Hartland Summer Conference 2021: Revelation's Cosmic Conflict

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Revelation

Chris Holland

01 Revelation’s Warning to Anesthetized Souls

I am just thrilled to be here with you this evening and to have the opportunity to share over the course of the next 3 days, tonight, tomorrow night, and then Sabbath morning, we'll be exploring the book of Revelation.

Tonight, Revelation's warning for slumber.

Tomorrow, Revelation's exhortation for half-hearted apathy.

And then Sabbath morning, Revelation's cure for lost love.

And as we talk about the book of Revelation and Revelation's cosmic conflict, let us not get lost in the types and the symbols of the book of Revelation.

And let us focus on the main theme of that book, which can be simply summarized in a complex sentence, and that is this, Jesus wins, the devil loses, choose to be on Jesus' side.

When we're confused about the 144, 000, just remember, whether they're figurative or literal, Jesus wins and the devil loses.

As we begin this evening, there is confusion in the world.

Just over 1 year ago, on March 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky, police, using a battering ram, entered the apartment of 1 Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker as part of a drug investigation.

Details that follow that I will describe differ depending on where you read the news.

But what apparently happened is police returned fire with 20 shots.

5 of those shots struck and killed the young woman, Breonna Taylor.

And in the aftermath, riots and protests broke out against the injustice, or the apparent injustice of what had happened.

And just a few months ago, none of the 3 officers involved were indicted in the death, which once again brought about riots and protesting.

And when we look at the images that have been created in the media, it leaves many wondering what is happening to America.

2020 brought the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

And instead of mourning the death of a longtime serving Supreme Court justice, there were arguments over the constitutional duties of the President, the threat of a speaker to impeach the president, which now we know happened.

There were war of words, there were attacks on appointees, and it left many wondering what is happening to America.

The election of 2020 brought about the same question.

And if we just read the news today, headlines, outrage after the White House press secretary reveals that the Biden administration has been flagging Facebook posts.

A Democratic congresswoman arrested, hands zip-tied after protests at a building.

And it leaves many wondering What in the world is going on?

In September of 2020, there was a gathering on the National Mall.

I'm going to share with you here a video clip.

The video clip is approximately 8 minutes long.

As we watch this video clip, let me be clear in advance so It is not misinterpreted.

I do not support what's in the video clip, but I'm showing the video clip that we might be awakened to the reality of things going on.

Often we talk about the cosmic conflict as a future, but my dear brothers and sisters, the cosmic conflict is happening right now before our very eyes.

Not only is it happening right now before our very eyes, but the battle lines are being set.

In fact, in fact, this week I've been exploring with some master's students metaphors of the church.

1 of the metaphors of the church is the church as an army.

Are we an army of well-disciplined soldiers waiting and watching and preparing for what is happening and what is coming.

Let's watch this clip and afterwards we will dive into Revelation's warning for slumber.

We are standing at a pivotal moment in American history and world history.

A moment that can permanently seal our nation's course and the course of the world for good, for bad, for calamity, for redemption.

America and much of Western civilization was founded on a biblical foundation stone.

But it's turned away from that foundation.

We have not only driven God out of our public life and have called what is good evil and what is sin good, but we have sacrificed the lives of over 60 million unborn children.

And America's fall from God is not only progressing, it's accelerating.

To the point that it's no longer just a falling away, but a war against the purposes of God.

I wrote in the Harbinger of the signs of judgment that appeared in the last days of ancient Israel.

That these same signs of warning have now appeared on American soil.

The biblical template concerning judgment is that the nation so warned is given a space of time to return or to head for judgment and calamity.

But if America continues on its present course, that window will come to an end, and there will come a flood that will begin the end of religious freedom, even usher in persecution and seal America's fall.

And if America falls, it will affect the entire world.

This year, 2020, is crucial as it leads to a presidential election in which the stakes are higher and the necessity of prayer more critical than ever before.

And even if the election goes in the direction of biblical values and righteousness, if we don't see a spiritual turning, an awakening, a repentance, revival, then all the political, legal, judicial, and cultural efforts will ultimately fail or be undone.

We have a window of time and the purpose of that window is to return and for revival.

Without that return, America will be lost.

In the days following 9-11, people flocked to houses of worship.

And it looked as if there could have been a spiritual revival and awakening.

And without repentance, without a turning back, there can be no revival.

But I have seen once in my life the hand of God changed the course of American and world history.

And it all began not in the halls of government, but with the people of God who gathered in a sacred assembly in our nation's capital with the scripture, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their sinful ways, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land.

But if we don't respond now, at this most critical moment, we may never have the chance to do so again.

Since the time of 9-11 I've been calling for return for repentance for revival not only as individuals but as a nation according to 2nd Chronicles 7 14.

At the same time a faithful man of God, Kevin Jessup, has for years carried the burden of a sacred assembly for that same purpose of restoration.

Therefore, this is the announcing of the return, the national and global day of prayer and repentance.

It will be a day and more than a day, a time and a season for the movement for prayer, repentance, return, and revival.

The central day will be Saturday, September 26th in a sacred assembly according to what is laid forth in Scripture to take place in our nation's capital on the Washington Mall.

For those who can't make it or want to do something where you are, then gather together in your states, your cities, in your towns, in your houses of worship, in your homes, or be part of those gatherings already planned.

This will take place not only 40 days before the presidential election, but also on the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower in the days of America's founding and dedication to God.

And surrounding the day of return on September 26th will be 10 days known from ancient times as the 10 days of repentance starting with the Feast of Trumpets and ending on the Day of Atonement to set as a special time to intensify our prayers, our intercessions for repentance and revival.

Believers and leaders who are already part of the return include everybody from Pat Robertson to Dr.

James Dobson, from Billy Graham's daughter Ann Graham Lotz, to Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, and many, many more.

With you and me, as we commit this time and this year for return, prayer, repentance and revival.

To commit first to our own repentance and to begin actually living in revival and then to pray for others, the return and revival of our nation and the world.

You who are parents begin by leading your families in revival.

Leaders of ministries, movements and denominations lead your people into revival.

And spread the word to everybody you can.

Let the believers, pastors, and churches in your areas know.

Use everything you can to spread the word so they can have a part.

And if you're watching this and you're not sure you know God, or that your life is in His will, then come to Him now, or come back to Him now, and then come join in, in the return.

So I invite you to come to the nation's capital on the Washington Mall, September 26, 2020.

You can rent buses, trains, cars, planes, however you can come, or gather wherever you are.

And if you're watching this from a nation outside of America, you can be part of bringing the return to your nation by doing what I've set forth in this message and going to the return website for more information.

I'll be sending out more messages as we go forth, but for now, for more information, to have a greater part to represent the return in your area or to stay up to date.

If you're not already on that site go to the website for the return, which is easy to remember.

02 Revelation’s Exhortation for Half-Hearted People

It is good to be with you again, and I am excited to be here and be a part of this Heartland Camp meeting as we explore Revelation's cosmic messages.

You know, as we look at the book of Revelation, it is important, as I'm sure has already happened during the week, to understand what Revelation is.

It comes from the Greek word apokalupsis, from where we get the English word apocalypse, but literally translated means the unveiling.

What is the unveiling of the book of Revelation?

Because as we talked about last night, He is the only 1 that has the solution to all of the problems that exist in this world.

It is only Jesus and His second coming that will bring an end to all injustices.

It is only Jesus and His second coming that will bring an end to all matters of political strife.

Too often we have hung our hat or our dependence upon ourself or others.

And the book of Revelation teaches us that that, frankly, is a foolish endeavor, because it is only Jesus who has the answer.

Heavenly Father, as we study once again, we are thankful for the opportunity to be here.

We are thankful for the opportunity that we have the freedom to worship, because Lord, we do know there are places in this world that worship is not freely practiced.

And so Lord, as we spend these moments in Your book, we pray and ask that you would reveal to us something tonight to help us understand.

When we look at the book of Revelation, I have always found it to be important to have some context.

Of course, we know that the book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John.

But sometimes we miss the context in which the apostle John was writing the book.

John was pastoring the church there in Ephesus.

And there in Ephesus, if you visit that ancient site today, it's considered by many to be 1 of the best ancient sites.

Because it has been maintained from its ancient glory.

And so, as you walk along the intricately paved Roman road there, And there you see the library of Celsus.

Along your journey, you are confronted with the realities of first century Christianity.

You see, John would have been confronted on a daily basis with the false worship of these false gods.

But that was the least of John's worries.

Because there was a lunatic of an emperor who came to power in Rome.

And Domitian did something that no other emperor prior to his existence had done.

You see, all other emperors prior to Domitian would be deified once they died.

Meaning that they would be made a god after their death.

But Domitian thought so highly of himself that he made a decision, an executive decision, to deify himself while he was still living.

And so the Romans wanted to make sure that the members of the Roman society were submissive to the government of the Caesars.

And so they visited Ephesus, and there in Ephesus, they demanded an offering be made to the newly deified God of Domitian.

The apostle John at that time, the last of the apostles to be alive, All of the rest of his friends had been martyred.

The last living apostle would refuse to take salt and cast it before the altar of Domitian.

And this, of course, did not make the Roman authorities happy, so they promptly had John drink poison to kill him.

But then the Romans had a problem on their hand because he did not die.

And so then the Romans, not too happy with this, now we're going to make John pay.

And so they were going to boil him in oil.

How many of you have ever worked in fast food?

Don't worry, I'm not going to call you up here.

I actually believe it should be a requirement of life to work in fast food.

If you can deal with people who have so many problems with their food, you can deal with anybody.

Those of you who have worked in fast food, have you had the distinct pleasure of being burned by oil?

I'll never forget, I was working in a restaurant.

Prior to my becoming an Adventist, I managed restaurants and not that you can't be an Adventist and manage a restaurant, it just happened to be the order of things in my life.

And I'll never forget they were cleaning out the oil and I was unaware that they were cleaning out the oil, and they had taken the greatest safety precautious, and I'm being very sarcastic right now, and they had emptied the fryer into a 400 pan, which for those of you who have never had the pleasure of working in food service, that is a deep pan that is twice the size is a 13 by 9 and twice the depth.

And they safely placed it upon the top of a five-gallon bucket and filled it with oil that was approximately 335 degrees Fahrenheit and I was working in the back and I came around and I did not know the oil was there and I knocked the oil off of the five-gallon bucket and it promptly went on to my feet.

I was wearing shoes, thank the Lord, but my shoes began to get a little warm and so my shoes were taken promptly off of my feet very quickly along with my socks and the workers were casting ice upon the place in which I was standing and thankfully I did not burn my feet.

When you're heating oil and utilizing oil in cooking, Have you ever had the opportunity where your oil begins to smoke?

That means you've reached what is called the smoke point.

You didn't know you're gonna get a lesson on cooking tonight, did you?

If you would continue to heat that oil to higher temperatures, beyond the smoke point, your oil would eventually begin to boil.

And then it would reach, as it came to the boiling point, what is called its flash point.

And that's when things get real exciting.

Because what's happening at the boiling point of oil, which is called the flashpoint, is the oil is boiling, and as it's boiling, it's vaporizing.

But here's the problem, as it vaporizes, it ignites.

And so now I want you to envision the apostle John is now taken to Rome where he is going to now be boiled in oil.

And so as the Apostle John would have approached this large cauldron that had been promptly prepared to fry him to death, the oil would have been boiling and vaporizing, and so there would have been flames skirting across the oil.

You see, sometimes we just say, oh, and they try to boil John in oil, and we kind of go, oh yeah, that's kind of interesting.

I want you to envision now for a moment that the Apostle John is then taken and he is cast into this cauldron of oil that is boiling and on fire on the top.

And to the utter amazement of the Romans, he is not scalded 1 bit.

So now they don't know what to do with him, except for 1 thing.

They take the approximately 90 some odd year old John and they take him to the island of Patmos.

I've had the opportunity to be on the island of Patmos.

Patmos prior to the Romans was a Greek prison colony.

If you go there today, It's a pretty place.

There's a nice harbor and a little walkway along the waterfront where there's all kinds of nice restaurants and wonderful Greek people.

However, outside of that is what John would have experienced.

The island of Patmos is an island less than 9 miles long and less than a couple of miles wide.

It is basically a rock that extends out of the water.

Typically you can get there from sailing out of Athens, Greece, or you can sail there from what would have been, at the time, Ephesus.

The journey from Ephesus in a modern day boat takes about 3 and a half hours, or at least that's what it's supposed to take.

When I visited Patmos, the winds were a little high that day, which meant the waves were a little bit high, and our tour director really wanted us to have an intimate moment as a tour group, so we were in a smaller vessel.

And that 3 and a half hour trip almost took 5 hours.

And the boat went up and down and up and down.

And we were having this wonderful moment, D.

We thought it would just be such a nice thing that we would study the book of Revelation on the lower deck and Andy Nash was leading us and I'll never forget, the boat was going this way and I was sitting this way and at some point as the boat is going up and down and up and down both my head and my stomach told me I really don't like this anymore.

My wife being the smartest of the bunch never left the upper deck to which she was sitting directly in the middle of the boat and as the waves are splashing over she would get a drip or 2 on her but she looked out on the horizon kept the focus on the horizon with her ginger candy in her mouth and she did not get sick.

03 Revelation’s Cure for Lost Love

As we get started this morning, let's ask the Lord's blessing upon the studying of His Word.

Heavenly Father, we have gathered here, and as we have gathered here, we have gathered here as the Spirit has led.

And now, Lord, we would ask that the Spirit would continue to lead, and that He would lead us into all truth.

Lord, sanctify us in Your truth as we spend time in Your Word.

The final message that I'll be sharing with you this morning is Revelation's cure for lost love.

If you have your Bibles, I would invite you to open to Revelation.

And many of you already know where we're going to go.

There in Revelation 2, and as we understand the book of Revelation, it is important to note that the book of Revelation is a letter.

Those 7 churches all would have received the book of Revelation.

And I want to encourage you as you read the book of Revelation is that too often when we read the book of Revelation, we isolate certain passages from its entirety.

And in so doing, we lose sight of the great story, the cosmic conflict that exists between good and evil.

And in the complications of understanding the trumpets and the seals and the beasts and the woman and all of these different things, we lose sight of what the whole point of the book of Revelation is.

And you'll hear me say that over and over again, because we lose sight when we get into the nuanced, well, what are the lampstands?

I'm not denying the importance of understanding these things, but let us not lose sight of the forest by simply studying the bark on 1 of the trees.

In fact, I would encourage you if you've never done so, to either read, or even better yet, listen to the entire book of Revelation in 1 sitting.

It'll only take about an hour and a few minutes.

A number of years ago, I went to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

And there was a man there by the name of Tom Mayer.

But he recited the book of Revelation from memory.

And we can, wow, he knew the whole book by heart.

And all of a sudden, Revelation 12, 13 and 14 has a very different effect than when we just isolated into passages.

We all remember that the Bible, when originally written, was not written in chapter and verse division.

Casper, has put me onto something, and I haven't had the chance to tell you.

After you told me about the Reader's Bible, D., I went out and I actually, and I didn't do it, I have some wonderful people that for my birthday, they gave me the ESV, but the 5 volume set of the reader's version of the Bible.

What's the reader's version of the Bible?

And so when you sit down and you read it, you begin reading and you're not distracted by the chapters and the verses.

By the way, another thing to notice, and this is just kind of a bonus and has nothing to do with my sermon, but when you get the 5 volume set, here's the fascinating thing.

You have the epistles in Revelation, you have the Gospels, and then you have the Old Testament.

There are so many Christians willing to throw away the bulk of the story.

But I would encourage you to listen to the entirety of the book of Revelation, because what you see when you read through the entirety of the book of Revelation is this grand cosmic conflict and the sweeping battle between God and Satan, the sweeping battle between Christ and Satan and His goal of doing 1 thing, and that is the conquering of the devil in our hearts that he would have us.

And as we read through, we will focus now on the message to the church of Ephesus.

Last night we looked at the Laodicean message, which is the last of the 7 messages, and this morning we will look at the first, because that first message has an interesting consequence on us living in these last days.

In fact, I'll be ending my sermon with a rather lengthy quotation from the spirit of prophecy that will help us see the importance of this message in these final hours of earth's history.

As we begin looking here, we journey to Ephesus.

Ephesus was, of course, in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey.

Ephesus experienced substantial growth during Rome's Pax Romana expansion.

But Ephesus needed to do something to maintain their status as a port city.

You see the river, the river that dumped into the Aegean Sea there in Ephesus, contained significant amounts of particles which we would call silt.

It would deposit the silt in the port, and Ephesus, even in that ancient time, had developed a wonderful system of engineering where they would remove the silt from the port city.

And so, they had this remarkable feat of engineering to keep it as a port.

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Series

Revelation

01 Revelation’s Warning to Anesthetized Souls

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Two Altars

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Running

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The First Kings of Israel

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The Cross and the Sanctuary

The Cross and The Sanctuary- Part 1

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Encounters With Jesus

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