All right, good morning, church. Uh, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church, and if you are new here, man, we are so glad you are here. Um, if you don't have a Bible, we study the Bible each and every Sunday, and you can get a Bible on the back table. That's our gift to you.
Um, we have been in a series on the Book of Revelation, uh, and we are nearing the end, and, uh, it is quite the epic finished. Now, before we get into the word, I just want to make note of the fact that over the next couple of weeks there will be a number of questions you may have about Revelation that we will not have time to answer kind of all together. So there are— there's a list of resources on our church blog of different things we'd recommend. And next week we will be actually getting into some of the different views of how people interpret Revelation. So send in your questions to Vince who is in Europe.
So he'll get right back to you. No, I'm kidding. If you have questions, next Sunday is a good Sunday to bring them, and I think the Lord will give us a lot of clarity and unity as we look at those kinds of things. All right, well, please turn in your Bibles now to Revelation chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19.
Now, growing up, I had always heard about the epic 3-part fantasy, almost sort of medieval wizards and knights and various things series called Lord of the Rings. And so that great series, I knew a couple things about. One, I love the Chronicles of Narnia books and C.S. Lewis, so he was friends with C.S. Lewis.
I knew he was a Catholic author. I knew he was an Oxford professor. I knew that it was kind of defining, a defining literary work in the 20th century even. So, early teens, I was like, all right, this is it. I'm going to read it.
I want to read Lord of the Rings, even though the language is all old. I love this stuff. Let's do it. So I go to the library and it's 3 volumes, but they only had the last volume. And so I remember looking at the library shelf in the downtown library and thinking like, well, should I wait?
Should I? But I thought, well, I have no idea when the person's going to return the one book that they have to start the series. So I'll just take the last book and read it. Now, that was a mistake in many ways because it was just names and people. And if you read the last volume of Lord of the Rings, it just starts off and there's people and there's horses and there's stuff happening and there's an army and there's all kinds of stuff.
And they all have names, they'll have histories. I don't know any of that.
And here's what I could gather. Okay. The book opens with this epic conflict. There's the land of Gondor, which is the land of men. It's fighting a desperate, hopeless fight against this powerful overwhelming force. There are armies of evil orc creatures, powerful magical fallen, almost like dragon-riding creatures attacking them. There's an evil force behind them all driving them forward. And this one city with many walls is trying to hold out against all of these forces.
But not only is it dark and dangerous and they're outmatched, this city has been for years and years and years looking for its lost king. And its king that was— the ruler was supposed to be there essentially fails the people. He goes. And so the people there are having to rally themselves and do the best they can. And even in the midst of the dark and danger, you think, man, this is going to be a sad book, right?
You're thinking this is not going to go well. But at the risk of spoiling, like, a 70-year-old book that was then made into multiple Academy Award-winning movies, The city is saved. I'll spoil that for you. The city is saved. The cavalry, literally the Riders of Rohan, come with the dawn, and the king, the lost king Aragorn, returns with an unstoppable force behind them after passing through the land of the dead.
Now, a lot of parallels here with Tolkien. Reading the last book first, though, of that series did something unique. It meant that when I finally went and reread all the books in order, I knew something that the characters in the story did not know. I knew that in the end, evil is defeated. I knew that in the end, the king returned.
And I knew that in the end, all of the suffering and loss and tribulation was worth it because good prevailed. That, that is what Revelation 19 is for us. It is us skipping to the end of the story, skipping to the end where we see the return of the king and the last great battle. And that end, that end was meant to give hope and encouragement to people in the first century, the seven churches in Asia Minor. It was meant to put courage in their hearts.
It was meant to call them to fight on despite the difficulty and tribulations they faced. And today it calls us to do the same thing. In a similar way, we're in the middle of our stories, as it were. We're the characters that don't know the next chapter or 2 chapters, but we do know, we will know after today, the last chapter. We know where it's going.
So let's do this. Revelation chapter 19, in many ways the culmination of the conflict between evil and God himself comes to a head. Revelation 19. Is God's Word. And Lord, even before we read this, Lord, I pray that you would— oh Lord, I pray that you would give us spiritual sight.
Lord, let us see.
Revelation chapter 19, verse 11: Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and true, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems, and He has a name written that no one knows but Himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which He is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following Him on white horses.
From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, 'Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.' And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army.
And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. Those— these two were thrown alive in the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, and the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on a horse. And all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
6 · The pastor reads Revelation 20:7-10, the second battle scene where Satan is released after the millennium, gathers a vast army, and is instantly consumed by fire from heaven before being thrown into the lake of fire
Skip to Chapter 20, verse 7, if you would. And when the 1,000 years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were. And they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
This is God's Word.
7 · The pastor returns to the Tolkien illustration, this time focusing on the affective result of following the returned king into battle—joyful courage
Now, one of my favorite lines in Lord of the Rings, in that particular battle I was describing, is this line that as they go into battle, as their king leads them, they sing this. It says this: Then all the hosts of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the city. Now this, this, that, that line, "They sang as they slew," is something that's been stuck in my mind all week as I've looked at Revelation chapter 19. See, this is what happens.
This, that the king that they're following at that point is a king that had been captured but, but, but was freed. And so they're— this king that they're following into war is that you're kind of restored to himself, and they follow him, and with With joy they take up the fight. With joy and courage they take up the fight and fight on.
8 · The pastor names the sermon's thesis in compressed form—take heart and fight on by beholding the returning King
The simple call from the text you could summarize like this: Take heart, Christian, and fight on as you behold the return of the King. That's what I think God wants to do for us today. Take heart, fight on as you behold the return of the King. Or you could summarize it in the words of Tolkien. Sing as you slay, Christian, as you behold the King.
9 · The pastor acknowledges the interpretive controversy around the millennium and announces next week's Q&A, making a self-deprecating joke to defuse tension
Now, next week we are going to cover some of the different ways that people interpret Revelation 20:1-6, which is the 1,000-year reign. And strangely enough, that often has become the kind of the defining mark of what do you believe about Revelation. Are you premillennial, postmillennial? You know, Tom always joked that he was panmillennial because he thought it would all pan out in the end, which is a terrible pastor/dad joke that I will repeat I'll repeat again next week for your benefit. But all kinds of people have discussions about that.
Now, the reason, though, that I read these two complementary texts is that regardless of the view you have, that there should be kind of the same effect on the Christian.
10 · The pastor introduces a geographical analogy—mountain peaks that appear close together from a distance but are actually separated by miles
So recently we were in Denver, in the Denver area. And I love the Denver area because you can see kind of the mountain range, the Rocky Mountains, from the city, especially so if you're like driving up to Boulder or somewhere in the mountains, you get closer. Now, when you're back further, it almost looks like just one range of mountains out in the distance. But as you get closer, you start to realize, like, oh wait, these two mountains are much closer. That mountain's over there. And then that mountain is way, you know, miles and miles and miles away down the road. It's just huge and it juts out from the landscape. In other words, you can head to the mountain range and not know exactly the relationship between the two peaks.
11 · The pastor applies the mountain analogy directly to the two battle texts—some theologians see them as simultaneous (amillennial), others as sequential (premillennial)
And similarly, in today's text, we have these two battles. And so some theologians would say, yep, they're actually two different views of the same defining fight, in a sense. And so the mountain peaks are at the same level, same time. Others would say, no, no, no, this happens and then 1,000 years later this happens, so they're set further back. Here's what you need to know for today. We're going to talk about that next week, but for today, know this: seeing the mountains in the distance should have the same effect. Both texts, same effect. Both texts' effect is take heart, fight on, Behold the return of the King.
12 · The pastor announces the sermon's three-part structure (battlefield, King, clash) and begins the first section by reviewing the cast of characters introduced earlier in Revelation
Now, the structure today is simple. Behold the battlefield, behold the King, behold the clash. So first, behold the battlefield. Now, this is where I'm going to back up and just make some observations really about the scope of Revelation and the theme of warfare in Revelation. Revelation is meant to, as its name implies, reveal, right?
Literally, it tells you what the point of the book is. Revelation. It's meant to reveal. As we've talked about, the symbols and things are not meant to, like, obscure the meaning so that you need, like, a National Treasure decoder ring to somehow, you know, get in there and find, "Aha! I knew Kim Jong-un was in there.
I knew it," you know. That's not the intent of the text. Instead, the images are actually meant to reveal. They're meant to actually clarify things. So What has been clarified and revealed to us so far?
Well, what's been clear so far is that this life, this world, is a battlefield. Look at the players introduced. Revelation chapter 12, we saw Satan and this woman who represents the church and a child that she's going to have who is Jesus Christ. And Satan desires to gobble up, in a sense, the people of God, gobble up the promised Messiah. Fails, right?
And so the dragon rages and roars, and we find out the name of this dragon is Satan, the accuser. He was actually all the way back at the very beginning of the Bible, the serpent in the garden. If you've ever seen a serpent and a dragon, you see, okay, they're actually the same. Isn't that— that's the same? Yes, a giant serpent just using deception.
He's an angel whose pride turned him against God. He hates God. He hates people made in God's image. He hates the people of God. So then he sends some different figures onto the battlefield.
13 · The pastor continues cataloging the forces of evil, now moving from the dragon to his three proxies: the beast (hostile government), the false prophet (deceptive religion), and Babylon (seductive worldly culture)
First, the beast. Now, this is a symbolic or culminating figure representing government power or governing power opposed to the church, opposed to the cause of Christ. And then you have next to him the false prophet, a symbolic or culminating figure representing false teaching and false spirituality, meaning he's the deceiver. He's got all these illusions. He's making you think you're following God, but really you're following the dragon in a sense.
And then you also have this last figure of Babylon, as we just saw recently, this symbol of worldly culture opposed to Christ. It is worldly culture that upholds and offers the desire, the idols of money and lust and power, right? It holds out those things and says, "Come, enjoy." And in a sense, people who are led to their deaths like a siren song being sung to them.
14 · The pastor makes a pastoral-theological argument about why Revelation intensifies rather than minimizes the threat facing the first-century churches
Now, I highlight this because This text is the culmination of the theme of warfare in Revelation. Now, remember that this is originally written to Christians in Asia Minor, right? 7 churches in Asia Minor. And those Christians would have been harassed by government power. They would have been— some of them were compromising and being seduced by false teaching. And so why in the world would Revelation be written to these Christians where the message essentially is, oh, it's far worse than you think. For the Christians who are saying, hey, Jesus, it's bad down here, Jesus' response and his revelation is, oh, it's way worse than that.
Meaning that the governing authority you're worried about, no, no, no, actually, it's way worse. There's an evil beast behind him. Or this false teaching that's infecting the church, it's not just some false teaching, it is the false prophet leading you away. Meaning you're caught on this battlefield. Wake up, look around.
This is War.
15 · The pastor introduces a cultural observation—modern people interpret their lives through cinematic genres (romantic comedy, buddy comedy, superhero origin story)
Sometimes we think about life as, you know, I heard somebody say one time that essentially because of the advent of movies and television, we all have a story and we're all the hero of our own story and we're all telling ourselves a story about ourselves. And so some of us are, you know, maybe you're single and you're like, my life is a romantic comedy of hijinks and best friends and, you know, misunderstandings and, you know, it's kind of adorable and eventually there'll be the meet cute and I'll find the one and I'll be happy forever. Or you think, "Man, I'm a— this is— my life is a buddy comedy. Me and my buddy, we get in all kinds of trouble. We have so much fun. Like, this is great. We hang out every weekend." Or you're— I think most probably common— a superhero, meaning that you've got some super special ability that nobody else around you sees, but someday you will be on— your power will be unlocked and everyone will cheer as you soar across the sky, whatever that means for you.
16 · The pastor issues a direct call to reframe life's genre from self-centered narrative (romance, comedy, superhero) to warfare
Revelation comes to us and says, "Oh, You're not in a romantic comedy. You're not in a buddy comedy. You're in a war. And in a sense, we must come awake to the reality that there is a battlefield, that we walk— the floor we walk on is a battlefield, that the life we live is lived at war. And you're like, "Well, I don't really want to do that." Don't care, that's what's happening. But I want the romantic comedy. Great.
See if you can sneak it in between getting shelled by artillery. Like that, you know, if you meet somebody, get married, great, good for you, we'll do a quick wedding. This is war. This is war. Listen, Christian, we must wake up and realize that our life is not just wake up, go to work, go to bed.
I mean, wake up, go to work, pick up the kids, watch some Netflix, go to bed. Wake up again. Go to work, pick up the kids, watch some Netflix, go to bed. If you think your life is that, you are missing it. This is a battlefield.
17 · The pastor makes a clarifying theological claim: Christians must fight the *right* battle—not flesh-and-blood conflicts but spiritual warfare
And I think Revelation also calls us to remember that we must be careful to remember the battle we are fighting. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities in the heavenly realms. That is what Revelation is. Our world right now is consumed by conflict. There is constant conflict and warfare of various kinds.
It ranges from the mundane to the extreme. Okay, there is a war going on right now in the parenting world where the free-range parents align themselves with child-led education, and over here, the structured parents have a schedule for their kids and a checklist for every single task, right? And the two lob Instagram posts back and forth. Who will emerge victorious? We don't know.
We'll wait till your kids grow up and see.
18 · The pastor continues cataloging contemporary conflicts, escalating from trivial (parenting) to serious (vaccines, politics, culture war)
Or moving into more serious waters, perhaps the vaccine versus the anti-vaccine crowd. How could you put something like that in your body? How could you not, right? This kind of feels like the defining struggle. Or to go further to the serious, Democrat versus Republican, this candidate versus that candidate, or further, woke versus non-woke.
19 · The pastor immediately qualifies the illustration—he is not dismissing secondary issues as unimportant, but insisting they must be subordinated to the primary battle (kingdom of Christ vs
Now listen, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that these things are unimportant. I am saying, and I believe the text is saying, Revelation itself is saying, that the defining battle is the kingdom of Christ against the kingdom of the dragon in this world. That is the fight. And what will happen is we will get lost along the way and start fighting other battles, forgetting the defining battle.
20 · The pastor reinforces the previous claim by adding 2 Timothy 2's soldier metaphor—soldiers don't get entangled in civilian affairs
I was so grateful for a brother who, in between services, reminded me of 2 Timothy 2, where Paul uses the metaphor of the soldier, and he— Paul literally tells Timothy, "No soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs." But he remembers that he's obeying his commander. Meaning this: if you're at war and you're wandering off, like, looking for souvenirs, or even back in the trench arguing politics— again, I'm not saying that's not important— but forgetting that you're on a battlefield. And that adds clarity and urgency to how we prioritize our lives and what we fight for.
21 · The pastor names the church's mission as the central reason for the delay of Christ's return—the gathering of elect from every people group through gospel proclamation
Listen, Jesus in Scripture— there's glorious hope. Jesus in Revelation is bringing his kingdom. He is gathering to himself people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And he has given the church the task of going therefore and being his witnesses in Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth, that more might hear and more might be saved. And why is there even a gap between Jesus' ascension and his return? It is We don't know all the reasons in the providence of God, but we know one absolutely clear reason. He delays that more may be gathered to the kingdom of Christ, that the church, faithful its task, wages warfare through the proclamation of the gospel and display of it to those around them who are perishing.
That is clarifying.
22 · The pastor constructs a humorous hypothetical scenario—meeting a neighbor at a cookout who holds every culturally opposite position (wrong politics, wrong economics, wrong music)
Imagine you're at a Fourth of July cookout tomorrow and you invite a neighbor over on a whim. He comes over and he brings some drinks and you start chatting and you realize, oh my gosh, the politician whose face is on my dartboard in the back of the house is his favorite person.
And you start, you know, like, well, you know, let's talk more broadly. You know, what are your other interests? And he's just like, oh, communism. Love communism. Go to sleep in a communist blanket every night.
It got the hammer and the sickle right there. Love it. And you're like, "Oh my gosh," you know. And you're like, "Well, why don't we just play some music?" And he's like, "Great, I got an iPod. All that's in there is Nickelback.
I love Nickelback." You're like, "Oh my gosh, okay."
23 · The pastor applies the hypothetical illustration directly to the sermon's thesis
What do you do? I'm trying to bring this all the way down to the ground level. What do you do in that moment? Now, you can talk politics. That's not wrong.
It may be helpful to him. You could try to explain his musical selections. That may be helpful to him in some ways as well. Oh, but brothers and sisters, it is so helpful to remember we are on a battlefield and the dragon is raging and desires to have this neighbor, and he is being deceived across the board by the false prophet. And you look at him and you see a prisoner of war that Christ can set free.
That changes the way you think about life.
24 · The pastor signals the structural shift from section one (behold the battlefield) to section two (behold the King)
First, remember you're on the battlefield. Second, behold the battlefield. Second, behold the King. Now, Revelation is utterly honest about the power of the dark forces arrayed against the church.
25 · The pastor recaps the forces arrayed on the enemy side of the battlefield—dragon, beast, false prophet, Babylon, all the kings, numbered like sand
Through the church, you— I mean, through the context of Revelation, you see almost arrayed on this side of the battlefield is the dragon behind it all, the beast raging, the false prophet deceiving, Babylon with her siren song, all the kings of the earth. It keeps saying, all the kings of the earth gathered, gathered. It says in Revelation 20, Their number is like the sand of the sea. This is not a few folks. This is a massive, seemingly unstoppable army with illusion and power and tricks of every kind.
And they come against the people of God. Who can stand against them?
26 · The pastor breaks into direct address to God mid-exposition, praying that the congregation would truly *see* the King as the text is unpacked
This is where Revelation 19 answers. This is why Revelation 19 gives such a long list of character attributes for the one who stands on the opposite battle line. Oh, Christian, as we look at this, oh Father, may we behold the King. May we behold the King today.
27 · The pastor exposits the white horse image by connecting it to Roman triumphal entries, then immediately pivots to Christ's biography—incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension
Verse 11: Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. Now listen, that is significant. When Caesar would conquer, he would come in on a white horse as Rome rejoiced around him. The white horse symbolizing Victory.
Why is Jesus riding a white horse of victory? Well, lest you forget, let me remind you of his biography. He, the Word that created the world, became man, humbling himself to the point of death, even death on the cross. And he seemingly was defeated, only, only to wrestle against death itself and come back from the dead, only to pay for the sins of His people and emerge victorious on the third day from the grave. Do you see this white horse?
You see a glimpse of Him coming into Jerusalem and people crying, "Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." He comes now. And He comes mounted not on a donkey, not in humility, but on a horse, on a war horse. This is the warrior, unveiled, unbridled.
28 · The pastor exposits the titles 'Faithful and True' by contrasting the dragon's broken promises with Christ's perfect promise-keeping
It says the one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. Look, on this side, on this battle line, the beast and the dragon, they make all kinds of false promises and they break every one of them. But over here, the Faithful, the True comes, to fulfill every single promise ever made in the Bible. Look, search the Bible for yourself and see. Come show me, is there a promise of God that will not be kept in the end?
Or will He not keep them all? Promises of salvation, promises of mercy, and yes, promises of justice, promises of judgment. He comes to keep every single one.
29 · The pastor exposits three images from verse 12: eyes like fire (seeing through all deception), many crowns (possessing all authority), and an unknown name (inexhaustible glory)
Verse 12: His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems or crowns, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. Right? There is so much deception, smoke on the earth, there's fog of war, but the King's eyes burn with clear vision, and he sees through every deception, every illusion. He sees everybody as they are. Are, and on his head are many crowns. Now, Revelation is repeated again and again that all the crowns, you know, the beast has crowns, that the kings of the earth have crowns. There's all these crowns.
They're all fighting over the crowns. I want this crown. I want this crown. I want that crown. And this person that wants this crown, and this person really is in charge.
And Jesus comes, and on his head, on his head is every crown for every nation, every place, every people, forever, for all time. Every single crown on his head. So, prophetic literature, you're like, is that even possible? Yup, all of them. And he has a name written that no one knows but himself.
This is a fascinating phrase. I'll just say this about it: the beast's forces, the dragon's forces, always appear larger than they actually are, right? They always seem large, but when you come up to them, they're actually quite small and limited.
The rider on the white horse is the opposite. The closer you get to him, the larger he appears. The more you learn about him, the more glorious and magnificent and awe-inspiring he is, right? The depth of his nature and identity are deeper and more powerful than can be grasped or known.
30 · The pastor corrects a likely misreading—the blood-dipped robe is not Christ's sacrificial blood but the blood of his enemies
Verse 13, he is clothed in a robe dipped in blood. Now, you may, as a good Christian like I did, go like, "Oh, great, a reference to redemption. You know, the lamb, you know, that's being slain. It's, you know, the Lamb's blood. He reminds— you know, that's so beautiful." Nope.
This ain't his blood. This is a common symbol in the ancient world. If someone's robe dipped in blood means the blood of his enemies. And I tell you what, man, when you are on the battlefield and you see a dude walking towards you covered in blood and it is not his own, you better watch out, okay? I mean, this guy's no joke.
That's this figure. That's Jesus, a robe dipped in the blood of his enemies that he has already crushed, coming to crush more.
31 · The pastor exposits the title 'Word of God' by connecting it back to Revelation 4-5 (the scroll that only the Lamb can open) and forward to Genesis 1 (the creative Word that spoke reality into existence)
And the name by which he is called is the Word of God, but he is the very embodiment of the revelation, character, and acts of the Lord. You remember in Revelation 4 and 5 where there was this scroll and who could unseal the scroll? And we talked about how the scroll was the purposes of God for blessing and judgment. Remember that? Purposes of God for blessing and judgment. Who can open the scroll? Who can fulfill God's purposes for blessing and judgment? And they cried because no one in heaven and earth could be found who could unseal the scroll.
And the Lamb, the Lion, comes and takes it and unrolls the scroll. That is this figure. He is the very Word of God that the scroll that God decrees, He flies out into the universe and makes real. The Word of God that created reality itself—time, space, oceans, mountains, galaxies. That Word of God embodied in human form.
That's who this is.
32 · The pastor exposits verse 14 by identifying the armies of heaven as the saints (not angels) and humorously contrasting stereotypical heavenly imagery (harp-playing) with the biblical picture of saints riding warhorses
And 14, "The armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses." Oh, we'll say more about this in a second, but just notice he brings his army with him. And these are— just so you know, these aren't angels. These are the saints. The saints ride to war. Lest you think, okay, well, saints just are going to go up there and they're going to play a little harp, you know, like in a cartoon, brring, brring, you know.
And especially if you're a guy, you're like, oh, come on, man, like, I don't know if I could do that. Don't worry.
He calls his army to war.
33 · The pastor exposits the sword from Christ's mouth by connecting it to Genesis 1—the same Word that spoke creation into existence now comes to uncreate what opposes God
Verse 15, from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. Remember that word that opened reality will close reality, that word that made mountains can unmake mountains, right? His word, as soon as it is spoken, does what it says. That's where if you read Genesis 1, and God said, let there be light, and God said, let this happen, and God said, let— that's the word, that's the weapon of the Lamb itself.
So if you look at this side of the battlefield with the beast and the dragon, you're like, oh my gosh, they have illusions, they have power, they have governments. Doesn't matter. The ground they stand on was made by the Word of God, and he will unmake it in a moment. Fear not, Christian.
34 · The pastor exposits 'rule them with a rod of iron' as Old Testament prophetic language for unbreakable, unquestioned rule
And then this line: "He will rule them with a rod of iron." Right? There's so many layers of Old Testament prophecy on this I wish we could unpack, but that "rule them with a rod of iron" is a specific reference to being essentially the ruler who's unquestioned, whose rule It's not kind of brittle. He's not ruling them with a rod of plastic. You leave it in the sun too long, it starts to break. Oh, no. No, no, this is a rod of iron.
35 · The pastor exposits the winepress image by rejecting a sanitized reading and insisting on its violent, judgment-oriented meaning
And he will— this line is terrifying— he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. Sometimes we try to soften the Bible up where you're just like, well, it's not, you know, it's not like there's, you know, bodies under there that he's smashing. A winepress? No, that's the image. Have you ever seen somebody, you know, that I Love Lucy episode where she's, like, trying to smash the grapes and the other person's trying to smash the grapes and kind of the wine is flowing out or the grape juice is flowing out and they're, you know, it's funny and everyone's laughing and she's falling in the thing?
And you're like, "Ha, ha, ha, ha." This is not like that.
This image is an Old Testament image that the wrath of God is like the enemies of God being put under his feet and smashed.
That's what this man comes to do.
36 · The pastor exposits the climactic title 'King of Kings and Lord of Lords' through escalating claims about Christ's absolute, comprehensive sovereignty
And verse 16, on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is the culminating kind of summary statement of who this this figure is. He is the King over all kings. He is the Lord over all lords. There is not one square inch of all human existence over which he does not rule. There is not one square inch of all the spiritual realms that he does not own. There is no king like him. There is no king near him. There is no king on par with him.
There is no king for miles and miles and miles below him. This is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords.
37 · The pastor pivots from exposition to direct congregational address, calling believers to personal ownership of Christ's kingship
Christian, I want you to say— I want you to feel this. I want you to say, "That's my King. That is my King. Behold him there." Now, listen, listen.
38 · The pastor addresses an imbalanced Christology common in American evangelicalism—overemphasis on Jesus' gentleness to the exclusion of his ferocity
I know I've mentioned this before, but sometimes we can have a lopsided understanding of Jesus. Sometimes we see, especially in the American church, the the gentleness of Jesus to the exclusion of his ferocity. Is Jesus gentle? Yes, amen, thank God that he is. Gentle and lowly in spirit.
We can come to him. But he is also breathtakingly fierce.
Right? Or we see Jesus with kids around him, right? The image in Sunday school, you know, I grew up with on the felt board is there's Jesus and there's all the kids around him. And he's just like a, you know, like a Mr. Rogers figure, you know. But the problem is, if that's the only picture you have in your mind of Jesus, you're like, man, there's some situations in life and in eternity that you don't need Mr. Rogers, right?
On this warfare battlefield with the beast and the dragon and all of his forces, you don't need Mr. Rogers in a cardigan. You need the rider on the white horse whose garments are stained with the blood of his enemies, riding at the head of countless riders, that he is redeemed and he rides to war, to ruin and to war. Right? This is the balance we need in our view of Jesus.
39 · The pastor applies the Christological correction specifically to men, using statistical data about church attendance to diagnose a cultural problem—men do not find the gentleness-only Jesus compelling
And look, the reason I'm saying this is this: statistically, more women than men attend church. And statistically across America, Mother's Day is one of the highest attended church Sundays and Father's Day one of the lowest. What does that tell you? It tells you that on her day, mom wants everyone to go to church, and on dad's day, he's like, "Whew, I'm going fishing," or whatever, you know. I don't know where you fish around here. You're going to shoot stuff in the desert.
And— yeah, I know you guys. Why is that? Well, I don't know all of that, but perhaps part of it is this. I think many men do not see in Jesus a king they respect and who is worthy of their allegiance.
40 · The pastor intensifies the application to men by naming a divinely implanted desire for a king and a war, then cataloging the insufficient outlets men use to meet that desire (video games, weightlifting, sports fandom)
And brothers, I think there is something in the heart of every man that longs for a king to follow and a war to fight. Some of you guys in the armed forces are like, "Yep." Like, even if you're not, there is something that— you give a boy a stick in a backyard and give him, like, a few hours, he's going to be fighting stuff with the stick. Usually, not every kid, but, you know, it would be like often. And boys then become men who want to fight. But where they go with that desire makes all the difference. Do they funnel it into video games, trying to rank up in Halo or League of Legends?
Do they want to bench more than all of their buddies? Do they want to cheer a football team, act like they won a game that they paid to watch other people win? Now, these things are not necessarily bad, you know, I'm not saying that these things are bad, but brothers, brothers, hear me, hear me, hear the word of the Lord. You were made for more. You were made for war.
You were made for a king. You were made to follow him into battle. You were made to be part of the purposes of God in your generation. That's what this is a call to.
41 · The pastor returns to the Tolkien illustration, this time quoting at length the moment when the king's arrival produces simultaneous joy in his people and terror in his enemies
Listen, one of my favorite sections of the battle in the Lord of the Rings that I think shows us the appropriate response of when we see the king, what happens in our hearts, it says this. Warrior, sees this lost king coming in the distance. And it says this: Then wonder took him, and a great joy, and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it. And all eyes followed his gaze, and behold, upon the foremost ship a great standard broke, the flag of the king. Thus came Aragorn son of Arathorn out of the paths of dead, borne upon a wind, and the mirth of the riders was a torrent of laughter and flashing of swords, and the joy and wonder of the city was a music of trumpets and ringing bells. But the hosts of evil were seized with bewilderment, and a black dread fell on them, knowing the tides of fate had turned against them and their doom was at hand.
42 · The pastor applies the Tolkien illustration directly to the congregation—beholding Christ the King should produce the same response in believers' hearts as Aragorn's arrival produced in his soldiers
When we behold the King, it does something in our hearts. We— I love that the character Elmer just raises his sword as soon as he sees the King, and he points, and the whole company looks and sings and rejoices. That's what we're meant to— what's meant to happen in our hearts.
43 · The pastor transitions from section two (behold the King) to section three (behold the clash/victory) by setting an expectation—the listener might expect a lengthy battle description like Beowulf—then promises to subvert that expectation
I'm in verse 3, section 3, Behold the Victory of the King. This will be brief because it is Well, you may be expecting a powerful blow-by-blow battle. If you've ever read an epic like Beowulf, there's page after page after page of him getting ready to fight, and they get ready to fight, and then he's fighting, and he's fighting, and he stops, then he fights another person, they're stopping, and there is just page after page of battle about— he's struggling, he's straining, who can win, Grendel or Beowulf, back and forth and back and forth. And here you will find none of that.
44 · The pastor exposits Revelation 19:19-20 by emphasizing what is *not* there—no extended battle description, just immediate capture and defeat
Instead, we read this of the battle with the false prophet: And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him. Him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. You're like, okay, here we go, the lines are running at each other. And the beast was captured and with it the false prophet. It's almost as though the writer, the author of Revelation, John, is just like, yeah, it was no fight at all. I'm just going to skip to the end. The beast, so powerful, all the governments of the world in his hand, now powerless, now chained up. The false prophet deceiving everyone, everyone's looking at him and following him, all of a sudden Exposed, chained up.
45 · The pastor exposits Revelation 20:9 using the same structural observation—no extended battle, just immediate divine intervention and defeat
Similarly, you'll see in the battle of Armageddon with the dragon, verse 9 of chapter 20, "Then they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city." And you're like, "Oh, man, oh, man, here we go." "But fire came down from heaven and consumed them." I love this picture because it's almost as though the dragon, you know, has the city surrounded and he's preparing to roar and unleash this fire. Onto the city, and as he pulls back to roar, he gets burned up instead, right? Fire does come down, but it ain't out of his mouth. It's aimed right at him.
46 · The pastor makes a worldview-level contrast between Christianity and Eastern dualism (yin-yang) or Star Wars-style 'balance' cosmology
Look, this is no long drawn-out struggle. This is where the worldview of Christianity is utterly different than sort of the yin and yang of Eastern religion, or the light and dark side of the Force, right? The The two are not evenly matched. It's not as though the yin and yang, the dark and light, are always fighting each other, and this is, you know, blah, blah, blah, like this, and just kind of cyclical, and they keep fighting, and hopefully good can come out on top. Or— and often you find in Star Wars they'll be like, oh, this one is going to bring balance. He wants to bring balance to the Force.
Uh-uh. Jesus ain't bringing balance to nothing. He's gonna wipe out evil. He's gonna destroy the darkness. That's where we're going.
We're not like, "Oh, who's going to win? We need balance." Nope. We ride to war. We ride to win.
We ride with the King.
47 · The pastor exposits the lake of fire by correcting a popular cultural misunderstanding—the devil does not rule hell but is punished in it
And we see that in this ending, the dragon and beast and prophet are all cast into what Revelation calls the lake of fire. Now, I'm going to talk more about that next week, but here I want you to just notice something absolutely key: the relationship between the devil and hell. The devil is not running around happily with a pitchfork. It's not as though the devil is like kind of like a, you know, corrections officer. God sends people down to jail and he pokes them with his pitchfork and laughs, "Ha ha ha ha ha," you know.
And he makes them listen to Nickelback or, you know, whatever. I'm just kidding. I'm hating on Nickelback. It's fine. You know, he's poking them and you're like, "Oh, yeah." And you have people say things like, "Oh, I hope they serve beer in hell, you know, and the devil will be down there drinking with us." No!
Look, man, this is reality. The devil is utterly destroyed. And while— that detail is terrifying— while alive, in a sense, they're cast in the lake of fire forever. Oh, man, this is an utter defeat for the forces of evil.
48 · The pastor recaps the sermon's three sections (battlefield, king, clash) and pivots to application by restating the thesis
Now then, okay, summary. We've seen 3 things. We've seen the battlefield. We've seen the king. We've seen the clash. Now what are we meant to do?
Well, I want to reiterate the call of the passage. The passage call, I think, is to take heart and fight on as you behold the return of the king.
49 · The pastor introduces biographical details about Tolkien—his experience in WWI, physical and psychological trauma, survival of near-total company destruction, and living through WWII while writing *The Lord of the Rings*
The interesting thing about J.R.R. Tolkien— Tolkien fought in World War I despite being kind of a weak dude. I mean, you're probably thinking, You look at his picture, he's an Oxford professor. He's not going to be super helpful on the battlefield. He wasn't. But he was there. He was faithful. And sadly, in World War I, his almost entire company was destroyed.
He was one of the few survivors. He caught trench sickness. He was mentally and physically broken. He spent the rest of the war trying to get beyond it, was never the same. And you read literature at the time, the Great War, as it was called, broke, in a sense, the psyche of everyone in Europe.
Everybody was like, things are just going to get better and better and better, and humanity's going to get better and better and better, and all their technology and all their goodness, instead of being used for good, was used for destruction. Nobody could deal with that. And then Tolkien was still alive for World War II. So he got to live through that one, live through another one, and while he was going through these things, he wrote what later became Lord of the Rings.
50 · The pastor applies the Tolkien illustration by naming the source of his hope—not optimistic temperament but biblical eschatology
And here's what I want to say. The Lord of the Rings is utterly honest about the darkness and evil in the world around us. It is a dark book. So if you're like, "I'm going to start reading Lord of the Rings after this with my 7-year-old," maybe not. Maybe, but maybe not.
But there is a theme in Tolkien, again and again and again, that as the defenders fight heroically and are about to lose, The sun rises, the cavalry comes, and they are saved. Happens in the second book, happens here again in the third book. At the last moment, the sun rises. Literally, the king comes with the dawn and saves everyone. And Tolkien's worldview was ultimately optimistic.
Why? Well, I don't know exactly why, but I think I know. I think it's because he knew the end of the story of the Bible. He knew that despite all he'd seen in World War I and World War II, and he knew that war would continue until the end, he believed that the king would return.
What does that do for us? It does two things. First, it calls us to take heart.
51 · The pastor applies 'take heart' concretely to those suffering in the congregation, using tender pastoral address ('lift your chin') followed by a thought experiment—how would you live if Christ announced his return in a week? The hypothetical (Frank the annoying coworker, traffic, chronic pain) makes the abstract call to 'take heart' viscerally concrete
Look, Jesus said in this life we would have tribulation. Look, I know folks in the church that have suffered, are suffering. Ah, brother, sister, if I could, let me just lift your chin today. I know the suffering is real. I'm not saying it's not, but lift your eyes and look up and see the King. See that in the end, the King does return. See that in the end, every promise is kept.
See that in the end, it is all for the glory of God and the good of his people. Look, the King will come with the dawn. And what would change if God appeared to you in a vision? This afternoon and said, hey, I'm coming back in a week. How would you approach that week?
Well, I think you'd probably be singing the whole week, right? Be like, ba ba ba da ba. You know, you get into traffic and there's an accident on the freeway and you're like, no problem. Good morning everybody, how are you? You know, Frank, the annoying office guy who's always wanting to talk to you, you're just like, oh great.
You're all of a sudden like, hey Frank, listen, I actually need to get lunch with you. And he's like, really? Oh yeah, actually, 'cause something important coming, I can't tell you what it is, but it's important, I'd love to talk to you about it. Okay, sounds great. In other words, it would change the way you live.
Even your suffering, you'd get up with chronic pain, which I've experienced, and you think, "Man, am I going to make it through another day?" It changes the way you think about that day knowing the King is on his way and will come soon. Take heart, Christian.
52 · The pastor begins unpacking 'fight on' with the first arena—suffering
Second, fight on. Fight on. What does fighting on look like in Scripture? Let me just summarize it this way: fighting on, first, means not giving up. Up in suffering.
2 Timothy 2 also says, "Suffer as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." One of the most countercultural witnesses we as Christians have in our culture is suffering well. The world has no answers or hope when it comes to cancer or loss or disability or betrayal.
The world, all it offers is saying, "Well, define yourself as a victim. Define yourself as a sufferer. Define yourself as someone who's lost someone. Define yourself as bereaved. Define yourself as hopeless.
And then maybe try to alleviate your suffering with this or with that or with this or with that. This can make it a little better. This can make it a little better." But the world has no ultimate solution for hope in the midst of suffering. But this is what Revelation offers us. It offers to those who are suffering, it offers a glimpse of a future without suffering, which the world cannot do.
It offers a glimpse of a future where righteousness and justice prevail, not evil. Look, if you are suffering, I do not want in any way to demean your suffering, but look to Christ. Look to 2 Corinthians 4:17 where it says that all of our suffering is for ultimately our good and for for the eternal glory of God. And this suffering is working in us an eternal weight of glory beyond all compare.
Fight on.
53 · The pastor names the second arena of 'fight on'—mortification of sin and resistance to worldly seduction
Second, fighting on means not giving up in the fight to defeat our flesh and sin. When we feel the siren song of Babylon, when the false prophet desires to draw us in and destroy us and deceive us, right, we fight against those things. We fight against even our flesh. We listen to 1 John where it says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world," right? We keep fighting against lust. We keep fighting against sinful anger. Keep fighting against the world's values of materialism and consumerism.
54 · The pastor intensifies the application by naming specific scenarios where worldly counsel (even from professing Christians) contradicts Scripture—divorce, unforgiveness, cutting off relationships
Let me just give you a warning here, Christian, and encouragement to fight on. The world will find an excuse, and the false prophet will give you an excuse for Anything you want to do, you can find someone, probably wearing the name tag of Christian, who tells you it's okay. Things get too hard in your marriage and you want to just bolt. I'm not demeaning people who are having hard times in marriages, but what I'm saying is you can go and find a Bible teacher who will tell you, "Listen, you got to listen to your heart. Do your own thing. Get toxic people out of your life." Instead of walking through the hard process of trying to seek reconciliation, working on it, or take reconciliation, for example, right? The world will be like, yeah, just cut the toxic people out of your life.
If you have a friend that wrongs you, keep a record of wrongs, bring that up at every opportunity, make sure they know that they're in debt to you. And Bible says, no, no, no, no, that's not how you handle things. Right? This is the pull, and it doesn't feel like, well, that's not fighting. No, it is.
That's warfare. That's the level we fight on. We fight to ground our hearts and minds in the Word of God and to see clearly through his Word and to fight the siren song of the world around us, fight the false teaching around us, hold fast against opposition against us.
55 · The pastor names the third arena of 'fight on'—evangelism and discipleship
And last, fighting on looks like not giving up in the task of telling others about Jesus. Again, we do not know all the reasons Christ delays from his ascension to his return. We know one reason. Very clearly, it is that the choir of people from every tribe, tongue, language, and people be gathered to him. He delays that more might be gathered in. Listen, this redefines the way you see your life. America will tell you that your life is about finding a romantic partner that you enjoy having enough wealth to buy whatever you want so that you can go on decent vacations and having enough comfort and enough things to insulate you from the hurts and hardships of the world.
And that is what America tells you life is. That's life. And the Christian looks at that and says, "No." The Christian looks at that and their view of that last day and the rider on the white horse transforms everything. It transforms our hearts and minds where we say, "Okay, great. This is war.
Every day I'm going to have to wake up and fight against my sin. Every day I'm going to have to fight to renew my mind. Every day I'm going to have to see who's struggling struggling in the church and pull them back to safety from the front lines. Every day I need to see what POWs are out there that Jesus is calling to himself that are captured by the dragon, captured by the false teacher, that I can bring the hope of the gospel to, that Jesus might set yet one more prisoner just like me free. And you look at your budget and all of a sudden it's not like, "Great, how much do we have for vacation?" It's, "What can we do to advance the kingdom of God in our generation?" You look at your kids and not just like, "Well, I hope they have good interests." and win their softball league.
No, I want to help them understand who Jesus is and let them— and help them learn to follow Jesus. Right? That's the war we're fighting.
56 · The pastor signals the transition from application to communion, returning to Revelation 19:14 (the armies following Christ)
All right, we got to end. I could talk about this all day. Line we skipped in verse 14 is our entryway into communion. Verse 14 says this: "And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses." I want you to see the two battle lines. See the dragon, see his people, see all those arrayed here, and then see on this side Christ. And the question that hangs over Revelation 19: How can any of us be on the side of Christ?
57 · The pastor answers the soteriological question by naming human sinfulness (all deserve to be on the wrong side) and then proclaiming the gospel—Christ the Lamb's substitutionary atonement
Because here's the reality: any of us who've sinned, any of us who've fallen, any of us who have, in a sense, soiled our garments, we're all over here. We've all, with our actions or words at one time or another, and many times repeatedly, said, "We reject your rule, God. We're going to do our own thing." So how can it be that anybody is on the side of Christ? Oh, church, remember the Lamb.
He is a warrior, but he is also a lamb. He gave himself as an offering for the sin of his people that they might be washed and cleansed and justified and purified. And here is the amazing thing: anyone anytime can go from this side to this side by confessing they believe who Jesus is and repenting of their sins. Look, if you're here today, we're about to take communion, that you're not a Christian, I'd ask you to refrain from that. But this is an invitation to you.
This is an invitation. It's not as though you got to go do 1,000 good deeds and come back and see us at the church. We'll check your card and then let you into the sight of the Lamb. Today, right now, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Please take the communion, Christians.
You're welcome to take communion even if you're not from our church. We'd love all those who follow Jesus to take it with us. And as we take this communion, let's remember. Let's remember how we came to be in the sight of the Lamb, how we came to be alongside the rider of the white horse.
58 · The pastor administers communion with brief liturgical words, then closes the sermon with the Tolkien quotation one final time ('they sang as they slew'), now functioning as doxological climax rather than illustration
Is Jesus. Lord, as we take the bread in our hands, we remember your body broken for us. May we take this in remembrance of what you've done for us. Please take the bread, Christian.
And now please take the cup.
And Father, we Remember your Son's blood shed for us.
Remember that in his blood our garments are washed white as snow.
In his blood, regardless of the sins we have committed 10 years ago or this week, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be saved. O Lord, thank you. Please take the cup, remember Christ's blood shed for you.
And church, if you would, let's stand now.
And then all the host burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the city. Oh, church, may we remember that the dominant note of Christianity is not sorrow but victory. The dominant note of our faith is not loss but gain. The dominant note is not the struggle but the victory in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let's sing.