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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

A Fit Man

Thank you very much, Danny, Carlos, and Kim.

Before I start, I'd like to open up with a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this Sabbath day.

And thank you for bringing each 1 of us here on this Sabbath.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us and that we would receive the things of the Lord and that our minds would be drawn closer to you and that when we leave this place we would be closer to you.

So this is my prayer in Jesus name, Amen.

Our title for today is The 7 Last Plagues and the Fit Man.

I was at Eric's house last night and We talked a little bit about what it meant to be a fit man.

And he and I agreed that in order to be spiritually fit, men and women for God, that we should be physically fit as well.

And so Eric rebuked me last night in various ways.

However, seriously, if we are going to be spiritually fit, men and women for God, we will be physically fit in the way we exercise, the way we eat, everything.

So that's just sort of an aside from what Eric was talking about.

How many of you have studied Revelation chapter 15?

And Revelation chapter 15 perhaps is not talked about as much as some of the other chapters in Revelation.

Now, last week we heard about Revelation chapter 14 from Lewis Walton.

This week We're going to take a look at Revelation chapter 15.

Revelation chapter 15 is very interesting because it can be broken into 2 parts.

And it's you have the 7 last plagues, you have God's people in heaven, And it's interesting in that you start off with the 7 last plagues, you end with the 7 last plagues, and in the middle it talks about the people of God.

And we're going to look a little bit later on as to why John separated the 7 last plagues from God's people and then comes back to the 7 last plagues again later on in that same chapter.

Revelation chapter 15, starting in verse 1, First starting in verse 1, And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, 7 angels having the 7 last plagues, For in them is filled up the wrath of God.

Now this is something that John has not seen yet.

He's seen everything up through Revelation chapter 14 and now he sees the 7 last plagues coming.

He describes the 7 last plagues as great and marvelous.

Now I'm not so sure that if we are alive to see the 7 last plagues that we will think that they're great and marvelous.

I think they're going to be rather fearful.

And I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about the fearful pouring out of the 7 last plagues and so forth.

But what John sees catches his attention and it's worth noting.

And he notes it in the first verse of Revelation chapter 15, after he has gone through Revelation chapter 14, given the 3 angels' messages, seen the 144, 000 on Mount Zion.

And then verse 2, he jumps to a different scene, and we're gonna skip that for now.

And then coming back to verse 5, he comes back to the 7 last plagues.

After that I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.

And the 7 angels came out of the temple, having the 7 plagues clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.

And 1 of the 4 beasts gave unto the 7 angels 7 golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth forever and ever.

And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power.

And no man was able to enter into the temple till the 7 plagues of the 7 angels were fulfilled." What are these 7 last plagues that John is talking about here in Revelation 15?

Why would he call them great and marvelous?

Well, Revelation 16 gives us a detailed explanation of the 7 last plagues.

And we are not going to go through Revelation chapter 16 today.

The only thing that I will point out is that in the first 2 verses of Revelation chapter 16, we see who the 7 last plagues are poured out upon.

The 7 last plagues are poured out upon the wicked.

They are poured out upon those who receive the mark of the beast.

You can see that at the end of the first 2, those who have the mark of the beast and upon them which worship his image.

And we know that this is talking about Revelation chapter 13, the mark of the beast, the image.

And as you study Revelation 13, you understand what the mark of the beast is.

And so as you see the end result of those who receive the mark of the beast, it would seem, I mean, what the scripture is suggesting to us is receiving the mark of the beast is not a good idea.

If you receive the mark of the beast, you're going to get the 7 last plagues.

So I would highly encourage you to study the Bible and find out what the mark of the beast is and how to avoid receiving it.

And that's part of what we're going to be looking at today.

And we're not going to spend too much more time talking about the 7 last plagues.

You can read about them, men receiving marks and sores, and the earth being scorched with heat, water being turned to blood.

It doesn't sound like a very good time for those who are receiving them.

And so I would just encourage you, as you study the character of the people who receive the Mark of the Beast, you see a pattern of compromise that has developed in their lives through time, even just in little things.

And so I would challenge you, don't compromise.

Stand firm even on the little things that God convicts you on, even now.

Now, What I want to take a look at, especially in the context of the 7 last plagues, is found in verse 8 of Revelation chapter 15.

And here we're talking about these plagues being poured out.

And this is an intriguing verse to me, just as verse 1 was.

In verse 1, John calls the 7 last plagues what he sees, great and marvelous.

He says, The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power.

The temple of God being filled with the glory of God while the plagues were being poured out?

Why would the glory of God fill his temple while the plagues were being poured out upon the wicked?

We understand that the glory of God from Exodus chapter 33 verses 18 and 19 Represents his character Moses said Lord show me your glory and he says I will make all my goodness my mercy my long-suffering past before you and So here we see while the 7 last plagues are being poured out, the glory of God or His character fills His temple.

And it makes us wonder, so His goodness, His mercy, His long suffering is filling his temple while he's pouring out plagues on the wicked?

This will give us a description of an event in the Old Testament where something very similar to Revelation 15, verse 8, takes place.

Now 1 Kings chapter 8 verses 9 through 11, this is speaking of the dedication of the temple that Solomon built.

Starting in verse 9 of 1 Kings chapter 8, there was nothing in the ark save the 2 tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.

And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priest could not stand a minister because of the cloud for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.

Notice the similarity from First Kings, Chapter 8, with Revelation 15, verse 8.

The glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

And we ask ourselves the question, why does the smoke of the glory of the Lord fill God's house in 1 Kings 8?

1, you have the 2 tables of stone representative of the law of God also representative of his character of his glory and Those 2 tables of stone his law are placed in the art But also notice what happens When the priests come out of and here it says the holy place, but we know it's talking about the most holy place because we know the Ark of the Covenant is in the most holy place.

So when the priest comes out of the most holy place back to the first apartment.

It represents that a work has been finished in the most holy place.

God's law, His character has been placed in the ark and now the high priest comes to the door of the first apartment and His glory his character fills the temple So what is this talking about These priests and first Kings chapter 8 who are they representative of?

These This is the high priest who was symbolic of Jesus, our high priest.

And it's symbolic of Jesus, our high priest, finishing his work in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, coming to the door of the first apartment and smoke filling the temple of God.

And so that's helping us to understand what's happening in Revelation chapter 15 verse 8 Revelation chapter 15 verse 8 is telling us the 7 last plagues are being poured out and at the same time something else very significant in heaven has happened.

Jesus has finished a phase of his work that he has been doing since 1844.

He's coming out of the most holy place to the first apartment.

And so the question we have is, what significance does that have for us?

When Jesus finishes his word in the most holy place and his glory fills the temple of the Lord, what happens next?

There's an interesting quote by Ellen White, found in Spalding and McGann collection, page 2, where she talks about this scene, about the high priest coming to the door of the first apartment.

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A Fit Man

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