The Book of Revelation: Lesson 34 – Chapter 14:1-20

June 17, 2013 by admin

Angels come up more in Revelation than in any other book of the Bible. They are mentioned repeatedly in this chapter. So for me to not write about them would be a major oversight.

The word angel means “messenger,” and this is the primary role they fill. Angels appear to exist in a dimension other than our own, yet they influence what goes on in our world. At certain critical times they have been known to make themselves visible to select human beings.

Even though I have never encountered an angel, I do believe in them. Mainly that’s because in the Gospels Jesus not only repeatedly affirms their existence, but they play a significant role in His life. They appear often in the events surrounding His birth. Angels also minister to Jesus following His temptation in the wilderness, and strengthen Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the accounts of His Resurrection they are present once again.

Angels are created beings who rank higher than humans, with superior strength and intellect. They don’t die. Neither do they marry, and in Scripture they are always presented as male. Their earthly role is to serve those men and women who will inherit salvation. These references verify what I have written and provide additional insights:

Luke 20:34-36
Hebrews 13:2
2 Peter 2:11
2 Samuel 14:20
Psalm 8:5
1 Corinthians 6:3

From a passage like Revelation 19:10 we know that angels are not to be worshiped. Scripture also makes it clear in numerous places (e.g., Hebrews 1:1-14) that Jesus is far greater than the angels.

There are multiplied millions of angels both good and bad. Satan (formerly called Lucifer) is an example of an angel of highest rank who rebelled against his creator.

There are any number of famous Bible passages involving angels. Let me encourage you to read three of my favorites:

Daniel 6:1-24
Acts 12:1-19
2 Kings 18:17 – 19:37.

———————————————

Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

Share and Enjoy

The Book of Revelation: Lesson 33 – Chapter 14:1-20

June 14, 2013 by admin

When basketball teams shoot 50% or more, they almost always win.

Revelation chapter 14 consists of a series of seven loosely connected visions. Five of the seven are easily understood. The sixth will be discussed in detail when we get to chapters 15-17. Only one of the seven is a bit confusing.

Scoring on six of seven shots is performing at an incredibly high percentage (over 85%). And the one section that’s hard to understand really has no bearing on the main thrust of the book.

Verses 6-7: Even this late in God’s timetable, the opportunity remains for people to respond to the Gospel.
Verse 8: The fall of Babylon the Great will be discussed at length starting with Revelation 17.
Verses 9-11: The angel makes it almost impossible to miss what he has to say. “Receive the mark of the beast, and you’re also going to experience the wrath of the Almighty.”
Verses 12-13: Will life be hard if you don’t get the beast’s mark? Yes. But martyrdom is not as bad as being“tormented with burning sulfur.” Right?
Verses 14-16: The concluding verses in the overall vision of chapters 12-14 are about a double harvest. The first is a positive collection of grain as Jesus gathers His own.
Verses 17-20: This is a frightening picture of an angel swinging his sickle and gathering grapes (representing judgment, not salvation). These are thrown into the great wine press of God’s wrath. Then they are trampled and from the press flows not wine but blood, at a depth of four feet and for a distance of 188 miles.
Verses 1-5 are more difficult: The Lamb is pictured as standing on Mt. Zion with the 144,000 (see Revelation 7). A great sound comes from heaven of a new song, which only the 144,000 can learn. Why that’s the case is explained, but the answer is a bit confusing.

———————————————

Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

Share and Enjoy

The Book of Revelation: Lesson 32 – Chapter 13:11-18

June 12, 2013 by admin

Do you like riddles?

According to the dictionary, a riddle is a mystifying, misleading or puzzling question to be solved or guessed.

Revelation 13:18 has to be one of the greatest mysteries of all time. It reads:

“This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.”

By way of background, neither the Greek nor the Hebrew tongue used a system of numbers. Actually, the letters of the alphabet had numerical values. For example, A was 1, B=2, C=3, and so on. A name could therefore be converted into its corresponding numbers. In the ancient world this was called gematria.

Today, a guy could be clever and say, “The number of the girl I like is 11325.” Who’s going to know that A=1, M=13 and Y=25 and Amy is his heartthrob?

Some scholars believe this 666 number stands for Nero. If the name of Neron Kaiser (“Nero Caesar” in Greek) is put into Hebrew, the numbers work. Be that as it may, few of the early interpreters of Revelation saw this as the right solution.

The truth is, all kinds of people have worked on this puzzle. During the time of World War II, someone came up with a system where A=100, B=101, C=102, etc. Guess what?

	H	107
	I	108
	T	119
	L	111
	E	104
	R	117
	Total:	666

But John didn’t write Revelation in English. What we have in our Bibles is a translation of the original Greek, which used an alphabet that differs from ours. All of this discourages me from working that much on this given problem.

I assume that when the time is right, someone far wiser than I am will come up with the solution to this mystery.

———————————————

Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

Share and Enjoy

The Book of Revelation: Lesson 31 – Chapter 13:11-18

June 10, 2013 by admin

A problem that won’t go away appears again at the end of verse 14. So what’s the meaning of the phrase, “…who was wounded by the sword and yet lived”? This is already the third time in this chapter that this concept has appeared (see verses 3 and 12), and it will once again surface three times in chapter 17.

Some Bible scholars believe the fatal-wound puzzle is solved by explaining that there was a myth circulated in the early church about Nero returning to life following his suicide. He supposedly had escaped to the East and would return in power. Rather than go into the details, let’s just say that it seems highly unlikely that Jesus would include in His prophesy, which He entrusted to John, something based on a hoax.

Just as a hypothetical example, let’s say the Medes and Persians were to come back into power. These people were masters of their known world for over 200 years, ruling a vast territory that stretched all the way from India to Greece. Their twin capitals of Persepolis and Susa were located in what is present-day Iran. Something like this huge empire coming alive again could be the beast/superpower that “once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction” (Rev. 17:8). Again, I am only giving a possible fulfillment. The Abyss is the underworld, a terrifying place where in Revelation 20:1-3 Satan is thrown for a thousand years.

A fatal wound is one that results in death. The word fatality is used when someone has been killed. So even though a given earlier superpower died, the beast continued to appear in other forms. But in the future, that superpower that was once killed will come back to life in a revived form. That could be the head “whose fatal wound had been healed.”

———————————————

Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

Share and Enjoy

«Previous Page