Rev 12:10+11, And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night.” And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. 
	We have been dealing with this passage for several weeks to this point. As we have seen, it is of vital importance in the plan and purpose of God for His Church to see Christ in the light of His victory and in the light of His being the Lamb of God. We will never have a full understanding of the heart of God, with regard to His Son, until these two pictures are firmly implanted into our hearts and minds in an unshakable manner. Last time, we saw the Lamb defined in the Old Testament as revealed to the prophets. For the next few weeks, we want to look at Christ as the Lamb in this Letter of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It is in this Book of Scripture that the Holy Spirit shows Him most often in this capacity.
	It is easily understood that Jesus fulfilled the required place as the perfect sacrifice that redeems all those who will but call upon Him for their salvation. Through His death and resurrection, atonement for sin, the just payment for its consequences are forever accomplished. It is only through Christ’s selfless offering of Himself on the Cross that we can be redeemed and brought into the presence of God in His Righteousness and Holiness. We can appropriate that truth rather easily and fundamentally in our minds and hearts. We completely thank God for His so great Love that accomplished this wonderful salvation.
	Please realize that we are in no sense minimizing that wondrous miracle of God’s work of salvation. We will eternally be rejoicing in Him for opening the only avenue that could be unlocked through the blood of His Son for our entrance before Him. But we must recognize that this is not the end all and be all of Christ as the Lamb of God. It is but the commencement of His glory that will be seen in Heaven.  
Rev 5:6-9, And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. And He came, and He took it out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 
In this passage, we see Jesus as the Lamb worthy to open the book and to break its seals because He had been slain. Notice, this is the position of the all-powerful One Who will loose the judgment upon the earth by virtue of His obedience, an obedience unto death. 
So often, when we think of a lamb, we have a vision of a powerless creature soon to be slaughtered, as in the case of the sacrificial lamb. There is no ferocity, no danger, no menace, no power involved with our concept of a lamb. It is a sweet and cute pastoral picture that is presented to our mind’s eye. 
But that is not the depiction that we are given in this passage. The Lamb of God is able to unloose all the just and holy plagues that are soon to overwhelm the inhabitants of this realm. There is no mild mannered cuteness in this scene. It is the onslaught of the Holiness of God that is unleashed as the seals are rightly and dutifully broken. The power to break them has been procured through all the anguish and agony of the Cross of Calvary.
Rev 5:11-14, And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing." And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." And the four living creatures kept saying, "Amen." And the elders fell down and worshiped. 
Notice in this passage, all of creation gives forth blessing and honor and glory and dominion to Him Who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. This is a panorama of not just worship and adoration, but of homage and supremacy and authority. Every created thing will recognize the Lamb’s authority for all of eternity. This is no small consideration. Jesus Christ will receive the honor due to Him as the Lamb of God. The sacrificial service that He rendered will become the vision of all creation throughout the eternal ages to come. 
For those who have accepted His tremendous act of reconciliation to God, this will be a pure pleasure of honor to offer Him. We will be thrilled to see Him high and lifted up in such glory and honor and power and adoration. Our eternity will be filled with the vision of the glorified Lamb of God in Whom will proceed forth our every course of action and thought. We will be forever before Him, seeking to serve Him to greater and greater measures that will offer Him all adulation and obedience. We will be thrilled to serve Him and count it a privilege and honor to give Him praise with all our hearts.  
However, this is the great curse of those who are damned to Hell. They will be forced to acknowledge and to see the Lamb Who was slain, Whom they rejected. This will be an everlasting and searing vision that will inhabit their suffering and defiled beings for all the ages of the ages. They will serve Him, but it will be with the resignation that they chose to deliberately reject Him as Savior. They will know Him and give obeisance to Him as Lord, but will never be able to honor Him as their personal Savior. He will demand their absolute obedience, but it will be a servitude filled with the anguish and the shame of dishonor and brokenness and enslavement to the vicious lies and entrapments of this world’s stupidity. They will be forever haunted by the foolishness of their denunciation of the Christ, Who could have been their salvation, if they had only called out to Him.  
Next, we see the power of the Lamb of God as recounted in Rev 6:1, And I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come." No one else could break the seals of the book. And, as the seal was broken, there was an immediate response. The power of that response was as of thunder. This is an indication that all of heaven is shaken by the power that is unleashed by the Lamb’s action. We know that there will be a corresponding reaction from the earth to the action of heaven. 
As well, the heavens will respond to the action that the Lamb has accomplished on the earth. As we read the account of the crucifixion in Luke 23:44+45a, And it was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured… We note that the heavens registered the awful manifestation that was so necessary for the salvation of mankind. Darkness fell over all the land. The heavens had lost the light of their Creator. This was not just the death of another man. The very Son of God had chosen to die for the sake of humanity.  That immense sacrifice was registered throughout the universe. This was the culmination of all the Love of God for His creation. It all centered in the willing offering of His Son’s life. As the Lamb was slain, so did the Omnipotence of God find the only way to redeem such as us unto Himself. The Omniscient One registered the fulfillment of all that was necessary for sin to be put away. In that power, the Lamb slain became the Lamb in Whom all glory and honor and majesty will everlastingly dwell.     
	Rev 6:15-17, And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand?" Here is the terrible onslaught of His Righteous and Holy wrath upon those who have chosen to reject Him. This is the display of the powerlessness of mankind when faced with the Justice and the Virtue and the Devoutness of God. So often, man pits himself against God and tries to justify himself through the utter denial that there even is a God. The puny attempts to stand against the fury and the righteous anger of God upon those who purposely choose to deny the work that was done on their behalf is utter folly and futility. Their denial of the willing death of God’s Only Begotten Son will rightfully merit the unhindered wrath that will proceed forth from the throne of Heaven.
The justice of God will be so horrific in its utter perfection against the lost of this age that there will be no manner of hiding from it or of avoiding it. It will be recognized in its terrible severity as perfectly meted out in full accordance with the just measure of its deservedness. There will be no one who can complain that it is unfairly measured out upon the subjects of its intense scrutiny. All who suffer it will recognize it as their proper and deserved consequence. The Lamb of God, Who is the salvation of the world, will be the irresistible force behind the warranted punishment of those who have not sought the refuge of His atoning work. It will be evident to every soul that all should have called upon Him. It will also be abundantly evident that there is no greater offence to the heart of God than the rejection of the gift of His Love. The utter denial of the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, will merit the entire righteous fury of Heaven.    
	The final vision of the Lamb of God, that we will regard this morning, is recorded in Rev 7:9-12. After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen." 
	We see the redeemed of the Lord surrounding the throne, acknowledging the great salvation that is ours in Christ Jesus. There is rejoicing in that salvation. There is worship and honor and praise that is evoked from the hearts of the saints. There is a single voice of union declaring the goodness of Our God. And there is something else which we might easily miss as our hearts fill with adoration for God. This is something that passed by me for several instances in this reading because I was enthralled with the picture of giving God whole-hearted worship as His redeemed Church. 
	Please note that it is not just the saints that are gathered around the throne and the Lamb. We are shown the image of all the angels encircling those so gathered. The angelic hosts also worship God for the salvation of mankind by the Lamb. It is actually the angelic chorus that is recorded at the end of this passage. "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen." 
It is the perfect song of praise unto God proceeding from their hearts. What the Lamb has done affects not just mankind, but all of the angels find in His atoning work, the evocation of perfect praise. We sing the song of God’s glory in the chorus of salvation. The angels sing His perfect praise in the revealed blessing and glory and wisdom and honor and power and might of the Lamb. They see the story of redemption from the perspective of God’s Character of Being. They have been witnesses of God’s Hand moving across the fabric of His creation culminating in this perfect expression of His heart as the Son offered Himself for you and for me. This evokes their seven-fold song of perfect commendation of His wonderful Grace and Mercy and Love and Power.
	God will be honored, in fullness and in perfection, by this entire universe because His Son, the Lamb, has restored His sin-stained creation through the cleansing power of His own life’s blood. This is such a powerful work that it causes heaven and earth to respond in convulsive waves of adoration and glory to God, Almighty. 
Next time, Lord willing, we will continue with this deliberation of the Lamb of God as we see Him presented to us in this Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. So be it!  
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night.” And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.  Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Rom 8:31-34. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Amen.