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Bill Henry: We even lift up our trials and our fears, our hurts and our pain to the Lord in praise. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. To be one who is continually praising God.

And guess what? It then changes our view on everything that we have. Our house is no longer our house because we've been bought with the blood of Christ. Our time is no longer our time because we've been joyfully bought with the blood of Christ. And so all of a sudden, these things turn into joyful things.

Guest (Male): Let's begin another time of in-depth Bible study and practical application here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, coming to you from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel. Athletes are famous for their comebacks. They retire, they miss the game, they come back more or less to mixed results.

We never really know when it comes to comebacks, do we? Well, there's one comeback that we can count on to be spectacular and that's the return of Jesus Christ to reign on the earth. That's the subject of today's broadcast as we look at Revelation chapter 19. Here's Pastor Bill Henry.

Bill Henry: Look, even today guys and gals, we need to remember as we look around and we see the perversions. Amen? Dude, you cannot look anywhere without seeing perversions. They're teaching perversions to our little children, encouraging them to go into and worship these perversions.

God will judge them. That doesn't mean we don't stand up against them by the way. We live in a country where we can stand up against these wicked things where we have freedoms that we can use to stand up and protest and vote against this wickedness. But remember guys and gals, even if evil still prospers, guess what? God will always judge them.

And there are many today who are corrupting the earth with their fornications. God will judge this great harlot because they will corrupt the earth. And so too today we're seeing this already unfolding before our eyes, the fornication. God will avenge the blood of his servants shed by her.

Look guys and gals, I do believe that in the days we're in that if God tarries, that we're going to continue to see more and more persecution against Christians. Even today in Pakistan more Christians have been killed. The other day in southern Africa, a country there, over 4,000 churches were shut down because of technicalities. I think it's going to come more and more and we see all of this turning against us. But here's the point: God does not forget this.

And that's where we find our rest. God will avenge, and there's nothing wrong with that. Look at verse 3. "And they again said Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever." I find it difficult personally when even leaders of Hamas are killed. I find it difficult to rejoice. I know it's the right thing and it's the just thing.

But I also know that we have to be careful as Christians, especially this side of heaven. Remember, they're on the other side of heaven. They're rejoicing as completely righteous and true because it's in Christ. We still have our flesh. So we need to be careful. I'm very careful with even when I'll stand up against Hamas, I'll stand up against the enemies of righteousness and truth.

But I'll be very careful in judging as far as rejoicing when they are defeated even. It's something we have to do, but I don't find a rejoicing, not until the other side of glory where I can do it in righteousness before God. And that's what they're doing. Hey, Alleluia! They're rejoicing, her smoke rises up forever and ever.

Most of your commentators say that this basically shows that basically the punishment of the wicked will be forever and ever, as we're going to see in the lake of fire coming up later in this book. Verse 4. It says "And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who sat on the throne saying, Amen, Alleluia!"

So now more of heaven is joining in. I love this as we see the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures that were introduced back in chapter 4. We studied about them. And if you remember, some commentators say these twenty-four elders represent the current church, the bride of Christ, the church.

Remember once we are raptured, the church age quote-unquote will end and basically there'll be believers that come to faith during the tribulation. Those will be tribulation saints. Basically, a different category of saints, just like Old Testament saints are in a different category. And so the twenty-four elders here represents the church.

And then the four living creatures we explained again back in chapter 4, so if you want to go back and look at that as well. But notice they're sitting here and they're praising God. They're saying Alleluia! They worshipped God, they fell down, worshipped God who sat on the throne saying Amen, Alleluia! How many of us have ever fell down and worshipped God?

Now I don't fall down and worship God, I'm too refined and I've been brought up, I don't even raise my hands during worship. Why would I? No. We have to be careful not to get unbiblical, right? Let's start dancing before the Lord or let's start swinging off the chandeliers or blowing shofar horns or things like that.

Look, but at the same time it's okay to worship God, to sing our praises out to him. It's okay. As we even see here and I love this, we see another Alleluia, we see another praise the Lord as they're just lifting up Amen, Alleluia! And so here we see those in heaven falling down, worshipping God.

For the Christian, the worship of God is simply an outpouring of the great love that he has given to us. And so again, 1 John 4:19, "We love him because he first loved us." Do you love Jesus? Do you love Jesus hard as he loves you? And then let me ask you this: Do you worship Jesus? Do you worship him hard?

Romans 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. Hey, God loved us even while we were yet sinners. Again, we don't worship God because we have to. We worship God because we get to.

We worship God because we can now enter into his throne room of grace boldly. Hebrews 4:16 says this. Hebrews 4:16, "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Romans 12:1, "I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God which is your reasonable service." Worship should not only be what we sing on Sunday morning or maybe a Wednesday night.

Worship should be a lifestyle that we now live as the called and chosen of God. As those who have now been born again by the Spirit of God, worship should be our lifestyle. Worship should be how we live our lives because that's basically what we're going to be doing for the most part for all eternity.

So again remember that we have been chosen by God himself into his beloved family. We have repented of our sins freely and through the shed blood of Jesus Christ his son, we've come into the family of God. Man, thus worship is something we now do with all our life.

We should be lifting up our wives or husband in the praise of the Lord. We should be lifting up our moms and dads in the praise to the Lord, our children in praise to the Lord. We should be lifting up our singleness in praise to the Lord, our voices in prayers and fasting in praise to the Lord.

The gifts that God has given us up in praise to the Lord. We should lift our work and our school up in praise to the Lord. The hard work that we do in those places in praise to God. To lift up our many blessings in praise to Jesus. We even lift up our trials and our fears, our hurts and our pain to the Lord in praise.

It may be through tears, "Lord I can't even but I still praise you in the midst of this." The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. To be one who is continually praising God and guess what? It then changes our view on everything that we have.

Our house is no longer our house because we've been bought with the blood of Christ. Our time is no longer our time because we've been joyfully bought with the blood of Christ. And so all of a sudden these things turn into joyful things.

Maybe you're scrubbing the floor in the kitchen and you're just "I want to praise you Lord much more than I do." Isn't that so much better than "I hate this. I can't even believe this. Such a bummer." Which category do we mostly fall in? I know for me sometimes I fall in that latter category.

Man, just lift up your life as a praise song to the Lord. Look at your life in that way. Look at verse 5. "Then a voice came from the throne saying, Praise our God all you servants and those who fear him, both small and great." And so now we see a voice coming from the throne of God, seemingly go out to the rest of heaven, giving the command, "Praise our God all you servants."

Can I ask who's a servant here of the Lord? Anybody? Guess what? This is also for us. A servant of the Lord. And here we go, do you fear the Lord this morning? Remember fear him, respect him with a holy respect and love. Do you consider yourself important?

Notice small and great. This isn't talking about short people and tall people. This is talking about people who think themselves nothing at all. "Oh the Lord doesn't want my worship." That's all he wants. That's all God wants is your worship, your love, your praise. That's what we were designed to do, to bring him glory, to fellowship with him, to walk with him, to bring him glory.

So do you consider yourself unimportant? "Oh God doesn't want mine." Or do you think of yourself too important this morning? You know what I love? Death is the great equalizer. Nobody here's going to die whether we're a million zillionaire, a billionaire, whatever.

Nobody here's going to stand any different before God's throne. "I'm a billionaire, oh well where's my line?" The same line, buddy. It's the same line. Are you under the blood of Jesus or not? Look, whether you consider yourself important or unimportant, praise God!

It always amazes me that we have so many opportunities to worship the Lord and we sometimes just don't do it. When we come here even this morning, how many people don't sing? It's like, dude, I flash right back almost every time to when I first got saved and then times through my life where God has just continued to keep me in his hand and the great love and then what's coming and how can I not praise my God?

Well you're a nutbar Pastor Bill. I guess I am. God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Let's all be nutbars for Jesus. Amen. I'm happily that. Sincerely. Look, we need to be those who understand that most of the time in heaven's going to be worship.

Are you ready for that? I talked to a fellow many years ago who came to this church for a while and he's like "Yeah you know I find worship time it's really boring." And like "Well bro, come and sit down. We gotta get you saved." And I was sincere. If you find worship boring, why would you want to go to heaven where that's going to be the main attraction?

And by the way, I can't wait to fall down at the feet of my Jesus and worship him. To kiss his feet, to just cry and wash his feet and just worship and thank him that I'm even there. I'll be a servant in the back. I'll open doors for everybody. Just thank you for saving me Jesus. And that's how we should all be.

Verse 5 again notice it says "Praise to our God all you servants and those who fear him, both great and small." Again we see this echoed from Psalm 115 verse 13. Psalm 115 verse 13 says, "He will bless those who fear the Lord both small and great."

And here's the command, "Hey both small and great fear and bless the Lord." Guess what? He will never be out-blessed. God always blesses those who do that. Look at verse 6 in our text. "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and the sound of mighty thunderings saying, Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns."

Alleluia! Alleluia! You know, that's where this is from. "For the Lord God Almighty reigns, the Lord God Omnipotent." Now I love this as the worship here seems to be continually escalating. Notice now there's this sound of a voice of a great multitude, the sound of many waters, and the sound of mighty thunderings.

I love this. Now we're going to look again at this verse next week because I think the praise here is not about the defeat of Babylon anymore, but it has changed into a praise now as directed by God that will be a praise for a celebration that is coming and that is the celebration of the wedding feast of the Lamb.

And so this verse kind of goes into that. And notice this is a great multitude which will include all of us at this point. We have been those who have been born again of the Spirit of God. The sounds of many waters as the sound of mighty thunderings. This will be some radical worship.

I don't see any I'm kind of missing the part though where it says that there'll be smoke coming off the stage or light shining out at the people. I don't see that. Why? Because it's going to be about the Lord. You see I love this. Who's the center of this radical worship? It's God.

It's not the fantastical four creatures or all these other no it is the Lord God Almighty. Again we're reminded here that worship is not about us. It is never about us. Worship is not about how it makes us feel. Worship is not even having the best or greatest music in the world.

Worship is about freely humbling ourselves and loving, worshipping and praising him who is our Lord and God. Bowing before him. Years ago when I was learning to lead worship in a band, a worship band, a blessed man named John taught me some very important things about worship.

And first he taught me it wasn't about me. It wasn't about the band or sounding great. But that we should practice to sound good. But the main goal was to go ourselves into the throne room of God and invite everyone else to follow us to worship God.

And the other thing he said, don't do anything to distract people from their worship of God, good or bad. That's why you'll never you know we always try to sing on tune so we're not distracting. We always try whatever we're never going to have a guitar if you we might have an electric guitar someday or a full drum set. We've had that before.

But it's never going to be "Okay it's time for a drum solo, it's time for a guitar solo." Those are distracting. And even somebody who does runs and even if they're beautiful, they're distracting. Because I'm not here to hear her. I'm here to sing praises to my God and that's how we all should be. This isn't a show.

And that's what this reminds us of. Notice they're saying "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns." Here we have yet our fourth Alleluia. And this is basically why. Because the Lord God Omnipotent reigns. You know as we get ready to close, may I ask you a question?

Do you know this, beloved in Christ? Do you know that the Lord God Omnipotent reigns? Another translation put it this way, "Hallelujah Adonai, God of heaven's armies has begun his reign." In Wuest has an expanded translation from the Greek, he says like this: "Saying Hallelujah, because the Lord our God the Omnipotent has assumed his royal authority, let us be rejoicing and let us be glad."

You see this is the time when God now is asserting he has wiped out the financial system of the beast. We're going to see the second coming of Jesus Christ to the earth to rule and reign for a thousand years. And they are excited. The people whoo! We can't wait. Alleluia!

Praise God! And I love this as we see this that this is coming. Alleluia! For the Lord God Almighty reigns. You know no one else comes even near being close to the power and the authority of God Almighty. He alone is omnipotent. Omnipotent means he is all-powerful.

There is no king, no president, no dictator, no billionaire, no computer mogul, no artificial intelligence, no fallen angel or demon, not even Satan himself comes close to having the same power of God. We need to remember this. Remember who God is.

He is the Lord God Omnipotent and he reigns! He is the Lord our Lord. He is our God, the one and only true God forever existing in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He's not only given you his word to know him and to show you his perfect will through it, but he's also given you his great love by his giving us his Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit living within the believer is omnipotent. He is all-powerful as well. He is your omnipotent Father. Your omnipotent Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That's who your Father is now. You've been adopted into the kingdom of God.

Romans 8:14 and 15 says "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba Father."

Galatians 4 verses 6 and 7: "And because we are his children, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts prompting us to call out Abba Father. Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child and since you are his child, God has made you his heir."

Oh beloved in Christ, remember who you are and whose you are. God is in complete authority even though he's letting Satan for a time even now still be the ruler of this world. This is what's coming, what we see here and what we're reading here and I'm telling you what man, when we remember to be even in our own lives: Alleluia for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you a message from Pastor Bill from his new series in the book of Revelation.

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Thank you so much for joining us today, be sure to join us next time as our series in Revelation continues here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel.