OCI 2014 Leadership Retreat: One Thing

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Outpost Centers International

Evening Worship: Revelation

Steven Grabiner

Revelation, Part 1

What we'd like to do this week for this retreat at the end of our reports is take about 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes, and look at the book of Revelation together.

So if you have your Bibles, maybe you didn't bring 1 with you, but if you have 1 electronic or paper, I invite you to turn there with me.

And many of you are very familiar with the recent video that's created a lot of attention and stir, we could say.

With Tony Palmer, Anglican Bishop, addressing a large gathering of evangelical charismatics led by Kenneth Copeland, and then, of course, a video presentation by the Pope.

And 1 of the very interesting things in that presentation was Tony Palmer's repeated statement that really the Protestant Reformation is over.

First of all, the Catholic conception of Justification by faith is not what we would agree with in terms of justification by faith.

But it certainly gives us a heads up in terms of the time in which we live.

And realizing the time, some of our foundational scriptures, prophetic aspects become more and more meaningful to us, and particularly the book of Revelation.

At the same time, those foundations come under attack from inside and outside the church.

There's a, it was a book written about probably 10 years ago.

And it was a doctoral dissertation actually written by an Adventist administrator in, I think he's Swedish or Norwegian someplace over there in that part of the cold world.

And his basic tenant of his talk, his book rather, his dissertation, was that really out of the Millerite movement came such a confusion over historicism as a method of interpretation.

When I say historicism, I'm talking about looking at the book of Revelation or the Book of Daniel as a prophecy that unfolds through history.

Had something to say to John's day or Daniel's day, but unfolded and will continue to unfold in history.

Again, his title of the book is The End of Historicism And his argument basically is that the confusion that arose, not just out of the Millerite movement, but in subsequent years, really has undermined confidence in historicism as a biblical foundation.

I'm going to look a little bit more at that tomorrow night.

Really my purpose in these 10, 15 minute little talks in Revelation is to help us refocus on some very important issues in Revelation.

What I'm not going to do, to perhaps your disappointment or your pleasure, is I'm not going to be speculative in terms of Bible symbols and what's happening in current events.

But I do hope we'll get a clearer picture both of Jesus Christ and the great controversy as we look closely at the book of Revelation.

In the book, Testimonies to Ministers, there's a quote very familiar to us each.

There is need of a much closer study of the word of God, especially should Daniel and the revelation have attention as never before in the history of our world." More true today than when she wrote it, amen?

Then she goes on to say, we may have less to say in some lines in regard to the Roman power and the papacy, but we should call attention to what the prophets and apostles have written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God." Interesting point.

We may have less to say in regard to Rome and the papal power, although the prophecy is very clear, it's going to increase in power.

But we may have less to talk about in regards to that.

Remember what we, 1 of the quotes I gave in the very beginning, has to do with our theme 1 thing.

1 interest will prevail, 1 subject will swallow up every other.

Christ, our righteousness, not what the Pope's doing.

It's important for us not to have our heads in the sand, But it's more important to have our eyes focused on Jesus Christ.

And she goes on to say, again, in Testimonies to Ministers, page 112, the Holy Spirit has so shaped matters, both in giving of the prophecy and in the events portrayed, as to teach, listen carefully, that the human agent is to be kept out of sight, hid in Christ, that the Lord God of heaven and his law are to be exalted.

So the more we're familiar with the prophecies, the more the prophecies are impacting us, the more hid we should be in Christ and the less self should appear.

Then she goes on to say, see how God wrought to abase the pride of men and lay human glory in the dust.

So as we look at the book of Revelation, what I'd like to try to do this week is draw our attention to certain ways the Holy Spirit can humble our pride in the dust, which is what I clearly need.

And I believe each 1 of us needs as well.

And thinking about that, there's a connection from series A, number 9, page 62, where again, Ellen White asks this question, what is justification by faith?

You know, and she gives this tremendous answer, I love it.

It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust.

And doing for man That which it is not in his power to do for himself.

When men see their own nothingness, they are prepared to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

So I can link those 2 quotations together.

We're to look at the prophecy, we're to see the prophecy, and the prophecy is to draw us to be hidden Christ and to have our pride humbled in the dust.

When that happens, that really is justification by faith.

We need to have confidence in the way God's led in the rise and development of this movement, but we also need deep humility of heart.

So if you have your Bibles, like I said, let's turn to the book of Revelation and I want to look at 1 major theme this evening and that is that there is, and some of you have heard me share parts of this before, or perhaps all of it, is that when we read Revelation, something that's very important for us to understand is that there is a heavenly perspective and an earthly perspective.

We live, unfortunately, most of the time in the earthly perspective.

Revelation tries to get us to think and live from a heavenly point of view.

Well, let's look at Revelation chapter 2 and I'm going to give you a few examples.

Revelation chapter 2 starting in verse 8 is the message to the church of Smyrna and we'll touch more on the churches tomorrow evening, but notice what it says in verse 9.

Revelation 2 verse 9, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but what else does it say?

From an earthly perspective, the church in Smyrna looks poor.

It's in poverty from an earthly point of view.

From a heavenly point of view, What does it look like?

And we're gonna see this theme developed throughout the book of Revelation this evening.

And as we look at Revelation, I like to use the illustration of a tapestry that John has created through the work of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit working on John, however we want to say that, to create this incredible tapestry.

Instead of using, you know, yarn and thread, he uses words.

And there are these verbal threads, connections, that weave the entire book of Revelation together.

And the more I've studied Revelation, excuse me, the picture that largely emerges in that tapestry for me is the great controversy.

And that's what I'm going to try to be sharing is how can we really read Revelation through the lens, through the tapestry of the great controversy.

I think we need to become rereaders of the book of Revelation.

I remember many years ago, hearing Leslie Harding Say, you read a book of the Bible, read it 50 times.

Take the book of Ruth, 4 chapters, and read it 50 times.

Well, Revelation demands that kind of re-reading.

And as we read it over and over again, different images come to fruition.

So tonight, the thing I want us to see is this heavenly perspective and the earthly perspective.

Revelation chapter 2, we saw the church, Smyrna is poor but it's really rich.

Of course, we could also turn to Revelation chapter 3 where there's another church, Church of Sardis, which has a name that's alive but it's really what?

So from an earthly perspective, it looks alive, but from a heavenly perspective, it's dead.

Revelation chapter 3, starting in verse 14, the message to the Laodicean church.

Laodicea thinks that she is rich and clothed and all these things, but really she is poor, miserable, blind, and naked.

And John does this throughout the entire book of Revelation.

He gives us the earthly point of view and his aim is to try to get us to live from a heavenly point of view.

Ellen White makes a quotation that 1 thing will be clear as we study the book of Revelation, and that is that the connection between heaven and earth is close and decided.

So let's look at another illustration of that.

And in Revelation 13, obviously we have 2 beasts in Revelation 13, and if we were to look at these from a historic sense, we would identify the first beast as the papal system, and the second beast we would identify from a historic sense, from a prophetic sense, as the United States.

Let's leave that aside, I believe it, don't question that please.

But let's leave that aside for a moment and look at this heavenly perspective and the earthly perspective.

From the earthly perspective, the beast is really amazing.

Revelation, Part 2

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me for a few minutes to the book of Revelation.

As we continue what we started last night, as I said, my theme for this, our short time together in the evenings, is re-reading Revelation.

And last night we began looking at Revelation.

I mentioned to you a book written, The End of Historicism.

And a couple of people I've talked to, you know, raised this question, really is historicism, is the principle of looking at revelation being fulfilled throughout history, is it still valid?

In fact, it's questioned, even among some of the Adventist scholars in different ways, and particularly the 7 churches have come under scrutiny because they really don't seem to have much prophetic imagery in them.

So we're gonna start, we're gonna look tonight in Revelation chapter 2, And if you're familiar with Revelation, you know that there are series of sevens in the book.

There's the 7 churches, chapters 2 and 3, and we find the 7 seals, chapter 6, and part of chapter 8.

Then we have the 7 trumpets and all that perplexing imagery in chapters 8, 9, and then ending in chapter 11, and then of course the 7 last plagues.

And I really want to focus on 1 particular part of the first church, the church in Ephesus.

But before I do, I want to just share a few reasons that I think that the 7 churches should and can be read from a historicist perspective.

That is that they have meaning for the people that lived in John's day, but they also had prophetic application throughout history.

I'm gonna share a couple of quotes from Ellen White, but let me share a few.

I have actually 11 or 12 points on my list.

I'm not going to read them all by any means.

But first of all, it's very clear that these letters are not ordinary letters.

The imagery that's used about them, the fact that each 1 of these different letters, starting with the Church of Ephesus and ending with the Church of Laodicea, all of them have Jesus saying or a reference about Jesus saying, the Alpha and the Omega or the Amen says this, or the 1 that has the sharp two-edged sword says this, the 1 that holds the 7 stars and walks among the 7 candlestand says this.

It's a very structured expression which reminds us, if we think carefully about the entire Bible, of a, thus saith the Lord.

These are not just letters coming from John to these churches, these are prophetic utterances.

Just like in the Old Testament, you had a, thus saith the Lord.

In addition to that, the imagery in these 7 churches, these small 7 letters, the imagery in it transcends the local historic context.

Well, for example, in the church of Thyratia, you have a woman named Jezebel.

Well, in the book of Revelation, there's another harlot queen.

And so The imagery in the letters to the 7 churches is tied, remember I mentioned yesterday John makes a tapestry and he uses verbal threads to create his picture.

The imagery in the 7 churches is tied to the rest of the book of Revelation.

In fact, as we'll look tomorrow night in the church to Pergamum, there's a throne.

It's Satan's throne, which is very important to the larger part of the book of Revelation.

So there's lots of reasons if you're interested in more, let me know and I can share some of them, but I think there's good reasons for understanding these letters as moving through time.

They applied in John's day, but they also moved prophetically through time, but more importantly, and I stress that, more importantly, they apply to us today.

And that's really what I want to focus on.

First of all, from 7 Bible Commentary, page 957, Ellen White looks at the Church of Ephesus in a historical context, 7 BC, 957, paragraph 2.

And she says this, in view of the many virtues enumerated, how striking is the charge brought against the church at Ephesus.

Then she mentions the charge, we'll come to that in a moment.

This church, Ephesus, was highly favored.

It was planted by the apostle Paul." And then she goes on and she describes what happened in the historic city of Ephesus with the temple of Diana.

So Ellen White reads this, and I think we need to read it as those first century readers that heard or read Revelation in Ephesus, it meant something to that particular congregation.

But Ellen White also makes a prophetic connection to the church in Ephesus.

Acts of the Apostles, page 578, paragraph 1.

She says, the zeal manifested at this time by the followers of Jesus has been recorded by the pen of inspiration for the encouragement of believers in every age of the church at Ephesus, which the Lord used as a symbol of the church in the Apostolic Age.

The faithful and true witness declares, and then she quotes some of the passages.

First of all, she talks about the Church of Ephesus and the literal people there, historic, 7 BC.

Then she talks about it, no, the church of Ephesus is a symbol of the church in the apostolic age.

And when we think prophetically, that's usually what we think.

We think of Ephesus in the apostolic age, Smyrna in a time of persecution, coming on down to the church of Laodicea, which is the church just before the coming of Christ.

But did you know that Ellen White also applies Ephesus to you and to me?

And that I think is very important for us today, especially as we think of 1 thing in our retreat.

Ellen White asked the question, is not this experience of the Ephesian church repeated in the experience of the church in this generation?

How is the church of today that received knowledge of the truth of God using this knowledge?

And then she goes on and she continues describing how the church in her day, this generation, had this first love experience, but something happened.

And that's what I want to look at with you tonight, just briefly for a few moments.

Revelation chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, the 1 who holds the 7 stars in his right hand, the 1 who walks among the 7 golden lampstands says this.

Again, that phrase is repeated in all the churches.

Verse 2, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men.

And you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not.

And you found them to be false." Verse 3, and you have perseverance, an important trait in the book of Revelation, by the way, and have endured for my namesake and have not grown weary.

Nevertheless, depending on your translation.

I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

That is our great need as Seventh-day Adventists living just before the return of Jesus Christ.

We test people that might be false apostles.

We might be right in doctrine, but we have left our first love.

Without love, everything we do is nothing.

Paul tells us that love is the fulfilling of the law.

We can fulfill all sorts of laws outwardly, but if we don't love, it's nothing.

And this opening letter to the 7 churches, which represent God's people throughout history, sure it meant something to the church in Ephesus in the first century.

Yes, it meant the apostolic church, but brothers and sisters, it also means you and me.

That the 1 That walks among us, the 1 that holds us very tight, looks into our hearts and says, you've left your first love.

Reading a book recently, and in the book it was talking about, the author of the book was telling how frequently when he sits someplace, and I do the same thing, he watches people.

I spend a lot of time traveling, I sit in airports more time than is probably healthy.

And I know myself that pretty soon my watching of people turns into judging them.

Okay, I wonder how that person is dressed, or is that a pack of cigarettes in that person's pocket?

Judging other people is a part of our human condition, which is an abomination to God.

He calls us not to sit as judges on other people, but He calls us to love.

I want to give you an illustration that might make us a little bit uncomfortable.

You know, there are numerous Bible verses, 250, that talk about how we handle our wealth.

There are about 300 Bible verses that talk about how we should care for the poor.

There are about 7 Bible verses that talk about homosexuality.

Revelation, Part 3

I invite you to turn with me, and if you have a Bible with you, to the book of Revelation, chapter 4 and chapter 5.

On Monday evening, we noted that Revelation teaches us that we need to have a heavenly perspective rather than an earthly perspective.

Last night we saw the admonition from Revelation chapter 2 about our great need of love.

And I appreciated some of the thoughts that came out today as well, Elaine this morning and some of the others about our great need of loving the way Christ loves.

Tonight and the next couple of nights, I'd like to look with you at Revelation chapter 4 and 5.

Again, just briefly, Revelation 4 and 5 are foundational chapters for understanding the rest of the book.

Some individuals have called these chapters the fountainhead of the entire book of Revelation.

In chapter 4 and 5 is introduced to the heavenly sanctuary.

There's some tremendous pictures that are brought to view in these 2 chapters.

Now there's questions as to where in the sanctuary is this, what's the time setting of that?

Let's leave those aside for this evening.

And I wanna focus on a particular part here, Revelation chapter 4 in verse 1.

And it says, After these things I looked, after these things, after the 7 churches, after the last church, the church of Laodicea, after these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven.

And the first voice which I heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me said, come up here and I will show you what must take place after these things.

Immediately, I was in the Spirit and behold, what?

A throne was standing in heaven and 1 sitting on the throne.

As John's view is taken away from the 7 churches here on earth and it's taken up into heaven, the first thing he sees is the throne.

And then he sees The 1 sitting on the throne.

Incidentally, 1 sitting on the throne is John's favorite expression for God in the book of Revelation.

The first object of attention though is the throne.

Well, in the book of Revelation, the throne is the preeminent object in the story.

And when I use the word story, I don't mean a made-up story, but John's telling us a story.

He's telling us the story of the great controversy.

And the throne is the central object in the book.

The word throne, for example, is used in the New Testament some 62 times.

47 of those times is in the book of Revelation.

So you can tell that the throne is vitally important.

God's people ultimately sit on thrones, Revelation chapter 20.

The 24 elders, members of the heavenly council, they sit on thrones, but someone else has a throne in the book of Revelation, and that's it.

Turn back with me, Revelation Chapter 2, just briefly, Revelation 2, in the letter to the church of Pergamum, verse 12, Revelation 2, 12, and then 13, and to the angel of the church in Pergamum write, The 1 who has the sharp two-edged sword says this, I know where you dwell, where Satan's...

If you have the King James, it'll say where Satan's seat is.

But it's the exact same underlying word as throne.

And more modern translations would translate it and other language translations will translate that as Satan's throne.

So God has a throne, God's allies have a throne, but who else has a throne?

There's the kings of the earth, which by implication have thrones, but turn with me to Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation 13, it's a very important chapter.

In verse 2, 1 of Satan's allies comes up out of the sea.

He's got 7 heads, he's got 10 horns, he's got diadems on his horns.

Verse 2, he's partially like a leopard, his feet are like those of a bear, his mouth is the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him his power and his, well, King James again says seat, but that's the same word throne.

So just as Christ sits with the Father on his throne, Satan has an associate, the dragon has an associate that sits on his throne as well.

Series

Evening Worship: Revelation

Revelation, Part 6

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