Outline The 144 000 The Great Multitude Introduction ‘Who can stand?’ This is the question that the last chapter has ended with. We saw a picture of the four horsemen devastating the earth, we had intimations of the church being ravaged in martyrdom and the whole earth being judged by God in a terrifying and irresistible judgement. The question on everyone’s mind in the churches receiving this letter would be, what about the church? Chapter 7 is the answer to that question. This chapter is called an interlude by many. In the midst of the storm of judgements between the 6th and 7th seal there is a peaceful eye in the storm where God magnifies His dealings with the apple of His eye. He paints in beautiful pictures the fulfilment of the many promises of protection, keeping and reward for the overcomers. This chapter is a storm of contention among the different schools of interpretation. The Historicist school sees this chapter as describing God holding back the four winds of the Barbarian horde that would ravage the Roman Empire, as well as the false teaching of Arius and Pelagius after Constantine while He seals and protects the church symbolised by the 144 000 for protection. The Preterist school sees the 144 000 as the Jewish believers who heeded Christ’s warning to flee Judea when the abomination that causes desolation was surrounding Jerusalem. The Great multitude is seen as the many more Gentiles that would be saved than Jews in fulfilment of Is. 54:1. The Futurist school believes that the church is removed from the earth before the Rapture and that the 144 000 are literal Jews in fulfilment of Romans 11:26-32 who then evangelise the world resulting in the great multitude of Gentiles getting saved. According to some Dispensationalists those...

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Outline What Spirit filled is not How to be Spirit filled Introduction How can sinners make a marriage work? We can make cars that can reach 0-100 in 3 seconds but our flesh cannot produce pure compassion. We can produce a perfect image in a photograph but we cannot of ourselves produce the image of Christ in us. Here are some American statistics which are often representative of the western world situation. ‘In a little more than three decades, the marriage rate (defined as the number of married adults per thousand) has declined by a third; the divorce rate has more than tripled; the percentage of children living with single parents has more than doubled, with a third of children now living without their biological fathers; the number of unmarried couple households has increased seven-fold; and the number of births to unwed mothers has quintupled.’ Even as Christians who cannot offer the perfect prayer or the perfect act of obedience untainted in some way by sin, how do we make a marriage work? How can we who cannot even keep ourselves out of sin how can we keep our marriages afloat? The world’s answer to this problem of marriage is to call marriage a redundant and failed institution that should be replaced. Some have decided to keep it but to overhaul it altogether. Tara Parker-Pope a NY Times columnist writes about the ‘me’ marriage. ‘The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counter-intuitive. After all, isn’t marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first? Not anymore. For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself. But in modern relationships, people are...

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Outline The details of the judgement The day of judgement Introduction If you were part of a suffering church and many of your friends and family had been martyred, and then God wrote you a letter to comfort you, what would you expect to find in that letter? A traditional promise of comfort, which would seem like cold comfort to us today is God’s promise to judge the persecutors of His people. It might seem a very strange promise to make but it really is greatest one. Think back to the very beginning when satan tempted Adam and Eve in rebellion and judgement. Remember the very first promise of salvation, it was a promise to crush satan’s head under the Saviour foot, Gen. 3:15, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This astounding promise outlines a war, the ongoing struggle that has characterised all of time as God’s people have been the persecuted people by those who are of the world and satan’s seed. However, it also promises an end to the war with a final and decisive victory. God does not merely promise us a holiday in the middle of a war, but the end of the war itself. The promise to judge enemies is God fulfilling His oldest and greatest promises; to bring to a head every promise that He has ever given; to fully and finally fulfil His covenant promises as a faithful Husband-Redeemer. It is a reminder that the long sad history of God’s people will end in victory. As we look at the final part of chapter 6 which has already spoken in broad brush strokes of the birth pains and trials that will trouble...

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Outline Home Work Introduction Given the newness of engaging with the problem of homosexuality in society in the Western world Christians are still struggling to know how to engage homosexuality in some of the complex everyday life situations. My goal in this message is not to give you a list of laws that you can apply in any situation but rather to try and demonstrate how to think through issues for yourself. You see, when one wanders into the realm of ethics we are faced with as many different situations as there are people, personalities, cultures, perspectives, etc. it would therefore be impossible for me to be able to give a rule for what to do in every situation, and in fact, it is not my job to take the place of your conscience either. The bible is sufficient to deal with these situations and fully equips us for any situation in either principle of precept, this however does not remove from us the responsibility of us having to work out their issues in our own homes and work places for ourselves. An answer which might be right in one situation given a particular set of circumstances may be wrong for another situation. What we want to avoid as we approach the issue of practical engagement is a one size fits all mentality, a forced case law that runs into every situation with a ready formula. The messiness of life after the fall hardly ever allows for such neat solutions. The responsibility is laid upon every one of us to be ready to apply God’s word in our won situations. You are the best equipped person in your life to apply God’s word because you are the one who has the most information about the situations you are in. This...

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Outline The four horsemen The martyrs Introduction In all 7 letters in Revelation there is a promise to the one who conquers. John was writing at a time of great trial and the people of God were being called upon to be holy and true in the midst of suffering. The book of Revelation cannot be understood unless seen as a book written to a situation where the church is harassed. Many times in the first three chapters we hear about the tribulation that the church was experiencing and the need for endurance. We noted how the church and the world are thrown into tribulation together but God has separate purposes for each. For the church He seeks holiness but against the seeks He is pouring out judgement. Having reminded these struggling churches of the fact of the resurrected Christ who has all authority to rule showing all of history to be an outworking of Him breaking the seals upon the scroll of God’s purposes chapter 6 describes the outpouring of Christ’s judgements, the suffering of the church and the final resolution on Judgement Day. We see the description of the hour of trial going to be poured out upon the whole world (3:10) and the way in which the church goes through it but is also preserved at the same time. This chapter is intended to comfort suffering Christians showing that Christ is in control, faithful Christians are protected and that evil is finally punished.

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Outline Compassion Truth Introduction One good thing about the latest homosexual marriage legislation is…. We can now put away politics and get on with Evangelism. The homosexual contingent of society has been pushed into a ghetto around which we have wanted to build a fence, and all of our engagement with them is one of militant legislation and a media shouting match. This has hindered the gospel to an extremely broken and needy people group. I am not happy about the legalisation of homosexual marriage, it is my duty as a Christian to be a prophetic voice that tells the world of God’s norm for humanity and to call them to repentance and salvation in Christ. The trouble is that the church has gotten very hung up on being the prophetic voice and has not moved to the gospel call. The church has picked up their pickets and taken to the streets in angry protest projecting an attitude of hatred and not compassion. I am feeling this tension within myself. I am of a generation and culture that has been very sheltered against these things. I have grown up in Christianised cultures that have characterised homosexuality as a mental illness, and a thing that only happens to bad people who have done bad things to deserve those desires. Not applying my belief in total depravity of all people I have allowed for a category of us and them not recognising homosexuality as just another form of sexual sin. All sin is unnatural in that it breaks God’s law, homosexuality also violates natural law, but so does divorce, child abuse, bestiality, adultery, etc. I don’t know about you but I have felt a definite shift in gear. Homosexuality is no longer something out there that is neatly categorised that I no...

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No sermon manuscript is available, sorry.

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Outline Genesis 1-2 Sodom and Gomorrah Levitical law Paul Introduction There are several things you will hear when the bible enters into the discussion on homosexual marriage. Firstly, you will hear the comment that there are only a few verses in the bible that address the issue. Secondly, you will hear that the bible is speaking to only certain types of homosexual behaviour but is not addressing life-long loving unions, nor orientation. Thirdly, the trajectory set by the NT if taken to its logical conclusion in fact supports gay marriage. It is only in the last generation with the influence of Liberation theology, reader response theories and other post-modern influences on the reading of the Bible that anyone would even think to say that the bible in fact supports homosexual marriage. The battle has been brought to the very bible and the Christian is being challenged that they are reading it all wrong. If you go onto the internet and this is one of the most common things you will find in the comments sections on the issue of homosexuality. You will often have some vocal person who has read a few liberal scholars spouting that the bible does not condemn homosexual marriage. The common Christian has not spent deliberate time looking at the various texts and can sometimes feel flustered at the apparently valid arguments that are brought against the traditional view. Sadly I have encountered those who are trapped in a homosexual lifestyle and think that the bible in fact condones their activities and the lies they believe about their identities because of these confusing arguments. So today we will be looking at the various texts and putting many fallacies to bed.

The post Homosexual Marriage 2: Examining the Texts appeared first on Covenant Grace Baptist Church.

Outline Views based on history View based on the OT Introduction When I try and understand the book of Revelation and put myself in the shoes of those who would have originally heard the book read in the first century I try to think about what other information I would need in order to understand the book. As I have scanned the other views of how people interpret the book of revelation, each one has the book of Revelation in one hand, but they all hold something different in the other. The Preterist view which holds to the view that this chapter is speaking about the fall of Jerusalem needs the historic account written by Josephus in order to understand this chapter. The Historicist view which sees this chapter as documenting the fall of Rome needs an detailed account of the fall of Rome and the history of its emperors. The Futurist, I am thinking about the Dispensationalist here, needs a newspaper to determine the identity of who they think is the antichrist and other details. The approach which I find the most compelling is the one that has the OT and the NT in the other hand. This may sound like I am denying the other views any dependence on Scripture this is not my intent, I just think that the view I want to present tonight consistently uses the bible instead of some other tool that the first century people would not have had access to. I want to read this chapter and understand it without needing a PhD in history to understand it. The setting is this: Jesus is King, He has finished His work. He is in control of history and unsealing that seals of God’s plan. We might expect at this point a great battle,...

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Outline Issues Truths Texts Response Introduction Eighteen countries as of June 26th 2015 have legalised same-sex marriage. We are living in a time when things are the worst they have ever been on the question of homosexuality. John Piper writes about what is new in this trend of legislation, ‘What’s new is not even the celebration and approval of homosexual sin. Homosexual behaviour has been exploited, and revelled in, and celebrated in art, for millennia. What’s new is normalisation and institutionalisation. This is the new calamity.’ We have seen the flood of rainbows in the Media in support of the latest legalisation in the USA. Ironically this symbol is borrowed from the bible after the flood when God had just punished the world for those sorts of sins. The Christian response has not always been good. There have been those who have celebrated along with the world this bible denying move. There have been other Christians who have been belligerent and trolled the internet for forums to pour out their hate. Today I would like us to respond as we should in all situations like this, by speaking the truth in love. We are not going to advocate a pacifist withdrawal and a fatalist I-told-you-so posture; nor are we going to be the angry activist who overreacts. No, God is on the throne, He is unmoved, He is in control, He has sovereignly ordained all that is happening as He works out His purposes for salvation, punishment and purification. I would like to suggest that Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman is the way we ought to be the church in this madness. I so much appreciated reading Russell Moore’s comments, ‘The church must prepare for the refugees from the sexual revolution. We must prepare for those, like...

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