Good morning, friends, and welcome again to Sabbath School Study Hour here at the Granite Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church. As you look around, you probably notice that the set is little bit different than normal for our Sabbath School Study Hour time, but we're doing something special, connected with the Amazing Facts training program called afcoe. That's why you see amazing doctrines right behind. But we are starting a brand new series of studies today dealing with the book of Revelation, one of my favorite books in new testament. Today, we're looking at lesson 1 which is entitled, "the Gospel from patmos.
" But before we get to our lesson, we want to let our friends know about a free offer that we have that goes along with our study today. It is entitled, "the trinity," talking about The Father, son, and Holy Spirit. This is our free gift to anyone in North America. All you have to do is call 866-788-3966 and you can ask for offer 166 and we'll be happy to send that to you. Or if you're outside of North America or even in North America, you can get a digital copy of the book.
All you have to do is text the code "sh088" to the number 40544. And we'll give you a link and you'll be able to download the book, the trinity, written by Pastor Doug, a lot of very important information found in the book. Now for those of you who might not have our new lesson quarterly dealing with the book Revelation, we would encourage you to try and obtain one from one of the adventist churches in your area, but you can study along with us even now by simply downloading the lesson. You can do so at lesson.aftv.org. That's lesson.
aftv.org and you can look up lesson 1 on our new study in the book of Revelation and you can follow along. Well, before we get to our study, we always like to begin by lifting our voices in song. I'd like to invite our song leaders to come forward. Thank you, Pastor Ross, and happy new year. It's time to sing like we do every week.
So if you're at home and you have a hymnal, pull it out and join with us 452, what heavenly music. This is one of my all-time favorites. We're gonna do all three stances, 452. I am looking forward to that day when we can all be together and hear that heavenly music. Something that I don't think we can even get close to imagining on this earth.
But there is some gorgeous music that I know we've all heard and it is just a taste of what it would be like on the streets of gold. At this time, Pastor Ross is going to have our opening prayer. Dear Father in Heaven, we thank you once again that we have this opportunity to gather together and open up Your Word and study such an important book, a timely book for this earth's history. And, father, as we delve into this prophetic book, the book of Revelation, we ask for the Holy Spirit to come guide us, not only does it present various powers at the end of time, but more than anything else that reveals to us a Savior, reveals the lamb, there amongst the beasts. So we ask your special blessing upon our time this morning, in Jesus' Name, amen.
Amen. Our first lesson in the new series today is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug. Book of Revelation, one of the most perfect books ever written is gonna be our theme now for the next 13 weeks. And today, we get into our first study which is lesson one, of course, "the Gospel from patmos." And we have a memory verse and the memory verse is Revelation 1:3. If you have your Bibles, I'd appreciate if you'd say it out loud with me.
Revelation 1:3 and this is from the new king James version. You ready? "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is near." And blessing, the book begins with a blessing. You'd be surprised how many people I've met that came to a seminar for years before I got into official ministry. As a layman, I did prophecy seminars, we call them Revelation seminars. Some of you remember the Revelation seminars.
First ones were written by harry robinson, and then people did lessons that were from seminars unlimited written by bill may. And I think even marvin moore wrote a set of Revelation seminar lessons I used one time. But people were very interested. And all the folks would drive around the town, they had a bumper sticker it said, "know the future," you know, attend the Revelation seminar. And I'd see people creeping in apprehensively opening night and I talked to them and they go, our pastor said we shouldn't study the book of Revelation because there's a curse in the book of Revelation, and we don't want to be cursed.
I said, really. So well, there are some curses, but there are a lot of blessings. The Bible says there's a blessing on those who read the book. The end of the book, it says, there's a curse on those who change the words of this prophecy. And so that is a little ominous.
You need to approach the study of Revelation with a faithfulness to say what it says, you don't want to be twisting or altering it because probably one of the most fearful curses in the Bible is pronounced on those who distort or corrupt or twist the Word of God. And so... But notice he says, there's a blessing on those who not only read it, but not all everyone can read back then, but they could hear someone else read it. So it says, blessed are those who read and those who hear, and then what was the most important part, and keep. So if you're a reader and a hearer of the word and not a doer, you're like that man who looks at his face and like a glass and walks away, forget what manner of man or woman they are.
And so this is just going to be, I think, a tremendous study in this next quarter, going through this incredible book. Now the book of Revelation is mysterious. And we'll talk a little later about the title of the book, and what it means. There's a lot of symbols in the book, a lot of Numbers. If you were to retitle the book of Revelation with a number, what would that number be? .
. Some people... That's right. Some people would say 666, probably, the number seven. Another one is 144,000.
Yeah. The book of Revelation is really a book of sevens. There are 60 times in the book, you find the number seven. Fifty five of those times, it says seven, five of them it uses the word seventh. But it adds up to 60 times.
Now notice, you've got stories and passages in the Bible to deal with all kinds of different sevens about 19. You can count them as I go through if you want, seven churches, seven lampstands, seven lambs, seven spirits, seven stars, I just realized I don't have enough fingers to do this, seven horns, seven angels, seven thunders, seven thousand people, seven heads, seven crowns, seven angels, seven plagues, seven mountains, seven bowls, seven Kings, I may have left one out. Yeah, seven trumpets. So I didn't do the trumpets? Seven trumpets. Now there, that is 20.
So you got a lot of sevens in the book of Revelation. Now I do talk about the trumpets here in a minute. You know, another number appears frequently in the book of Revelation, it's 12. That's probably the second number that appears the highest. Twelve is mentioned 22 times in the book.
A lot of is where it talks about the 144,000, 12,000 from this tribe, 12,000 from that tribe. And, of course, the 144,000 is 12 times 12,000. And then what does seven mean? Now if you're going to have a book so full of seven, you might need to ask a little about biblical numerology. What does seven mean? Is it just coincidence? Is it just a pretty number? Is it just because they roll dice back then? And that was, they were trying to avoid snake eyes. But what was with the number seven? How many days in a week? Why? It's God's number, it's the perfect number of God, and especially connected with a perfect cycle of time.
Now the book of Revelation is dealing with time, it's a prophecy, begins by saying the time is at hand. It ends by saying even so come Lord Jesus. He comes quickly. And so it's a book that talks about an urgency of time, and so you've got all these sevens in there. It's a perfect number.
God created the world this perfect cycle of seven, right? And there are five epics of seven. The book is sort of divided into five sections here. You've got the seven churches, which is Revelation 1-3 covers the Spiritual history of the church from the first coming to the second coming. You have the seven seals. Now that's dealing with Revelation 4-8.
That covers the political history of the church between the first coming and the second coming. Thirdly, you've got the seven trumpets, which is a military history of the church between the first coming and the second coming. So there's time involved. You have and, by the way, that's Revelation 8-11. Then you've got between Revelation 12 really the center of the book where it talks about the core of the conflict is the seven heads and that's Revelation 12-14.
This beast is trying to destroy the woman. And then when you get to the end, you finally have the conclusion, the final birth pains and that's the seven plagues, children of Israel before they were born as a nation. They were born out of 10 plagues. And then they came forth during the final plague, right? During the final plague, you find in Revelation, Jesus comes and we are delivered, and we go to the heavenly canaan land. So the book is a book filled with parallels between the old testament and the new testament.
I'd submit to you, you cannot understand the book of Revelation if you don't have a pretty thorough knowledge of the old testament. There are 404 verses in the book of Revelation. About 278 of the 404 verses can be found almost verbatim in the old testament. We'll give you some examples of that a little later. So it's really important to have a good background.
It's not just a book that has plagues, it's a book that has blessings. I talked about the sevens. Do you know there's also seven beatitudes that you find in Revelation. They are the blessings, you get the blessings on the churches, and so that's in Revelation 1:3, Revelation 14:13, Revelation 16:15, 19:9, 20:6, 22:7, 22:14, seven blessings in the book of Revelation. There are seven attributes of the lamb.
And that's all found in one verse. If you look in Revelation 5:12, I know this is going fast, people are wondering, "Pastor Doug, I can't keep up." We always post my notes on the Amazing Facts website under the Sabbath school tab. And so you'll see a little thing it says the notes, and so either Pastor Ross or I whatever our notes such as they are, I'll give you this piece of paper that I'm reading from, and it's just a word document you can download. But if you read in Revelation 7:12, these beasts and angels declare, "saying with a loud voice, 'worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!" Seven facets. Now Jesus is identified as a lamb slain, seven horns, seven eyes, he's often portrayed in the sevens, you get the seven spirits of God.
Do you look in Revelation… no, I'm sorry, look in Isaiah 11:2, it identifies seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit or facets of the Holy Spirit. And so, oh, this book is... If you're... How many of you are number people, you like Numbers? You just like to have things add up. Does it frustrate you if a penny is missing from the cash register at the end of the day? And there's no one's going to steal a penny, it's usually an accounting error.
And Karen loves to have things add up, and if they don't add up, she just fixes it until it does add up. Yeah. Just you know you rob Peter and pay Paul, there's ways to do that. But if you're a Numbers person, you're gonna really enjoy the book of Revelation because it's got a lot of Numbers. Now I told you what does the number seven represent? Perfect.
So a perfect interruption of seven is when you cut seven in half. And if you cut seven in half, what number you'd get? Three and a half. That is a number of persecution. It's a number that you're going to find through the Bible, and it's in Revelation, and it's listed three different ways. It's called 42 months, it's called 3.
5 years, and it's called 1260 days. And that adds up to 3.5 Jewish years. Now Jewish year had 360 days for its 42 months with 30 days, 1260. How long did Jesus ministered? Three and a half years. And it was a time of persecution and resistance.
What did Elijah do during 3.5 years of famine? Ran for his life, fled into the wilderness. You read in Revelation that the woman fled into the wilderness, but she's fed by God. Elijah fled into the wilderness, but God fed him. So all of these prophecies, even about the future, at least from Revelation there in the future, you find the key to understanding them by going back. But the Numbers are very important.
We got a lot to cover here. And I got about half of my time. I don't know who it was that wasted all my time. Now let's go to the first section here. Well, I talked about the five epics that you have in Revelation and how the book is divided up.
The title of the book is very important. Now do some of you have an old king James version with you? If you read at the very top of Revelation, what does it say? The Revelation on Jesus Christ. Not the first verse. What's the title at the top of the page? Douglas. Does it say.
.. How many of you have one that says the Revelation of saint John? Okay. All right, steve's got one right there. I needed a witness. They use the title of the book.
They call it the Revelation of saint John 'cause John wrote it. He's the author of the book and I'm not going to steal Pastor Ross's thunder. Next week, we'll talk more about John's imprisonment and the background for the book. But is it a Revelation of saint John? What's the first line say? Revelation of Jesus Christ. And it's interesting that people think that the book is a sealed book.
I've met people before, they think there's a curse pronounced on anyone who reads a book. Pastor say the book is a mystery, we're not supposed to read it. I've heard people tell us, their pastor said we're not supposed to read Revelation. It just confuses people. It's the most controversial book, stay away from Revelation.
And some people say, folks go crazy reading Revelation. I've heard some crazy interpretations. But I don't know that the book made them crazy. They were probably crazy and they read the book and then, but… it says there's a blessing on those who read the book. And it is a Revelation of Jesus.
From beginning to end, Jesus has more titles in Revelation than just about anywhere. He's called the first and the last, the alpha and omega, he is the lamb, he is Michael. He is the one riding on the white horse. I mean, you see Jesus all the way from cover to cover in the book of Revelation. It is a Revelation of Christ.
You will know Jesus better as you read the book of Revelation. Now the word Revelation comes from the Greek word apocalypses. And you recognize that, of course, as apocalypse. And if I told you that the weathermen said there's an apocalypse coming, what would you think? That was gonna be terrible. I mean, you got some ominous weather about to happen.
But the word apocalypse didn't used to mean that, it means that now because of the spin, people have put on the name of Revelation because Revelation does talk about, you know, locusts, head creatures, and fire and plagues, and people being scorched with great heat, noisome soars in, and fire coming down from heaven. And people, when they say, I'm reading the apocalypse, they always think of terrible things. How many of you have heard of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? That's actually just the first four of the seven seals. But the fourth horseman is a rider of death. They forget that there's one on a white horse too, he's good.
But the book has come… the name apocalypse has come to seem very foreboding and ominous, but the word means unveiling or revealing. And so it's really a good thing. It's like, you know, sometimes words take on different meanings. I think we all know that years ago if you said, I'm happy and gay, it had a whole different meaning that it has today, right? Those words sort of change with the culture and over time. Well, the word apocalypse means an uncovering, it's a revealing.
It's not a book that Jesus doesn't want us to understand. He wants us to understand, he pronounces a blessing on those who read. Now when it just says read, doesn't mean you just sit here and you read it once. Dr. Leslie hardinge used to say, if you want to understand the book of Revelation, you'll start understanding it after you read it 50 times.
He said, as you read it, and that means you read it, and you read it, and you listen. The Bible is a book, it just gets deeper as you go through it. And as you read in connection with the old testament stories, you can keep saying, aha, that's like that other story in the Bible. These words come from that chapter. And it begins to make more and more sense.
You read, for instance, the very end of Revelation, Revelation 22:16, "i, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the church. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star." Told you, he's got many names in Revelation. Have you run into people before they argue and fight over the proper way to pronounce God's name? And they've even retranslated some Bibles because they say they don't translate God's name correctly. And if you can't say God's name in Hebrew, they say God is not going to hear your prayer. It's not what the Bible teaches, Bible teaches, God has got many names.
He's wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, the bread of life, the I am, the good shepherd, the living water, the door, the bright and morning star, the fairest of 10,000. How many names does Jesus have in the Bible? I've got a list somewhere. It's, you know, probably 30 different names. So that's a really uninformed Bible teaching. But he's telling us it is something he wants us to know.
The book is about Jesus from cover to cover, that's why I said Revelation 1 all the way to Revelation 22, it is revealed, he's not wanting to hide it from us. In a moment, I'm gonna have somebody here read a verse, you're going to be reading Daniel 2:22. While you get ready for that, I'm going to read a verse. Deuteronomy 29:29, "the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever..." So is Revelation something revealed? It belongs to us. He wants us to understand it.
And he said, if you want to understand it, what's the promise? Seek and I'm going to hide it from you. God is gonna blindfold us as we try to understand. He wants us to understand. That's why he wrote it. He promises, this is something revealed.
Amos 3:7, "surely the Lord God does nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets." That's a very important verse. That means whenever God is going to do something significant in history, he will raise up a prophet or prophetess to help prepare people. Before the flood, did God get a prophet to warn people? Would you say the flood was significant? The whole world is going to be destroyed. Now before the Exodus, did God raised up a prophet? What was his name? Moses. And the other one was Noah, right, before the flood.
Before the captivity and conquering by Babylon, did God raised up prophets? Yeah, he had Jeremiah and Isaiah. Before fire comes down from heaven and the people are saved from baal worship, did God raised up Elijah, one of the greatest prophets. Before The Son of man came the first time, did God raised up a prophet, John the baptist. Does it make sense to you that before the Lord comes the second time, he'd have the gift of prophecy? He does. And at least one prophet, I think he raised was Ellen white, doesn't mean it's the last because it says it'll come to pass in the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
Dream, dream, see visions. And so, I don't think God has retracted his promise for the gifts of the Spirit to his church. So it's something he wants us to understand. Please read for us your verse. Daniel 2:22, "he reveals deep and secret things, he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.
" Amen. You'll see several times in the Bible where God gives them a serious dream to some monarch and they don't know what it means, and finally they need to call a jew. And the jew explains the dream. You know the story of Joseph in Egypt. Now God didn't give this dream to just keep everybody guessing and have it just fade away.
He gave it so that it could be understand, but they needed to go to a jew because the jews, they wrote the Bible, it represents the Word of God. And Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar has at least two dreams, he can't understand, his wise men can't understand, God wants him to understand. And finally, when they turn to God, Joseph said to pharaoh, God has the answer. Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, God has the answer. They wanted them to know who to turn to for an understanding of the future, and it was revealed.
That's what Daniel saying here. You look in Proverbs 3:32. "For the perverse person is an abomination to the Lord, but his secret counsel is with the upright." God did not reveal the secrets to the wise men of pharaoh or the wise men of Nebuchadnezzar, but he did reveal the secret to his people. And so what's one of the keys to understanding prophecy? Blessed are those who read here and keep, we need to have the Lord in our hearts, spiritual things are spiritually discerned. And we need to have the Holy Spirit to understand these mysteries.
Say amen. Amen. Matthew 13, "Jesus answered and said to them," this is verse 11, "because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given." His people that are consecrated to him, if they study and they seek for truth, he will reveal these things, but there are some people who do not understand. You can read in Matthew 13, Christ said, that's few verses later. In verse 15, "for the heart of this people has grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing, their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. For assuredly, I say to you many prophets and righteous men have desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and hear what you hear, and did not hear it." Now, if God is going to give a generation the ability to understand Revelation, why would not it be this generation upon whom the ends of the world have come? Here we are, if we're not going to understand it, nobody's going to understand it. He wants us to know what these things mean to prepare the world for his coming. He said, "behold, I come quickly.
" Amen? In the book testimonies to ministers, Ellen white writes in page 118, "let Daniel speak, let the Revelation speak, tell what truth is but whatever phase of the subject is presented, uplift Jesus at the center of all hope, the root and the offspring of David, the bright and the morning star, just reiterates, Christ must be kept the center of the book. It is ultimately a Revelation of Jesus himself. All right, so the next section, what is the purpose of the book of Revelation? Now you know what I'm doing in my study today, this is an introduction, my comments are dealing with verse 1-8, and that's about it. So if you look under the purpose of the book, and someone here in a minute is going to read John 14:29. Revelation 1:1, "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place.
" Now that tells you right there that the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophecies of Revelation was imminent. Now before I go any farther and I'm sure that between myself, Pastor Ross, Pastor Brummund, and others that may teach, there will be some repetition which is good. When you approach Revelation, there are three principal views. You got past, present, future. You've got one that is called the preterist view.
Just think of the word pre. They think that all of Revelation was fulfilled by the time the apostles died, first 100 years. They think nero was the antiChrist. And then they've got kind of a creative way to try to make that work. I don't think it's very effective, because there's a lot of Revelation like when it talks about Jesus coming that clearly hasn't happened.
And so I don't accept but that's not a very popular view. Then you've got a popular view and it's a new view, it's called the futurist view and they say that from Revelation chapter 4 onward, the Revelation 4 says "they heard a voice behind me and there's a trumpet and says, 'come up here.'" And John is kind of taken up and shown this vision, they say all of that is from the rapture on. So they say everything from chapter 4 in Revelation is still future. Well, that I would respectfully disagree with, and that is a relatively new view that was actually developed by two jesuit priests, francisco ribera being one of them. And it was later adopted by scofield and he put it in his scofield Bible that was picked up by then hal lindsey, who put it in the book, the late, great planet earth, when he foretold the end of the world, 1988, and none of that happened.
But it took hold the secret rapture, futuristic view to hold at that point, and they never let go of it. Then you got the view, that was the view of the reformers, which is called the historicist view. And that means Revelation really is a panorama that covers the history of the church between the first coming. Jesus said, "the time is at hand, it starts now till the second coming, you get to the end of the book and all things are restored. And so Revelation is for God's people in every age.
And every lesson for every age is for every person. The seven messages to the seven churches are not just to those particular churches in history, but every individual sort of goes through sometimes phases of ephesus, smyrna, philadelphia, laodicea, sardis, so forth. Persons first converted, they're ephesus, and they get persecuted by their families. Smyrna, they joined a church. Philadelphia, brotherly love.
Then they've been in the church for a while, laodicea. And so it's for every Christian, but it really does cover the panorama of church history. And so we'll be sharing in this series, this historicist view. All right, so the main purpose of the book is redemption. Now read for me please, John 14:29.
John 14:29, "and now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe." All right, so God gives us prophecy, so we will know how to invest in the stock Market, or how to pick lotto Numbers, or how to plant our crops. Well, there was a place where God gave prophecy to Joseph to tell them how to plant his crops, right? But typically, prophecy is best understood looking backwards. God does not give us prophecy so that we can say the end is coming, let's go run for the hills, let's dig a hole, let's hide. He gives us prophecy so that when the prophecies come true, our faith grows. "Hey, God saw this all coming.
" Prophecy is typically best understood looking backwards. Now some of the prophets, they can look ahead and tell you exactly what's going to happen. If you believe them, you'll benefit from that. But, you know, most of my faith comes from the prophecies that have been fulfilled. My faith is strengthened that all things are in God's hands.
I realized God is never in heaven worried, he knows exactly what's going to happen, that gives me peace that my life is in his hands. He knows what's coming, that what he said will happen. And so when I look at how God works in the prophecies, it's redemptive. Prophecy is principally redemptive. The book of Revelation is a book of salvation.
It's a Gospel book. It is not a prognostication book. It is not a big book of fortune cookies. It's a book of salvation. There is a lot of prophecy in there that came true but don't think of prophecy as "I've got an inside track on what's coming.
" Prophecy is there so that as we preach prophecy, people say, "wow, God knows all things." And he wins in the end. That's one of the wonderful thing about Revelation is that... The final chapter tells us you know who wins. And that really says a lot right there. John 13:19, Jesus said, "now I tell you before it comes to pass, that when it does come to pass, you might believe that I am he.
" Why does he tell us? That we might believe that he is the one. Prophecy is to help us recognize Jesus is the one. Look at John 16:4, "but these things I told you that when the time comes, you might remember that I told you of them." God wants us to have more faith, and prophecy does that. Isaiah 46:9, "remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other, I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'my counsel will stand, and I will do all my pleasure.'" The prophecies in the Bible are telling us that God sees all things. So one of the principal purposes of the book is to tell us that Christ is coming, but he's coming soon.
Chapter 1, these things must shortly take place, that means imminently. Revelation 22, "surely I come quickly." Everybody in every age can read Revelation and know that some part of it applies to them, their age in which they live. And you might say Revelation begins where the Gospel ends with Jesus. Gospels ends with Jesus, Revelation begins with Jesus. It's talking about his resurrection, and his ascension to heaven, the primary purpose of this is to remind us that God is in control.
Now here's one of the most important sections, it's talking about the symbolic language of Revelation. Touched on that a little bit, but I'm going to give you some examples. If you look in Revelation 1:1, it says, "he sent and he signified it by his angel to his servant, John." That says a Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him, and he sends and he signifies, what does signify mean? Signify means to sign-ify. It actually means he gives it in symbols. And the book of Revelation is filled with symbols.
For example, if you look in Revelation 17:1, "then I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns on his heads, and ten crowns on his heads, and a blasphemous name." Beast with seven heads and ten horns. People will say, "that's what happens when you don't use organic fertilizer, you know, it just affects the animals in the last days." So there's people who think those kind of creatures are going to be roaming the earth, it's all because of what we've done to the environment. I think it's a symbol. What does that mean? You go to Daniel 7. In the first year.
.. Verse 1. "In the first year of belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed." So it's a vision. "He wrote down the dream telling the main facts. Daniel spoke and said, 'in my dream by night I saw four winds of heaven stirring on the great sea.
'" But here we just read in Revelation, I stood in the sand of the sea, these beasts rising up out of the sea. And Daniel says, these beasts raised up out of the sea. "Four great beasts come up out of the sea, each different from the other." And he talks about one like a lion, one like a bear, one like a leopard. You look in Revelation 13, it talks about, like a lion, like a bear, like a leopard, but the beast in Daniel is, these beasts are kingdoms. So by going here a little and there a little, comparing Scripture with Scripture, pretty soon it all starts to come together what it's dealing with.
For example, if you read in Revelation, you'll see in chapter 4. If you got your Bibles, you might turn to Revelation chapter 4, and you look in verse 4. No, yeah, go to Revelation 4:7 actually. It talks about these creatures around the throne of God. "First creature's like a lion, the second living creature's like a calf, third living creature had the face of a man, fourth creature was like a flying eagle.
" Okay, just pause right there and go. What does that mean? Well, if you're reading your old testament, you will read Ezekiel where it says in 1:10, "as for the likeness of their faces, these four creatures, each had the face of a man, and the forehead, the face of a lion, face of an ox, that's a calf, and the face of an eagle." That's not coincidence. I mean, when you think of the thousands of different kinds of animals that both Ezekiel and Revelation get the same four animals on their creatures. They're seeing the same thing, aren't they? And you start saying, "what does that mean? Well, let's keep reading in Revelation." Back to chapter 4 in Revelation, you read verse 8, "the four living creatures, each have six wings, and they were full of eyes around and within. They do not rest day or night saying, 'holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God almighty who is to come.
'" What does that mean? Well, you go to Isaiah 6. It says, "above it stood seraphim, each had six wings." Didn't we just read that in Revelation? "With two he covered his face, with two they covered their feet, with two he fly. And one cries like another and says, 'holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory!'" You know, one of the incredible things about Revelation, when I read it, I get little goose bumps because I know I am reading something a human could not write. Because I know the Bible pretty well. And John, a 90 year old fisherman to write a cohesive vision that draws in a way where it actually makes sense and comes together, pictures like a kaleidoscope of the whole old testament could never concoct this.
A man could never dream it up. The whole book of Revelation is a beautiful composite of the story of salvation drawn from books all through the old testament, yet it makes sense when you get to Revelation and you look at the life of Jesus. And then it also at the same time, not only is it all pulled together, it then shows in the way it's put together the prophecy of history from Jesus' time to his second coming. By drawing all these snippets from all of these other prophets, now there are four other primary apocalyptic prophets in the old testament. To understand Revelation, you should understand or at least be reading Daniel, Ezekiel, zachariah, what's the fourth? I'm forgetting.
Isaiah. And... Yeah, Isaiah also has some apocalyptic, "hey, you know, there's a couple of others. Job, yeah has some, and you find… you got grasshoppers in job, grasshoppers in Revelation. I mean you look at the, even the minor prophets, you're going to see it's just taking you through that everywhere from Genesis, Revelation touches on Genesis all the way to Malachi.
It is the most incredible book in the Bible by far. So you see how it's full of symbols. And it's all telling us about Jesus. In Revelation, it talks about who God is, talks about the Godhead. Notice, you even find the trinity.
Someone's going to read for me in just a moment 2 Corinthians 13. I'll read Revelation 1:4-5. "John, to the seven churches, which are in asia, grace to you, and peace from he who is, and from he who is to come, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ," right there, notice what you've got. It says, from he who sits on the throne, from the seven spirits, from Jesus Christ. "The faithful witness are firstborn from the dead.
The ruler of the Kings of the earth," he's called the King of Kings in Daniel. "To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood." So what's the central message? God loves you, he washes you from your sins in his blood. You see, it's a book of the Gospel, isn't it? But yet here you've got a picture of the Godhead. Go ahead, want to read that next verse? Corinthians 13:14, "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to be with you all." You know, I've got a list of about 24 verses. I did a book on the trinity recently, and I put in a list of 24 verses in the Bible where you see it's either in one or two verses together all three members of the Godhead that are mentioned.
And it's something that, you know, it took years for people to better understand how this one God is composed of three unique persons, but it is the one God we call the Godhead. God, The Father, soul of the world, he sent God The Son, and God The Son died and ascended to heaven, he said, "I will send God the Spirit." And even in Genesis, "the Spirit of God moved on the face of the water." Then you get to Revelation, it says, "the Spirit and the bride say, 'come." So all through the book of Revelation, you're going to find The Father, The Son, and the Spirit are mentioned not just in chapter one, but several times throughout the book. So it gives us a picture of God. And you can look also 1 Peter 1:2, "according to the foreknowledge of God, The Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ." So these are just some of the many verses you see that give us a picture of the same Godhead that then appears in Revelation. Now finally, what is the keynote of Revelation? What is the central figure of Revelation? Revelation 1:7, "behold, he is coming with the clouds," right here at the beginning.
And I told you, my mission this morning is just verses 1, chapter 1 through verse 8. It says in 1:7, 8. "He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him. They who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him." Now how are the ones who pierced Jesus going to see him when he comes? Is everybody, all the wicked going to be raised when he comes? Or is that the second resurrection? Where do we learn about the second resurrection? Revelation 20 tells us the most. "The rest of the dead do not live till the second, till the thousand years are finished.
Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection." So how do those who pierced him see him when he comes? There's a special resurrection. And you can also see in Daniel chapter 12. It says, at that time, Michael will stand up, the great prince that stands for the children of your people. There'll be a time of trouble such as there never has been since there was a nation even to the same time. And at that time that people will be delivered, everyone that is written in the book, and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, resurrection, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.
So when he comes, some are raised to shame. They also who pierced him. So there's a special resurrection of those who were accessories or complicit of the crucifixion and they mock trial of Christ, and he's going to come in glory, and they're going to see that. Woe on them. And then you look in Daniel chapter 7, you've also got the central key focus here in Revelation.
"I was watching in the night visions and behold one like The Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, and he came to the ancient of days." Do we only find Jesus in the new testament? Or do we find Jesus in the prophecies of the old testament? Who is The Son of man that comes to the ancient of days? Well, let's read about what it says here. "They brought The Son of man, he came to the ancient of days, they brought him near before him, then to him was given dominion, and glory, and the Kingdom, and all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion." You know, the central theme of Daniel is God's kingdom will win. Daniel starts by God's people in captivity, but it reminds us through the book that these captivities are temporary, God's kingdom will ultimately fill the earth. And it says Jesus is going to be the King.
It's not talking about the ancient of days, the God, The Father, talking about God The Son. And in Daniel when it says, Nebuchadnezzar stands up and he says, "I threw three men in that furnace, but now I see four alive and walking around, the ropes are burned, and the form of the fourth is like Son of God." So even in the prophecies, in the old testament, do we see Jesus appearing? So one of the central message is, of course, and the keynote of Revelation is, "behold, I am coming quickly." And you go all the way to the end of the book. And the final part of Revelation is be jeweled with a prayer where John says, "even so, come, Lord Jesus." And you know, that's the cry of a man who's writing from bondage. He's a prisoner, and it's like the children of Israel, praying there in Egypt for the deliverance, they cried unto the Lord for deliverance, and the God sent the plagues, it got really bad, and then it got really good when they entered the promised land. And we are going to have something similar in the future.
Time of trouble they went through, time of trouble the early church went through, and there's gonna be a great tribulation at the end of time, and then Jesus is going to come. Amen? Amen. And so we need to pray, even so come, Lord Jesus. I'm really excited about our study together in Revelation in the next… well, I guess we got 12 more weeks left. I want to remind those who may be missed at the beginning, we're glad you're studying with us, but we have a free offer.
And we do talk about the Godhead in our study this morning. We have a book called "the trinity, is it biblical?" Offer number 166, and you can text "sh088." You can download it right now to 40544, you want to download it or you can call 866-788-3966, we'll send that to you for free, give you some additional study. Matter of fact, you know, I think I can just make a fiat decision here and say, we have a new book, it's expanded on the trinity, we'll share that with you if you ask for it. And it's called "the trinity, one God or three?" And, but, if you call, we'll send you either one. Did you learn anything today? Good.
Praise the Lord. I sure enjoyed this study, and we're looking forward to studying His Word with you again next week. Don't forget to request today's life changing free resource. Not only can you receive this free gift in the mail, you can download a digital copy straight to your computer or mobile device. To get your digital copy of today's free gift, simply text the keyword on your screen to 40544 or visit the web address shown on your screen.
And be sure to select the digital download option on the request page. It's now easier than ever for you to study God's Word with Amazing Facts wherever and whenever you want, and most important to share it with others. Hello, friends. We all know, a marathon is one of the longest and hardest races a person can run. But did you hear about the ultramarathon they used to have in australia? It was 544 miles from melbourne to sydney.
It attracted as many as 150 world class athletes. But then something happened that no one would ever forget. In 1983, a 61-year-old potato farmer named cliff young decided to enter the race. People were very amused because he had on rubber galoshes over his boots. And when the race began and all the runners took off, sure enough, old cliff was left behind shuffling along very slowly, but he was shuffling very persistently.
Normally, during this seven-day race, the runners would go about 18 hours running and then they'd sleep for six hours. But nobody ever told cliff that. When the other runners stopped to rest during the night, cliff just kept on running. Some people were afraid old cliff was going to have a heart attack, and they were asking the race organizers to show mercy and stop the crazy old man. But he would have none of it.
Each day, he was gaining on the pack because when they were sleeping, he was plodding along. During the last night of the race, cliff passed all of these world class athletes. Not only was cliff able to run that 544 mile race without dying, he won beating all the other racers by nine hours, breaking the record, and becoming a national hero in process. What's really amazing is when they told him that he had won the $10,000 prize, he looked confused and said he didn't know there was a prize, and he decided to share it with the other runners. When asked how he was able to run all night long, cliff respond that he grew up on a farm where they had about 2,000 herd of cattle, and because he couldn't afford horses, he used to have to round them up on foot sometimes running two and three days nonstop.
So throughout the race, he just imagined he was chasing after the cows and trying to outrun a storm. Old cliff's secret was to keep on running while others were sleeping. You know, the Bible tells us that the race is not necessarily to the swift, something like aesop's parable of the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise just kept on plodding along. That's why Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:13, "he that endures unto the end, the same will be saved.
" Now you might slip and fall during the race. You might even get off to a bad start. But in the Christian race that we run, the main thing is you want to finish well. Keep on running, friends, and don't give up. Let's face it, it's not always easy to understand everything you read in the Bible.
With over 700,000 words contained in 66 books, the Bible can generate a lot of questions. To get biblical straightforward answers, call into Bible answers live, a live nationwide call-in radio program where you can talk to Pastor Doug Batchelor and ask him your most difficult Bible questions. For times and stations in your area or to listen to answers online, visit bal.amazingfacts.org. Amazing Facts changed lives. I'd have to say that I had a wonderful childhood.
Growing up, I went to a private school up until the seventh grade till junior high. I believe it was at that point in junior high that my life began to change. Going from a Christian education and to a public school was a big difference. There was a lot of secular influence, a peer pressure. And for me, it was the music.
I started listening to heavy metal music. Every concert that would come to town, I was there that had a profound effect on me. I started using marijuana probably at the age of 14, I started drinking, using a lot of cocaine. And that led to methamphetamine, and that completely changed my life. I dropped out of high school my sophomore year and went to work.
I would get off of work, and we'd go into the bar until two o'clock in the morning, I get back up at five, and I'd go back again, six, seven days a week. At the age of 20, I lost my dad to a heart attack. I didn't know how to handle the loss. So I tried to mask my pain with alcohol and drugs. I got three duis in one year, was arrested.
They gave me a year in the county jail. And the moment I got out, I went back to doing the same thing, hanging with the same people, the same crowd. I was involved in a hit-and-run motorcycle accident, and I was charged with a felony dui, even though at the time of the accident, I was not under the influence. I still had methamphetamine in my system. At my sentencing day, I left the courtroom, I didn't come back.
And that left me with felony warrant. And I'd fallen asleep being in a park, and I woke up to a park ranger knocking on my window. I knew I was wound up, and I knew that I was not going to just turn myself in. I turned to him and I made the comment, "not today," and I took off, and led five different intricacies on about a 35 minute chase. And I realized at that point that I wasn't going to get away and that this was going to end up either me killing somebody or myself.
And so I made a decision to pull over. At that point, everything that I had, I lost. I was sentenced to two years in state prison, and it was there that God got a hold of me. And that was through Amazing Facts ministries. I remember listening on my radio to Pastor Doug Batchelor.
I wanted to get to know the Bible, I wanted to know God. And so my aunt marylyn sent me the Amazing Facts study guides. And it was there that my relationship with Christ began. I had called home, and I knew my mother wasn't doing well, but I didn't realize that she had cancer. She had about a 30% chance of making it through her surgery.
She had told the doctors that she was not going to have chemo, and she was not gonna have radiation, that if her God was going to save her, then he would save her. I remember hanging up the phone, that I thought was my last conversation with my mom. I turned around, I got down on my knees, and I prayed to God. I said, "God, if you're there, please save my mother. Wherever you lead me in life, whatever you want me to do, I am yours.
"And I had a feeling of such peace that I knew that my mother was going to be okay, and that my life was going to change. There are no words that I can adequately express to Amazing Facts and Pastor Doug to say thank you to all those people who support the ministry. I am a product of your support. My life has changed because of this ministry. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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