Revelation 15 - The Conquering Church

Introduction

The Constitution of the United States of America no longer offers any protection to evangelical churches in this country. That was the signal that came, loud and clear, from the United States Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago, when it refused to hear a complaint brought by Calvary Chapel in Nevada, that was seeking relief from a targeted shutdown by the governor of the state. Churches in the state are being prohibited from meeting due to “concerns” from the coronavirus, while casinos, theatres and other indoor gatherings are permitted to bring hundreds of people together at a time, at “fifty percent capacity”.

It is a clear case of discrimination against Christians that even the progressive enemies of religion expected to be overturned by the nation’s highest court, but the Court decided in a 5-4 decision not to hear the case, and allow Nevada to continue to abrogate Christians’ First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly and religious expression. As Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his stinging dissent from the majority, “There is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesar’s Palace over Calvary Chapel.”

And yet, this is exactly the world we are living in, Justice Gorsuch notwithstanding. Over the past several weeks it has become increasingly obvious to anyone who is willing to see that the American Evangelical voting block has been played for the patsies that we are. We were promised that electing a particular candidate would ensure a conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would help preserve our religious freedoms in this country. And like the gullible, idolatrous sheep we are, we believed the lies and put our faith in nine unelected lawyers in black robes to protect us from the Big Bad Liberals. And now we are getting exactly what we deserve. We are getting what every idolater gets, because every idol will eventually betray its worshippers. We are a church stained with idolatry, and we are being called to repent.

Not only is our idolatry set to destroy us if we don’t repent, we are a church stained by immorality as well. Not a month goes by when we don’t hear word of another pastor who runs off with his secretary (or these days, his secretary’s husband) or embezzles thousands from the ministry, or gets arrested for sexually assaulting children, or who gets up into the pulpit one morning to declare that God really meant him to be a woman and wants to be called “June”. And not only is the American church an immoral church, but we are a church that actively teaches that that kind of God-hating sexual rebellion is something that is good and wholesome, something that God is pleased with.

The church in the United States of America in the year 2020 is an idolatrous church riddled with sin and shot through with false teaching, and as the winds of persecution begin to blow around us we are beginning to realize that we have absolutely no strength or solid footing to stand up against it. As the Psalmist cries,

Psalm 11:2–3 ESV

for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

We cannot appeal to our own strength, because we have none. We cannot appeal to our doctrinal integrity, because we have none. We cannot appeal to our civil liberties, because they are in the process of being removed from us. We cannot appeal to our faithfulness to God, because we succumbed to the temptation to put our trust in the nine-headed Beast of the Supreme Court instead.

The only hope we have is that the promises of God to His Church are as true today as they were when the Book of Revelation was written. Because when you read Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, you see that the plight of the churches in Asia Minor in A.D. 67 was just as dire as the church of the United States in A.D. 2020.

The churches in Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11) and Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-13) were suffering under persecution from Roman authorities and the false prophets of the Jews. The churches at Pergamum (Rev. 2:12-17) and Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29) were not only actively engaged in sexual immorality, but teaching others in the church that it was good. The church in Sardis (Rev. 3:1-6) was so weak that it had abandoned its mission, and the church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22) was completely seduced by its luxurious wealth that it had forfeited the riches of holiness that God had purchased for them.

The churches of Asia Minor in the First Century were as compromised, sinful, persecuted and weak as the church in the United States in the 21st. And yet here in Revelation 15 John writes to show them that

The power and promises of God are sufficient for His church to overcome every trial

The opening verses of the chapter reveal that the churches of Asia Minor did not succumb to their trials—they overcame them. John writes:

Revelation 15:2 ESV

And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands.

Beloved, we live in a time when the Bride of Christ, the Church, in the United States is in a bad way—under persecution, compromised in its morality and its teaching, utterly weak and incapable of standing against the onslaught of opposition that is even now sweeping over us. But here in this chapter we see a great promise that the Church will overcome all of its trials through the promises of God to save them and the power of His judgment to deliver them. The churches of Asia Minor are the ones who “conquered the Beast and its image and the number of its name” in this passage—weak, compromised, faithless and oppressed as they were, they overcame because of the promises of God to save them.

In verses 1-4 the church

I. Sings of the promises of God in salvation (Rev. 15:1-4)

John writes that the singers here in these verses “had conquered” the beast and its image and the mark. I think it’s important that that same word that is used throughout the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3— “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat from the tree of life” (Rev. 2:7), “to the one who conquers I will give the hidden manna” (Rev. 2:17), “to him who conquers I will grant to sit with me on the Throne” (Rev. 3:21), and so on. So I think what is in view here is the victorious, conquering churches of Asia Minor, who had overcome every trial and opposition against them (from inside and outside) by the promises of God. The first thing that we see here in verse 2 is that

The church sings because she has been cleansed (Rev. 15:2)

We see further along in Chapter 15 that the setting of these verses is in the heavenly Tabernacle of God (cp. Rev. 15:5— “the sanctuary of the Tent of Witness in Heaven was opened”). And so when we see the conquerors “standing by the sea of glass”, the image that comes to mind is not of people standing by a seashore—they are standing by the “sea” of the wash basin that stood at the entrance of the Temple in the Old Testament (Ex. 30:17, the “laver of bronze”) and the fifteen-foot wide “molten sea” of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 7:23ff). It is a symbol of cleansing in the presence of God, and here the churches are singing because they have been cleansed of all of their sin by the Blood of the Lamb! The church at Ephesus was cleansed of its lovelessness, the church in Pergamum was washed clean of its false teaching, the church in Thyatira was bathed in the blood of Christ to free it from the sexual perversions taught by the Jezebel that had seized its pulpit! The conquering church sings because every promise that God ever made to them to save them has come true!

Not does the church singing because she has conquered her sin by the Blood of the Lamb, but

The church sings because she has been delivered (Rev. 15:3)

Look at verse 3:

Revelation 15:3 ESV

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!

Again, John points back to the Old Testament to show the kind of victory the church is singing about here. In Exodus 14 we read the story of the deliverance of the Hebrew children as they escaped Egypt and Pharaoh's army is drowned in the Red Sea after they safely passed through. In Exodus 15 we hear the song of Moses and Miriam as they celebrate God’s deliverance from Egypt:

Exodus 15:1–3 ESV

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.

Just as Moses passed through the waters of the Red Sea to be delivered from the persecution and destruction of Pharaoh’s army, so the victorious church stands at the edge of the sea of their cleansing, singing “the song of Moses”—that God has destroyed the destroyer, He has delivered His people from the persecution and false gods of the Roman persecutors. The church sings a victory song because God is about to pour judgment out on the Beast of Rome, along with the judgment He is pouring out on Jerusalem itself.

And in verse 4 we see another reason for the victorious church’s song:

The church sings because it has seen Christ’s glory (Rev. 15:4)

Revelation 15:3–4 ESV

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

The word for “almighty” here is one of the traditional names for Christ in the early church, “Christ Pantokrator”—Christ the all-powerful! The day is coming when every nation on the planet is going to come and worship Jesus Christ! The whole world will come and glorify His Name, every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11)! The church is not standing by the sea of their cleansing apologizing for the Gospel, or ashamed of the fact of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every square inch of creation, are they? They see the mighty angels coming out of the heavenly Tabernacle bearing the plagues of ultimate judgment against Christ’s enemies, and it doesn’t make them ashamed, it makes them REJOICE!

The promises and power of God are sufficient for His church to overcome every trial—she is washed by the blood of the Lamb from all her sin and will be delivered from all persecution, and so she sings of the promises of God in salvation. And in the following verses she

II. Sees the power of God in judgment (Rev. 15:5-8)

Look with me at verses 5-6:

Revelation 15:5–6 ESV

After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes around their chests.

John briefly mentions these angels in verse 1, but here in verses 5-6 he describes them in more detail. They are “coming out of the sanctuary” of the “tent of witness” (the same way that the earthly Tabernacle is described in passages like Numbers 17:7)—again, the picture here is of the Temple of God in Heaven that we saw earlier in Rev. 11:19, when the sanctuary was opened, and the Ark of the Covenant was seen. And the angels that are bearing the plagues of God’s final judgment on Jerusalem are described as “clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes around their chests”—they are dressed like the priests in the Temple. Not because angels can carry out a priestly office between God and man (only Christ can do that), but I believe they are dressed this way to emphasize that

God’s judgments are holy (Rev. 15:5-6)

There is nothing evil or unjust about the horrible judgments that are about to be poured out on God’s enemies. When the victorious church saw the angels emerge from the tabernacle, dressed in the holy garb of priests offering sacrifices, they sang, “just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!” (Rev. 15:3). The righteous acts of God in judgment are never out of proportion, they never “go too far”, they are not in the slightest bit unfair or unjust—they are exquisitely designed to be an absolute perfect punishment in their every single facet. As we read the next chapter and the horror of these last seven judgments are described and we are tempted to think that God is “going too far” with judgment, what that reveals is not that God’s judgments are too severe for the sin He is punishing. It means that we have far too little understanding of how evil sin is.

The conquering church sees the power of God in judgment—His judgments are holy, and in verse 7 we see that

God’s judgments are faithful (Rev. 15:7)

Revelation 15:7 ESV

And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever,

We have seen these “golden bowls” earlier—they were filled with the prayers of the saints in Revelation 5:8. And in Revelation 6:9, we hear the blood of the martyrs crying out from under the altar with prayers that their blood be avenged—here in this verse all of those images converge—the wrath of God fills up the bowls full of the prayers of the martyrs. God remembers every drop of blood ever spilled for the sake of His Name. God is faithful to those who have suffered persecution for His sake, He will avenge every single death of every single Christian at the hands of every single persecutor throughout the history of the Church! The victorious church sees the power of God’s judgment to avenge every persecution they have ever suffered, and so she can sing!

She sings because she sees God’s judgments are holy, they are faithful, and in verse 8 we see that

God’s judgments are merciless (v. 8)

Verse 8 says

Revelation 15:8 ESV

and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.

The “sanctuary” of the Heavenly Tabernacle is opened, and instead of the mercy of God being revealed there (as it was in Rev. 11:19), the plagues of judgment are revealed! As one commentator put it, when judgment comes out of the place of mercy, you know things are bad!

And John says here that the smoke of the glory of God and His power filled the sanctuary so that “no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished”—there is no way to enter God’s presence to cry out for mercy. No one could enter the tabernacle to plead for grace, no prayers of repentance would be heard (even if the ones under judgment wanted to repent, which we will see next week that they didn’t)—these judgments that will fall in these last seven plagues were unstoppable and irreversible. And the conquering Church sees the power of God in those merciless judgments and rejoices in them!

And there is one more thing to notice from this chapter, as the conquering church sings of the promises of God in salvation and sees the power of God in judgment—and that is that the church begins singing that song before the judgment has even fallen. In other words, even before the judgment is final, the Church is already worshipping God for His just and true judgments.

Beloved, that is powerful for us and where we are today. We are in the midst of a time in the history of the church in this country when we are weak—too many churches are shot through will false teaching, too many pulpits are occupied by hirelings, heretics and cowards, too many churches have given up their loyalty to Christ and cry out to the secular gods of social justice and State control—but the same promises that God has made in this Book to the weak and compromised Church of the First Century are still true for the weak and compromised church of the 21st Century!

And so let us make it our aim that, no matter what we see happening in other churches, other denominations, other Christian organizations, that we will sing the song of the Conquering Church even now! That we will cry out in repentance for the idolatries that we have harbored in our hearts, believing that there is salvation in any government entity or that any worldly authority will protect us, and let us “conquer by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of His testimony, loving not our lives even to death” (Rev. 12:11). Let us sing of the Blood of the Lamb that washes us from every sin and stain—let us rejoice in the power of Jesus blood alone to free us from guilt, and not the false prophets of “white guilt” and “social justice”.

Let us make it our aim that we will sing of the deliverance we will have from all persecution and trials—the power that they have to make war against the saints comes from a defeated dragon, and their authority to pursue us has an expiration date! We can sing now the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, that the horse and rider has already been thrown into the sea, even as they strut and fret their brief hour on the world stage!

Let us make it our aim that we will never apologize for the Lordship of Christ, but that we will make it a central theme of our song—that no matter how dark the days may be ahead, no matter how many of our “religious liberties” are taken out behind the barn and shot in the next couple of years, that we will never back down from the song of the conquering Church:

Revelation 15:3–4 ESV

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

And let us take from the description of the tabernacle in these verses a reminder that we must pray for this nation before it is too late! The judgment that the angels prepared to pour out on Jerusalem in the next chapter came after centuries of God calling out to that city to repent—but instead of turning away from their sin and rebellion they murdered their Messiah instead, and when the final judgment came “there was no more remedy”, and there was no more chance to repent.

So pray, Christian—pray for this nation while we still can! Pray that God will grant repentance and grant us to turn away from our wickedness and rebellion and sin before the smoke of God’s anger fills the tabernacle and there is no more place for anyone to plead for mercy on this nation! Every day that dawns that this Republic still stands is another day when we can pray for God’s mercy. Pray that we will repent of the blood of millions of innocent children murdered in the womb, pray that we will repent of our fierce and violent hatred of God’s created sexual order that drives us to mutilate thousands of men, women and children with surgery and drugs to try to rebel against the sex they were assigned at birth by the Almighty Creator! Pray that God will grant us repentance for the carefully engineered racial hatreds that tear us apart, and for the powerful people who fuel those hatreds for their own ends. Beloved, pray for this nation before it is too late.

And as you pray for our nation, you watch your own soul—because if you pray for our nation with a spirit of self-righteousness and pride: “O Lord, I thank you that I am not like those Democratic Socialists!”), then your fate will be like the self-righteous religious zealots that the prophet Amos warned about in the Old Testament:

Amos 5:18–19 ESV

Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him.

You cannot take comfort in the power of God in His judgments against this nation’s sin if you are feeding your soul on the same self-righteousness and pride that you cry out to Him to address in this country! I tell you the truth, that on the Day you stand before Him in judgment, your personal disapproval of the ocean of babies’ blood our nation has spilled will not earn you one single iota of approval from God—only whether you have repented of all your pride and washed yourself in the Blood of the Lamb! So pray that our nation repents of its violence and perversion and pride, but only after you have repented of yours first! So come in repentance and faith, washed in His blood and rejoicing at the deliverance He is working for you even now by His universal power and authority, and sing in eager expectation of the Day when every nation on earth will join you in the worship of the righteous acts of the Almighty King, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

What are the ways the churches in Asia Minor were struggling with idolatrous allegiances, false teaching and sins of immorality? How do we see those same struggles reflected in the church in the United States today? What encouragement do we find in Revelation 15 for the struggles we are living through?

Read through Exodus 14-15. Why is it significant that the conquering church sings “the song of Moses” while standing by the “sea” in Revelation 15:2? What similarities do you see between the Hebrew children singing of their deliverance from Egypt and the churches singing of their deliverance from Roman persecution? What does this teach us about how we should sing as a church?

Read Revelation 15:8. What does it mean that “no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished”? How does this verse show you the importance of praying for our nation before it is too late? Do you know for certain that when the final judgment comes in your life that you will be saved from the wrath of God?