Grace Chapel Bible Ministries
The Book of Revelation/ the road to Revelation
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Every end has a beginning. This is where we started off last week. And when we started off last week, as we said that when we're talking about and as we are coming into the book of Revelation, it is the last book of the Bible. It is not just a book that we open up and look at the, it's not an opiate. I never could say it last week. I can't say it this week. It's not a doom and gloom book, but it's also a book that we must be understood by the rest of the Bible. We must understand from the book of Genesis going all the way through. And while Revelation is last book of the Bible, and within it, there is the consummation of all things. Revelation is where everything comes together. And there is the beginning and there is the full history to move the reader all the way through the narrative. This is what makes the Bible such a miraculous book. Yes, we can argue. We can argue the fact that we can pick up that argument. We can hear people and say, "Well, you can't trust the Bible." Why? Because it was written by a man. And I always like this. This is always cool. I always like it when somebody, when you're equipped with, and I've said this before, when you're equipped with the Word of God, when you are, when you're geared up and you're equipped with the Word of God and you meet somebody that says something, let me just be kind and gentle here because we are going to be gentle. And they say something stupid. Let's just say, and let's not do that. Let's say, when they say something in ignorance, sometimes somebody will be coming to you with their deuce up and they want. And this is the unbelieving world out there. They want to tear down their faith. And sometimes it's so funny, I'll have a co-worker or somebody that will come in. This thing comes out of the book. I said, "Where does it come from?" And sometimes I think the Spirit actually guides them to say that, "Hey, go over and say this to them." And they'll say, "And Abigul, I had something people say to sound blue. We're talking about the weather, we're talking about a book, or we're talking about anything." And all of a sudden, out of the blue, they'll say, "Well, you just can't trust the Bible because it was written by a man." I always love it. You know the Scripture, and the Bible says that we are to be ready to give an answer for the hope that's found in the house. And what condition does it give us? With gentleness. With gentleness. That means we just don't jump out and do a elbow drop on it and say, "You're out of your mind." Talk with them a little bit. Ask them questions. Ask them because you go to two things when you're gentle with them and you're understanding and you start dealing with these people. And first of all, he may be attacking the Bible or he may be just regurgitating the things that he has heard and he's got a little doubt or she's got a little doubt. That's okay. Ask them questions. Ask them about this or tell me a little bit about it, whatever, and listen to them because it'll give you a little bit of where he's coming from or where she's coming from, but it'll also do this. It'll ring. It'll tell them that we're engaged in a conversation. I have a respect for you and I'm having a respect for what you have to say. And the greatest way I should respect is keep my mouth shut when supposed to. Listen. Listen. Even ask questions. And then you begin because asking questions brings them proactive. It gets them and then you walk them and if you're good at this, they can see the fallacy of their own statement. Things are as a whole. I didn't, you know, and they can't defend because first of all, this in Christians, our backs are not against the wall. We're not there to prove our faith. Let them prove their unbelief. Let them prove their unbelief for one. So they'll tell you, they'll say, well, you just can't trust the Bible. When after you've listened a little bit, have a conversation, you can turn around and listen, right? Highlight this in your notes, circle this in your notes, come to understand, circle it to the point where you know how to answer this because you're going to hear it again. So many are here here. You ever been there with anybody say it before? Say, well, you can't trust the Bible because they're written by man. No, especially open. Run away. But this is fun. This is fun. You said you need to turn around with a question. Ask them a question. Have you ever heard about that? Did you realize, first of all, I asked them, have you ever read the Bible? And I'm just, hey, without exception, it's always been a no. No, I haven't read it. Why? Because you just can't believe it. Okay. Okay. That's a circular reason. Do you realize that the Bible was written by over 40 different authors? I said a 40 different authors. They came from different backgrounds. They came from different backgrounds. They came from different. And there were fishermen. There was a doctor. There was a doctor, a physician, farmers. There was kings. There were peasants. There were slaves. And so you have all these different people from three different cultures from three different continents. And yes, if you read the Bible and it's over a course of 1,500 years, reading those, reading all that. Then, and understanding that, yet the Bible has wonderful continuity, perfect continuity from Genesis all the way to Revelation. That is miraculous. In the Bible, you will find prophecies, fulfillment of prophecies. You will find it validated by archeology, science, history, all validates this book. And more importantly, it points to its author, which is God. You will also get this question. Well, how about the Muslims? How about other religious books? Muslims have their book. They have the Quran. So what makes the Bible more differently than the Bible? I like that question too. So when you haven't read the Bible, have you read the Quran? The Quran, you're not allowed to question, by the way, in the religion, you're not allowed to question the Quran. You're not allowed to question. You have to read it and you have to believe it. But our Bible says, question it. Yes, question it. Question about it. Because it will stand the scrutiny of your questions. And along the way, many unbelievers haven't had the journalistic sense. So these to go and prove the Bible was wrong, only to come out and find out that the Bible stands to that scrutiny and they have become believers. First, Pearl added believers. Is it come to the understanding that this is God's word? It's very chaper. I look for the quote. It's going to find it right off the blue. It's very chaper said, if man could write such a book, he won. But there's no way he could. This is miraculous. And the more if you're a student of the word God, you will come to know. And I am a student of the word God. And you're supposed to be students of the word God. Without question, that the Bible is exactly what it says it is. The word of God is that internal. And it has internal and internal evidences. For those who argue against the Bible for reasons, for any of these reasons, again, I ask them, have you ever read it? I challenge you to read it. If you're listening in and you've never read the Bible and you don't believe it, well, go ahead and look in the Bible. You collect the ammunition. You come up with the reasons why you can't believe it. And come on back. But do so having read the book. So it's no different than saying that you do not believe that God exists. When there's all kinds of different proofs, remember what the Lord and remember what the Psalms said. It is the bull, the moron, who says that there is no God. And there are yet that which exists to prove the evidence. So the Bible is also the Bible's enemies, also, for history, the history of the word of God, of all those people that's trying to tear down the Bible and tear down your faith that the Bible is what it says it is. And yet they're gone and guess what's still here, the word of God. I think his name was Voltaire. Back in the day, I don't know what year he lived, and he said that the Bible would be obsolete in 100 years. Well Voltaire is, Voltaire is dead. The Bible still, but I understand his own house ended up being a printing press for the Bible. So Isaiah 48 says the grass withers, the flower base, but the word of our Lord stands forever. As far as the, as far as the transmission of the Bible, over the course of 1000 years, and that we do not trust the translations of the Bible, we can also talk about this, this is another thing that also brings back. Back in, I'll put down here in 1947, I think 1948 might be 47. Some ancient documents were dated that were dated back to the third century, that means about the year 300. Because you also hear this crazy argument about the Bible that you can, and that you can't really trust it because it's like the telephone game, always like that one too. People talk about the telephone game that you whisper something in somebody's ear and they'll whisper to somebody else and they'll whisper in around the room and by the time he gets to the end, watch out for that one. Once it gets around, once it gets around, you got a whole different story. And I always like that one too. Do you ever hear about Dead Sea Scrolls? And they may say yes, or they may say no word. And I actually talked to a Christian and it was reminded he thanked me for for sharing that. But when they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls, that was dated the third century and all these documents that were that were found in the cage of Quran in 1947, it validated that the documents which our translations have been brought from. Are accurate with no major changes. And another thing that, another thing that we can bring up as far as argument. So, unbelievers, when it's funny, when they get, when they got ahold of these Dead Sea Scrolls, the unbelievers of the world said, yeah, finally, the Christians and the Jews can be put in their place and they can be validated that they were so wrong. No, no, the finding the truth and how the truth went from all these many millennia that they are still that the Bible, we can trust the Bible. So it started out, we say 1500 years started out Moses back in somewhere in the 1500 years before Christ. And it was the Lord that said to Moses, Exodus 14 and 1714, then the Lord said to Moses, write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua. And I will only blood out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. And then, and then in 80, 96, almost 80, 100, you have on the island of Patmos, the Apostle John, who pens the book of Revelation. So, all the 66 books are God breathed, they are new stuffs. And that they are new stuffs, it is the God breathed. And God breathed tells us that it's from God. And it is profitable for reproof, for training and righteousness that the man of God may be absolutely equipped for every good work. Like I have already said in previous lessons that the Bible and studying the Bible is not an option, ladies and gentlemen, it's not an option for the Christian. If we are to be students, this is God's Word. If God came in here and spoke, would any of us turn around and walk out the door while he was speaking? Would we ignore him? Would we be busy doing something else? No, we wouldn't. If we knew that was God, well, this is God's Word. And being willfully ignorant of God's Word is tantamount of rejecting God's Word. So, we are to be students of the Word of God. Again, don't tell me that, well, I can't read that well, or I'm not that smart, I didn't do that good in school. That's a bunch of glunk. If you're a bunch of Marines, I would use different language on that. There is no excuse because we have the Holy Spirit that teaches us all things and we cause to mind those things and we've got forgotten. The Holy Spirit and being under the Holy Spirit gives us a spiritual IQ where we can understand these things. The Bible's narrative has a continuity and we can trust its historicity. With just a simple reading of the book, just sit down and simply read it. We can discover the miraculous nature of the book. We can trust its accuracy and spiritual thing and history, past, present, and when it, listen, when it validates itself so well and we can come to trust it so well. We can look at the future, know what's coming and have confidence, have confidence. So many Christians now are so concerned with what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. What's going to happen with the nation? What's happening with the world? And they have very little confidence, very little confidence because they have very little understanding of the word of thought. How many people do you see on a day-to-day basis that they'll talk about the things that are going on but then they'll turn their conversations back to the word of God. So with just a simple reading, it does not take long for anyone to have a sense that this is a miraculous book. And when there's a study of the word of God, when there's a meditation of the word of God, such as Psalm 1-1, when Psalm 1-1 said, "Blessed is the man, happy is the man who meditates on his word day and night." How many of us are doing that? It will bring happiness to one's life. So two profound statements that we find in the Bible, two profound statements that first profound statement is from Genesis 1-1 in the beginning of God. And then you have another profound statement in the beginning of the last book of the Bible and it's the Revelation, the Apoclupsus, the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. So where Genesis is the beginning, the book of Revelation is a consummation of everything that comes together. Genesis, I would say the most important book of the whole Bible is Genesis. It begins the narrative. Revelation is where we're going. Genesis is the place that we get in our vehicles and we start driving. Revelation is the place where we come to. As I said last week, you recommend reading Revelation 1. Looking at the end game, looking at where we're coming to, as some people, as I said last week, some readers actually read the last chapter first to know everything else, how everything else is going to come to it. So let's take a look at the plan of God for a moment. What is, and with it, remember that we went over the propositions that we read in the plan of God, if you study that book or read that book, remember the propositions. God exists. God makes sense. God reveals himself. God has a plan. You are the object of God's plan. And you've got to hear it. What would you say would be the most important thing, if God has the most important thing, the priority, the most important thing that God thinks about, I guess I'm asking the question wrong. God exists. Is it us? Is it the planet? Between that, between the planet and between man, which is most concerning of God. His glory, yes. But he does. Yes. And I've heard that. Okay. When we look at ourselves, if we look at ourselves as being self-important on faces of our value system, as arrogance. But look at ourselves as God sees us. As God sees us, are we little or are we little or are we a little significance or a big significance? He counts every hair on our heads. What's that mean? Very important. We're very important to God. See, too. Everyone of us. Exactly. So look, eyes upon self. It's only on my value system. I'm nothing. And I've heard people say it's not about you, it's not about us. You're absolutely right. It's not about us when it comes to just us. But to God, it is about us, it's about his promises that he has made to us. It is about our spirit of growth. And it takes a point. It takes a point. This heavens and this earth is going to pass away, yes? But who's not? You and I, the soul. The soul that God said and it's his promises that is promises. See, if he breaks, the heaven and earth can pass away. But if he breaks one promise, the one I will, the one proxy that doesn't get fulfilled, then Satan can call the Lord a liar. He loves us with a love that, and also looking back at Genesis. What did God do before he made man? He made everything else. Not because it was important, because he wanted to have everything ready for man. I'm off this, I've said this about Genesis, about the creation and what. He's a man who's romancing his wife, or a gentleman who should be romancing her wife, but are a guy that's setting out everything for his wife or for his girlfriend. His girlfriend's coming over. His love is life. Let's just say he's getting ready to pop the question. He's getting ready to propose to her. He wants this night to be perfect for her. He has the flowers. He has the flowers. He has the food. He has everything that touches every sense, the smell, the sight, the taste, the touch, the hearing. He puts on the furry music. That's what God did when he created man. He laid it all out for man, and then what did he do? He created man. His last creative act. He did, he invited the one who he was going to love the most to this great romantic setting. Hebrew chapter 2 10 says, "It is fitting for who all things, that through who all things bring in many sons into glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering." Point of doctrine, number one. You are more precious to God than all creation. And parents, one of the things that we do have and more and more in our time because of the school system, and this has gone on for a while, not just in the woke generation, but thanks for being set up for a while, the teaching of evolution in our schools. That very teaching says that child, you're not worth nothing. Child, you are just an accidental cause of creation because millions of years and some will resign, crawled out of what a primordial soup, and over a million years, here you are. Nice to have you among us. Again, if you're a bunch of Marines, I'd have other words to say about that. But see, this time, this has gone for a while where school systems have been working on your children's self-esteem. Parents don't let the knowledge of this world or the psychology of this world or the lies or the things tear your children down, sit them down, and tell them that they have a God that loves them, that they were created by a God, a wonderful, a righteous God that loves them with the depths of them. Your children should know that they are loved deeply, and that they are no accidents that God created them, knitted them together in the womb wonderfully and great and wonderfully made. So you are more precious than God than all of creation, because heaven and earth is going to pass away, but we are forever with the Lord. History, I love this, whoever we learned from Christ from Charlie 1st. History, what is it back? History. History. History. History. The Lord's story. It is a story of God's redeeming love to bring back the creation, the Creator-creature relationship. You know, it must drive Satan crazy, and it is the very thing why he hates mankind. It is the very thing why Satan introduces such abominable teaching in our schools as evolution, because God, because of God's love so much, he didn't die for the angels. The Lord did not die for the angels, he died for man. Satan, as poor as Satan is concerned, I believe that him and his angels believe that being newcomers, remember we were created lower than the angels, and we were nothing but invaders to something that used to belong to Satan and his angels. I believe this earth, I do believe this earth was a headquarters for the devil and his angels. And when during the fall, which we are going to talk a little bit about that, when the fall came and Satan rebelled Satan and the angels rebelled against God, it must have been Satan was the first one that looked at the Lord, when he got sentenced to a lake of fire, looked at the Lord and said, "You caught yourself when loving God?" He was probably the first one that said that. You know, how could a loving God cast his creatures into a lake of fire? I don't know, I won't bet no money on it, but I really bet that that conversation was already tagged by the devil. There's so many people in this world. That's another question that they'll ask. How can a loving God cast his creatures into a lake of fire? Because God is also a justice God. God cannot. There's no such thing as universal salvation, either. God cannot. You heard this before. God cannot allow the perpetuation of sin. He can allow the perpetuation of sin without him condoning it. God is a just God in whether it's sin, whether it's a breaking of God's law. There must be consequences for breaking God's law. So the Lord says, "Fine, I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you how a loving and just God can cast his creatures into a lake of fire." The question is, how can a holy God allow sin to even continue? Well, we'll talk about that. God also allowed his permissive will, allowed the fall of man. And with that, it's going to demonstrate that, and he's going to demonstrate that how he takes a fallen creature and the redemption story about how God is going to send his own son in order to die for the fallen creature. I don't remember what, I don't remember why. There was a reason why it was a great thing. I heard somebody say, and I don't remember what it was, but why did he provide the salvation for the angels in the same way? But nonetheless, he does for man, and it must rather save him crazy. The point of application, being loved so divinely, even to the point that God would kill his own son for you. The question is, do you suppose that you owe God a hearing? Should that stop you in your tracks? Listen, there's a something to meditate on. There's a something to realize that God died for you. Well, without that, you said his son to become humanity and that humanity died for you. Happy computing day, because that's a great community message. It should give you pause. A person might die for you. But how many people would allow their own children to die? There's loving children. Yeah, we do live at a time where people don't love their children. But how many people, what would a loving father, how could a loving father sacrifice his own son in order that you might live? That should bring you pause, because God sent his perfectly, his perfect son, his uniquely born son to die for us, to take our sin that we might receive the righteousness in him. So you are the most significant thing to God. It's not the environment. You notice that the pagans, in the light of the pagan world, the pagan love to lift up the nature and the environment and all that. And they will, what you call, de-emphasize the importance of man. Notice that the environmentalists will say that man is the cause of all the problems of this world. And I will say, as a caveat to that, we love nature. We love the things that God created, certainly. The animals that we see, the swirls on the back porch, the deer that come in the yard, we love those things. But we don't love those things more than we love God. And we recognize that God loves us more than all of these. Peter, do you love me? Do you love me all of these? Maybe you talk about the fish there. Do you love me all of these fish? So anyway. Let's begin with a short survey through the Bible that will bring us to a consummation, started with Genesis, in the beginning of God. It will go on to how God created man, perfect, without sin. And it will show how man fell and how God promised the Redeemer. It will also identify who the woman is in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. It's full of alert, it's not Eve, it's not Mary, but it's the nation Israel, who Jesus will come through. It will follow, it will follow Israel, and this will be a short survey, it will be over the next several lessons. And however long it's going to be, it's going to be up to the Lord, but it's just to bring us to revelation that we can start revelation with the view of we're arriving someplace. All right. Thank you for your son, who came and died for us, who demonstrated how to live, how to go out, how to come in. We're totally ignorant, without the logos, without the word, not your son. We have been made royalty, we have been made priests. We have a high position as your word is your Lord, and it is your son, our Lord, that has demonstrated the way, the life. I pray Heavenly Father, that we will live a life that is worthy of this calling. We pray these things in Christ's name.