Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 5, 2017 | Route 66 - Revelation

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March 5, 2017 | Route 66 - Revelation · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: If anybody had told me 10, 20, 30 years ago, I would try to summarize the book of Revelation in one message.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: I would have said, shoot me now.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: So, but we are here.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: We have reached the end.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: If you're just visiting today, we've been doing a Route 66 for a couple of years, since January 2015, taking breaks for holidays, summer sometimes.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: So today we finish, uh we've come to the gates of heaven, to the climax on Route 66.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Climbed all the way up.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Now we get to Revelation.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Next week I'll climb a mountain, summarize, look back and summarize the road trip.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: But wow, we better start with a 55-minute prayer.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us to this point in the Bible.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: We know that despite its strangeness and all of the blood and war involved, that this is a book that you care deeply about.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: You open your heart in this book.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: You cry out to us.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: And so we ask that this morning we would understand and this week we would apply what it is you want us to understand and apply from this book in Jesus' name.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And you you uh you're flying out past the earth into into the darkness of space.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And as you pass the moon, the camera turns and it looks down, and there appears to be a figure standing on the moon.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: And so so the camera takes you down and you look, and sure enough, as it gets closer, you realize there is a person there.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: There is a person there, and that person is a woman.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: As you get closer, you realize this is a beautiful, this is the most beautiful woman you have ever seen in your life.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Around her head is a tiara that uh that with jewels in it, but the jewels all radiate different colors so bright, it almost blinds you.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: What really blinds you is her robe or whatever, this silk dress or thing she's wearing.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: She just she just just just glows.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: And and as your eyes uh adjust to to the light, then your eyes are drawn to her belly because you observe to your surprise that her belly, that you say to yourself, she's she's pregnant.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, she is, because as you're as you're looking at her belly, you hear a shriek, and it comes out of her lips, and you say to yourself, She's in labor.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And but you can you want to help her.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: She's beautiful, she's hurting, you want to help her, but you can't help her.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: You're in another dimension, she can't see you, and so you're helpless.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you see something that makes it far worse.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: You see rising up, looming behind her from the far side of the moon, this huge, this great, this freakish monster, this dragon, this red dragon with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven heads.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Each of the heads with a heavy crown on it, of all things, and then horns coming as ten horns, and and you see this dragon hover over her, and then come around in front of her and lean down and hiss, and you can hear the hiss as the dragon whispers, go ahead, have your baby.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And the moment you have your son, I will devour him.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, she has her baby as you watch, and then and the dragon attempts to devour the baby, but then suddenly everything explodes, and there is a cosmic, there's a war breaks out in the universe with angels and demons.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's see, what movie would this be?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be sci-fi, it's gotta be some sort of a space fantasy.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the plot of the new aliens movie coming out in Maine.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: No, it's actually the book of Revelation in chapter 12.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Please don't turn to chapter 12, but do turn to the book of Revelation.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: This is none other than the last book of the Bible that I'm describing to you.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: A book that I believe is absolutely appropriate, the perfect book for 2017 for where we are in history.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: I think different books of the Bible maybe have a special meaning for certain times in history.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: In 400 A.D., St.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Augustine was trying to lead the church at the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, and there's things happening, and he's writing the city of God.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: And so he hit the book of the Bible that guided him and guided the people of that age was the book of Genesis, which talked about starting a new age.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: In 1200 A.D., when we're in the middle, in the middle of the dark ages and when uh hearts were cold to God, Bernard of Clairvaux, sort of a Protestant Catholic, hooked on to found a book in the Old Testament called The Song of Solomon, and interpreting that as the love of God for his people, wrote books about that.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And that seemed to be the perfect book for that dark period of history in the 16th century, when uh when when the Catholic Church was perhaps at its worst and there was greed and there was legalism and all this other stuff.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh, a priest named Martin Luther found the book of Romans that you're justified by faith and by faith alone.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: And Romans was the perfect book for that day.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: But today, uh, people uh, no matter what how they interpret this book, and there are basically three great and very different interpretations, all people say this seems to be the perfect book, the appropriate book for where we are in history.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: That is a book uh about dragons and about terrible and crazy things happening, but it is also a book that that addresses our age, our day at the end of time.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Time magazine a few years back had a cover, the Bible and the Apocalypse.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Apocalypse is the Greek word, Revelation, why more Americans are reading and talking about the end of the world.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And this is the book that I want to take you into this morning.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: We'll dive into it and maybe some of us will drown, but but I'm just hoping I come out of it.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me let me start off though with three misconceptions.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to expect certain things going in.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And so I could have probably come up with a dozen, but here are three that occur to me.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Number one, there's a misconception that revelation will tell me when it will start.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: For a month or two, people have been coming up to me after church, say, uh, that was uh you did a good job this morning on 2 Peter, but I'm really looking forward to revelation.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And I go, I just, you know, I and I tell them, usually I'm praying the Lord will come back before that happens.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: So, but I suspect that sometimes what they're thinking is that if I hear revelation, then I'll know whether or not, you know, how close we are to the tribulation, or maybe, you know, it'll help me set a date or something.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: This book does not help with that.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say anything about the whens, it just tells you the what's and the hows, how it will happen, you know, and what will happen when it happens.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Second misconception is the idea that somehow at the end of this book it leaves with all of us Christians happily leaving for heaven.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen that way.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's just the opposite.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: At the end of this book, we don't leave for heaven.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Heaven comes down to earth.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And there's a kind of a corporate merger of heaven and earth, but but the new Jerusalem's actually here on earth.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: That the earth is cleansed and purged and so forth, the whole universe is, and then the kingdom is set up on earth.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: A couple of years ago, I preached a series entitled, you know, So You're Dead, Now What?
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And part of that was to talk about what the Bible really says about heaven.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And basically, it indicates that heaven's is not as freaky and full of clouds as you might think.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: That you might, uh some of you might actually be living in Kansas, whatever it's renamed that day.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: And there may actually, it may actually be as flat then as it is now.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that where I grew up, close to Multnomah Falls and Mount Hood, outside of Portland, Oregon, that those things will still be there.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Because you cleanse them and they still look good.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: So um, but whatever, it doesn't end with us leaving here, going to heaven, it ends with heaven coming down here.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Third, revelation is for prophecy nuts or prophecy professionals or people who have radio shows or something like that.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: This is a common misconception that only professionals can figure this out.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know that's not true because the first verse of the book goes like this the revelation, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ, the unveiling literally is that word, the unveiling of Jesus Christ that God gave him to show his slaves.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Notice he doesn't say to show prophecy professionals what must quickly take place.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say God gave this to show seminary professors what must take place.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: He says it's to show slaves, bondservants, believers like you and me, you know, who just, you know, who read maybe at an eighth-grade level, but it's to show us what must take place.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And and he sent and signified it through his angel to his slave John.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, you get a reward for reading this book.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Notice that in verse 3, you're not rewarded for understanding it.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you'd be in trouble, right?
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Actually, if you read this book, you'll find you can understand chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 really well in 19, 20, 21, 22.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: So you can understand a third of the book just fine.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: It's just that other freaky stuff, you know, where people, you know, disagree.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: But notice God blesses the one, verse 3, who reads the words of this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says, for the time is near.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: If you actually stay awake this morning and listen to me, you're gonna get a blessing.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: First time I've ever been able to promise that.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: If you get bored, make sure you get the blessing by just reading it.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Because if you read it, you get blessed.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't understand it, because it's not per prophecy professionals, it's for people like you and me.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Now notice uh the process here that it goes from God to Jesus, and we find in verse 5 it goes from Jesus gave it to an angel, and the angel comes down and he gives this to John, and John writes it in a book, and and John sent the book or letters to the seven churches in Asia in sort of a circular or around Robin letter, and those churches are listed in chapters two and three, and it comes to us.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: So there's five or six steps in this process.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: But it was the revelation either of or from Jesus Christ.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: So let's get one thing straight at the beginning.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's a lot of future stuff about the tribulation and the end of time in here, but basically the whole thing's about Jesus.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: That's what he wants us to focus on, which is why in the first chapter and in the last four chapters we find Jesus keeps getting praised.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: For instance, down here in verse 7.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Look, John says, chapter 1.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: He's coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him, so shall it be.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And the next verse, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord Jesus, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: So there's this incredible focus on Jesus.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Now John writes this.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: We read if you're in Revelation 1, and you're looking at verses 9 through 11, he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, so he was worshiping as you were just a moment ago, as Sheila was singing wonderfully, and we were worshiping the Lord, and we were in the Spirit, and it's the Lord's day.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And John was in the same situation when all of a sudden he's on this island called Patmos, and you may go to that island with me next summer.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking another trip, and this time probably not to Israel.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: I think Melanie and I'll go over to Greece and the islands.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And one of the islands we like to go to is Patmos, which is off the coast of Turkey, the small islands.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: John had been banished there because the emperor was Diocletian.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Diocletian was even worse than his predecessor Nero at punishing, crucifying, and killing Christians.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: And John, he had banished to this tiny little godforsaken island, but it wasn't Godforsaken because God speaks up through his servant, and he uh and it's John says, Well, I heard his voice, this is uh chapter one of Revelation, and he says, I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like the Son of Man dressed in a robe, and with a golden sash wrapped around his chest.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: The hair of his head was white as wool, white as snow, and his eyes like a fiery flame, his feet like fine bronze fired in a furnace, his voice like cascading waters, a waterfall.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: He had seven stars in his right hand, a sharp double-edged sword out of his mouth, his face shone like the sun at full strength.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: And when I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man, but he laid his right hand on me and said, Don't be afraid, I'm the first and the last, and the living one, I was dead, but look, I'm alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, write what you have seen.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: And what follows is the outline of the book, the inspired outline, write the things you have seen here in chapter one, he does, and the things which are, that means the present day, first century for him, but today, 2017 for us, and the things which will take place after these things, that is the future.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: So in that three-part outline, the things which you have seen is chapter one, the things which are, chapters two and three, and all the future stuff, the things which will take place, which have not yet occurred in history, chapters four through actually the end of the book, chapter 22.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: What I want to do is direct you to the rest of the book and take these three, sort of in three parts, following the outline, I would like to draw the lessons that Revelation wants you to know.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: On the front, you'll see, the front of the study sheet, you'll see that we've already had the number seven a few times.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: It's the keyword of the book.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: It's 53 times in this book.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's a number more than that, because a number of things don't have the number seven by them, but there's actually exactly seven.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Key verse, behold, I'm coming soon.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I have the outline.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: The last sentence of paragraph one, which contrasts Genesis with Revelation, which says Genesis is the book of beginnings, Revelation the book of endings, Genesis is paradise lost, Revelation's paradise, the Garden of Eden restored.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: The last sentence is the key.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Now at long last comes the answer to our Lord's Prayer request Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: I've adapted that from a famous British scholar who recently, Richard Bakham, who recently has said it something like this.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: He said, Revelation tells us how the Lord's Prayer's first lines will be answered.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Revelation explains to us how it will occur that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and how his kingdom will come.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's take a look at the three lessons.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first section is chapters two and three, and this is the today stuff.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: See today's trouble and endure.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Here's the lesson.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: This section of the book lists the seven churches to which the book of Revelation first went at the end of the first century.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: The mailman took it or the messenger took it, and they happen to be in the exact order that the road would have followed.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Ephesus, Smyrna Pergamus, Diatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: And each of these is a specific letter addressed to that church.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: But as you read them, they are contemporary.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: That is the challenges and the praises in these letters from God through Jesus and the angel through John to those churches is to Topeka Bible church and is to you and to me as well.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: All right?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: And there are three things.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And I take it that the Spirit is saying three things to us as he did to them.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing that he says, if you look at these letters, and each of these letters is, I want to get close to you.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: God's saying, I would like you to warm up your love.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: I would like to get close with you once again.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: You see that, for instance, in the first letter to Ephesus, I have this against you.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: He says that you left what?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Your first love.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And almost like a husband, for that's what Jesus is, longing for the heart of his wife, the church, which is strayed away from him, wandered away, he says, I would really like for you to return to me.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: I would like for you to warm up your love.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I would like to get back together.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: He then, for instance, in the last letter in Revelation 3.20 to Laodicea, look, I'm standing at the door and I knock, and if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we'll share a meal together as friends.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: This is a modern translation.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: But this is the story behind the stained glass window over here in the Mulvaine building.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: This is the not primarily a how to be saved verse.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: This is a verse for believers who've shut their door, and it's been a while since they've been hospitable to Jesus or invited him in.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: They've lost their love, they've turned cold.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: That's why one of the letters says, listen, I'm I'm so sick of your lukewarmness to me.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Once, you know, you were hot.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather you be hot or cold, anything but the present state.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Would you please heat up your love for me?
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's the first lesson that I think we have to draw from these letters.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to you and to me, as well as to the first century church, warm up your love, heat up your love.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's get back together again.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: The second lesson is I know you're in trouble.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I know you're living in a time of trouble.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And I beg on you to endure or persevere.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: In those days, these churches, uh the worst emperor perhaps of all time against Christians was Diocletian.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Nero was bad.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: He preceded him.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Diocletian has been on the throne in Rome for 20 years already.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: He loves to crucify Christians.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: He loves to persecute them.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, they're clear over in Western Turkey, and yet still out there, they find great persecution.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: It was not legal to be a Christian.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: Diocletian had published a coin labeling himself both God and Lord, and you could not stand up and say you disagreed with that publicly without risking your life, certainly losing your job, having all kinds of ostracism.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, this the second charge is this charge in your time of trouble, whether it's in the first century or even today, I call on you to persevere, to hang on, to endure.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: A historian today, not even a Christian, has used an interesting word to refer to the treatment of Christians around the world.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: He's used the five-letter word cruel.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: He says the treatment of Christians around the world today is generally cruel.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: And what he means when he's talking about those overseas, is that overseas in many places, third world country, of course, especially those which are run by Muslims, that it is dangerous to be a Christian in Egypt, in Sudan, and other places because Christians are physically persecuted, they are targeted, they are even killed, their churches are burned.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: But he was including.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Even America, where he was speaking about the social ostracism, sometimes the economic penalties of being a Christian.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: You say economic penalties?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, in certain places, yes, such as Hollywood, perhaps in Washington, D.C.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday morning I was walking up the street in San Francisco to get breakfast at a cafe, and I walked by a musical playhouse.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And the play right now is Christians.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: That's the name of it, Christians.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And if you look, all you have to do is look, you know, at the uh at the poster, at the picture of the leave it to beaver sort of couple, except they're hypocrites clearly, and they're weird and they're angry and they're fundamentalists, to understand that there's a kind of social ostracism that happens even in our country to Christians, and especially in certain circles, so that you're gonna you may have trouble getting a job if you're a fervent Christian and you're trying to get a job in in movies or film.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: And there are other kinds of ostracism which make you so relieved or happy as I was this last Monday at KU when they have senior night, and Tyler self, who hasn't played much, he's the son of the coach, however, he stands up to give his little five-minute talk, and his first words are I want to start by thanking my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: And you say, terrific, and you're and you're relieved.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: You're so happy the students actually cheered that.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And when Landon Lucas stood up and said something like that, and mentioned Wayne Simeon baptizing him, and his faith's the most important thing in life to him, and so forth, and they're cheering, you go, thank you, Lord.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: This is just a little picture maybe of the of the millennium of something that's coming in the future, because right now, oftentimes the treatment is cruel.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's the second point.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: In time of trouble, which is today, endure.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: The third principle is if you will endure, expect rewards.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: In each of these letters to the churches, there's a mention of being an overcomer or an endurer, someone who does hang on to your faith, someone who does stand up and confess the Lord.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And there are all these rewards that the Lord happily says, I'm holding these rewards in reserve for those who have been bold and hung on to their faith in the face of difficulty.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesus, he says, you get free access to the tree of life.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: In Hesmyrna, you get the crown of life.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Pergamum, there's hidden manna for you, and a white stone.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Thyatira, you'll rule the nation, Sardis, clothed in white, Philadelphia, you'll be kept from the hour of trial.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Laodicea, you'll sit with me on my throne.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: And there's this promise that Jesus can hardly wait to reward those who've done the difficult thing and hung on in the hour of trouble.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is the lesson that we should draw from chapters two and three.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: That in this present time of trouble, in today's trouble, we should endure.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Now we get to the harem scarem part of the book.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: The next 15 chapters, chapters four through eighteen, he says, I think, see tomorrow's tribulation and worship.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of the section, six, chapters six through eighteen, isn't it doesn't appear to be about worship.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: It's all about the catastrophes that are going to crash on the earth.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Former president of France said, once the world is unhappy because it doesn't know where it is going, and because it senses that if it knew, it would discover that it was heading for catastrophe.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what Revelation says is going to happen.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: And it does it by saying that God in heaven is going to first open up seven seals, and then there's going to be seven trumpets that blow, and then there's going to be seven bulls of wrath that are poured out.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: All God's doing, and in each of these we'll have 21, in a sense, 21, horrific judgments on the earth.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: The seven seals in chapter six start off with a white horse going out from the throne of God, and this is uh, you know, deception, and then comes war, that's the second seal, and then famine, and people are starving down here on earth, and fourth, pestilence, a quarter of mankind dies, and then comes martyrdom.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: There's uh all kinds of blood, and and you have this picture of uh, there's 144,000, I take it, Jewish missionaries, leading people to Christ.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Part of God's plan is that people of every tongue and tribe and people and nation will convert to him during this time, but then they get killed because they choose to remain true to God.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: It's a choice, you know, that uh if I want to, you know, I'm gonna, and so they get killed and they're immediately up before the throne.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And then heavenly signs.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And and so, yeah, but these things are all happening on the earth.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: There's there's catastrophes on the earth and and and sent by, you know, and overseen by God and and his angel and people dying, but then it gets worse.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: You have in chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11, you have the seven trumpets.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Trumpets blow, and now all of a sudden you have supernatural judgment coming from even outside the earth that causes trees to get burned up, and uh and a mountain uh uh of fire plunges into the sea, and there's like a comet crashing into the earth and and and exploding things and burning things up, and it's just absolute supernatural events are coming that are catastrophes.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And so that these are the these are the seven trumpets.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: And they include things like uh the sun and the moon and the stars, a third of them uh stop shining and the waters turn bitter and locusts everywhere, which some people f think are helicopters or something.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: I I don't guess at those things.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe they're helicopters, but I I don't think so.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: But any, and the two million, 200 million man army slaughtering people, and it just it's just horrific.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're asking me um how do I take this, I must tell you there are three basic ways of taking chapters 4 through 18.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: One is to see it all as past, one to see it all as present, one to see it at all as future.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, one to see it all as past says all this was fulfilled in the fall of uh of Jerusalem in the first century.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And who is the Antichrist then?
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, that would probably be Nero, okay?
28:28
SPEAKER_00: And then the second view would would be to take it all as present tense.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: That is, that uh Antichrist is just a man, any man uh who is opposes God, and and these things are just bad things that happen, but you can't take them literally.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: And then the other view which I take, and most people take, is the future view.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: That is, these things appear to be happening in the future, and so we're gonna take it that way, naturally.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And and and and so you have this awful catastrophes hitting the earth.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've watched movies the last few years, you know this is getting pretty common with the Independence Day movies and the zombie movies and so forth, where you end up with, you know, um, you know, just one or two of our favorite actors being the only ones that are alive on the earth at the end of time.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else has been killed, you know, and then you know, find a little girl, you know, who survived, and then they help her and and they kill the zombies.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, they're there.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: But so we shouldn't be totally surprised because the because and C.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: S.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Lewis would say, these things are invented because God has put in the truth of what will really happen in our subconscious, and so it's natural that people would come up with these ideas.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: So this is the seven trumpets, but it's awful.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: It's just horrible, but it gets worse.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: It gets worse because then you have the seven bulls in chapter 16 and following, and now you have the demons being led out of hell to make things worse, okay?
29:54
SPEAKER_00: So you have uh terrible afflictions and the mark of the beast uh being things and sea turning to blood and stuff.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just it's it's incredible.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: But basically, at the end of this time, uh we read that the earth is utterly shaken.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: There's a chapter in Isaiah, chapter 24, that's often called the Little Apocalypse or the Little Book of Revelation.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: It's got the whole thing in one chapter, so uh, but you don't get blessed if you read that, so read Revelation instead.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: But but basically uh it pictures the end of time, Isaiah 24, as like a clay pot that totters and shakes and falls and breaks, and everything gets broken.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the end of time will be like, according to Revelation, that everything will be broken, that everything will fall apart, that all of the things that man has trusted in will no longer, man will not be able to trust in them.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: And the lessons to draw from that are number one, God is sovereign.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Number two, God is just, and number three, God is protective.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: This is what we come across repeatedly in these 15 chapters.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Number one, God is sovereign over everything that happens, He's the one that controls this, He is the one that releases all this judgment, He is the one that has a goal of bringing people to Himself from every tribe, tongue, and people and nation.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, that He's just.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: People cry all over the world.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: They've cried for thousands of years.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Why, oh Lord, do you not rescue me from this injustice?
31:39
SPEAKER_00: The martyrs after the fifth seal gathering around the throne.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: They've slaughtered us.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Why do you not bring justice on the earth?
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Today, people in um I used to go over to Sudan where my brother was.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: He'll be here in a month or two and he's gonna talk to us.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: But you know, he had a helped build a hospital in Sudan.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: We're so thrilled when South Sudan, you know, got free of northern Muslim Sudan and set up a basically Christian government, had a Christian hymn that they wrote for South Sudans just five years ago.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is just falling apart.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Why?
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Because we have different tribes in the South and we have leaders, strong leaders of each tribe that are greedy and they want to rule, and so as a result, the South is now as it's as dangerous and bad as it's ever been.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Because why?
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Because there's evil on the earth, because the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And they're weak people, they're desperate people crying out.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, remember the whole story way back when Yasser Arafat, you know, passed away, and everybody discovered here was the leader of the Palestinian people, all these millions of people, and hundreds of millions of dollars were being given to him by all these nations, and then he dies, and then suddenly we discover that he had squirreled away billions upon billions of dollars in his private accounts, which is why none of the roads were getting repaired, and the schools were not being built, and the children were not eating, and so forth.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And you go, this happens all over the world.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: This happens in Africa to so many of these countries.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: Why?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Why, God, do you allow such evil to exist?
33:11
SPEAKER_00: When will you set this straight?
33:13
SPEAKER_00: And God says Revelation 4 through 18, I'm gonna set it straight.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: I am going to bring justice on the earth, justice will win.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: And God's people in their hearts cry out, Yes, Lord, bring your kingdom, bring your will to earth.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Now the third lesson is not just God is sovereign, God is just, but this is wonderful, in there, God is protective.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: He has this protective heart for his people.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: When the dragon tries to eat the woman, kill the woman, kill the baby, he rescues her.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: She runs into the wilderness, he protects her.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: When when we read that when the devil tries to wipe out the faith of God's people, God's people stand firm.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there are so many martyrs, but then God brings them right around his throne and says, I love you, I'll take care of you.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: God's so protective of his people.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And this leads me to raise the question, which is often raised, which I'm sure some of you want answered, which is, will we go through this time, this tribulation period?
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Will Christians today go through this time?
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, Revelation doesn't address that.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: I happen to believe, still lean toward the idea that he will rescue Christians from the time of tribulation.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people would disagree with me on that.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: I think there are a couple of reasons to believe that based on Revelation, but again, they're just hints.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: But he's protective of his people.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: He will protect you even if we go through the tribulation in a way that he protected Noah and his family going through the flood.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: He's so protective, he cares for us so much.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: And these lessons lead us, and this is the message of 4 through 18, I believe, to worship.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: His justice, his sovereignty, his care for us is an invitation to worship, which is why this section begins, this future section begins not on earth with all of the hell falling on earth, but in heaven, and showing us these hundreds and thousands of living beings, many of them with multiple eyes and incredible creatures who are constantly, without ceasing, falling down before him, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and who is and who is to come.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: For a real adrenaline jolt in your spiritual life, maybe put aside whatever you are going to do for quiet time tomorrow morning, and read Revelation 4 and 5, which starts with John saying immediately, I was in the spirit, and I saw a throne set in heaven, and one sat on the throne who looked like a jewels, and there was a rainbow around the throne, and so forth.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And then you read about how day and night all these people never stop saying, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: And there is this cry, this call, because of who God is and because of what tomorrow is going to bring, you need to fall down and you need to worship Jesus Christ.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: This is chapter five, the only one worthy to open the scrolls and open up this judgment on the earth.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: But in the next, in the next line, but he's also a lamb standing, the slain, the killed lamb, this weak little creature.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And that's our Savior.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the one we should worship.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: The lion and the lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, fall down and worship him.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And as this section goes on, at the very heart of it, intentionally at the very heart of it, you have the appearance of this horrific figure called the Antichrist.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: 666.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: And we find that that dragon that rose up behind the woman, that the dragon gives the Antichrist his power.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, he realizes they start talking about the false prophet who goes out and influences mankind, that what we have here is a satanic trinity, and we are given a choice.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: All of mankind is given a choice.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Even today, you're given a choice.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize you either worship the Trinity from above or the trinity from below?
37:21
SPEAKER_00: That the dragon is the great devil.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: One day will be thrown into the lake of fire, but he is the sworn and mortal enemy of God Almighty.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: The Antichrist is the Antichrist.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: He is the beast.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: And the false prophet corresponds to the Holy Spirit.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: And if you refuse to trust Jesus as your Savior, then basically you are trusting, you are worshiping the satanic Trinity.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't go there, Christ, chapters 4 through 18.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Worship instead the God who is sovereign, the God who is just, the God who protects his people.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: And then the book ends in the four climactic, wonderful chapters.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: And watch now.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: See his coming.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: See the end and the beginning.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And come, you yourself come.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: The turning point is in chapter 19, where we read, starting in verse 11.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: And I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse, its rider called faithful and true, and he judges and makes war with justice, and his eyes like a fiery flame, and his crowns were on his head, and his name written on his robe and on his thigh, King of kings and Lord of Lords.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: And he will come, and every eye, as chapter one says, will see him, and the earth will mourn.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says in Romans chapter 11, that those who pierced him, that the Israelites will see him, and they will mourn, and they will turn to him on that day.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: And then in chapter, the next chapter, immediately following, we have the great white throne judgment, where people are judged and the books of works are opened, and it will be shown that nobody by works qualifies to go to heaven, and then the book of life is opened.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And only those whose names are written in the book of life, who've trusted Jesus as their Savior, will go to heaven, and all those whose names are not written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: And immediately after that I saw a new heaven, John says, and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And again, we don't fly away.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: No heaven flies down and gets established on earth in a new Jerusalem with a great flowing stream coming out from underneath the throne of God, the water of life with trees on each side, and the eating of those trees for the healing of the nations, and then the marriage supper of the Lamb, when God and all his people will never again be separated.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: You can't help agreeing, I think, with Lewis and Tolkien and the others who say that all of the greatest myths of all time in literature and humanity end the same way because God has put this dream, this desire in all of us that after this horrible dark night of enduring and suffering in the morning, there's this great and beautiful time of joy, this wedding when everything, all evil gets undone and all the good comes true.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: And the wedding at the end of Lord of the Rings or at the end of Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast are all pointers, pointers to that joyful moment when you and I are finally wedded to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And as it says in the next verse, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and he will be their God.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: And the lessons are two, I think, from the last four chapters.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Number one, this could happen at any time, this should come at any time, seven times in this book, especially at the end of the book.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I am coming soon.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe your translation says quickly, in take.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And it could mean quickly, because from our perspective on earth, when it happens, it's gonna happen quickly.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: From heaven's perspective, it's coming soon because it's the next item, has been for 2,000 years.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: It's the next thing on the prophetic calendar.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: It's the next event on heaven's calendar.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna happen soon.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming soon, he says.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing to know is it could happen anytime.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: He could come at any time, but the second is salvation comes to those who come to Jesus.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: The book ends with this wonderful verse.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit and the bride say, say it with me, come.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Let anyone who hears this say, Come, let anyone who is thirsty come, let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Doubtless John is thinking back to those early days when he was following Jesus, and he came up to see Jesus and a Samaritan woman by a well and to hear the story of how the woman came up to the well all alone, and Jesus said, Would you give me to drink?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: And she did.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: And he said, If you just knew who I was, if you knew who it was that says to you, give me to drink, you would have asked him for a drink, and he would have given you water, and you would have never thirsted again.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why at the end of Revelation, God says, Listen, I'm coming soon.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Won't you come?
42:40
SPEAKER_00: Won't you take of the water of life, which is absolutely free?
42:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to make a list of changes you're gonna do.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to change your life before you come.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking you to take a drink of water.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Would you stop running from me?
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like the woman who was driving a car in a freeway and was bothered.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: This large truck just was on her tail, just right next to her bumper with its brights on.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Man, she's freaking out like I was coming home on Highway 70 from the airport last night, and there was this car that just stayed on my bumper.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you know how you feel when that happens.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: You want to get away, and you're looking at it all the time, and she's trying to get away from the truck, and it follows, and finally, her palms are perspiring, she jerks, she gets off on the exit ramp, and sure enough, the truck veers, this big truck, follows her down the exit ramp, stops right behind her at the stoplight, and she veers out, she goes onto a main road.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: If I can only lose them in the traffic, but as she goes through traffic, he follows her.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: He even goes through a red light to follow her.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: So finally, her heart just jumping, she whips into a gas station, jumps out, and cries out, help.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: She says, The truck driver jumps out, runs over to her car, opens up the back door, pulls out a man in the back, and explains to her he'd seen the man in there rising up.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: That's when he turned on the brights and he decided he would follow her.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: And she'd been running away from her salvation.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy sometimes to do that.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm not sure he wants to help me.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: I think he might want to restrict my life.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: But the book of Revelation says, no, he doesn't want to restrict your life.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Look at the story here.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: He's got the whole thing planned out.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: And at the end, he wants it to be.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Joy wants there to be a wedding.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm coming soon.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Won't you come to me?
44:33
SPEAKER_00: That I think is why Charlotte Elliot, 180 years ago.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: So this is a girl who got crippled in her young 30s and was depressed, and had left, had left the home of her friends that night to go home.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: She was she was in one of her depressions, went home, pulled out a piece of paper, got a pen, and wrote these words, just as I am, she wrote, and without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: And that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: I come.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: I come.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: And I would urge you, as I bow in prayer, and as that song is sung, would you in your heart sing those words?
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Say to the Lord Jesus Christ today, I come, I come.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: And he'll say to you, I'm coming soon too.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming to me.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you for this invitation to come to you.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: You promise us you're coming and you're coming soon, and we can come to you just as we are, without any changes, without any plea.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: And you will give us the water of life, and you'll give it to us freely this morning.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: We come to you.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: We come to Jesus.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: Amen.