Admire Christ’s Perfect Sacrifice LHC: Message Twenty-Five (980628PM) LHC-31 Week 25: Admire Christ’s Perfect Sacrifice (Revelation 5) As the end of days approaches, you can find hope as you admire the perfect sacrifice of Christ! SUNDAY: Admiring Christ at the Throne...

Jesus taught such a comforting, hope-filled message of His return to rescue His Church before the Tribulation, that His disciples went everywhere teaching this same truth. When Paul had only a month in a pagan city where he planted a church, the Rapture was central to their doctrine.

The Rapture was First Taught by Jesus

The Rapture is a doctrine started and taught by Jesus, continued and spread by His disciples, and believed and passionately lived out by His Church. The early church heard and understood this doctrine of Christ's any moment return, and radiantly lived, looking for ways to please Him when He came to rescue them.

As we open Revelation 1:1, stop for a moment and remember how God starts this final book. We read that:

God Wants His Servants to Understand the Future

God opens the Book of Revelation by telling us that He wrote this book “to show His servants” (Rev. 1:1) things that we need to know about the future. Only followers of God and servants of Christ have the incredible insight for living that comes from knowing for sure, what will happen in the days, months and years ahead.

Christ’s words in Revelation 2:12-17, is addressed to the locally assembled church in the geographic place called Pergamum: a place of Satan’s seat. There we have heard Christ’s words, which contain a warning about idolatry, Satan’s plan of false worship.

From those early days after Creation, when Adam sinned and all of mankind to follow also fell into sin, God made a way for mankind to come back. The way back was to worship Him by a substitutionary, sacrificial, blood-sprinkled way. 

The key to understanding all of world history since the Fall of Humanity into sin comes from God’s Word. Always remember that the only absolutely trustworthy and accurate account of the earliest days of both the Universe and the human race is found in the inspired words from God in Genesis.

As we open to Revelation 2:14-15, and see the next section of Christ’s message to the saints at Pergamum, the story behind these words actually starts way back in the book of Genesis with the life of Abraham.

Revelation 2:14-15 (NKJV) But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat thingssacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. 15 Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

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As we open to Revelation 2:18-29, we come to the letter to the Church at Thyatira.

That term, Thyatira, is usually a bit foreign to us outside of this chapter. To get our bearings we could also say, we are opening to the geographic area that received more of the books (epistles) of the New Testament than any other geographic area of the ancient world.

Have you ever thought about where these letters we hold were first sent?

God Sent More New Testament Letters Here than Anywhere Else

Here’s the lineup if you haven’t stopped to do the math.

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The Bible is a Book that came from a geographic place, that place is long ago and far away.

The origin for each of the words is from beyond earth, since God Himself breathed out each word. But the writing down of the text of each book, that makes up the Book of Books called the Bible, took place on three continents: Europe (some of Paul’s Epistles), Africa (some of Moses’ writings), and Asia (where most of the Bible was written and took place in the Middle East and Asia Minor).

As we open to Revelation 2:12-17, remember that Revelation 1-3 is all about:

Seeing Jesus Gathering with His Local Churches

Jesus wants us to know He is walking among us and watching our lives.

The simple message Jesus Christ gives us is that His Highest Priority right now is gathering with His local church. Remember where John first saw Jesus in Revelation 1:12? He was walking around His local churches (that is what v. 20 says that those lampstands represent: Christ’s local churches).

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