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HopeLives365

Mark Finley

Revelation 7

Welcome to another Bible study in the book of Revelation.

I am so incredibly glad that you have joined us.

As I've been looking at the statistics for our Hope Lives 365 Revelation studies, about 10 to 12, 000 people join us each week in these studies.

There are those that have questions and that they email those questions to us.

Let me give you the email address so that if you have any questions regarding the studies you can certainly send them in.

We have a few questions tonight but it's you can email us at info at hope lives 365.com that's info at hope lives 365.com.

Before I answer the questions though let's have prayer together.

Father in heaven, how thankful we are we can study the book of Revelation.

As we study together, may the Holy Spirit give us wisdom and guidance.

May we see in these passages tonight, especially in this so important study, May we see a picture of your end time people and may the Holy Spirit impress upon our minds the need for a deeper commitment to you and all out surrender to you to be prepared for the overwhelming events that will take place just before the coming of Jesus.

So thank you that you're going to be with us in Christ's name.

We do have a few questions that have come in and they have been emailed to me.

So let me pull those up immediately for you so we can take a look at some of those questions that have come in.

It's quite remarkable when you look at these questions that each of them have very, they are very penetrating, some very great questions.

The first is the question is for the upcoming study of Revelation.

It is about the 144, 000 and this individual goes on to describe the names of the different tribes in Revelation 7.

Because I am going to cover that tonight, I am not going to necessarily answer the question fully now because it deals with our study tonight.

Somebody else has a question on Revelation 9.14-21, Jimmy on the trumpets.

We will answer that question, but I am on Revelation 7, so let me come to Revelation 9 rather than getting ahead of ourselves.

Somebody asked, what does it mean to suffer persecution for 10 days in Revelation 2.10.

You remember we studied the church of Smyrna.

Smyrna was the church that faced persecution from about 100 AD to 313 AD.

Each of the 7 churches represented a different historical period of time, whereas Ephesus represented the apostolic period.

Smyrna, the word means sweet-smelling incense, represented a time when Satan came after the Church of Persecution.

From about 303 AD to 313 AD Diocletian, the pagan Roman emperor, persecuted the Christian Church very fiercely.

In Bible prophecy, according to Ezekiel 4.6 and Numbers 14.34, 1 prophetic day equals 1 literal year.

So the 10 day period is a 10 year period of persecution in the fourth century, 303 to 313, where Satan tried to destroy Christianity.

Tertullian, 1 of the early Christian fathers, said the blood of martyrs is the seed of the gospel.

So the more the church was persecuted, the more it grew.

But that, Jimmy, that 10-year period is right there in the Book of Revelation under the Church of Smyrna.

What's Meant by the Sea of Glass, and the Book of Revelation.

I'll tell you, if there's an eight-year-old that is watching this and studying the Book of Revelation with us, I just salute you, Liam.

I mean, it's just wonderful to see young people.

And I know we've got a lot of young people that are watching.

Young people today are interested in the book of Revelation.

Liam, what is the temple of Satan mentioned in Revelation chapter 2 when it talks about Pergamos?

Pergamos, the church at Pergamos, was the church that followed Smyrna.

The temple of Satan was the altar of Zeus where pagan sacrifices were offered on the altar of Zeus.

And Zeus was 1 of the gods of ancient Babylon that substituted for the creator God.

So the temple of Satan has to do with the altar of Zeus there on in Pergamos, worship to pagan gods.

Well, Liam, I don't know if you live by the sea or not, but the sea, beautiful.

I was on the Cayman Islands this past weekend for a special service and I noticed as I walked by the sea, the beautiful blue sea.

The sea of glass represents the spectacular glory around God's throne.

In fact, if you go back in the Old Testament it talks about the sapphire, which is bluish green just like seawater, bluish green of glass that surrounds the throne of God.

So the sea of glass represents the splendor and glory and the magnificence of God's throne.

Remember if you have questions on anything we've studied So far, I don't want to get too far ahead of us, but anything we've studied so far in the first 6 chapters of Revelation or after tonight, the first 7, you email us at info at hopelives365.com and we'll be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have.

I know many of you are downloading these presentations immediately after the program.

You can download that by just going to hopelives365.com forward slash weekly bible study.

That's hopelives365.com forward slash bible study.

You can download the notes after the presentation.

Let's just leap into our study for tonight.

You remember that last week we studied Revelation 6.

We saw the 4 horsemen, the white horse, the red horse, the black horse with balanced scales, and the pale horse, which was a sickly greenish pale color.

The white horse, of course, represents the triumph of Christianity.

As Paul said in Colossians 1, verse 23, the gospel's gone everywhere.

Then Satan came against that with the red horse period, terrible persecution.

And then the black horse period weighed in the balances and found wanting compromise.

And then the long period of dark ages, spiritual death.

So we go from the New Testament Christianity that is powerfully impacting the world to a period of time in church history where there was great persecution from about 100 to 300 AD to a period of compromise when Constantine unites with church leaders and they bring pagan idols into the church, sun worship comes into the church, the traditions of men substitute for the very Word of God.

And then we have the Pale Horse Period, which is spiritual death during the Dark Ages.

At the end of that period, we find the Fifth Seal opens and the martyrs cry out from the ground.

Symbolically, the blood of the martyrs cry out for deliverance, just like in the days of Cain and Abel when Cain killed his brother Abel.

Abel's blood, the Bible says, cries out from the ground.

That's exactly, exactly what was going on in the fifth seal.

There is a question asked, when will deliverance come?

When will Christ's plan and purposes be triumphant in the world?

We move then to a period of time of judgment and the second coming of Christ.

At the end of that narrative of the sixth seal, the story of the 7 seals are interrupted in chapter 7 because the question that arises at the end of the sixth seal must be answered.

So let's go look at the end of the sixth seal must be answered.

So let's go look at the end of the sixth seal and see that question.

It's not a very pretty picture in Revelation 6, verse 15.

It says, the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders and the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?" What a picture.

A picture of Men and women running from Christ.

Here you have the greatest event of the ages.

Isaiah talks about another class who say, well, this is our God.

We've waited for him and he will save us.

So you have 1 class that are anticipating the second coming of Christ, 1 class that are thrilled when Jesus comes.

They look up, they see him coming in the clouds of glory.

Their hearts are filled with his love, his grace, and they can't wait for Jesus to come.

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Revelation 7

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