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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Revelation 1

And so let's just bow our heads today and ask the Lord to be with us as we study.

Father in heaven, we're thankful today that we can be outside in this great tent and we can study your word together and we ask your blessing on us.

Who would like to read Revelation chapter 1, verse 1-4?

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants, things which must shortly take place, and he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, all things that he saw.

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near.

Okay, so our first text today in Revelation chapter 1 is focusing on what?

This is a dialogical class not a monological.

Revelation and Psalms, the testimony of Jesus, very specifically mentioned in verse 2.

Okay, so not just the Word, the Word of God.

We're not interested in just your words or my words, but God's Word today.

How many of you have made the decision to base your life fully on God's Word?

If the person actually didn't raise their hand, just say, sister, raise your hand next time.

Now, you know, in my life there was a time when I rejected God's Word.

I became bitter, I became angry, I became resentful, and actually someone gave me a gift of a Bible and I was so upset they gave me a Bible that I threw it down the street.

And it took some time for me to pick it back up again.

And when I threw it down, my life became very complicated because the Bible is a great simplifier of life.

It simplifies things and it makes things much smoother if you're listening to and and and heeding God's Word.

But the scriptures, whenever you're talking to somebody, maybe 1 of the first things you want to figure out is what's their source of authority?

Where is it that they get the answers to right and wrong in their life?

And of course the scriptures are the foundation for the Christian.

I think that's a pretty comprehensive phrase.

Now you might say, wait a minute, there's lots of things not in the Bible, but anything that's not even in the Bible, you look through it through the lens of the Bible.

And in fact, the Bible, you know, you say, well, what about science?

Science should take precedence over the Bible.

You would not even have science without the Bible.

It was only in Judeo-Christian cultures where the Bible was that science even originated.

And scholars of the history of science say it would not have even originated without the scriptures.

And of course in the Bible, this is a great book, can we still believe the Bible, summarizes some of the reasons.

Number 1, the Bible claims to be the word of God.

Number 2, it is the source of information about who?

Torres in his first talk with us really underlined that.

He said it's the Alpha, he's the Omega, and he's in the middle.

And all these prophecies, 1817 prophecies he talked about, 333 pointing towards Christ.

It is the source of information about Jesus, who probably is the most well-known person to ever live.

Number 2, it has continued relevance to life.

Did you know that last year, sales of the Bible during coronavirus skyrocketed and also the downloadable Bible, the YouVersion app, had almost a billion downloads over the year before.

And people were not really interested in what the politicians were saying.

All right, more trustworthy than I thought here actually this morning.

And people don't also trust as much health care professionals as they did last year because they had them on TV saying, wear masks, don't wear masks, and they were going back and forth.

Nurses, by the way, are still the most trusted people.

And I might want to mention that I am a nurse.

But Also, if someone says they're trustworthy, they're probably less trustworthy, so take that with a grain of salt.

Number 3, it has an ability to change life.

Has God's Word ever changed your life in any way?

And it also says, like we heard last night, there is a possibility of a life to come.

That foundational message is the resurrection in the Bible.

By the way, it's like I said already, the basis of Western culture and science, which is somewhat under attack, mostly in Western nations, not in other nations, but Western culture seems to be attacking itself today.

And it's a book that offers hope as well.

Who would like to read Revelation 1, 4 through 6?

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Revelation 1

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