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Revelation: Blessed?

We are headed for an apocalypse. Science and religion both agree. So in the midst of what seems to be cursed, and all the voices claiming to have the answers, how do we find and know what is really BLESSED? God has John write the book of Revelation to answer the question of “BLESSED?”      #revelation #2022

STARTER

PRAY

Father, we bow before You to ask You to help us have an eternal perspective on blessings and embrace the blessed life You laid out in Matthew 5:1-17 to be poor in spirit, mourners, gentle, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and persecuted for righteousness. May we remember that we will not know the times or seasons You have set by Your own authority, but we will be Your witnesses. As we go through the book of Revelation, help us to not act like PRAGMATIC BEASTS but to be surrender LAMBS like You. Amen.

STUDY QUESTIONS

"Beasts & Lambs…Pragmatism”

As you read through Revelation, remember that John has been serving God faithfully for decades in the midst of persecution, death, and blessing. He has watched people leave the faith. He has seen faithful people, including his fellow apostles, be killed for claiming and proclaiming Jesus. John has been exiled to an island (Patmos) full of criminals and sick people because of his faithfulness in embracing the blessing of being a witness. In Revelation, John is writing down what he is seeing and trying to use his limited vocabulary to describe things that no earthly language can fully describe. Revelation is meant to be a blessing of both literal and symbolic meaning. It is meant to call us to the blessing of surrender to a God of pure love, justice, and sovereignty. In Chapter 13 of Revelation, we are reminded that we live in a world full of PRAGMATIC BEASTS and sacrificial LAMBS.

READ Acts 1:6-8

Acts 1:6-8 are Jesus’ last words to His followers before He left the earth. Why do we keep reading these verses each week before we walk through the book of Revelation?

READ Revelation 12:16-13:4, 1 John 2:15-18

  1. After laying out the story of Scripture in Revelation 12, verses 16-18 tell believers about the battle they find themselves in right now as the offspring of God through Jesus. The enemy in scripture is a portrayed as beastly and Jesus as a Lamb.
    1. How do we see the battle of PRAGMATISM vs. FAITH & BEAST vs. LAMB playing out in these passages?
    2. In what ways, do we tend to:
      1. compromise to avoid being LAMBS instead of keeping God’s commands and the testimony about Jesus?
      2. act BEASTLY for our earthly benefit instead of keeping God’s commands and the testimony about Jesus?
  2. How is keeping God’s commands and the testimony about Jesus going to put us at odds with the BEASTS looking to devour this world and attack the LAMB?

READ Revelation 13:5-18, Daniel 7:15-28

These two passages together clarify for us that these are not literal BEASTS but political, economic, and military powers who reject God and His kingdom rule.

  1. Jesus said people who “demand signs” are “evil and adulterous” (Matthew 12:39). How do these passages expose the reality that humanity’s desire for signs and wonders will work to lead to BEASTLY deception?
  2. We live in a culture that is driven by PRAGMATISM, “whatever works.” We are even discouraged from making righteous judgements on things if those things “work.” Many will follow the BEAST and take his mark because it will be very PRAGMATIC to follow him.
    1. How do we see this tendency of “whatever works” in our culture?
    2. Instead of the PRAGMATISM of “whatever works” age after age, what do these passages tell us our measurement should be?
  3. How can Daniel’s distress and John’s distress in other parts of Revelation help us in our battle with PRAGMATISM and faith?
  4. How can we be confident that those whose names have been written in the LAMB’S book of life by surrendering to Jesus will not take the mark of the BEAST?