Matt Nelson - August 29, 2021
Judgement that Brings Life
Judgement that Brings Life 8.29.21 The Revelation Drama: The Prologue: The story of God from Genesis - Revelation Act One: Satan is on the move (chapter 13) Act Two: The Prophet speaks (chapters 1-3) Act Three: God judges (chapters 6-20) Act Four: God renews (chapters 21-22) Picture #1 Picture #2 Setting the record straight about JUDGEMENT: The overarching mission of God is always salvation, never judgement. God’s judgement is always intended to bring repentance, not destruction. Judgement becomes a necessary means of redemption when humanity fails to repent or persists in rebellion to God. The judgements in Revelation chapters 6-20 are aimed at destroying the systems (political, economic, religious) which oppose God and the ways of the Lamb. The God of Revelation is the same God of the Beatitudes. The same Jesus who invites us into His kingdom in Matthew 5 is calling the nations to repentance and the way of the Lamb in Revelation. For us to be freed from sin and death God cannot be indifferent to sin. It is out of God’s love for us that he persists against sin and the destruction of whatever keeps us from experiencing life. God brings judgement out of his love for us and his desire to restore us into uninterrupted fellowship with Him. Seven seals (6:1-8:1) Seven angels with trumpets (8:2-11:19) Seven angels with bowls (15:1-16:21) Picture # 3 White Horse: conquest and power Red Horse: bloodshed and violence Black Horse: economic injustice Pale (Green) Horse: sickness and death Revelation 8:1 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Revelation 10:9-11 So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’” 10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.11 Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.” Revelation 16:15-19 15 “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.” 16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. 17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!”18 Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. God’s wrath is not unbridled anger or rage, it is His relentless love for us and His desire to overthrow the powers of evil that seek to destroy His creation.