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Ouachita Hills Academy

Revelation Class: OHA

Eugene Prewitt

Intercession

Yesterday we studied the idea of Christ's ministration in the heavenly sanctuary.

Today we're going to study about the conclusion of that ministration.

Revelation chapter 8 and we're looking at about verse 5.

Verse 5, and the angel took the censer and filled it with fire off the altar, and cast it into the earth.

And there were voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake.

The picture is that you have here the altar.

And the idea is that the coals are going to be scattered all over the earth.

Throwing the censer to earth is a very interesting idea, because in the verse before, this is the censer that's being used to mix the prayers of God's people with the righteousness of Jesus.

That is that there's a picture here, this censer is part of what we call the intercession.

The intercession of Jesus, it represents it.

When this censer is thrown to the earth, then there's no more sensor in the sanctuary.

If there's no sensor in the sanctuary, then there is no intercession going on.

What I want to do this morning is show you a number of other passages that are relevant to this picture and teach you something that way.

Isaiah 6 is 1 of the most preached about chapters in scripture and 1 of the least understood chapters in Scripture, Isaiah chapter 6.

And 1 cried unto another, that is 1 angel, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

This passage is so helpful to Adventists.

Because in verse 1 it describes the throne of God and where is that throne found in verse 1?

Yeah, it's high and lifted up and where is it at?

That might seem like such a fundamental or kind of like peripheral idea, but this idea that God's throne is in his temple is very much an Adventist idea.

That there really is a temple in heaven, for example, and that God reigns from his temple in heaven, that's where his throne is.

It says about the earth that the whole earth, this is the earth in our little drawing up here, the whole earth is full of his glory.

What tense does it use to describe, is it the whole earth was full, the whole earth will be full, or the whole earth is full?

The whole earth is full of his glory In fact, this is the reason that the angels are saying, holy, holy, holy The earth is full of his glory notice verse 5.

I'll see me verse 4 and the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke." We talk about the house, but the house we're talking about is the temple in heaven.

What's happening here is that the posts of the door are shaking when this voice is crying out.

Keep a finger or a piece of paper or your little red ribbon here in Isaiah 6.

We're going to come back to it several times.

This is the introduction to the 7 last plagues.

And the temple was filled with, what does it say?

With smoke from the glory of God and from his power.

And no man was able to enter into the temple till the 7 plagues of the 7 angels were fulfilled.

It represents that whatever was going on inside this temple before, it's not going on now.

There's no activity inside the temple during what period of time?

The symbol looks very similar to what we saw over here when the sensor is thrown down, like there's no more activity inside the temple.

Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

During this time, while the house is filled with smoke, during this time when the earth is full of the glory of God, the experience that Isaiah describes for himself is 1 of feeling very unworthy.

We describe this kind of feeling in Adventism as the time of Jacob's trouble.

You can read about that in Jeremiah chapter 30 to 31.

It's a time in the future when the intercession in the heavenly sanctuary has ended, when in figure the house is full of smoke, when the earth is full of the glory of God, but when God's people are keenly aware of their unworthiness.

Time of Jacob's Trouble, What's Time of Jacob's Trouble?

That's the 2 chapters where you can read more about this Time of Jacob's Trouble if you want to do your own research.

I don't know if you'll ever end up studying the time of Jacob's trouble, but the summary of what happens in the future time is that if you are faithful, the idea will be in your mind that your case is about hopeless.

You won't be able to think of any particular sin that you've done, but you'll have the sense that your whole life has been pretty rotten.

You'll feel like there's not much hope for you.

Then flew 1 of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar." The picture is kind of odd.

The altar is hot, so you use tongs to grab the coals, but what does he put the coals in?

It's not a very comfortable picture, but it doesn't seem to bother the angel.

And he laid it, that is the coal, upon my mouth, and said, lo, this has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.

Let me just ask the question from Isaiah 6.

When these coals are scattered on the earth, what does that represent?

In Isaiah 6, it represents a message coming from heaven that is to let God's faithful people who are feeling so unworthy know that they are forgiven.

During those 7 last plagues, after this time of Jacob's trouble, God's people are going to look radiant and happy and glad for what's coming.

You can read about it in early writings, page 279 to 281.

It describes there how those who have chosen the wrong way will come up to us, and they will beg for us to pray for them.

And it says there that the last tear will have been shed for guilty sinners, the last agonizing prayer offered.

And we will say, we're sorry, we have nothing for you.

Why So Many Years of Papal Supremacy

Our Father in Heaven, I ask as we study the book of Revelation that you would be here as our instructor.

And I ask for this gift in the name of Jesus.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 11.

Has that been there long enough that I can erase it without doing damage?

1 question we're addressing this morning is why 1260 years?

Let me see if I can put the question into perspective for you.

Any given 1 year in the history of the Middle Ages was a significant disaster.

I don't know in your world history class how you, what you've covered, but if I could take just the nation of France, for example, and begin, for example, just in the 12th century.

Beginning in the 12th century, there were such regular destruction of Christians in Southern France that 1 historian said that part of the nation became a desert.

So that every year Dominican friars would come into the land, seeking into hiding places, looking in bushes, looking in closets, trying to find the followers of the Albigensian heresy.

That was done year after year for more than a century.

The Albigensians were people like you that believed in the Bible and didn't believe in Catholicism.

And to give you more than that would mean I wouldn't finish this lecture.

But if you ask me later, I'll help you with that.

In France, following that, and by the way, that persecution was ordered by a man who had the name of Innocent III, 1 of the most ironic names in all of history.

He gave it to himself, which just reminds you of that passage in the Bible that says they justified themselves, and here was a man, Innocent III, who ordered these executions.

During the 16th century in France, this is almost like a history lesson, but it's relevant to what you're studying right now.

If you could compare, say, graphs, that this is the picture of how well the reform is going in Germany, how well it's going in England, how well it's going in Switzerland, how well it's going in the Netherlands.

This represents how well it appeared to be going in France.

Because whenever people were accepting the gospel in France, they were being executed, And that was happening repetitively.

In fact, the most famous reformers in France ended up fleeing most of them to Switzerland, a few of them to Germany, and more than 0 to England.

So if you're looking at the success of the Reformation, for example, in the Great Controversy, if you read the chapter about France, You'll find most of the people there leaving France before you finish the chapter.

But there's another way you can look at this graph that's just as accurate.

If we talk about the number of people that died in Germany that were ready to go to heaven, The number of people that died in the Netherlands that were ready to go to heaven, and of course all these graphs are guesses, right?

The number of people that died in France that were ready to go to heaven exceeds all.

So that there's quite a difference between the apparent success of God's work in the Middle Ages and the real success.

Do you understand what I'm saying with this graph?

That this is real success even if it doesn't show up very well in terms of the growth of the church.

This is why the Bible says, for example, in Isaiah 9, speaking about Jesus, the mighty God, the wonderful counselor, it says, of the increase of his government, there shall be no end.

Because his government is increasing, whether or not it appears to be doing anything like that on the earth.

I'm making a circuitous route to explaining why 1260 years.

And maybe you've already covered this interesting statement of Jesus, you can find it in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 and Luke 21, where he said, "'Except these days, ' referring to these days, "'except these should be shortened, "'there should no flesh be saved.'" And the persecution in those years was shortened.

So I'm just going to go to my point and, did you all cover that Mr.

I'm going to come to my point about why 1260 years.

It has to do with an idea that I'm going to write up here, pure samples.

So the no flesh statement in the Bible wasn't talking about the end of our days?

No, I'm talking about 1260 years of papal suppression.

How can I illustrate this where you can see it?

If you've taken chemistry, or even if you've just taken chemistry in elementary school and read about it or something, if you wanted to study, say, salt, and wanted to study, say, sugar, what would happen if you took a mixture of salt and sugar and tried to study it?

You know, it would be very hard to learn about either salt or sugar from a mixture of salt and sugar.

There's something about when you mix elements up that unless you can unmix them, it's hard to differentiate what are the characteristics of the salt and what are the characteristics of the sugar.

In other words, if you didn't know ahead of, anyway, you understand the illustration, I'll just go on.

It is difficult for men and for angels to evaluate the effects of righteousness on a nation and the effects of sin on a nation.

It's very complex because there are sinners and righteous people mixed up together all around this world.

It was so hard for Willie Miller, for example.

Maybe you've read this in the great controversy, the chapter of the American Reformer, that when he was just a little older than you, he became a deist.

He stopped believing that God had personal interaction with people on earth.

1 thing that led him that way was that the deists in his town were some of the most upright and noble citizens.

They were men of culture and integrity, men who cared for their families and took good care.

What William Miller couldn't distinguish is that these men had been taught these values when they were young by men who were thoroughly Christian.

And that's just an illustration of what's real.

That is where Christianity, real Christianity is mixed with anything else.

It's like a leaven in the lump, and it can leaven the whole lump.

So that, here is Satan ruling this world, but this world is not really given a good picture, very often, of what it would be like under Satan's rule.

Satan is ruling this world, but the world does not represent a good picture of what the world is like under Satan's rule, because here and there in the world there are pieces of God's kingdom.

And do we make a difference in the world?

We make such a difference in the world that if there had been 10 true Christians in Sodom, it would not have been destroyed by fire.

Was the letter thing just for illustrative purposes?

Because I mean, I've always heard of peace, but compared to sin, rather than Christianity.

Paul compares it to sin and Jesus compares it to Christianity.

If you want a reference for that, that's in Mark 13.

You know, just because you're the kind of person who will look it up, I'm going to give you a verse number.

Why don't you all turn your Bibles for a minute to Mark 13 and we'll look at it together.

Mark 13 and we're looking, just give me a moment.

I looked at this verse this morning, so I'm going to be able to find it.

Luke 13 and looking at verse 20, it says, and again he said, "'Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God?

"'It is like leaven which a woman took "'and hid in 3 measures of meal "'till the whole was leavened.'" Now, it's true both ways.

It's true the little leaven of sin leavens the whole lump, and it's true the little leaven of Christianity leavens the whole lump.

In fact, both ideas are exactly what I'm speaking about this morning.

It doesn't take much to make the mixture unintelligible in terms of distinguishing characteristics.

Now turn your Bibles to 2 Thessalonians 2.

2 Thessalonians 2 and we're looking at verse 1.

Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

If I could say those few verses in my own words, Christ coming is not even close until the man of sin has been revealed.

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Series

Revelation Class: OHA

Intercession

Transcript

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