The Book of Revelation: Shaking of Heaven

Speaker: Steve Anderson

Passage: Revelation 4:1-11

REVIEW OF REVELATION 1-5

How many would say that your perception of the book of Revelation has changed since we started this? Did you have a preconceived notion of Revelation before we went into this, and has that changed any? I was thinking it was going to be locusts and seals and bowls of wrath and all this kind of stuff—all the things leading up to the second coming of Jesus Christ. But wow. Especially when we focus on Heaven.

In chapter one, John is given a directive by Jesus: I want you to deliver this entire book, all of it, to the church. This book is for the church.

John starts describing what he has seen, which is a Jesus he’s never seen before. He knew Jesus better than any of the disciples did, but he was in the presence of a Jesus he’d never experienced before; so much glory, so much majesty, so much power attached to this man that it caused John to fall down at His feet like a dead man. John describes what he’s witnessing: the one who was and is and is to come, the living one.

Then, in chapters two and three, it shifts. Jesus says I want you to give some messages to the seven churches. And when He’s giving messages to the seven churches, we take it as a collective. He’s giving a message to the entire church. Some of those messages had some praise attached to them, but five of the seven churches got rebuked.

As a church, we have to understand what Jesus is trying to say. Look, I appreciate some of the things that you guys are doing. But I’ve got some things against you. And I’ve got some things that you guys need to get right. That’s what the messages to the seven churches are all about.

And then, the scene shifts to Heaven in chapters four and five. We see the throne of God and the Lamb, who’s worthy to open up the scroll and break the seals. John is found weeping because nobody was found worthy, and I love what Pastor Gary said last week. It’s like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. There’s no crying in baseball. There’s no weeping here in Heaven. We don’t do that here. Get up because the Lamb of God is worthy to open up this book, and He’s worthy to break those seals. Then we see angels and elders crying holy and worthy.

We need to realize that we are spiritual beings. As Christians, we’ve been raised to a different place, and that’s where we do our worship from. It’s clear that Jesus is placing a huge emphasis and importance on worship and the throne room because, in chapter six, things take a very sharp turn.

I’m not going to get ahead of myself, though. I had a message all prepared for chapter six, but we’re not going to go there today. That’s the opening of the scroll and the breaking of the seals. Pastor Dustin has a great message that he’s been working on. He’ll be up in a couple of weeks with some really cool stuff out of chapter six.

But I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we see this focus on Heaven and this focus on worship, this focus on the throne, this focus on the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that it came in after Jesus’s rebuke to the church and before all of this stuff that’s going to take place on planet earth. He is wanting us to get our lives right and our focus properly directed, especially today.

EVERYTHING PHYSICAL HAS A SPIRITUAL BEGINNING

Now, as I said, I was ready to jump into chapter six. I had a message all prepared. And then something happened about a week and a half ago that changed it: the presidential debate.

Half of the room right now is going, Yes, he’s going to talk about politics. And the other half of the room is going, Oh, no, he’s going to talk about politics. There might be a few of you in the room who are going, How is he going to thread this needle?

I may not please either side today, but I do have something that I feel needs to be said. Normally, I like to get off my notes and I’ll just take off. I want to stick to my notes today because I’ve written some things down that I feel are important for us to grab hold of during this time.

I try not to get caught up in politics. I am a registered Independent. I’m not criticizing if you’re Republican or Democrat, or Green Party or whatever. I’m just a registered Independent, and the reason for that is because I saw politics consume my father.

In Luke chapter 21, Jesus is talking about the last days, about things that are going to be happening leading up to His second coming. There’s a very alarming scripture in Luke chapter 21, where He says, Because of the circumstances and everything that’s going on, during that time, men’s hearts will fail them for fear.

My dad died of a stroke. I saw politics take years away from his life. He was a great man, a great man of God. Many of you in this room knew who my father was. But I’m sure that if he could do it over again, he would come down from Heaven right now and say, Don’t waste your time. Don’t get caught in the weeds.

I’m sad about the state of our country, but I lay more blame on the church than I do the state. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t care, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t vote. I do. But the Word of God is my guide. The Holy Spirit is my guide.

I believe everything physical has a spiritual beginning.

The church in this country began to compromise the Word of God and the gospel message of Jesus Christ long before Roe vs. Wade and long before the Ten Commandments and Prayer were taken out of public places.

Major denominations in the church started to compromise the gospel and the Word back in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Charles Spurgeon saw it happening in England. It led to something that he wrote called The Down-Grade Controversy. He warned the United States of America, saying, It’s coming. Not just American citizens did he warn; he warned the church. It did come, and the compromise began.

See, everything physical has a spiritual beginning. The spiritual decline preceded the cultural and political decline that we see today. It happened time and time again in Israel. It’s happening here. Jesus said, when He was talking about the last days again in Matthew chapter 24, He said, Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.

Most people’s love will grow cold because of lawlessness. What does that mean? That means a disregard for God’s law. A disregard for God’s Word. We’re seeing this compromise taking place in church after church after church. The disregard for His word.

We’re living in a day of hate, not love. We’re living in a day of division and not unity. A day where enemies are decided and identified by political parties and who we vote for rather than by Scripture. And it’s a day where the mob mentality in the church is winning out, where culture and tolerance become more important than truth. The church becomes more like Pergamum and Thyatira than Philadelphia, yet we ask ourselves, How did we get here?

OUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN SHAKEN

Now, back to the debate. I did not watch the debate. I had a nice evening with my wife. We decided we weren’t going to watch the debate. I said, You know what? I’ll just catch up in the morning.

I wanted to find out what the conservative side was saying and what the liberal side was saying. I went to different news channels. I wanted to find out what everybody was saying about what happened because supposedly it was one of the most important events in the history of the United States. Wasn’t that what everyone was saying?

Well, the next morning, I was shocked at what I was hearing—the rhetoric, the emotion, the fear, the anger—and that’s when my message changed.

I started to write down some of the words and phrases being thrown out there. Here are some of these things that were just pouring out of the airwaves: panic, chaos, fear, precarious, dangerous, divisive, scary, a constitutional crossroads. One person said We’re at DEFCON 1. That’s a nuclear term. I just was shaking my head, and then I heard this one: Our country has been shaken.

That one stopped me.

What if that’s correct? With a crumbling foundation, can this country survive?

Now my goal today is not to dwell on the toxic nature of our political system, nor is it to bring fear of what might happen to our country. Nor is it to tell you that your vote doesn’t matter. Because it does. It’s to remind you that we are in a spiritual battle before all else.

It’s to remind you that the battle for souls must outweigh the battle for any political victory and that winning that first battle might solve the second. My goal is to remind you that we serve an unshakeable God who is in total control. But it’s also to remind you that we have an enemy that seeks to divide and destroy, not just the church, not just the Jews in Israel, but he’s out to destroy every single one of God’s creation whether you’re a Christian or not, and he’s good at it.

WHAT IS DRIVING THE NARRATIVE

The apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12 says this, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.

Spiritual entities are utilized by Satan to control and corrupt the physical world, and politics and government are often used by him, becoming places where he does the most damage. Lord Acton in England in the 18th century said Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Politics is a seductive, powerful, and controlling arena. It’s easy to get sucked in. It happens in everybody’s home. How many are honest enough to say, and I will be the chief among sinners, that you get sucked into the political game? We all do. Why? Because it’s powerful. It’s seductive. It’s what’s out there. It’s what’s driving the narrative. It’s what’s driving the media. It’s what’s driving the power.

LOOKING FOR THE MESSIAH

How strong and toxic are politics, you ask? It was the driving force behind the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.

See, the Jewish leaders had a sweetheart deal in Judea during the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire said, Look, Pharisees, Sadducees Jewish Council, we’re going to give you lots of power, lots of money, lots of control. We just need you to take care of your people and make sure that they behave themselves.

But Jesus, in His ministry and His growing popularity, changed that. Jesus became a threat to the powerful, and it became political. He needed to be dealt with, even though they knew He could be the Messiah.

You might stop here and say, They knew he could be the Messiah? Yes, they did.

The Jewish people at that time were living in what was called “the time of the Messiah”. Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 narrowed down the time of the Messiah’s arrival to the time of Jesus. They were looking for the Messiah. That’s why Jesus piqued so much interest in the people. Could this be the one? And it wasn’t just the people who understood this. The Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees, they knew they knew this. They knew the prophecies surrounding the Messiah.

There are hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament. Regarding the coming Messiah, conservative estimates have Jesus of Nazareth fulfilling three hundred of those in His earthly ministry alone.

In his book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner looked at just eight. Not three hundred, not one hundred, not fifty-eight. He said We’re just going to pick eight of the Messianic prophecies. You could rattle some of them off in your head right now: born in Bethlehem, from the tribe of Judah, David’s tribe, he was pierced, and not a bone was broken (that happened in the crucifixion).

So Peter Stoner says, let’s look at eight and the probability that one man can fulfill just eight of those prophecies. If Jesus was a regular person who claimed to be the Messiah, He could only accomplish a few of these prophecies because some things would be out of His control. Where were you born? When were you born? How were you killed? There are twenty-eight prophecies regarding crucifixion in the Old Testament, and all of those prophecies were written hundreds of years before crucifixion ever existed. Yet the Bible predicted how Jesus was going to die.

So Peter Stoner picks eight prophecies, saying that mere coincidence cannot explain one man fulfilling all of those prophecies. And if you just use eight, statistically, he put the odds at one in ten to the seventh power. That’s one in ten followed by seventeen zeros. That’s one in one hundred trillion, and then you add six more zeros after that.

Those are the statistical chances of one man fulfilling eight prophecies, and Jesus fulfilled a minimum of three hundred in His earthly ministry. The Pharisees and Sadducees knew that He could be the Messiah because He checked so many boxes, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTELY

That’s the power and seduction the Jewish leaders were dealing with. The Spirit of God and the Word of God versus the spirit of the age. They had to determine what was most important to them at the time, and it wasn’t Jesus. It was their political power. He was a threat and He had to be dealt with, and they needed to get people behind them.

How many saw The Passion of the Christ, the movie by Mel Gibson? There’s a scene in that movie that I think really illustrates what was going on during the time, how Satan operates in the spirit realm, and how we need to be aware of what’s going on around us.

In this scene, there’s a caricature of the devil looking on while Jesus is being beaten and dragged through the streets. This representation of the devil is kind of behind the crowd, working its way through the crowd, and stirring up emotion, stirring up the crowd, getting the crowd to switch from where they were to another place.

Just a few days before that, Jesus rides in on the donkey, and the people are shouting Hosanna to the Son of God. They know He’s the Messiah, and He’s coming into His glory. And now they’re shouting, Crucify Him. Good Jewish people, turned on a dime.

That’s the power and the seduction of what the devil does. He uses that mob mentality. It just takes one, and then another, and then another, and all of a sudden, the crowd is stirred up. Then the devil just stands back and says, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. I’ve created a circular firing squad, and they’re just going to pluck each other off.

ANCHORED CORRECTLY

Matthew chapter 27 talks about Jesus on the cross. In verse 50, it says, “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and gave up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split”.

Politics killed the long-awaited Messiah and the earth shook. We must make sure that any shaking going on doesn’t kill our faith. These are the spiritual forces that Paul described in Ephesians chapter 6, and whether we like it or not, we are all susceptible to they’re power and influence. They are alive and well in our country, and politics are a major conduit of the devil right now.

Now, I’m saying this to you today because I believe that the chaos and the shaking are only going to get worse. The voices and the rhetoric are only going to get stronger. We must be focused, and we must be anchored correctly.

Hebrews chapter 12 paints a different picture. When the devil tries to shake things up down here, listen to what God has to say:

“See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns us from Heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the Heaven.’ This expression, ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a Kingdom which cannot be shaken, let’s show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.

The devil says I’m going to shake and God says hold My beer; you ain’t seen nothing yet.

There is going to be a shaking, and we have to make sure that we are focused on Heaven. That’s why this is so important: what we’ve been doing and studying. God’s throne is anchored, and we need to anchor ourselves to that throne.

THREE TAKEAWAYS

As for the church, I want to give you three things because every preacher gives you three things.

Number one, we must not refuse Him who is speaking.

In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus is once again talking about the last days, and in verse 35 He says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away”. His voice must be the loudest.

Number two, we must stay focused on Heaven, on His throne, and on the Lamb who was slain.

In Luke chapter 21, Jesus is again talking about the last days, and He says, “Straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.” Straighten up and lift up your head. Look at Heaven. Look at the throne. Hebrews chapter 12:1-2 says, “Let us run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

Number three, stay in God’s Word.

In John chapter 17, after Jesus had finished talking to His disciples but before He was arrested, He has a prayer to the Father that says, “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them away from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth”.

PSALM 1 AND 2

Pastor Gary last week gave us a good directive. He said to start meditating on the Psalms. Start reading Psalms every day. So what we’re going to do today, whether you started or not, we’re going to read Psalms 1 and 2 together. I want God’s Word to be the last word today.

Psalm 1:

“Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and on His Law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish”.

Psalm 2:

“Why are the nations restless and the peoples plotting in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let’s tear their shackles apart and throw their ropes away from us!’ He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain. I will announce the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have fathered You. Ask it of Me, and I will certainly give the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.’ Now then, you kings, use insight; let yourselves be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, that He not be angry and you perish on the way, for His wrath may be kindled quickly. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!”

Amen. Anchor yourself to God’s throne, keep your focus on Heaven, and get ready for some shaking. God bless you all.