re talking about the fine details, but the BIG PICTURE of Revelation is not hard to understand!
I remember how I have struggled before with another book of the Bible — Job.
I determined one time that I was going to read the book of Job in its entirety, straight through, and just read it kind of like a novel, and not get bogged down if I didn’t understand a certain phrase that Job or his friends said.
I just wanted to try to read the book from a “bird’s eye view,” so to speak, to get the big picture.
When I did it that way, it really helped my mind grasp what was going on a lot better!
With some more difficult books of the Bible like Job, or Revelation, or certain parts of Daniel, or Ezekiel, etc., maybe it would be best to read it straight through several times, just trying to grasp the BIG PICTURE really well first, and THEN go back through verse by verse and try to study the finer details of the book?
Anyways, thinking about the book of Revelation that way …
We see a book about Christians being persecuted.
We see 7 congregations of the church, a couple of them doing well, a few of them doing well on some things but not so well on other things, and a couple congregations that are doing very, very badly!
We see Jesus telling some of these congregations that they are in danger of losing their lampstand if they don’t change — All of this in the first 3 chapters of Revelation!
And over the course of the rest of the book, we see severe persecution, we see tremendous evil in powerful places, we see tremendous pressure to abandon the faith (but Christians are encouraged to not do that), we see the Devil waging war against the faith.
We see, though, that the Devil will not win! Ultimately, we see that God is going to triumph over the Devil, and when God wins, that means that WE win (if we are on God’s side), and we see depictions of both Heaven and Hell in this book.
That’s essentially the big picture “bird’s eye view” of Revelation.
So with that in mind, we are going to notice a couple of texts from Revelation this morning, and we are going to see that Thanksgiving is the theme song of the redeemed in Heaven for all of eternity!
Revelation 7:9-12: (Read together first)
Revelation 7:9-12: (Read together first)
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
Earlier in this chapter if you were to read it, you’re going to read about the symbolic number 144,000 — You’ll read about the 12 tribes of Israel, and in each tribe there are 12,000 people sealed for salvation.
This is all symbolic of the fact that there will be a great number of people who are sealed - who are saved - by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.
Now, there will be a much higher number of people who will be lost, according to the Bible — (Matthew 7:13–14 - “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Still though, there will be a lot of people in heaven!
(And the number 144,000 is symbolic, by the way, not literal).
How do we know that the 144,000 is symbolic?
Because it literally tells you in the context following the giving of all the twelve tribes of Israel!
Look at verse 9!
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
a. “A great multitude which no one could number … clothed with white robes!”
b. The “clothed with white robes” tells us that this group is the saved, and the fact that no one could number them tells us that it is just a large number of people, with not a specific set number — Thus, the 144,000 mentioned previously is SYMBOLLIC.
c. 12 x 12 x 1000 - 1000 is a perfect number, and then you have 12 representing? 12 tribes of Israel!
d. Who is faithful Israel today? The church! (Gal. 6:16 refers to Christians as “the Israel of God,” spiritual Israel we might say).
e. Notice that the saved are standing before the throne of God, and notice that they come from “all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues” — What country you came from will not matter on Judgment Day!
f. What will matter is — Did you live a life of obedient faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ?!
and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
a. The saved are acknowledging before holy God that salvation was only made possible because God made it so!
b. And how did He make it so?! (By sending us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ!)
c. We cannot earn salvation, we don’t deserve what Jesus did for us!
d. We stand utterly helpless before a holy God, if not for Jesus Christ!
e. … And those who stand before God’s throne on Judgment Day who are NOT clothed with Christ WILL stand there utterly helpless and in trouble!
All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
a. Again, don’t get bogged down with; “Well, who are these angels?” or “What about these elders and four living creatures?”
b. The point we need to gather from this is that every human being will stand before the throne of God one day, either CLOTHED in white garments washed by the blood of the Lamb, or NOT!
c. They “fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God” — Every knee WILL bow in worship to God on Judgment Day!
d. Why would we not bow and worship Him NOW as well?! (If we are wise, we will!)
e. Notice, here’s the worshipful song: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, THANKSGIVING and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen!”
3. Do you see how the faithful will be forever THANKFUL when we enter into the joy of our Lord?!
4. Well, let’s look at one more passage in Revelation, and let’s see it again.
Rev. 11:15-19:
Rev. 11:15-19:
Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”
And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God,
saying: “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.
The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”
Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.
Now, I don’t want to get too bogged down in the extraordinary scene that is taking place here, as far as the “lightnings, noises, thunderings, earthquake, and great hail.”
That is amazing to think about! I think it’s definitely God’s omnipotent power on full display!
And I kind of think back to Exodus chapter 19 with the smoke and earthquake and lightnings that happened on Mount Sinai as Moses was preparing to go up to receive the 10 Commandments! (I imagine perhaps that came to mind when Christians were reading this in Revelation for the first time).
I think the point is to show the power and might of God!
I also don’t want to get bogged down in the different woes and the witnesses and the seventh trumpet, the 24 elders, etc. that you can read about in this chapter.
What I want to focus on is what is said here in Revelation chapter 11 beginning in verse 15 …
Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”
a. “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”
b. This is proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
c. Matthew 28:18–20 says: “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.”
d. All authority was given to Jesus in heaven and on earth! In other words, Jesus is King! Jesus has a King-DOM! And that Kingdom is His church, which will go and be with God in Heaven forever!
And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God,
a. Again, everyone will fall on his face and worship God on judgment day.
b. Every knee WILL bow, so why not go ahead and do it now?!
c. Well, what are these elders saying?
saying: “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your great power and reigned.
a. The theme of heaven, if you will, is thanksgiving to almighty God!
b. It is an ETERNAL THEME, and it is one of gratitude of saving us from sin!
c. God has “TAKEN (His) GREAT POWER and REIGNED!”
d. Sin USED to reign over us, but now God through the POWER OF THE GOSPEL (Rom. 1:16) reigns as Lord of our lives, and He will reign forever and ever when we see Him in heaven, too!
The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”
a. In other words, the nations of people (those who are evil and unrepentant/unconverted) were angry, and God’s wrath has come upon them!
b. These people are pure evil - You want to understand pure evil? Read the rest of the book of Revelation! You’ll read about pure evil!
c. … But pure evil is not without punishment!
d. Here we see God in His justice is going to punish the evildoers on Judgment Day, and in short, just as we said summarizes the theme of Revelation in two words — GOD … WINS!
Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.
a. And what an amazing sight to behold that will be!
b. Certainly we want to be “on the winning team,” so to speak, when the great and final day appears and God judges the deeds of all who have lived and all who will ever live!
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
I know perhaps the book of Revelation is not the first place we think of in thinking about a sermon series on the topic of Thankfulness, but truly thankfulness will be our theme in heaven!
We will forever worship God, we will forever be grateful that we “were on the winning team!”
Because when God wins, WE win as we put all our faith in Him!
I hope that you have enjoyed this series on Thankfulness as much as I have enjoyed putting it together!
(Give invitation).
