FBC Morning Light – December 27, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Tuesday morning. I imagine that for many of you, this was a day when you had to go back to work after having a holiday yesterday for a

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Christmas celebration. But I hope your day goes well, if that is your case, that you have to go back to work today.

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And I hope also that you have the kind of work that you really kind of look forward to it. You enjoy the days off, but you also enjoy your work and realizing that's where God has you at this particular time.

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Well, today we're in Revelation 19, and we've only got a couple chapters left in this book to round out the year.

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But Revelation 19 is an interesting chapter. It gives me a pause to reflect and remember an incident earlier in my life.

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I had gone to a Christian university in South Carolina as a freshman, went to this place.

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I grew up in the North, Midwest, Ohio, Illinois is where I grew up.

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All the churches I attended were pretty typical, fairly quiet churches.

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Every once in a while, somebody would say an amen during a worship service, during preaching, and so forth. There wasn't a whole lot of emotional exuberance, if you will.

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I get to school in the South my freshman year and went with a couple of friends to a church in town that was, shall we say, radically different than any of the churches

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I grew up in. It was a Baptist church, but there was a lot more emotion involved.

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Let me put it this way. The pastor of that church had been there for years and years, an older man.

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He had a sermon that he liked to preach, and people loved him to preach it every few years.

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It was entitled The Four Hallelujahs, and it was based on Revelation chapter 19. Indeed, if you look at the chapter, if you read it, you'll discover in the first several verses of the chapter that there are four times when the word hallelujah is proclaimed.

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This preacher would get into his message, and he would get wound up. He'd get to the first hallelujah, and he would yell it, he would shout it.

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People in the congregation are getting hooped and hollering, and they're really getting into it. By the time he gets to the third hallelujah, the whole congregation is whipped up into a frenzy.

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There was a guy in the church who was notorious for taking a jog around the auditorium.

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The pastor let loose in this third hallelujah, and this guy, he let loose, taking off out of his pew, running up into the choir loft, running across the choir loft, down the other side of the platform, back around the back of the church, and then back up the other aisle.

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Finally, with a shout and a hoot and a holler and a hallelujah, he sat down wiping his brow.

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That's a little too much for me. It wasn't the kind of church I could find myself worshiping in very regularly, but it was an interesting,

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I hate to put it this way, but it was an interesting show for this northern boy who'd never seen anything like it.

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That doesn't mean there's not a lot to be excited about in these four hallelujahs. There are great reasons to be shouting hallelujah, and this is happening in this heavenly scene.

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There's the presence of God, and this host of creatures are just proclaiming, and people, redeemed people, are proclaiming hallelujah.

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The first hallelujah in verse 1 is just an exaltation of God, exalting in his salvation and his glory and his honor and his power.

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The implication is that all salvation belongs to him, all glory and honor belong to him, all power and authority belong to him.

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Hallelujah. Our God is overall, and our God is the

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Savior, and he is the only Savior. Our God deserves all of our praise and our honor and all glory.

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In the third verse, the second hallelujah is praising God for his judgment, and it's the judgment that he rendered on the harlot, the great harlot, as spoken of in verse 2.

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He has executed his wrath upon this harlot, and he says at the end of verse 2, he has avenged on her the blood of his by her.

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So God is to be praised for his justice, for finally avenging the blood of all the martyrs and all those who have been wrongly abused and killed by the great harlot.

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The third hallelujah comes in verse 4, where the 24 elders and the four living creatures fall down and worship him who sits on the throne, and they say, amen, hallelujah.

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So the angelic beings, this elite group of angelic beings, also echo.

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They say, so let it be, yes indeed, praise be to God for his righteous judgment.

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And then the fourth hallelujah in verse 6 is simply praising

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God because he is omnipotent and he reigns. It says, hallelujah, for the

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Lord God omnipotent reigns. That is, the

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Lord that we serve, the God that we serve, is omnipotent. He is all -powerful, and he reigns, he rules, and he reigns over all things for all time.

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Yes, you could see in a passage like this where, you know, the right kind of preacher with the right kind of emotional energy and so forth could preach this passage in a way that could really get you excited and really get you thrilled.

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And who knows, if you're one of these Yankee Christians who doesn't say amen too much, you might even shout out a hallelujah yourself.

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I don't think it would be a great idea for you to get out of your pew and go running around the auditorium, but hey, an amen or hallelujah every once in a while is not a bad thing.

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All right, Heavenly Father, we do thank you and praise you for who you are. We praise you today that you are the omnipotent

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God who reigns over all, above all, and you are our

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Savior. Hallelujah. We praise you today, in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Tuesday, and may the Lord bless you in it.