The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

THE CHOICE THAT DETERMINES YOUR DESTINY (Revelation 14:4-13)

Chapter 14 of the Book of Revelation is a chapter of contrasts. It contrasts the Lamb and the beast, earth and heaven, and the harvest of the doomed and the harvest of the saved. It contrasts the decisions that determine a person’s eternal destiny. It also contrasts those who follow the Lamb, and those who are bossed by the beast. It is this contrast that we are studying today, and it is from understanding the characteristics of both of these groups that we can learn a great deal from to apply to our lives today. The truth is that while this chapter discusses events in the Tribulation Period, the choice that is described here, is the same choice that man has been faced with since Creation. We must choose to follow Christ, or, willingly or not, we choose to follow Satan, and it is that choice which determines our eternal destiny.

When you die, you are either going to die in the Lord, or out of the Lord. So, the question is, if you died today, would you die in the Lord, or would you die out of the Lord? If you die in the Lord, of course, God says, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. On the other hand, if you die outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, what a curse, what a sorrow, what a tragedy it would be for you. Another question to consider is, if you were to die today, where would you be? In other words, if you get to where you are headed, where will you be? Five minutes from now you may be in heaven, or you may be in hell. These are the questions that we will be asking today as we study the decisions of the living and the destiny of the dead.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the choice that will determine your eternal destiny. Is it Heaven or Hell? We will answer the question of whether Hell is real, or is it symbolic? How long will you stay in Hell? We will also discuss what your loved ones are doing in heaven today.

Amen.

JESUS CHRIST THE ALMIGHTY GOD (Revelation 10:3-11)

The Book of Revelation presents to the world Jesus Christ as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Creator of all things, and the Lord of lords and King of kings. Jesus is the One we worship.

One of these days, sin's clock will be stopped, and the mystery of God will be finished, and delay will be no more. Sin has been on a rampage. Righteousness seems to have suffered. It is now coming to a conclusion. God has given the inhabitants of the earth time for repentance, but time is running out. The clock will strike its last note and sin's clock is about to be stopped. God’s mercy for sin is about to end. The time for repentance will come to an end.

Don't get the idea that you have time before the rapture to turn to God, for that may come at any moment. Don't get the idea that even after the rapture, that God will continue to give you time, even if you've never heard the Gospel before. There is coming a time when time will run out. When God's clock stops, that's it! And if you are not on God's train, you are going to be left.

The Book of Revelation tells us about the majesty, the mastery, and the mystery of Jesus Christ. When I see the majesty of Christ that means Jesus, my Savior is due my total worship. When I see the mastery of His power that means that Jesus my Lord is worthy of my total confidence. He is the one who has everything under control. When I see God’s mysteries are revealed, then God’s mercy ends.

Click on the link below to hear a message on our Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed in The Book of Revelation.

Amen.

CAN'T GOD DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT? (Revelation 9:15-21)

I think that we can all agree that evil is certainly growing around us today. In spite of the restraint of the Holy Spirit during the day that we live in, evil is still on the rise. Men murder others. Women even murder their own children, and now we have children who become murderers in their own homes and schools.

Yet, most of all, may God have mercy on the murderers of unborn babies. May God send His Spirit to bring repentance to every man and woman who has participated in this most heinous act against defenseless little babies. People today get upset and wonder where the judgment of God is for the perpetrators of terrorism and mass shootings, but the number of people who die all across the world from terrorism is but a fraction of the murders of babies that occur each year in this country. It is a sin that God will hold this country accountable for. It would be easy to wonder where is God in all of this, and why isn’t He doing anything about it.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on the Biblical truth that timing is more important to God, than time. God has a plan to deal with all of the evil of this world and in all of creation. That plan is on time. God is never early, and He is never late. Nothing, or no one can stop or change that plan. Not Satan, or all of his demons, for Satan is but a creation, and God is sovereign.

We started this series by asking Doesn’t God know? Doesn’t God care? And if God knows and cares, then why isn’t He doing something about it? God knows, and God cares. It is man that has turned his back on God. That no longer wants to know God. That no longer cares about God.  Yet, we have still have a chance during this age of grace that we live in to turn to God. God loves you. Lay aside your pride. May the mercy of God through His Son bring the saving judgment of eternal life to you today, so you will not be lost in the fires of Judgment for all of eternity.

Amen.

WHEN DEMONS RULE (Revelation 9:1-12)

The Bible declares that there is a day coming when Hell will have a holiday, demons will rule, the Antichrist will come and dominate the world, and Satan’s plan for the earth and mankind will come to fruition for a season. In chapter nine of the Book of Revelation we read that an angel will open the bottomless pit and out of it will come a horde of millions upon millions of the most vile and terrible demon spirits to torment those who are on the earth. They will inflict agony, pain, and anguish to such an extent that men will cry out for death to come, but death will flee from them. It will be a time of great terror upon the earth.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on when demons shall rule upon the earth and to learn the good news of the gospel message of Christ. As believers today, we can shout praise God, hallelujah, and Amen, because the Bible promises us that before the day when demons will rule takes place, Jesus Christ will come and take the church age believers up to meet Him in the air at the rapture. We will not be on this earth when this day occurs.

Amen and amen.

THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPET JUDGMENTS (Revelation 8:5-13)

There will be three sets of judgments during the tribulation period:

Under the seal judgments, the world is ruined by man. Events recorded under the seal judgments are extensions of things that are very evident in today's world. The chief difference is that the church will be gone, and to a great extent, restraint will be removed. The evil seeds men have sown will grow and bear fruit.

Under the trumpet judgments, the world is ruled by Satan. A vast and new dimension of the supernatural is introduced. Satan is cast down to earth; the planet is invaded by hordes of evil spirits; Satan's plans for this earth are matured.

The last set of judgments during this period will be the vial judgments, where the world is rescued by God. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Satan's empire is dealt blow after blow by God Himself, until at last the Lord, accompanied by His saints, returns from glory to put an end to this world’s woes.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on the start of the trumpet judgments. We will see the power of Satan and his superman the Antichrist ascend to rule the world. The people of the earth will have rejected Christ, and now God is about to let them have what they wanted, a ruler with no morals, no goodness, totally corrupt, and having the destruction of the entire human race as his goal. Make no mistake about it, Satan hates mankind because we are God’s creation. Man was created by God to worship God, and Satan cannot stand that. He has spent every day since he fell trying to corrupt and destroy God’s creation.

Listen to this study of the first four trumpets of the Tribulation Period.

THE SEAL JUDGMENTS (Revelation 6:7-17)

The Bible tells us in the Book of Revelation that a period of massive cataclysmic events is going to occur. We call this the Tribulation Period, or The Great Tribulation. Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew that they will be events unlike anything that has occurred in the past, and unlike anything that will occur ever again. There will be great earthquakes that are felt all around the world. The sun will go dark and the moon will hang in the air like a clot of blood. Wars will occur, famine, and pestilence. There will be great persecution of the anyone who refuses to worship the Antichrist. The death toll will be overwhelming. Billions of people will die from all of these events. But the good news is that you do not have to be here to endure these events. There is a way out, and it is the way up, and His name is Jesus Christ.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on the opening of the seal judgments during the Tribulation Period as we continue our verse-by-verse study of The Book of the Revelation.

THE FIRST THREE SEALS ARE BROKEN (Revelation 6:2-6)

We are at a point in our study of the Book of Revelation where the Tribulation Period is beginning. The church has been taken out in the rapture, the restraint of the Holy Spirit has been removed, the world is in chaos, and into this chaos, Satan’s superman, the Antichrist will step onto the scene. The Scriptures tell us that there is some day going to arise an individual who will be the embodiment of all Satanic power. He will be known as the willful king, because he shall do according to his own will. He will have no respect for sacred things or places. He will allow the Jews to rebuild the temple, and then he will betray them by erecting a throne in the Most Holy Place and seat himself upon it. He will proclaim himself god, and men will be commanded to worship him. Satan will give him his power, his throne, and great authority.

When the Antichrist begins to go forth, everyone will proclaim that a savior has come to bring world peace. Indeed, at that moment in time, the world will be ready for the devil’s messiah. And he will take full advantage of his hero status. The world will worship at his feet. Little children will speak his name with reverence. Men will lay down their lives for this man. He will personify all of the Caesars, Napoleons, Hitlers, and Stalins rolled into one, and he will have sinister plans for military conquest.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on the opening of the first three seal judgments of the Tribulation Period. The Antichrist will come, war will follow just as surely as night follows day, and then, as a result of the war, worldwide famine will spread across the world.

WHY BRING TRIBULATION (Revelation 6:1)

Our lesson today begins in chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation, and what we will see in this chapter is that the world is on a collision course with judgment by God. That may not be a socially acceptable message, and some of the more sensitive of our society are probably running for their safe spaces right about now, but it is certainly true.

So, when I say that the world is on a collision course with judgment by God, what does that mean? Many people think that judgment only involves the active stance a judge takes when he delivers a sentence to the guilty person. But a judge can also take a passive stance, letting the chips fall where they may and allowing the consequences of one’s behavior to serve as the judgement. This passive stance is how God will judge the world in these next few chapters. There will come a time for God to take the active stance of condemning those who have rejected Him. But first, God will simply let the world have its own way.

Think about it. How hard has the world been trying to deny the existence of God? How hard have they rebelled against God’s morality, and divine truths about right and wrong? How hard have they persecuted Christ’s followers trying to eradicate them from the face of the earth? How hard have they tried to deny that Christ is the Son of God, that He was born of a virgin, and that He died on the cross for the sins of the world? That He was buried and rose, bodily, from the grave, and then ascended into heaven, promising that one day He would return to reign in power forever an ever? How hard have they tried to prove that none of these things are true?

One of God’s methods of judging the world during the Tribulation Period will be to simply let the world have its way. Ironically, when the world gets what it wants, it will not want what it gets. Jesus describes the Tribulation Period as containing such horrible events beyond anything that has happened in the entire history of mankind.

So why would a loving God allow such horrible things to happen?

Click on the link below to learn that the answer to that question is to bring God’s chosen people, the Israelites, back to Him, and to restore them to their position in His Kingdom. The Tribulation Period is about the Jews, not the church.

GOD'S THRONE, GOD'S JUDGMENT (Revelation 4:3-11)

The last couple of weeks, our emphasis has been on the rapture, and what a wonderful event that will be for those of us who are prepared for the coming of our Lord Jesus. With the beginning of chapter 4, we turn the page from the things which are, meaning the church age, to those things that are to come. The thing that is most prominent in the rest of this book, is the judgment of God. God has said that vengeance, or judgment, is His, and we are about to study a whole series of judgments where God will judge all of humanity that has lived from the creation of Adam and Eve to the last born person before the consummation of all things. God will judge the earth, and all of His creation. He will judge Satan, and all of the fallen angels, the antichrist, the false prophet, and all of the demons of Satan. He will judge both the saved and the lost of humanity. No one, and no thing, will escape the coming judgment. God’s judgment is real and it is coming soon.

Heb 10:30
30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
KJV

In chapter four of the Book of Revelation, the Lord is setting the stage for the multiple judgments that are coming, and the very symbol of God’s judgment, is God’s throne.

Click on this link to hear a sermon on the throne of God and how His judgments will be viewed by all who kneel before Him.

A DEAD CHURCH (Revelation 3:1-6)

When I say that a church is dead, what does that mean to you?

Can a conservative church be dead? Can a liberal church be dead? Can a legalistic church be dead? How about a church with a large beautiful campus with services filled to capacity multiple times a week, can that church be dead?

A dead church is one that no longer exists to serve Christ. It serves tradition, or religious ritual, or the world, but not Christ. If your tradition, or ritual, is more important than what the Word of God says, then you are in a dead church. We have many dead churches in our world today. In fact, we have many more dead churches than we do live ones. Some of these churches started out as Holy Spirit led churches, but as time wore on, and tradition and ritual set in, the church let the fires go out, and they existed to serve their religion, not Christ.

Many, large, popular, churches, are dead churches. They may sing all the right songs. They may say all the right Scriptures. The preacher may have a compelling message, but Christ is not the focus of their worship. In fact, they won’t even mention Christ, or sin, or Hell, or the final judgment. They will talk about a far-off, distant God, who set the world in motion and then stood back to watch how things turned out. They may have their own prophet who gives a more enlightened word that they follow. A church that does not serve and worship Christ as their Lord and Master, is a dead church.

Clink on this link to hear a sermon on a church that the Lord Jesus calls a dead church.