Someone said, If you could send someone back from the dead and tell my brothers about hell where I am, I would appreciate it. And the response If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, Neither will They be persuaded though one rise from the dead.
So what are you going to do with the information you get? It's going to come down to the scripture. I mean if facts mean nothing. then you are doomed. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston.
Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Revelation. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick beginning in Isaiah chapter 5 as he introduces the book of Revelation. What we have is a society that wants to throw away our constitution.
They are determined To elect, that is to empower, despicable people, incompetent people. with others in the background. writing laws. Isaiah said, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet. and sweet for bitter.
And of course, this is becoming global now. There's always been these things, nothing new under the sun. But now they are being radicalized and weaponized And it all is because the people are being demonized. Pharmaceuticals. and their sorcery big farm.
Government officials, we have under the influence of psychotropic drugs. Lawmakers and staff, and that's important. and their staff. with conditions like Alzheimer's. Severe depression.
They have a special car shows up to the Capitol building every day with a boatload of prescription drugs. And much of it again mind-altering drugs. And these people go in to write laws, and we scratch our head and we say, this is no longer. A bad decision. It is insane and it is evil.
And this is part of what's contributing to it. And we'll come to that towards the end when we come across the word sorcery, which in the Greek is. gives us our English word. Pharmacy, pharmakeia. It will come to this, mankind provoking God, and God will unleash His wrath on this.
Now in Matthew's gospel, Which revelation is largely a commentary on, well, an expansion of Matthew chapter 24. There, of course, Jesus said there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor. ever shall be. because it's not sustainable. If those days weren't shortened, man would wipe himself out.
Israel would be wiped out. But God is going to shorten those days.
Now, it's going to take us a few months, maybe one or two, or maybe two or three. To get to that great tribulation part where Antichrist shows up on the white horse and the four horsemen of Revelation and all the stuff that's happening. And the reason why is because we have to lay a deep foundation for deep material. There is the glorious Christ, just of chapter one, the angelic messenger, the exiled John. There are the seven assemblies, that is, churches, and it's important to point out these are assemblies of Christians, or at least those who profess to be.
There are the pastoral messages. There is the Lamb's scroll. There is a scene in heaven. There is Lucifer and his doting world. And then there is a new creation.
A new heaven and a new earth. And so the message part Two. Unbelievers this morning. is the revelation of Jesus Christ is about the end of the world. 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 tells us it's the end of the world's government, the world's rule.
Then comes the end. 1 Corinthians 15, 24, when he, that's Jesus Christ, delivers the kingdom of God, the Father. When he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. And we will be there to see it happen. Our concern right now is to continue doing and pursuing what we believe.
We're not to turn the book of Revelation into an entertainment center. It is to inspire us to do and to preach. The book of Revelation, the world does not know, is not about the end of life, though many lives will be ended. Revelation 21:27 shows us life after the Great Tribulation. But there shall by no means enter in it that defiles.
That is, of course. God's kingdom, the New Jerusalem even. or causes an abomination or a lie. but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Well, we go back to Isaiah now, where God says, I'm the one telling the truth. No one can pull this off. It be in your best interest. to line up with me. And that's what we're saying to the world.
The revelation of Jesus Christ is accurate. We see much of it being fulfilled in our lifetime. Nobody else has got this. You're not going to find this in the Quran or the Hadith or anybody else's writings, as witty as. What's his name?
Mark Twain. and his brother, Choo Choo. Shoot you, Twain.
Okay. Even such witty men like that cannot tell the future. There's a big difference between forecasting something and telling the future. You can look on a map and say, yeah, there's a storm coming. That's not telling the future.
That's forecasting. but to foretell. with pinpoint accuracy. And to always be right. That is divine.
And you would be a fool to be able to to come in contact with this information. and rejected, which is what was happening in Isaiah. Jesus made the earth. Unbelievers might not know that. John chapter 1, verse 3: All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.
That is divine. That's an attribute that is exclusive to deity. He ends the earth. Revelation 21:1.
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth. had passed away.
Well, it wasn't aliens. From another planet? Or a from the southern border. It's Jesus Christ.
So if fact means nothing to you, Then, when the day of weeping and gnashing of teeth arrives, you will be in that number. That is our message, part of it. You will not be spared. Luke chapter 13. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets of the kingdom of God.
and yourselves thrust out. Yeah, that was directed at Religious leaders who were corrupt. But it also applies to human beings. who are corrupt in the eyes of God. In fact, where it says that all the prophets, that could include all the Christians.
Because We too are prophetic when we preach the word. Whether it is to an individual, or from a pulpit. He says, You will weep with horror, and you will gnash. your teeth in insolence. We have characters in scripture that Show us People do this kind of stuff.
Cain The Pharaoh of Egypt. Balum. And in Judas Iscariot, or just four. Oh, just four people. who had no reason to disbelieve God.
They were shown things that no one else could have seen. They were privileged to see things that very few get to see. And yet they trampled it. In Luke's Gospel, chapter 17. Jesus said, Let me tell you how it's going to end up.
Verse 26, Luke 17. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives. They were given in marriage. Pause.
Why is there a distinction between they married wives? And They were given in marriage. I think it's prophetic. to the perversion of the sanctity of marriage that we're seeing in our lifetime. We have people of the same gender marrying each other.
and the courts approving it. And I think there it is in Scripture because that distinction would be a redundancy, but it's not. God's not random and He's not wasteful. He continues. Luke does in chapter 17.
Jesus is the one doing the speaking. He says, until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. We wipe that out. And then Jesus said, likewise, this one's after the flood. As it was in the days of Lot.
They ate, they drank. They bought, they sold. They planted, they built. But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
Two side notes there. First off, there's no mention of the Marriage when it came to Lot's Day, because even the Sodomites weren't doing what we find happening today. And then coming also back to this. That fire in brimstone, these weren't raindrops of fire and brimstone.
Some of those brimstones were the size of cars. There are some there's some archaeological evidence for that.
So this was a judgment that you could not escape. If you reject Genesis 1, remember the bullet point we're on right now is our message to the world. As given to us through the Scripture. As developed in end times through Revelation, Our message is to you is if you have a problem with Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
From nothing. If you have a problem with that, well, you're going to have a problem with everything else in the Scripture. And then you will reject the revelation, and the revelation will reject you in the end, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But you should avoid it.
Now we come to this righteous curiosity that all Christians have, at least should have, when it comes to the book of Revelation. Granted, some are a bit carried away with it, and we got to watch that. You don't want to become so end-time-minded that you know present-time useful.
So it's the balance is always going on. There isn't such thing as a righteous curiosity. There's a wasted one, too. those who are always learning and never coming into the knowledge. Those whose ears they want to be tickled, but they have no intention of obeying.
Ezekiel dealt with that, Paul dealt with that, all of the apostles do, and we do to this day.
However, the useful curiosity. was initiated By the disciples of Christ And when he gets to the Mount of Olive, He sits down and he gives what we call the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24. And what started the whole thing is that Jesus was putting in line the corrupt religious leaders. And as he was in the on the Temple Mount, and then he heads out. And he crosses the brook Kidron.
He goes up, which separates the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. And he sits at the Mount of Olives. And there his disciples Asked him, when will these things be? And the reason why is, Jesus said that he came to Jerusalem. And that's when he says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I've wanted to gather your children under my wing, but you were not willing.
Your temple will be left to you. desolate. That's the part. that the apostles locked in on. The temple desolate?
So on the way out, they say, Lord, look at this beautiful complex. These buildings. And he says, I'm telling you, not a stone will remain one atop of another. And then he got up to the Mount of Olives. And when he was alone, they came to him.
We pick it up Matthew 24, 3.
Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us. When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? That was their curiosity. And he granted answers to them. He lays out.
The destruction. Of human government and his return.
Now, he has to do it in such a way. It's obscured because there were truths that they had no knowledge of. Imagine telling somebody 400 years ago about a fax machine. You know, they would probably struggle with that. Or maybe there's other things that we'd be better anyway.
How could Christ give them an end-time teaching when the church wasn't even born yet? When he had so much more to say. But we, having more information, we go back to Matthew 24 and we can create an accurate timeline. For the end time. We can chronicleize it.
So what about believers? John 14. Tells us Jesus speaking, If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may also be. As Paul said, absent from the body, present with the Lord. Absent from the body means I die.
And I leave this body, I don't need it anymore. I didn't like it much when I had it anyway. And then I am with Christ forever. And so, this curiosity, what's going to happen? What about believers?
Well, Jesus said, Well, do you believe me? You're going to be with me. Are you calling me a liar? Or you choose to believe.
Well, we choose to believe.
Well, what about... Unbelievers.
Well It's largely up to them. before death. They have a say-so. If they hear the gospel, they have a say-so. Luke chapter 2.
sixteen verse thirty one Someone said, if you could send someone back from the dead and tell my brothers about hell where I am, I would appreciate it. And the response If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, Neither will They be persuaded. Though one rise from the dead.
So what are you going to do with the information you get? It's going to come down to the scripture. I mean if facts mean nothing. then you are doomed. And we're seeing this.
We're seeing people voting because facts mean nothing to them. The way the Satan has twisted their head to think is this. If I don't like the facts, it shouldn't be that way. I'm going to go with what is not a fact, because I I want it to be that way. And if you did that We're jumping off a cliff.
Well, I want to land on my feet. Uh it wouldn't work. And this is why they're accountable because they know it, because they only practice this kind of behavior in certain areas of their life. And not across their life.
So facts do count. And the fact of Jesus decides destiny. Again, this part is our message to the world from even the book of Revelation. But going back to John's Gospel, chapter 16. Speaking about what the Holy Spirit will do.
And we are in this time when Jesus, when the Holy Spirit is the representation to the church of Christ. the inspiration of the church. When he has come, he will convict the world of sin. And of righteousness and of judgment. He does it through the church, he does it through the scripture.
So we have God who is very active in this world. And there are no excuses to reject the gospel. And I sometimes wonder: well, you know, I know it's so hard to save a soul, to be used to save a soul. It is so difficult. But.
When the moment is ripe. That's when it counts. You can't share these things when they're not listening, when they're just the Spirit's not moving on them yet. But when that moment comes, And they are sensitive. We should be ready.
And the way we're ready. is by walking with the Lord. And gobbling up as much of his word as we can bear. Why the revelation of Jesus Christ?
Well, it is the prophetic guarantee to all Christianity. in every age. At the time, and I don't want to get too much ahead of this because we'll get to that when we. This is not an exposition on Revelation yet. This is an introduction, it is more topical than it is.
expository, though some of the verses are expounded on. Anyway, this prophetic guarantee at the time Revelation was written There was persecution, localized persecution on the Christians. When it's written about 30 years after the death of Peter and Paul. They were killed. under Nero's persecution largely centered in Rome.
John, some 30 years later, is in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, where the seven churches are. And the persecution there was not really coming from Caesar, it was coming from. Emperor worshipers. We got glances of that in the book of Acts.
So the Asiarchs, those living in Asia Minor, running the city, They are the ones that began persecuting the church, which explains why the church at Philadelphia seems to have. Dodged or been shielded from the persecution, whereas the Church of Smyrna was not.
So, anyway, I know I went down a rabbit hole there, but so those Christians, when they received the revelation, they were inspired to trust God has got this. There are other Christians that were martyred without the revelation. But now there are Christians being martyred with the revelation. Preparing. us with answers about the end of the world.
And if you're in the workplace of the school, you should have answers to your children. you should have answers as to how this world ends. Men's not going to have the nuclear exchange and wipe each other out, and it's not going to get so hot that all the ice melts and the water's going to come flood us all. We have floaties for that. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Man is not going to do himself in. God's going to do the unbelievers in. And so, this is to encourage the believers, telling them that the future. Is secured in Christ, He's sovereign, but is telling the unbeliever to their face.
That God is going to hold mankind accountable, and that is going to be. And mass and personally. Matthew 24, verse 25. See, I have told you beforehand. Matthew 24, that's where Christ giving them the Olivet discourse, telling about end times.
That's where God says to John on Patmos, I'm going to give you more information about my sermon on the Mount of Olives, and here are the details.
So, about events leading up to Christ's second coming. including The final judgments of the world and on Satan and the redemption of Israel. That's what the revelation is doing. God's establishment. of his kingdom Throughout all eternity is laid out for us.
John 16:1, these things I have spoken to you. that you should not be made to stumble I wonder I I don't wanna know And well, how do how does one become an apostate? Hearing these things, how do you change teams? How do you say I'm no longer following Jesus? I'm now following this group or doing that.
How do you do this? Oh, I get the mechanics of it, but I don't get it. and may it never happen to anybody I know. where they give up the faith. For dung.
Symbolic imagery used because it speaks to all ages, just like the word I used. The word I just used, dong. Speaks to all ages. Whatever you do, Whatever you do to the language, and we've watched language change, remember? When gay meant something other than perverted, Language changes.
Symbols do not. Symbols depict God's methods and Satan's ways and people's behavior, past, present, and future. A lion is always fierce. An eagle always soars. A serpent is always sneaky.
Those are emblems, and so when they show up in the revelation, we don't have to always scratch our head and say, I wonder what that means. We know what it means. We know what a lamb is. And it's demeanor. And when its symbol shows up, we understand.
The church is the primary platform right now. His judgments His promises. The message of accountability. His Coming earthly kingdom, then the new heavens and the new earth. This is sovereignty in action.
And the first Christians. Under persecution. If I were to ask you What's your favorite color? No, that's. What is 1 Peter about?
The short answer should be... Persecution of the church. What's 2 Peter about? Short answer. apostasy in the church.
Well, during the age of apostasy in the church when Peter's writing to the Christians. He says, Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. How did Peter come back? This Difficulty of Christians falling for lies from hell and leaving the truth from heaven. He kept his eyes on eternity.
where he was going. Yeah. This has been Cross-Reference Radio with Pastor Rick Gaston. This program is a radio outreach of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick has been teaching through the book of Revelation, but if you're interested in learning about a different book of the Bible, we have hundreds of past episodes available to listen to on demand.
Just visit us online at crossreferenceradio.com and you'll find an archive of Pastor Rick's past teachings. While you're there, you can also find links to follow our program on your favorite podcast app, as well as links to get connected with us on Facebook and YouTube. There's also an interviews tab where you can learn more about Pastor Rick's heart for ministry.
Well, we hope you'll join us next time here on Cross Reference Radio. Hello.
