My good friend, Don Tata Suero, sat on his horse with a piece of paper in his hand. The man who brought it continued his way up the mountainside. It was a rare thing in those days and in that place to receive a telegram. It might well have been the first telegram he received in his life. And he opened it and he felt stunned as he read the message where it simply said that his legal wife had died the day before. He looked down from that place. I've often been there. You can see the shoreline, the beautiful blue sea of the Atlantic Ocean, the lovely foliage of our country, and his heart was filled with mixed emotions. He felt no animosity towards that woman. He made a mistake. She made a mistake. She didn't want to live with him. the families compelled them to marry. And now after all these years, the Christian and loving this woman Romana and wondering what he should do to glorify God's name, God had intervened in the way that no one ever anticipated. And the woman had passed away. So he turned the horse around, went back up the hillside to his home, and when he arrived there, Ramona thought, He didn't have the courage. He had changed his mind. And yet there was a smile on his face, and he shared with her the telegram, and a few tears were shed at that moment. And he said, now we'll go down together, and we'll go to the justice of the peace, and we'll be married this afternoon. So they went down, and they were married. The news quickly spread, and the elders soon baptized them. and they became active members in the local community, in the little church that functioned in that place. There's no doubt about it that he was a man raised up from God. Sometimes you think of situations and you wonder how such a complicated life could be brought to a state of order and go on for many years and glorify God. I sometimes think the grace of God always startles us. It always goes beyond what we can imagine. And God picks up the human lives that are broken and in ruins. He remakes them and he uses them in his service. So Don Tata became, as the years went by, one of the leading elders along the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, highly esteemed gifted in the teaching of God's Word, and I myself received much help and blessing from Him. For instance, many long years ago when I was young, and with my colleague Don McIntosh, we used to travel along the northern coast on horseback. If it was a dry season, you almost smothered in dust, and if it was the rainy season, you plowed through the mud, but you went ahead with your work. And we were young, filled with enthusiasm and joy as we served God in that area. We sometimes would go for two weeks, three weeks. You always looked forward to the last meeting, because when it was over, then you knew you were on your way home, and you didn't wait for the next day. You always planned your activities so that when they came to an end, it would be that time of the month when the moon was full, much like it is in recent days here in Florida. So you'd finish your meeting at nine, nine thirty at evening. You'd talk with the friends. On this occasion, we were where this man lived. He was part of the group as we talked in fellowship. And then he said, I'll go with you. And I knew what he had in mind. We had to cross a river. Now there was a little barge that was pulled by a rope across the river. And that was our hope that the man would be awake and the barge would be on this side of the river and he would take us across. If you wonder why we traveled at night, you traveled at night with the bright tropical moon. It was almost like daytime and you didn't have the intense heat of the sun. It was the ideal time to travel along the beach of the northern coast. We never had any fear in those days. I wouldn't do it today. But in those days, you never had any fear of anything happening to you. But Don Tata, with his experience, he probably thought, these two North Americans don't realize the danger of that river. I'm going with them to the river. So the three of us arrived at the river. It was now about one-thirty in the morning. And with his two hands to his mouth, he yelled across the river, The barge man was on the other side. He yelled a number of times, no response. If I'd been there by myself, I would have taken my horse, gone right into the river and across to the other side. That's why I thought came. He knew I would have done that. He said, we'll wait another hour or so. He was looking at the tide. There's not much difference in the tide in the tropics, but there's sufficient to make a noticeable difference and he wanted it to be low tide as low as possible and then when the time came he said we'll go now he was first I was right behind him he turned his horse and went right out into the ocean as if he was setting out for New York City I was young and I went right behind him my colleague he stayed on the beach and wondered where in all the world the two of us were going. But I followed Tata and our animals went right out and then he began a long curve. He knew that the river came down and it pushed the sand out. And the sand formed a bar in a semicircle and his intention was to take us on the top of that sandbar right around until the other side. There was only one place in the middle where the horses had to swim a little, and then again they could touch the bottom, and we came out on the other side. And then my good friend, Tata, had to go all the way back and bring across my colleague the same way, who would stay behind. But we owed him many things. That's one example. Here's a much more important example. As a young man, I wondered how to prepare leaders in the Dominican Republic. On the northern coast of our island, we'd had a meeting there, one over there, another one here, one down here. And I said to Grace, as we enjoyed our coffee, I said, this is the most frustrating thing. One night here and one night there, you can't do anything of a consecutive nature. And as we were drinking coffee, I had an inspiration. And I thought, you know, if we could go to point A over there, and gather all the leaders and the potential leaders around that area in the different churches. And then point B right here and do the same thing. And point C down there. In one long weekend with a session of about three hours in each place, we could touch the leadership of thirty-five to forty of our assemblies in that part of the country. I got very enthusiastic about this. Then we went back to the capital city, and like some of the theologians, I had second thoughts, and I said to Grace, it won't work. It's too idealistic a plan. It wouldn't possibly work. Now, you good friends here tonight, you don't really know my wife, this distinguished lady of this here, she has one of those streaks that you can call insistent, which is rather a polite word for stubborn. and grace would not give up on the idea and we have a dominican friend just like my wife and these two ladies they would not give up on this idea so to keep peace in the family said i'll send a letter out i'll set the date i chose the places i knew the northern coast so well and we sent the letter out and then we started that weekend and on the way up on the highway grace still reminds me of the place where I said to her for the last time, it will not work. When I arrived at the first place, the building which would be maybe half the size of this building was filled to capacity. And right away I saw Dante Tassuer, his gray hair, he was there, tall and lanky, wasn't ashamed after being an elder for some years to recognize I need help as a leader of the Christian community and he set the example. He was there. Other elders came because of him. The young men were there aspiring to leadership and the place was graced by the presence of many good Dominican women. And we began this program that went on for seventeen years. And Don Tata, as far as I know, he never missed a session. in those years of systematic, consecutive study of the Word of God. He was an example to others. And we look back with great joy to the years we spent together in the service of God. Like some of you, he grew into old age. And when he was in his early eighties, a shadow settled over his life. It filled us with sadness, and I'll tell you about that tomorrow. This morning we went to a small town of approximately forty thousand people. It lay between Lydia and Missia. It was what we would have called in North America many years ago a frontier town. There was no Acropolis in Thyatira, so there was no major fort. When you looked across the plains, you knew that beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, where you had stories of all these barbarous people who lived in that area, you sometimes wondered, when will they come and flood into this area? Of course, it did happen later on in history, but you were almost on the frontier. And in that city, this group of working men and women formed a local church. I mentioned this morning I was brought up in a church like that. Let me share with you tonight what the elders were like in my church. One was a grave digger. That's before they had machinery to dig the graves. You did it by hand. His name was Mr. Murdoch. Mr. Pollock, he was the man who worked in a great lumber yard in Vancouver, Canada. Mr. McClellan, he cleaned the passenger cars of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Every day he went down and cleaned through the cars when they came from the East. My father worked in the sugar refinery. Most of them came from Scotland, one or two from Ireland, and there was one from England. You would have thought that the local church was only made up of people from the old country, as we said. But then God, in his grace, he sent us an Italian. He could barely speak the English language, the best thing that ever happened to us in that church. And he brought with him a lovely family. He was a plumber. So all of the men in that church were working men. Our church was like the church in Thyatira in that sense. As we come to the end of the letter, there is a portion I'm going to read to you this evening, beginning in verse twenty-five of chapter two of Revelation. but hold fast what you have till I come. And he overcomes and keeps my works until the end. To him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels, as I also have received from my fathers. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. I know this evening that I am speaking to a number of men and women in this audience who for many years have been involved in Bible teaching. Maybe like some of you, I have those portions that I'm drawn to, that I love to speak about. There are other portions in the Word of God that I come to sometimes reluctantly. I'm not always sure exactly how to handle the exposition of the portion. This is one of those portions this evening. First of all, there is no doubt about it that in those closing verses you are given the impression that there awaits you on the other side. when you enter into the presence of God a full participation in an overwhelming victory. The difficulty is how to define the victory. I think that rather than begin by looking ahead, we must begin by looking backwards. And we must remember what happened approximately two thousand years ago. The Lord Jesus was here in our world, and he was tempted of the evil one. The evil one took him up into an exceedingly high mountain. Now, I don't know how you understand those words. I almost take that in a symbolic sense. Some point in quotation marks. where the Lord Jesus had a vision of the past kingdoms of the world. You can go back to Babylon or the great city of Nineveh. You can think of many of the great empires in the past, and he saw the glory of all of them. But he also saw the glory of the present moment. He would see down into Egypt and the great civilizations the great pyramids that stood there, the great cities. He would see right up to Rome, the great imperial city that dominated the world. He would see as far as India and China, at that time, great nations of the world and all their glory. And I suggest to you, not dogmatically, that he looked right into the future. And he saw the coming nations in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America, in Africa, and all of their glory. And it was all offered to the Lord Jesus. If you remember the words of the evil, the evil one, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. And the Lord Jesus said away with you, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. Now we're talking about an overwhelming victory. When all the kingdoms of the world and their glory come under the jurisdiction of the Lord Jesus and of those who belong to Him, but He would not receive it the wrong way. And He said, No. You may remember that just on the eve of his being captured or taken by his enemies in Jerusalem, he went into that garden, perhaps even better, that small farm called Gethsemane. He must have known the owner. You have the impression in the Gospels that he went there regularly, even often. He never asked for permission. He just went. He was expected, he was welcomed, and he would go into that garden. He'd been there in prayer, and then the enemies came, and they were about to take him, and you have the disciple who draws a sword. I wonder how much experience he had using a sword. It may have been his intention to kill the servant who was present, but he only glanced the sword off of his head. and the ear was injured. And the Lord Jesus said to that disciple, Put your sword in its place. All who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you not think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen thus? Twelve legions of angels. There were six thousand men in a legion in the Imperial Army. Six thousand by twelve. You have seventy-two thousand. The Lord Jesus said more than six legions. So you have a great number. And I think many scholars think that we ought not to take it literally and begin counting one, two, three, but to understand the term as a saying in those times that would speak of an innumerable, powerful force. Angels in great numbers could have been called and would have been present with Him. But He did not ask for them. And the Lord Jesus came into our world And he came here to undo the works of the evil one without human armies, and without angelic armies, he went alone. Now let's go back farther still to the very beginning. And Adam and Eve are in that paradise that God made for them. And the evil one appeared, and the battle was fought and lost. in the area of our human nature. Eve was tempted and she yielded, and through the woman the man was touched, and he yielded, and that battle between the evil one and our human race and the purposes of God was fought on the territory of our human nature, and it was lost. Now the moment has come to recapture God's purposes in time and in history. And God will not look for any advantage. Where the battle was lost, it will be fought in you and won. And where was it fought? In human nature. And so his son was not sent to be a great angel or some supernatural being like a seraphim, a caravan. He was sent right into the world and He was born into our human race. We must never weaken the humanity of the Lord Jesus. He was a perfect man in our world. When the moment comes to go and to face the enemy and to recapture the victory for God, it will be fought on that same territory of human nature. But here is the second Adam. There is no sin in him. His meat, his sustenance was to do the will of God. And now, sinless, he goes alone to face the enemy at Calvary. It's hard sometimes to think of this if you were a stranger coming into Jerusalem and you looked at this spectacle, the three crosses, the condition of those who hung on the cross and to imagine that there was a great battle taking place. But there was. Listen to the words of Paul. Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. That is, all the powers of darkness like leeches. were grasping Him to destroy Him. And in His death and in His resurrection He threw them off, made a public spectacle of them, and He triumphed over them. You would never have known that if you had stood there and watched that event two thousand years ago. But as I mentioned, God did not look for any advantage. Some of you have been to Greenwood Hills. Grace and I have been there a number of times. I've now made three visits to Gettysburg, and I'm not even an American citizen, but I like American history, all history. I've walked around that battlefield. I've looked at the monuments. I've gone to the museums. I've studied the strategy of that particular battle. It's not very complicated. There are two armies. One is standing up on the ridge hidden by the bushes. The other is at the other side on the level territory. And when they began to move across, as you all know, there was a slaughter that day because the other group with the advantage firing down, they won the basket. When God comes into our world, remember, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He didn't look for an advantage. He sent his son as a man into our world and he went alone to the place called Calvary. And just before he gave up his spirit, there is that great cry, it is finished. Something great happened at Calvary. And that was the victory over death. the victory over sin, the victory over hell, the victory over evil, it was accomplished at Calvary. We never lose the awe of sitting on a Sunday morning and going back to Calvary. You remember that it was there more than any other place where sin abounded. Paul writes, where sin abounded, at Calvary in concentrated form to destroy the Lord Jesus. But then you read the other phrase, grace did much more abound. And it was at Calvary that the Lord Jesus expressed the love of God. He went and fought the battle for us. He recovered the victory for God. He opened the door into the eternal bliss of that glory for all of us, forever and forever. Now... We're going to look around and look into the future. Whatever concept you have of the things described in the Revelation, may I suggest that we must all remember that the book of the Revelation speaks of the implementation of the victory. When you read that book, you know there is nothing in doubt The battle was fought in the past. It was won at Calvary. When you turn around and you look into the future, it's the implementation of that great victory. There is absolutely nothing in doubt. In Revelation nineteen, and we cannot read the portion, this evening you have this long portion about this great battle scene in that book. It almost frightens you to read it. How you interpret it, I have no idea this evening. Some of us come to a portion like this, and we read the words, He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood. Now heaven is open, and on the great horse, Out comes the one, his name is faithful and true, the Word of God. He comes riding out. He is followed by the armies of heaven, all on white horses and dressed in white. Only one has his garment dipped in blood, and the battle hasn't even begun. So we have to imagine and try to understand what does it mean There are two ways of understanding this. It is either his own blood that stains his garment, or it is the blood of his enemies. If we think that it is his own blood, how beautiful to remember that through the book of the Revelation, the major theme is the lamb as it had been slain. You remember that the victory of Calvary was won, not by shedding the blood of His enemies, but by shedding His own blood for them, His enemies. That is the blood that was shed at Calvary. That is the price of the great victory that He achieved for the glory of God and for our well-being spiritually. That was the blood that was shed, and when you meet him in the Revelation, he is the Lamb, as it had been slain. If you go back into Isaiah, you can read a portion there, and you can see a battle scene described, and there the warrior, his garment, is stained by the blood of his enemies. And so on the basis of that, sometimes We think that that garment stained or dipped in blood, it is the blood of his enemies. But I suggest to you tonight, kindly, that when you think of these verses in the Old Testament and these great picture scenes pointing into the future, the fulfillment of any prophecy is never limited by the prophecy itself. Now, some of you are gardeners. And you go out with a seed. Nothing beautiful about the seed. Doesn't even look alive. But you put it in your pot and you water it. And eventually there's a plant and there is a beautiful flower that explodes. The difference between the flower and the seed is overwhelming. The seed has the essence. But when it breaks out, explodes into beauty, there is hardly any comparison. When you go back and think of so many verses in the Old Testament, they are written in those times. The description come from the days in which they live. But then these things are described in material and physical ways. They explode and are fulfilled in cosmic dimensions. in great glory and everlasting beauty. There is a relationship. There is a great and beautiful difference. Here is one illustration of that. And I think of John in the book of the Revelation. He has been called up into heaven, into the courtroom of God. It was a great experience for John. And he saw one seated on a throne and in his right hand, the hand of priority. The Hand of Urgency, there is a book, and John notes, all of my questions, the answers are in that book. He's thinking about the churches in Asia. He wonders what's going to happen to them, now that the wave of persecution has been intensified. He wonders where history is going, how it will end. and he knows instinctively the message, the answer is in that book in the right hand of him who sits on the throne, but it's sealed. And the voice goes out, but no one can even touch the book or even look at the book. Now, most scholars believe John was a man perhaps eighty to ninety years of age. He's standing in heaven He loses his dignity, and like a child, he openly weeps. No one can take the book. Then one of the elders came to John, and they said, John, don't weep, don't weep. The lion of the tribe of Judah. You know, John was brought up in the Sabbath school, seeing you all about those stories of the Old Testament, the imagery. He had listened to words like this, Juda, you are he whom your brother shall praise. Your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's wealth. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down. He lies down as a lion and as a lion who shall rouse him. He wouldn't dare do that. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people." And the portion goes on. This is the description of a warrior leader, a lion powerful dominating the nations, the praise of all his brothers. And the elder says to John, now John, stop weaving. The line of the tribe of Jude is coming, and I can just feel in John's heart that joy and expectancy. The great warrior has come, and he turns around to see him. And he sees a line, pardon me, he sees a lamb as it has been slain. The fulfillment of that prophecy is in the lamb who came. The battle was fought at Calvary. He won the battle by giving his own life. His blood was shed for his enemies. And when John saw the lamb, it must have been the shock of his life. But that's how the prophecy was fulfilled. Not with one who came with a sword in the hand to fight a great battle, but who came to give his life. And though he is the lamb, he is also the line of the tribe of Judah. And so then begins the new song. and all of creation participate in that song. And to him is to be given honor and dominion and glory and majesty. And he will rule over all nations. He is the line of the tribe of Judah, but the fulfillment is in the one who was the Lamb who came and gave his life for us. You can go on in the book of the Revelation and you come to some of these things that are difficult to understand. the sword comes out of his mouth. It's not in his hands. Now that's something you can't visualize. You know, there are artists. Take Rembrandt. Some of the great paintings of that man, we go to museums in Paris and London and other places, Amsterdam to see his work. He always has a light that comes down on the principal figure and it stands out. And you just stand there. Here's a man who read the Bible, who felt the stories, and had the capacity to paint them. But you can't paint the stories of the Revelation. On the Lamb's head there are many crowns. How could you possibly paint that? Out of His mouth comes the sword. It's not if it was in His hand how easy it would be to paint it. But how can you paint it when the sword comes out of His mouth? And so you think of these portions And you realize that on that coming day, a battle hand to hand, sword to sword, doesn't seem to fit the picture. Even in the Old Testament, you have the indication, the fulfillment is not a sword in the hand, it's a sword in the mouth. Listen to Psalm two and verse five. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them. in his deep displeasure. Isaiah, he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. This isn't a hand-to-hand struggle. Again, I repeat, there is no doubt about the outcome. This is the implication of the victory, and he speaks, and with his word, he brings order into our disordered world, and he punishes those who have opposed the Word of God. It's interesting that in Revelation nineteen, his name is the Word of God, and the sword comes out of his mouth. I hurry on tonight. Armageddon comes to mind, and like many of you, I've stood more than once on Mount Megiddo, and I've looked over the plain of Jezreel. I've tried to visualize it in my mind. One of the great Bible teachers in our heritage was G. H. Lang. I never knew him, of course, but I know those who did know him, and they said he was the most godly man, a little eccentric in some of his prophetic understandings. But I read one of his books and dealing with these subjects, he himself, who used to spend months in the Middle East, in Egypt, in Israel, serving God, He probably stood many times on Mount Megiddo, looked over the plains of Jezreel, read the stories and the Old Testament and the Revelation, tried to visualize this great battle on that plain. And finally he came up with this theory that before it happens, there will have to be what we would call in our generation a nuclear disaster. And the whole history of the world would be set back a century or two centuries and in much more primitive forms than he could understand the descriptions in the book of the Revelation. It's hard to understand them when men today sit in great offices under Washington or London or Paris with panels before them and with a push of the button. They can involve themselves in battles being fought anywhere in the world. Again, you come to these scenes and you remember the plain of Jezreel is one of those places where many decisive battles were fought in the past, and not all of them recorded in the Bible. And probably for that reason it is picked up that there is a moment coming when there will be a final intervention of God in the affairs of men, and the disorder of our history will be set right and God will be vindicated on that day. In our closing moments this evening, it is beautiful to think that the Lord Jesus says to people like us, He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, and you sort of quake when you read words like that. And then He adds, as my Father has given to me, that is the place that he occupies by right as Lord of Lord and King of Kings. In grace he opens the door and you are caught up and I am caught up and we are ushered in to participate actively in that overwhelming victory of God on that coming day. Today we sit in front of our television sets and we look at programs And the aim of the program is to destroy the concepts of the family unit, as we have known it traditionally. We've mentioned a number of things this week, and we look out into our society and into our world, and we seem to be contemplating the defeat of all that God stands for, of all the things that we hold precious according to the Word of God. and we wonder where history is going. I wonder if they felt that way in Thyatira with these gods who were being worshipped. When all that was happening, you could lose your job if you didn't eat in these festivals dedicated to the pagan deities and participated in immorality, and you wondered what was going to happen. Well, the Lord comes as the Son of God, and he says there will be a victory. and you are invited. You will be part of that victory on that coming day. It brings to our hearts a great deal of joy as we think about this. And my closing thought tonight comes from a difficult verse in the Bible. I don't know how you think about it. I know some of our very good friends of other groups of Christians, they read these words and they understand them so differently than some of us do. And these are the words. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And so there's a struggle. You never really know. You keep working and hoping that you will be faithful right to the end. And then if you are, you will be saved. I don't know how they come to that conclusion because if you're a Bible student, you take a verse in the context where it is. This verse is not in Romans. It's not in the middle of a great doctrinal statement about the Gospel. These words are in Mark's Gospel, chapter thirteen, where you have the Lord Jesus speaking about the dangerous times in which His servants would serve Him. Listen to His words. But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them, and the gospel must first be preached to all the nations. But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. but whatever is given to you in that hour speak that for it is not you who speak but the Holy Spirit listen to these words now brother will betray brother to death and the father his child and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death and you will be hated of all men for my name's sake. That is, he's telling them it's not going to be easy and you're going to live in a world where it looks like the evil one has triumphed and won the day. Then he asks, but he who endures to the end shall be saved Now there isn't time tonight. The word save has at least eight different meanings, and many scholars believe here it means vindicated. Take Stephen, how they hated him, and now they're going to stone him to death. And he said, Look, the heavens are open, and I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. And in that little phrase, he took the whole audience out of that earthly court. And he placed them in the heavenly court, which always has the last word. And then he knew he would be vindicated on that coming day. They rejected his message. Then they're going to kill him now. But he knew there is a higher court. There is an overwhelming victory. And that day is coming. He sought beforehand the Lord Jesus, not seated, but standing at the right hand of the majesty on high. Wherever you feel, wherever you are today, and whatever your emotions are as you think of the world that you are in, you're much like the church in Thyatira. And the Lord Jesus is saying to you, go on, be faithful right to the end. The day of overwhelming victory is coming, and I'm not going in myself. I'm taking you with me. And together, beyond this world, we will enjoy that overwhelming victory. Our hymn books please, the number twenty-three, as we conclude our service tonight. Hymn number twenty-three, rejoice the Lord is King, your Lord and King adore. Mortals give thanks and sing, and triumph evermore. Jesus the Savior reigns, the God of truth and love. When he had purged our stains, he took his seat above. Let's stand now and sing the last three verses of hymn number twenty-three. Verse three, It came down.