Skip to content Alpha/Omega - Revelation: A Powerful Messenger Apr 18 · 51 min ...more
Alpha/Omega - Revelation: A Powerful Messenger
April 18, 2021 · 51 min
John sees the angel descend and set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land and then make an oath by the God who created the universe that this age was ready to come to an end. As this book has been progressing this hiatus in the text instructs us how to respond when circumstances become difficult. Listen to the message again, read your Bible and then spend some time considering the questions. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
Series BRAVE Church April 18, 2021 · 51 min · BRAVE Church
John sees the angel descend and set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land and then make an oath by the God who created the universe that this age was ready to come to an end. As this book has been progressing this hiatus in the text instructs us how to respond when circumstances become difficult. Listen to the message again, read your Bible and then spend some time considering the questions. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub ...more Show the full description Show less John sees the angel descend and set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land and then make an oath by the God who created the universe that this age was ready to come to an end. As this book has been progressing this hiatus in the text instructs us how to respond when circumstances become difficult. Listen to the message again, read your Bible and then spend some time considering the questions. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
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0:00 Lord Jesus, we give you all the glory, honor, praise. And Lord, we thank you for being able to gather here today as your people to hear your word. And Lord, we pray that as we look into your word this morning, that you0:10 would have your way with us. Lord, that through your living and active word that you would speak directly to us, and that we'd be changed and transformed into your image because of all that you're going to do.0:22 And Lord, for all that you're gonna do in advance, we love you and we thank you. And so for all of God's people who have gathered here today, who desire to hear what God says to you personally, who will by faith believe0:33 it and then put it into practice, would you very loudly agree with me this morning by saying the word amen. Amen. When you go through difficult times, where do you go? When0:46 you go through difficulties in your life, to whom do you turn? Now just because we're in church, don't say Jesus. Because I even find that for Christians, that's not necessarily the first place that we go. You know,0:56 sometimes it can be a movie, sometimes it can be a sporting event, sometimes it can be hanging out with friends, sometimes it's taking a hike or going biking, reading a book, just going somewhere. But even when we do1:07 those things, it usually doesn't soothe us. It just puts off the pain that we're going through or the confusion that we're in at that time. Sometimes God uses people in our life, and all of you probably have experiences1:17 where there was some person during a difficult time in your life that spoke an encouraging word to you or was there for you or showed love to you, and you remember that word of1:29 encouragement. They may know it. They may not know it. They may not even realize. But sometimes when those things happen, we say, oh, you're like an angel to me. Thank you so much. Right? But I wanna talk to you about
1:40 how do you go to God? Because sometimes even as Christians where we would, in our heart and in our mind and in our soul, believe that God's on his throne, that he's good, and all these different things. Sometimes when we
1:50 go through difficult times, sometimes when we go through challenging circumstances, even deep down in our soul, we can begin to blame God. And we begin to ask questions even if we don't say them out loud, like, God, if
2:00 you're so good, then why am I going through that? Or God, why does this have to happen now? Or this doesn't make any sense to me, or this is not the way that I would have taken things. If you've ever wondered, you know,
2:11 where's God during a time of difficulty, or how would God like you to respond during a time of difficulty, then I believe that God has a word for you today. I wanna encourage you to open your Bible up to the book of
2:22 Revelation. We're gonna be in chapter 10 today. There's only 11 verses, I'm gonna read through that. And as I do, then we're gonna unpack or take a look at 4 ways to respond to God during times of difficulty.
2:33 And as you're opening to Revelation chapter 10, it's important for you to be brought up to speed because we've just been coming out of the day of the Lord's wrath and all that God is pouring out on the earth because of
2:45 his great holiness and because of who he is. It's been so intense as we've been going through this book that I know for some of you, it's good to see so many faces come back because, you know, for some of you, it's like,
2:55 man, this has been 2 really, really hard weeks, and is there any levity? Are we gonna get a break? Today is your day because God's gonna send a strong, powerful messenger to teach us how we can respond to God during
3:07 times of difficulty. So let me read through Revelation chapter 10 as you're reading through it with me, and then we'll take a look at this together. Here's what John writes. I saw another strong angel coming
3:19 down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book which was
3:30 opened. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left on the land, and he cried out with a loud voice as when a lion roars. And when he had cried out, the 7 peals of thunder uttered their
3:42 voices. When the 7 peals of thunder had spoken, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying, seal up the things which the 7 peals of thunder have spoken and do not write them. Then
3:54 the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted his right hand to heaven and swore by him who lives forever and ever who created heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it and
4:06 the sea and the things in it and there will be delay no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished as he preached
4:18 to his servants the prophets. Then the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard again speaking with me and saying, go take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on
4:30 the land. So I went to the angel telling him to give me the little book and he said to me, take it and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey. I took the little book out
4:41 of the angel's hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey, and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. And they said to me, you must prophesy again concerning many peoples and
4:53 nations and tongues and kings. When we go through challenging times, often we wonder, like, what do I do and where do I go? And, you know, I read my bible or I pray. It just doesn't seem to be working right
5:05 now. Life has a way of dealing us different circumstances from time to time that we just can't handle. In this season here in the book of Revelation, the day of the Lord's wrath is going on. God is pouring out his
5:16 punishment for sin because of his holiness. And you would be thinking like, is there any end to this? We're gonna hear today from this strong, powerful messenger, there's an end. But he's gonna also let us know how we
5:27 can respond to him when we go through times of difficulty. How does God want us to respond? And here's the first way that you should respond to God. Number 1 is this, reverence him. The splendor
5:39 of God is majestic. Reverence him. Notice what verse 1 says. He says, I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, and
5:51 the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire. Like every other place in the book of Revelation, people wanna interpret, like, who is this?
6:03 Who is this strong and powerful angel? Can we identify the strong, powerful angel? And I can tell you, great scholars have a hard time identifying exactly who the strong, powerful angel is.
6:15 So we may not land that today, and you may hear what I'm thinking about this and think differently. We are not gonna split the church over who the strong, powerful angel is in Revelation chapter 10. Because it's not even
6:26 so much who it is, it's what he represents and what he's doing. Some people say, strong angel. Clearly, that just means it's a strong angel. There was a strong angel in Revelation chapter
6:38 5 and verse 2 that was not Jesus. There's a strong angel in Revelation chapter 18 verse 21 that's likely not Jesus. So why would this be any different? And why would they refer to Jesus as an angel? Everywhere we read
6:49 about Jesus in the book of Revelation, he's the faithful witness, the strong, powerful 1, the head of his church. So why would he be talking that way? So there can be arguments to say, hey, I just believe it's a strong
6:59 angel that came from heaven to earth. But as you study this too, it also tells us this could be Christ as well. Because notice how he's described. He says another strong
7:11 angel. Strong means powerful. Strong means majestic. And angel simply means this, messenger. That's what an angel is. Remember in Revelation chapter 1, we talked about the
7:23 angel of each church that we were gonna write to. The angels weren't angels of the churches, they were the pastors or the elders. Angel simply means messenger. In the Old Testament, we read about the
7:35 angel of the Lord, which who is the pre incarnate Jesus. You remember all the way back in the book of Genesis chapter 22 and in verse 11 where Abraham is gonna slay his son Isaac
7:47 and the angel of the Lord shows up and says, don't lay a hand on that boy. Well, who is that? That's Jesus. That's the pre incarnate Christ telling him what to do. We see in Exodus chapter 3
7:59 where Moses goes over to a burning bush, and he's curious because it's not just that it's a burning bush in the desert, but this bush wasn't being consumed, and the bush begins to speak to him. And what do we see? The
8:10 angel of the Lord, the pre incarnate Christ there. So we see Jesus referred to as an angel in other places in scripture, so it's not prohibitive that this wouldn't be him. And then look at how he's seen
8:22 this strong, powerful messenger. He's coming down out of heaven. So whoever this is, is leaving heaven to come to earth. And how's he clothed? He's clothed
8:34 with a cloud. Clouds in the bible represent power and majesty and glory. He's wearing a drapery of the sky. Whoever this strong powerful being is, they have
8:45 a lot of power and majesty and glory. And notice how else he is clad. Says, there was a rainbow upon his head. Now when you hear the word rainbow, what do you think of?
8:57 I mean, we think back to chapters 4 and 5 as we studied the throne of God and what was what did we see in the throne room of God? We saw a rainbow. Remember that? And why do we see a rainbow around
9:09 the throne of God? If we go all the way back to the book of Genesis, you will remember that God destroyed the world with a flood. He didn't destroy the earth. The earth is still here. The earth was repopulated
9:19 afterwards, but nobody lived except for the animals that were on the ark and Noah and his family, 8 human beings in all survived that global flood. And after the
9:31 flood, God made a promise. God not only made a promise he wouldn't flood the earth, but what did he do? He gave a sign of the covenant promise. In Genesis chapter 9, you can read about this. I was rereading it this week
9:43 just because it was refreshing my mind as to who this powerful messenger may be. Notice what it says in Genesis chapter 9 starting in verse 11. God says, I established my
9:55 covenant with you. This is after the flood. And all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there be a flood to destroy the earth again. God said, this is a sign of the covenant which
10:06 I am making between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. Notice what he says, I set my bow in the cloud and it shall be for a sign of covenant
10:18 between me and the earth. Where's the bow set? In a cloud. Bow set in the cloud. It shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow will be seen in the cloud and I will remember my covenant which is
10:30 between me and you and every living creature and all flesh and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all the earth. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it to remember the
10:41 everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of flesh that is on the earth. So God makes a covenant with the world that he'll never destroy the world again in a flood, And the sign of
10:53 that is a rainbow. Where's the rainbow gonna be? In a cloud. What do we see oftentimes when it rains? We look up and we see a rainbow. It's a reminder to us that God's not gonna flood the world again, but it's bigger
11:05 than that. It's a reminder to God when he looks out on the earth through the clouds and sees the rainbow, I will never flood you again. I made my promise to you. I authenticated that to you. What
11:17 do you see in this strong messenger? What do you see in this powerful messenger? The rainbow's like a crown on his head as if to say coming right out of heaven, God is faithful
11:29 to his promises. And then we see this. As we keep studying this being, whoever this being is, his face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of
11:40 fire. If you turn back in your Bible to Revelation chapter 1, you remember we talked about this. In describing Christ in Revelation 1 16, it says his face
11:52 was like the sun shining in its strength. And in verse 15, says his feet were like burnished bronze when it has been made to glow in the furnace. And then it says, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. I
12:04 mean, it is possible to interpret this, that this is describing deity, that this is indeed Jesus leaving heaven and coming down to earth, which would make perfect sense in the context of what we're talking about, because
12:16 the sixth trumpet has blown. You would expect the seventh trumpet to blow now, but instead, there's a pause, and this strong, powerful being, this messenger that's gonna deliver a word, is coming down out of heaven
12:28 before the seventh trumpet is blown. And when the seventh trumpet is blown, 7 bold judgments are gonna be poured out chronologically very quickly. But when the seventh trumpet is blown, Jesus Christ
12:40 takes his rightful place as king of kings and lord of lords on the planet. So it wouldn't be out of order for this to be Christ. Now who is it? Study it for the rest of your life. Land it wherever you want. We're still
12:50 good friends. Okay? The point I'm trying to make is if this is Christ, he's worthy of worship. If this is 1 of his angelic beings, how powerful is our God?
13:02 When you go through times of difficulty, what does God want you to do? Reverence him. In other words, however big your picture of God is, it's not big enough.
13:14 We live in a world that when crisis hits us, we begin to think, how can I deal with this? How am I gonna handle this? This is too big for me. Sometimes we can see things in other people's life, and we think, well, it's
13:24 not that big of a deal. But other times, we even see it in other people's life, and we say, how are gonna make it through that? How are they gonna help? I don't even know what to say to them. That's such a big deal. When
13:34 we see things that are a big deal, to God, they're not that big of a deal. Whatever you're going through, God is bigger than what you're going through. If you have a big God, you will have little challenge. If you have
13:46 big challenges, it's because you have a view of God that is very, very small. Now picture this, this angelic being, this messenger, this strong, powerful
13:58 messenger comes out, we see who he is, and then look at verse 2. And he had in his hand a little book which was open, and he placed his right foot on the sea and his left on the land. Now we don't know what book
14:10 this was. This is a little book. We read about this scroll. This is a little scroll. We read about a scroll in chapter 5 that no 1 was worthy to open. The strong angel asked, who's worthy to open the book? We couldn't
14:22 find anybody. So John began to cry, began to weep, saying, nobody can bring this thing to the end. Nobody can run the earth until we saw 1 that was standing as if slain, the Lord Jesus Christ who took
14:34 the scroll and began to open up all seals, and he was the only 1 that had authority to open the scroll. This is a little scroll. Is it the same 1? I don't know. Could be,
14:46 may not be. If it is, it certainly would point that this is Christ because he's the 1 that opened the scroll. If it's not, the scroll had to be opened by Jesus in heaven because the angel wouldn't have been able to open
14:57 it himself. So wherever this angel or strong being is coming from, God is authoritative over all. And here's the point. The whole point is this. As you see this, not only you see this little book, which is gonna be in
15:08 his left hand because we're gonna see him raise his right hand, he comes and he sets his foot. His right foot is set on the sea. He kinda plants it there like that, and his left foot is planted on the land. Now, what sea
15:19 and what land? I don't know. Does it matter? Does it really matter? Is it because he stepped his foot on the Mediterranean and put his foot over Israel? Did he put his foot in the Pacific Ocean and put
15:31 his left foot all over North and South America? I don't know. What it's showing is total dominion over the whole earth. Here's what I'm telling you. Jesus
15:42 Christ is worthy of being worshiped. Amen. The earth is the Lord's and all that it contains. When we go through difficulty, sometimes our knee jerk is not to worship God.
15:54 Sometimes our knee jerk is to question God. Here's what God wants, just worship me. I'm worthy of all your praise. I'm worthy of all your worship, and I'm worthy of it right now. 1 thing I love about
16:06 Brave Church among many is that we're a worshiping community. People come here and they give worship to God. They sing to God. They pray to God. They seek the Lord. They don't just come here and watch a performance of
16:17 people on a platform and then go home. And this just begins worship. Like this just begins worship. Worship is done in such a way that you would do this to build your heart so that during the week,
16:29 guess what you can continue to do? Worship him. Well, how do you worship him? Do you know you can sing to God even without music? Do you know you can read his word back to him? Do you know you can pray
16:41 to him? Do you know you can thank him? Do you know you can tell him how wonderful and awesome he is? Do you know you can ask God to give you a bigger picture of who he is? The more you revere God, the more you worship
16:52 God, the more you reverence God, the more you'll see how his splendor is majestic. There's no way of describing how awesome he is. You may have believed this lie like I used to. Some of you have heard
17:03 this. All Christians hear this. So, pastor, like, tell me like this. Like, we get to heaven, like, all we're gonna do is, like, sit around and, like, worship? Like like, what else are we gonna do? That's because your
17:14 view of God's way too small. Your view of worship is somebody's gonna come sing some songs and we're gonna decide whether we like them or not, and then let's get on to the real thing. See, worship is when you see God in
17:25 the beauty of all of his holiness and righteousness and truth, and that that God that would have nothing to do with you wants to have relationship with you and sent his son who died
17:37 for you and rose for you so you could have life with him. I'm telling you, they won't be able to turn the worship off because all you'll want to do is spend time with the Lord, glorifying his name. And
17:49 friends, I wanna tell you something. There's nothing in the world that's more satisfying than that. Nothing, nothing. Your marriage isn't more satisfying than that. Your
18:01 kids are not more satisfying than that. Your career is not more satisfying than that. Your money is not more satisfying than that. The things you're gonna buy in the future, your dreams, your goals, your vision,
18:10 nothing's more satisfying than worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. If I didn't believe that, I would've been a motivational speaker. I'm telling you about Jesus because he's the only 1 that can
18:22 fulfill you in the depth of your heart. And when you're going through difficult times and when you're going through hard times, it's okay to question things. It's okay to ask God things. It's okay to be hurt by things.
18:34 But while those things are going on, continue to give him praise and worship. You can worship God saying, God, I don't get it, but I know you're good, and so I'm still gonna worship you no matter what. That's what Job
18:44 said. Right? Though he slay me, still worship him. That's what the heart is. When you go through difficulty, God wants you to worship his name. Second is
18:56 this. Here's how you should respond to God when you go through difficult times. Number 2 is rely on him. The word of God is powerful. Rely on him. The word of God is powerful.
19:08 Trust him and trust his word. Notice verse 3. It says this, and he cried out with a loud voice as when a lion roars. Now pause.
19:20 How loud is that? Now I've never stood in front of a lion other than at the zoo, and I've never had 1 roar right in my face, but I have a friend who's from South Africa, and he was down there on some
19:31 safari 1 night. He was telling me this story, and it was night, and it was late. They were fenced in. They knew they were safe, but there was a lion that showed up, not not yards away, but feet away,
19:44 and roared. And he said I won't tell you what he said. He was terrified. Right? Because it was a lie. I mean, this strong, powerful being, whoever it is,
19:55 whether it's the Lord Jesus Christ or 1 of his messengers, and just keep in mind, in the Old Testament, God sent an angel that slayed 185000 Assyrians in 1 night. I mean, God's
20:07 powerful. His voice is powerful. His voice is like a lion. Right? And what happens? Cried out with loud voices when a lion
20:19 roars and when he had cried out, 7 peals of thunder uttered their voices. Well, where are the 7 peals of thunder coming from? It says in verse 4, when the 7 peals of thunder had spoken, I was about to write and I heard a
20:30 voice from heaven saying, seal up the things which the 7 peels of thunder have spoken and do not write them. When this voice roared like a lion from heaven, the 7 peels of thunder were unearthed.
20:42 Now 7, we know, is the number of completion, the the perfect, all powerful voice. So as this being is talking, God from heaven, God the father is talking back. I mean, it's
20:54 powerful. We see how God's voice is like mighty waters. We see how his voice is like a lion. We see how his voice is like the 7 thunders. I mean, you've heard what it's like. You know thunder, when it
21:06 rains, you hear thunder. It's different when it's far away than when it's right over your house. Some of you have been in severe thunderstorms. It's scary. Right? I mean, imagine the voice of a lion and 7 thunders
21:17 thundering. You can trust God's voice. You can trust God's word. You can rely on him because his word is powerful. Some of us don't believe that. Now
21:29 some of us would argue that the word of God is true, like this book is true, but I don't know that it's powerful. It's like any other book, some would say. Some would say, you know, Confucius had some good sayings and
21:40 Abraham Lincoln had some good sayings and self help bookstore has some sayings and, you know, Hindus got some good sayings and then the Bible's got some good sayings too. I don't believe that. I
21:52 believe the Bible is unique to any other word ever written, and that every time you're reading this, this is the Lion of Judah jumping off the page. This is the 7 thunders speaking out. This is the
22:04 word of God that's powerful. Amen? Now 1 of the reasons that we have a hard time believing that is we'll read scriptures that say things
22:16 like this. You know, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, can ask this mountain to move, and it will uproot itself and go throw itself into the sea. And so, like, I'm gonna give that a test. Dear Lord, I don't
22:27 like Pikes Peak where it is. Bring it to Castle Rock. And it didn't work, so I mean, that's not what it means. What it means is if you spend time with the
22:39 Lord and you begin to pray and ask the way he's asking you to pray, and your prayer is to let your kingdom come and let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and God, this is what you're wanting to do and from
22:50 heaven on the earth through me, and I'm gonna pray that he will move mountains to get that done. And if God wanted to move Pikes Peak to Castle Rock and wanna do it through me, and I spoke it, it would be done. Not
23:01 because of me, but because of God. The word of God is powerful, and when you see God act based upon his word, you begin to trust him even more. Let me give you an
23:13 example. When we made the decision to have Easter outdoors at Bandomere Speed way in April in Colorado, there were a lot of people saying, it could be bad weather. And you know what I said?
23:25 That's God's problem. He asked us to step out in faith. So we started praying. We prayed really, really hard. And the first week we prayed, We got 3 feet of snow, and it didn't get much
23:36 better. But on Easter Sunday, it was 75 degrees. It was sunny. I believe God was
23:48 looking down from heaven saying, I don't want you to get sunburned, I'll put a little cloud cover over. You know, and I know Jeff's not gonna like it when he preaches that the wind's blowing really hard, but I know some
23:57 of you need a cool breeze, so we'll start that. What's the weather been like since Easter in Colorado? You say, well, that's just happenstance. I say, no, that's the power of God.
24:08 So at the end of the day, when we see the word and we trust the word, which is why I'm telling you, sometimes God, as believers, puts on your heart, hey, trust this. Trust this. And
24:20 sometimes, well meaning believers who don't wanna see you get your feelings hurt will say things like, oh, don't worry. Mean, God doesn't always heal. God doesn't always do that. But you know in your heart that God has
24:29 asked you to trust that word. Here's what I'd say, keep trusting God's word no matter what. God will always see his word come true. And the more you see it, the more you experience
24:41 it, and the more you experience it, the more you want it. You can trust his word. You say, well, how powerful is his spoken word? Well, you go all the way back to the book of Genesis. What we see in the book of Genesis
24:52 prior to Genesis one:one is nothing. There's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That's it. But what happens? God spoke for 6 days,
25:04 and in 6 days, everything that wasn't, now was. Thrones, powers, dominions, and authorities, things visible and invisible, all things were created by him and for
25:16 him. Why? Because he spoke. This book is the written word of God. Every time we read it, this is God speaking. That's why the Bible says in Psalm 1 19, thy
25:28 word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. There are so many scriptures that talk about who this God is and how he wants to speak to us. Here's 1 that I love in the book of Hebrews chapter
25:40 4 verses 12 and 13. It says that the word of God is living and active and sharper than any 2 edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and
25:52 able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we have to do or to whom we might have to give
26:04 an account. It means this, when the word of God is spoken faithfully, did you know this? You can't hide. You ever been here at church where you feel like I'm looking right at you and talking only to you?
26:16 Has that ever happened to anybody? That's God. I remember I was at a Campus Crusade Conference 1 time back in 19 93, and I didn't know how all this stuff worked. And there were thousands of people there, and I remember
26:27 feeling like every speaker was talking about me before they came on the platform and after. I'm like, how do they know all this stuff about me? It was the word of God. It was the word of God, and you can't escape it. It
26:38 has the ability not just to teach you things about God, but it has the ability to penetrate your soul and spirit and join some. It gets down to the deepest rooted things that nobody else would know that you may not even
26:48 know about yourself. That's how powerful the word of God is. That's why sometimes you come on a weekend like, that was awesome, and sometimes you come on a weekend saying, I never wanna hear that again. It's the word of
26:58 God. Word of God is powerful, and you can't hide from it. Now notice what happens in the book of Revelation because he hears after the powerful messenger or the strong
27:09 angel cries out with a loud voice like a lion, then he hears the 7 thunders. And notice what the 7 thunders say. The 7 thunders say, seal up the things which the 7 peals of thunder have spoken and do not write them.
27:22 Wait a second. Well, what did they say? You'll never know. God's word is not only powerful, it's sufficient. So many of us wish we knew way, way, way more than what we do, but we
27:34 don't apply what we do know. You know what I'm saying? Like, some of you may get upset and say, well, you know, pastor Jeff, I know who the strong angel is, and I can't believe that you're dumb enough to not believe who
27:45 it is. But there's somebody in your life that you don't know how to forgive, and God's shown you how to do it, and you refuse. Or somebody will get really upset and say, hey, I just wanna teach the Bible. I wanna teach
27:57 the Bible, and that's fine, but you don't have a heart that understands generosity and contentment. God gives us just enough of his word so that we can practice. I I pray
28:08 every single week that you would by faith put into practice what God shows you because the end game is not knowing the Bible more. It's not more Bible knowledge. It's more Bible application.
28:21 It means this, you can be 10 years old and listen to a message on money and be further along than somebody who sat in church for 40 years who can teach on it, but doesn't know how to apply it. Right?
28:34 Because at what point do you really get to where you know everything about a topic? I mean, does that happen? Pastor Jeff, I've already read Ephesians 5. I know everything there is to know about marriage. Great.
28:47 Good for you. Let me meet your spouse. Let me see if they concur. Hey, pastor Jeff, why are we talking about money again? I know everything there is to know about money. I say, hey, when your generosity is at the same
28:59 level of Jesus and your contentment's at the same level of Jesus, then you know everything there is to know. I mean, at what point in time I mean, how many of you know what forgiveness is, just by show of hands? Just by
29:09 show you just know what it 1, 2, 3. He's gonna give you opportunity. You're gonna learn. We can know what it is, but applying it's a whole different level. We can
29:21 encourage someone that needs to forgive someone else, and we can bring all the Bible verses we can with us and show them what they need to do, But forgiveness is forgiving a debt of somebody that's wronged you, and
29:32 they're not sorry about it. And that's okay for other people except when it's on me. I don't wanna apply that. Right? So the word of God is not just to come to Brave Church so that you can be taught and know
29:44 all sorts of things about God. The word of God is being taught so that you can use application to apply it to your life. If you don't know how to pray, and you might be able
29:56 to teach on prayer without knowing how to pray, I can usually tell when I'm spending time with somebody that's got done teaching on prayer, I meet a pastor who teaches on prayer. I can tell you in about 3 minutes of
30:06 spending time with them whether they actually know how to pray or if it was just a good sermon. Because I'll start asking them, hey, what's the Lord been showing you lately and all this stuff. And if they have no answer,
30:16 I'm like, well, you don't spend any time doing what you just spent your time preaching. Don't we say that a lot in church? Practice what you preach. Do you realize, like, every week that I'm preparing messages, I'm not
30:26 sitting in my office, like, preparing messages for you. God's killing me on the inside half the time. Like, you need to get better at that, and you need to grow in that, and this is something for you to become better at.
30:37 Like we say prayer is more caught than taught. I would say this, tithing's more taught than caught. Understanding the Bible's more caught than taught. It's in community that God begins to do a work because he's asking us
30:48 to apply it. Like, just because I know certain things, I I I might be able to study golf or study football or study baseball, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it. I may know a lot about it,
31:00 but I can't necessarily do it. God wants us to do it. James 4 17 says, anyone who knows the good he ought to do and does not do it sins. And in our
31:12 church, you're not getting a lack of bible knowledge here. You're getting the word taught. And what God's heart would be is when you go through a tough time, rely on him and trust
31:24 his word and put it into practice. And here's the thing, he tells him, you know what? You heard what was said, but don't write this down. Nobody needs to know that. Everything that you need, you have in his
31:35 word. Everything. Second Peter 1 3 says, his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Yes, there are certain passages
31:47 that spell out certain areas of your life, whether it be marriage or money or friendships or whatever. But what I find is, if I have an open heart to God no matter where I'm reading, God is able to speak to me deeply
31:59 about whatever he wants to speak to me about. And it doesn't matter what book I'm in, because the word of God is living and active. See, God didn't make me a pastor so that I would grow my head knowledge. God
32:11 wants me to proclaim the word, but in what I'm doing, he wants me to grow in experiencing the word. And I can tell you more about the things in the Bible that I understand based upon how I've been obedient
32:22 to them rather than just what I've learned from them. Let me say it another way. 1 act of obedience is better than a lifetime of seminary. Because there's a
32:34 lot of people that can teach the Bible that aren't living obedient to Christ and really don't know what they're talking about. It's not that you can teach it. It's can you live it? Can you put it into practice? Will you
32:44 try? Just giving a lecture on riding a bike doesn't teach kids how to ride a bike. You gotta go ride. Right? And that's what god's telling us this. So how are you trusting his word? What are you hanging on to
32:56 in the promises of God? I'm still trusting God for different things in my life. Proverbs 20 one:one says that the king's heart is like channels of water in his hands. He can turn it wherever he wishes.
33:08 That's a scripture I've been hanging on to lately. Been some conversations with some things I wanna go a certain way, and I've learned over time, I can either control or I can pray. If I control, I may get my way, I may
33:19 not, but even if I do, it doesn't go well. Or I can pray and let God do what he wants to do and then respond to what he wants to do. It always works out the right way. Right? That's what he's teaching me right now. So
33:31 when I'm in a circumstance that's not going my way, I start praying that God will change them. Like, God, own their heart. You turn them. I can't turn them. I can't change them. I can't make them become Christian. I
33:39 can't make them see the wisdom. I can't I'm a pray for them, though. You can. So, Lord, you do it. Takes the pressure off, doesn't it? So here's the question, how are you relying on him? How are you trusting him? How are
33:50 you believing him? How does he need to come through for you in a way that if he doesn't, you will say, man, I wouldn't have got through that without him. God wants you to know him. God wants you to trust him. And the
34:00 more that you trust him, the more that you'll grow in him. Rely on him. His word is true. His word is faithful. Third is this, here's how you should respond to God when you go through difficult times and it's this, I
34:12 love this part. Rest in him. Rest in him. The dominion of God is comforting. Rest in him. Sometimes we go through difficult times, we're always trying to fix
34:24 everything. We're all trying to get everything going. In him. He's got this. Notice what verse 5 says. Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven and swore by him who
34:36 lives forever and ever who created heaven and the things in it and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there will be no delay any longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh
34:47 angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished as he preached to his servants, the prophets. Now notice verse 7, there's gonna be days of the seventh trumpet because when the seventh trumpet is
34:59 blown, the 7 bowls open up and they successively get poured out. But here's what I want you to see, rest in him. I mean, here's an angel. He's standing his foot on the land and on the sea. He's saying, I have dominion
35:10 over all things. God has dominion over all things. He's in control of everything, and sometimes that doesn't even bring us comfort. Well, God controls the whole world. I get that, but what about me? Here's what I wanna
35:20 tell you. Every little thing in your life, God cares about. The things that you think are too immaterial to even bring to him, he cares about. He cares
35:32 about all things. Everything is going to be accomplished according to his will. Everything is going to get played out. God cares about every part of your life. That's why you can rest in him. He cares about the
35:44 littlest thing. He cares when you get your feelings hurt. He cares when you feel alone. He cares when you feel that life's just not working out. He cares when you've worked really, really hard and it didn't
35:56 go the way you thought it was gonna go. He cares when you're confused. He cares when you're joyous and nobody else will celebrate with you. He cares about everything in your life. That's who our God is. That's
36:08 awesome to know. Because sometimes when we talk about God's sovereignty and his dominion, we picture God up in heaven pointing his finger down, like controlling the world and being angry at everybody. It's not who he is.
36:17 This is the loving, merciful, kind, wonderful, awesome, forgiving father. He loves you. Rest in him. Some of us don't rest in him
36:29 because we got it taken care of. I'll get this figured out, God, and where miss figuring it out, then you come through for me. That's not what he's looking for. He wants all of your heart. He says just
36:40 rest. I mean, the greatest sermon that was ever told, the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 6 starting in verse 25 and following, he says, for this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life.
36:53 Anybody here ever worry about anything before? Don't worry about that. As to what you will eat or what you will drink nor for your body as to what you will put on is life not more than food and the body not
37:05 more than clothing. Don't stress. Rest in him. I mean, doesn't take long to read the news and to look out in the world and get stressed about some things,
37:17 right? God's got it under control. It doesn't mean don't read the news. It doesn't mean don't get involved in things that are going on. It doesn't mean just be passive. It just means
37:29 don't spend all your time, all day long worrying about all the problems in the world and how bad it's getting because God is not sweating. He's not stressed. You may say, well, look where our
37:40 country's going. Look at the things that are happening here. I think God would look down and be disappointed in a lot of things that are happening here too. I know he is because it goes against his word. But he's not up
37:50 in heaven stressed about it. He's not worried about who all the politicians are. He may be worried that some of you that he's asked to get involved in it haven't, but he's not worried. He's gonna bring everything to pass
38:01 just the way he wants. In other words, you can watch what's going on in the world. You can even get involved as a Christian in everything that's going on in the world, but what you can't do is sit around and stress aboutShow more
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