Three Days That Change History (Including Yours)

 All of history hinges on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In a world filled with brokenness and suffering, Jesus alone is able to address our ultimate problem, the problem of sin and evil. It’s sin, including our own sin, that separates from God. In this Easter message from Revelation 5, David Platt invites us to find new life in the One who died as a sinless sacrifice and who rose again to conquer sin and death. The risen Christ deserves endless praise for who he is and what he has accomplished for our salvation. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Radical with David Platt, a
weekly podcast with sermons andmessages from pastor, author and
teacher David Platt.
I want to show you how whatwe're celebrating today, on
Easter the death of Jesus on thecross and his resurrection from
the grave has massiveimplications for every single

(00:23):
one of our lives in this room.
And that leads me to thepassage I want to show you in
the Bible today.
So it's actually in the lastbook of the Bible called
Revelation.
If you have a Bible, feel freeto turn there to Revelation,
chapter 5.
If you don't, no problem, theverses are going to be up here
on the screen.
This is one of my favoritepassages in the Bible for many
reasons, but let me set thescreen.
This is one of my favoritepassages in the Bible for many

(00:44):
reasons, but let me set thestage.
So this book of the Bible calledRevelation is written by a
follower of Jesus named John,who was one of the first people
to go to Jesus's tomb 2,000years ago and find that it was
empty.
And after that he spent hisentire life telling people about

(01:05):
who Jesus is and what Jesus haddone, and it cost him.
He actually wrote this book ofthe Bible from an island where
he had been exiled as a prisonerbecause of his faith in Jesus.
And this book is unique becauseit's filled with incredible
imagery and symbols.
The verses we're about to readcontain a picture of heaven in

(01:28):
the future that's filled withfascinating imagery that shows
why the death and resurrectionof Jesus is, in a sense, the
most important event in all ofhistory and why it has power to
change your history forever,which I know is a bold statement
.
But just look at it with me.
We're just going to go verse byverse and I'll explain the

(01:51):
imagery along the way.
So in this picture of heaven inthe future, john writes.
Then I saw in the right hand ofhim, who was seated on the
throne, a scroll written withinand on the back sealed with
seven seals.
Now I'm not going to be able togo into the detail of all the
symbolism here for the sake oftime, but the big picture.

(02:12):
So when you see the one who'sseated on the throne, that's a
reference to God.
And in this right hand there'sa scroll with writing that's
sealed with seven seals.
And the way a scroll like thisworked in the first century,
when John was writing this, wasyou'd have a scroll.
You'd break a seal and thenread what's on the scroll to a

(02:33):
particular point.
Then you'd come to another seal, then you break that seal and
then go until you get to anotherseal, and so on.
And in this part of Revelation,when a seal is broken, what it
symbolizes is the enactment inhistory of what's on the next
part of the scroll.
So if you read the next chapter, revelation, chapter six, you
see that every time a seal isbroken, whatever's on the scroll

(02:57):
comes about in history.
And this scroll, so big picture, contains God's purposes for
the world, for a world that'scaught in sin and evil and
injustice and suffering and painand war and death.
This scroll contains the end ofall these things.

(03:19):
That's what's written on thescroll, like the ultimate
triumph of justice and peace toreign on the earth.
So you just imagine being oneof the original readers of
Revelation hearing this in thefirst century, getting this
picture.
So Christians in the firstcentury were facing severe
persecution and suffering.
Some of them were being killedfor their faith in Jesus, others

(03:41):
imprisoned, exiled, like Johnis, and they were hoping like
surely one day this suffering isgoing to stop and obviously
we're not in those same shoes.
Right now, by God's grace, wehave freedom to gather like
we're gathered right now, but wecan still feel all of those
questions in our lives in thisworld, right, our lives in this

(04:04):
world, right.
We look around us and we seeevil and injustice and suffering
and pain and war and deatharound the world in conflicts
Just open up your news app Inpoverty, injustices like I
learned even more about in somerecent time I was in Southeast

(04:28):
Asia, where children are beingtrafficked for unimaginable evil
and not just around the world,but in our lives.
Every one of us is familiarwith hurt and brokenness and
relationships and pain, and weall know what it's like to see
somebody we love walking throughsickness or suffering.

(04:49):
And we all wonder in the middleof it all, will this ever end?
Don't we all long for a daywhen peace and justice and love
and life reign and evil andsorrow and injustice and death
are no more?
Would that not be awesome?

(05:10):
Of course we all long for that,which leads to what John writes
next.
So in verse 2, he says and I sawa mighty angel proclaiming with
a loud voice who is worthy toopen the scroll and break its
seals?
And no one in heaven or onearth or under the earth was
able to open the scroll or tolook into it.

(05:31):
And I began to weep loudlybecause no one was found worthy
to open the scroll or to lookinto it.
So follow the picture here thescroll containing the ultimate
eradication of evil, the defeatof sin and death in the world,
the final removal of allsuffering and hurt and pain,

(05:52):
coming of God's kingdom on theearth, where peace and justice
will reign forever.
It's all written on the scroll.
So who is able to open it?
Who's able to break these sealsand bring these things about?
And if you look at verse 3, itsays there was no one.
It says it twice no one, no onewho was worthy or able, is the

(06:12):
language?
Nobody able to open the scrolland bring this about.
And John is weeping loudly why?
Because he's getting a glimpseof the world and all of our
lives in it.
If this is all there is andjust put yourself in his shoes
Just imagine for a moment.

(06:33):
This is all there is Evil,injustice, suffering, death, and
that's it forever.
This is what I always say toatheist friends of mine who
believe there's no God and justthis natural world.
That's the end of the story.
I think of Richard Dawkins, arenowned evolutionary biologist,

(06:56):
avowed atheist.
He put it this way.
He said in a universe of blindphysical forces and genetic
replication, some people aregonna get hurt, some people are
gonna get hurt, other people aregonna get lucky.
And you won't find any rhyme orreason in it, nor any justice.
The universe we observe hasprecisely the properties we
should expect if there is at thebottom no design, no purpose,

(07:20):
no evil and no other good,nothing but blind, pitiless
indifference.
Dna neither knows nor cares,dna just is and we dance to its
music.
Can you imagine saying that tovictims of horrible injustice or
evil, from child trafficking tothe Holocaust?

(07:45):
You just weren't lucky.
There's no justice in the end,no purpose in any of it.
Evil is just people dancing totheir DNA and you deal with it.
That's why John is weeping,because he's looking at a future
where sin and evil andinjustice and death are the end

(08:07):
of the story and no one canchange that.
That's the language nobody.
And think about why that is?
Because we are all sinners,every single one of us, even the
best of us, the kindest of us,the nicest of us.
We've all succumbed to sin inour lives in various ways.
It looks different in ourthoughts, our desires, our words

(08:30):
, our actions, but we have all,in one way or another, sinned
against God and others.
We've all turned aside from Godto ourselves, including John,
who's writing this, and he knowshe can't bring an end to sin
and suffering because he's asinner himself, and the same is
true for every one of us.

(08:51):
But this is where I want you tosee the first of four truths
about Jesus in this passage.
Number one Jesus is able toaddress the ultimate problem,
which is the problem of sin andevil in the world.
Let me give you maybe anotherillustration that'll help here.
Have you ever, either as a childor as an adult with children,

(09:15):
been to one of those arcadeplaces where you put money on a
card and get to play all kindsof games, and every time you
play a game you get a certainnumber of tickets, based on how
you do so?
Chuck E Cheese is whatimmediately comes to our mind,
and with nightmares some of us,that comes to our mind with a

(09:35):
longing to stay as far away fromthis place as possible.
Other children, though, love it, and nowadays most places have
it all electronic, but there arestill a few places and they all
used to be this way where youwould get physical tickets right
.
That looked something like thisso you go around from game to

(09:55):
game.
I think about taking myeight-year-old son and
three-year-old daughter not longago to one of these places and
we're playing games and just toyeah, put it out there.
We're not really racking up thetickets as we go from game to
game.
And when you get to theskee-ball game, where you're
supposed to roll the ball up thelane and into the hole, and

(10:18):
your three-year-old daughterjust promptly picks the ball up
and chunks it straight at thehole, the likelihood of it going
in the hole dramaticallydecreases.
So we spend all this money onthe card and it comes time to go
over to what they call theredemption counter right, the
place where you can trade inyour tickets for a prize.
And I'm over here counting thetickets to see how much we have

(10:42):
to spend the few tickets we have.
And while I'm doing that, mythree-year-old little girl, an
eight-year-old, recently adoptedson who all of this is new to
him he's experiencing this forthe first time.
They're looking up at theseprizes and way up at the top
they see these massive stuffedanimals and their eyes are

(11:02):
lighting up and they say, daddy,we want that.
And I'm like we don't haveenough tickets for that Inside.
I'm thinking we'd have to behere a year, I think, in order
to get this stuffed animal.
So soon their eyes start tocome down to the remote control

(11:22):
car and the eight-year-old says,all right, I'll get the car.
I'm like, buddy, we don't haveno tickets for that either.
So then their eyes keep comingdown.
My three-year-old's looking seeslike a lava lamp, which I
totally don't get.
I just don't understand thewhole and none of it.
I don't understand it, butthat's a whole other story.
She's like, daddy, let's getthat.

(11:42):
And I say, baby, we can't getthat either.
And as their eyes keep comingdown, so does their excitement,
until they're like well, dad,what can we get?
And so I squat down there nextto them, look through the little
glass case.
I'm like, well, here's aneraser which you have no use for

(12:05):
whatsoever in your life at thispoint.
But you get an eraser which youhave no use for whatsoever in
your life at this point.
But you get an eraser.
There's a piece of candy like agummy bear.
I think we have enough for agummy bear.
And they're like what?
Why only that?
Why can't we get what's upthere?

(12:26):
And I'm like, and they're likewhat?
Why only that?
Why can't we get what's upthere?
And I'm like we just don't haveenough tickets.
This is what we can get.
So that's maybe a way to picturewhat's happening in this text,
but here the stakes areobviously much higher.
Like top shelf prize iseternity with God who made us
and loves us, forgiveness of allyour sin, destruction of death,

(12:52):
the end of evil and sufferingno longer separated from God,
and the angel here is lookingfor somebody who's able to usher
all of that in.
And you can just imagine theroll call of history like who
has enough tickets?
And nobody.
No one can step up, nobody inthe Bible.
Abraham, moses, david, isaiah,daniel, peter, john all of them

(13:22):
look down because they don'thave enough tickets.
They sin just like everybodyelse, and not just in the Bible.
Look throughout history.
Who in history is gonna walk upto the throne of the God of the
universe, take the scroll fromhis hand and usher in the end of
sin?
Buddha, muhammad, the latestNew Age psychic, your favorite

(13:52):
music star or sports player, theCEO of that company or the
president of that country?
No, and, for that matter, youor me?
And what are we gonna offer?
Our Western achievements andaffluence.

(14:13):
God, here's my house, here's mycar, here's my job, here's my
accomplishments, here's my 401k.
Are you impressed?
No, none of us and no one else.
That's the language here inRevelation 5.
Nobody has enough ticketsbecause all of us, even the best

(14:33):
of us, have sinned against Godand others.
And sin is the problem thatnone of us can solve by
ourselves, no matter how muchmoney or success or even good
works we have.
The halls of history are linedwith men and women who have all
sinned and at the end of it all,every single one of us finds

(14:54):
ourselves standing at theredemption counter of the
universe, with our highest hopeson the top shelf, and the only
thing we can do is bow and say Idon't have enough tickets.
So, ladies and gentlemen, thisis the ultimate problem, and if
somebody isn't able to addressthis problem, then sin, sorrow
and death are the end of all ofour stories.

(15:16):
But look at what happens next.
Somebody breaks the silence ofthe scene in Revelation 5, verse
5.
See it with me?
One of the elders said to meweep no more.
Behold the lion of the tribe ofJudah, the root of David has
conquered so that he can openthe scroll and its seven seals.

(15:37):
And then, verse six between thethrone and the four living
creatures and among the elders,I saw a lamb standing as though
it had been slain.
Now again, just get the imageryhere.
We can't dive into it all butfeel how shocking this is.
So somebody shouts weep no more.
Because there is a lion,imagery of a conqueror who can

(16:00):
open the scroll and bring an endto sin and suffering and death.
So John, starting to wipe awaytears from his eyes, turns to
look for this roaring lion.
But what does he see?
Instead, he sees a lamb thatlooks like it's been slaughtered
.
So what is that imagery about?

(16:22):
Even earlier we were singingpraise to the lamb and some of
you are like I don't get this.
These people worship sheep.
What is happening here?
And blood.
Well, follow this.
This is the second truth I wantto show you about Jesus.
He's able to address theultimate problem because Jesus
has paid the ultimate price.

(16:43):
So this imagery of a lamb goesall the way back to near the
beginning of the Bible, secondbook of the Bible called Exodus
when God's people were slaves inEgypt and God poured out his
just judgment on the sin of theEgyptians.
But God's people were savedfrom that judgment through the
sacrifice of a lamb.
That was a substitute, so youmay have heard before of the

(17:06):
Passover.
It gets that name because whenGod's people put the blood of a
lamb over their doorpost, god'sjudgment due sin passed over
them, and I don't have time toexplain all of that story.
But the overall point was thatthe payment or penalty of sin is
death, and so the lamb was asubstitute sacrifice.
It died and its blood was shedinstead of people dying as a

(17:32):
substitute for them.
And this is what the Bibleteaches about Jesus.
In fact, john, who's writingthis book in Revelation, also
writes one of the four accountswe have of Jesus's life.
Listen to how John introducesus to Jesus in John 1 29.
Behold the what Lamb of God whotakes away the sin of the world

(17:54):
.
So don't miss the connectionhere.
Jesus is the lamb in Revelation5 who was slain.
And what the Bible is saying isnot just about Israelites and
Egyptians in history, but aboutyou and me and every other
person in the world, all ofhumanity, you and I in our sin.
We all deserve the justjudgment of a holy God.

(18:18):
We all deserve death and wewill all, at some point in our
lives, die as a result of thereality of sin in our lives.
And if we die in our sin, wewill experience eternal judgment
due our sin.
But the good news of the Bible,the greatest news in all the

(18:40):
world, is that Jesus came to beour substitute, to die for our
sins.
Now start to put these twotruths together.
Jesus is able to address theultimate problem because, unlike
anyone else in all of history,jesus never sinned.
John later writes in the Bibleyou know he appeared in order to

(19:02):
take away sins and in him thereis no sin.
Jesus never sinned one time,which means Jesus did not
deserve to die.
But that's the whole reason hecame.
He came to die as a substitutefor our sins, to pay the price
death for your sins and my sins.

(19:22):
1 John 2, 2,.
He himself is the sacrificethat atones for our sins, and
not only for our sins, but thesins of all the world.
Anyone in the world who willtrust in him.
Jesus has paid the ultimateprice.
He died to pay the price foryour sins.
Then listen to one other verse.
In Jesus, we have redemptionthrough his blood, the

(19:44):
forgiveness of sins inaccordance with the riches of
God's grace.
Think about that.
No matter who you are or whatyou've done, jesus has made a
way for you to be forgivenbefore God for all of your sins,
and that's possible not becauseyou do enough good works, but
because of God's grace.

(20:05):
God loves you so much that hesent Jesus to shed his blood so
that you could be forgiven foryour sins, redeemed and restored
to have relationship with him.
Which then leads us back toRevelation, chapter five, verse

(20:25):
six.
Did you notice?
Between the throne and the fourliving creatures, among the
elders, I saw a lamb standing asthough it had been slain.
So it's a lamb that looks likeit's been slaughtered.
But what's it doing?
It's standing.
Slaughtered lambs don't stand.
So how is that possible?
Well, here's how.

(20:46):
Follow the imagery, becausethis lamb who died is not dead
anymore.
This is the third truth aboutJesus.
In this imagery, jesus hasconquered the ultimate enemy
death.
It's what we celebrate,particularly today.
Not just that Jesus died on thecross for our sins.
Yes, that, but if he was stilldead, then death would still be

(21:09):
the end of the story.
But, ladies and gentlemen,death is not the end of the
story.
Jesus died on a cross, was laidin a tomb.
A stone was rolled over thattomb until three days later when
John and others went to thattomb and found that it was empty
.
And in the days to come, jesuswho died, appeared to John and

(21:31):
multitudes of other peoplebefore they watched him ascend
to heaven.
I'll never forget the firsttime I went to Israel, to the
place where Jesus's tomb was, is, and we got there and the guy
who kind of brought us alltogether, he said I do not know
why you have traveled thousandsof miles to be here.
There's nothing to see.
Why did you come To see nothing?

(21:52):
It's like ah, it's a greatquestion, but that's the truth
that we celebrate today.
The grave of Jesus is empty andso many people have sought to
deny this.
Islam teaches that Jesus didn'teven die on a cross, much less
rise from the grave.
This, by the way, a theoryinvented by Muhammad six

(22:13):
centuries after Jesus'crucifixion and resurrection.
Others have claimed Jesus' tombwasn't actually empty.
The disciples just went to thewrong tomb and ever since that
day, people have been going tothe wrong tomb.
If only somebody would checknext door.
Others have said the discipleswere just delusional,
hallucinatory at best, when theyclaimed they'd seen Jesus alive

(22:34):
after he died.
But even the thought ofresurrection from the dead was
virtually inconceivable in bothJewish and Greco-Roman thought
in the first century.
Yet hundreds of people all of asudden claimed to have seen
Jesus, some of whom ate, drankand talked with him.
Hallucinations don't normallyeat and drink.
In addition to all that, itwasn't in these disciples' best

(22:56):
interest for them to proclaimthat Jesus was alive, knowing
that they would and some of themdid lose their lives for it or
were exiled for it.
Pascal said I believe thewitnesses that get their throats
cut for their testimony.
When you look at the facts, thephysical resurrection of Jesus
is not only historicallyverifiable but extremely
personal, because Jesus did thisfor you, for you Right where

(23:23):
you're sitting.
He did this for you, for you,right where you're sitting.
He did this for you so that youcould be forgiven of your sin,
so that you could be redeemed,restored to relationship with
God forever.
He did this for you.
The Canadian scientist GB Hardyput it best.
He said when I looked atreligion, I said I have two
questions.
One has anybody ever conquereddeath?

(23:43):
And two if they have, did theymake a way for me to conquer
death?
I checked the tomb of Buddhaand it was occupied.
I checked the tomb of Confuciusand it was occupied.
And I checked the tomb ofMuhammad and it was occupied.
And I came to the tomb of Jesusand it was empty.
And I said there is one whoconquered death.
And I asked the second questiondid he make a way for me to do

(24:04):
it?
And I opened the Bible anddiscovered that he said because
I live, you shall live also,which leads to the fourth and
final truth about Jesus.
In this passage, jesus deservesthe ultimate praise.
You jump down to verse nine inthis scene in Revelation 5.
It all comes together with themsinging a new song saying

(24:24):
worthy are you to take thescroll and to open its seals?
For you were slain and by yourblood you ransomed people for
God, from every tribe andlanguage, and people and nation,
all of heaven, with people fromsee it, every tribe, every
language, every people, everynation singing this song Worthy

(24:44):
are you to take this scroll andopen its seals to bring an end
to sin and suffering and death?
Why?
Because you were slain Becauseyou shed your blood on the cross
to ransom people.
That word ransom literallymeans to redeem or to purchase
people to pay the price for sin,so that sin and death will not

(25:07):
be the end of the story ofeveryone who trusts in Jesus.
Just imagine this sceneEverybody standing totally
silent because none of us isable to pay the price to usher
in redemption.
We're standing there with Johnand everybody else in history

(25:31):
looking with despair into aneternity, with no hope before a
holy God.
It's in the middle of thatscene that something starts to
rumble and the silence starts tobreak.
As we're standing there withour measly tickets, jesus, the
lion-like lamb, steps to thefront and he says I have enough

(25:57):
tickets, I have paid the pricefor all of you.
Lay your tickets, lay your goodworks, all the stuff you're
trying to do aside, trust in me,the blood I have shed in love
for you.
And when you do, you can knowthat sin and suffering and evil
and death and the fallenness andemptiness of this world will

(26:21):
not be the end of your story.
Eternal life will be your storyno more sin, no more sorrow, no
more suffering and no moredeath, forever and ever.
Jesus has made this possiblefor you.
We hope you've enjoyed thisweek's episode of Radical with
David Platt.
For more resources from DavidPlatt, we invite you to visit
radicalnet.