Letters to the Churches Part 15

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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March 29, 2022

Sunday school lesson working through the book of Revelation

Letters to the Churches Part 16

00:00: Okay, all right, let me start the video and there we are.
00:09: Always, you know, you always have such limited real estate on here. And then let me make sure that people can turn their, yeah, they can start video.
00:19: Allow participants to start video. I selected that. Those of you who would like to turn your video on, it's always fun to see.
00:25: Oh, there's Luis and Bill. Hello, hello. All right, I saw
00:31: Bruce Burns in the chat today. Oh, boy. Danger, danger.
00:40: He always loves those little disclaimers. All right, and there's the
00:47: Sylvester family. Good to see you, Stephen Elliott. Good to see you, sir. Always a pleasure. Let's see here.
00:53: All right. So let's pray, and we will continue working our way through the book of Revelation.
01:00: Granted that we don't have an interesting topic come up as a result of questions from our online congregation, which are always welcome.
01:08: I want you to know that. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we pray through your spirit that we may rightly believe, confess, do, so that we may hear, mark, read, learn, inwardly digest what you have revealed in your holy word, so that through it our faith may be sustained, that our sins may be made known to us, that we would be properly brought to repentance on a daily basis,
01:32: Lord, and that the Holy Spirit would continue to bear the fruit of the Spirit in us as you sustain us in this sojourning here as we journey towards the new
01:42: Jerusalem. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So let's see.
01:49: Bruce says, right in my place with a bright smiley face. Have you noticed that I developed a twitch,
02:00: Bruce? It goes away on Mondays, but it shows up on Sundays. Good to see your face, sir.
02:10: Good to see your face. Okay. So if you remember last week, we've been working our way through the book of Revelation.
02:16: We were in Revelation chapter 14. And in Revelation chapter 14, we took a little bit of a digression to note the fact that, number one, we learned earlier in the chapter, when you consider the cross references, that everybody who is marked with the name of God, they stand in contradistinction with those who are marked with the sign of the beast.
02:38: And the sign of the beast, there have been people who've been taking that sign for millennia. In the same way that God's name is put on your forehead in an invisible manner when you were baptized into the name of the
02:52: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we learned in the beginning part of this chapter, that's really what this is referring to.
02:58: So there are people who, every one of us born under the dominion of darkness, who follows the ways of this world.
03:05: And you'll note when you consider the life of somebody who is an impenitent, somebody who doesn't trust in Jesus, what hope do they have for eternity?
03:15: What hope do they have? I mean, so everything is focused on this life. And what is it that we are tempted by always and again in this life?
03:24: Temptations of the eyes, temptation of the flesh, temptation to power, temptation to sexual immorality, temptation to feed our sinful passions.
03:33: And so you'll note that if you're not sure what the world is all about, just look at the magazine rack at Walmart as you're getting ready to check out.
03:44: I mean, that should be a stark reminder of the catechism of the world. And that's one of the things that we have to take into consideration here, is that we are either being catechized by the
03:56: Word of God, or we're being catechized by the world. And the catechism of the world over and again is done quite overtly, yet done very entertainingly on television.
04:08: And so, you know, I hate to say this. It's just a drudgery at times to follow a new series on Netflix.
04:17: And part of the reason why is because the world has decided that they're going to embrace and celebrate same -sex marriage.
04:24: And so I always hate it when you have a romantic subplot between two girls or two guys.
04:31: And of course, you know, they always have to show how those relationships develop. And quite frankly, I don't want that in my home.
04:37: But you're going to note then that even the Disney Channel catechizes our children. And I hate to say this, but pretty much the theme of Disney, as well as all the other children's programs, fall along the theme of what basically is the
04:54: Barbie movie. You know, you know, follow the dreams of your heart, you know. And so, you know,
05:03: I want to be a dentist. Anyway, so the idea here… Being a dentist is at least an aspiration of some monetary value.
05:12: Yeah, being a dentist is an actual good vocation. It's a service of the neighbor. Yeah, but the idea here is that you've got to be authentic to who you are, and who you are is what you have the feels for in your heart.
05:23: That's pretty much how it's all determined. And you'll note that true Christianity runs totally opposite against this.
05:31: Your sinful passions, as identified by Scripture as to what is sinful, although you feel those things strongly, they are not your identity in Christ, and they must be recognized as sin, even what you feel.
05:47: So in our society, what you feel is considered to be sacrosanct. It's sacrosanct.
05:53: You cannot tell anybody that their feelings are wrong. But Scripture would beg to differ.
06:00: Scripture would beg to differ. And so one of the things I've been telling people is something I heard not that long ago, but something that just really helped, and that is that all of our feelings are real, but they're not always true.
06:13: All of our feelings are real, but they're not always true. So you have to make a distinction between what is real and what is true.
06:20: And so when we follow our sinful passions, we get into all kinds of trouble. And then you're going to note there, as we work our way through this next section of the book of Revelation, that the world and its passions and its pursuits and what is important to it really are going to start coming to the forefront of the texts that follow from where we are now, where you can see what's in operation, and you can see that when
06:47: God begins to execute judgment, people are completely oblivious to what's going on.
06:54: And despite the disasters and the calamities that God sends for the purpose of waking people up and for them to see and experience and know firsthand the consequences of their sins, they dig in and pretty much curse
07:09: God. That's a fascinating thing, right? And then you're going to note that we're in this next section, we're also going to hear the major theme of Revelation again reiterated.
07:21: And this is a message of hope for us all, all Christians in all generations, even if we're not the final, final, final one.
07:31: Because I don't know when the final generation is. It could be ours, I don't know. It could be the millennials.
07:38: I hope it is, that would be just justice. Here's the reason why, because it's the millennials who brought us the cancel culture.
07:47: I just think it would be mwah if Jesus canceled the whole culture. No, no, no, it wasn't the millennials.
07:54: It was the boomers? Do you not remember the Jesus freaks that then canceled rock music, video games and stuff in the 90s?
08:02: The Jesus freaks were all about bringing those things in. The Southern California Jesus freak scene, man, they were total hippies.
08:12: Maybe the Southern Baptists then. They were all about canceling everything. Cancel all the movies, the video games, everything.
08:19: Okay, so here's the question. So Bruce Brooms, he apologizes and says,
08:25: I was going to be good. Wise. He says, but Pastor, you don't want the homosexual romance and sexual immorality on your screen, but what about all the heterosexual immorality?
08:38: That's true too. That's true too. I'm glad that you brought that up, because my wife is my witness here.
08:46: Anytime we were watching a movie or a show, and they highlight an adulterous affair and a romance, and whenever they come together just to kiss,
08:55: I can't look at it. I literally hold my hands up. But I don't want to see it.
09:01: I don't want to see it. So you're right. You're right. We should not just only highlight the homosexual.
09:09: I would just say this is that that's one of the things that just rubs me totally the wrong way. But so do adulterous romances.
09:16: I have no celebration of any kind of a romantic subplot that involves sexual immorality or adultery or anything like this, which the world's idea is pretty much love the one you're with.
09:29: That's how they say it. Love is love. But he continues on. So when was the last time we heard a
09:34: Christian preacher groan about the fact that almost all the heterosexual romances on television invariably leads to sexual immorality too?
09:41: I think you bring up a great point, Bruce. I think you bring up a great point, and I am rightfully chastened. I don't think
09:47: I complain enough about that. Well, if you're going to complain about that, what else are you going to complain about?
09:54: I have to start complaining about everything. We've got to call sin sin. And here's the thing. I hate to say this, is that the church itself, kind of in general,
10:03: I'm talking about the visible church at large, not only are they now kind of warming up to and giving tacit approval, in some cases, approval to homosexual relationships, but the church barely bats an eye.
10:20: There's no church discipline when you have couples shacking up together and giving each other a test drive, if you would.
10:30: And in fact, it's kind of to be expected. And within Christian congregations, nobody says a thing.
10:36: And yet Scripture says that sexual immorality must not be named among Christian congregations.
10:42: So how do you say that in a congregation?
10:50: Right, so when somebody is breaking that commandment, or commandments related to sexual sin,
10:56: I will say this, I have had conversations with those people and have called them to repentance.
11:03: And I will say that I've had some pushback in the past regarding that. So yeah, loads of fun.
11:10: But the reality is that a pastor, I don't have the idea, I don't have the luxury of smorgasbording which sins we're going to address.
11:17: So note this, that we do have a precedent here at Constantinople.
11:23: If people are living in sexual immorality, they will be hearing from the pastor. And they will be hearing the words, repent.
11:31: And they will also not hear the gospel held out to them until they repent. That's the other part of it.
11:36: So their response has been? Well, I got, let's just say that I got chewed out.
11:47: Yeah, that's a polite way of putting it. I got chewed out when I did that. So, that's okay.
11:53: Goes with the job, right? So, let's see here.
12:00: Let's see here. Fornication. We can't poo -poo the sins that don't tempt us while ignoring the ones that do.
12:05: I completely agree. Again, Bruce, great point. So Hannah says, I don't ignore those sins on TV either.
12:12: It's all hard to tolerate. Goes without saying. Yeah, exactly. It does. And then you think about the great romances that I was,
12:21: Han Solo and Princess Leia, that was awesome. I love you. I know. Sound of music.
12:30: Yeah, the sound of music. Right, exactly. And then Mary says, sex is very common amongst
12:37: Christian singles, but I rarely hear from the pulpit in general that it is a sin. Well, then,
12:42: Mary, I want to make this clear. Every sexual thing that occurs outside of a marriage is sin.
12:52: God has made that clear. And here's the thing. I know that in saying that, that because of how things work out, that there are many of you who are going to hear this knowing that you've broken these commandments.
13:06: And then you need to know this. There is forgiveness and mercy in Christ. You see, Christ died for the ungodly.
13:12: And so when you hear me say that that's a sin, well, Luther used to say that when the devil would remind me of my sins,
13:19: Luther would say. So there's the devil kind of trying to torment Luther. And so the devil would say, oh, you call yourself a
13:24: Christian. I saw you do that thing that you did. And Luther says to the devil, thank you for reminding me of that, because the scriptures are clear that Christ only died for the ungodly.
13:34: And since you reminded me of how ungodly I am, that lets me know what a good candidate I am for the forgiveness of sins.
13:40: So you'll note that law and gospel always come together. But I would also remind people of this, is that pastors in the past and also in the present in some denominations are required to take ordination vows.
13:55: And in my ordination vows, I vowed that I would absolve the sins of the penitent and that I would withhold forgiveness for the impenitent.
14:07: For me to act otherwise is not only contrary to scripture, it's contrary to what
14:13: I vowed. If I don't want to withhold forgiveness and an absolution for those who persist in impenitent sin, then
14:21: I have no business being a pastor. I can go find something else to do, right? Maybe I should take up photography full time.
14:28: I'm sure I'd do okay at that. But the point is this, is that over and again, so many pastors, they take these vows and they treat them with contempt in much the same way that many people treat with contempt their marriage vows.
14:42: And this is the society we live in. And the reality is that this has all got to stop.
14:49: This has got to stop. And we look at the sickness that's out there. We want to talk about sickness out there.
14:55: But the reality is this, is that our Western civilization was built, the very foundations of Western civilization as we know it today, were built by people who held to the scriptures and believed in the morality revealed in God's word and the law of God.
15:14: But ever since the 1900s and the rise of liberalism and Darwinism and all this other nonsense, the church has lost its backbone.
15:23: It's lost its backbone. And it refuses to proclaim God's word as if it's authoritative, as if it's inerrant, as if it's true.
15:31: In fact, I would say this, people who confess that God's word is inerrant, authoritative, and true, that within the visible church, that position has become the minority.
15:44: You know? A contemptible minority. Yeah, yeah. A contemptible minority. I note that Bruce Burns was the one who informed me that in the
15:54: ELCA, if anybody who applies to go to an ELCA seminary today who believes that the
16:00: Bible's the inerrant, inspired word of God will have their application rejected.
16:08: They will not be allowed to enter the seminary. You can't come here. You believe the Bible's the word of God.
16:14: No way. That's grounds for dismissal. That's grounds for church discipline. Mm -hmm.
16:19: Yeah. All right. So, let's see here.
16:26: Mary says, I know it's sin, but I quit dating because there are so many single Christian men who seem to be unaware, and I live in the
16:32: Bible belt. Whoa. Yeah. And you know the reason why they're unaware?
16:39: Because pastors ain't preaching the word. They don't preach the law and gospel. So what does the
16:44: ELCA use as a guideline for the Reader's Digest? No, no, no, no.
16:49: It's worse than that. Let me explain it to you this way. Feelings. Nothing more than feelings.
17:03: Luis, you look like you didn't like that. I tried to sing it, but I love that version of feelings where the guy goes,
17:10: Feelings. Whoa. Feelings. Anyway, that's my favorite line ever. Anyway.
17:16: All right. Let's continue on with Scripture, shall we? Okay. So, a little bit of backup here.
17:21: We're going to read Revelation 14 9 again and then kind of pick back up. So, another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice,
17:30: If anyone worships the beast in its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will also drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the
17:46: Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.
17:55: Now, I'm going to point this out here. Is there any substantive, qualitative difference between what these people here described as receiving their punishment in the lake of fire than every other sinner of all time?
18:11: There is no qualitative difference. It's not like, well, everybody who died in sin and unbelief prior to the great last days before Jesus returned, they have a less smoky, less tormented, less fire -filled eternity.
18:28: This is describing the same punishment that all the damned received.
18:36: And I would point that out since this is not like some special punishment. This is the same punishment that Christ describes that the goats receive when they are tossed into the lake of the fire with the devil and his demons.
18:49: It's true equality. Right. And I want you to hear this statement.
18:57: I've noticed that people have been collecting up Roseboro -isms.
19:06: I'm thinking of one particular person whom I'm looking at right now who sent me a really nice needlepoint that had a whole bunch of Roseboro -isms in it.
19:17: But I would say this in my defense. That before there were
19:23: Roseboro -isms, I learned a whole lot of Rosenblatt -isms. So I make no bones about the fact that I was blessed to have mentors.
19:33: The way I was educated in part was using kind of an old school model of education.
19:40: Not one of sitting in a classroom with a bunch of people, but sitting one -on -one and actually having mentors.
19:46: And so Dr. Rod Rosenblatt, who many of you may know, has been a long time one of the co -hosts of the White Horse Inn.
19:52: Also the one who delivered that amazing message called The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church.
19:58: That Dr. Rosenblatt, there were certain Rosenblatt -isms that I would collect up. And one of his Rosenblatt -isms was this statement.
20:05: And it seems obvious on its face, but let this one sink in. A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all.
20:14: A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all. And so you'll note then, when we talk about the punishment of those who receive the mark, there is no difference between their punishment and the punishment of the damned, which
20:32: Christ describes in the Gospels. Where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and there will be fire, and they will suffer for eternity.
20:43: Christ describes the same thing using different words. And you'll note then that this is another reason why we shouldn't be sitting there trying to figure out whether or not
20:53: UPC codes or RFID chips are the mark of the beast. Okay? Because this is talking not about a specific thing at the very, very end.
21:04: This is talking about a reality that exists in the entire last days.
21:10: And if you've forgotten, the last days began when Christ ascended. The last days end when
21:17: Jesus returns. So that being the case, a difference that makes no difference at all,
21:23: I look at the result of those who persist in sin and unbelief and have the mark of the beast, it's the same punishment.
21:31: And you'll note then that earlier talking about the rewards that those who are marked with the name of God, their reward is no different than the reward of those who are saved.
21:46: A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all. Correct, correct.
21:56: Yes, so Marilyn here says, so you're saying that those who are not saved, they are the ones taking the mark of the beast?
22:01: Exactly. You have neighbors right now who have the mark of the beast. You have neighbors right now who worship the beast.
22:10: That's just the reality of the situation. They go, well, where's the chip? Where's the thing? Okay, yeah.
22:20: I watched that movie about the omen and Damien and all that kind of stuff. And that one movie about the shining where the kid said, rad ram, rad ram.
22:29: Stop getting your theology from Hollywood, okay? All right, now here comes again the theme of this book.
22:36: Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
22:46: The whole book is written to alert you to the present situation that you find yourself in now so that you would have patient endurance.
23:00: You sit there and go, there sure does seem to be a lot of hurt heading our way. A lot of hurt heading our way politically and stuff like that.
23:08: Yeah, well, what do you do in the face of all that? Pray and patiently endure in your faith and continue to keep and guard the commandments of God.
23:21: All right, so we continue. So then I heard a voice from heaven saying, write this. Blessed are the dead who die in the
23:28: Lord from now on. Okay, now question for you. All right, remember what
23:34: Rosenblatt said. The difference that makes no difference is no difference at all. Where does the from now on begin?
23:47: Are we to say that Stephen, the first martyr, that he's not part of that group because he was the first guy to die and he didn't wait to be martyred until the last of the last last days?
23:59: It doesn't make any sense. Okay, so blessed are those who die in the
24:05: Lord from now on. Well, when was this written? Really early in Christian history, right?
24:12: Oh, blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors for their deeds follow them.
24:18: Is that only the people who die in the great tribulation in the last of the last days? No, it's us.
24:24: It's you. It's me. So then I looked. Marilyn has that look on her face. David.
24:31: Yeah. Abraham. David, yeah, that's right. Right. Has David rested from his labors?
24:37: Abraham. How about Peter, James, and John? Uh -huh. Yeah. Okay.
24:43: Are they not blessed? Are they up in heaven having to toil and do work?
24:49: No. You'll note, again, that the punishments and the blessings show the universality of these things for all believers and unbelievers from the time of Christ's ascension forward.
25:02: So then I looked, and behold, a white cloud. And seated on the cloud, one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand, and another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud,
25:16: Put in your sickle, reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.
25:22: So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped. Oh, this sounds like the end of the world again.
25:31: Here we go again. It's the end of the world as we know it. This is the end of the world, right?
25:38: Oh, and by the way, I want to let you guys know this. If we make it to March, those of you who make it into the month of March, congratulations, you've survived the end of the world again because a major false prophet from India has prophesied that Jesus will return before the end of March of this year.
25:55: So congratulations, if you make it to March, you have again survived the end of the world. This will be my 15th time surviving the end of the world.
26:03: I'm keeping track. Remember when they had the four blood moons?
26:16: We put a T -shirt together when the four blood moons finished up, and the T -shirt said, I survived the four blood moons, and all
26:22: I got was this lousy T -shirt. Anyway.
26:31: It makes more sense than microchips. It does. It's going to take us that long to dig out of the snow.
26:38: Yeah, well, you guys got it worse than we have it up here. We have barely any snow on the ground. But it's too cold to snow right now.
26:47: It won't be warm enough until March at this rate. Bummer for us.
26:53: That means everything will just have to keep riding on the lower horizontals and head towards Pennsylvania and New York and all you guys.
27:01: I'll be praying for you. If you need to borrow my snow blower, you can just come pick it up. Okay, let's continue.
27:11: So then another angel came out of the temple in heaven. He too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar.
27:18: And the angel who has authority over fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle,
27:24: Put in your sickle. Gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.
27:31: So the angel swung his sickle across the earth, gathered the grape harvest of the earth, threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
27:40: And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress as high as a horse's bridle for 1 ,600 stadia.
27:49: 1 ,600 stadia, that's about 184 miles. Yeah, river of blood.
27:57: And that's a picture then, a note then, the winepress of the wrath of God. And to which we have to sit there and number one, acknowledge, we all deserve to be one of the grapes squished in that thing.
28:10: And you shouldn't whine about it if you were. Sorry. See, I shouldn't do that.
28:18: I really got to stop doing that. One of the passions of my sinful flesh is telling torturous jokes.
28:26: Okay. But note then this, that this is what we are saved from.
28:31: Again, when we talk about salvation, salvation from what? The just wrath of God against our sin and against us who have taken his word and provoked him by our unrighteousness and despising of his word and despising of his commandments.
28:52: That's the picture. And so here it's depicted, everything is taken, big winepress, and then just the smooshing of it all.
29:03: All right. So there we go again. The world has ended yet again. All right. And here comes the next part of the picture.
29:10: And you're going to note that over and again, in the book of Revelation, we've seen this happen. Where the end of the world has come, there's then usually a picture of what's happening in heaven, and then we come back down to earth, and then we go up the next level of the spiral staircase, and we're going to again look at the end of the world from a different perspective, different metaphors, different pictures.
29:32: So here we go back to heaven. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.
29:46: So now this is the last of the pictures that we're going to get of what's going on.
29:52: And let me check this question. Bruce Burns says, Some terrible theoretical editor of the original text of Revelation removed dad jokes as a sign of God's punishment in the end times.
30:00: I have no evidence of this, but I have my suspicions. Understood.
30:06: Understood. Let the archaeological digging commence. Let's find the lost ancient dad jokes.
30:15: We found the Egyptian Book of the Dead. We found the Gnostic Nag Hammadi library, and oh my goodness, the most horrible thing of all, the lost library of dad jokes written by Thucydides.
30:30: No wonder Alexandria was burned down. Yeah, that's right. If we hadn't have lost the library in Alexandria due to that fire, we would have the ancient scrolls of the dead.
30:51: I just refuse to take myself seriously. There's like no reason. I'm a total train wreck.
30:57: All right, let's continue. All right, now here's the next part of this, and I need to explain this metaphor just a little bit, the way this image works in Scripture.
31:33: Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear,
31:39: O Lord, and glorify in your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.
31:47: And here I would argue, this is a huge picture of what's going on in heaven and one of the major themes of Scripture.
31:57: Let me explain. So here we have what near the throne of God? The sea of glass.
32:05: We all know what a sea of glass looks like, right? This is this amazing body of water that oftentimes becomes a reflection pool, but you're going to note a sea of glass is the epitome of the opposite of the sea of chaos.
32:19: All right, so let me do this a little bit from memory, but we'll go to Genesis 1 real quick.
32:26: All right, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, tohu, and was void, vabohu.
32:39: All right, that's where the tohu, vabohu come. And darkness was over the face of the tahom, over the deep.
32:45: And the Spirit of God was brooding, merekh efet. He was hovering like a bird over the face of the waters.
32:52: All right, so you'll note that the earth itself begins, the universe itself begins in the chaotic waters of the tohu, vabohu, and the tahom, and you have this picture then of all of this chaos, and what does
33:10: God do? He begins to create and change the chaos into order.
33:17: And everything at the end of it is tovme 'od, in Hebrew, very good, tovme 'od.
33:25: It's very good. But what did sin bring into the creation?
33:31: Chaos, all right? So you'll note then, here we've got this major theme.
33:37: Now, fast forward. Fast forward to the Exodus, and I've gotta find the right chapter here.
33:46: I think it's gonna be either 13 or 14. Let me hunt this down. 14, let's see.
33:55: All right, so, no, we're almost there. 15, all right, no, it is 14, hold on.
34:04: All right, so, but Diane says, wait, wasn't that before the fall? Well, the chaos begins before the creation, and then when the creation is completed, all the chaos is gone.
34:15: God takes chaos and turns it into order. Our sin brings it back into chaos. All right, so here's another kind of water picture, if you will.
34:23: We'll do a little water picturing here just to kind of work out. So when
34:29: Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes. So there's the children of Israel. They are camping right on the edge of the
34:38: Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, and Pharaoh's army begins to draw near, and there's only one way in and one way out of this particular beach, and that's through a wadi system that's created in there naturally.
34:54: Everything else is these rock faces. So when Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the
35:01: Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly, and the people of Israel cried out to Yahweh, and I love this, they said to Moses, is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you've taken us away to die in the wilderness?
35:13: What have you done to us bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not what we said to you in Egypt?
35:19: Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians. They are the biggest grumblers of all time, and the only two, you know, a close second are children in the back of a
35:30: SUV on a family driving trip, okay? So, are we there yet?
35:40: Mom, he's touching me. Anyway, all right. So Moses said to the people, fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of Yahweh which he will work for you today for the
35:52: Egyptians, whom you see today you shall never see again, and then the Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.
36:00: And so the Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it, so the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.
36:15: I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen, and the
36:25: Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh when they have gotten glory over Pharaoh and his chariots and his horsemen.
36:33: And then the angel of God, who was going before the host of Israel, moved and went behind them. A pillar of cloud moved in from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel, and there was the cloud and the darkness, and it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
36:51: Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove back the sea by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
37:04: So you're gonna know, here we've got strong wind. What happens when you got a strong wind? Whitecaps.
37:09: You got a tumultuous Red Sea, and God parts the Red Sea, and the children of Israel walk through the
37:17: Red Sea as on dry land. Here's a picture of a water rescue, if you would, that involves not a glassy sea, but a tumultuous, windswept, and let's say anxiety -ridden event, if you would.
37:31: The Egyptians pursued, went in after them into the midst of the sea, all of Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
37:37: And in the morning, watch, the Lord in the pillar of fire of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces, threw the
37:43: Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariots and wheels so that they drove heavily. And the
37:48: Egyptians said, let us free them from before Israel, for Yahweh fights for them against the
37:53: Egyptians. And then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea, and the water may come back upon the Egyptians and upon the chariots and upon their horsemen.
38:01: So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course.
38:08: When the morning appeared, as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.
38:14: The waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea. Not one of them remained, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
38:29: Thus, Yahweh saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians. Israel saw
38:34: Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that Yahweh used against the
38:41: Egyptians. So the people feared Yahweh, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
38:46: And here's kind of the part where I want to highlight another aspect of this, if you remember, that here we've got this picture of the sea of glass, and those who, and the saints in heaven standing beside the sea of glass with harps, and whose song are they singing?
39:05: The song of Moses, the servant of God. And the song of the Lamb. If you would, kind of the next verse of a song that was written long ago, and here's kind of the first versions of the verse.
39:19: So Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to Yahweh, saying, I will sing to Yahweh, for he has triumphed gloriously.
39:27: The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song.
39:33: He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him.
39:39: My Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord, Yahweh, is his name.
39:46: Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the
39:52: Red Sea. The floods covered them. They went down into the depths like a stone.
39:59: Your right hand, O Yahweh, glorious in power. Your right hand, O Yahweh, shatters the enemy.
40:04: In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries. You send out your fury.
40:11: It consumes them like stubble. In the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up.
40:17: The floods stood in a heap. The deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said,
40:22: I will pursue. You're gonna note here, this picture is the exact picture of chaos, right?
40:28: And the enemy said, I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide the spoiled. My desire shall have its fill of them.
40:34: I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them. You blew with your wind.
40:40: The sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods?
40:46: Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds? Doing wonders, you stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them.
40:55: You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
41:04: The peoples have heard. They trembled. Pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia, and now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed.
41:13: Trembling seizes the leaders of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. Terror and dread fall upon them because of the greatness of your arm.
41:22: They are still a stone. Till your people, O Lord, pass by. Till your people pass by whom you have purchased.
41:29: You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain. And the place, O Yahweh, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary of Yahweh, which your hands have established,
41:39: Yahweh will reign forever and ever. And note here, this part, this last part of this song from Exodus 15 sounds like it could and should be appearing in the book of Revelation.
41:52: That's intentional. God the Holy Spirit has kind of revealed to us kind of like the next missing verses.
42:00: Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations.
42:06: Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.
42:15: And you'll note by invoking and letting us know that this is the song of Moses, it requires us then to flip over back to Exodus 15 and look at that song again.
42:25: All right, now another theme here, and I'm not gonna read it out at this point, but I will remind you of the story.
42:33: Another theme of the chaotic waters is found in the story of the flood. And we all know how the story goes, that God deluged the entire earth and the only believers who were saved were those who were in the ark.
42:48: All right, and the ark itself is a type and shadow of Christ. And in our baptisms, we are baptized into Christ, into his death, into his resurrection.
43:00: And so Christ is the ark that takes us through the deluge of God's wrath and delivers us safely in the shores of God's heavenly kingdom.
43:13: And so the idea here of this sea of glass, so you can see, it invokes the creation, it invokes the flood, it invokes even the crossing of the
43:23: Red Sea, it invokes all of those things. And then you can kind of see again then with new eyes how this then plays into our understanding of Christ walking on the water and our understanding of Christ calming the
43:40: Sea of Galilee, right? So because those are the themes that are in play here. And let me go into the book of Matthew for this.
43:47: Hang on a second here. And now I gotta do this from memory, which means I'm gonna fail miserably. Hang on a second here.
43:55: Let's see here. I need the account of where Christ is asleep.
44:06: Let me just say sleeping. Hang on a second. And I'll do a flex search.
44:15: Hang on a second here. I know the book, but off the top of my head, I'm not going to be able to get us there proper.
44:23: Let's see here. All right.
44:37: Let's see here. Hmm. I know it's in Matthew.
44:53: Doing some memory work here. Hang on.
45:08: Okay, we're gonna start in Matthew 8. Give me a second here. And then we're gonna do Matthew 8 and Matthew 14.
45:15: Hang on a second here. So we're gonna take a look at both of these accounts. Matthew 8. All right.
45:26: So watch this next bit. Matthew 8. By the way, that's a great prayer.
45:50: That's a good one, you know. And we all pray that in many different ways.
46:10: All right. So there they are. Middle of this tumultuous sea.
46:17: And Jesus rebukes the sea. Rebukes it. You know,
46:23: Ken Copeland can try this. It ain't gonna work. Okay. For all of his talk of being able to command the country. And Cat Kerr can wave her stick at it all she wants.
46:31: It ain't gonna do a thing. But Jesus, he rebukes the sea. And then immediately it just goes.
46:43: It goes to glassy like that. Right? That's kind of invoking these things.
46:49: So the men marveled and said, What sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?
46:55: Now the next picture. Matthew 14. After the feeding of the 5 ,000,
47:02: Jesus sends the disciples off in the boat. And we're gonna note here this.
47:07: I promise you, I am not gonna ask you to get out of any boats. All right. That's just bad advice.
47:13: Okay. It's just bad preaching too. That's not the point of the text. So it says, So you're gonna note here.
47:43: Jesus is walking not on a calm sea. He's walking on the chaos. He's walking on the sea of chaos.
47:49: Not a glassy sea, but the opposite of it. And the disciples are in the midst of all of this.
47:55: And the thing is, when you know how your biblical typology works, this should invoke several things.
48:00: The chaos of creation. The flood. Like we pointed out, the crossing of the Red Sea. But also this is going to invoke.
48:08: And the way the ancient church read this text is that there were some church fathers who likened what
48:13: Christ was doing here as him walking on the head of Leviathan. Okay.
48:19: Leviathan is this big picture of the demon god of chaos, if you would. The great sea monster who eats people whole.
48:26: And so they see in this text, along with chaos, you've got the big sea creature
48:32: Leviathan. And what's Jesus doing? He's just walking like he's taking a stroll down the street.
48:39: You know. Which is not normal. Okay. And so when they saw him, they cried in terror, saying,
48:50: It's a ghost. And they cried out in fear. And immediately Jesus spoke to them, and he said, and listen to the words, he said,
48:59: Take heart, ego e me, I am. And then he says,
49:05: Me phobos the. Do not be afraid. And here's the thing. The ESV, and this is one of the things
49:12: I fault the ESV for, is that they do not rightly point out the ego e mes in the
49:20: Gospels. They don't. And I think that that's a crime.
49:25: Whereas the King James Version does a very good job of getting the I ams in there. All right. So Jesus says,
49:31: I am. He's invoking the name of God from Exodus chapter 3 when
49:37: Moses says, Who should I tell the children of Israel sent me? What's your name, God? And he says,
49:42: Tell them I am has sent you, right? So Christ says, I am. Don't be afraid. And Peter says,
49:48: What you talking about, Willis? All right. Showing my age here.
49:59: Anyway. So, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water. I always have to point this out.
50:05: You're going to know. Peter is not saying he wants to walk on the water because he trusts Jesus.
50:11: He has great faith. Do you have water -walking faith like Peter had? The point is that Peter had water -walking skepticism, okay?
50:21: He wasn't asking to come out on the water because he believed it was Jesus. He was asking to come out on the water because he didn't know for sure if it was
50:28: Jesus. So this is not a great act of faith on his part. So he said,
50:33: Come. We all know how this goes. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water.
50:39: And this is practically where all of these bad sermons end. Look, Peter walked on the water. Do you want to walk on the water with Jesus?
50:45: Let's dance on the water with Jesus and all this kind of nonsense. I've heard so many bad sermons.
50:50: It's all just malarkey. Anyway. So he walked on the water, came to Jesus, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid.
50:59: Beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Oh, that's a good prayer, too. That's just a good prayer.
51:06: And Jesus immediately reached out his hand, took hold of him, and said, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?
51:11: And then watch this. When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
51:17: And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. So here we got a picture of Christ walking on the chaos, walking in the midst of the windy sea.
51:27: And as soon as he gets into the boat, everything goes, whoo.
51:33: Right? Ah, pretty cool. And all of this is kind of invoking one of those major themes.
51:41: And then we get into the book of Revelation, and there at the end of the earth, where are all the saints?
51:47: In the presence of God. Beside what? The sea o' glass. All right?
51:54: They're worshiping God before the, whoo. Right? And then we get more of the
52:02: Song of Moses here. We get another verse of the Song of Moses, and it invokes this major theme.
52:08: And so the idea then here is that God began the creation of the universe by taking chaos and turning it into order.
52:18: Our sin has reintroduced chaos into the world. And the consequences of our sin are great.
52:25: It includes earthquakes and tornadoes and lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my.
52:31: And it also includes hurricanes and water spouts and large waves, rogue waves, that just swallow up entire ships.
52:39: It includes the Bermuda Triangle and all the things that we're afraid of. Right? That's all the chaos of sin.
52:46: But the picture here is one that brings us comfort and hope. And the hope is that the chaos of this world and the consequences of our sin give way to what
52:59: Christ is creating and bringing, and that is a world where there is none of that, and we worship
53:06: God in front of and beside the sea of glass, which is a picture of how
53:11: God has calmed that storm, the storm of this life, forever. Forever.
53:20: I wonder if there's photography in the New Earth because I'd like to photograph this thing. I'm already thinking of some compositions.
53:29: Anyway, it'll never do it justice. Never. It's overexposed again.
53:42: Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Here in Minnesota, you can walk on the water right now, don't you know?
53:49: And while you're at it, bring an auger with you. You can throw a fishing line once you auger out the ice.
54:01: So is evil present then before God created the world? No. No. No. Everyone's waving at us.
54:11: Okay. Okay. All right. They're trying to warn us of something. Yeah, warn us of impending doom.
54:18: Okay, that's hilarious. Okay. So there wasn't evil before the fall.
54:26: That's not it. But you get a note then that before the foundations of the earth are laid,
54:32: God knew exactly what we were going to go through. And so even in the creation of the world, you have this picture of chaos going into order.
54:41: In the same way, then, we see that the chaos of sin is stilled and that we worship
54:47: God before the glassy sea. Sylvester Family says, You couldn't fit in a boat into a Kongsvinger for you to sit in while you're preaching away anyway.
54:55: Guess what? We dodged a bullet there. Listen, you know, don't make me go challenge accepted because I have an inflatable kayak.
55:08: I can fit that in here. The thing is is that I would look like an idiot if I were preaching from inside of an inflatable kayak.
55:16: Not only would I be twisting God's word, I'd be just making a fool of myself. I do the second one all the time anyway.
55:21: But still, we don't want to add to the insult to injury. So you get the idea. Just like Peter. Just like Peter.
55:28: Okay. All right. Now let's see here. 15.
55:35: After this I looked and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened. And out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues clothed in pure bright linen.
55:45: So they're coming onto the stage, if you would, the last picture of what this looks like of their judgment.
55:52: And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever.
55:58: And the sanctuary was filled with smoke and the glory of God from his power. And no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.
56:09: All right. And this is now the interlude. So note that there's a pattern in Revelation. The world ends. We go back up to heaven.
56:14: We get a picture of heaven. And now the focus is going to change. And then the cycle begins all over again.
56:21: All over again. And this is what we'll pick up next week. Bruce says, so even if we have a lot to suffer, I'd love to, 2
56:28: Corinthians 1 is a message about how much God can use our sufferings for us and for our neighbors. Indeed.
56:34: Indeed. And that's the wonderful thing. True biblical Christianity teaches you to endure patiently in the midst of our sufferings, knowing that Christ has not abandoned us, and that God uses our sufferings oftentimes to chasten us, but oftentimes for his own glory.
56:51: Paul makes a big to -do about the fact that if he's going to boast about anything, he's going to boast about the things that show his weakness.
56:59: Because he notes that when we are weak, then Christ is strong. And so our sufferings are things that we embrace as coming from God, and we learn what
57:11: God would have us learn through them. Whereas the word of faith teachers and all these people, they teach you that somehow you can command and decree and control and get rid of, you know, it's never
57:23: God's will for you to suffer. Well, I hate to beg to differ with you, but Jesus did. You know, how do you explain that?
57:30: You know, so, all right. Well, brothers and sisters, it was a joyous time. I really enjoyed our time together today.
57:36: It was good to see you all. Good to see you all. Even if you didn't have your video on, it's always wonderful to see the list of people who are here joining us.