Today as Pastor Ben continues his teaching about the scrolls and the 7 seals, he will also take you on a trip through time. You will hear references to several time periods in the Bible that mention the same events John is writing about in Revelation. Earthquakes are one example and are referenced by several authors in the Old and new testaments. John writes that the earthquakes during the end times will be like nothing you have ever seen. Not even the worst event recorded to date will come close.

What kind of Christian are you? Do you walk the talk, or are you claiming faith when you have unresolved hurt in your heart? Is God living within you, or have you built a wall because of pain or unconfessed sin? If that’s you, or if you know someone who is dealing with this, today’s teaching from Pastor Ben is for you. He says your works will NOT get you into heaven. We tend to get focused on what we do and neglect the who and the why. Ask God for forgiveness and open your heart to Him for access to His Kingdom.

Today you are going to hear Pastor Ben say something about the book of Revelation that you probably thought you would never hear. He says there is “good news”! Anyone who has spent any time ready in this book knows why this is shocking, but Pastor Ben’s point is that you are living during the best time to be a person of faith. You will be ready for the events described in this book and will spend eternity with God in heaven. These events are in the future, so you will not suffer like those who find their faith too late.

Riots, chaos, and general social unrest are not new, but they seem to have been amplified and proliferated throughout the world over the last decade. This all lines up perfectly with the prophecy found in Revelation. We like to think as humans that with our technological advances we inch closer toward a social utopia, but instead we’re seeing the opposite. As Pastor Ben will explain in today’s message, everything we’re experiencing is a clear precursor to the second coming of Christ.

The glimpses of future events that God revealed to John in his vision of end times would have been like jumping to the last chapter of a book after reading the first chapter and then skipping everything in between. John could only comprehend so much of what was going on. He was seeing people he didn’t know and events and technology that would have been foreign and indiscernible to him. In today’s message, Pastor Ben will lead us on an exploration of these mysterious events and symbols.

Most Christians, they’ll quickly correct you if you call them a “saint.” We typically reserve that term for people who have lived extraordinarily righteous and generous life – not for people who find themselves messing up and missing the mark. Yet, that’s what Scripture calls us – because it’s what God calls us. As Pastor Ben will explain in today’s message, because of the work of Christ on the cross, when you trust in Him for salvation, God now looks at you and sees only righteousness.

Our God is a compassionate God. As Pastor Ben will explain in today’s message, there’s not a single human in existence who is worthy of even stepping into God’s presence – and there’s only been one in the history of our species who was. He can’t be in the presence of sin. Thankfully, that one perfect man, named Jesus, shared the compassionate heart of God and came bringing a message that if we trust in Him for forgiveness, we can be deemed worthy despite our sins.

In today’s message, Pastor Ben will continue our study of Revelation chapter four with a reminder that God is the God of right now just as much as He’s God of the future. He doesn’t want you to live with your eyes constantly trained on what’s to come. He’s blessed us with a beautiful world full of people that He created and desires to have a relationship with. Engage with those people and experiences. God has a purpose for you that’s greater than you can imagine when you follow Him faithfully.

We have a lot of pride in our wisdom and reason. Mankind, being made in the image of God, possesses a beautiful creativity that has led to countless technologies that have made life safer and more comfortable. Many fail to see who really deserves credit for this ingenuity. Any good thing we come up with can be traced back to the blessings of our Creator. As Pastor Ben will remind us, we also have a destructive tendency we simply can’t think ourselves out of – we need the divine intervention of God.

If you’ve accepted Jesus’ invitation into His salvation, those words are for you. As Pastor Ben will encourage you in today’s message, when Jesus said “I go to prepare a place for you.” You can add your name at the end of that sentence. He is preparing a place in a bigger sense for His Church, but He also knows you and He is preparing a place for you specifically. We can’t know for sure what that will look like from this side of eternity, but you can trust that it will have everything you need or desire.