Revelation 14, Part 2 - The Victory of the Lamb Over Satan, Rome and False Religion

REVELATION! - “Written To Us, About Us or For Us?” Lesson 45

Chapter 14 –Part 2 – Primary Sources: The Holy Bible

and Homer Hailey’s REVELATION: An Introduction and Commentary

 Archdale church of Christ 04.013.16

Image Courtesy - Bing Images

What are our 6 principles of understanding Revelation?  1) No CONTRADICTIONS  with other passages, 2) These events will take place SOON and 3) This letter is written to the 7 CHURCHES of ASIA  and are not written To US or About US.  4) Theses things are, however, written FOR us!  5) This letter is written in highly SYMBOLIC language.  6) One will find Revelation most difficult to understand, comprehend and apply without always having open the OLD TESTAMENT.

The contrast between Revelation 13 and 14 is the contrast between the ____________ and the __________.  John heard a ___________ from heaven that sounded like the ________________________________________.  The 144,000 are the ________________ and they are characterized as _____________.  They follow the Lamb wherever He _________ and in their mouths are found no ______________.

1.      Per vs. 6, what does John now see?

2.      He carries what for whom?

3.      What 3 commands are given in vs. 7?

4.      What 4 things did God create?

5.      How could “Babylon the Great” be spoken of as having “fallen” though Rome was still at her height of power?

a.       Isaiah 46.10 ___________________________________

b.       Isaiah 48.3. __________________________________

c.        Jeremiah 51.8 _________________________________

6.      What kind of message would this be to the 7 churches?

7.      What was announced as being the great sin of the Great Babylon?

8.      What does John now see?

9.      What is the fate of those who worship the Beast and receives his mark?

10.  Just what is the “endurance of the faith?”

11.  A voice from heaven commanded John to do what?

12.  What does the Spirit now say?

13.  What does John see in vs. 14?

14.  What 3 things describe the one sitting on this cloud?

a.       _____________________________________

b.       _____________________________________

c.        _____________________________________

15.  What does the 2^nd angel now say to the one seated on the cloud?

16.  What now happens to the earth?

17.  Describe the next angel that comes out.

18.  Describe the 4^th angel.

19.  What does he now do?

20.  How high and how wide was the blood of the wrath of God?

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TEACHERS COPY

REVELATION! - “Written To Us, About Us or For Us?” Lesson 45

Chapter 14 –Part 2 – Primary Sources: The Holy Bible

and Homer Hailey’s REVELATION: An Introduction and Commentary

 Archdale church of Christ 04.013.16

What are our 6 principles of understanding Revelation?  1) No CONTRADICTIONS  with other passages, 2) These events will take place SOON and 3) This letter is written to the 7 CHURCHES of ASIA  and are not written To US or About US.  4) Theses things are, however, written FOR us!  5) This letter is written in highly SYMBOLIC language.  6) One will find Revelation most difficult to understand, comprehend and apply without always having open the OLD TESTAMENT.

The contrast between Revelation 13 and 14 is the contrast between the DRAGON and the LAMB.  John heard a VOICE from heaven that sounded like the ROAR OF MANY WATERS, LOUD THUNDER AND THE SOUND OF MANY HARPS.  The 144,000 are the REDEEMED and they are characterized as VIRGINS.  They follow the Lamb wherever He GOES and in their mouths are found no LIES.

1.      Per vs. 6, what does John now see?

Another angel flying directly overhead

2.      He carries what for whom?

An eternal or everlasting gospel for those who dwell on the earth

3.      What 3 commands are given in vs. 7?

Fear God, give God the glory, worship Him

4.      What 4 things did God create?

Heaven, earth, sea and the springs of water under the earth

5.      How could “Babylon the Great” be spoken of as having “fallen” though Rome was still at her height of power?

a.       Isaiah 46.10 – He declares the end at the beginning

b.       Isaiah 48.3 – “I announce and suddenly they are done”

c.        Jeremiah 51.8 – He announced once before that Babylon had “fallen” and she then she did!

6.      What kind of message would this be to the 7 churches?

Hope, faith, encouragement, triumph, victory, etc.

7.      What was announced as being the great sin of the Great Babylon?

Making religion one with the state and making sexual immorality one with the state religion

8.      What does John now see?

Another, a third, angel

9.      What is the fate of those who worship the Beast and receives his mark?

He will drink the wine of God’s wrath…at full strength

10.  Just what is the “endurance of the faith?”

Keeping the commandments of God and keeping faith in Jesus

11.  A voice from heaven commanded John to do what?

Write this

12.  What does the Spirit now say?

“Blessed indeed!”

13.  What does John see in vs. 14?

A white cloud with one like a son of man sitting on it

14.  What 3 things describe the one sitting on this cloud?

a.       He is like a son of man

b.       He has a crown on his head

c.        He has a sharp sickle in His hand

15.  What does the 2^nd angel now say to the one seated on the cloud?

Put In your sickle and reap for the hour to reap has come

16.  What now happens to the earth?

The earth was reaped

17.  Describe the next angel that comes out.

He too had a sharp sickle

18.  Describe the 4^th angel.

One who had authority over the fire

19.  What does he now do?

Called for the 3^rd angel to gather the grape harvest from the earth

20.  How high and how wide was the blood of the wrath of God?

As deep as the height of a horse’s bridle and approx.. 184 miles wide (1,600 stadia)

Conclusion: Chapter 14 describes the total victory of Christ over Satan and his surrogates, the Roman Empire and it’s false religion of emperor worship.  Rome falls and the church of Christ lives forever!

Revelation! - "Written To Us, About Us or For Us?" - Lesson 9 - The Letter to Smyrna - 06.10.15

Ruins of the Athena Temple in Smyrna - Image Courtesy Wikipedia

 

1.      Smyrna was ______ miles north of Ephesus on the west coast of Asia. She was founded ca. 1,000 B.C. as a G__________ colony.  Destroyed in 600 B.C., she was magnificently rebuilt in _________ B.C.  She was described as “the O___________, the C___________ and the F___________ of Asia.”  Lucian referred to her F_____________ as the streets were laid out to carry the prevailing W__________ winds.  It is said that these winds made Smyrna “as fresh as a grove of T__________.”  She was blessed with a D___________ port which served the end of the main T_______  route that ran through all of Lydia and Phrygia.  Smyrna was a F_________ city without any Roman army presence.  They had always S_____________ Rome regardless.  Smyrna was the very first place where Rome itself was W____________ as a G______________.  She was called Roma.  A temple to her honor was erected in Smyrna in ________ B.C.  This became during the reign of A_____________ the epicenter of E______________ worship.  There was here one of the largest of all T____________, seating ____________.  It was here that a mob of both P __________ and J________ burnt P______________ at the stake in 195.  Smyrna was a great Roman city but the P____________________ of the church of Christ.  This is why that she is forever known as the “S_____________ Church.” – Source: J. T. Marlin, The Seven Churches of Asia

2.      According to Hailey in Revelation – An Introduction and Commentary, Mt. Pagas sits in the city and the A___________ sat on top, giving the illusion of a C__________ from the magnificent harbor.  Smyrna exported more goods than any city in Asia save E____________.  A temple to the dead Emperor T____________ was built in Smyrna.  Smyrna claimed to the “The First.”  “First in B___________, First in L______________ and First in L___________.”  Jesus, however, asserts that HE, not Smyrna is F_____________!

3.      This statement in 2.8 is also stated in ____________.

4.      The W___________ of Smyrna is contrasted by the P____________ of the church.

5.      The L____________ of Smyrna to R____________ is contrasted by the L___________ of this church to C________________.

6.      The worship of the R_____________ and L____________ Christ is contrasted with the worship of D____________ E_________________.

7.      Jesus is now coming along this persecuted church to offer C______________

a.      Hebrews 2.18 _________________________________________________

b.      Hebrews 4.15 _________________________________________________

c.       Romans 15.4 __________________________________________________

d.      II Corinthians 1.3 – 4 __________________________________________

8.      What does Jesus say He knows about the church of Christ at Smyrna?

9.      In addition to the persecution of the Romans, what other group threatened the church?

10.  Per Webster 1828, blasphemy means: “An indignity offered to God by words or writing; reproachful, contemptuous or irreverent words uttered impiously against Jehovah.  Blasphemy is an injury offered to God, by denying that which is due and belonging to him, or attributing to him that which is not agreeable to his nature.”

11.  Strong says that blasphemy is “…a railing, vilification, evil speaking (against God).”

12.  This word is often rendered in the TR by a no longer used word, calumny.  Webster 1828 defines calumny as: “Slander; false accusation of a crime or offense, knowingly or maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another; false representation of facts reproachful to another, made by design, and with knowledge of its falsehood; sometimes followed by on.”

13.  The TR also defines this word often as “harm – averment.”  This averment is an archaic legal term meaning to “assert or verify in court.”  Blasphemy, therefore is literally “swearing harm to God.”

14.  According to our text, what is the consequence of Jewish blasphemy?  Who, therefore, is the real Jew and who is not?

a.      John 8.44 ______________________________________________________

b.      Romans 2.28 – 29 ________________________________________________



1766 - 2015 "From Passion to Passivity"

Ruins of Ballywallin Presbyterian Church, County Antrim, Ulster Plantation, ca. 1748 – Image Courtesy Ballywallin Presbyterian Church

 

Five generations ago, Hugh Gaston risked it all…and paid it all.  He fled home, hearth, church and family risking everything for the freedom of reading, teaching and living the precepts of the Holy Scriptures.  After attending an annual conference of ministers in 1766 he disappeared for nearly four months.  Suddenly he reappeared in South Carolina, sought out his brother, John “Justice” Gaston of Chester County and set out for the back country to begin a new ministry.  He preached just one or two sermons, then falling ill with the measles.  He was dead within a month of his arrival.  He is buried next to his brother and sister in law in Burnt Meeting House Cemetery just an hour’s drive south of Charlotte, NC.  John wrote a letter home to his widow, Mary Gaston, and children telling of Hugh’s tragic demise.  Hugh’s family stayed in Ulster and never came to America.

These freedoms that Hugh risked everything for had eluded the Gaston family for generations.  Long before Hugh was born the Gaston family searched for the truth of the gospel with the Huguenots of France.  Roman Catholicism was the state religion there in the 16^th century.  The Gaston’s, under persecution from Rome, fled France for Scotland where they associated themselves with the Reformed Presbyterianism of John Knox.  Here too, they faced persecution, not from Rome but from London.  The English, having subdued Scotland, were determined to force the Scots back into Romanism under Queen Mary and then into Anglicanism under Elizabeth I and James VI.   Scotland was under the boot of the tyrannical English, land was scarce and times were hard.  After several generations, the family sought a better life across the Irish Sea in what was then called Ulster Plantation, now known as Northern Ireland.  Here they found more, better and cheaper land. However, they did not find the religious freedom that they so desperately longed for.

Ulster Plantation was designed by the English as an enclave where both Scots and English would settle Irish Catholic lands and eventually cause the Irish to give up their resistance to English rule.  The plan backfired and the repercussions of this 400 year old plan are still resounding today in the streets of Northern Ireland.  The Gaston’s faced the hatred of the displaced Irish Catholics and the persecution of the English Anglicans.  It was literally a “stress sandwich.”  However, early in the 18^th century, these displaced Ulster Scots began immigrating to a new land that promised it all – freedom of religion, free land and unbridled prosperity in a land “flowing with milk and honey,” AMERICA.  John and Esther Waugh Gaston along with two small daughters came to Pennsylvania before 1740.  By 1754, the expanding family found their way south through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, through the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina, ending up in the rolling piedmont hills of upstate South Carolina.  John became the top law officer on the frontier, the so-called “Kings Justice.”  He also became the most successful surveyor of land in all the upstate.  Here they would prosper in freedom and liberty.  John and Esther would eventually have 13 children, all of which lived to adulthood, a blessing unheard of in that day and time.  The only thing they lacked in the upstate were trained preachers for all the Scot – Irish, as we are called here in America.  Hugh Gaston was not only a trained minister, he was the most brilliant Presbyterian scholar of his age.  No wonder John was so excited to greet his brother on his way to Chester from Charleston when he arrived in 1766.

Hugh Gaston was a dangerous man to the English, perhaps the most dangerous man in all of Scotland and Ireland.  Why?  Hugh had in 1763 published a book, a book that threatened every Catholic and every Anglican in Ulster.  It was book that, for the first time, provided the common man the tools needed for deep Bible study.  Now the Ulster ploughman could within a very short period of time, know more Bible than any Catholic or Anglican “clergyman.”  It was simple, yet brilliant.  The book was a combination systematic theology, concordance and topical Bible.  It became a bombshell!  The name of the book?  A Scripture Account of the Faith and Practice of Christians.   

The publication of this book apparently cost Hugh everything.  By 1766 he found himself broke and disgraced.  Because he so soon died upon arriving in the new world, he left no information as the exact circumstances of his sudden departure.  One thing is for sure.  This book cost Hugh everything.  He lost his family.  He lost his position.  He lost his wealth.  He lost his life.  He lost these things so that anyone could study the Bible for themselves.

Though Hugh Gaston, as far as we know, never discovered the complete truth of the gospel, he searched for it diligently and gave everything so that others could take that journey as well.  He was a man of great passion and love for the truth.

Now, one year shy of 250 years, the passion of Hugh Gaston has been replaced by passivity.  “Christians” today have grown passive, lazy and unconcerned with the study, the teaching and the living of the Scriptures.  Bibles sit unopened on the shelf or travel without use in the back seats of automobiles.  People today are passive towards the claims of Holy Scripture and are ashamed of what it says.  What Hugh Gaston died for in 1766, people in 2015 could not care less about.  How about you?  Are you passionate or passive?

Hugh Gaston is my great uncle, five times removed.  I have a reprinted copy of his book I can show you anytime.  John Gaston is my great grandfather five times removed.  He and Esther gave four sons in death during the War for Independence, their home, their possessions and their freedom.  All nine of their sons served the cause of liberty.  At 80 years of age, John Gaston died in his sleep, still being pursued by the English.  He had two loaded pistols under his pillow and a loaded musket at this bedside as he passed into eternity.

-          Russ McCullough

 

Revelation! - "Written To Us, About Us or For Us?"

Image Courtesy of Bing Images

 

Lesson 5 - Chapter 1

Watch This Gospel Call TV VIDEO to Answer These Questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFcRMS86kkU&feature=youtu.be

1.      Review:

a.      Whose Revelation is it?

b.      Given from who to whom?

c.       The recipient then gave the Revelation to whom?

d.      That recipient then gave the Revelation to whom for recordation?

e.      The Revelation was written about events that would happen when?  The word translated “soon” literally means I___ S____________ in the original.

2.      According to I John 1.1 – 3, what 3 things can John testify to?

3.      The angel signified that John could testify to what 3 things per vs. 2?

4.      The word translated “signified” is from the original esmainon which means A S________, A M___________ or I________________.  This word occurs in only 5 other places which sheds light on its meaning:

a.      John 12.23 ____________________________________________________

b.      John 18.32 ____________________________________________________

c.       John 21.9 _____________________________________________________

d.      Acts 11.28 _____________________________________________________

e.      Acts 25.27 _____________________________________________________

5.      This word tells us very early on that Revelation is written in S_______________ language, not L______________.  The only exception is the A______________ which goes from 1.8 – 3.22.

6.      Though there are many descriptions, what is the “Testimony of Jesus Christ” according to John 11.25 – 26?

7.      Blessings come to what two parties in 1.3?  These blessings come with what caveat?  Why is this principle so very important?

8.      Why is the word “are” so very important in 1.3?

9.      What attribute of God is described in 1.4?  Does Satan possess this attribute?

10.  The letter comes from what 3 parties identified in vs. 3 – 4?

11.  Does this conflict with vs. 1?  Why or why not?

12.  Jesus Christ has made us all what?

13.  To what end has He made us thusly?

14.  Does the phrase “coming” always refer to the 2^nd coming of which we have already studied?  (See 2.5, 2.16, 2.22, 3.3, 3.11 et.al.)

15.  In THIS CONTEXT, what indication do we have that Christ already came to the 7 churches of Asia?