The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

THE SIGNS OF ARMAGEDDON (Revelation 19:12-16)

One of the greatest lessons that we can learn from Bible prophecy is that God is in control of all things. If you get nothing else out of Bible prophecy, you need to be comforted by the fact that God is in control of all things. When we look around at all of the crazy things that are happening in this world, it would be easy to wonder who is in control. But, let me tell you a truth that you can bank your entire eternity on, the almighty Creator of all things, the true and living God is in control, no matter what you see or think.

Anybody with even walking around common sense, that is someone who just barely has enough common sense to walk down the street and not get lost, even someone like that, can read the headlines of our news, and see what is happening. The storm clouds are gathering. The dynamite has been laid, the fuse is in place, the match is struck, and we all know that we are running out of time. A battle called the Battle of Armageddon is rushing upon us.

Click on the link below as we bring together all of the parts of Revelation that deal with Armageddon, and mix in some of the signs found in other parts of the Bible that speak of the coming of Armageddon. We are going to get a look at the big picture today as we see these signposts on the road to Armageddon.

Amen.

A BEASTLY BEAST (Revelation 17:10-18)

There is coming, with ever increasing rapidity, a world religion and a world government. As a reborn child of God, you don't belong to this world government; you belong to Jesus Christ. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. You don't belong to the harlot church; you are the bride of Christ. And in these days, though we are not yet in The Tribulation, nor will we be when it does come, coming events cast their shadows ahead of time.

Our loyalty to our Lord and Savior is going to be tested severely, and we will need to double down and remain loyal to the heavenly bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. As the body of true believers, we are the bride of Christ. We cannot flirt with false religions. There have been many who have told me that they need to study other religions in order to better defend our faith. I believe that is true for some special warriors, and if you are one of these, then God will provide.

But, for me, and the vast majority of Christians, I believe that there is so much that I do not know about the depths of the Word of God, that I could spend the rest of my life digging into it, learning the Mind of God, and barely scratch the surface. I have made up my mind to spend every moment I can learning more about God, rather than waste a single moment learning about a false religion. I will defend the gospel of God not by my own words, not by using the words of a false religion that I have studied, but by the Word of God.

Luke 21:12-15
12 But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.
13 And it shall turn to you for a testimony.
14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:
15 For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
KJV

We are going to be persecuted, and during this persecution, there will come a time for us to give a testimony of our faith. We are to always be ready to defend our faith.

1 Peter 3:15
15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
KJV

We are to do this by diligent study of the Word of God.

2 Tim 2:15
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
KJV

And when that time comes for you to give your testimony about the God you serve, to those who persecute you, let God lead you, “Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom.” The Bible says that we are to be true to Jesus. We are to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Any time that we spend studying, or playing with, a false religion is like flirting with a married woman. It is called spiritual iniquity. We are to remain spiritually pure to our Lord Jesus. I challenge you to get a bulldog grip on the truth because there is going to come a time when we will be under great pressure if we dare to say that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And if you are not saved, my best advice to you is to give your heart to Jesus Christ, for the time is coming when you will believe the lie, and not the truth.

Click on the link below to learn how there is coming a beast to dominate the world, as Bible believing Christians we cannot be ignorant of the coming events that are told to us in God’s Word.

Amen.

DEALING WITH PERSECUTION (Revelation 11:5-13)

The Bible says that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If you live for Jesus, and your life is in obedience to the will of God, it is fruitful for God, and you are sharing the light of the gospel to a dark world, then the Bible says that you will suffer persecution.

To know that this is true, all you have to do is read the headlines of the news today. Christians are suffering severe persecution in countries all around the world. So, the question that we will look at today is, How do you deal with this persecution? What are the Biblical truths that we must apply to our lives, if we are to be successful in dealing with persecution on both a physical and spiritual level?

Click on the link below to learn the five factors that the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation about the two witnesses for God, and how they dealt with persecution. These are important lessons that we must settle in our hearts and mind if we are to be victorious in our witness for God.

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.

WHERE IS GOD? DOESN'T HE CARE? (Revelation 9:12-14)

With events like the terrible tragedy that occurred in Las Vegas last week, it would seem that everything not nailed down is coming loose, and that Satan is busy at work prying loose everything else. Every day it seems that evil is growing and dominating the world. It would be easy to understand if there are people who are asking Where is God? Doesn’t He know? If He knows, doesn’t He care? If He knows and cares, can’t He do anything about it?

Click on the link below to learn that God does know, God does care, and God does have a plan. If you want to know where God is, He is right on time. With God, timing is more important than time. If you want to know if God knows and hears your prayers, the answer is yes, they are before Him as incense. If you to know if God cares, yes He does, He cares so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross so you do not have to. If you want to why God is not doing anything, God says, just wait, my plan will occur just as I said it will, because I am sovereign, and nothing, and no one, can stop or deter my plan. Amen.

THERE IS NO PROMISE TOO HARD FOR GOD TO KEEP PART II (Revelation 7:1-8)

This Biblical truth is important to all believers because it gives us assurance that when God says something in His word about the future of the world, the future of the heavens, the future of the lost, and especially the future of believers, we can trust that it is true. That what God says, God will do. This allows us to stop worrying about the future and focus on the task that God has for us to accomplish to move His purposes and plans along.

We are to be looking for and hasting the day of God, which is that day when Christ completes all that He is to do and delivers the kingdom to the Father so that God can be all in all. We are to be working on witnessing and bringing lost souls to Christ, that is our purpose and that is our reason for being here. Not all of us are evangelists, but all of us have a role to play, and a story to tell about how real God is in our lives, and what He has done for us.

We cannot be bashful about praising our Lord, for people want to hear that God is real and working in this world. This is the missing element in so many people’s lives. Man was created to worship God, and when they do not, they have a hole in their lives. They know something is missing and so they try to fill it with all kinds of things, and yet there is still a hole. It is our testimony that can help them find the Lord Jesus Christ to fill that hole.

Click on the link below to learn how one way that God fulfills His promise to Abraham that all of the families of the earth will be blessed by the children of Israel. God chooses 144,000 Jews from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, He seals them, and they become His servants to spread the gospel message of Christ during a time of Great Tribulation. There is no promise too hard for God. Amen.

THERE IS NO PROMISE TOO HARD FOR GOD TO KEEP (Revelation 7:1-8)

We may be the last generation of church age believers that live on this earth. We may very well be the ones who are alive when the rapture occurs, the trumpet sounds, and the Lord comes with a shout to take us home. What a day that will be when we are called to meet our Lord in the air, and so we need to be ready. We need to have our rapture shoes on, but this should not be a call to stick our heads in the clouds of prophecy. Someone once said that way too many Christians are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

The promises that we are about to read about in chapter seven should not cause us to put heads up in the clouds, but they should cause us to put our feet on the pavement of serving and soul winning. The blessed hope for which we await is not an incentive to rest, but to work. Jesus said that we are to occupy till I come. He didn’t mean for us to take up space, he meant for us to get to work because we know the future. Our occupation is our job, and we need to get busy.

Chapter seven of The Book of Revelation is about making sure we know that God is going to do all that Word of God says He will do. It is about giving us a more sure word of prophecy. It is about giving us assurance that our future is secure. Because, it is when we know that our future is secure, that we can focus with all of our heart on the present job that Christ has assigned each of us as believers. We are here on this earth to work for Jesus.

We each have a task to complete, a role to play, and a job to perform. If this were not true, then Jesus would simply take us to heaven the moment we made Him our Lord and Savior. There would be no reason to keep us here, for we do not work for our salvation, and we cannot lose our salvation by failing to work. So, if the Lord did not have something for us to accomplish that furthered His purposes and plans for this world, then He would just take us up.

God knows the number of souls that must be saved before the day of the Rapture comes and the end of the period of grace occurs. We are tools that the Holy Spirit uses to bring those souls to Christ. We pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance on where those souls are, and which ones we are to evangelize to, and then we labor to bring them in for the Holy Spirit to do His work. In doing so, we hasten the day of His coming. We learn about our future in eternity by studying the Book of Revelation and the other books of prophecy. In doing so, we learn that our future is secure. With that settled, we can then focus on working to hasten that wonderful day.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on the mighty God that we serve, and the certain knowledge that there is no promise that is too hard for God to keep.

JESUS IS EXCLUSIVELY WORTHY (Revelation 5:1-5)

Let me begin this post with a few personal questions.

1) Do you have a cause worth living for?

2) Is what you are living for, worthy of Jesus’ dying for?

3) When you get where you are headed, where will you be?

When you put our short, mortal, lives in the context of eternity, many of us are shoveling smoke and plowing water. When this world is done, much of what we have done will make no difference whatsoever. Think about it, how much of what we have worked so hard for in this life, will extend beyond the grave, or will even exist after Jesus Christ destroys this world and creates a new heaven and a new earth?

Years ago, Reader’s Digest had an article that said in order for a person to have a meaningful life, they need three things. First, they need someone to love. Second, they need something to do. Third, they need something to hope for. I think Reader’s Digest is right, but they did not say who or what that something was. That something is Jesus Christ. He is the One we love, the One we serve, and One in whom we hope. Jesus Christ is the only One worthy of my love, my life, my all, and yours.

The fifth chapter of Revelation talks about the One who is worthy, Jesus Christ. And it brings home the fact that each of us will never have satisfaction and fulfillment, or understand why God created us, until we come to worship Him.

Click on this link to hear a sermon on just one of three things that this chapter says about why our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is worthy of our worship.

A ROAD MAP OF THE END TIMES (Revelation 1:19)

Many people ask if there is a key to understanding the Book of Revelation? The answer is yes! God’s purpose is not to conceal, but to reveal. This golden key is hanging right on the front door in verse 19 of the first chapter of Revelation. It is John’s commission to write the Book of Revelation. In fact, John got his commission from the Trinity Book Publishing company. Jesus Christ, one of the three partners in the Trinity Book Publishing company, tells John,

Rev 1:19
19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
KJV

Now, contrary to what some will tell you, the Book of Revelation is primarily a prophetic book. It tells us about the things which shall be hereafter, it is not a history book. Revelation is a book of prophecy, and only God knows the future. God alone can prophecy what will occur in the future. Satan cannot prophecy at all.

Today, I want to give us a panoramic view of the prophecy we find in this book so we can use it as a guide to what we are seeing in these prophecies. I am not going to go into them deeply, because we will be doing that over the next several months, years, or however long it takes us to get through this wonderful book of prophecy. But I do want you to have a roadmap to work from in our study.

Click the link to hear a podcast on the major branches of prophecy that will occur in the future. Jesus Christ is coming to judge the world, and God wants you to know what is going to happen so you can be ready.