Revelation chapter 5, we're going to begin in verse 8 tonight.
And we're halfway through Revelation 5 at this point.
We'll see how far we get tonight.
But if you remember we're in this section where John is seeing this vision and it's
a, if you remember there's this terrible situation where they had this scroll and it had seven
seals on it and they look around and there's no one who is worthy to open the scroll.
There's no one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth.
No one who is worthy to open the scroll.
And the reason that's a bad situation is because the scroll has to be opened in order
for God's plan to be executed.
If the scroll remains closed, God's plan does not happen.
And so we need that plan to happen for the redemption of the saints, for the restoration
of the earth, for the execution of justice and judgment and evil doers to be sent away.
So you have to have the scroll open.
They look around and there's no one.
But then you'll remember John starts crying and one of the 24 elders comes up to him and
says, hey, don't cry anymore because there's this great lion, right?
The lion of the tribe of Judah.
And he's going to be here and he's going to open the scroll, right?
And so John hears about this lion, but when he turns around, what does he see?
You remember the great irony?
A lamb.
He hears about a lion, but he sees a lamb.
And this lamb looks as though it has been slain, even though it is standing.
So he's clearly been slain, but the lamb is standing.
We said it was a reference to Jesus' resurrection after his sacrificial death.
And we talked about the scroll, but then when you get to verse eight, we're going to actually
see the lamb go and he's going to approach the throne of God and he is going to take
the scroll from God.
And they're going to sing a new song.
It's one of these moments that's so significant in life that it has to be recorded.
It has to be commemorated, right?
I mean, you know this happens from time to time when something so big happens that it
has to be recorded.
Like at a wedding, you get a photographer because that's something you want to remember, right?
Or if you're musically inclined and something big happens in your life, you write a song
about it because it's a way to commemorate that event, right?
I mean, you can think about our country, our national anthem is a testament of that.
Is it not?
Think about Francis Scott Key as he was on that British ship back in, I think it was
like 1812, 1814 actually.
And he's on this British ship and he's looking out at Fort McHenry and there's a battle
raging and he's just looking at the American flag, hoping that it'll make it through the
morning to show that the Americans prove victorious.
And he goes out the next day and he looks and he sees that flag flying and he knows
what it meant.
And so he had the back of an envelope and he just starts writing down this poem that
would eventually be turned into a song which would become our national anthem.
It was a moment that needed to be recorded and commemorated.
And that's exactly what the heavenly host are doing here.
Verse nine is going to tell us that they are going to sing a new song.
So when they see the Lamb of God go right up to the throne of God, which no one does,
no one just approaches the throne of God and yet the Lamb does and not only does he approach
the throne of God, he reaches out, he takes the scroll and he's going to open it.
And so they're going to sing this new song.
So here's a thought that I want us to be thinking about this evening is we're looking at this
passage together.
I want us to be thinking about what does this new song teach us about the Lamb of God, the
people of God, and the plan of God.
Those three things.
What is this new song that they're singing teach us about the Lamb of God, the people
of God, and the plan of God?
We're going to start in verse eight.
So if you have your Bibles, be looking there at verse eight.
And the Bible says, and we need to take in the scroll, the four living creatures and
the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense,
which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song saying worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals
for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language
and people and nation.
And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth.
So here's my question.
What's the first thing we learn about the Lamb of God in these verses?
What's the very first thing?
He's worthy, right?
He's worthy to go and take the scroll and to open its seals.
But very specifically, what makes him worthy?
The Bible is going to list three things here that makes him worthy.
What's the first thing you see?
He was slain, that's exactly right.
The first reason he's worthy to open the scrolls is because he was slain.
So you have a slain Lamb.
What does that immediately make you think of?
Sacrifice?
There's a very specific event, Old Testament.
Passover.
What happened at the Passover?
Yeah, as long as they were covered by the blood of the Lamb, the angel of death did not touch
them, right?
And it became this great picture of salvation in the Old Testament that was pointing forward
to Christ.
And the Bible actually says that Jesus is our Passover Lamb.
He was the one who was slain for us and if we are covered by his blood, then we too are
safe from judgment and from the wrath of God.
And so he shows himself to be worthy to take the scroll and to open it.
But you have to understand something here.
When I say that Jesus is worthy because of something he did, you have to understand Jesus
has always been perfect in his person, right?
From all of eternity, nothing has ever changed about Jesus.
He has always been perfect in his person, but it was by him accomplishing God's mission
by going and offering himself as the sacrifice for God's people that he proves himself to
be worthy to open the scroll, to open the seals that are sealing the scroll.
Jesus you have to remember, a lot of people will look at his death and if you imagine
the scene when Jesus was dying, there were a lot of people mocking him, correct?
He called himself the king of the Jews.
He said he was going to save his people.
He can't even save himself.
Why don't you get yourself off that cross?
What were they thinking as Jesus was dying?
They were thinking he lost, right?
Rome had won.
The Jewish leaders had won.
Jesus had lost, but the thing you have to understand is Jesus did not die accidentally.
He died intentionally and no one took his life from him.
Jesus laid down his own life.
The events of his death were not beyond his control.
They were all part of the plan of God from all eternity past.
I mean Jesus even said in John 10, 18 about his life, he says, no one takes it from me,
but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have the authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.
This charge I have received from my Father.
So Jesus laid down his own life, not only in obedience to the Father's will, because
if you'll remember Isaiah 5310 says very specifically that it was the will of the Father to crush
him.
The will of the Father to crush him.
But Jesus also laid down his life, not just in obedience, but it was out of love.
You remember what the Bible says in John 15, 13?
Jesus said greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
So this sacrifice that we see where Jesus is slain as the great Passover lamb, it wasn't
just out of obedience, it was out of love for us.
And with that sacrifice, he fulfilled God's plan of salvation.
He was substituted in our place and so he is worthy to take the scroll and to open its
seals, which means that we need to remember there is salvation and no one else except
for Jesus.
There is only one being, one creature if you want to call him that, there is only one who
is worthy to open the scroll, to take it and open its seals and that's Jesus.
There is salvation and no one else.
There is not salvation in your good works.
There is no salvation in you trying to be perfectly obedient because guess what, the
second you mess up once, the Bible says if you transgress one aspect of the law, you
transgress the whole law.
You've already messed up.
It's not from your good works, it's not from your perfect obedience, it's not from trying
to be the best you that you can be, which is hard for some of us to hear, isn't it,
if we're honest?
I mean I mentioned a conversation I had a few weeks ago, I had another conversation
today with a man who said I'm trying my hardest.
I just want people to know that.
I am trying my hardest.
I want to say that's great, that's good, you should try your hardest, but at the end
of the day you can try your hardest and it will never be good enough.
You cannot save yourself.
There's no way to do that.
And all these other religions of moralism, or if you want to go to like Buddhism, Hinduism,
Islam, Judaism, there is no salvation in any of these things.
Salvation is only found in Christ.
He is the only one who can cover you from the wrath of God.
He's the only one who can take the scroll and open it to us.
And so he's worthy because he was slain, but then the second reason, what's the second
reason there that you see that he's worthy?
He did something else, what does it say?
That's right.
He ransomed people by his blood.
Now that word ransomed, does anyone know what it means?
Redeem or another word?
Purchase, very simple, yeah.
Purchase, so Jesus purchased a people from God.
So he actually paid a price for people, and he did this for God.
It was a word that was used to describe paying a price for a slave, to buy a slave's freedom.
So if there was a slave, you wanted to ransom that slave, give them their freedom, you'd
go and pay a price for their freedom, which means we were all slaves in bondage to sin.
The Bible says that we were in chains.
You can read Romans chapter six for that.
And so Jesus pays the price for our freedom, he ransoms us.
But here's my question that I want you to think about as we read this.
To whom did Jesus pay the ransom?
If you have to pay a price in order for us to be free, and he bought our freedom, well
to whom did he pay that price?
To whom did he pay that ransom?
To God?
Okay.
Anybody else?
Never thought of it, huh?
The most popular suggestion in the early church was that Jesus paid the ransom to Satan, and
he bought us back from Satan.
What do we think about that?
Yeah?
We got some no's?
Okay.
Anybody want to say yes or no?
Nobody wants to give the wrong answer, huh?
Well, the idea was that we were under his rule and domain, and that he had such significant
influence over us that it was like we were enslaved to him.
And so they suggested that Jesus paid the ransom to Satan to buy us back and purchase
our freedom.
Okay, we got a bunch of no's over here.
This side of the room is undecided.
So like the right side, we got some no's.
This side we got undecided.
Yeah?
Right.
Yeah, I get that.
So the answer is no.
That's right.
I just want to see.
I mean, you never know where people are going to come down, but yeah, the answer is no because
Satan never really owned us in the first place, did he?
Now, he had rule, he had domain, he had significant influence, but as I've said before, Satan's
really just nothing more than a glorified fisherman, you know?
He knows what your favorite bait is.
He likes to throw it out there.
He can get it right in front of you, but he can't make you take the bait.
Again, I said it Sunday.
Why do we sin?
It's because we want to.
The bait's in front of us.
We like the bait.
We take the bait, all right?
So no, Jesus did not pay a ransom to Satan.
He paid a ransom to the justice of God.
That's what the ransom was paid to.
God's justice demanded a price.
Anybody know what that price was?
It was dead.
I mean, you go all the way back to Genesis, chapter 2 and verse 17.
If you remember this, the Bible says, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
So if you disobey God, the price of that sin is death.
That's what his justice demands.
The Bible goes on in Romans 6, 23 to say, for the wages of sin is death, but the free
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so Jesus paid this price for us.
He paid the price of death in order to redeem us from God and for God.
Now isn't that an amazing thought?
All right?
Not a lot of people think about this, but we weren't just ransomed from God.
He paid the price to God's justice, but we were also, according to this passage here,
he ransomed a people for what?
For God.
So we were ransomed from God and ransomed for God.
The two work together here.
Jesus saves us from the wrath of God, but he also saves us for communion with God.
He delivers us from God and delivers us to God.
He literally, exactly, it was himself.
And so we are delivered from his wrath and delivered to his fellowship.
And so we need to understand that too because when people talk about salvation today, one
of the most common things they say, well, I was saved from my sin.
I was saved from hell.
I was saved from Satan, all this kind of stuff.
Yeah.
But at the end of the day, folks, the primary thing that you were saved from was God himself.
We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
We have all transgressed against God, rebelled against God.
We've all sinned against God.
And the Bible says the wages of sin is death, and so God has wrath stored up.
Read about that in Romans chapter one.
That's that chapter people like to avoid today.
But Romans chapter one, you read about that?
The wrath of God is now being poured out from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men.
There is wrath being stored up.
Romans chapter two says that all that people are doing when they forsake God and they enjoy
the goodness of God, but they don't actually repent, they are just storing up wrath for
themselves in heaven.
And so God is storing up all this wrath, and the only way that you are going to be delivered
from that wrath is not by doing all the good works you could possibly do, not by, you know,
talking nice and treating people well.
That's great, but at the end of the day, that wrath is still going to be poured out on you.
The only thing that can deliver you from God is God.
And so that's what Jesus does.
He ransoms us from God for God, and he paid a specific price.
Notice this for a specific people.
Notice what the Bible says here, people from every tribe, every language, every people,
and every nation.
And we talked about this at length a couple of Sundays ago, that the people of God are
a mixed people.
They are not just a bunch of people who look exactly alike.
And praise God for that, right?
I mean, you would just be insulting the creativity of God if heaven was just a sea of people
who all looked alike.
But it's a mixed people.
People made in His image for His glory and His renown throughout all the earth.
And I want you to understand this, no group of people has a more right to salvation than
any other group.
And that's something good for us to remember, is it not?
It doesn't matter what group you're thinking about or fall into.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about this group or that group or this group.
It does not matter.
There is not a single group of people on earth who have more right to salvation than any
other group.
Everything comes through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
That's right.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, this, yeah.
Doug's talking about the fact that when Paul was dealing with people, he kept trying to
tell the Jewish people, you don't have to be Jewish to be saved.
That's not the way that it works.
That God is redeeming a people from Himself from all of the world.
I mean, you still see that today.
There are many Jewish people who still think that today.
We talked about this couple of Wednesdays ago.
There's an interesting group today called the Black Hebrew Israelites who essentially
believe that unless you're black, you're not going to be saved because they believe that
they are the true Israel.
And I want to say, brother, listen, every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every language,
every people, this is God's plan.
There is not one special group who has more right to salvation than another.
And we just have to understand that today.
And I want you to notice this.
He didn't just redeem us.
The Bible says here that He made us a kingdom of priests to God.
So what does that mean?
What does it mean to be a kingdom of priests?
What do priests do?
How do priests serve?
Spread the word?
Yeah, that's a good start.
Anybody else?
Priests?
There you go.
Yeah, connect people to God.
Anything else?
Yeah.
Is that okay?
Yeah, these are all good starts.
You connect people to God primarily.
That's 100% what a priest does.
You spread the word.
It's going in like they're saying.
You go and tell other people there actually is a God.
He is real.
You tell them who He is.
You share the gospel message with them.
You intercede on their behalf.
We can pray these prayers and say God have mercy on these people.
When you have an unbelieving family member, an unbelieving friend, one of the best ways
that you can serve as a priest for God is to say God save them.
God, if it's not going to be me who's going to be the influence that leads them to Christ,
send another person their way.
Do something to open their eyes.
Do something to soften their hearts.
Do something to make them receptive to the gospel.
God have mercy on them and save them from their sins.
If we're not praying for the walls, we're missing a huge part of what it means to be
priest to God.
So we have to pray for the walls.
We have to be devoted to evangelism.
We have to start connecting with people.
I want you to notice this interesting relationship that happens here because this is pretty interesting.
Jesus purchases a people for God and then those purchased people are instrumental in
executing the plan of God.
The plan to save people from all nations.
The Father, He plans the salvation.
The Son accomplishes the salvation.
And then the Holy Spirit goes and applies the salvation to the hearts of God's people.
I mean that's why you're saved in the first place, right?
It's not because you made your way to God.
It's because God drew you to Him and the Holy Spirit applied the effects of Christ's
redemption to your life.
It caused you to be born again.
Gave you a new heart.
Got rid of that old stony heart.
Gave you a heart of flesh.
Gave you a new nature and dwelt you.
So now you are a temple of the living God.
The Father plans salvation.
The Son accomplishes salvation.
The Holy Spirit applies salvation.
The Holy Trinity is involved in salvation.
And He uses the people that He has purchased to go and reach more people.
So purchase people, pursue people.
That's what we're meant to do.
If we're going to accomplish this plan and we want to see it be a reality, you know
what we have to do?
We can't just say, well, I hope the pastor's out there during the week, spread the word.
I can only do so much, all right?
We've got to be committed to evangelism.
Right?
If we want to see this plan become a reality, if we want to see people from every tribe,
tongue, nation, language, and people worshiping Jesus in glory, you've got to go and tell
people.
Right?
You've got to go and tell people about Jesus.
You've got to tell them about what He's done.
You've got to spread the gospel message.
Every Christian must take personal responsibility in evangelism.
It is not just Alex's job to share the gospel with people.
It's not just Jordan's job or Joseph's job.
It's not just the job of people who are paid to be in ministry.
It is the job and the responsibility of every single Christian, including you here.
The Bible says that we're to be ambassadors for Christ.
So if you want to see this mission accomplished, understand that God's not just going to let
you sit on the sidelines.
He wants you to get in the game.
You've got to be part of it.
You've got to get out there.
The plan is to use spirit-empowered, blood-bought people to reach the nations for Christ so
that His fame and glory and honor might resound worldwide.
And so the nations will sing like the heavenly host here of the infinite worth of Christ.
And there's one other reason here.
Right?
So we're just looking at these verses.
As far as we're going to get is verse 10 tonight.
But there's a third reason that Jesus is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals.
He was slain.
He ransomed the people for God.
What else did He do?
Rose from the dead.
All right.
What do we see here in these verses?
He what?
He made us what?
He did what?
Okay?
That's right.
He made us priests and we will reign.
So what did He do?
He restored humanity to its original purpose.
Now it's easy to miss here, but part of why He is worthy to take the scroll and open its
seals is because He restored humanity to our original purpose.
What was humanity's original purpose?
Do you remember?
Think back to Genesis chapters 1 and 2.
What was the original purpose of humanity?
Be stewards of the earth.
Be fruitful.
Multiply.
The red have dominion over the whole earth.
So mankind originally served as these vice regents here on earth serving under God.
So God is king over all and He said, okay, I've made these people in my image and now
they're going to be in this place and they are going to have rule and reign over this
place under me and they're going to have dominion over this whole earth.
And here's something interesting to keep in mind.
And that was part of humanity's original purpose, but you have to also remember that
humanity served a priestly role as well.
Do you all remember that?
Now I know we had a two year study in Genesis.
I know you haven't forgotten everything already, okay?
How did humanity serve a priestly role in the beginning?
We're going to have to go back through Genesis.
Make it four years this time.
All right.
Genesis 2.15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and
keep it.
Genesis 2.15, don't forget that.
You're thinking, okay, pastor, maybe you're just reading into things because I don't see
a priestly role here.
Well, just remember Eden was like the first temple.
Do you all remember that?
A temple is a place where God meets with man.
What happened in Eden?
God met with man.
They met together there.
Probably, you know, they were walking together.
You read about that in Genesis 2.
It serves as this first temple.
Here's what's interesting about this verse where it says that man was supposed to work
and keep the garden.
The only other time, the only times after Genesis where those two words work and keep,
work it and keep it, the only times those words occur together in the Bible after Genesis
is in reference to the Levitical priests and their responsibilities in the temple.
Those are the only times those words occur together in Scripture after Genesis.
Adam served as the first priest in the first temple.
He was to work it and keep it.
And then all the priests after him are to work and keep the other temple, the later temple.
And so it serves as this first temple.
They had these priestly responsibilities.
And so this was the original purpose of mankind.
They were supposed to serve as priests for God and they were supposed to have rule and
reign dominion over the earth.
Well, what happened after that?
What was that?
Sin.
That's right.
Mankind rebelled against God.
We plummet ourselves into sin and all of humanity after that was fallen as well as the world.
And so we were no longer serving as priests and we were no longer having dominion over
the earth, which is why we still struggle today.
And so Jesus comes in and he not only saves us from our sins and delivers us from the
wrath of God, but Jesus restores humanity to our original purpose.
We were intended to be priests and what does Jesus do?
He makes us a kingdom of priests for God.
We were intended to have dominion over the entire earth and what does Jesus do?
He makes us to reign on the earth.
Which is a good interesting question.
Is it not?
We're reading this.
Don't read over it.
Here's the interesting question.
Why are we reigning on earth?
New heaven, new earth.
Okay.
What about this common idea that we're all, if you're a Christian, you're going to spend
all of eternity in heaven.
You ask any Christian, after you die, where do you get heaven?
Where are you going to spend all of eternity?
Heaven.
What are you saying about it?
There's a new earth too, right?
So where are we going to be?
This is why studying revelations is fun, is it not?
The new earth?
Are you going to be in the new heaven or the new earth?
No?
Where are you?
Another good question.
Where is Jesus during this time?
Yeah, Doug, we've already talked about that.
We're going to get there again later.
We're not going to get off on the thousand year reign at this point.
But did you know there's not a single place in Scripture that says that Christians will
spend all of eternity in heaven?
It's just not there.
Will all Christians go to heaven?
Yes, yes.
It's for the judgment that's going to take place.
So like if Jesus doesn't return, you know, before I die, I'm going to die, I'm going
to go to heaven, and that's a pit stop.
That's what the Bible says heaven is.
It is a pit stop on the side of the road.
There's some nice places there.
You get to hang out with God.
It is fantastic.
Is it as good as it can be?
No, because there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth.
That is not our final resting place.
If Jesus returns before I die, am I going to go to heaven?
Yeah, because again, that's where the judgment takes place.
That's where the throne of God is.
And so every Christian will go to heaven, but then there's going to be a new heavens
and a new earth.
And the Bible says that humans, us, we are going to dwell on the new earth forever.
You see that right here.
They shall reign where?
On earth.
Are you part of the ransom there that that verse is talking about?
He ran some to people for God.
Are you part of that?
I would hope so.
If not, let's have a talk after this.
So you're part of the ransom, right?
Where does it say the ransomed will spend eternity?
Where will they reign?
On earth.
If you go to the end of Revelation, which we're not going to do right now, but just
to say it is if you go to the end of Revelation, it talks about after the final judgment, when
there is this new heaven and new earth, there's a new Jerusalem.
Where does the new Jerusalem go?
Earth.
It literally descends from heaven to go on the new earth.
Now here's what's really cool.
And when we talk about this, when we get to Revelation 22 in a year and a half, y'all
act surprised, okay?
Y'all forget.
So you won't have to be surprised.
The new Jerusalem, if you look at the dimensions, you know how it gives all these very specific
dimensions.
And you're like, why is this in here?
Why is this important?
Why are we talking about the dimensions of this city?
Well, what's interesting is it's a perfect cube.
You know what else was a perfect cube?
The holy of holies in the temple.
And the holy of holies was the place where God met with man and they dwelt together.
And many scholars believe that Eden, the dimensions of Eden were also a perfect cube, the first
temple.
And so what you have is the new Jerusalem descending like a holy of holies out of heaven
to the new earth where mankind is going to be.
The Bible says that God will dwell with us forever, so Jesus is there with us.
That's where we're going to be.
And then we have our renewed responsibility, our renewed purpose.
You know what we're going to be doing?
Expanding the new Jerusalem to have dominion over the entire earth.
Spread the city's borders so that it finally encompasses the whole earth.
That was the purpose with Eden.
They weren't just supposed to stay there always in that garden forever.
That's why God said, be fruitful and multiply.
If you keep doing that, you can't fit everybody in that one place, right?
You have to expand.
So the idea was the whole earth is going to be this garden paradise temple where God
and man dwell together.
We messed that up.
But in the new heavens and new earth, we have that restored purpose.
What are we going to be doing?
Expanding the new Jerusalem so that it encompasses the entire earth and so that the entire earth
is a place where God and man dwell together forever.
Which leads to another interesting question which we're not going to get into tonight,
but is actually one that was submitted by CDC kids.
So the after-schoolers started asking Miss Cindy, what is heaven going to be like?
And you know, they're after-schoolers.
So some of them, are we going to see angels flying around?
Does my dog get to go to heaven with me?
You know, things like that.
But some of them ask really good questions.
I mean, kids can ask some amazing questions.
And some of them were asking questions like, what are we going to do in heaven?
Are we going to remember any of our loved ones and our lives here on earth?
One kid was asking, are we going to get bored in heaven?
What are we going to do exactly?
And that's a fun question to think about, is it not?
We might have a podcast on that coming up pretty soon.
But the short answer here is that this is part of what we're going to be doing.
We're going to be taking the new Jerusalem to the ends of the earth and fulfilling God's
original purpose for humanity to see that this earth become a paradise where God and
man can dwell together forever.
Now there's a whole bunch of other stuff we're going to be doing.
You're not just going to be sitting around singing all the time like a lot of people
think you're going to be doing.
But we can talk about that another day.
The point is that because of these three things, Jesus proves himself to be worthy
to take that scroll and to open its seals and notice that they immediately begin to
praise him saying worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom
and might and honor and glory and blessing.
He says, I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the
sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be
blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.
And the four living creatures said amen and the elders fell down in worship.
We can touch on those verses again next week potentially but I just wanted to read that
to show that the only right response to seeing who Jesus is and what he has done is worship.
That is the only right response.
He is worthy of our worship because he was slain for our sins.
He ransomed us as a people for God and he restores us to God's intended purposes for
us.
So Michael Stevenson, how about giving us a word of wisdom?