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Muskegon SDA Church

The Book Of Revelation

Kameron DeVasher

Revelation 1-3

GYC for a little bit of background history is a supporting ministry that some young people about 10 years ago started up.

They wanted to just have some serious Bible study and evangelism training and had no interest in big show and parade and all kinds of lights and sound and all the accoutrement that usually goes with typical youthy things.

They just wanted to get down, study the Word of God and challenge you to have inspiring sermons to go out and do the work of the Lord.

The first year they did it, they just kind of word of mouth invited about 200 of their friends and 400 showed up and That was a good thing.

So next year they planned for 400 and 800 showed up.

And at this point, this last Sabbath, there were about 7, 000 who were in attendance at the Convention Center in Orlando.

All of them, well, most of them between the ages of 18 and 35.

And that's an exciting thing to be a part of.

I am not on the board of directors, I am not on the committees for any of it but I have been invited to speak a few times and so that is what I was doing.

I was able to be a part of it down there.

The theme this year was Before Men and Angels, which is taken from the writings of the Apostle Paul, who always kind of writes from this perspective of someone who's being watched.

We've been made a spectacle, both before men and angels, and how the universe is watching the church to see not just if we claim to be Jesus Christ, but will Christ actually manifest himself in his people.

And that was the challenge for the young people, to let Christ live in you and so you can be a witness to the onlooking world, both to men and to angels.

My particular seminar track, which was 6 hours, 6 different sessions long, was about victory over sin, the individual conflict from the universal perspective of the great controversy down to the individual in our role in vindicating the character of God before the universe.

So it was rather some deep thoughts and some good things, but we had, I praise the Lord that the seminar that I was able to present was pretty much packed every time.

We had 3 to 400 people in the room every time and all the seminars were like that and so it was a great time to be a part of things and so I appreciate your opportunity, your willingness to allow me to do those things.

I want to let you know that I did not go alone.

I was happy that there was a young person from the Fremont Church who also went and he is coming back on fire and wants to do some things with the local church and so we are praising the Lord for that.

And also an extended member of our church family, Ms.

Lindsay Mosier was there with us and it was very exciting in a room full of literally 5, 000 plus young people standing up there.

There was a young man who gave his testimony.

It was a powerful testimony, powerful testimony.

I was very, very happy to see that Lindsay was the very, very first 1 out of the thousands who were there to go down and commit her life to Jesus Christ.

So we want to encourage that and grow in it and build on it and I hope that we are doing that all the time.

But it is very inspiring as we look into what we are going to be doing here in July with our evangelism coming up this year that we want to be evangelism not just that thing we did but it is that thing we are always doing and going to be doing more of until the Lord comes.

But I just want to give you a brief report that GYC was a blessing.

I don't know if anyone will be able to catch it on 3ABN.

And audio will be available short forthcoming.

But anyway, it was a blessing, so thank you for that.

But now, here today, we turn our attention to the very last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation.

It's a new year, we're gonna be starting a new series.

We're gonna be looking at the book of Revelation, the very last book of the Bible.

And I know that there are many people, many, many people, who don't want to go there.

They almost pretend as though that book doesn't exist.

They love the New Testament, love the Gospels, love the books of Paul and the writings of James and John and all those things.

Well almost everything that John writes, but when you get to the book of Revelation it's like, we're going to slow down and stop right there and then look back and it's almost like there's a buffer that kind of stops us from going there.

But I want us to go boldly there because the revelation is not the revelation of beasts, it's not the revelation of terrors or of horrible symbols and awful things, even though there are symbolic languages used there, but it's the revelation.

Revelation chapter 1 and verse 1, the Revelation of whom?

And friends, if Jesus is there, it's safe for us to go there too.

So this quarter we're going to take a look at the book of Revelation and let me tell you a few ground rules before we launch into this.

Number 1, there is absolutely no way, No way possible that we're going to cover everything that could be covered in the book of Revelation in a quarter of series, right?

And I'm sure that somebody's going to say, well, Pastor, we need to cover this more.

We need, all of us need to be diving into God's Word, but there's only so much we can do all together at 1 time.

So we're going to do the best that we can.

Our goal is not necessarily to analyze each tree, but to go back and look at the whole forest.

So I want to give the challenge that I'm going to present to myself, and hopefully you'll pick up on as we go through this quarter's sermons is to look at the book of Revelation as a whole and see each of its parts, how they're related together.

And yes, we're gonna dive into some parts and yes, there are some parts we're going to skim past.

It's not because I don't think they're important or they think they're any less.

We just want to give a good overview of the book of Revelation.

So do not think of this, don't expect it to be Revelation, the 400 level class.

This is Revelation 101, the basic nuts and bolts, but Hopefully it will put a framework in our head so that when the opportunity, not if, but when you go home and study more into Revelation, you'll have the proper framework to place that study inside of.

Okay, so we're looking at the broad range of Revelation.

So today we're gonna look at chapters 1 through 3.

And let me tell you something, chapter 1 deserves a sermon all of its own.

In fact, just the first verse of chapter 1 could be a sermon.

You could literally take almost every verse of Revelation and have a good study just on that.

So we need to start with a word of prayer.

Thank you for giving us this book and for giving us Jesus Christ, not just on loan, but you've given him to us forever.

And now as we study the revelation of Jesus Christ, Lord, we ask that Jesus would truly be revealed.

Help us to see him more clearly and understand his plan for our future and the end-time events that are soon to come as we focus on Him and Him alone.

Anyway, I believe the Lord will bless our study, but I want to start right here in Revelation chapter 1.

Now, obviously, Revelation chapter 1 is the introductory statements to the rest of the book.

So in a certain sense, Revelation chapter 1 and verses 1 and 2 are an introduction, but you could also extend that to verse 3, but then John extends it into the rest of the verses, and you could say all of chapter 1 is the introduction.

Well then you could go to chapters 2 and 3 and say, well, actually, those are an introduction to the rest of the book that's going.

So everything builds, everything contains on its own, and it builds into the next thing, okay?

So it's self-contained, but it also builds into the next thing.

So let's just start with chapter 1 and verse 1, opening of the book.

And I want you to see that from the very opening sentence and all through these introductory statements, all through the chapters that we're going to read today, it keeps coming back to Jesus.

The whole purpose of Revelation is to reveal Jesus Christ.

So where did Jesus Christ get this message?

Gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place.

It's a message to be given to His servants about things that are shortly to take place.

Revelation 4-9

We are studying the book of Revelation this quarter.

And I want to just quickly review before we launch into today's study.

We're going to go through not the 400 level class on Revelation, but the 101 class, the basics.

You know, we're not going to dissect, try to parse and decline every word and look at every little tree.

We're going to look at the entire forest and see if we can get an overview of what God's message is for us in the book of Revelation.

Last Sabbath, appropriately enough, we started with Revelation chapter 1 And our scope of study was Revelation 1 through 3.

In Revelation chapter 1, we saw the introduction to this great book, and it clearly says right on the very first opening sentence, the very first words, that this is not a book of terrors or the book of beasts, but it's a revelation of whom?

It's a revelation of who Jesus Christ is, the centerpiece of this book.

And we see all throughout the introduction that it's Jesus who is exalted, Jesus who speaks to the 7 churches, as we studied last time.

And 1 of the interesting things we noted as we saw that introduction and those 7 churches, the messages that Jesus had to the 7 churches, in fact, let's just look at it in chapter 1.

In Revelation chapter 1, in verse 19, well, we'll start with verse 18, Jesus identifies himself as the speaker, and there's only 1 who fits these terms.

Revelation chapter 1, verse 18, Jesus says, I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

And I have the keys of Hades and of death.

And of course, there's only 1 being in the universe who can make that claim.

I was dead, but now I'm alive forevermore, and that's Jesus Christ.

Then he says, verse 19, write the things which you have seen, the things which are, and the things that will take place after this.

And he starts, notice he starts with things that are in the present tense to the author's situation, his circumstance, but includes things to come that are gonna happen in the future.

This is present condition and future prophecy.

And then he unfolds the letter to the 7 churches.

And of course, the 7 churches were literal churches in Asia Minor, Ephesus, Myrna, Pergamum, all the way through Thyatira, Sardis, and all the way to Philadelphia and Laodicea.

And they were outlined in a sequence, and the message, same message, went from 1 to the next to the next to the next, and it outlines a sequence.

So again, there are literal churches that were existent in his day, but the message was supposed to go from 1 to the next to the next to the next to the next all the way around to Laodicea, which outlines, apparently according to Christ, not only things that are, but things which will take place after this.

Now, in previous times we have studied the book of Daniel that corresponds to the book of Revelation, these 2 great apocalyptic books of the Bible, 1 in the Old Testament, Daniel, and 1 that closes out the New Testament, the book of Revelation.

The book of Daniel does the same thing that the book of Revelation does, because I believe they're inspired from the same source.

And that is that it starts with the prophet's time and looks to the future going forward.

For instance, in Daniel chapter 2, if you recall, Nebuchadnezzar had the dream of the image and it began with the head of gold and Daniel clearly identified, you, O king, are that head of gold.

This prophecy starts right now in this time but it goes forward to the next kingdom and the next game in a sequence and it concludes with the Establishing of God's eternal kingdom with the coming of Jesus Christ You see the same thing in the book of Revelation, that it starts in the prophet's time, and it moves forward sequentially, chronologically, from 1 phase to the next to the next to the next, until becoming an establishment of Jesus Christ's eternal kingdom.

A very simple historical unfolding of what from the prophet's time would be future events.

Most of which from our perspective has already occurred, praise the Lord, but there are still some future events to go and Revelation outlines those.

So we want to lay that groundwork as we move into our next phase of study that we're going to see the same process Unfolding but before we study our scripture today, let's begin with the word of prayer Heavenly Father.

Thank you so much for giving us this book of Revelation that reveals Jesus Christ.

So as we look forward to His coming, yes, let us study these prophecies, many of which for our time now have been fulfilled, but the ones that have yet to be fulfilled help us to keep our eyes squarely on the centerpiece of this book, Jesus Christ and Him alone.

So now we turn our attention to Revelation chapter 4.

So we covered chapters 1, 2, and 3 in our previous message.

Now, as you're finding Revelation 4, let's add something to our picture.

Now again if you recall Daniel chapter 2 had the image, the statue, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the second coming of Jesus.

It went 1, 2, 3, right through the statue and the coming of Jesus was the end.

Then in Daniel chapter 7, we're still in Revelation 4 with our fingers, we're just in our minds going to Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel chapter 7 reiterates the same thing, the same sequence of events that Daniel 2 did, right?

Except in this time instead of using body parts it talks about beasts, right?

I saw a lion, and then a bear, and then a leopard, and then a terrible beast.

But it starts to add some detail towards the end that was not mentioned in Daniel chapter 2.

Daniel chapter 2 is the most basic, literally skeleton outline.

No breaks, no pauses, no, oh by the way, let's look at this.

Daniel chapter 7 goes right through but it pauses and it gives further detail on scenes that were not illuminated in chapter 2.

I bring all that up because we're gonna see the same pattern emerge in Revelation.

Revelation 1 through 3 outlines the introduction and the messages to the 7 churches that just go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

No interruptions, no pauses, no further explanation.

But now we get to Revelation 4-5 and as we move through these next sets of sevens, we see the same thing we saw in Daniel, that it's going to cover the same territory, but towards the end it's going to expand and give more detail that wasn't given at the beginning.

All right, if you're already lost, I'm sorry, but hopefully that's basic and now we'll go forward.

Revelation chapter 4, after these things, John writes, and of course the things that he's talking about is the vision of the 7 churches, the messages he was supposed to give to them.

After these things, I looked, and behold, a door standing open, where?

And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, come up here, and I will show you things which must take place when?

Again, the same thing we saw in Daniel chapter 1, it starts in the prophet's time and then goes forward.

There's some things that now he says, I'm gonna show you that will take place after this.

So we're starting here, and then we're gonna be showing you the future.

By the way, a great little trivial thing, a little idea you have to keep in the back of your mind, a rule of thumb.

If ever the heavens open up and a voice says to you, come up here, go.

John saw some marvelous things and I hope to live in the days when we're gonna see heaven open up and Jesus says come up here and I'm gonna ready to go amen okay so John understands what to do he doesn't run and hide he goes through and it says in verse 2 immediately I was in the spirit and behold a throne set in heaven now if you want to you had 1 of those little clickers, you can marble and see how many times you see the word throne from here on out.

Immediately, I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne sat in heaven, and 1 sat on the throne.

It was occupied by 1 with a capital O, and there's only 1 person who sits on God the Father's throne.

And we're going to see that that's who this is as we move forward.

And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardine stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne and an appearance like an emerald.

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads.

And from the throne proceeded lightning, thunderings, and voices.

7 lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the 7, what?

7 spirits of God, and again, as we mentioned last Sabbath, you will never find reference to the Holy Spirit Exactly, but you will find the 7 spirits which of course is a representation a symbolic language for the Holy Spirit And we'll know that as we continue on But here we have the father is sitting on the throne and the spirit is before the throne And it goes on in verse 6, before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal and in the midst of the throne and around the throne were 4 living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.

The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like the flying eagle.

The 4 living creatures, each having 6 wings, were full of eyes around and within, and they do not rest day or night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." Okay?

Now, if you would like to, this is 1 of those handy ways we can demonstrate that this is God the Father.

If you put your finger there and go back to Revelation chapter 1, John writes his letters to the 7 churches on behalf of God.

And it breaks down each member of the Godhead, starting with verse 4 of Revelation chapter 1.

John, to the 7 churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and was and is to come, and from the 7 spirits who are before his throne.

This is God the Father, then there's the Holy Spirit, and there's that final 1, verse 5, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

So all 3 members of the Godhead were already mentioned in the book of Revelation.

Now in Revelation 4 it revisits them, yet it shows only the Father sitting on the throne, the Spirit before the throne, but there's no mention of Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter 4.

As it continues, they're praising God the Father, who is and was and is to come.

Verse 9, whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying, and this is going to be key, you are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for what reason?

For you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.

Revelation 10

Amazing, we're already 10 chapters deep and only in our third sermon, but we're not doing an in-depth study of every chapter or every phrase or every idea that we could study in this study of Revelation.

We're doing a general overview, a survey of the book.

Genesis chapter 1, of course, introduces us to this book as the revelation of whom?

And everything from that moment forward is centered on Jesus, the focus is upon Jesus, It's a message about Jesus from Jesus to the people of Jesus.

And we see that in the first 3 chapters with the 7 churches that Jesus is speaking to and trying to woo and encourage and in some cases admonish and correct.

And then we also see in Revelation chapter 4 and 5, we saw the enthronement of Jesus after his resurrection, his ascension into the courts of heaven and the beginning of his priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary where he is given this scroll that was sealed with 7 seals.

He was worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals.

And the seals then are opened sequentially, just as we saw the churches sequentially.

And basically in our previous 2 studies, we've seen that the book of Revelation is all about Jesus, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The book of Revelation spans the history of the church from the time of its author, John, to the return of Jesus Christ and beyond.

So the framework of the book of Revelation are things, as Jesus said, things that are and things that are to come, right?

And it concludes with the coming of Jesus, the end of the great controversy, the sin problem.

The 7 churches, the 7 seals, and the 7 trumpets are simply 3 different representations of that same time span that begins with Christ's reception into heaven, as we saw in Revelation 5, as the Lamb slain, conquering, of course, and it concludes with the return of Christ from heaven as a conquering king.

So you see, Christ is the bookends of this history that unfolds in Revelation, starting in the time of the prophet John and concluding with the coming of Jesus.

Now as we look at that outline of history more specifically, we notice that in the 7 churches, the sequence of the churches, we had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Ephesus, Myrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, 1 right after the other with no break for any explanation.

It's just the 1, then the next 1, then the next 1, then the next 1.

Very simple, very much like we saw in the book of Daniel and the other prophetic, the great apocalyptic book of scripture, where the very first prophecy given is the sequence of the kingdoms outlined in the statue of the man, the great image.

And it just goes from Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, then you have the Second Coming.

There's no explanation of any other time periods.

It just goes, walks through it as a whole.

However, in the sequence of the seals, it's a repetition of that same history.

There is a pause between the sixth and the seventh seal to describe God's last day remnant people, symbolically represented by the number 144, 000, God's remnant people.

So as it's going through that history again, it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, And just before we get to the seventh, which of course represents the coming of Jesus, the day of the Lord, it pauses to introduce us to this remnant people.

It doesn't give us the message that they're gonna be giving.

That's gonna be found later in Revelation chapter 14.

It doesn't tell us much detail except that they were there, and then it continues with the seventh seal.

And of course, then it opens the 7 trumpets, and it goes through 123456, but in the same position where it pauses, it gives a little bit more detail of things to be aware of.

Specifically, what you find in that break between the sixth and the seventh trumpets is Revelation chapter 10 and Revelation chapter 11, which of course, Revelation 11 concludes with the sounding of the seventh trumpet.

So today we're going to focus on that first pause in that sequence of the trumpets, which is Revelation chapter 10.

What's the significance for us today and what does it mean at all?

That's the burden of our study today is Revelation chapter 10.

But before we study God's word, we need to begin with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you have given us traveling mercies to even be here today.

And thank you for the opportunity of Christian fellowship and now Spirit-led Bible study.

Lord, we ask that you would send that Holy Spirit who authored, inspired the author of this great book of Revelation to now reveal to us Jesus Christ in its pages, help us to see Jesus more clearly and proclaim his name more confidently every day.

We're going to read an entire chapter of Scripture today, all 11 verses of it.

I saw still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, And a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.

He had a little book open in his hand, and he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land.

And he cried with a loud voice as when a lion roars.

When he cried out, 7 thunders uttered their voices.

But I heard, and I was about to write." Now, verse 4, now, when the 7 thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write.

But I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Seal up the things which the 7 thunders uttered, and do not write them.

So there's some interesting things here, but we're going to continue.

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Series

The Book Of Revelation

Revelation 15-20

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