Welcome to the live stream portion of our weekly gathering, the Household of Faith in Christ. We're going to be in the book of Revelation chapter 10 today. So you'll want to have your Bibles ready. We'll be touching on a number of passages, very short. So you don't have to worry about turning there super quick. You're not going to have time in the flow of the sermon. I don't think they get to most of them, but one of them we'll spend a little bit of time in is Romans chapter eight. So if you want to bookmark that and be ready to turn there when we get there, you can read along. Not required, of course, but possibly could be helpful to you. Tonight's message is gonna focus primarily on Revelation 10, verses four through 11, titled the message you must prophesy. And I mentioned last week that some of these messages during the Revelation series might feel a little bit like a hybrid between a sermon and a lecture. Some of them feel a little bit more sermon-ish, some of them feel a little more lecture-ish, depending on how I'm trying to best navigate the material and make sure that we're understanding and grappling with the text. Last week's particularly was probably the most lecture-ish of all of the messages we've had. This week's message will probably feel quite a bit more like your typical what you would expect from a sermon so trying to find that balance to be very didactic in the teaching while at the same time be pastoral in the application and given the material we have in the book of Revelation and all the confusion and controversy that surrounds it it's been a little bit hard to strike that balance sometimes but I'm doing the best I can so anyway we'll begin the sermon in a moment I guess if somebody wants to open us with prayer maybe Ray do you mind opening us with a word of prayer? Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Thus opens a poem by William Butler Yeats, written just after the end of the First World War, and it sounds and feels as if it could have been written seven minutes ago. As time unfurls in a circular turning and turning in the widening gyre, a circular repetitive pattern, things should make more sense, not less. And yet what once felt predictable can be counted on no more. Everything replaced by a new normal where no thing in our experience is normal at all. Fascism on one end, anarchy at the other, bloody truths of existence in between. The innocent butchered at the hands of those charged with safeguarding them. The brave have been replaced by the betas. The few alphas remaining are fueled by hate, or so it seems. Where is God? And what does he want us to do? God is not hiding. He has revealed Himself, and He is telling us that He sees it all, He anticipated it all, there's a purpose to it all, and He has a message for us all. Last week we began to listen very carefully to part of what God says in Revelation chapter 10. And we went through the first three verses with a fine-tooth comb. And today we're going to move forward from there. Now, to better set the context, that's why before we started the live stream, we as a church, we read the entire chapter together. And I want to remind you, when we read God's Word, we're going to have other passages from Scripture read during this sermon. This is the word of God, breathed out by God. And so it is infallible. It has no error. It is a fully sufficient rule and guide for our faith and our life practice. And so as we now listen to God's word preached, my prayer is that those with ears to hear would hear. And you might recall from last week that there's a bunch of debate over the identity of the mighty messenger who is coming down from heaven in this passage. And some think it's Jesus. And some think it's probably an archangel. And either way, the authority and splendor of God is understood. And in response to the loud roaring message, there is a response of seven thunders, or perhaps the voice itself is the sound of seven thunders. And whichever it is, John, he picks up his pen and he prepares to write down what the thunders said until he is stopped from doing so. Verse four. Now when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and do not write them." Why would the voice from heaven say stop? This is probably the voice of God himself. because John follows the order. Remember, way back in the first chapter of Revelation, John was told by the Alpha and the Omega to write down everything that he saw. Now, in this case, it's what he heard, not what he saw, but still, this feels like a command from God. Why does God tell John not to record what is said by the seven thunders? I spent quite a bit of time pondering this question, and I think I might have the answer. Simply put, that's God's prerogative. It's said in Deuteronomy 29, verse 29, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever that we may observe all the words of this law. The maker and ruler of the universe reveals what he will in his perfect timing and his prophets, they report only what the Lord tells them to report. Recall 2 Corinthians 12, verses three and four. And I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know, God knows, how he was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." Ours isn't to know the absolute fullness of God's mind. Ours is to be content, trusting God in the midst of our partial knowledge. The Apostle Paul wrote the words I just quoted. from his letter to the church in Corinth. Well, he also wrote this in chapter eight of his letter to the church in Rome, and I'm picking up with verse 28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril Our sword, as it is written, for your sake, we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The gospel we know. Some things, We do not know. And this helps to keep us humble. And you know what? It helps to keep us confident in the good news during those times when we don't understand the crises of life and why so many hard things occur. God has knowledge. We do not. And there are aspects of his plan we're not privy to. But God in his greatness, however, he knows all things. And we see the greatness of God reflected in the scene that follows in Revelation 10, verses five through seven. It tells us, the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer. But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as he declared to his servants, the prophets. If the mighty angel in the earlier verse is the angel of the Lord, then this is God swearing an oath in his own name. See in verse five, a hand is raised. It's the posture of one taking a solemn oath. It's also the posture of one laying claim to all authority everywhere. Note that the angel is standing on the sea. The angel is standing on the land. The angel is lifting his hand to heaven. Now today I am reading from the New King James, which does not include any mention of which hand it is that's raised. However, the majority of our English translations, they clarify that it is the angel's right hand. It's as if he's invoking God as witness all the way from the ocean depths, from all across the dry land too. and from the heights of heaven as well. It's also as if he's laying claim to the same three spheres of the world that were afflicted with the earlier trumpet judgments, the land, the sea, the heavens. And he's vouching for the absolute certainty that what's in the little scroll that he's holding is true. The message that John is going to be commissioned to share, and that we, by extension, are commissioned to share, is true. And the fulfillment of all things contained within it will be completed. The whole prophetic message, it will come to pass. Bank on it. This thing's going down. This is the point in one of those buddy flicks where, you know, the point in the movie where the two buddies, they would turn to one another and they'd say, this is really happening. It's really happening right now. There should be delay no longer. That's what it says. The end of verse six. An expansion of what this means is then immediately added in verse seven. Remember it says, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished. As he declared to his servants, the prophets. The seventh trumpet will bring final consummation because the seventh trumpet introduces the bold judgments. Judgments which are no longer partial, but instead are comprehensive. And as with the seals, we see again with the trumpets that the cycle of seven, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, they lead up to the second coming of Jesus Christ. This is the moment in history that Paul, the apostle, pointed to in Ephesians chapter one, verse 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. is the momentousness of this striking you. This wraps up the plan for history. Time gives way to eternity. There's no more time, in that there's no more delay. And there's no more time, in that there's no more time as we know it. The same sentiment is echoed again five chapters from now, at the start of chapter 15 in Revelation, where we find the prelude to the bowl judgments, where the first verse of 15 says, then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. It is finished. No more delay. It is complete. We have similar language here again, because once more we see different passages of this book viewing the same climax of history from different angles. That was a very quick aside. Recall last week's sermon. We spent a lot of time talking about the debate over the identity of the angel that appears in this scene. And what we have covered now so far today, verses 5 through 7, to some might sound like, boy, you know, this has to be God himself as the mighty angel. It has to be, doesn't it? Note that the angel is given dominion over the land and the sea is firmly planted there, but the angel simply raises a hand toward heaven. And some would argue that this is a clear indication that heaven remains under the exclusive domain of God alone. And so they would say, it's not God who is the angel pictured here. And so the debate over the identity of the angel continues. And also, like last week, I want to point out that we again here have a parallel, or at least an allusion, to Daniel. Last week I pointed to a connection to Daniel chapter 10. In this chapter and today, we can see a connection to Daniel chapter 12. Now we're not going to spend a lot of time in Daniel now. Daniel will be coming up again, trust me, in our study of Revelation. I just mentioned this to aid you in the study of your Bible in your personal devotional time. So for now, we're just going to move on to verses 8 through 10. Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth. So I went to the angel and said to him, give me the little book. And he said to me, take and eat it, and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth. Then I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter." In verse seven, it was as if John, he was hearing the divine command, it is finished. In the days when the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, then the mystery of God would be finished, the verse says. So if it's finished, what is the sweet and sour book? I mean, if the story is over, why is there more story? Well, the sounding of the seventh Trump, it does bring us to the end of history. But don't forget what we discussed the last time we gathered together in Revelation chapter 12. There's a start of another vision sequence and that sequence will bring us all the way back to the dawn of history and then will lead us by a different scenic route to this very same end. So Revelation once again is demonstrating that we are being taught with a method of cyclical storytelling. And what a story it is telling. It is the glorious story of redemptive history. Do you know it? If so, do you tell it? It's the best story you know. It has to be. It's the best story ever told. You do tell it, don't you? John told it. John stands in this scene as a sort of proxy for us, and we should do what John does. What exactly is it that he does? Are we paying attention? One thing he does is he obeys. He's told, go take the little book. And he does. Are you obedient when God speaks? And he's told to eat the scroll. to take the word of God and digest it. Do you do this? Are you feasting on the bread of life? Are you voraciously consuming the word? Put simply, are you reading the Bible? And if so, Are you digesting it? Are you stewing over it? There's an old Christian cliche. I've heard it said a variety of ways, but basically it goes something like this. I'm guilty of sin, same as the next guy. I'm just a beggar pointing other beggars to where the food is. Does this cliche apply to you? Are you pointing other people to where the food is? And do you indeed know where the eternal food is? Have you tasted it today? Have you filled your belly with it every day this week? Has it been on your menu this past month? How can any of us possibly describe the food to others if we haven't eaten it ourselves? My wife and I, we grew up in the Roman Catholic tradition. My wife actually more so than me. She spent her entire childhood in that tradition. I spent a chunk of my childhood in that tradition. And I can tell you that what I'm talking about here, this is one of the major problems with that tradition. Because with the Roman Church, it is the priests only who are expected to read the Bible. Not the common people. And there was a time when many Catholics were actually discouraged from reading the Bible. Discouraged from taking and eating the book. Well, what I'm doing now is the exact opposite. I am encouraging you to eat and digest God's word. And what's more, I'm imploring you, actually. The Apostle John's reaction in these verses should be our reaction also. As we head into the final minutes of the message, let me emphasize my motivations to you. I want you to love Jesus. And I want you to hear the amazing things that He has to say to you. And you hear these amazing things from Him when you read the scriptures that He has inspired and preserved for you. The various facets of the salvation story, they're there on every page. We can walk through the various elements of sharing the salvation story right now. And we can connect it to this portion of the apocalypse, right here in chapter 10. It is the story of creation, fall, redemption, restoration, glorification. And there's a bittersweet aspect to all of them. Creation. We have a God who knows all because he has decreed and ordained all. He made us in his image. How sweet that truth tastes. But this means we're limited, finite, dependent image bearers. Not everybody likes this. So there's the sour reality of the fall. Each of us have moral free agency, and we use that free agency to sin. Left to our own devices, we are moral failures. But then there's the cross, redemption. Oh Jesus, how sweet it is to be loved by you. As we repurpose some James Taylor for a moment. Christ saves. He pays the price for our shameful guilt. And you know, that sounds sweet at first, and then also right there is some bitterness in the stomach for you, because the sourness in the pit of our stomach that we sometimes feel, we come to grips with the fact that we put Jesus on the cross. Now he went there of his own accord, but he went there because of our sin. Yours. Mine. But because the Messiah came and lived the life we have failed to, and because he defeated even death, we are not only justified, we are being sanctified. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer and brings progressive holiness, and boy, that tastes sweet in the mouth, doesn't it? Restoration. That always tastes sweet. But we still struggle against our flesh, against the pressures of the world, against the temptations of our spiritual enemies, against our own flesh. There's a bitter pill to swallow with all of that. but it's all worth it in the end. In the end is glorification. In the sweet by and by, we will be with God forever in the renewed heaven, the renewed earth. And I know that hearing that sounds sweet to your ears, but you know, as we've talked about in recent months, It's also a little bit bitter in the belly when we consider the people whom we know who refuse to accept the gift that the Holy Son has purchased for His people. Our concerns for the damned are real. Any news of suffering is bitter. But at the same time, we know that often the things that seem bitter to us at first are the things that bring healing. I mean, consider what we learned just last year about the healing properties of tonic water. I mean, tonic water of all things. Tonic, it's bitter. And it's very bitterness is what brings the medicinal qualities. And this is something that Christians can easily acknowledge. Sharing the good news, it can occasionally strike us like the opening of a Dickens novel. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of incredulity. It was a season of light. It was a season of darkness. It was a spring of hope. It was the winter of despair. We had everything before us. We had nothing before us. Speaking prophetically, That is, speaking God's truth is a weighty matter. It is an honorable and painful endeavor, one at the same time. Telling the truth feels good in so many ways, but it can have the effect of hurt feelings, bruised egos, strained or even severed relationships from those with rebellious hearts. But God's word provides sweet communion with our Lord. and with our brothers and sisters in the Lord, even if it includes a message of woe. God is good all the time. All the time, he is good, as the saying goes. As the song says, oh Lord, you've been faithful, you've been good all of my days. Jesus, I will cling to you, come what may, because I know you're able. I know you can save through the fire with your mighty hand. But even if you don't, my hope is you alone. I know the sorrow and I know the hurt would all go away if you'd just say the word. But even if you don't, my hope is you alone. My hope is you alone. It is well with my soul. This beautiful, brutal story is a story that's all around us. Even William Butler Yeats in the depressive poem I began to share with you about 30 minutes or so ago, highlights our need for Christ and our hope for Him to come again. It's why Yeats' work about the dislocation of relationships and about traditions crumbling down and about the spirit of the world dominated by the devilish spirit of the age is a poem that is titled, The Second Coming. poem is comprised of two stanzas. I read the first stanza at the start. I'm now going to read the closing stanza at the end. Surely some revelation is at hand. Surely the second coming is at hand. The second coming. Hardly are those words out when a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi troubles my sight. Somewhere in the sands of the desert, a shape with lion body in the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun is moving its slow thighs while all about it real shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again. But now I know that 20 centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. And what rough beast It's hour come round at last. Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born. The story about the true one born in Bethlehem. Not any of the frauds confusing the masses. The story of the true one born in Bethlehem. You must prophesy again. That's what it says in verse 11 of chapter 10 in Revelation. You must prophesy again. Tell that story again and again and again. Let's pray. Father, you are truly glorious. Your plan of salvation, your plan in history, Your plan from all eternity is so beyond the fullness of our comprehension, but we thank you that you have brought your people to a place that we can trust you, knowing that you more than have it all figured out, you have it plotted out. What the world might throw at us to try to throw the world into turmoil, confuse the masses, they intend it for evil, but you intend it for good. because you love your people unto your own glory. We ask that you would give us a courage and a boldness to share the truth of the gospel, this greatest story ever told with people who need to hear it, even those who have heard it and say they've committed their lives to it, that they need to be reminded of it day after day after day, and that we need to have fuel in our bellies to do that consistently and do it well. So give us a mind that yearns to understand your word better and a motivation to study and digest the truths of your word each and every day. We ask that you would guide our conversation, that what we do here would be edifying to the body of Christ and glorifying to your name. It's in the almighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Savior, King, and priest that we pray. in the bedroom. Lucy has no control over her pals now. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, for those watching on the stream, you don't know, but we've had a dog as part of our family for 17 years and she's heading down the home stretch. So we're not exactly sure how much more time we have with her, but you know what? Christ could return before that even happens. None of us knows how much more time we have. So I want us to stay focused on that. We've been talking about whether or not dogs are gonna be in heaven or not. I do believe that there's gonna be animals in heaven. Whether or not the animals we had in this life with us on earth are the same animals that we'll have in heaven, I'm not as sure about that, but I think the Bible leaves open the possibility that that's the case. And so we can, We can hold on to that hope as a possibility. I'm not going to hang a doctrinal hat on that one, but I think it's possible. This could be something that's an embarrassing thing to answer. So if you're too embarrassed to answer honestly, then you're certainly fine from abstaining from the first question. At least in your own mind, in your own heart, I'd like you to ponder the question that was kind of put to everybody in the message itself. Have you, other than what we did here as a church today, read anything from the Bible today? Have you read anything from the Bible each day this past week? Are you one of those who couldn't prove if you had to that you've read the Bible at all in the past month. It's to your own detriment. It's not a guilt trip. It's not meant to be a guilt trip. Seriously, you know, my desire for everybody is for them to come to know who Jesus is and ideally for them to come to know who Jesus is in a salvific way, for them to have salvation in Christ. And for those who already understand they have salvation in Christ to live in the blessing of that knowledge, to come to a better understanding of who he is. And we really come to a better understanding of who he is and who we are in him by reading his word. Even if we don't really fully feel like we're understanding what we're reading. Just keep reading anyway, and if you have questions, you bring it up to other Christians you know who maybe have been in the Word longer, you can bring it up to the pastor, whatever. And over time, I mean, those who read the Bible regularly, I know there's at least a few in this room that read it very regularly, you can read the same passage for like the 20th time in your life, and you're like, I think I finally got it. I think that passage actually now makes sense to me. So just keep at it and God will illumine your mind and open your heart and bring you into an understanding of his word in his timing of when you need to have certain truths applied. So there's no, too many people I think feel inadequate, like I can't really understand this and I feel stupid. The reality is that's a really good place to be. because in the natural, in our own strength, our own wits about us, we can't understand it. Scripture is actually pretty clear about that. We need the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds. So depend on him to reveal to you what is being said there. So press in. If it's five minutes a day, fine. If it's ten minutes a day, better. If it's a half hour a day, even better. But if you're not reading it almost at all, then don't have the excuse, oh, I don't have time. You can't find five minutes. You've got to be able to find five minutes. And then hopefully, you know, somebody, I forget who it was, somebody recently was talking about the way that Christ's life-giving water and life-giving bread works is that the more you drink of it, the more you eat it, the more hunger and thirst for it you have. It feeds this craving that you just can't get enough. So if you're not feeling a craving, you're not in the Word enough, start to dive in. It's the opposite of in the natural, where the less you eat, the hungrier you get. The Word of God's the opposite. The more you eat, the hungrier you get. And so trust, and I think there's a lot of truth in that, so trust me in that. If you're not reading it consistently, try to start. Okay, so, a number of people nodded their heads and said, yeah, I've been reading the Bible, so let me, just for the sake of fun, what are some things this past week or so that you've read in the Bible that struck you as, that really spoke to me, like that was a new insight or that was an affirmation of something I've already known but I needed to hear it this week? Is there anything that somebody could share that they were struck by in scripture this week? I've read a lot of John 4 this past week. John 4? John 4. Are you reading through the Bible and you're in the Gospel of John now, or is there a reason why you're in John 4? It was selective. And, you know, woman at the well, Jesus and the Samaritans, and it's like, just reading into that, getting a better understanding of that. Context matters, I guess, seems like. You know, he gets the woman to believe that he's a messiah. He goes to the town and the men come to the well to hear Jesus preach the good news and many Americans come to Christ. And because you were in that portion of scripture and really digesting it the way that we're told to in Revelation 10, and really coming to terms with what exactly is being said, and what's the flow of the narrative, and what does this all mean, that helps you, because I know some of the work you've been doing, that helps you then when you're watching an episode of The Chosen, who's focusing on that particular portion of the Gospel of John, you're like, The Chosen didn't really get that exactly right, and you don't notice that quickly if you're not in the Word, but because you're in the Word, you're like, that's not exactly what it says, and so it can help you be on guard against some, if not outright false teachings, some potentially misleading and adrift teaching. So that's a good example. You guys spend a lot of time in the Book of Amos. Actually, Angela and I were talking about this because I was so struck because I read the New American Standard, the NASB, and the message side by side. Not necessarily recommended, but not condemned either. I have the sturdiness of the NASB. If you're going to read the message at least have the NSFB next door, right next to it. Like literally right next to it. It's taking me a really long time to read through the Bible this year, but in any event, but in chapter 5 it talks about I'm gonna read from the message just so you can get I know that's not your yeah No, well the message this is the message gets the translation or they paraphrase it wrongly in my opinion But this is a good example of why you need to have the NASB right next but I understood it correctly did because she's got the illumination of the Holy Spirit so she was able to see right past the bad I was like, that's not right. And he's like, exactly. I'm like, OK. Anyway. OK, so read it. Go ahead. All right. So in Amos chapter 5, starting roughly in verse 19-ish through the end, When God comes, it will be bad news before it's good news. The worst of times, not the best of times. Here's what it's like. A man runs from a lion right into the jaws of a bear. A woman goes home after a hard day's work and is raped by a neighbor. At God's coming, we face hard reality, not fantasy. A black cloud, no silver lining. I can't stand your religious meetings, says the Lord. I'm adding that. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. It's right, right? Because you need to. Hey, if they paraphrase, I can add a little. I feel like I can do that with the message. So this is the Dina message. I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences, your conventions. I want nothing to do with your religious projects, your pretentious slogans, all your goals. I'm sick and fed up with your fundraising schemes, your public relations, your image making. I've had all that I can take of your noisy ego music. When was the last time you sang a song to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice, oceans of it, fairness, rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want. So I understood that as, correctly so, when you read the NASV, God is judging his church. He's like, look, you're not doing anything right. I'm going to judge you now because what I want is justice. I want it from you, God's people. I want fairness, I want it from you, because here you are, you're a big lie, you're a big fake, you're a big phony. So anyway, it just struck me, because that's what's going on in the church right now. We've got all these programs, we've got all these, oh, farm out the kids here, do that, make sure you go serve the poor, and there's nothing wrong with those things, but that has replaced true worship and true justice and true you know they're doing those things as if they can earn their way into God's favor. You're sharing a little bit differently now than you did earlier when you're sharing your understanding because you've used the word justice now a couple of times you didn't use earlier. Okay. Earlier you were focusing on how what God desires is true worship from these people and they haven't been truly honoring God. Exactly. And because of their inability, lack of truly worshiping him, God's now bringing justice, his justice, his wrath into play. And that's why I don't like the message translation because, is it verse 25? 25, 20, what is it? Let me think here. 24. 24. Yeah. So read the NASB. I'm just, do I just read those? Just that verse. Okay. So in the context, this is why it's important to make sure, that's why I don't like the message because how does the message say that? This is what I want, I want justice. Do you know what I want? I want justice, oceans of it. Again, for the sake of clarity, I'm gonna say it's a mistranslation. The message is not a translation. It's an imaginative paraphrase of the Bible. But for the sake of clarity, I'll just say that's a really bad translation. Because in context, what verse 24 is saying is that you're doing all these things wrong. You're not worshiping properly. And so now, my justice, my wrath is gonna pour down on you. It's different than the, the way the message kind of gives the indication that what I want from you, my people, is to behave in a just way. And why that becomes important, this is arguably the favorite, if it's not the, it is one of the top three favorite verses that the social justice warriors will use to say that we need to take care of the poor and the discriminated against. And advocates for social justice. and they ripped that particular verse completely out of the context of the chapter. And the message version of that would seem to play right into a misapplication of what's really being said. You gotta be really, really careful. That's why I say, I'm not a fan of the message, but you know what? I'm totally fine with somebody... I will use it sometimes to get a different perspective. Like if I'm reading a verse, I read the ESV. So if I'm like, huh, I wonder how... It's almost just getting someone else's opinion. I'm totally fine with the reading of the message if you're reading it alongside something else. And for me as a pastor, this is my bias showing. When I look at the message, I'm looking at it to see how would a liberal look at this passage? And most of the time, that's what gets conveyed in the message. But the other thing is, I'm reading through the book of Amos, which is judgment on God's church. Which is how the social justice war is going to misapply this verse in that context is baffling. But that's why we can't do proof texting. Just pick little verses everywhere. Yeah, because out of context that sounds completely different than in the context of, oh no, this whole thing is about judging the church. Absolutely. Because it sounds like if you pull just that verse out, especially in the message, it sounds like the church is supposed to be judging other people. And you can do that with anything. I mean how many sitcoms have had that like the punchline is somebody walks into the room right when somebody says something out of context and it's a big laugh. Right? You've got to have the context. You're reading a lot of stuff in the Old Testament. I don't know if it's on just your regular reading. She's where I am. Okay, so it's interesting. She's been reading a lot the last couple of months that are about, basically, judgments on God's people. Oh, yeah. I'm like, wow. I'm like, we are so... Honey, get down please, honey. Destitute. But anyway, so I'm in Amos. Yeah, no, that's good. Anybody else have something they wanted to share or something that they wanted to mention about the sermon and Revelation 10 specifically? Yeah, I noticed something as you were sharing the scripture about sealing up the things and not writing them down. What came to me was the idea that, I was just wondering, why the Lord says that he gives a revelation to some people and then says, seal it up. And I just, from the perspective of, as I meditated on that, it was from the perspective of, okay, it appears that God has certain people that he will, certain of his people, that he will share something with just because they are very special to him. There's something very special about the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John. They got to see things that the average believer doesn't get to see. And I think one of the, there's a reason for every word in the Bible. And I think one, I'm not saying this is the only reason, but it appears to me that a reason why This is in the Bible is to help us understand that just like in the natural, we have special friends that we will share things with, that we don't want them to share that with anybody else. It's just because they're our special friend. That's the only reason we do it. And it's just a level of trust that God is showing towards these people, closeness, intimacy. I think that's one reason why he does this with John. He did it with Paul too. And then the other thing, the idea of There's always a perverse version of what the devil always does, a perverse version of what God does, and the perverse version of this, I believe, is Gnosticism, a special knowledge, but it has to do with Gnosticism, the special knowledge has to do with being saved. Right. So, I think what this shows us is that if God gives anybody special knowledge, It's just because, not only, I shouldn't say just because, at least one reason is because they are special to him, but it never affects salvation. So God does give special knowledge, but it will not affect salvation. Yeah, you don't have to have said special knowledge to be saved. The rest of us... The rest of us don't have to know what he showed to John and what he showed to Paul to be saved. It doesn't affect the law either. What you're supposed to do is still the same. It doesn't change what Jesus did on the cross. It doesn't touch that at all. And there's a number of other examples, I mean I touched on a couple in the message and one of them is Paul having experience, but also John elsewhere in the New Testament talks about, I'm not telling you everything I know, the world couldn't hold the books, there wouldn't be enough room to tell you everything, so I'm telling you through the Holy Spirit what you need to know, and so you know enough So there's that. Peter's saying, well, what about him? Is he gonna die? And Jesus is like, you don't need to know. There's lots of examples where there's a special relationship between God and Moses, where Moses has conversations with God that we're not privy to. There's a lot of things that we don't know, and we don't need to know. And one of the things I wanted to really drive home, we had some distraction with some noises, so I'm not sure if that really got driven home. But to me, an application for us is, At the beginning of the message, I'm talking about all the horrors that are happening in the world. I said, where is God in all of this? He's right in the middle of it all. And he's got it. And we're like, how does he have it? We might not know how. But we know that he does because we know the good news, because he's rescued his people. That passage, that extensive passage I read from Romans 8, talking about the good news, the gospel, we do know that. And other things we don't know, he decided to share something a little extra special with John or Paul or Moses or whatever. Okay, that's his prerogative, but what we know We actually know. That's the point I'm trying to drive home. We don't know everything, but what we do know, we know. We can bank on it. And sometimes we need a little toss to and fro. That's why gathering together to be reaffirmed in what we know to be true is important. And being in the Bible and reading the word consistently, regularly is important, because the world is, there are a lot of haymakers our way, it feels like, particularly of late. And you can get knocked silly if you're not careful. Yeah, no, that's good. I think it might also, like, if he sees stuff that he's not allowed to write down or don't... It probably also helps give him some context. Like, you know, obviously... We might not know what the Thunder said, but he does, and that could just be more context for him as well, for everything that he's writing. Now if I wanted to guess, because I spent some time trying to wrestle with this, is there some other reason besides what I ended up... It was about animals. Well, you know, one of the things that I wonder about is if it's a timing issue. So we're talking about end times and the second coming. So maybe John was shown something specific about the exact moment of the return. He's like, you're not writing that down because no one's going to know. Maybe somehow that, but I wasn't convinced because Jesus says, no one knows, only the father knows. And then it seems like that would be a violation, like, okay, so now John knows too. So it wasn't, I think it's possible, but I'm not sure that that's it. I also toy with the idea, some people think that the seven thunders is actually the negative grumblings of the world in response to God. If I accepted that understanding of that, which I don't, I think that's a weak way to understand that given the broader context, but if I did, I'm thinking, okay, well maybe he doesn't want John to write down what the grumblers had to say because who cares? He just said big deal. What would be the big deal? And I heard everybody grumbling. Yeah, I don't think that's what's said. I think it's directly connecting to Psalm 29. So, anyway. Anybody from the sky blue section? Any questions? Nadia, do you want to rock? All right. What was the original question again? Well, basically it was opening the floor to if you have any questions or things you wanted to, there was no specific question. I don't think I did. We're in five different places at the moment. So it might have felt like we finished chapter 10, but not quite because I gave short shrift to the very end of the chapter. So next week, we're gonna actually be in chapter 10 a little bit more. And then after that, we'll be diving into chapter 11. So believe it or not, even though we've had two messages on chapter 10, there's a lot more to be said. So. Oh, somebody was wondering, man, you guys have been in Revelation for like two years. So I looked, and we had a big break because of some interruptions and stuff. But if we had gone through all of our messages thus far without interruption, we've been at Revelation for the equivalent of seven months worth of sermons. I was pretty sure it was after. So seven months is not two years, but by the time we're done, it's gonna be over a year. Because we're approaching the halfway mark and we're seven months, so we're gonna be over a year before we're done. But just for those who are paying attention to such things, I look that up. All right, we're going to, I think we're going to wrap up the stream, unless anybody else has something else they want to share in this context, because I'm actually hoping to do the supper and I want to be able to get that in before some people have to depart. So everybody have anything? No? All right. You want to close us in prayer? Lord, thank you so much for your word. It's truth, it's inspired, it is infallible, it is without error. We thank you that it is from beginning to end completely and totally sufficient for us to live. We thank you that we are sealed, that we are safe, that we are, although being judged as a church, as part of the remnant, We are thankful that you are faithful and that you will not lose one. And we praise you for that truth. We ask that you would be glorified. We pray that you would move in our spirit, that your Holy Spirit would move in us to be in your word, to be completely and totally filled with your will for the purposes of bringing your kingdom to earth, we pray that you would be glorified in all that we say and do. We ask that you would lead us not into temptation, Father. We ask that you would deliver us from all evil. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, if you're watching this stream, you want to do it now? Think she's good? Well, I'm gonna end the stream, I guess, and then we'll do the Lord's Prayer together. If you do not have a local church to belong to, you're within driving distance of Frederick, contact me, or if you're not within driving distance of Frederick and you'd like some help finding a church, I'd be glad to try to join you and help you find a good church. If you want to access our resources, links to my radio show, The Faith Debate, links to the pastor's blog, links to other messages like this one that are preserved and archived online, other resources that are vetted, trusted resources, all those sorts of things are available at our website. So I would welcome you to visit it. It's HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com, nameofthechurch.com, HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. Until next Saturday around six o'clock, God bless.