7th Trumpet: Culmination Rev, 11:15-19

Good morning. I have some good news to report. Efforts have failed to date to cross a pastor with an Energizer bunny, so I won't keep going and going, okay? But we want to go ahead and go into our passage here this morning. We want to go into our passage this morning and one of the things we like to do here is to just kind of keep our perspective One of the things that we've noted in the past is kind of the syncopation that occurs in Revelation. Revelation is kind of like a work of music in that we get this syncopation between the earthly scene and the heavenly scene. And what we go into this morning is a return to a heavenly scene. And so we'll be looking at that as we look at this morning's passage. We've completed to date up to here, and we have several more of these syncopations, if you will, between the earthly and the heavenly scene.

And one of the things, just to reiterate, bring people up to speed and remind us, is these heavenly scenes are valuable. They're valuable from a number of standpoints, but one of them is that while Paul tells us that we have been seated with Christ, John gives us narrative description of those who are seated with Christ and who are otherwise with Christ. And so that's valuable for us to learn from. One of the other perspectives I think would be valuable for us to take a look at here is this one. And this is also reflected on your handout. We have the three sets of judgments.

There are seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. And one of the things we're going to see today, this is called the third woe, and yet, as you read it, you look at it and say, what's so woeful about that? Well, this is what's woeful. It's not that the woe is contained in this seventh trumpet. It's that this seventh trumpet opens up the next series of judgments. So contained in and beginning with this seventh, seventh trumpet are the seven bowl judgments.

That's why it's called the third woe. Not because of what we'll read here this morning, but because it begins the last series, the seven bowl or vial judgments. So that's why this is a third woe, even though what we'll read this morning doesn't sound too woeful.

The other truth that comes from that is the seventh bowl or vial is actually the beginning of the Millennium, the 1000 year reign of Christ. So this pattern of each series then beginning and opening the next is what we see throughout the Tribulation period and as an entrance into the Millennium. Now, something else here. Let's take a look at verse 15. Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and is Christ's, and he will reign forever and ever."

And one of the things we brought out before is that these trumpets are not musical trumpets. They are military trumpets. They are announcing God's attack against rebellion and wickedness on the earth, and the rejection of the Savior. That's what these trumpets are announcing. They are announcing, as a military trumpet, the attack. Now, what we see here is there's loud voices. We've been seeing these loud voices and hearing them too, as I've elevated my voice from time to time.

I wait until later in the message to do that, because then that wakes people up, right? But here it comes early, so we'll have to do with a regular voice level. Anyway, as you recall, the loud voice in the book of Revelation is always from a heavenly being or creature, never from an earthly being. And in this instance, however, we find something different.

In the past, you've seen the phrase, loud voice. Here, it's in the plural, loud voices instead of a loud voice. This is the only place in Revelation that we find this plural. In fact, the only other place in all the New Testament where we find this word pair, loud voices, is when the people are crying for Jesus' crucifixion. So here's a contrast, isn't it?

Back then, the loud voices came from earthlings. Here, the only other place where this phrase shows up, the loud voices come from heaven itself. The second thing is, the loud voices phrase is, the loud voices are in heaven. This is the only phrase where the loud voices in heaven show up. It's interesting, not allowed to cry. That's one thing John finds out. Don't cry. But loud voices in heaven are okay.

So you can remember that, kids. It's because of the uniqueness of what is being announced, as we'll see here in a moment. Let's listen carefully to what these loud voices in heaven are saying. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. Well, as usual, that reminds me of a song. This is a simple one. I'd like for you to join with me after I've had a chance to go through it. I think you'll pick it up pretty quickly. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and is Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. Won't you join with me? The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and is Christ and He will reign forever and ever.

Let's look at the phrase, the kingdom of the world. One of the things to recognize, this world has lots of kingdoms. These days we don't think as much in the nature of kingdoms, because a lot of countries have gone to democracies, but essentially it's looking at lots of domains. But we have in this world, there is a kingdom of this world, and that kingdom is of Satan. Scripture tells us that Satan is the god of this world, as 2 Corinthians 4. 1231, 1430, and 1611. It's funny how John keeps making the point. Satan is called the ruler of this world.

In John 5.19 he says, we know that we are of God, but that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. Right now that is. Satan knows this well. In Matthew 4, 8, and 9, he even offered these kingdoms to Christ, if Christ would bow down to him.

But you and I know well, our citizenship isn't here. Our citizenship doesn't belong on this planet, does it? The world does have a kingdom, but Scripture makes it clear that our position is unchangeably with Christ. We walk around among people who know no other kingdom but the kingdom of this world. Though we ourselves live physically in this world's kingdom, we live in our spiritual position in Christ, now seated in the heavenlies. Why should we settle for crying to the Lord out of this kingdom from our physical standing in the world's earthly kingdom? Instead, we can deal with this world's kingdom from our heavenly position, seated with Christ in the heavenlies. See the contrast there? This world does have a kingdom, but we don't need to live from it, and we don't need to live in it.

From the standpoint of the world, the last three and a half years of the tribulation period will appear to be dominated by Satan. But Satan will have actually a desperate, tyrannical rule It's not going to be a rule that is solid and sure and secure. Instead, Satan's rule over these last three and a half years of the Tribulation are going to be a desperate grab. He's going to have a death grip on the world, but it will be fleeting. In the end, it will all slip through his fingers. We're going to see Satan move frantically upon the earth in the last three and a half years of the Tribulation period.

He will attack those who believe in Christ, the Tribulation Saints. He will attack the Jews, God's chosen people, the source of the Savior. He will have this tyrannical death grip on the world. He will come after, or wish he could come after, all those who have any means of proclaiming the Lord's Gospel.

Can you imagine how frustrated he is going to be knowing that he can only do what God gives him permission to do? That's right. He can only do what God gives him permission to do. One of the things as we go through Revelation, we're going to be seeing how it was given to the Antichrist. It was given to the Beast to have a victory. It was only given because it was granted to him, not something he took of his own will. God is not going to be strong-armed, as we'll see this move forward. Now, how deceived the deceiver must be to think that he can actually grab hold of control. God is the one who is in control. Seven times the Greek word day is used in Revelation. It means must in English. It occurs in a context in which the things that are told in this book must take place. They have to occur. They have to come to pass.

See, this book is not God's best guess. This is not God's option. These are things which must come to pass, must take place. The millennial reign of Christ, and that's what these beings in heaven are declaring, the millennial reign of Christ is something which must take place absolutely. It must, of necessity, come about. Now notice this somewhat unusual expression here. Of the Lord and of His Christ. You see, this is the Lord's doing. and Christ is His specific appointment. He came as the Messiah not because it was God's plan B. He wasn't thinking, oh my heavens, the world's out of control. I've got to do something. Why don't you go? This was God's plan A. There is no plan B. This is exactly what God had in mind.

It is also the fulfillment of every promise that God made to Abraham and to David and on down, even of the words, the very words, that the angel Gabriel said to Mary. Fulfillment of all those promises. And then this declaration, these loud voices in heaven, finish with, and He will reign forever and ever.

See, one of the things we like to have is a good ending, but one of the things that you notice, you know, you watch a movie or something of that sort and they have this good ending, But you know that ending isn't the ending on any of those, is it? That ending is sort of, that's the way it gets wrapped up there, but later on something else could happen.

This is a different kind of story, isn't it? It's a good ending that stays good. Isn't that neat? That's different, isn't it? It's a good ending that stays good. It doesn't come unraveled. You hear these fairy tales and they lived happily forever and ever? This is one that's real. This is one that comes to pass. It's a good ending that doesn't come unraveled. It's a good ending that stays good all the way. Eternally. Now, what these loud voices are saying isn't really long and complicated, is it? Not as long as the words that I might be saying. But it's exceedingly important. It's a declaration of the reign of Christ on the earth. So let's take this declaration one phrase at a time. So let's look here at the verse 16.

And the 24 elders who sat on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshipped God. Now we kind of turn a corner. Before we had the heavenly voices and we aren't particularly told who they're coming from. Now we get a specific set of people. Now we've been through previous chapters in chapters 4, 5, and 7. These 24 elders, as we concluded, they represent the raptured church. And you can check that on handout 15. I hope there's some still in the literature rack there. Ask me about it if you need to get back to that. And the corresponding message that goes along with it. We laid out numerous evidences.

These elders represent the raptured church. Notice that it says here specifically, and this is a repeated truth, that these elders are seated on thrones, where their position is with Christ and their condition is with Christ, permanently matched in one. One thing we've noticed is that these 24 elders who show up in the chapters of Revelation, as we've seen here, only show up in heaven as elders during the Tribulation period. They're not described as that before that, and they're not described as elders after that, for reasons that we'll see when we get farther along in the book of Revelation. But there's a pattern to what these elders are laying out. These 24 elders, as they started off, we saw them in Revelation 4, they were praising God for creation.

As we moved into Revelation chapter 5, they were praising Him for redemption, for salvation. Now, as we get into this chapter, we see them praising for reigning, and for judgment, and for reward. And so we'll see all those things come forward as we proceed into this. The last part, we'll see them praising the Lord for judgment again. And this will be in the chapter that describes the Lord bringing judgment upon the earth.

So there's this pattern, this flow of these elders as they praise the Lord. And something to ponder about this. This is us. This is us. We will be with the Lord. We will praise Him. We will apparently not be intricately involved in all the goings-on of this executing the judgment.

At the same time, there is an awareness that it will take place. But what is also interesting, and we'll see this more in a minute, There's praise for judgment. We might be thinking, boy, these are awful things, you know, these terrible judgments coming upon the earth, they're awful. And you know what? They are. But the elders praise the Lord, they actually thank Him for those judgments. Because those are consistent with His righteousness.

I'll submit something else to you. When we get into Heaven, where we're with the Lord, our perspective will come around to the place where we will see, because of God's character and because of what God has done, that these judgments upon the earth will make perfect sense, especially as we see the overwhelming righteousness of Jesus Christ. Then, the contrasting wickedness and the refusal to accept God's grace will make perfect sense. and we will thank the Lord.

So this is us. Now, one of the things we want to take a look here, these 24 elders, it says they fell on their faces. And it's interesting, that phrase, fell on their faces, shows up about eight times in the Old Testament. In all but one case, it refers to falling down on one's face in a desperate situation. Most of those instances in the Old Testament, it's when people are in a horrible state, they have nowhere else to turn, they know their situation is awful, they know that things are really bad if God does not act. Here we have a different situation, that phrase shows up uniquely in all the New Testament, and contrasted to most of the Old Testament references, all but one.

These elders aren't desperate, are they? They fall on their faces because of their recognition of who God is. See the difference there? See the distinction? There's no desperation. They simply see who God is and respond accordingly. Now, something else about it, as you look at it, nobody's twisting their arms. Nobody is saying, look elders, you better get falling down on your face or you're in trouble. Or, it's on the schedule now, get to it in the next 20 minutes and then you get a coffee break. There's none of that. Instead, they're just simply falling down on their faces and they're doing it apparently of their own accord. And not only that, we see the behavior repeated in the book of Revelation.

They fall on their faces before the Lord again and again and again. And it is as if Falling down on their faces before the Lord is the only logical and reasonable conclusion to draw given who this being is, given the relationship that they have with him. Seeing the marvelous glory of the Lord, and even the more marvelous thing, that he would share that glory with them. The only response that makes any logical sense is for them to fall down on their faces before the Lord. Verse 17.

And these elders then are saying, We give thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. First we should take notice of what these 24 elders call the Lord. They call Him Lord God. They call Him the Almighty, who are and who were.

And you'll see the phrase, here and elsewhere, and who is to come. These are titles which are also used of Christ throughout the book of Revelation, too. These are titles which, as you start correlating where these different phrases are used, are actually used of Christ himself. Anybody who denies the deity of Christ hasn't looked at these verses seriously. These 24 elders tell us that he has taken his great power. Not just power, but great power.

Taken in the Greek here is in the perfect tense. It means it's a completed past action with ongoing results. He's done it. It's a completed thing. It's going to have continuing results into the future. They say that he has begun to reign. Now, who are these 24 elders? That's you and I. That means that we will have the privilege of announcing His reign. We will have the privilege of saying, thank you, Lord, for all of who you are and for taking the power you've begun to reign. That's our privilege. Isn't that neat? That's you and me. Are you looking forward to that? I hope so. Now here, the word reign is fascinating. We don't want to overlook that.

This word, reign, the root word, basaleuo, you say that all the time, right? Anyway, basaleuo, it shows up about 18 times in the New Testament. It's used often, out of those 18 times, used often to describe the reign of the Messiah during the millennium. This is a use typical of how it's used through most of the New Testament. Here in Revelation, it's used to describe Christ reigning in the millennium and thereafter.

It is also used of the saints, the same word, used of the saints who reign with Him. Isn't that amazing? It is amazing, isn't it? The Lord does not have to choose to use us, but He would just astoundingly use the same word for reign. In this, the inspired Word of God uses the same word as is used for Christ. That is giving us an amazing stature and position by His grace, isn't it? He uses the same word for rain for us as is used for Christ. Never, never is this word rain ever used to the Antichrist. He doesn't get that word, but we do.

Verse 18, And the nations were enraged, and your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward your bondservants. the prophets and the saints and those who fear your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth." Here's the 24 elders again. They have this incredible set of phrases. Let's take a look at each one.

And the nations were enraged and your wrath came. Now, this short little set of words is actually a summary of Psalm 2. Did you know that Psalm 2 is actually a psalm about the end of the tribulation? Psalm 2 is a psalm about the end of the tribulation. We won't go into it all this morning, but here's a brief sampling. Here are some of it.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. That's the word Messiah. Against His Messiah. And then it goes on, continuing on in verse 5. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vexed them in his sword displeasure, and then he says, yet have I set my king, who is that king? The Messiah, upon my holy hill of Zion.

Anyway, that's a brief sampling of that entire psalm, which is actually about this transition that we're reading about here, from the tribulation period into the millennium. And I think that's one of the things to keep in our minds. What we're seeing is a three and a half year period of time God has set limits on it. He knows exactly what's going to take place. He has determined what is going to take place. It will be a time of transition. It will be a time of transition. From this point forward, things are going to move like clockwork.

The woes that will come upon the world will be all the more severe, far more severe, ultimately, than what we've seen so far. And it will become abundantly evident that God is in charge. It will become abundantly evident that God is protecting His people. It will become abundantly evident that God is taking charge and He will ultimately pull control away from Satan entirely and shove him off the stage, so to speak.

Now, we should point out here, Psalm 2 talks about wrath in more than one place. And this word wrath shows up in the book of Revelation from chapter 6, which is the chapter that begins the tribulation, all the way to the end, chapter 19. And most of the chapters in between, in some cases more than once in each chapter, that word wrath keeps showing up. It's typical of the whole tribulation. What we're getting upon now is a time where that expression of wrath gets intensified from here on out.

Then he says, And the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward your bondservants, the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your names, the small and the great." You see, what's going to happen, the church has already been brought out of the world, right? The church has already been dealt with. But there are those who will live through the tribulation, the tribulation saints. There will be those who are saints who believed out of the Old Testament era, before the church.

These will all be brought up for judgment. And the intent is here, judgment, and as it's brought forward, judgment for reward. This is a subject we'll be getting into more as we get a little farther along and we'll look at it in more detail. But when he's talking about judgment here, this isn't all just, oh, I'm going to send everybody to hell.

This is dealing with the saints and rewarding them and giving them reward as biblically appropriate. and notice the last part of that phrase, and to destroy those who destroy the earth. Now, this isn't just ecological revenge. It isn't just ecological revenge because of this. We tend to think of destroying the earth as just something physical.

Suppose your eyes were different, and you could just see spiritual darkness and light. Suppose that's what you saw when you opened your eyes in the morning. spiritual darkness and light. How would things look? Lots of light or lots of darkness? Okay? It would be a very different perspective, wouldn't it? Sin is destructive. It's spiritually destructive.

And so, we're not talking about just what's happening ecologically, not the surface of the earth. This is the kind of destruction that goes at the core. Jesus says, don't worry about the person that's gonna, you know, damage the outside, it's the spiritual things that you're to be concerned about. And he's getting at that here.

This destroying the earth is not just simply a matter of some kind of ecological damage. It's spiritual damage. Wrecking the earth. Damaging the earth. Spewing out the damage of sin. That's what's damaging. That's ultimately what's damaging. There are even some Old Testament texts that talk about ecological damage as a consequence of sin. We tend to connect it all up with something scientifically evaluated, when in fact scripture takes it to its root. It's a spiritual pollution problem. That's where the destruction starts. Spiritual pollution. Verse 19.

And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple, and there were flashes of lightning, and sounds and peals of thunder, and an earthquake and a great hailstorm." Now, this is obviously speaking of heaven. One of the things we think of when we think of the temple is this temple site that's here in Jerusalem. At this place here where we see this dome, The Jews have built two temples here.

One was built, in rough numbers, 3,000 years ago by Solomon. That was wrecked by the Babylonians who came in and destroyed that temple. The temple was then rebuilt, and then that rebuilt temple was then reconstructed just before and during the life of Christ, eventually to be destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. The Romans just decimated.

But here is the site. Now, this is where physically, humanly, we put the temple. This is talking about a heavenly temple. Have you noticed these temples come and go? The temple in heaven doesn't. That's something we want to take a look at here. Let's kind of go back to something we saw just a couple weeks ago, just to refresh our memories. In the plan of the temple, there was a large temple area. There was this court, and it was legal for the Gentiles to go out here. It was probably in this area in here where Jesus drove out the money changers. It's this blue-lined area that is the Naos. The big area is called the Heron. The blue-lined area, that's the Naos.

That's the word temple here. It's the very place where God dwells. It's the very most holy place within the temple. That's the word that he uses here. The temple of God, which is in heaven. This is the very place where God dwells. There's a reality. What we see on earth is just simply a symbol of it. It's a picture of it. Now, just so we keep this in mind, this is sort of the way the thing looked by a model.

And so this general temple area, that would be the Hiran, and the Naos is this area in here. The very holiest place within the temple. Now, there was a curtain a few inches thick which kept the area of the Holy of Holies from view. And they only sent one priest in it, once a year. And they even tied a rope around just waste, so in case you somehow drop dead in there, they could pull them out, because you couldn't put somebody else in here.

Now, here's what John is describing in heaven, is it's open, and the Ark of the Covenant is visible. It's not like the earthly temple. Here it is open, accessible, visible. You can see it. That's something the Jews never got to see, except for one. Here's John describing something that's remarkable. He never saw in his lifetime the inside of the Holy of Holies, but here he is describing something in heaven that he's been given privileged access to.

Now, if I say, you know, the Ark of the Covenant, you may be thinking of something like this, okay? This is not what I have in mind, okay? This whole movie thing, I mean, people got all stirred up about it and they started thinking, where's the Ark of the Covenant? People got into sort of an amateur archaeologist phase looking for where this thing was.

I remember about 20 years ago when this thing came out. Let me give you God's perspective on it. Here's Jeremiah 3.16. It shall be in those days that when you are multiplied and increased in the land, declares the Lord, they will no longer say the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and will not come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again. here on planet Earth, it's going to fade from the scene. So, when we see this Ark of the Covenant, we need to think, this is a heavenly Ark of the Covenant, this is different, this isn't the thing on Earth that everybody is going around chasing for and making movies for. But, nonetheless, the way it was described in the Old Testament makes it look something like this.

And this had cherubim, angelic creatures on each end, and they had the poles on each side, and it was required by the Old Testament law that those poles stay in there. You could not remove them. You're not supposed to. So any pictures you see with the poles removed, it's an illegal ark. So they were supposed to have the poles in there, had to keep them on. Now, one of the things we want to look at, too, is Some of the characteristics.

God told the Jews what the Ark was to be constructed of, they were told who was to carry it, what was to be beside it, to keep a copy of the Law of Moses, where it was to be placed in the Holy of Holies, and what is to be inside it. Those were all spelled out. And then Isaiah 6 actually gives kind of a description of this this heavenly temple where he personally is given vision and presence in Isaiah 6.

But we need to not lose sight of the earthly Ark of the Covenant. What we see here is a picture of what the heavenly reality is. You see the difference there? The earthly Ark of the Covenant that they make movies of and everybody goes chasing all over the earth trying to find is a earthly picture of what the heavenly reality is. Right now, there's only a few rabbis and a few other people that nobody can quite verify who say they know where the Ark of the Covenant is.

This one we're reading about here, we know where that is. We know that's with the Lord. And guess what? We're going to be there. This is not something that is off in Never-Never Land. This is something that is being described because you and I, as Church Aid Saints, are going to see. Now, here's what it means, and you'll find this also in the back of your handout, so you don't need to write scrambling there, but just to go through it here.

The Ark of the Covenant stood for the divine presence of God. It's here that the glory of God's presence hovered over the mercy seat of the Ark, and from there God would commune with Israel. This is the picture of the very presence of God. The next thing is the Ark of the Covenant means the faithfulness of God.

They had all the things there in the Ark, things that the Jews were told to keep in it. They had the Law or the Tablets of Stone. That represented God's righteousness, God's absolute righteousness. They had Aaron's Rod which budded. It portrayed resurrection and God's choice of leaders. And then they had the pot of manna. See, they were to take a day's ration of this manna, and typically the manna would spoil, but this one ration they were told to put in a pot and to put that in the Ark of the Covenant.

So it's interesting. Here's this Ark. It doesn't have very many things in it, and most people would look at what's in it and say, so what value is that? But it's not the value that is in it, it is the value of what it represents. That's why they were told to put these things in it.

And lastly, the Ark of the Covenant stood for God's holiness, grace, and love. Because the earthly symbol stands for the heavenly reality, what this Ark of the Covenant is saying is that these are God's presence, God's faithfulness, God's character that are permanently abiding in heaven.

They are permanently there. The tablets of stone there showed the holiness of God. The high priest would sprinkle blood on the top here of the Ark of the Covenant. That, along with the rest of the rituals, would speak of the sacrifice that Christ made. Essentially what was happening, this earthly symbol then, spoke of the heavenly reality. It spoke of Christ's sacrifice.

This was a movable, temporary item. The One in Heaven continually speaks of Christ's sacrifice. Non-stop. It's an expression of the reality. The next thing we read there is of the lightning, and we hear the thunder. We're told of an earthquake and hailstorms. Obviously, some of this gets experienced and expressed down on planet Earth.

We've seen this in Exodus 19 and 20 in the Old Testament. And we see it described also in Revelation chapters 4 and 8, and we've looked at that previously. We'll see it again, a very similar expression come up when we get to chapter 16. These Old Testament and very Jewish images show up throughout the Tribulation period, but only through the Tribulation period. It should remind us that the Tribulation period is very much about Jewishness, and not about the Church.

But there is something in this set of verses that's precious to church-age believers. We see in these verses the heavenly reality of the temple and the Ark of the Covenant. Do you notice that while the Ark of the Covenant got carried around and right now only a few people claim to know where it is and who knows if they're telling the truth, that comes and goes and is hard to find. Heavenly Ark of the Covenant is real and secure, and it stays there.

We look back at the temples. The temples came and went. The last temple, it's been almost 2,000 years since it was around. The temples come and go. This heavenly reality, however, stays there. It's secure. Earthly temples, let's face it, earthly temples just don't cut it ultimately. Because they can be robbed, they can be destroyed, they can be burned, they can be ruined. They can be desecrated.

Isn't it marvelous that everything that is valuable the Lord has permanently and securely done and accomplished and given to us? We have, as believers, and we're going to see what we just read, because it's going to be us, okay? We have, as believers, something that is secure and sure and certain in the heavenlies. He has made our position in Christ, just like this Ark of the Covenant, He has made our position in Christ to be untouchable in the heavens. We've been seated with Christ, and there's nothing anybody can do Unlike these physical temples and arcs of the covenant, there's nothing anybody can do to touch, damage, destroy, or ruin what the Lord has given us. It's untouchable in the heavens. We have marvelous riches that this world cannot touch. We have a hope, a faith, a future, and an identity, and a relationship that this world can't produce, it can't reproduce, and it can't damage, wreck, or corrupt. Paul, in 2 Corinthians chapters 3 and 4, even talks about our beholding the Lord Jesus as the very means of being transformed from glory to glory.

And earthly trials and troubles not only don't damage that, they help it. Okay? Marvelous thing. All the things that the Jews have difficulty with because they're basically stuck with, what can I have on earth? that puts me in relationship with God. We're not limited to that. There's nothing on this planet that's necessary, is there?

Everything we have is secure and safe in the heavenly. It's a good thing that John has told us about this heavenly temple. It's one more marvelous reminder that we can set our heart and mind and hope on that which is untouchable in the heavens. Everybody during this tribulation period would love to get their hands on heaven and damage and ruin and destroy, but it's untouchable. Even now, what we have is in that same realm. Anybody who may wish to damage and destroy and corrupt it cannot do so. It's untouchable in the heavens.

Where we are seated with Christ is a lot more secure and real than this place where our bodies are right now. Okay? Far more secure. How much better to live there, to live there and deal with things on planet Earth from there, right now, than for us to stand here, because remember who's the God of this world, than to stand here and try to live from here, calling to God up there. How much better to live where the Lord has already made things secure. Paul writes to the Ephesians, you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, past tense, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. It's there, it's untouchable, it's secure, it's real, it's eternal. That we can count on and we don't have to wait for it. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to this.

Are you? Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks. We give You thanks for the marvelous thing that You have done. Here we are, these beings that deserve nothing, and yet You use this word, reign, and apply it to us, as well as the Messiah. Lord, we deserve none of it, and yet we are seated with Your Son, the One who bought us. And Lord, we are not our own. You have bought us with a price. And yet You have not treated us as slaves, but instead have blessed us such that it will take eons for you to show us all that you've given us. We thank you for that marvelous blessing. We just pray that we would be learning and taught to live from there and to count upon it. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.