Hartland Summer Conference 2021: Revelation's Cosmic Conflict

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Dee Casper's Weekend

Dee Casper

02 Fear God and Give Glory to Him

Okay, making sure we got our ducks in a row here technologically.

So we covered in our first presentation together the topic of the everlasting gospel, and now what we'll be addressing is this idea of the statement, fear God and give glory to him.

We'll primarily focus on the fear God part, and then later this afternoon we'll address the topic of the hour of his judgment has come.

And so that's gonna be our next couple of presentations together, but I'd like to start here.

Sweet Jesus, thank you again that we had this privilege to come into your presence to hear from you.

And Lord, we just ask that you would speak with clarity.

Help us to better wrap our minds around what you mean by the fear of God.

And I pray that you would give us a solid biblical foundation for this.

Bless us, we pray, And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so 1 of the reasons why I'm passionate about this topic is because it's so easily misunderstood for 1, and 2, I've met a lot of our people who really grapple with the topic of fear.

And so I want to kind of walk through kind of a healthy biblical way to see this and how to sort through what we see.

So in 2 Timothy 1 verse 7 we're told that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." Now this implies a few things.

I've kind of written this out in a way that has made it easier for me to better understand.

If it says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

This implies that fear robs us of power, the ability to love God and others, and to be loved by God and others, and to be able to think and make decisions with a sound mind.

So fear literally alters the way that we do the essentials of life.

And so this certainly is problematic and we're going to have to wrestle with this.

Fear actually leads us to make bad decisions.

The people in the Gadarenes in Luke chapter 8, whenever Jesus cast the demons out of the demoniac that's living amongst the tombs, they're so scared about what has happened to the pigs that run off the edge of the cliff that they literally tell Jesus to get out of here.

Get out of here and leave because they're scared of what has happened.

And so just imagine, fear led them to basically kick the Messiah out of their community.

Now, is that a good decision or a bad decision?

Basically, the entire life of King Saul from his first fall onward is filled with him making really bad decisions that were largely fear-based.

We see Elijah, whenever Elijah calls down fire from heaven at Mount Carmel.

Soon after that, he gets a report that Jezebel wants him dead.

And as soon as he gets word of that, the guy loses it, right?

He runs for his life from the wrath of an infuriated woman, we're told.

No longer wanting to see a man, he's seized with depression, he's discouraged, he's despondent, and he doesn't even want to live anymore.

So he goes from a mountaintop experience with Jesus to complete despondency, and it was fear that led in this transaction, this change of thought and change of mind for him.

Peter denying Jesus, right, in front of the servant girl and in front of John the Apostle.

If you read the gospel carefully, John's gospel, you recognize that John goes in the house, John leads the servant girl to the front door, Peter's on the other side of that front door.

She opens the door and says, you are not also 1 of this man's disciples, are you?

Which implies that she knew that John was a disciple of Jesus.

So if God hasn't given us the spirit of fear and doesn't want us to have that type of experience, then what's the solution?

This is found in 1 John 4, verses 16 and 17.

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God doesn't just want you to intellectually agree with the possibility that maybe God loves you.

He wants you to experientially know that and to believe it with every ounce of your being.

Then it says that God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

And love has been perfected among us in this that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.

God wants us to be filled with boldness in the day of judgment, but most of us are horrified about the fact that there is going to be a judgment and we don't know what to do about that.

But he says that if we know and believe the love God has for us, we won't be afraid in the judgment.

That's 1 of the reasons why the 3 angels' messages are filled with the message of God's love.

And so we've, when we preach the message of God's love centered to the heart of every aspect of the 3 angels messages, this is what will lead people to be able to fear God and give glory to Him in the midst of the judgment hour.

That's the main premise and the purpose of that.

So, and we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as He is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love does what?

So when we are filled with God's love, it removes the possibility for us to be afraid of God, right?

And in fear of anything, honestly, in that sense.

But fear, perfect love, casts out fear because fear involves torment.

We're afraid of getting hurt, but when we are immersed in God's love, we recognize that his protection will be with us.

But he who fears has not been made perfect in love, and we love him.

The only way for you and I to fall in love with Jesus is to come face to face with the reality that he's already in love with us.

This is the topic that we should be focusing on, not at the expense of other things, but we shouldn't think, oh, I talked about God's love in the first Bible study, let's move on to the more mature adult things.

Let's move on to the meat of the message.

You ever hear people say things like this?

You know, let's move on to the meat and give people present truth.

Well, if you weren't aware, Ellen White actually referred to the message of Christ our righteousness as meat in due season.

It is always welcome on my table and should be welcome in every meal that we serve, amen?

Whether you're talking about the state of the dead, the Sabbath, the sanctuary, we should see a true healthy picture of God's love for man in everything that we address as a people.

And we were told that every 1 of those other teachings find power in relation to the theme of the cross.

So we're doing a disservice to those other teachings and to the cross when we don't center everything in that particular understanding.

It is not the fear of punishment or the hope of everlasting reward that leads the disciples of Christ to follow Him.

They behold the Savior's matchless love, revealed through His pilgrimage on earth, from the manger of Bethlehem to Calvary's cross, and the sight of him does what?

03 The Hour of His Judgment has Come

You're probably getting tired of seeing my face.

I've been a regular appearing guest on this program.

Alright, let me do something here real quick.

Okay, so what I'd like to do is begin with a word of prayer, and then we're going to start the third aspect of the first angel's message, for the hour of his judgment has come.

And we'll have 1 more tomorrow on the topic of worship Him who made heavens, earth, and the sea, and the springs of water.

Sweet Jesus, we thank you so much for blessing us for a delicious meal, for beautiful sunshine, and for the 3 angels' messages and what a blessing they are to humanity.

And so I pray as we study again the first angel's message today, that you would bless us, that you would give us new insight from your Word, and that we would see Jesus, and we ask this in Jesus' name.

Alright, for the hour of his judgment has come." Now this implies something.

We as Adventists kind of have some inside information on this of some degree we believe of understanding the big picture of the heavenly sanctuary and we talk about the investigative judgment.

I don't have time to give a Bible study on the investigative judgment and this, so if that's not something you're familiar with, I would recommend that you talk to your local Adventist pastor and get a Bible study on that, or talk to me and we can try to study it later on sometime this week.

But for right now, I need to jump into this.

So this implies that the hour of his judgment has come, as if it's a current tense circumstance.

We believe that the message of the first angel began sounding in the year 1844, that God was preparing a people for the soon second coming of Jesus.

And so anyway, that's kind of that background context.

So, I wanna share kind of 2 things, kind of 2 forms of Jesus's ministry, the ministry as the lamb and the ministry as the priest.

Those are kind of the 2 most important roles in the sanctuary economy.

The first was a role of the priest, the second was a role of the sacrifice.

We'll see that Jesus fills both of these roles.

So the daily service, what took place 359 days out of the year, involves sin being transferred in to the sanctuary, right?

So Bob would sin, he would walk his animal to the front of the tabernacle, he would confess over the animal his sin, he would kill the animal himself, and then the priest would catch that blood and carry the blood into the tabernacle and sprinkle it on the altar and also on the veil that was in front of the Ark of the Covenant, that kind of separating veil between the 2 apartments.

And this is where Jesus's ministry as a lamb is represented.

Jesus is, as it says in John 1, I believe, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But He also, as a priest, administers this sacrifice on our behalf.

Jesus is also the mediator, so He dies in our stead, but He's also the 1 that transfers the merits of His death and His blood into the sanctuary service and offers that on our behalf.

But the yearly sanctuary service, what happened on the Day of Atonement in particular, was a service where sin was transferred out of the sanctuary, and all record of sin was completely removed from the camp.

This is the second phase of atonement, and this is where his priestly role was necessary.

So we as Seventh-day Adventists believe in what's referred to as a two-phased atonement.

We have the death of Jesus and the intercessory ministry of Jesus in heaven as is laid out in the Scriptures and so forth.

Now some of our friends in other denominations believe that we as Adventists are a little out of line.

There is no idea of an investigative judgment in Scripture.

It's just something that Ella White said and it's not biblical.

I just want to give some references here for this.

This is not an apologetic exercise, by the way, or meant to be polemic in nature, argumentative in nature, but I just want you to know that we have good, solid standing theologically to believe in this teaching.

So, in Exodus chapter 25, verses 9 and 40, Moses was told that he's going to build the wilderness tabernacle according to the pattern that was shown him.

And that pattern means that there was something, there was a real thing that existed, and this was made in harmony with that, or made similarly to that original 1.

In Leviticus chapter 16, this explains the anti-type, or the type, I should say, of the Day of Atonement that we believe is the investigative judgment, where It explains how once a year sin was transferred out of the sanctuary.

That's where we get that biblical premise from is Leviticus chapter 16, the day of Atonement.

Then we get to Daniel chapter 7 and verse 10.

So Daniel chapter 7, Daniel has this kind of theme of repeat and enlarge.

This idea that you see in Daniel 2, there are 4 kingdoms, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, that correlate with the metals, right?

They increase in strength, but they decrease in value.

And then in Daniel chapter 7, there's – well, after the fourth kingdom, there's kind of a dividing of the kingdom, and then eventually there's a rock cut without hands and destroys it, smashes the whole thing, it's the second coming of Jesus.

But in Daniel chapter 7 we kind of zoom in a little bit, so there's more details given per kingdom of those 4, plus it talks about the little horn now, the Antichrist's power that will rule from the division of the fourth kingdom until the second coming.

But there's also another detail that's given.

It says that the books were opened and the court was seated.

Now, what's implied here is that there's a judgment happening in heaven before the second coming of Jesus.

Okay, that's laid out in Daniel chapter 7.

In Daniel chapter 8, we see this idea of on the 2, 300 days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

Now there was only 1 day out of the year in which there was a cleansing of the earthly sanctuary and that was on the Day of Atonement.

So when you are a Jew living in that dichotomy or that economy of the Jewish history, you would be understanding that when you hear a sanctuary being cleansed, that would be synonymous in your mind with judgment.

That a cleansing of a sanctuary and a judgment go hand in hand.

Then in Daniel chapter 9, we have the 70 weeks, which is when the 2300 days and the 70 weeks begin.

That kind of timeline that explains what the 2300 days was about, they're similar in nature.

The 70 weeks is like a small picture of what the 2300 days will be about.

There's a length of time given, a time of probation given to a group of people before a judgment will be given and a cutting off.

The same type of idea in Daniel 7 and Daniel 9, or the 70 weeks in the 2300 days.

Then we get to Hebrews chapter 8, and we're told that Jesus is the minister of the true tabernacle in heaven, and that the earthly temple is a copy or shadow of this 1.

Then we get to Hebrews chapter 9, that Christ is cleansing the heavenly sanctuary with his own blood, again borrowing language from Leviticus chapter 16.

Then Revelation chapter 10, we have the bitter disappointment that takes place.

The people of God were assuming Jesus would come.

Can you imagine if you knew Jesus was coming in 2 weeks?

You know how much peace that would give you to know that it may be hard right now, but at least most of us, we have this kind of like budget of emotional energy, right?

And so we kind of pace, do you get into a difficult conversation you're gonna have with somebody, I just need to make it to the end of that conversation without acting a fool or causing problems or getting angry and then me and Jesus can go on a walk and deal with.

That would have been very helpful waiting on the second coming of Jesus.

The problem is no man knows the day or the hour, right?

So they were excited, but when Jesus didn't come when they thought he would, they were crushed by disappointment, right?

And the interesting thing is some people say that you know you Seventh-day Adventists said that Jesus was coming in 1844, which isn't an entirely accurate statement because Seventh-day Adventists didn't exist in 1844.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church wasn't incorporated until 1863.

It was actually Baptists and Methodists that believed that Jesus was coming in 1844.

So, not the whole denominations obviously, but people from those denominations were largely believing this.

But the point is, that disappointment that happened was prophesied in the book of Revelation that this would take place.

And they were told after that disappointment to go and prophesy again.

Some translations say about many nations and tongues.

And the point was that this movement after 1844 happened was to prophesy again, to keep sharing with people their now better understanding of what would take place and what did take place in the year 1844.

In Revelation chapter 11, we've got the debtor judged and the ark is seen.

Now, the ark of the covenant is that piece of furniture that's sprinkled and that where the beginning of the cleansing of the sanctuary happens.

And so there's this allusion to this in Revelation 11.

In Revelation chapter 14, we just talked about a moment ago in the first angel's message that for the hour of his judgment has come.

Then we get to Revelation chapter 15 and verse 8, and the door of probation closes.

Access into the heavenly sanctuary ceases because that cleansing work has finished.

01 The Everlasting Gospel

It's a privilege to be with you all today.

And for those of you who are joining us online, I would like to pray to begin here and we're gonna start our series on the 3 angels messages.

So kind of each of our presentations is gonna layer upon the next.

So we're starting at the beginning of the 3 angels' messages and we'll finish by the time that our time is together and then also give a brief recap.

So this morning we'll be dealing with the topic of the everlasting gospel, but let's pray.

Sweet Jesus, thank you for this privilege to come into your presence, to know you, and to learn of you.

And I pray as we address the first angel's message this morning, the first part of the first angel's message, that you would speak to us with power, with clarity, and with conviction.

And we ask this now in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, so I want to kind of give you guys a big picture of the 3 angels' messages before we jump into the first angels' message.

The 3 angels' messages, there's kind of basically bookends that surround this topic.

And so when you get to Revelation chapter 14, you might as well turn there.

We're gonna spend our whole time in Revelation 14.

Well, I say that, that's actually totally not true.

But we're gonna start in Revelation chapter 14, then I'll give some backdrop on defining some terms that are used here.

So in Revelation chapter 14 and verse 6 it says, "...then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth." And the 3 angels' messages end in verse 12 with, "...here's the patience of the saints, here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

So the 2 bookends of the 3 angels messages are the gospel, okay.

The faith of Jesus, we'll break that down Saturday evening I believe, and we're gonna walk through kind of what that means.

But it's referring to the gospel and this is so important to us because I'm not a doctor but I'm just assuming that if you've got the first part of the messages about the gospel and the last part of the messages about the gospel then everything else is also going to relate to that theme.

And so we're going to be looking at the gospel at the heart of the 3 angels' messages and gospel issues that are at stake in the midst of the 3 angels' messages.

That's kind of our objective over the course of our time together, because Revelation chapter 14 shows up at a time whenever Revelation 13 is rampant, right?

There's this bad religion that's sacking the earth, there's a horrible picture of God that's being given, the people of God are being persecuted.

And there is coercion and force and death threats being heaped upon people for standing faithful to God.

And in the midst of this darkness, God raises up messengers, God raises up instrumentalities to proclaim the truth of the gospel and a message of warning and grace to the world in the height of this apostate system wreaking havoc on the earth.

So God raises up this message in Revelation chapter 14 that is so, so important to bring clarity to the world about a true picture of God's love, a true picture of God's character, and how He does life.

So, that's going to be kind of the thrust of our discourse over the next series of days.

And what happens in Babylon in the second angel's message is in direct opposition to the gospel.

So if we were to find ourselves studying the 3 angel's messages and we spent a majority of our time focusing on Babylon, focusing on the Mark of the Beast.

The problem is we have lost sight of the real point of the 3 angels' messages.

That doesn't mean that those aren't significant.

The whole reason why these 3 angels' messages are being preached is because of the chaos and the pending doom that's going to be for those people who receive the mark of the beast.

But that's not the point of the 3 angels' messages.

It's giving a context to the world events that are happening, but the main thrust of the 3 angels' messages is the gospel, and if we lose sight of this, having a knowledge of end-time events isn't going to help us at the end of the day because we won't find a true saving faith and trust in Jesus.

So that's kind of the big picture of where we're going and what we need to do.

So I first want to look at the first angel's message here again.

And there are 3 primary components of the first angel's message.

And if you were to do a poll of what the first angel's message says, If you were to do a poll of most avidness today and ask them, what is the first angel's message?

I believe a majority of the people's response would be, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come.

The problem is that's not how the message begins, And that's not actually the main thrust of the message.

The first angel's message begins with the everlasting gospel.

We see this in Revelation 14, verse 6 again.

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

Then, after the preaching of the gospel, an appeal is given, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come." Then there's the third component to the first angel's message, and worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and springs of water.

Now we'll have separate presentations on these other 2 aspects of the first angel's message, but I want this to be clear that it doesn't make any sense, right?

If you were worshipping on a street corner, if you were street preaching, if you were just telling people to fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of his judgment has come, that makes no sense to somebody who has no understanding of the Bible.

So why would God send an angel, which is, you know, his messengers to the world, starting the conversation there without giving any context?

It begins with the everlasting gospel being preached to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, and in response to that gospel message, then an appeal is given for people to fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come." And it makes perfect sense in response to the gospel, doesn't it?

Whenever you've heard the beauty of the gospel, and we'll cover that here in just a moment, then it makes sense that in response to the gospel people would have a reverential fear of God, And that they would want to live a life that would honor Him in the midst of the judgment.

So the gospel is what sets the context for the remaining parts of the first angel's message and the whole 3 angels' messages for that part, okay?

So I want to start with a sobering story.

Series

Dee Casper's Weekend

05 The Spirit of the Babylon

Transcript

Parent Series

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