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

03 The Hour of His Judgment has Come

01 The Everlasting Gospel

04 Worship Him Who Made

06 The Faith of Jesus

05 The Spirit of the Babylon

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.

We're talking about the everlasting gospel.

I am staring at my computer, not the remote thing there.

So, someone shared a story with me a little while back.

I was preaching at a place, or teaching at a place, and someone else taught in the afternoon on the sufferings of Christ.

I thought I definitely want to be here for that.

And they started this story about their early conversion.

I don't remember how early they were in, but it's very, very towards the beginnings of their faith experience.

And they were knocking on doors, and I don't remember if they were, you know, doing Christian literature on a donation basis, like, call porter work, or if they were just giving out free literature at the door.

But they knock on this door, and they tell the person, hey, I've got this book, man.

So he comes inside, says, what's the deal?

He says, I got this book and it talks about the fact that Jesus died for you.

And they begin to tell a story about a guru of theirs.

They were from some eastern religion, and they had a guru.

And this person was deeply hated within their community, in their region of the world, because their religious views were different than the other people.

And that eventually led to persecution, unfortunately, and the man was taken from his home, taken out into the woods, and things were done to him that I'm not going to communicate from a pulpit in a public message.

Horrible, horrible things that are an absolute violation of the Geneva Convention at the least, but the way in which they inflicted this pain upon this man, it took days for him to eventually die.

And this man is weeping as he's telling this young Christian what was done to his guru.

And he says, what my guru went through was way worse than what your Jesus went through.

I mean, they didn't tell me that 1 in the Bible studies.

Like, he doesn't know how to answer that question.

Because the amount of physical pain that this man endured and how long it lasted is certainly longer than what Jesus went through.

I'm not downplaying the suffering to Christ.

We're going to go into that today and in the faith of Jesus at the end of our presentations together, but the point is if it's just the level of physical pain that Jesus went through, well, aren't there other people who were crucified?

And aren't there people who lasted longer in their crucifixion than Jesus did?

Back to Menu

Series

Dee Casper's Weekend

01 The Everlasting Gospel

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Plenary

No Longer Enslaved

56m

The End of Hatred

47m

The Power of Prayer

01 The Power of Prayer: Making a Difference in the Gap

41m

Going the Distance

4. Justification by Faith

53m

Sherlock Holmes and the 3 Angel’s Messages

53m

Christianity 24-7

2. The Long and Winding Road

1h 9m

Reuben and the Birthright

25m

Plenary

Preparing for Rain

1h

Fire in My Bones

42m

In Due Season

40m

Spirit of Prophecy or Spiritual Exercises?

43m

Prayer and Revival

Revival

49m

Sound Doctrine