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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Revelation Made Simple

David Wright

1. Can We Know the Future

All right, so tonight's topic, can we know the future?

There's all types of people maybe grasping and grappling.

What does the Bible have to say about that?

And that's what we want to look at this evening.

Sometimes they're good dreams, sometimes they're bad dreams.

I know for me, a bad dream is showing up to work in my underwear.

Another bad dream is when I've gone through a very stressful day.

You have those days where maybe you have a bunch of tests when I was in school or deadlines or whatever it is and you literally dream about the entire day, and then your alarm clock goes off, and you haven't done any of it.

Where you have boarded the plane to go to a wonderful vacation destination.

And the whole time in your dream, you're only on the plane and you can't seem to ever get off the plane.

And finally, when you're about to get off the plane, you wake up.

I want to tell you about Abraham Lincoln and a dream that he had.

In fact, it was just a few weeks, the last few weeks of his life that he had this dream where he heard wailing going on downstairs in the White House.

You can Google it if you don't believe me.

He heard wailing and mourning and all kinds of things, so he got up out of his bed and he went down the stairs in the White House, and as he's wandering downstairs, he sees everybody surrounding a coffin and mourning and he's wondering what in the world is going on?

And as he asks, who is dead in the White House?

It is the President of the United States.

Now he shared this dream with a close friend and just a few weeks later of course on April 14 1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Now some of you may have gone to Ford's Theater, and there's his booth, and if you go there and if you see something, I think we went to the Nutcracker years ago or something, there's still flags and everything, it's all boarded off and school kids will come and walk through and all the rest.

Of course, then they took him across the street, but eventually he was taken to the East Room of the White House there in Washington, D.C.

Now that's a little bit out of the ordinary isn't it now?

You're all gonna be waking up tomorrow thinking.

But we're gonna look tonight at another very remarkable dream that's recorded for us in scripture But before we do that, I want to turn to the book of Revelation, lay a little bit of groundwork, and then we're gonna jump to this dream, okay?

It's a book of 666 and the mark of the beast, the Battle of Armageddon, the 7 last plagues, the 7 trumpets, the 7 seals, the 7 bulls, all these things are all in Revelation and people are going to want to know what is the mark of the beast.

We'll talk about that, I promise, but Revelation is also the last book of Scripture And if you've ever picked up a really good book and you go to the last chapter, there's a good chance you might read it and say, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's kind of similar in the book of Revelation.

In fact, over 600 times, I've even heard some say over a thousand times, and we'll mention that again a little bit.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but it alludes to and makes reference to the Old Testament.

That means it refers back to, so if you don't understand that context, that story, that scripture, when then we are reading Revelation, it doesn't make sense.

But when you do, you kind of have this, aha.

And so we're gonna have to lay some groundwork before we get to some of the heavier issues in Revelation.

But first off, Revelation chapter 1, verse 1, the first words say, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants.

Now some people you may have heard will say, well, Revelation is a sealed book.

Now, why would God give this book, and as we keep reading, he gives it to his servant John and so on.

Why would he give this book and then say, but don't read it, it's sealed?

In fact, the word itself, revelation, means to do what?

And sometimes we get so bogged down in all these things I've already listed, the mark of the beast and all the rest, when really that's not the point of Revelation at all.

Jesus is the 1 whose character we see revealed in significant and powerful ways in the book of Revelation.

And so as we talk night after night, we want to uplift Jesus Christ first and foremost.

And he gives us some insight that is helpful for us because He cares about us.

And so we're going to keep looking at that.

So Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants.

Now, we already talked about what Revelation means.

Revelation 22.10 says, Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.

So we read this back to Revelation 1, 1, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants, not a sealed book, it's a revelation of Jesus, to show his servant things which must shortly take place, and he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John.

Those are all things that are helpful for us to keep in mind.

Now I also want to talk a little bit about prophecy.

It says here in Isaiah 46 verse 9, it says, remember the former things of old?

God is the 1 that remembers the things of old.

But He's also the 1 that can prophesy what's going to come, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done.

Prophecy is powerful because it helps us to know that we can trust the Bible.

I mean if you stop and think about it, there's so many different authors on multiple planets over hundreds of years that wrote this book.

If we all went down here to the highway and we all witnessed a car accident, and then we were all put in separate rooms and people said, okay, I want you to describe what you saw.

I bet you we couldn't even get the color of the cars right.

Yet this book comes together in a remarkable way, and prophecy, there are multiple times, we'll see some tonight, where far before a person's even born, we're gonna talk about Cyrus tonight, Before he's even born, God predicts that he will be born and what he will do.

And we're going to look at that in a little more detail.

So prophecy helps us to recognize that what this book says is true.

Sometimes people think, well, you know, we reason about other things, but when it comes to biblical things, we don't reason, we have faith.

We'll talk more about faith here in just a minute.

Amos 3 verse 7, surely the Lord God does how much?

Nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants, the prophets.

That's a God that wants us to know, maybe not every exact detail, But he wants us to know enough that when things happen we can say, you know I think that's a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and every time Bible prophecy is fulfilled comes to pass We can say man God knows what he's doing.

He knows it right and through prophecy he's showing us that he knows the future, and he gives us hints about what's gonna take place.

2. The Angels of Revelation at War

Tonight's topic, we're gonna look at angels of revelation.

Did God create the devil and why is there so much pain and suffering and heartache in the world?

But before we get started, we wanna pray, is that okay?

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you again for another day, for life, for health, for strength.

And we just ask that your Holy Spirit will be here in our midst, that you will make this topic clear, and you will speak through me, and that we can learn some things, but also that it will impact us in some way as well.

I don't know if you have noticed, but angels are making a comeback.

Have you noticed that as you get around the internet and you look in bookstores or in movies, wherever you look, it seems like there's a lot of talk about angels.

And sometimes it gets a little confusing.

There's a lot of books that have come out and they're just constantly coming out so quickly and so fast it's hard to keep up.

There's been a series, I think there's a CBS series that was a little while ago, Touched by an Angel, and they had 8 seasons of that.

Then we have a series, I think it's a TV series, Demons in the City of Angels, playing off of People's Curiosity, another film, City of Angels.

This, I don't know if it's a movie or TV series, just called Angel.

Is that the angel that guards you while you sleep?

I sure hope it's not the 1 that guards me.

And this is another thing that I found called Legion.

This says, when a group of strange or dusty roadside diners come under attack by demonic forces, the only chance for survival lies with an archangel named Michael.

Where do you think they get all this from?

Who informs a pregnant waitress that their unborn child is humanity's last hope.

And again, we have, I don't like this idea of angels with guns and weapons, so anyway, we're going to move on because that doesn't look so good.

But we have angels in Revelation as well.

In fact, there's quite a few angels that Revelation speaks of.

I always feel like I'm standing in somebody's way.

We have angels that reveal God's message.

Revelation 7, we have 4 angels that are holding back the winds of strife.

And I don't know about you, but I feel like those angels are holding back those winds less and less, because it seems like there's more strife, more tragedy on the news almost all the time, isn't there?

We almost become numb to it, which I don't think that's a good thing, but we can't process.

In fact, I've even seen some statistics that by watching the news over and over and over, we can't process all of these things that we're seeing, all the tragedy that we're seeing, and it's coming at us so fast that it really can be difficult for us.

We have in Revelation chapter 10, a mighty angel encourages God's people to proclaim His last day message.

We have in Revelation 14, at the heart of the book of Revelation, it's constructed in a chiastic structure.

We may talk more about that a little bit later, but think of it as a pyramid where the center is the most important in the book.

And we find that not only in Revelation but in a lot of books of Scripture and so the first and the last kind of mirror a little bit and then the next to the last and the second and I'm kind of doing that backwards but it kind of goes up tier by tier until you get at the top.

This is right at the top and we're gonna spend an evening on this Revelation 14 3 angels proclaiming God's last day message.

So this is 1 that's very important for us.

And so Revelation reveals an angelic struggle between good and evil.

We're going to try and pick that apart, because I really think that's at the core of a lot of what we're gonna talk about.

In fact, any book, any movie or film or anything else, you have this back-and-forth controversy.

And maybe they'd still do this a little bit, but the bad guys always wear what?

And that's oftentimes what gives a storyline interest and all the rest and intrigue and here's a problem and how are they going to get out of it.

But we see that very much throughout scripture.

And so if we turn to Revelation, beginning tonight in chapter 12, verse 7, we read, and war broke out in heaven.

That's a strange place to have war, isn't it?

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

And so we have a war between Jesus and the dragon.

And we'll look more about that, or a little bit more about that as we continue on.

But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So there was war in heaven between Jesus and the dragon or the devil and some of his Angels and they were not able to stay and they were cast out They didn't have a place in heaven were cast out of heaven.

So verse 9 So the drag so the great dragon was cast out, the serpent of old, called the devil, there the dragon is named in case you had doubts, and Satan, who deceives, how many?

I'm here to tell you, the devil is extremely bright when it comes to deceiving people.

That's what he majors in, is to deceive people.

That's why 1 of our questions each night is how do you suppose the devil is trying to counterfeit?

But I think behind every counterfeit is the devil.

Now we're going to talk more and more about this idea of what makes a good counterfeit a little bit later on in this series.

But if I tried to hand you a $17 bill, how many of you would take it?

A good counterfeit is very close to the original, right?

3. Revelations Answers to Crime, Lawlessness, and Terrorism

All right, so tonight our topic is Revelations Answered to Crime, Lawlessness, and Terrorism.

If you think about home, what do you think of?

Now this may be a trick question, I don't know.

Because home can be different for everybody, right?

In fact, I just yesterday was talking to some people about how dysfunctional home can be and how rare it is for homes to be the ideal.

What home was designed to be was to be a safe place, a place at the end of a school day, at the end of something happening that wasn't supposed to happen.

It was a place of refuge, a place of security, a place that you knew Grandma was going to give you a hug and affirm you, or your mom was going to hold you, or your dad was going to put you on his lap or whatever it might be.

But tonight, we're talking about how I believe the devil is attacking our homes and our families, isn't he?

And I believe everything that God wants to do in your life, The devil is using the media to undo in your life.

21st century homes are often a battlefield and that is all too true.

Even the family dinners, people have done their whole doctorate, dissertation, PhD and they've centered it all on meals together.

They say 1 of the top things you can do to help your family is to have meals together.

Sit down meals together at the table where everybody's eating at the same time.

Not 1 of these meals where supper's on the table and people are grabbing their grub and going to the back room to study or whatever it is.

Or grabbing their food and eating it in front of the TV.

That's why your shirts have all that dribble on them, right?

I didn't have time to go grocery shopping.

And of course this has its own implications health-wise.

Research reveals the reality of the biblical truth by beholding we become changed.

I mean coaches will even tell you if you can close your eyes and visualize yourself making that basket from the free throw line over and over and over, it will actually help you do better when you go to shoot that shot.

That's why some of them, you can see them kind of almost doing that.

There's something powerful about where our thoughts are.

And if our thoughts are constantly in the gutter, or constantly being overly stimulated, or whatever it is, that's gonna change who we are.

Our society has turned its back on God's moral standards.

You may not, but by and large, I don't see most of society upholding our standards.

They're eroding away, just like on that house that we saw a picture of.

Proverbs 28, 26 says, he who trusts in his own heart is a what?

And you probably can't trust yours either because our hearts are deceitfully wicked.

Hosea 8, 7, they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

And so we've been sowing the wind of violence in the media and we are reaping a whirlwind of crime.

And hate crimes and terrorist acts and beheadings and on and on and on.

We've been sowing the wind of immorality and we're reaping the whirlwind of divorce.

We've sown the explicit sexual material and we're reaping all kinds of effects on that too.

How do you protect moral values in an immoral world?

This is the 3 angels' message right at the apex, the center of the book.

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the what?

It's not something that's outdated, that needs to be improved upon.

It's the only solution to the problem we find ourselves in.

And he had the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue and people.

And then it says, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come.

Now I don't know about you, but judgment in our day and age is pretty much a dirty word.

Sometimes I say a little harsher than that.

And again, this Fear, I would say, is not about trembling with horror in the presence of God, it's about respect God.

Fear God and give glory to Him, not to yourself, for the hour of judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water." So fear God and give glory to him.

So the judgment calls us to accountability for our actions.

Have you noticed that Nobody wants to be accountable for their actions anymore.

When I was a student missionary, my students, they'd come up with all these excuses why they couldn't come up with their homework, and it was never their fault.

Even in the media, nobody wants to be accountable.

They try and sidestep stuff, or they say apologies that to me are not real apologies.

They say things like, well, I'm sorry you were offended.

Nobody wants to be accountable for their actions.

And so they drink, they smoke, they run off the road.

There's all kinds of things, and they blame parents.

4. Revelations Eternal Sign

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your many blessings to us.

We thank you for your love, for your watch care.

And we thank you that you have given us brains and you have said in your word, come let us reason together.

And so that's what we're wanting to do tonight.

We pray that your Holy Spirit will be here as we open up your word.

Help me as I present and I pray that you will convict our hearts as well.

Does anybody ever feel like they're this guy right here?

I don't know about you, but I felt like this guy today.

This is a guy, he's got his briefcase, he's running so fast, his tie's going whoosh, and he's on a hamster wheel.

You ever feel like you're on a hamster wheel and you're just going in circles, go, go, go, go, go, and you're not even sure how to get off the thing.

We've already talked a little bit about smartphones and how you can never get away.

How they're constantly buzzing, how they're constantly telling you new things you need to talk about or address or text back or email and on and on and on.

I think back to the day when everything was on paper, how different the world was when everything was on paper and maybe you had piles of paper on your desk to go through and sort through.

And it's interesting to me how with every passing decade they say, oh, we've created this thing that will make your life more Simple, right?

So you don't have to go down to the river and scrub and scrub.

Now we have cars, we don't have to pony up, so to speak, and go across town and give them enough straw and water and all the rest.

But the more inventions that we come up with for faster, faster paced life, really the crazier life can be.

You think back and you know, We like to read to our kids the Little House on the Prairie series.

And they really enjoy that and we enjoy that.

Oftentimes we portray it very, very picturesque.

But there was something about it that was just very simple.

You just provided for your most basic needs.

And while you were riding your horse or while you were walking to town, there was that time of refreshment, maybe, or time of reflection.

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Revelation Made Simple

6. Revelation’s Peace Maker

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