The good news was there wasn't a fire; the bad news was they couldn't turn off the fire alarm. When the noise drove us outside, a big red fire truck arrived shortly to provide great entertainment for the boys.
That's why the LORD told the apostle John to write down a vision that God gave him for what is ahead. Since then, the book of Revelation has proven to be both a warning and an encouragement for God's church for two millennia.
Often Revelation's imagery makes our imaginations explode and we want to look away. But the words were given by God in love to prepare us for the testing that will come upon the whole earth. Setting out His protection and His wrath, the Revelation words deserve careful study that we might unlock all that He has for us to learn.
Having just completed Revelation 11, our BSF study is halfway through the twenty-two chapters. Here are some thoughts from our lecture notes and Scripture study:
In response to the wickedness of men, once the Lord cleansed the earth with a flood and began anew with Noah. When iniquity is ripe, He will repeat the process.
The apostle Paul told the men on Mars Hill that God has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising Him from he dead.
God's love is rich and full, but another of His character qualities is justice, which demands a response. The full gospel includes God's love AND His wrath. We must repent.
God begins the Ten Commandments by requiring that He be first in our hearts. Egyptian history has taught us that Pharaoh thought he was God, before he found out the hard way he wasn't. Pharaoh also thought all the other Egyptian gods were God. Again he was proven wrong as each was proven helpless against the One True God.
From Egypt's first plague (when the water turned to blood) to the end times in Revelation (when the water again will be turned to blood)...God sends judgment and mercy.
He shows MERCY by serving warning through the plagues. The result? The Bible records there were Egyptians who left with Israel in the exodus. God was JUST in that He did not ignore wicked men's choice to spurn their Creator to serve the created.
In Revelation 4/5, we get to peer into heaven and see the joyous celebration and worship around the throne.
A booming angel's voice asks "Who is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals?". John cried because no one was able, but then the Lamb of God steps up. In a fashion emblematic of His priesthood, the Lamb ALONE is worthy to stand between God and man.
These seal judgments, the trumpet judgments, and the bowl judgments begin the process which ushers in the return of Jesus and the remaking of the earth.
As God pours out His wrath on what He has made, we can stagger under the magnitude of the famine, murder, disease, earthquakes, volcanoes, stars falling out of the sky, and the moon and sun going dark. The demon locusts from Chapter 9 are particularly freaky.
Those who want to save the earth may have not taken into consideration that the Lord Himself will destroy it.
The church age ends and God faithfully calls others to explain Himself to the world.
One hundred forty-four thousand Jews are saved and given spiritual sight in multiple miraculous instances that attest to God's promise-keeping power and mercy. They go out to serve as evangelists during the tribulation.
Chapter 11 shows the same protection for the two witnesses who many think are Moses and Elijah. They faithfully proclaim repentance until it is their day to die and God releases the beast from the abyss. Then for a period of time as wicked men celebrate over their dead bodies in the street, the Lord God puts breath back into their bodies, stunning the watching world.
The All-Powerful One who gives salvation keeps us safe until our purpose for Him has been made complete.
IT'S THE MOMENT WHEN GOD'S KINGDOM COMES.
Of course, when you chose sides for dodgeball in third grade, you didn't choose after the game began. So the time for salvation is now.
Believers hope when the trumpet sounds we have been removed because the destruction will be beyond anything before in human history. In His mercy, those left may still call on God's name. They will remain in the fray, but their eternal destiny will be intact.
Revelation 10 speaks of an angel giving John a little book and telling him to eat it. We know that God's words are to be taken in, so we believe this book to be the Bible.
John takes them into his mouth and they taste sweet (just as God's words are sweeter than honey). But then as John digests them, they make his stomach sour. That is because John is understanding that God does not save everyone. Not everyone repents, but it troubles John that those with a stiff neck will be tormented for eternity.
The gospel is more than "God loves you".
Are you ready for judgment? The ferocity and frequency of natural disasters are sounding alarms. Yesterday Alaska recorded a 7.28 quake. Last week we saw a CBS report about a coastal school in Westport, Washington which has built a "vertical evacuation shelter" to protect children against a tsunami that they expect when earth plates move and cause a big earthquake. Scientists say a "supervolcano" @Yellowstone is overdue.
The Bible makes reference to "earth dwellers" in the Revelation. That is not just a geographic term, but a description of people with their eyes on earth rather than heaven. It is inconceivable to read that as the sixth trumpet blows and God's judgment falls on a third of mankind, the remaining earth dwellers will not repent. They will not join the One Who Reigns Forever because their hardened hearts are beyond the day of grace.
Don't be an earth dweller! Lift your eyes to heaven by reading the Revelation. And then pay attention to the warnings God gives us because it is not in His character to give false alarms.
A warning does no good if it is ignored or unrecognized.
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