Take Heart | Week Nine | Jesus says – I am with you…the reality of the opposition
Chapter 8: A heavenly vision of God’s response to evil
Trumpet 1 – Destruction on the earth
Trumpet 2 – Destruction on the sea
Trumpet 3 – Destruction of the waters of the earth
Trumpet 4 – Destruction of the heavens
Chapter 9: More trumpet blasts
Trumpet 5 – Locusts bringing anguish on those who do not belong to God
Trumpet 6 – Horses bringing God’s wrath upon the unrepentant
Chapter 10: A pause for reflection
Message of the seven thunders
The message of sweetness and bitterness
Chapter 11: A heavenly vision of the role of the church in the battle verses evil
The two witnesses
Trumpet 7 – Judgment day
Chapter 12: A heavenly vision of the opposition
The dragon and the woman
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.” Revelation 12:10-12 (NIV)
17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. Revelation 12:17 (NIV)
Chapter 13: The agents of the dragon, the two beasts
The beast of the sea
7 It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. z 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear. 10 “If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed.” b This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people. Revelation 13:7-10 (NIV)
The beast of the earth
16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. x That number is 666. Revelation 13:16-18 (NIV)
The people of God will experience both persecution and miraculous deliverance
What will you wear, the seal of the Lamb or the mark of the beast?