Revelation 12-15
Session #7 of David Platt - Revelation: The Hope of Glory (requires login which I have though my church) focuses on Revelation 12-15.
Broad reflections from Platt's recent mission trip as context and as lead for this study today: We are ordinary believers doing extraordinary things with God's Word for God's glory...making disciples, multiplying churches. The point is not to coast out our comfortable Christian life! We must multiply...knowing the cost is great! Just like the 1st century church who serves as the original audience for Revelation...believing that the reward is great. We cannot do business as usual.
Revelation "pulls back the curtains" to help us understand that nothing in this world happens naturally and that scientific explanation is not the key to all dilemmas most importantly sin and salvation; all is controlled by and tied to a supernatural being - God Himself. We are caught up in a cosmic battle between God and sin. Chapters 12-15 include seven visions or signs that play out in this battle:
This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” Revelation 14:12-13
Session #7 of David Platt - Revelation: The Hope of Glory (requires login which I have though my church) focuses on Revelation 12-15.
Broad reflections from Platt's recent mission trip as context and as lead for this study today: We are ordinary believers doing extraordinary things with God's Word for God's glory...making disciples, multiplying churches. The point is not to coast out our comfortable Christian life! We must multiply...knowing the cost is great! Just like the 1st century church who serves as the original audience for Revelation...believing that the reward is great. We cannot do business as usual.
Revelation "pulls back the curtains" to help us understand that nothing in this world happens naturally and that scientific explanation is not the key to all dilemmas most importantly sin and salvation; all is controlled by and tied to a supernatural being - God Himself. We are caught up in a cosmic battle between God and sin. Chapters 12-15 include seven visions or signs that play out in this battle:
- 12:1 and 12:3 Satan has been conquered by Christ the Savior and is being conquered by Christians as they suffer. Woman is the picture of people of God (church) spanning the Bible (OT, NT). The child is Jesus. Red dragon is Satan (evil). Birth of Christ declares the death of the ancient serpent (from Genesis 3). Satan kept trying to disrupt God's plan to defeat sin but the death of Christ defanged the adversary; and the resurrection of Christ demolished all his accusations against the church. From the very entrance of sin, God promised to send His Son to defeat evil and sin and Jesus accomplished what no one else could do. Satan goes after the church (12:13-17) but is defeated! When Satan attempts to use suffering and persecution to defeat Christians, he ultimately contributes to their eternal delight and his own eternal destruction (Philippians 1).
- 13:1 Satan works through government that functions as divine authority instead of divine authority; God permits the beast to curse His name, crush His people, and control the nations (13:5-7). But we should be encouraged - see 13:8-10; Satan deceives through teachers who look like friends (13:11 - "like a lamb") yet speak like enemies, stimulating idolatry while slaying the innocent. He massacres all who refuse him. But remember, there will always be a price to pay for believers who refuse to worship the ways of this world. He (Satan) marks (with an incomplete number 666 vs 7 that represents Jesus) all who follow him.
- 14:1 Faithful followers of Christ will one day stand boldly with Him, sing loudly to Him and be satisfied completely in Him (14:4). This is the reward of uncompromising purity in the world. 14:5 This is the reward of unapologetic proclamation of the gospel. Who we worship on earth determines where we go in eternity. 14:6 All who indulge in the enticing wine of this world will one day drink from the everlasting wrath of God. 14:9-11 Wake up non believers to what awaits you eternally! Yet hope for believers - All who endure amid the trials and temptations of this world will one day enter into the rest and relief of God. 14:12-13
- 14:14 The judgment of God is inevitable and intense. He will harvest all the saints who trust in Him. He will tread every sinner who turns from Him. Everyone will one day come face to face with God.
- 15:2-4 Soon all saints throughout history will rejoice together in the song of the redeemed. Conquering Christians will shout as they consider God's incomprehensible works. Conquering Christians will sing as they behold God's incomparable worth.
