Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Understanding Revelation 12-14

Tom Shepherd

01 How to Interpret the Book of Revelation

02 Revelation 12: The Woman, the Dragon, and the Baby

03 Revelation 13: The Two Beasts Part 1

04 Revelation 13: The Two Beasts Part 2

05 Revelation 14: More Than Three Angels

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Lord, we thank you for the opportunity again to open your Word.

And we thank you for the truths that you give to us there.

And as we study Revelation 13, we pray that you'll help us to see its truth, and also that our Lord Jesus is the conqueror.

All right, so we've been talking about, maybe I should just back up just a tad here, just real quick.

But we had 7 characteristics of the- Let's see here.

There we go, The 7 identifying marks of the sea beast, its composite nature.

It's kind of like a conglomeration of all the evil of the beasts of Daniel 7.

The time of its rise that it would rise after the dragon that represents both Satan and pagan Rome.

His location we would expect to be in Rome because the dragon gives his throne to the beast.

And then his character as a blasphemous character, that's where we finished up last time, and then we're gonna look at its duration, its destiny, and its name.

All right, so let's just kind of go forward here to where we were, slide 66, I think, character.

That's where we were talking about blasphemy.

And the summary we had of blasphemy was that in summary, it is blasphemy when a human being claims power to do actions that are reserved to God or claims to be God.

Can I ask a very quick question on that point?

I have wondered, maybe you've heard this before, but I've wondered, we are getting our definitions on blasphemy from the Pharisees.

Is there anywhere else in the Bible that corroborates what they were saying blasphemy was?

And we, I'm bringing this over here so I can sit down.

And we talked about, we described what blasphemy is from the other sources that we talked about where Paul describes that he was a blasphemer.

We saw his, the description in 1 Timothy 1.13.

Though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief.

So we said actually that the term blasphemy means to slander, to defame, abusive speech, to injure by reputation, to revile, to defame.

Those are all terms that come from those Greek words.

These are definitions of those Greek words.

And then we gave examples of Paul saying that he was a blasphemer.

We heard him speak blasphemy words against Moses and God.

So he's defaming God's law, he's defaming God, things like that.

Now, the aspects that we said, the 2 aspects of blasphemy come into play here in Revelation 13, doing actions that rightly belong only to God and taking the place of God.

And of course, when you read Revelation 13, that fits perfectly with this beast, You know, trying to do those things.

Also, because of the linkages back to the book of Daniel 7, we see the little horn power that does this kind of, you know, kind of taking the place of God.

The Antichrist wants to be in the place of Jesus and take his role.

So, yeah, I know that these terminologies are, yeah, from the words of the Pharisees, true enough, the religious leaders in John 10 and over in Luke 5.

But that would be common of what people would think in that day, you know, the Pharisees were actually a very respected religious group in Jesus' day.

The point about forgiving sins, I mean ultimately all of our sins are against God, but we're commanded to forgive each other.

So I think that's something I've heard coming from the other 1.

So the difference between us forgiving 1 another and God forgiving our sins is if you do something against me, or let's say I do something against you, and so I come and apologize, you forgive me, OK, but you could not forgive somebody else who had nothing, no relationship to you at all.

That, you know, and the, what you're forgiving is there, your forgiveness is about reestablishing a relationship.

Which the priest is not doing with the confessor, because they haven't sinned against him.

Now, so ultimately, you know, if I did something against you, you could forgive me in a sense, but you couldn't really forgive me.

That's something only God can do, is to truly forgive and wipe away my sin.

To cover it, to expunge it, to transfer it.

You know, these are all sanctuary kind of languages.

And that's what the New Testament teaches us, is that the forgiveness of sins is a result of His death on the cross.

So when a person says that they can do that instead of God doing it, Of course, the Catholics see this in a little different light.

That's the thing, and how do you kind of get in between the cracks to...

Whoever says you forgive, they're forgiven.

Yeah, I absolve you, you know, and then they give you the things that you should do to show that you're repentant.

But it's pretty striking language, you know, I absolve you.

People that spoke against Stephen, like you mentioned, is there anywhere in the Bible or in E.G.

White's writings that says, what they were, I'm sure they were grabbed by somebody.

What enticed them to be so negative about somebody?

There must have been some kind of reward that claimed to...

Now you mean that the people that stood up to say bad things about Stephen?

You know, these people were out to get him.

He was a strong proponent or a strong exponent of Christianity.

And they saw it as an attack on their religious faith.

And so they were quite incensed about it.

And- You could say, they thought they were defending God's- Yeah, and so did Paul, Saul, Saul went- there's no record of any specific, other than...

Oh, that they like paid them off or anything?

No, there's just, Luke tells us they're like false witnesses.

Alright, so let's see, let's get back here.

So, the beast claims, the sea beast parallels the little horn of Daniel 7, which specifically claims the power to change the law of God, in Daniel 7.25.

He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law, and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time." Notice here, both the false worship and the false ethics aspect we have talked about before.

So notice that he thinks he can do something God can do.

Well, it's not specifically say worship here, but the ability to do something that only God has the authority to do.

So that false worship, that false sense of who you are, leads to a way of persecuting the people of God.

So if you have false worship, you will have false ethics.

You worship the wrong thing, you'll mistreat people.

2 Thessalonians 2 talks about the same power.

It says in verse 3, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 3, "'Let no 1 deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first.

Series

Understanding Revelation 12-14

04 Revelation 13: The Two Beasts Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Understanding Revelation 12-14

02 Revelation 12: The Woman, the Dragon, and the Baby

58m

Adventism: The Answer to Modern Atheism

03 Evolving Evolution and Creation’s Case

53m

His Invitation

04 Reconciliation, Unity, and Latter Rain Power

1h 1m

Toleration, Liberty, and Personal Freedom

06 Toleration, Liberty, and Personal Freedom

1h 1m

Religious Liberty Under Pressure

The American Experiment

57m

Plenary

Somebody is Lying

1h

Emmanuel Core Workout

Sanctuary Part 5c

59m

The Godhead

The Godhead Part 2

1h 1m

His Invitation

06 Reconciliation, Unity, and Latter Rain Power

59m

Revelation 12 and the Accuracy of God’s Prophetic Time

38m

A History of Adventist Revivals

1h

The Great Second Advent Movement: A Relic of the Past or a Key to the End-time Revival

Why Should William Miller Still Be Relevant to Us

1h 24m

Sound Doctrine