Letters to the Churches Part 11

Okay, we're going to get started. If you have a Bible, grab a Bible. Those of you joining us online, if you have any questions, please, please, please feel free. You have the freedom to ask questions.

And I can't promise I will get to every one of them, but I do make a profound effort to try to do that. It depends on if Bruce opens up or not. Bruce is in the flesh, and so you never know what's going to happen.

So, all right, let's pray, and then we will get started. And maybe, just maybe, we might continue with the book of Revelation. Heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, we come before you in humble awe.

You are the one true God. There is none other like you. Come, we pray, bless our hearts and our minds as we study your word. Send your Holy Spirit into our lives that we may grow in love and grace and that we may go forth into all the world proclaiming your gospel so that others may learn of your saving grace.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. We have been in a study of the book of Revelation, on and off, mostly on. It just kind of depends on how the questions are. I'm putting you in time out, Bruce. Listen, the finger halo ain't going to work.

It just doesn't work that way. All right, last week we began looking at probably the most famous chapter in all of the book of Revelation, chapter 13, and looking at it regarding the rise of the beast and the false prophet.

We noted that in chapter 12, could it be Satan? Yes, it's Satan. Satan is the one who has decided that being really upset that he was incapable of destroying the child, that's Christ, and he's now gone up into heaven.

In fact, his death was the very thing that resulted in his overthrow, that he has created two mega weapons to wage war against the church. One is the beast and the other is the false prophet. I do think it behooves us to kind of back up just a little bit in the context, work through some of these things, and maybe even consider some of the text as they relate to it.

I think I want to go into Daniel 7. Yes, all right. To lay foundation for our study today, isn't this great to be studying something this terrifying? It seems like this should be like a Halloween text.

We're doing this right before Christmas. But I will note that I am not alone in studying the book of Revelation in the month of December. If you follow the year-long lectionary in the Treasury of Daily Prayer, the readings are from Revelation in the New Testament right now.

So I'm not totally nuts. I'm only mostly nuts. So you've got to understand that part. So I saw that. I saw that, Anna. Well, okay. We will note that this is an interactive experience. Hello, hello, Sylvester family.

Daniel 7 and the Four Beasts as a Pattern for Revelation 13

All right, very good. So in the book of Daniel, chapter 7, let me read this account, and we're going to pay attention to the beasts, if you would, in this text because this is going to help us a little bit in really digging a little deeper into Revelation 13.

So Daniel 7 says, In the first year of Belshazzar... Have you ever noticed that when it comes to Bible names, nobody names their kids Belshazzar anymore? It just seems to have fallen out of vogue. Anyway, Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed.

Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.

The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. Then as I looked, its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it.

And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth, and it was told, Rise, devour much flesh. After this, I looked, and behold, another like a leopard with four wings of a bird on its back, and the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it.

And after this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful, exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet.

It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.". Now, note here something. These beasts that are being described in this vision are referring to, if you would, empires of men.

These are kingdoms. These are historic kingdoms, and we know that one's like a lion, the other's like a bear, the other one's like a leopard. What's that fourth one like again? It doesn't say. It doesn't say.

It doesn't say what it's like. It just says that it has, it doesn't describe it. It says, the fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful. He has nothing to compare it to, nothing. Nothing to compare it to.

It was different, and it had iron teeth. It devoured and broke in pieces, stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it. It had ten horns. Hmm, that's the number of completeness.

I consider the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots, and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.

Hmm. All right.

Rav, rav. Great things. As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames. Its wheels were burning fire, a stream of fire issued and came out from before him.

A thousand thousands served him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment. The books were opened. So note here the flow of things, the flow of this vision. You've got these beasts.

You've got the fourth one, which isn't described in any other way except for it's terrifying. It destroys. It stamps with its feet. And then, full stop, Day of Judgment. These two texts speak to each other.

They're related. They're interleaved.

All right.

So the books were opened. When books are opened, that's Day of Judgment, by the way. So I looked. Then, because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking, and as I looked, the beast was killed, its body destroyed, and given over to be burned with fire.

As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, and all peoples, nations, languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. That is referring to Christ. And note, then, how that even perfectly fits together with what it is that we saw in our Old Testament text today, talking about the promise that God said that he will build David a house, and that one of his descendants, one of his sons, would sit on the throne.

His kingdom would be established forever. As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me. So he had a PTSD trigger here, so he's really, really upset about this.

And so I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all of this. He told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. And here, this is where you're gonna note, then, we learn how to interpret apocalyptic visions like this by paying attention to how God in the past has given interpretations.

Yes, sir.

He raised his hand. By the way, this is Bruce. The Bible study is now over. No, I'm kidding.

Ha ha ha.

Correct. All right, so 1 Peter 2, 5. Promise of the house. The question is, do I tie that into 2 Peter 2, 5? Sorry, 1 Peter 2, 5. My apologies, sir.

All right.

Clearly, my short-term memory is now fading quickly. 2 Peter what?

1 Peter 2, 5.

1 Peter 2. And we'll take a look at verse 5. Ah, yes, the answer is yes. I can tell, but let's read it out. So as you come to him, a living stone, rejected by men in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And I think I would even throw into this, you know, is it 2 Corinthians 3 or 1 Corinthians 3? It's one of the two, the idea of what the temple of God is. And so you'll note that I think the right interpretation, and here's the reason why exegetically I also think that's the right interpretation.

And I mentioned it in the sermon. In 2 Samuel 7, the one who was prophesied, God said that he would establish his throne forever. The throne of Solomon is not. And God ended up at the end of Solomon's life rejecting him because Solomon set up high places to false gods, and he included in the things that he set up in Israel, Solomon set up the worship of Molech in Israel, the abomination of the Ammonites.

So you'll note that Solomon ultimately is rejected, and Christ isn't. So the idea then here is that then when you look at that text, the house that is being built, that is being promised, I think it absolutely has to go along these lines, that we are the living stones of that house that God is building.

By his word, not by our righteousness.

Yeah, that's right. We are bricks. We are living stones being built up into a spiritual house.

Correct.

And when you think about it, we have to respond with David in like kind. David said, oh, who am I, Lord? And we rightly then humbly respond, oh, Lord, who am I that I would be a living stone in this house that you are building?

I should be a stone that should be rejected. Christ never should have been a stone that was rejected, but he is the cornerstone. And we recognize because of our sin and rebellion, we don't deserve to be living stones in this house that Christ is building.

Not at all. And so we humbly thank God. And that's kind of the whole point then, is that Christianity is not like any other religion. God does everything for us.

Gave. Uh-huh. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

I have a tendency to do that with Christmas presents too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

And if I can build off of one of the points I had exegetically kind of teased out in the sermon today, when I compare Christ to the devil, you'll note that if you want to know what Christ is like, you look at the cross.

That's what God is like. He is loving, kind, merciful. And when God finally acts in anger, it is only after a long period of steadfast patience in the hope that somebody would be forgiven. And so it makes it very clear that God, when he acts in anger and his wrath, it is because those whom he has been patient towards have continued to provoke him and to provoke him.

And God finally says, all right, you don't want my mercy. You don't want kindness. You don't want grace. You don't want love. You don't want forgiveness and reconciliation.

Okay.

The only thing left is his wrath. Whereas the devil, and this is where we're too much like him, he is quick to anger. In fact, Scripture always describes the devil in terms of seething, angry, a roaring lion, prowling.

And what is it that the devil does? He absolutely inflicts not peace but fear, not love but terror, not unity but discord. Yeah, he's a devourer. God is a giver. He's the one who created us and in creating us gave us everything that we need, everything we receive, we receive from the hand of God, and his nature is nothing like the beast.

Oh, no, here we go. I'm going to duck.

Hang on.

Two days ago, you had a falsehood.

I heard a lot recently God hates sinners.

Yeah, he does. He sends actual sinners to hell.

Okay.

So it's false gospel.

So your balance point is going to be firmly hooked in the cross. Okay, so let's start with that. So note, I wasn't declaring that God just loves everybody in the sense that there is no wrath for them or that somehow the gospel is that Jesus is like your Jewish grandmother and when she comes to visit.

They can be scary.

Yeah, but when she comes to visit, have you ever seen how a Jewish grandmother gives a greeting?

Oh, it's so good to see you.

You know, it's like what on earth? I've seen this. I've seen this happen.

Okay.

All right.

And nothing you do, nothing you do would ever tarnish her love for you in her eyes. And you could just be as rotten as rotten is.

Oh, he's the cutest thing ever.

You know, right?

Okay, so we're going to make something clear. When we talk about God's love, then you anchor it in the cross and here's where we go with this. Is that you go into Romans where it says so clearly that God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

So the idea then here is that the gospel is not that God is just love, love, love, love, love, love. It is a proper distinction when you counter distinct God and the fact that he is loving and patient and kind, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, pardoning iniquity as opposed to the devil where everything that the devil does is seething rage and wrath.

But we recognize then that we must, must see the weight of our sin, the magnitude of our rebellion against God and get rid of this idea that I'm basically a good person and that I have just a few hurts, habits, and hang-ups that I just need to iron out in my behavior and that the message of the gospel then as wrongly taught by Rick Warren in that sermon that I reviewed was that God stretched out his arms and says I love you this much.

That's not the gospel. The gospel is that Christ died for our sins. And so we recognize then that both the law and the gospel, the two witnesses that we mentioned last week in the book of Revelation, they preached to us throughout the time of Christ's ascension until his return, the law convicting of us our sin and letting us know that we have earned the wrath of God.

But because God is love and he's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and his anger only comes when it's provoked, in his sanity of love he has provided a way for us to be reconciled to him so that we would not have to suffer his wrath.

And so in talking about the difference, the contradistinction between how the devil is and how God is, in no way are we saying that God is love is the gospel. No, the gospel is that Christ died for our sins.

The why he did it is because of who he is in his nature. He is love. And so we note that the glory of God is to pardon iniquity. It is absolutely the glory of God. As God revealed to Moses while he was in the cleft of the rock, it is to pardon iniquity.

And so I thank God that God is nothing like the devil.

Nothing.

But we all understand how the devil is. You cross the devil and the volcano rages. And there is no forgiveness. There is no mercy. There is only destruction. You unite with my enemy, God. I'm going to hunt you down like a dog.

And I'm going to send all the fiery darts that I can find your way. I'm going to make your life utterly miserable. And is it any wonder that one of the major themes of what results with Christ's victory is that God finally silences all of our enemies and brings to us real shalom, peace.

And so there will never again be a man of violence or people of violence who will afflict us, who will terrorize us, who will bring harm to us. In fact, the rest and the peace that are awaiting us in Christ's kingdom when he finally establishes his kingdom here on earth, in its totality, in all of its glory, a world without end, without enemies.

There will be nobody who deviates from God's word. There will be nobody who in the name of God is murdering people.

Nobody.

There will be no slander. There will be no broken relationships. There will be no adultery, no murder, no thieving. I think about, I often wonder, what will be our modes of transportation in the new world?

It's not an out-of-bounds question. You sit there and go, will we pick up where we left off with all of our technology or are we going back to horse and buggy? I don't know. I'm not good with horse and buggies.

But the idea being is that if there were vehicles, if there were cars, there would be no locks. There's no police. You want to defund the police? Preach the gospel. There are no police. There are no prisons.

There are no jails in the new earth. You want to defund the police? The only way to do it is to preach the gospel. You want a world without police? Then you recognize your own sin. And you recognize that that's a world that Christ has promised is coming.

And it's not in Minnesota. I guarantee that.

Okay?

I'm a little off topic. Sorry, I got it on my salt box. Weird question, Sylvester Family asks, Do you think everyone in the line of David is in heaven by virtue of Jesus being involved genetically? No.

No. Absolutely not. You think of Manasseh. You think of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah. There's no reason to believe that these men are in heaven with Christ. And you're going to note that being a genetic descendant of Jesus does not promise you salvation.

There's only one way of salvation, and that's faith in Christ, period. And in the Old Testament, David had faith in Christ. He didn't know his name. He knew that the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

He knew that his Savior was his descendant and his Lord. He knew that. But he didn't know his name, so he trusted the promises of God that he had. How shall we say it? As Father Abraham said to the unnamed, the nameless rich man who was in torment in Sheol, if they will not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not believe even if somebody rises from the dead.

So faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. The voice of God is in the Scripture. He is appealing to us and calling out to us to repent and to be reconciled to him for the sake of Christ.

And there were men in the past who had no excuse, and they refused to hear the word of God. And Scripture is very clear that they did not obey the voice of God in the Scriptures, and that was their big fault.

So, good questions, by the way. Thank you. Can you please repeat the question for those there at Kungsvinger Church? We cannot hear them clearly. I will try to make a point of doing that. I'm glad for the reminder.

So when somebody here at Kungsvinger asks a question, I will repeat the question succinctly as best as my memory will permit. So, my apologies for those of you online. I wish we had a way of connecting that microphone into the thing, but, you know, one of these days, right?

I don't know how to do it. We're always trying to improve things here. We're incrementally getting better at this thing. It might create a problem. All right, coming back then to Daniel.

All right, so,.

Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying its teeth of iron, claws of bronze, which devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped what was left with its feet, and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth, and spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions.

As I looked, this horn made war with the saints, and prevailed over them. Wait a second, that sounds just like what we read in the book of Revelation. Ah, okay, there's a connection here.

All right.

So, it prevailed over them until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. So, note, you've got to pay attention to the promise here, because it's easy to get lost in the terrifying bits.

The world just ended again!

Okay, so, here's the terrifying bits.

All right.

This beast is going to make war against the saints, prevail over them, but their most important word in this sentence is until.

All right?

It's until. In other words, we can't defeat this thing. Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given. Watch this. Judgment was given for the saints. I don't know why it did that. Hang on a second here.

So, they were given to the saints, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. So, what you're saying, God, here, is there's this beast thingy, and it's super terrifying. Daniel can't even explain what it looks like,.

Because it's so bizarre.

It's going to grind us up, and stamp on us, and beat on us, and keep winning, but at the end, you're going to say, and the winner is the saints! That's how that goes. He's going, oh boy. What does this call for?

Patient endurance. That's the theme of Revelation. So, thus he said, as for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it into pieces.

Is anyone nervous about globalism?

Okay.

As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom, ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them. He shall be different from the former ones. He shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High.

Oh, when you speak words against the Most High, what's that called? Blasphemy.

Right?

Didn't blasphemy come up in Revelation 13? We'll take a look back at this. Note how these two texts work together. He shall wear out the saints of the Most High.

Lovely. Lovely.

This calls for what? Patient endurance. He's gonna wear us out.

All right?

And shall think to change the times and the law. He's gonna flat out make adjustments to the Torah itself, right?

Wow.

And they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. Oh, wait, that's the same period of time from, ah, so when does this thing come around? What was the first empire that I said last week exemplifies this beast?

Rome.

Right?

That was the first iteration of it. This thing keeps dying and rising from the dead. It's like a cat. It's got nine lives. In this case, it might even have more than that.

Yeah.

We're on life 22, you know? And so you'll note, it's so volatile.

All right?

And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole of heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High. His kingdom shall be an everlasting. Okay, but, okay, I missed the best part. My apologies here.

They're given into his hand for time, time, half a times, but, my favorite word in Scripture when it comes to these kinds of passage, but, okay, because that erases all the stuff in front. The court shall sit in judgment.

His dominion shall be taken away to be consumed and destroyed to the end. And the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole of heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.

And his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom. And all kingdoms shall serve and obey him. And he shall reign forever and ever. But you'll note what this text says, and we shall reign with him. The dominion is given to us.

All right.

So think of it this way. God has revealed and made known for a really long time. How long? Going all the way back to the Babylonian exile, the game plan. Here's how it's gonna go down. And think of it this way.

If we think in terms of like world wars, it'll help us out a little bit here. We all are familiar with the history of World War II. More so than World War I. World War I is a little bit of an enigma for most of us.

But World War II, we get. We got attacked by Japan. Talking for those of us here in the States, we got attacked by Japan. We got drug into the war. And what did we do? We, well, we cleaned house. We fought back.

We fought them all the way back to their homelands. There was D-Day and then V-E Day. And finally, we dropped a couple of ginormous bombs.

Boom, boom.

And Japan said, we give up. And we won. But nobody could have predicted at the beginning of it how World War II would have played out. But here's the thing. World War II is not the longest running war in human history.

The longest running war in human history is the one against God. That we have been belligerents in. First born under the dominion of darkness, belligerents who hated God. We were born on the side of the enemy.

And God in his grace has transferred us from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of his son. And he's made it clear, here's how this cosmic war is going to go down and how it's going to end. At the very end, it's going to really get nuts.

This beast thingy wages war against the saints. It'll eventually get dominion over all of the earth. And we are going to be utterly worn out. We're going to be defeated on the landing grounds. We're going to be defeated everywhere.

Take Churchill's speech, right? Yes, we're going to be defeated on the landing grounds. We're going to be, yeah, you get the, yeah. In the air, in the land, in the sea. We're going to be totally worn out, defeated, trampled on, spit on.

The dragon's going to win, win, win. But don't worry, Jesus shows up at the end and says, veto. No, he sounded much drunker than I am. Elizabeth says, my opinion, the fourth beast is either communism or Islam.

The fourth beast has multiple heads. Islam and communism and fascism are all manifestations of that beast. They are just different heads of the same beast. No, we're supposed to stand. Okay, so how does one fight for the faith?

You give your witness. That's what a martyr is, is a witness. You say, I confess Christ. The beast says, you confess Christ, I kill you. You say, you can't, I'm already dead. And the beast says, well, I'll prove you wrong.

And he kills you. And the beast finds out at the end, I was wrong. I couldn't kill him, he was in Christ. So this patient endurance bit, if you understand the game plan, here's how the battle's going to play out.

We're going to get the snot kicked out of us. It is going to be a JV team playing the New England Patriots from a couple years ago. That's what we're talking about here.

Are you saying that?

Yes, I am. Is Dwayne here?

Yeah.

Yes.

Correct.

Right.

In fact, let me back this up. So the question for those of you online, so you're basically saying, we're supposed to take our stand. That's what we're supposed to do. That's our standing, those are our orders.

Let's talk about what King Jesus says we're supposed to do and how we armor up for this epic losing battle. It's awesome. We're going to win by losing because Christ has already won anyway. Let's take a look at that famous passage in Ephesians 6.

Here we go. Finally, be strong in the what? In the Lord. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of whose might? His might. Not yours. Not mine. The sooner you get to the end of yourself and say, listen, I got no strength.

Paul says, I am going to glory in the things that demonstrate my weakness because when I am weak, he is strong. And that means in everything. You sit there and you go, the devil keeps tempting me in this way and I keep listening to him.

No, you keep trying to fight the devil with him. With your own strength. Confess that you do not have the power to say no to the devil, your own sinful flesh, the world, whatever comes against you. You don't have that power to say no to that.

The Holy Spirit gives you that. So be strong in his might, his power. He promises to give it to you. So patient endurance, here's our armor. Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

There are no orders to advance. You stand. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Daniel 7 says we're going to lose. Revelation 13 says we're going to lose. We're going to be worn out. So our job in this war that we are in, our job is to stand our ground and our job is to lose. So what do we do there?

Take up the whole armor of God so that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, knowing that many of us won't. But to withstand ultimately to the end is to continue to confess Christ, even when they put your head in a guillotine and say if you do not deny Christ, we're going to take that thing off your shoulders.

Yeah, and Josh goes, oh no, don't do that. Exactly.

All right, yes sir, yeah. Yeah, all right.

So stand therefore, notice it says, stand, stand. How many times, how many standing texts have we heard so far in this text? Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of what? Truth, truth, belt of truth.

No lies of the truth. How do you stand against the devil? You don't listen to the lies. Somebody says, oh, you know, I feel the Lord telling me right now that we just need to embrace everybody and give everybody a hug.

No, that's not the voice of God, right? So you stand with the belt of truth and putting on the breastplate of righteousness. That's the righteousness of Christ. It's described multiple ways then in Scripture.

The righteousness of Christ is the very garments of our salvation. He has taken our filthy garments and placed on us his righteousness. And now his righteousness then is a breastplate, keeps us from getting a mortal gut shot wound, right?

As shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of what?

Peace.

Peace with whom?

With God. And then that peace with God then flows to each other. Have you ever noticed that we are all at peace with each other? We are. We are at peace with God and we are at peace with each other. We are the saints.

We are the forgiven ones. And so you'll note that the readiness of the gospel of peace is that being ready to sprint to whoever needs to hear the gospel, to proclaim to them that Christ has bled and died for their sins.

That's the readiness that comes with that. And then in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. You mean, wait, while we're standing, we're going to have flaming arrows coming our way?

Yeah.

Okay, and let me tell you a little bit about a Roman shield. Roman shield, oftentimes,.

They would have leather.

Around the outside of the shield and before battle, they'd soak those things because the enterprising enemy knew that flaming arrows were not only effective in hurting people and catching fire to things, they were just a good psychological terror weapon.

Because anybody who's going to flee the battle is going to flee the battle as soon as the flaming arrows start flying. Well, the flaming arrows are flying. They've been flying for a long time. When you were baptized, they started coming in.