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AudioVerse

Steven Grabiner

When Heaven and Hell Meet Face to Face

Okay, if you take your study guide, again, the first part here, we've noticed that the cross of Christ is the great event that reveals God's character.

And this is 1 of the unfolding themes in the book of Revelation, God's character.

Satan has been making accusations against God from the war that began in heaven and we'll see this morning that there will be a final climax to that controversy.

And so our title is, When Heaven and Hell Meet Face to Face.

And I'd just like to ask you to bow your heads as we pray 1 more time.

Father in heaven, Again, as we turn to your word, and our hearts are softened by the thought that you would have come for just 1 of us, you would have sent Jesus for just 1, may that truth penetrate into the core of our being.

May it motivate the way we live for you and how we look at other people in Jesus name amen well if we think of heaven different people think of different things if you're to ask a little child what they think of heaven What kind of responses might you get?

Ralito, when you think of heaven, what do you think of?

Now you thought of that because you saw a picture of it.

Yeah, well, other people, when you think of heaven, what do you think of?

Anybody think of like playing with lions?

All sorts of things we think of when we think of heaven.

It's interesting, when Marco Polo left Europe and went to China, did his trek over to the Middle East, and he came back to, not the Middle East, the Far East, when he came back to Europe, he had written a book about all the things that he had seen and you know it was so amazing to the Europeans that on his deathbed he was called to recant for what he had written.

People didn't believe him but Marco Polo said It's all true every bit of it.

In fact the half of it has not been told how much more when we think about eternity as Broad as we can think and the little glimpses we get in scripture not even a tenth of it has been told.

But beyond all the beauty and the glory and the lions or peace, God's people are gonna have face-to-face communion with their maker.

And heaven really is this ceaseless approaching unto God, becoming more like God, having the Spirit of Heaven in our own hearts and lives.

So again, take your study guides at the very bottom here, where there's a couple of blanks.

We noted in our series, there's a couple of blanks for you, that the first 3 chapters of the Bible and the last 3 chapters of the Bible in a sense mirror 1 another.

The first 3 chapters and the last 3 chapters They're like mirrors their bookends.

It's very interesting that a book written over Hundreds of years by different authors the first 3 chapters in the last 3 chapters So match And what do we find in the first 3 chapters of Genesis?

Well we find the creation, a perfect world, beauty, peace, harmony.

And then in Genesis 3 we find the fall where that is disrupted.

And then the last 3 chapters of the Bible, the last 3 chapters of the book of Revelation, particularly reverse that great curse.

In chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation, we see this pulling back together again.

The Bible opens and closes with a world that was perfect, lived in communion with God, full of harmony, full of peace, full of oneness, no selfishness, no death, no sorrow, no suffering, no sin.

And God wants you and he wants me to be there.

That is what heaven is all about, this relation between us and God.

And in the great controversy that started in heaven, the great cosmic battle that we've seen night by night in the book of Revelation, this piece was broken because of questions over who God is.

There's even a phrase for that selfish altruism, which is, you know, I'm going to focus on you so that what?

I'll scratch your back or so you can scratch mine.

God does what he does for humanity, not for what humanity can give back to God, but because it's the nature of God to give.

Well, let's turn to the second page and let's go to Revelation chapter 20.

Last night we looked at the 2 suppers in Revelation chapter 19.

Tonight we're kind of, this morning rather, we're filling through that.

Revelation 19, we notice there's this call to 2 suppers.

I hope all of you do, because if you don't, then you end up at the supper for the birds, which consume the flesh of those who are in rebellion against God.

Revelation chapter 19 and verses 18 and following.

But Revelation 19 closes with the return of Christ to this world and the apparent destruction.

But Revelation chapter 21, 20 rather, is where we're gonna be focusing this morning.

And what we're gonna do is we're gonna break this prophecy down.

In Revelation 20, let's turn to Revelation 20 and let's read verses 1 through 3.

"'Then I saw an angel come down from heaven having a key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand and he laid hold of the dragon that serpent of old we've seen him several places through Revelation, who is the dragon?

Satan, it tells us right there, and the devil, and bound him for a thousand years.

Now in your study guide, It says in Revelation 21 through 10, we find a time period, a thousand years, and it's mentioned 6 times in this portion of Scripture.

It's been given different names, and there's a lot of debate in Christianity as to how to interpret this thousand years.

Some people believe that the thousand years began at the cross, and that we've been living in the thousand year period of Revelation since that time.

I find that a little hard to believe because it says the devil's bound and I don't really see the devil bound in this world now, do you?

Other people believe that it'll be a thousand years of peace here on earth and then Jesus will come.

Well let's look at this And as we have in your study guide, I've brought out that I want to break this down into events that come, and then there's a few blanks, at the beginning and the middle and at the end of this time period.

And we're also going to let the Bible, the texts, speak for itself as we go through this.

A thousand-year period takes place just at the conclusion of Revelation 19.

But before we look at it, I need to highlight a few more things here.

As we go through this, we see in verse 3 that the devil is sealed in this bottomless pit for a thousand years.

Verse 3, the last sentence, what does it say?

There's a little word in there that's really important.

John uses a very interesting word here to convey a divine necessity.

The word that John uses is frequently used to convey something that must, there's a divine imperative behind it.

And so the thoughtful reader of Revelation, when they come to that, they're going to ask the question, why must the devil be loosed from his prison?

I mean, if the devil could be chained up and bound, and there would be no more wars and no more temptations, wouldn't you be happy?

You know, if he'd be gone off your backs, out of your life completely?

So why must, what's the imperative behind the release?

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When Heaven and Hell Meet Face to Face

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