We have been looking at the subject of Heaven over the last few days. We talked a lot about faith and life and, in particular, Abraham. At the very end of yesterday’s message, we talked about God wiping away all tears of the elect. We saw this in Revelation 21:4:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
We also looked at Revelation 7:17, which is a similar verse. It says:
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
I said yesterday that we would look at three other verses that use this same Greek word where instead of the translation “wipe away,” it is translated as “blot out.” This is found in three different passages.
By the way, let me just mention something in Revelation 7:17. We have been talking a lot about the Word of God. Even in this verse, what is the Lamb doing but feeding them and leading them to “living fountains of waters”? We, of course, know that throughout eternity, we will be fed. We will be taught by God Himself in a perfect setting with a new soul and a new body, and we talked about how glorious this will be.
The first of these three passages that I would like us to look at is Acts 3:18-26 where we find “wipe away” translated as “blotted out.” We read in Acts 3:18-26:
But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
Yesterday, we talked a lot about “the law and the prophets” or similar phrases. Here again, this shows up in this passage twice. It says in verse 18, Acts 3:18:
But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets…
We read this also in verse 21, Acts 3:21:
…which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
Why is “mouth” singular since this is speaking of “his prophets”? The reason that this is singular is because this is referring to “the mouth of God.” God is only speaking with one voice. This voice goes from Genesis all the way to Revelation.
So, again, we see this repetition. God is emphasizing this enormously. As we said yesterday, this is because the foundation of everything is the Bible. Without the Bible, we do not have anything at all. If every letter and word in the original languages is not correct or if something is amiss, then this is not the Word of God. I repeat that this is the case in the original languages. There are problems, however, with translations; but in the original languages, we have the pure, unadulterated Word of God and this Word of God is able to save to the uttermost.
We know how faithful God has been to preserve His Word. This is what unsaved man does not recognize. God just did not decide to give the Bible and then put it into the hands of sinful men, thinking that somehow it would be preserved. No, He did not do this. He is the One who preserved His Word, just as He preserves His saints.
If we look at how Christ—the Word who became flesh—was treated when He was on earth, we get a little indication of how much people despise the Word of God, how much contempt they have for it, how much abuse they give the Word of God. This is true even though in our day we are seeing something remarkable, which is that God is exalting His Word as never before.
This is the preeminence and the prominence that His Word should have always had. Technically, it always did; but because of man’s sinfulness, man totally disregards it. This is ultimately because he is in rebellion against God and he does not want to serve God; he wants to do his own thing.
This is why “all we like sheep have gone astray.” This is why God is the only One who could rein the sheep in. This is something that only “the good shepherd” could do and this is what He has been doing ever since the beginning, ever since Abel. We know that Abel was a believer. Possibly Adam and Eve were, but we do not know this; we do, however, know that Abel was.
So since the time of Abel, God has been bringing in the sheep, and Jesus said, “there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” and “other sheep I have…them also I must bring.” Wonderfully, this is what He is going to be doing right up until May 21st, 2011.
Let us look at another passage, which is Colossians 2:10-15:
And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Here we see in verse 14, Colossians 2:14:
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances…
How do we understand this? We know that the Bible is a “twoedged sword.” It is the Law of God. As the Law of God, it has the purpose to condemn on one side of the sword. On the other side of the sword, it is able to give life. I believe that this is how we are to understand this.
The Law condemns. This started right at the Garden of Eden. If you remember, God told Adam and Eve that in the day that they ate of the fruit, “thou shalt surely die.” This phrase is actually, “dying ye shall die.” This is how it is literally in the Hebrew.
God is making a point in this. He is emphasizing it twice, which makes us think of the “second death.” This is because in this phrase, He is basically saying, “This is the lake of fire. This is the second death.”
This is essentially pointing to not only physical death but, ultimately, annihilation. Everything is going to be annihilated on October 21st, 2011. But this started in the Garden of Eden and it is going to have its fulfillment on October 21st, 2011, even though we have this period of great torment of “the day of the LORD,” which will last for five months or 153 days prior to this.
We have to keep in mind that we have nothing but mercy right now. However, as soon as this day hits, there is going to be no mercy. This is just like when Noah got onto the Ark, there was no mercy left for anyone else who was outside of the boat, none whatsoever. This is exactly what is going to happen again.
This is why God is using these illustrations of Abraham and Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah and the flood, and Joseph knowing the timing. All of these things are reminders, and a lot of the speakers in this conference have reminded us that God is warning, God is warning, God is warning, over and over and over again. Therefore, man does not have an excuse. The warning has been given.
There is one other passage and then we will move on. This is Revelation 3:3-5:
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
Again, here we see God’s faithfulness, His promise to all of the elect that not one of them will be lost. They will all be gathered together in the fold.
There is another beautiful promise in Isaiah 25:8-9, which is similar to this idea of wiping away all tears that we saw in Revelation 21:4 and in Revelation 7:17. This is Isaiah 25:8-9:
He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord JEHOVAH will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for JEHOVAH hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is JEHOVAH; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Again, this is a beautiful example of God’s promise to the elect, His undeserved mercy to His elect.
Let us now go back to the passage in Revelation 21:4. It says:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
We looked at 1 Corinthians 15, but this bears repeating because of the enormous victory that Christ has won over death, which is “the last enemy that shall be destroyed.” Remember that “death and hell” are “cast into the lake of fire.” This is the “second death.” It says in 1 Corinthians 15:55-57:
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is similar to what we read in the previous verse in 1 Corinthians 15. We read in 1 Corinthians 15:56:
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
The Law is what gives sin its teeth, because there is a punishment. The punishment is “the wages of sin is death.” This has to take place. If we are not saved, we are going to die physically and then be annihilated.
What is probably worse for man is the idea that he will never be remembered. Man loves to be remembered. This is why we have presidential libraries. This is why we have books written by man. All of these things are “to bring to remembrance.” Really, we could say that to not be remembered is the greatest tragedy, and yet this is what man, because of his pride, clings to. He lives for this.
In the Psalms, it speaks of how the rich “leave their wealth to others” and that “their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations.” There are household names all around the world that we are familiar with, and yet they will never be remembered again. They will not even come into anyone’s mind.
I do not know about God, but we definitely will not remember because God will have erased our hard drives and it is going to be a whole new reality. This reality will be just so phenomenal that there is really not much we can say about it, other than what the Bible says, which is “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
This idea of the “sting of death” being sin and the “strength of sin” being the Law is similar to what we just read in Colossians 2 where it talks about the “circumcision made without hands.” Circumcision has to do with the cutting away of the flesh, which is pointing to salvation.
This is why in one place God says to “circumcise thine heart,” which is a big and very important verse. This is because there are a lot of similar verses where God says, “Believe,” “Confess,” “Repent,” “Be baptized,” i.e., “Do all of these things”; and yet when we get to this verse, there is a problem because we cannot do this. We cannot circumcise our hearts. We do not have the ability to circumcise our hearts. God is the only One who can do this and He is teaching us by this verse that He has to do it all.
Even though God gives these commands, we are incapable of keeping these commands as God would have us to keep them prior to salvation, so God is the One who is doing this. In fact, it says in Colossians 2:11:
…in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Christ had to be cut off. Before the foundation of the world, He had to shed His blood or give up His life, which is what the shedding of blood means. He had to give up His life. He had become a curse and He was cut off, completely cut off.
We see this in Lamentations 3. We see this in a lot of different places, like in Jonah 2 where Jonah is in the belly of the whale and it says that he was in “the belly of hell.” Christ was completely cut off. He was dead, He was annihilated, and He was destroyed.
We do not understand this because our mind cannot wrap itself around this idea. It is just too huge. We know that this had to take place because this is what we deserve. By nature, we deserve death. We deserve to be annihilated, and so this is what happened.
In A.D. 33 is where we have this demonstration. I have not done a study like this, but it would be an interesting study to go through all of the details starting in the garden of Gethsemane and going all the way up to the resurrection. This would be interesting because these details are giving us information about what happened prior to the foundation of the world.
One other thing that I would just like to mention before we move ahead is Romans 2 where it talks about a true Jew, a spiritual Jew, and it also talks about circumcision. We read in Romans 2:28-29:
For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
We have the letter of the Law, which serves to condemn, and then we have the Spirit of the Law, which can give life; and so this is really making the point that in the Old Testament, to a high degree, the Jews had a mistaken notion. They believed that as long as they were circumcised in the flesh and did all of these things, this would be the basis for their salvation.
As I said yesterday, man wants this kind of security. This is because this is something that he can see with his physical eyes; it is something that he can point to. This is a very sinful thing, however, because the Bible says that “we walk by faith, not by sight”; so we need to keep this principle firmly in our minds.
In the same exact manner as the Jews, the churches and denominations during the church age fell into this same trap. They also wanted physical sight, some physical something that is tangible.
People do not like to be in limbo and not knowing. It can be very troubling to be in a situation where we are not sure. Yet, really, according to the Bible, this is the safest place to be, because the other is a lie. It is a lie that cannot save someone anymore than taking a shower can save someone, and it is just as ludicrous to think this.
This is the nature of man because he wants something physical to grab onto and say, “Yes, now I have it.” However, this is not the case. This is not how salvation works. Salvation is a gift. God is looking at the heart; and only God can give that broken heart, that contrite heart, which out of sheer desperation is begging God for mercy.
We see this very clearly in the parable of the publican and the Pharisee. The Pharisee was very confident. All he was doing was boasting, and yet God never heard his prayer and would not respond to his prayer. He tells us that the Pharisee did not go down to his house justified, but the publican did. The publican was so broken that he “would not lift up so much as his eyes”; he was just bowed down.
This is the posture of complete humility and complete brokenness in someone when they realize, “I cannot do anything. This is impossible.” Did Jesus not say this? He said, “With men it is impossible.”
So the first wrung of the ladder that we have to come to in salvation is to realize, “This is impossible! I cannot get saved. There is no way on my own.” This means that we are entirely dependent upon God to show mercy.
Really, if we are honest, we are dependent every second of the day on God. We are dependent on Him for the blood in our veins and to keep our heart pumping. We are dependent on Him for the fact that we are living in a fairly tranquil situation. We are not in a war zone at the moment, maybe a spiritual war zone; but we are in this room and it is quiet. The government has allowed us to be here. We do not have officers knocking on the door and questioning us and taking us into rooms and taking notes, etc. There is a tremendous amount of freedom; but every moment of the day, we are totally dependent on God for everything. There is not one thing that we are not dependent on Him for. The Bible even says, “Thou canst not make one hair white or black.” How is it that if we cannot do something that He says “which is least,” how could we think that we could go from spiritual death to spiritual life, something that takes a miracle, the greatest miracle of all?
Going back to Revelation 21:4, we read:
…there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying…
God is reiterating some things here in this statement that we are accustomed to, very much so, on this earth. We are acquainted with sorrow, with pain, with suffering, with crying. These are part and parcel of what it means to be a human being.
Jesus was called “a man of sorrows.” He identified with us completely, but without sin, of course. As a man, He identified completely with these emotions that are part of the human race. It says in Isaiah 53 that He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Of course, we have to look at the spiritual meaning of this because I believe that this chapter is pointing to “before the foundation of the world.” I cannot say this with absolute certainty because I have not studied it, but it appears that this is the case.
So as a man, we see His pathos, we see His emotion, even at the grave of Lazarus when Mary said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” He had already been dead for four days; and then we read that “Jesus wept,” just like He wept over Jerusalem.
We can see how He was moved. This was God in the flesh and He was moved to tears, and so we get a little glimpse into His character, not as God—He is always God and never ceases to be God—but as a man. As a man, He identified completely with mankind.
Whom did He hang around with? He hung around with publicans, harlots, tax collectors, etc. Perhaps in our day, these would be known as the riff-raff. These are the people whom He hung around with and these people knew that they were sinners.
It was the clergy, the religious leaders, who rejected Him and wanted nothing to do with Him; and they felt that if they associated with someone who was, for example, a prostitute, then they were coming down to their level; but this is the wrong mentality. This is the “holier than thou” mentality that God refers to as “a smoke in my nose.”
God says certain things over and over again in relation to this, for example, “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies” and “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.” This is because they came with a false pretense. They came thinking that they were somehow better than others, when we know that God says that we are all alike; we are all in the same boat, so to speak. If we are saved, it is only because of the grace of God.
This is one of the reasons why Jesus spoke so forcefully against the religious leaders of His day. If you read Matthew 23, He really lets them have it in verse after verse after verse after verse. This was reserved for them because of the fact that they were the ones who should have known better. This is why He told them in Matthew 23, “All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not”; and there are many similar verses like this.
We are still in Revelation 21:4:
…neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
This word for “pain” is only used again in Revelation 16 where we find two consecutive verses with this word. If I am not mistaken, this is speaking about the day of judgment. We read in Revelation 16:10-11:
And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.
There will be no repentance because there will be no salvation. Repentance is salvation. It is that turning around that only God can give a person, but it will be too late because they will have entered into the day of judgment and there will be no more mercy.
We have never experienced this. I guess the closest thing to the idea of there being absolutely no mercy would be Noah’s flood, even though there was mercy within that ark when God started the human race all over again.
But this is obviously even greater than this; because on the day of judgment, there will be no more mercy, period. It will just be judgment, judgment, judgment. Finally, at the end of the 153 days, if anybody is alive at this point, which I imagine there could be, there will be the annihilation of the whole universe.
Again, everything will be forgotten. It will be as if this hiatus of 13,023 years never existed. This is because there will be the eternity past that was prior to these 13,023 years, and then there will be the eternity future after October 21st, 2011.
Why God would set up this hiatus to bring about this universe, to bring man on the scene, to provide salvation since He knew that man would fall into sin, I do not know. I do not know why He would do this; but, obviously, He had good reason to do this.
The outcome of these 13,023 years was to gather these 200 million people or so, if this is indeed the correct number, to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet He does not need a wife. Some of us need wives and we are married, but He does not need a wife. There is not something lacking there, and yet He has a wife and we are this wife.
How can this be, especially when we look at ourselves in the flesh? The Bible says that we are nothing but worms and maggots, apart from salvation.
Why would God do this? It is just simply astounding that He would and that this Bride, which comprises all of the elect who have ever lived on planet earth, will be forever the Lamb’s wife throughout eternity, inheriting everything that God is and that God has because “they two shall be one flesh.”
There are no words to really be able to even fathom the surface of this. This is just way, way, way too deep; but we do know that “the former things are passed away.”
This is also picked up in Isaiah 65:17, which helps us to solidify this as well. It is almost like this is a New Testament verse. It says:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
What is so ironic is that unsaved man tries so desperately to aim for “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Yet for all of his striving and working and sweating, it eludes him. He is not going to be able to get it or to keep it. He might think that he has it for a short period of time on this earth, but it is going to be destroyed. He will not be able to take it to Heaven. He will not even be in Heaven. He will not even be remembered anymore. Everything is going to be completely taken away from him, everything that he worked so hard for.
This is like what we read in the book of Haggai, a minor prophet, where it says, “He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” Everything just drains out and you have nothing left; this is the idea. In other words, there is no value in any of this at all. It is like sand going through your fingers. You cannot hang on to it.
I think that it was Chris who mentioned yesterday that everything is going to be shaken; this whole universe is going to be shaken. The only thing that is unshakable is the Kingdom of God and anybody in the Kingdom of God. Everything else is going to be physically shaken.
I believe that this shaking has already started on a spiritual level, because there is a great shaking out and a great winnowing that is going on right now as God is setting up test after test after test to see, “Do you believe this? Do you believe that? What about this over here?”
This is why there is a division and an antagonism that is very, very sharp, which makes me think of that passage where Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
I believe that this is referring to the time that we are in right now, because “the sword” is dividing. It is separating the wheat from the tares and the tares are being bundled. This is the nature of the time that we are living in right now.
Okay, “The former things are passed away… Behold, I make all things new.” We see this in Revelation 21:5. This is a dramatic statement that God makes:
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new…
There are some things that we want to look at that are “new” that we read about in the Bible. For example, we read in Ecclesiastes where it says that “there is no new thing under the sun.” This is a major theme in Ecclesiastes, as He talks about this over and over again.
When we think about the fact that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes as well as Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, and yet he was not saved. This is scary. This is scary for me, but I think that the way that we can understand this is that God can use anything and anybody—a donkey—to do His will, which is God’s prerogative. We do not have a say in this matter. God does what He wishes, but we do know that it is perfect. We do know that what God does is righteous and holy, and we do know that He is so wise and so infinitely wise that everything is being done to His glory and honor.
So let us look at a few of these passages where the Bible talks about things that are “new.” The first one that I would like us to look at is in Revelation 21:1, which has to do with the new heavens and the new earth. It says in Revelation 21:1:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
1 John 2:16-17 tells us:
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
I do not know if “passed/passeth away” is the same Greek word in both of these cases, but the idea is that we know that this world is going to pass away. It is going to pass out of existence. It is going to pass out of remembrance, as far as our remembrance or anyone who has ever lived on this planet.
This is why Revelation 21:1 says:
…for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Then there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
We also are going to have new bodies. We read about this in 1 Corinthians 15:49-52:
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep [or die], but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Again, we see the fact that if we are indeed a child of God, we are going to enter into a whole new reality. We will enter into the new heavens and the new earth with a brand new body. Instantaneously, we will go from this reality, which we are very accustomed to, into a whole new reality.
I like to think about the analogy of the little seed, for example, a rose seed. This seed is very inconsequential. It is very plain. There is not much to it; but then you plant this seed and this beautiful, red, gorgeous, sweet-smelling rose comes up. How can we get such a beautiful rose from such a little seed? How incredible is that? Yet we know that this is what God has formed.
I realize that this is a poor analogy, but that little seed represents perhaps our life in this body of corruption, and yet God can change this body of corruption, make it a brand new body, a complete metamorphoses, a transformation, so that this new body will be able to inherit eternity. It will be able to go throughout eternity married to God Himself, being one with God Himself.
If we go to Revelation 2:17, it talks about “a new name”:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
“A new name”; I do not really know what this is, but it says that only the one receiving this stone with the new name will know it. I am sorry, but I do not really know what this means. However, there is going to be “a new name written.”
Revelation 3:12 says:
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem…
So this city is called “new Jerusalem.” It continues:
…which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
There is also “a new song.” We read in Revelation 5:9:
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
So there is a new song. Of course, this is referring to our day when God has opened the seals, as the Lord Jesus has opened the seals of the Bible that God had previously sealed up and that nobody could open.
Let us look at this briefly. Let us back up to the beginning of this chapter. We read in Revelation 5:1-8:
And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
We see that only the Lord Jesus could open this Book.
As far as this “new song” that they are singing, I would like to look at this again. There is another song that they sing, which is the Song of Moses, but I think that this is different. However, do not hold me to this.
One more passage that I would like to look at before we close is Revelation 14:3. This is similar. We read in Revelation 14:1-3:
And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
I think that we will stop here. Next time, I would like to go over the passage that says, “To him that overcometh,” which is used in all of the references to the individual churches in Revelation 2 and 3, churches that started out okay but quickly fell into apostasy. They are a representation of the church throughout the church age, and I would like us to look a little more closely to these references next time.
Let us stop here.