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REVELATION EP 8- The Seven Trumpets and a Map of Time

The book of Revelation is, in many ways, a summary of the unfolding work of God in redemption and redemptive judgment.

It begins with the seven letters to the churches, moves into the opening of the seven seals, and then into the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the first four seals we see the release of forces that have shaped the world we know—conquest, war, economic scarcity and inflation, famine, disease and death.

These events describe the progression of human history toward the final period of God’s dealings with the earth. We have already experienced many of these things in measure, including global pandemics, giving us a foretaste of what Revelation describes as ultimately coming upon the earth.

But then we arrive at something extraordinary: the seventh seal contains the seven trumpets, and the seventh trumpet ultimately contains the seven bowls or vials of judgment. Revelation gives us a series of summaries within summaries.

Seven speaks of completion and fullness. What we are seeing is not merely a sequence of catastrophes, but the completion of a divine process that brings God’s purposes for humanity to their appointed goal.

“Receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.” —1 Peter 1:9

The final movements of Revelation therefore concern not simply judgment upon the earth, but the completion of God’s redemptive work in His people as Christ brings history toward His return. This brings us into the final three-and-a-half-year period that repeatedly appears throughout prophetic Scripture—a period culminating in the second coming of Christ.

THE SEVENTH SEAL, THE CENSER AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

Revelation 8 begins with one of the most remarkable moments in the book:

“When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” —Revelation 8:1

It is the only explicit period of silence described in heaven in Revelation. After the worship, thunder, voices and activity surrounding the throne, suddenly everything becomes still. It is as though heaven pauses before the next great movement of God’s purpose.

John sees seven angels standing before God, and seven trumpets are given to them. Before those trumpets sound, however, another angel appears with a golden censer. He is given incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne. The censer is then filled with fire from the altar and thrown to the earth, producing thunder, lightning and an earthquake.

This gives us an important principle: the prayers of God’s people are not disconnected from the purposes of God in the earth. Heaven receives the prayers of the saints, and those prayers become part of the unfolding divine purpose.

The golden censer is particularly significant because of its connection with the Day of Atonement. In the Old Testament, the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year carrying incense and blood into the presence of God. Leviticus 16 describes him taking burning coals and incense behind the inner curtain, creating a cloud over the mercy seat, and then sprinkling blood before it.

“Into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood…” —Hebrews 9:7

The imagery of Revelation 8 therefore takes us directly into the symbolism of the Day of Atonement. The seventh seal opens a prophetic picture of cleansing, sanctification and preparation, and connects Revelation with the prophetic pattern of Israel’s feasts.

THE FEASTS — A MAP OF REDEMPTIVE TIME

The Church has historically experienced the great movements represented by Passover and Pentecost, but we have not yet experienced the prophetic fullness represented by the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles.

Passover speaks of deliverance. The blood was placed upon the doorway, marking out a people delivered from judgment and slavery. Christ is our Passover; His blood establishes the boundary of salvation and justification.

Pentecost speaks of covenant relationship and the giving of the Spirit. What was external becomes internal. God’s covenant is written into His people, and believers learn to walk by the Spirit in conscious obedience to God.

The Day of Atonement speaks of deeper cleansing, transformation and sanctification. Before Israel entered Tabernacles came Atonement, so prophetically it becomes the preparation for the fullness of God’s dwelling.

Tabernacles represents the fullness of God dwelling among His people.

So the movement is: Passover → Pentecost → Atonement → Tabernacles. The story is moving toward the completion of God’s dwelling with humanity.

The final feast season begins with the Feast of Trumpets:

“In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets…” —Leviticus 23:24

These initial trumpets are not the judgment trumpets of Revelation 8–11. They are prophetic trumpets announcing that something is about to happen. They call God’s people to attention and announce a season of preparation.

Ten days later comes the Day of Atonement, followed by the Feast of Tabernacles: Trumpets → Preparation → Atonement → Tabernacles. This gives us a prophetic picture of the preparation of the Bride of Christ.

THE BRIDE, THE BLOOD AND TRANSFORMATION

Paul writes:

“That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word… that she should be holy and without blemish.” —Ephesians 5:26–27

This is not simply about becoming better Christians. Paul describes a deeper work of transformation in the Bride. The Church is being prepared for union with Christ.

“This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” —Ephesians 5:32

The Day of Atonement gives us a prophetic picture of this deeper cleansing. On that day, the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place with blood:

“Then he must take some of the blood of the bull… and sprinkle it seven times…” —Leviticus 16:14

Seven speaks of completion. At Passover, the blood was placed at the doorway. At Pentecost, covenant relationship was established with God’s people. At the Day of Atonement, the blood enters the Most Holy Place.

Doorway → People → Presence
Deliverance → Covenant → Transformation

The Day of Atonement therefore points toward the fullest application of Christ’s redemptive work in His people—not another sacrifice, but a deeper manifestation of the power of the one sacrifice already accomplished by Christ. The goal is maturity—the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

The Day of Atonement was also called a Sabbath of Sabbaths—Shabbat Shabbaton. Israel was commanded to “afflict” or humble their souls, but Isaiah 58 reveals that God was never interested in religious suffering for its own sake. The people were fasting while still oppressing others, fighting, quarrelling and maintaining bondage.

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?”

The ultimate fast is therefore not simply abstaining from food. It is becoming free. It is allowing God to break the internal bondage that prevents us from loving God and others freely.

God is not trying to crush the soul. He is trying to heal it.

THE TRUMPETS AND THE WITNESSES

Numbers 10 says:

“Make two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece you will make them.”

Silver is associated with redemption and atonement. There are two trumpets, yet they are made from one piece of silver. This gives us a picture of Christ and His people—the one new man created in Christ.

The trumpet represents the prophetic voice of God. God speaks to His people, and He also speaks through His people.

This imagery provides a fitting parallel with the two witnesses of Revelation 11, who prophesy for 1,260 days. Their ministry belongs to this final prophetic period and corresponds to the ministry of Moses and Elijah. Their witness becomes part of God’s final testimony before the culmination of the age.

SABBATH REST

The Day of Atonement also opens another major biblical theme: rest.

The Sabbath was never merely about stopping work one day each week. Israel was commanded to allow the land to rest every seventh year. Leviticus 25 describes six years of cultivation followed by a seventh year in which the land was not cultivated in the ordinary way.

The people had to trust God. They had to stop striving to produce and believe that God could sustain them.

But Israel failed to fully enter this dimension of Sabbath rest. 2 Chronicles 36 says Israel went into Babylonian captivity:

“Until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths… to fulfil seventy years.”

The seventy years correspond to seventy unobserved Sabbath years—a period traditionally calculated against 490 years: 490 ÷ 7 = 70.

Hebrews takes this principle beyond agriculture and national history:

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God… He who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”

This is the spiritual reality behind Sabbath. The issue is not merely whether we stop working. The issue is whether we have learned to trust God.

Rest is faith. Rest is the cessation of self-powered striving. Rest is learning to live from the faith of Christ and the flow of grace.

Sometimes the very thing we call spiritual activity becomes a substitute for spiritual rest. We can become so busy trying to manage ourselves, fix ourselves, control ourselves and prove ourselves that we never become still enough to allow God to transform us.

FROM PASSOVER TO TABERNACLES

The journey from Passover to Tabernacles can be understood as the journey of a building becoming a home.

At Passover, the people come through the doorway. At Pentecost, they learn covenant relationship and Spirit-led living. At the Day of Atonement, they are brought into the deepest place of cleansing. At Tabernacles comes the fullness of God’s dwelling.

The Church is therefore not simply being rescued. We are being prepared for habitation.

Salvation → Maturity | Forgiveness → Transformation | External religion → Internal reality | Striving → Rest | Knowing about God → Becoming a dwelling place for God

The Sabbath also points beyond itself. In Revelation, the return of Christ is followed by the thousand-year reign described in Revelation 20. The final three-and-a-half-year period culminates in Christ’s return, and the Millennium becomes a prophetic expression of the greater Sabbath rest of God’s kingdom.

Six days → Seventh-day Sabbath | Six years → Seventh-year Sabbath | Redemptive history → Millennial Sabbath

The Sabbath becomes a picture of the ultimate cessation of rebellion, striving and self-rule under the reign of Christ.

A MAP OF TIME

When we step back and look at Revelation 8, we begin to see something much larger than a series of judgments. We see a map of time.

The seals bring us through the broad progression of history. The seventh seal opens the trumpets. The trumpets move us into the final prophetic period. The golden censer takes us into the imagery of the Most Holy Place and the Day of Atonement. Atonement points toward the cleansing and preparation of the Bride. The Bride is washed by the Word and brought toward maturity. Beyond that lies Tabernacles—the dwelling of God with His people—and finally the return of Christ and the Millennial Sabbath.

Seals → Trumpets → Atonement → Bride → Tabernacles → Christ’s Return → Millennial Rest

Underneath the entire progression is one great purpose: God is bringing His creation back into His rest.

THE BUILDING BECOMES A HOME

This may be the most important application for us personally.

We can spend our lives building—reputations, theological knowledge, religious activity and systems designed to make ourselves feel safe. But God’s ultimate purpose is not merely to build a structure. He wants a dwelling place.

The journey from Passover to Tabernacles is the story of a building finally becoming a home. We are still under construction. The Word is washing us. The Spirit is working within us. The blood of Christ has already accomplished the foundation of our redemption. But God is bringing us into a deeper experience of what Christ has already purchased.

Perhaps the question is not simply “How much am I doing for God?” but “How much am I resting in God?” Not “How hard am I trying to change myself?” but “Am I allowing God to transform me?” Not “How much religious activity can I sustain?” but “Can I become still enough to hear His voice?”

Sometimes our greatest obstacle to entering God’s rest is the very activity we believe is helping us get there. There comes a time when the noise must stop, the striving must stop, the self-protection must stop, and the endless attempts to manage everything must stop.

In the silence of the inner sanctuary we discover that grace does not merely forgive us; it transforms us. The blood does not merely bring us through the doorway; it brings us into the presence. The Word does not merely inform us; it washes us. The Spirit does not merely empower our activity; He teaches us to rest.

The Bride is not ultimately prepared by striving harder. She is prepared by allowing Christ to do His work within her.

The seventh seal begins with silence. That is fitting. After all the noise of the seals, wars, judgments, trumpets and shaking of the earth, heaven becomes silent.

When the noise finally stops, we discover that God has been working all along.

The building becomes a home. The Bride becomes ready. The people of God enter His rest. The journey that began at the doorway of Passover finds its fullness in the dwelling of Tabernacles and its great Sabbath rest.

And ultimately, Jesus reigns.

 

REVELATION EP7 THE MILLNNIUM THE FIG TREE AND OLIVE TREE AND VINE NOTES

The Divine Strategist

When we study the past and possible future of our planet, the sheer volume of global disruption often makes biblical prophecy feel like a chaotic sequence of stops and starts, failed drafts and last-minute divine corrections. But if we step back and view history through the word of God as the Divine Strategist, an amazing scriptural picture begins to emerge. At the centre of this divine/human earthly drama is the single glowing seed of Jesus, highlighted as the promised olive tree seed of faith made to one man called Abraham four thousand years ago - a master stroke, that through one lineage every family on earth would receive an eternal inheritance. And Jesus is also called the vine, and his followers are the branches

So history is not drifting. It is an organised, predestined, calculated movement toward a specific and perfect goal. And by understanding God’s Divine Countdown, we are taken out of confusion into a dazzling and daring clarity. To recognise what God is doing, and where we are standing in this countdown, we need to understand the roles of Abraham, Israel and the Gentile nations under their codenames as God's plant life.

Abraham’s plant codename is the root of the olive tree. Israel is both an olive tree and a fig tree. And then you have the Gentiles, the wild olive branches that are grafted into that olive tree.

Now before we go any further, let's separate two of those trees, because they are not doing the same thing. Both the olive and the fig relate to Israel, but they operate in different spheres of God's administration. One is spiritual and covenantal - that's the olive tree. The other is national and geographical - that's the fig tree spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24 and the national fig tree provides the historical stage upon which the wider spiritual strategy of the olive tree unfolds. When Jesus first came to his people the nation of Israel was also the olive tree of spiritual Israel, and he was rejected by both.

Let’s keep that fact in mind as we go because both the fig tree and the olive tree went through catastrophic change both spiritually and geographically. So we must first understand the nature of the olive tree we are compelled to read what Paul wrote in Romans - Romans 1I:1  ask, then, has God rejected his own people, the nation of Israel? Of course not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin. No, God has not rejected his own people, whom he chose from the very beginning. Do you realise what the Scriptures say about this? Elijah the prophet complained to God about the people of Israel and said, "LORD, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too." And do you remember God's reply? He said, "No, I have 7,000 others who have never bowed down to Baal!"

It is the same today, for a few of the people of Israel have remained faithful (to Jesus) because of God's grace… And since it is through God's kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God's grace would not be what it really is - free and undeserved.

Did God's people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles - the rest of the world. But he chose to have his own people become jealous and claim (his covenant favour) their own way for themselves. Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel rejected God's offer of salvation through Jesus, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it.

The Olive Tree

So I want to ask some questions here. 

What does the olive tree speak of? Spiritual covenant Israel. 

What is the root? Abraham - one man. 

What is the seed? Jesus. 

And who are his fruit? All who live a new covenant life with Jesus by grace and faith.

So that's the olive tree picture: Jesus the seed, Abraham the root, some branches get broken off and others get grafted in. I’ll read those verses from Romans 11 shortly.

But first look at The Fig Tree: the 1948 Prophetic Countdown

Remember the fig tree speaks of National Israel now, not spiritual Israel, not the olive tree. Now in Matthew 24, as we discussed in the preceding episode 6 last week, Jesus gave us a specific marker for the end-of-the-age - when the fig tree begins to "put forth its leaves," the end is imminent.

For two thousand years this tree was dormant -. But in 1948 things changed in the global landscape. When the Israeli flag was raised and the nation was physically restored to its land, the fig tree officially blossomed. So that historical event speaks of a ticking countdown clock. Jesus explicitly stated that the generation alive to witness this blossoming would not pass away before the fulfilment of all things. We are not just living in "interesting times." We are living in the final movement of a strategic timeline that began with that blossoming in 1948.

The Divine Strategy: How Stumbling Led to Reconciliation

So let's see how the stumbling of the original olive tree branches led to reconciliation. Israel's temporary fall was not a failure of God's plan. It became part of a larger strategy of judgement and mercy, and the hardening of their hearts was sovereignly repurposed to facilitate a wider reconciliation, not just for Israel but for the entire kosmos. 

The original olive branches lost faith in Jesus as God, and the fig tree lost its identity as a nation and was dispersed, and the wild olive branches of us as humanity were grafted in through Jesus into a new covenant that Israel had rejected.

A note on replacement theology

Now I want to make a note on what's called replacement theology. Gentiles do not replace Israel. There is only one olive tree, with branches temporarily taken off and other branches grafted in, and we Gentile believers are wild branches sustained by the original Abrahamic root of faith. Paul says it very plainly, and he says it as a warning:

Romans 11:16 If the roots of this olive tree are holy, the branches will be, too. But some of these branches from Abraham's olive tree (elaia) - some people of Israel - have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree (agrielaios - earthy/Adamic), have been grafted in. So now you also receive the Abrahamic covenant blessing God promised Abraham and his children, to share in the rich nourishment from the root of God's special olive tree. But you must not brag that you were grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just branches, not the root.

Those branches were broken off because they didn't believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don't think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. For if God did not spare the original branches, he won't spare you either. Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.

And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree. You, by nature, were a branch cut from a wild olive tree. So if God was willing to do something contrary to nature by grafting you into his cultivated tree, he will be far more eager to graft the original branches back into the tree where they belong.

So remember, the root is Abraham and we are the branches. And this grafting is tied to a physical timeline.

The Unripe Figs of current national Israel

Now that fig tree nation has had good times and bad times. And the good times are not good anymore, and the bad times are getting worse. And many of them may think they are a covenant olive tree - but they're not – not yet. And the book of Revelation makes this clear, because it speaks of the figs on the current fig tree in Israel, in Jerusalem, right now as unripe, immature figs at this present time since 1948.

Revelation 6:12-17; 7:1-8 I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its untimely figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

Right now, let's look at that picture. The falling stars speak of believers losing their position with Christ through immaturity, lack of faith and compromise with the world, and the mighty wind shakes everything that can be shaken. That's the sixth seal.

And we also have untimely figs, which speaks of the current National Israel - the figs are there, but they have not ripened. So the fig tree is not yet ready to occupy its promised land because it has maintained its rejection of the promised new covenant – and the olive branches are still broken off.

And that promise was not vague. Let's hear what it was they turned down:

Jeremiah 31:33 I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;

A new heart, and the law written on the inside of the mind. That is the new covenant fulfilled through Christ and foretold in the Abrahamic covenant of faith.

So the immature believers and the unripe figs both face that fierce wind, which speaks of spiritual forces of darkness drawing them into the world's corrupt. And Hebrews tells us what the shaking is for:

Hebrews 12:27 ...the removal of those things that are being shaken, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

The Catalyst for Restoration: The Two Witnesses

Now all of this loops around at the end, because Scripture says God will save all Israel. How? Who is going to come and preach to Israel? Well, two men called the two witnesses. They are actually called the two olive trees, which is very interesting, and their ministry brings National Israel back into the olive tree, the new covenant in Christ.

Revelation 11:4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.

It's a legal necessity. These figures are prophetically linked to Moses, who represents the Law, and Elijah, who represents the Prophets. And they met with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. I wonder what they said to him at that time.

Israel's national, legal and spiritual identity is bound to the Law and the Prophets, and en masse the nation will only respond to a testimony that validates those foundational scriptures through these two witnesses. There is already a remnant that has accepted Jesus, and there are many people bringing Jewish people to the Lord, and that's fine. But these two have to come back and give their gospel testimony. I'll say more about them in later sessions.

And through that testimony the fig tree is brought into olive tree ripeness. Israel hears, believes, and is provoked to reconciliation with their Messiah. Paul calls this a mystery and states it plainly:

Romans 11 I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about yourselves. God chose to allow the heart of Israel to be partly hardened and blinded, but this will last only until the full number of all the nations comes to Christ at the end. And then all Israel will be saved. As the Scriptures say, "The one who rescues will come from Zion, and he will turn Israel away from ungodliness. And this is my covenant with them, that I will take away their sins."

Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For God's gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.

So that's where the loop closes. The original branches are grafted back in, and the fig tree nation gets to share, finally, not just Canaan but the entire world with all believers in Jesus. Paul says that this brings life from the dead.

And this final reconciliation sets the stage for the literal, physical return of Christ and the inauguration of a new era of governance - a thousand-year Millennium governance.

So that leaves us with one question, and the rest of this message is about answering it. 

The Millennial Bridge: a thousand-year governance

Revelation 20:4 They lived and reigned with him for a thousand years.

Upon his return, Christ inaugurates a visible, physical reign on the earth for a literal thousand years. God's people live and reign with him, and this becomes the public vindication of God's word on the very earth that humanity fractured.

The question is When? Because God has not left that vague either. And to get at it, we have to go all the way back - back past Abraham, and past the flood, to the seven days of creation

So back to the days of creation because we have to go back to creation, particularly the sixth day of man and woman and the seventh day of sabbath rest. Because God foretold the millennium when he rested on the seventh day. Why did he rest – he wasn’t fatigued – he wanted to enjoy his loving relationship with his beautiful and spectacular creation especially his human family.

Genesis 1:27 So God created human beings in his own image; male and female he created them. Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! ... And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.

Genesis 2:1 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy - set apart.

There is an amazing parallel between the events of God's creative week and the six thousand years of God’s plan of redemption since Adam fell - which brings us finally to the one thousand-year reign of Christ on earth with his people

2 Peter 3:8 But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 

When those redemptive days are seen as periods of a thousand years, the pattern begins to unfold.

3. The Seven-Day Blueprint: Comparing Creation and Redemption

The foundation of the Divine Countdown is the "Law of Inversion" established in 2 Peter 3:8: “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” By this divine logic, the six days of creation and the seventh day of rest (the Week of Creation) serve as the literal blueprint for 7,000 years of human history (the Week of Redemption).

The Week of Creation and the Week of Redemption

So now we chart the week of redemption: seven thousand-year days laid across history. Six have run since Adam fell, and the seventh has not begun.

 

Day	The Week of Creation (Genesis 1-2)	The Week of Redemption (Human History)
Day 1	Separation of Light from Darkness.	Man’s sin and darkness separate him from God’s light.
Day 2	The Waters Divided.	The Flood: Waters divide the old world from the new; 8 souls saved.
Day 3	Plant Life Created.	Abraham is called: The Father of the Olive, Fig, and Vine.
Day 4	Sun, Moon, and Stars for signs/seasons.	Elijah to Jesus: Era of signs; Jesus as the "Sun" and full Godhead.
Day 5	Birds and Fish: "Be fruitful and multiply."	Pentecost: The "Fishers of Men" and the Holy Spirit (Dove). No longer earthbound in life form.
Day 6	Creation of Eve (Adam’s Bride).	Preparation of the Bride of Christ. Believers "eat of the truths of Israel" (1 Cor 10:11) to mature.
Day 7	Sabbath Rest: God enjoys His creation.	The 1,000-Year Millennium: Earth’s rest and the visible reign of Christ.

This blueprint allows us to discern with absolute precision where we currently stand on the timeline. The clock is no longer silent.

 

And now the inversion

Now somebody is going to say, what if the millennium is only one day and not a thousand years? Because Peter gives it both ways in the same verse: one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

So take it either way and you get the same result. That's the divine law of inversion. And the prophet Hosea does exactly that: he talks in days, but he is actually talking in one thousand year spans of time, speaking of the span from the time Jesus came too the earth the first time until he comes the second timeascension to the restoration.

Hosea 5:15; 6:1-3 I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. Come, and let us return to the LORD; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, like the former and latter rain to the earth.

Now look at the verses. "I will return again to My place." That speaks of Jesus returning to his place at the ascension, and it gives us the starting point of the clock from inside the text itself, not from a date we have chosen. He says, "till they acknowledge their offense," so the condition of his return is their acknowledgement. And then, "In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me." 

"After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up." One day is with the Lord as a thousand years. So after two days - two thousand years - He will revive us, and on the third day (the Millennium) He will raise us up.

This third day is also God’s Millennial rest - Revelation 20:2-7 - to enjoy his creation in loving relationship and in redemption. Six days of work, and then a day that is blessed and set apart. So that seventh thousand-year day is still in front of us.

Let us have a look at what the Millennium Will Actually Look Like (Isaiah chapters 11 and 12 and Isaiah 65

Isaiah 65:21-22 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit... 

Socioeconomic Stability: Citizens will build their own houses and plant their own vineyards, enjoying the fruit of their labor without fear of loss.

Absolute Justice: Governance will be perfect, with absolute justice executed instantly, removing the corruption that plagues modern systems.

Natural Pacification: The "curse" of the fall is reversed; the natural world is pacified, with the wolf living alongside the lamb

So there is restoration even in the ordinary things of life - work, longevity, justice and creation itself. So that's the millennium. But the promise to Abraham doesn't finish there.

The Final Transition: from Canaan to the Cosmos

The Bible says in Romans 8 that the whole creation is waiting for this. It's groaning:

Romans 8:19, 22 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God... For we know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs together until now.

And Paul makes the expansion very clear in Romans 4:13 when he describes Abraham as the heir of the world - kosmos. So the promise was never going to finish with one piece of land. In Christ it opens out until the inheritance is the renewed creation itself.

That is why Jesus can say, "the meek shall inherit the earth." He is not cancelling the promise to Abraham; he is showing us where it was ultimately going.

After the Millennium the heavenly Jerusalem descends to the earth and the new heavens and new Earth are forever established to flourish from age to age

The Living Connection: the Olive Tree and the Vine

Now I just want to come back to the vine before we close. The olive tree tells us where we belong in God's covenant story. But the vine speaks of intimacy - abiding, menō, in Christ and his life flowing through us. The olive tree gives us a share in the promises; the vine speaks of how we live in that inheritance and bear its fruit. When you're abiding in the vine, you're flowing in the life.

And just notice Joel before we finish. The fig tree and the vine are stripped and then restored, the former and latter rain comes, and finally the language changes from an untimely fig to a harvest that is ripe. So the same pattern is there again - the trees, the rain, the ripening and the harvest.

So just in closing, let's go back to where we started. One man, in a desert, and a promise about a seed. Everything since has been the working out of that one promise - the branches broken off and grafted in again, the fig tree revived, and finally the restoration of all things. It is not a sequence of corrections. It is a strategy.

And it ends with the same picture made whole: the fig tree ripened, the original branches grafted back into the olive tree, and both drawing from the promise that began with Abraham.

And Paul finishes Romans 11 by saying:

Romans 11 For God has imprisoned all humanity in their disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone and give them all his pardon of freedom. Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the LORD's thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory in the Church.

Mercy on everyone. That's the final climax of the grand design - the triumph of divine mercy over human disobedience and the restoration of all things in the new creation.

So when you look out at a world marked by division and shifting borders, can you see the powerful, quiet triumph of a mercy that intends to restore the entire world?

 

This episode explores Revelation chapters 6 and 7, focusing on the opening of the sixth seal and the distinction between human-made suffering and the wider calamities described in the biblical text. It begins with the instability, conflict and economic pressure affecting ordinary people, before considering how these conditions relate to the events described in Revelation.

The sixth seal is examined alongside the words of Jesus in Matthew 24, with further connections to Daniel, Exodus and the story of Noah. The episode also looks at the repeated three-and-a-half-year period found throughout Revelation, the image of the church being carried on eagles’ wings, and the theme of protection during times of upheaval and persecution.

Attention then turns to the great multitude in Revelation 7, the promise of comfort after suffering, and the meaning of Jubilee as a picture of release, restoration and provision. The episode closes with a reflection on patience, discernment and the importance of remaining steady and supportive of one another during uncertain times.

The Spiritual Treadmill and the Life of Grace Or Salvation: Our Two Identities
Scott Kardash
19th July 2026
Introduction: Two Identities
I named this talk "The Spiritual Treadmill and the Life of Grace," and today I want to contrast both of these. The song we heard talked about letting go. That represents the left-hand side... the treadmill that we're on. I had a little alternate title: "From Striving to Flow: Our Two Identities," because we all live out of two identities. It's a matter of moving from one identity, our old self, to our new self. In my view, that is in fact what salvation is all about.
We have a bit of a different view of salvation which has been taught, particularly in the Western church. If we step back and think about it, what actually is the gospel? What is the good news? If someone asked you today, "What's the gospel? What's the good news?" your answer might be a bit different to what's commonly taught... or even preached... today.
Let me give you an example, because some of us might have heard a version of it that goes a little bit like this: "God is sending you all to hell forever. Well, unless Jesus stops him, of course. And that's the good news."
It's a caricature, obviously. No-one actually says it quite like that, but it's a little clip just to give you an example. It's a fear-based gospel presenting an angry God, not a God of love, but an angry and unforgiving God. Now, God tells us to forgive even our enemies, but this view says, no, God can't forgive. There's actually something wrong with this picture.
The Impact of a Fear-Based Gospel
I lived in Japan for three years. Some of you may know that Japan is only about 1% Christian. It's not because there haven't been missionaries going there; there have been. But it has something to do with the Japanese culture, and even the broader Asian culture, where they revere their ancestors. In fact, they have these ceremonies where they practice ancestor worship. When their ancestors were alive, they didn't hear this gospel, so they didn't know Jesus. For them to accept this modern Western gospel message is essentially to condemn all their ancestors to hell forever. So, it goes down like a bit of a lead balloon, as you can imagine. It's not well received.
It can be experienced a little bit like this: picture Jesus knocking on the door of our heart... which is a misquote of Revelation 3:20... and the little guy inside saying, "Well, why should I let you in?" And Jesus replies, "Because of what I'll do to you if you don't." It comes across a bit like a threat. Where is this loving God that we're talking about? I think it's a complete distortion of what the gospel actually is.
Paul's Gospel to the Gentiles
If we look at Paul the apostle, his job was to go and preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Jesus preached to the Jews... His mission was for the Jews first, then the Gentiles. So Paul went and preached to the Gentiles. Not many people realise that Paul didn't even mention the word "hell." He didn't even mention it. He wrote most of the New Testament and didn't mention the word hell. He talked about judgment, and Jesus did warn the Jews about Gehenna... which is a physical place outside Jerusalem with a very shady past... and he talked about outer darkness, and John warned about the lake of fire. Paul... I'm sure he will cover the lake of fire in his upcoming Revelation series if he hasn't already, and talk more about its purpose.
But there's a good example in Acts 17 where Paul is preaching on Mars Hill. You might remember when he talks to the men of Athens. He doesn't go up there and say, "Turn or burn forever." He doesn't say that. He says, and I'll quote, "God is not far from each one of us, for we are all God's offspring. The times of ignorance God overlooked. God now commands all men everywhere to repent"... which means to turn to him. "He has appointed a day in which He will be judging the habitable earth in righteousness by a man he has appointed"... which is Jesus. And listen to this: "...offering faith to all by raising him from the dead."
I want to pick up on this phrase later... "offering faith to all." This is something very much in line with what Paul's been talking about.
The Modern Transactional View vs. True Transformation
The common, modern-day process of salvation goes something like this: you'll likely begin with a prayer. More often than not, before you know what's happening, you'll be asked to pray at the end of a meeting. You'll be asked to "repeat after me" and just say these words. The words might include a declaration of future repentance, but that's optional. But repentance isn't something we say we will do; repentance is something we do. It's not a verbal promise, it's an action.
Once you say this prayer, you're then deemed to be saved. People will ask, "When were you saved?" and you'll say, "Well, I was saved on the day I said that prayer." It's a very common view, presenting salvation as a finishing point rather than a starting point. What I want to put to you today is that making that declaration is actually just the starting point.
Here is a bit of a challenge. The proposition is: to be saved from hell, you say this prayer, and you're now saved from eternal punishment. Try to find a passage in the Bible that talks about hell where this is the criteria for not going there. It's pretty hard to find. I can tell you the passages that talk about hell don't talk about some sort of verbal declaration. Under that view, salvation becomes a legal transaction where God is now obliged not to send you to hell forever. You were just lucky enough to find the legal loophole before you died, whilst most won't find it.
Unfortunately, this can lead to an attitude that sin doesn't matter, or "cheap grace," as it's known. Some of the most devastating moral failures occur in church leadership and congregations. I suspect this kind of mindset contributes to the problem. People think, "I said the prayer, I'm saved, I'm not going to hell, so what does it matter?" Sin does matter, because it damages us and it damages the people around us. As we will see later, it's evidence that we're operating out of the wrong, false identity.
Unpacking John 3:16 and Perishing
Here's the classic "ticket to heaven" verse, John 3:16. We can probably all recite it: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that everyone who is believing in him should not perish but have eternal life."
A couple of things here. "Believing" is the translation, but Paul would have covered pistis with you... to have faith. It's talking about having faith. It's not a matter of, "Did I believe hard enough so that I'm not going to perish?" No, it's about having faith. Paul has talked about having faith in Christ to allow the faith of Christ to flow.
People often conflate perishing with judgment and eternal punishment. But actually, this word "perish" in the Greek is apollumi. It's the exact same word used for "lost" in the stories of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son. It doesn't mean "destroyed beyond existence" or "beyond redemption." In Luke 15, which contains those three parables, the father of the prodigal son says, "Listen to this: my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost"... was perishing, same word... "and is found." To perish doesn't mean to cease to exist.
People often conflate judgment with perishing and endless punishment in hell without any hope of redemption. But we're talking about God's righteous judgment, and God's judgment always has a righteous purpose.
What is Eternal Life?
What is eternal life? The picture many of us have had is sitting on a cloud in heaven playing a harp, thinking, "What am I going to do for the rest of eternity? Will it get boring?" Well, actually, your eternal destiny isn't up in heaven. Where is it, Zara? Where will we be eternally?
Zara: New Jerusalem.
Speaker: New Jerusalem, exactly... the new earth. Our destiny is actually here. Jesus will return here as King. Heaven is just a waiting room until he returns. We're not going to stay up there forever sitting on a cloud playing a harp; that is a waiting room.
Fortunately, Jesus defined eternal life for us. He said, "This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." So, eternal life is not about the length of time. We have this Western mentality that eternal life means a long period of existing alive. No, it's about the quality of life. It's about knowing God. The word "eternal" is actually translated from the Greek term aionios, which means "of an age." It doesn't inherently mean endless. But when it got translated into Latin... which is where a lot of Western doctrine comes from... the Latin word used really did mean endless eternity. We've lost some of the nuances of the original language in our English translations.
It is an age of life where God is the source of our life. In Jesus' view, salvation stops being a transaction to avoid punishment and becomes the process we go through to know God and experience this life. Salvation isn't just a one-time event or a prayer; it's a process.
The Post-Pentecost Reality
I think this leads to one of the most startling verses in the Bible. How can we actually know God? Paul tells the Corinthian church that he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. That's quite amazing. When did this become possible? It only became possible at a certain period of human history: after Pentecost. God said, "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." We now have the Holy Spirit. Prior to Pentecost, they didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit in the same way; they were dealing with rules, regulations, and laws to try to be good or obedient enough. After Pentecost, we are equipped with the Holy Spirit for a transformation process. We're moving way beyond the concept of just wanting to escape punishment or go to heaven forever. We're talking about a total transformation.
Does anybody remember what I presented last time? It was in November last year. It's all right, because I didn't remember either! Yes, Barbara? Do we have an award for Barbara?
Very good, Barbara. Paul and I did a series on the Ten Commandments, and the summary was about living by the law... what they used to have to do to live up to those commandments. Today, we flip those commandments completely through the Holy Spirit into a transformed life. Instead of "don't steal," it becomes "be a generous giver." Everything is flipped from "don't do this" to "do the opposite." That is the transformed life available to us because we have the Holy Spirit, the spirit that heals and reshapes us.
The Three Dimensions of Salvation
Today I want to build upon that concept and pick up on some of the things Paul has been talking about recently. I'll reuse one chart from my last talk, which highlights the fact that we are spirit, soul, and body.
* Our spirit has been saved in the past... Jesus accomplished that for us.
* Our soul is being saved now... that is present tense, and that's what the healing of the soul is all about. It's the ongoing transformation process.
* Our body will be saved at the resurrection, when we receive our new bodies.
That is the complete salvation process from soup to nuts. To say "I was saved on this date"... well, okay, but that was just the beginning of the journey.
The Two Operating Systems: Striving vs. Dependence
We live in a culture obsessed with life hacks and self-optimisation. It's incredibly easy to drag this exhausting striving straight into our walk with God, treating holiness as a behavioural self-improvement project. Does that sound familiar?
I know kids who are on their devices all the time, with constant, on-demand entertainment. They never have a chance to get bored. I tell them that boredom is a necessary ingredient for creativity. If you're constantly receiving input, you can't be creative because there's no space for it. We can get trapped in the exact same exhausting treadmill... like a hamster wheel... where we're striving to be better and trying to fix our flaws. "Oh, I keep doing this and I need to stop." It becomes exhausting. We are running on the wheel but getting nowhere.
Why does that happen? Because we operate out of two distinct operating systems. The first is the system of self-reliance. Picture a rigid, geometric tree of self-reliance, which represents the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. On the other side, we have the flowing tree of dependence. As believers, we often operate out of both, but the goal of salvation is to shift from the left to the right.
Living out of the system of dependence results in an organic union and spontaneous fruit, modelling Jesus, who only did what he saw the Father doing. But dependence requires trust... or believing loyalty. It's much harder for us to let go, like the song was saying, and trust. We'd rather be self-dependent and ensure everything is controlled. Andrew was talking about OCD earlier, and that is essentially a striving to control everything around us. We need to let go.
I call the system on the left the "old self." I couldn't think of a name for the one on the right at first. What could the one on the right be called? The "new self." Okay, that's a good label!
Crucifixion, Not Rehabilitation
Looking at the old self, it cannot be upgraded or rehabilitated; it must be crucified. That is a pretty startling statement. When we operate out of the old self... which the Bible often refers to as the flesh... trying to fix it is like trying to dress up a corpse to make it look good. Our old self must die so our new self can live. There is no resurrection without crucifixion. We have to die first before we can be born again.
We all go through two births and two deaths. We are born physically and we die physically. We also have to die spiritually to be born again spiritually. Everybody will go through this process at some point.
Paul talks about this specifically in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Notice he says, "I have been crucified." It's past tense and decisive. Paul talked in one of his recent sermons about this being ontologically true... it is objectively true. It's just that it is often hidden from us, or we fail to acknowledge it. The old system is finished. The old self has been put to death, and we have a new source of life. It is Christ living in us, requiring a present and continuous dependence... a believing loyalty. You can see the echoes of John 3:16 rephrased here: living by faith in the Son of God who loved us.
Dead people don't require a more rigorous rule book; they lack the capacity to be resuscitated. When someone dies physically, their body is still there, but their life force... their spirit... is gone. You cannot rehabilitate a corpse. It is an error to think we can reform the old man. We see many religions trying to do exactly that... trying to perform better, strive harder, and follow rules. That's the old man. We don't need a rehabilitation programme to dress up a corpse; we require an entirely different kind of life. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, we were dead in our trespasses. We need to shift from a corrupted identity to an entirely new species.
On the left, you have a protective castle driven by self-protection, hiding, performance, and control, cut off from the primal source of life. Who is that primal source? Jesus. He is sustaining us all right now. There is nothing about us that he doesn't actively sustain, but we need that spiritual awakening. The model on the right is a creation model, not an evolutionary upgrade of the old flesh. It's a complete paradigm shift. The old self has to die. As Paul told the Corinthians: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
The Faith of Christ
Let's talk about our faith allowing Christ's faith to flow. Paul previously shared a crude diagram of this, which I've significantly improved, and I'll let him use it whenever he wants! He'll probably listen to this recording, so I'm sure he'll follow up.
In modern translations, many verses are translated as faith in Christ rather than the faith of Christ. That comes down to the theological bias of the translators. Every translation acts like a tightly worded commentary. Because there are far more English words than Greek words, they have to choose the word that fits their doctrine. If they believe it's purely your personal faith in Christ doing the heavy lifting, they will translate the phrase pistis Christou that way. But it is actually the faith of Christ.
Remember what Paul said to the men of Athens: Jesus is "offering faith to all." Paul was saying this to Gentiles who knew nothing about Jesus until Paul opened his mouth. The faith of Christ is the very environment of God's grace. Our faith in Christ is simply the valve. It allows God's faith to anchor us and his Spirit to flow into our spirit, connecting with our soul. Our soul then becomes the expression of our spirit. Relational authenticity and believing loyalty to our King is what biblical faith is all about.
The proclamation of the gospel originally meant the declaration of a new King. That's the good news: we have a new King, so swear allegiance to Him. Isaiah 45 says: "By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance." That is the end state God saw for humanity. It's not forced submission; it's a voluntary allegiance once everyone finally sees who the King of the cosmos actually is.
As Paul writes in Corinthians, once all that is done and Jesus has reconciled the world to himself, he hands the kingdom back to God the Father. That is the ultimate end of the story, where God is "all in all"... all things in all people. In Revelation, you see people in the lake of fire, but that isn't the final chapter. The end of the story is when God becomes all in all.
Inside-Out Transformation
As Peter Carbless would say, when we're "fair dinkum" with God, we step out of the anxiety of daily performance reviews. (I like using Peter for Australian slang because he's Greek... it's a nice flip, he should be teaching us Greek instead of Aussie English!)
Under the old operating system, we try to improve our quality of being through an upward movement. We try to set external boundaries and learn rules, hoping they will eventually change our heart. That's the Ten Commandments approach. You use the rules to manage behaviour.
I tell my kids they have to wake up early, so they set an alarm. Zara had to work at 6:00 this morning at the bakery. Her alarm went off, and what did she do? Went straight back to sleep! She was operating under a rule. She didn't set the alarm because she passionately wanted to wake up; she set it because she had to. The alarm clock became the rigid focus. She wasn't responding to the internal reality of needing to be at the bakery.
God works the exact opposite way. The old man works from the rules upward. God starts at the very top: the quality of being. He begins with an internal infusion of divine life. He joins his Spirit to our spirit. How do we access this? We turn the valve of faith. That transformation then affects our principles. We receive a new nature that naturally understands God's ways, and the external boundaries become completely obvious. We want to do what is right because our core identity has changed, not because we're managed by a checklist. Sin management attempts to fix the perimeter to heal the core. God heals the core, and the perimeter naturally aligns.
True Fruit vs. Dead Works
Let's talk about works. People often say, "I'm a good person." But who is actually good? No-one. We can manufacture good actions out of self-reliance, but they are still dead works. Who is truly good? Jesus. We could copy his actions perfectly, but if they come out of the old self, they are just forced labour. True good works are a natural fruit blossoming out of our new life in him. We become his masterpiece.
Galatians 5:22 says: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit."
We can exhibit nice attributes from either operating system, but the source is what matters. If they come out of the old man, they are dead works. This is why the author of Hebrews talks about "repentance from dead works." It's not just repenting of obviously bad things; it's repenting of the good things we tried to manufacture out of our own fleshly identity.
Summary of the Framework
To pull this framework together, let's contrast the two systems:
The Old Man (Flesh) The New Man (Spirit) Self-protective castle New creation & resurrection life Performance-led striving Absolute rest & conjoined union Adam (Dust of the earth) Christ (The life-giving spirit) Pre-Pentecost (External law) Post-Pentecost (Indwelling Spirit) Damaged, unhealed soul Healed, transformed soul False identity / Dead works True identity / Fruit of the Spirit When we operate out of the new man, our desires naturally become his desires. Instead of praying for a new model Porsche because our current one is out of date, we pray into his desires. That's what the Lord's Prayer is all about.
We all have a damaged soul that needs healing. This transition from a damaged soul to a healed soul is what the present process of salvation is. We often believe a false identity ("This is just who I am, I can't help it"), but we need to move into our true identity in him.
I have gathered a lot of scripture that maps this out, and I'll share the slides later. Please be like a Berean: don't just accept what someone says from a pulpit. Check the scriptures to see if these things map out accurately. Look at Ephesians 4, which tells us to put off the old self, renew our minds, and put on the new self. Scripture is full of this paradigm. It is completely different from simply saying a sinner's prayer and assuming you're completely done. This is a call to total transformation.
Application: Presence Prayer
How do we apply these principles? We begin with presence prayer. Paul recently put up a brilliant six-episode series on the Uncreated YouTube channel about this. The goal of presence prayer is to restore us to the exact purpose for which we were created: full communion with God. Jesus prayed, "That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us." That is full, beautiful integration.
Our primary responsibility is simply to open the valve of faith and allow the life of Christ to flow. When you notice yourself slipping into striving, stop. Take a physical breath, open your lungs, and receive his grace like oxygen.
To close, I'll share the Peter Carbless translation of Romans 5: "Therefore, since we have all of our ducks in a row because we are fair dinkum with God, we have peace with God. We stand and we rejoice in the hope and glory of God."
That is what salvation is all about. It's not a transaction you did once at the back of a church building years ago.
My mother used to get up at 3:00 am and sit in a small study chair. Sometimes she had a Bible on her lap, sometimes she didn't. I'd come home at all hours, see her there, and ask, "What are you doing? Are you praying?" She would always say, "No, I'm just waiting on the Lord." She didn't have a laundry list of demands. She was simply waiting on the Lord actively and deliberately. That is what presence prayer is.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray.
Lord, bring us into the full communication and organic union for which we were created—the secure reality where we are already seated together with you in finished victory and absolute rest. We simply thank you as we permit your life to flow through us, naturally growing your beautiful fruit and transforming us into a healing presence for everyone around us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

REVELATION EP5 - Martyrs and Grace and The Bride

Today, we are continuing our deep dive into the Book of Revelation with Episode Five: Martyrs and Grace.

When we look at the opening of the Fifth Seal, we encounter the souls under the altar. But there's a profound theological shift we need to make here. Martyrdom isn't just a historical tragedy; it's a structural witness. In the original Greek, the word for witness is Martys—the two concepts are linguistically identical. It’s about a shared life passing through suffering to display something far deeper.

I’ve wanted to sit down and untangle these theological concepts for years, getting them into proper historical and scriptural order once and for all. In this episode, we do a bit of a reality check on the concept of the "Antichrist." The word actually never appears in the Book of Revelation. More importantly, the Greek prefix anti- doesn't mean "against"—it means "instead of." We're looking at a system of substitution rather than outright opposition, and understanding that linguistic nuance completely changes how we view the prophetic timeline.

We also trace the fascinating convergence of history and theology since the 1517 Reformation. We unpack the architectural blueprint of the six foundational principles found in Hebrews 6—moving from metanoia (a total shift of the mind, rather than just external penance) to the four distinct historical dimensions of baptism, the laying on of hands, and the high-authority realities of resurrection and judgment.

Ultimately, this trajectory points toward telios—the Greek concept of full maturity and completion. It’s not about rigid, moral perfectionism, but a deep, structural reliance on a larger divine framework. It’s a massive paradigm shift that completely changes the way we look at where history is heading.

Revelation Ep 4: Seven Seals - Wars and Much More
In this episode we continue our journey through the Seven Seals of Revelation, taking a closer look at the first four horsemen and considering how they relate to the unfolding events of history.

We explore the White Horse as a picture of Christ preparing His Bride, the Red Horse and the growing loss of peace among the nations, and the contrast between the sword of human conflict and the sword of God’s truth that brings light, discernment and transformation.

The episode also revisits Ezekiel 38, discussing Gog and Magog and why this remarkable prophecy may still point to a future fulfilment, while reflecting on how it fits within the wider biblical story.

Finally, we consider the Black Horse and the Pale Horse in the context of economic uncertainty, war, disease and global instability, before finishing with the encouragement of Psalm 91. Throughout the discussion, the emphasis remains on hope rather than fear, inviting us to cultivate discernment, confidence in God’s faithfulness, and a deeper awareness of His presence as we anticipate Christ’s return together as a church family.

Podcast Summary: Revelation – The Heavenly Prelude and the Opening of the Seven Seals

This episode introduces the opening of the seven seals in the Book of Revelation, beginning with the heavenly throne-room vision of Revelation 4. Before any judgments unfold on earth, John is taken into heaven where he sees God’s throne, surrounded by worship, twenty-four elders, and four living creatures. This scene establishes God’s absolute sovereignty over everything that follows.

The speaker presents the view that John’s heavenly guide is Enoch, based on references in Jude and Revelation, and argues that Revelation from chapter 4 onward describes events that occur after John’s lifetime, supporting a futurist interpretation of the book.

The twenty-four elders are understood to represent God’s covenant leadership—twelve leaders of Israel and the twelve apostles. The four living creatures symbolise key aspects of Christ’s ministry:

• Lion – Christ the conquering King.
• Ox – Christ the humble Servant.
• Man – Christ’s compassionate humanity.
• Eagle – Christ’s heavenly perspective and exaltation.

Revelation 5 introduces the sealed scroll, containing God’s end-time purposes. Only Christ can open its seven seals. Each seal, once opened, remains active until Christ’s return, progressively unfolding God’s redemptive judgments upon the earth.

The speaker gives an overview of the seven seals:

• First Seal – White Horse: Represents the victorious Church, beginning with the Reformation in 1517, restoring the truths of faith and grace and progressively preparing the Bride of Christ.
• Second Seal – Red Horse: Represents war and the removal of peace from the earth, beginning with the world wars and continuing until Armageddon.
• Third Seal – Black Horse: Symbolises economic hardship, inflation, and famine.
• Fourth Seal – Pale Horse: Brings widespread death through war, disease, pestilence, and societal collapse.
• Fifth Seal: The cry of the martyrs for justice.
• Sixth Seal: Cosmic disturbances and worldwide upheaval.
• Seventh Seal: Opens the seven trumpet judgments.

The episode also connects Revelation with Daniel 12, where the prophetic book is sealed until “the time of the end,” identified by unprecedented global travel and a dramatic increase in knowledge. The speaker suggests today’s world—particularly the rise of artificial intelligence—fits this description and highlights the moral responsibility to use knowledge wisely.

Isaiah 29 is presented as another prophecy of a sealed book, linking Israel’s present spiritual blindness with future restoration under the New Covenant. The discussion emphasizes that the final events of Revelation will profoundly affect three groups:

1. The Church, through testing and purification.
2. Israel, through judgment and eventual restoration.
3. The kingdom of the Beast, through God’s final judgments.

The episode concludes by focusing on the hopeful message of the White Horse. Rather than symbolising deception, it is presented as Christ leading His Church through progressive restoration toward becoming the spotless Bride described in Revelation 19. Despite increasing global conflict, God is preparing a triumphant Church that will finish its race in victory before Christ’s return.

THE FLOW OF GRACE AND FAITH 

The Gift of God’s Grace shifts the burden of spiritual growth from us to the divine Creator God – and the very logos DNA design of being a New Creation in Christ makes the pursuit of holiness no longer a behavioural project but the natural manifestation of a new grace-filled nature. Grace is not an add on to become more spiritual - it is the Primal Source and the genetic blueprint of the New Creation.

Ephesians 2:4-10 (ESV)
4. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 
5. even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— Paul says that before Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit all of humanity was in a state of being "dead in trespasses." it is a description of a state of spiritual being - dead-end. We once were lost (vs 1-3) but now are found in Christ. He says we were trying to achieve spiritual output from a dead-end source without the life of Jesus. 
A dead-end nature cannot rehabilitate itself; it require a different kind of life entirely.
If a person does not have a revelation of being reconciled katalasso –being conjoined in spirit with the Spirit of God and made partakers of the divine nature. 
No behavioural modification bridges the chasm between Old Creation consciousness and Spiritual age to age life. This state of total "Deadness" demands faith in the divine intervention that is above and beyond the human system.

6. and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The Divine Initiative of God was an act of death and resurrection for our sakes that was entirely apart from human faith, obedience, or response. God acted out of love to give his life to humanity. This was the act of universal reconciliation – katalasso – the divine outcome of the incarnation of Jesus and his death and resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit. But for it to become a conscious reality for us it requires our faith in that act of divine reconciliation.
Paul calls us a New Creation – a creation model and not an evolution model – not trying to improve the old one. 
This is not just some legal status but a spiritual merger where the individual is woven into the life of the Divine. This union is categorized by three specific dimensions of being "Together with Christ". Verses 5 and 6
Made alive together: The new life-essence that terminates the state of deadness.
Raised up together: The elevation into a higher state of being. The word id ontology.
Seated together: The establishment of a new position of authority and rest, centred in the divine life rather than human effort.

7. so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  9. not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

This Gift of Grace shifts the burden of spiritual growth from us to the divine Creator God – and the very logos DNA design of being a New Creation makes the pursuit of holiness no longer a behavioural project but the natural manifestation of a new nature. Grace is not an add on to become more spiritual - it is the Primal Source and the genetic blueprint of the New Creation.

The way this New Creation model works is by shifting from "trying to acquire grace " to "permitting the flow of grace " In the old framework, we try to earn or generate spiritual value. In the New Creation model, we acknowledge that the grace life-force is already in effect. This is the "Logos logic" (vs.8) of Paul – see also in Romans 5.
Romans 5:2. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God 

Faith does not create grace; it accesses a pre-existing faith/grace system because Grace is the gift of the act of Divine Universal Reconciliation.Faith is the how-to of Access: Faith is not an achievement that produces salvation. It is the process of conscious agreement of letting the grace and faith OF Jesus flow from our spirit to our soul. It is the act of not frustrating the grace but allowing Spirit life to manifest through to the human soul as though through a pipeline connection. The operation of our faith is simply turning on the valve of the ‘faith of God’ and not resisting or frustrating the flow of grace – and for this we are accountable.

In the diagram - there is a red and yellow vertical line that represents Jesus bringing his human and divine Holy Spirit life into the life of humanity, represented by a horizontal purple pipeline. At that point there is a yellow circle representing the fullness of the grace (gift) of God’s life. That life begins to flow from left to right as a pipeline of the grace of God right to the end where there is a bubble that represents our soul. 
Halfway along the pipeline there is a yellow circle which represents a ‘faith valve’. That faith valve is where our faith in Christ is able to turn on or off the faith OF Christ and either maintain or frustrate the flow of grace to our soul.

Galatians 2:20 And the life I now live in the flesh (the embodiment of my soul) I live by the faith OF the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness (alignment with God) were through the law, then Christ has died in vain

Our soul bubble at the end will either be filled with a grace-filled hatch of yellow and purple or by stark lines of our own human effort. It is in our soul bubble where we meet the outside world – seen for who we are in our emotional and cognitive and spiritual life, along with the signs of bodily stress or calm. It will reflect a self-willfulness that has frustrated the grace or a self willingness that reflects the grace that puts God on display in our life.

Our faith is not merely a personal belief in Christ, but belief in the faith OF Christ - Christ's own faith and life already operating within us.
Galatians 2:16"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ..." Again:"...that we might be justified by the faith of Christ."
Galatians 3:22 The scriptures have concluded all under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to us who believe - our faith participates.
Ephesians 3:12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him." (KJV)
Philippians 3:9"not having mine own righteousness... but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."
Romans 3:22"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe."
9. Revelation 14:12 "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
10. Hebrews 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."
11. Phil. 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good purpose. 
12. Phil 1:6 he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion …because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace.

Our faith is therefore not an independent human achievement but a sharing in the faith life of the Son through the indwelling Spirit. Spiritual health is not about "getting" more of God’s life but about accessing and "permitting the flow of the fulness of God’s life" by turning on the tap of faith for the flow of grace that is already provided. This is perhaps the deepest implication of Paul's repeated phrase, "the faith of Christ”.Top of Form

10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
 
This distinction introduces a new ledger of accountability. Under the old human performance framework, people are judged by their willpower to adhere to external rules in honouring God. Under the New Creation model, the only measure of accountability is our access to the provided age-to-age life. This demolishes self-effort religion, as it proves that a legal pardon only juggles the ledger, whereas an ontological shift (a change in essential being) changes our very nature itself. This internal mechanism of faith naturally leads to the external manifestation of what Paul calls God’s Workmanship (vs.19)

The doing of "good works" is the natural fruit of a new nature rather than the "forced labour" of the old self. In this model, we can function as a "display case" for divine grace. This is the ultimate Workmanship (poema): Holiness becomes the spontaneous outward display of an internal change of a divine/human species, where the divine life is literally woven into the fabric of our spirit in the new mind and the new heart. This integration is the only process capable of the "salvation of the soul"—a feat that legal pardon is structurally unable to achieve. That’s why I run the course.

Old Self Framework (Effort) New Creation Framework (Expression) Frustrating the Spirit through strain
"Being still" and "flowing"
This "Expression Over Effort" model is the subjecting of self-will to God’s will. When this happens the strain of religious performance is replaced by the natural "flowing" of the New Creation. This ceasing of self-will is the terminal point of the old nature and the realization of the soul's salvation. It is called Repentance from dead works. (Hebrews 6:1)
The life of the Creator is woven into the very fabric of our mind (1Corinthians 2:16). This is not a psychological adjustment; it is a structural reality. Please understand!
Superseding the Rehabilitation Myth: We must stop attempting to improve the old nature through more persuasive social rules. What was dead accepts a katalasso reconciled life
Cultivating Permission over Performance: The goal of spiritual growth is the "being still" that allows the life of Christ to become the prime mover, resulting in the natural expression of the New Creation.
The "rest of the New Creation" is realized only when we stop trying to improve the old self and begins letting the New Creation live through us. When the strain of self-resurrection ends, the authentic life of the New Species begins.

 

 

 

JUSTIFIED BY FAITH
The interpretative architecture we bring to a text like Paul’s letter to the Romans is rarely a blank blueprint. Rather, it is a complex structure built from our personal histories, denominational filters, and cultural assumptions. When we engage with the Word, we enter a dialogue where our previous understandings collide with ancient truth. Often, we are so familiar with the vocabulary that we lose the weight of the wisdom.
As a student of the text, you must move beyond the "commonplace" view of the Bible and rediscover a sense of awe for this verifiable record of universal reality. As the source suggests:
"It’s better to have wrong reverence than no reverence... familiarity breeds contempt. We don’t know how to revere this resource we’ve got."
In Romans 5:1, the word "therefore" serves as the architectural bridge between the "cage-rattling" arguments of the first four chapters and the new reality of the Gospel. Paul’s intent in the opening chapters is to "rattle the cages" of both the pagan world and the religious establishment. He levels the playing field by demonstrating that, whether religious or not, we are all a "pack of rat bags" and "muddlers" who have fallen short. The "therefore" signifies that because our own performance has failed to rectify the "shocking mess" of our condition, a new authority has intervened.
With the structural failure of human effort exposed, we transition to the formal proclamation that establishes a new kingdom.
2. The Gospel as Proclamation: Authority Precedes Policy
In the Roman world, an Evangelion (Gospel) was not a religious suggestion or a self-help tip; it was a formal, political announcement. It carried the weight of: "The King is dead, long live the King!" It was the proclamation of who was now in authority. We must distinguish between the "Gospel"—the fact of the King’s Lordship—and "Policy"—the way that King decides to run his kingdom.
The Evangelion (The Core)
The Policy (The Working Out)
Jesus is Lord
The Forgiveness of Sins
Proclamation of Authority
The Reconciliation of the World
The synthesis here is vital: the forgiveness of sins is not a standalone "product" you buy; it is a policy that is only possible because Jesus has been established as Lord. He is the one in charge, and He has decided that the new reality is defined by reconciliation. Policy never exists in a vacuum; it flows from the character of the Sovereign.
This transition from old systems to the new Lordship demands a shift in how we relate to the King—a move from abstract belief to a "fair dinkum" trust.
3. Redefining Faith: From Abstract Belief to "Fair Dinkum" Trustworthiness
Modernity has diluted "faith" into "belief without evidence," but the linguistic journey from the Hebrew Emuna to the Greek Pistis reveals a sturdier concept. In the Australian vernacular, this is being "fair dinkum." It is a "no-nonsense," "no-BS" relationship characterized by loyalty and authenticity.
The architect of this faith was Abraham. Though he was a "muddler" who didn't always get it right, he was fair dinkum with God, and God was fair dinkum with him. This relationship involves three dimensions:
* Trustworthiness/Loyalty: A "no-nonsense" commitment to the person of God, rather than a checklist of doctrines.
* Authentic Connection: An honest, connected relationship where we stop pretending and simply "come home" to the one who knows us.
* The Result (Justification): Having "all your ducks in a row." In the legal/accounting sense, to be "justified" is to have the books balanced and the records set right.
Crucially, the source identifies that this justification is Aorist. Unlike a "daily performance review" where your standing fluctuates based on your behavior, the Aorist tense signifies a once-and-for-all action. It is "locked-in" and completed. You are counted as "safe" and "in the right" because of the fair dinkum quality of your connection to the Lord.
Once our standing is "locked-in," we can move from the anxiety of "Sin Management" to a top-down understanding of divine Law.
4. The Three Dimensions of Alignment: A Hierarchy of Living
We often treat the Bible as a "Manual of Sin Management" or a "Crimes Act," viewing Law from the bottom up. However, the biblical concept of Torah (Greek: Nomos) is far more expansive. Think of it like someone asking, "Which way to Newport?" and you pointing your finger. Torah is the pointing; it is the "directional instruction" or "teaching" that shows the way the river flows.
God’s hierarchy of living moves from the internal to the external:
1. Quality of Life and Being: The internal infusion of divine life. This is the starting point.
2. Principles of Life: The "normative" (from Nomos) discernment of what is helpful or destructive, beyond mere legality.
3. Legal Boundaries: The external rules and regulations—the "Crimes Act" layer.
The "So What?" of this architecture is profound: Humanity tries to fix the Boundaries (external rules) to hopefully one day change their Quality of Being. God works in reverse. He infuses us with His life first. This new Quality of Being gives us the capacity to understand the Principles (the "ways" of God), which finally makes the Boundaries make sense.
This internal transformation is not a burdensome duty; it is the natural byproduct of Grace.
5. Grace as the Manifestation of Joy
The word Grace (Charis) is a member of the "Joy" (Chara) family of words. Grace is not just God "letting you get away with it"; it is the manifestation of God’s delight. When we look at Gifting (Charisma), we see the suffix -ma, which in Greek denotes the "effect" of something.
To understand this, consider the analogy of "Rain-ma." If the rain is God's joy, then the "ma" (the effect) is the wetness, the green grass, and the trees growing.
* Grace (Charis) = The Manifestation of God's Joy.
* Gifting (Charisma) = The Effect (-ma) of that Joy bubbling over in the individual.
God caused you to exist because He thought you were a "great idea." His grace is the joyful blessing of a Father who is genuinely happy you have "come home." Your "gifts" are simply you having fun with God as His joy overflows through your unique personality.
This realization of God's delight brings us to the ultimate state of peace and reconciliation.
6. Summary: The Final Meditation
When we synthesize these redefined terms, Romans 5:1-2 ceases to be a cold legal contract and becomes a narrative of relational homecoming. We move from being "rat bags" in a mess to being sons and daughters with "all our ducks in a row." This isn't because we became perfect religious performers, but because we became "fair dinkum" with a King whose "policy" is joyous reconciliation.
The Reimagined Passage
"Therefore, since we have all of our ducks in a row because we are 'fair dinkum' with God, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access through this 'fair dinkum-ness' into the joyful, bountiful blessing in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

 

REVELATION EP 2 SEVEN CHURCHES PROPHETIC DIMENSIONS
Two very well-known and very misunderstood chapters of the Bible in Revelation are chapters two and three of Revelation - The letters to the seven churches. 

These letters are addressed to seven historical congregations in Asia Minor, and they reveal consequential spiritual conditions of rise and decline that appear throughout the Church in every age. Each letter follows a similar pattern: Christ identifies Himself, commends what is faithful, exposes what requires repentance, and promises a reward to those who overcome. Together they present a comprehensive picture of discipleship, warnings correction, and hope.  
Taken together, the seven letters reveal Christ as the Lord of the Church, walking among His people, intimately aware of their strengths, failures, struggles, and victories. They demonstrate that faithfulness is measured not merely by outward success but by love, holiness, perseverance, truth, and dependence upon God. The letters also show that divine judgment begins with God’s own household, yet His purpose is restorative, calling believers to spiritual renewal in Christ and renewed communion with him and with one another. The futurist interpretation of Revelation is strengthened in these letters as Ephesus and Pergamos and Sardis and Thyatira and Philadelphia are all told by Jesus to be prepared for the coming of the Lord ‘behold I come’ in various tones, and Laodicea is told that he is actually standing at the door. The Holy Spirit is currently working to reverse the tragic consequence of many people’s abandonment of faith that has occurred over the years.

The repeated exhortation, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” transforms these letters from ancient correspondence into an ongoing universal call to all. Their central message is that Christ seeks a purified, faithful, overcoming people who will participate in the final triumph portrayed throughout the remainder of Revelation.
There is a fourfold multilayer architecture of how these letters function simultaneously as four distinct dimensions happening here in the one passage of text.

1. They are first century letters to congregations, from Jesus through John.
2. They are a blueprint of the entire church age.
3. They are a prophetic warning to the Church today about the End Times and the Coming of The Lord,
4. They are a spiritual map of the healing and salvation of the human soul. 

This fourth dimension reframes how we personally interact with the letters as this is the inward spiritual application and the mirror of our soul’s journey. In this dimension there is an inward ongoing unveiling of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in us. These seven churches represent seven distinct conditions of the human soul in its journey toward full union with God.
Church Historical Period (approximate) Ephesus Apostolic Church (30–100 + AD) Discernment then loses first love Smyrna Persecuted Church (100+ –303) Trials10 years/Diocletian/worn down Pergamos Imperial Church (313–590 Marriage of church and state (Constantine) Thyatira Medieval Church (590–1517 Pagan superstition/Jezebel) Sardis Reformation Church (1517–1900 faith, division, deadness) Philadelphia Holy Spirit Church (1900 to now) mission faith power love holiness  Laodicia  End-time Church (1900 to now) money, politics, power, celebrity, image 
The church in Ephesus was praised and warned Revelation 2:1 I know your works, your labor, your patience … and you have persevered and have patience, and have laboured and not become weary. Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 
The next church, Smyrna did become weary through persecution. John wrote vs.8 the devil will throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested and have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. Exhaustion of persecution in Smyrna inevitably led to the church in Pergamos (marriage) to accept the protection of the Roman Empie through Constantine and to accept the compromise of the marriage of state and church. This led to the superstitious pagan church of Thyatira being rebuked for allowing the immoral and idolatrous influence of Jezebel. Then followed the church of Sardis which represents the historic stage of reformation of faith under Luther which decayed into dead denominationalism. John wrote “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, 

Then came the churches of Philadelphia and Laodicea. These churches both represent the experience of Holy Spirit revival life coming to the church worldwide. Philadelphia type churches and Laodicea type churches both emerged in the 1900 Pentecost Holy Spirit revival, and many people of the many thousands of dying denominations were touched by it. Jesus said at Pentecost ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will become witnesses of me’.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God’ s love and holiness and power and truth and of Gospel mission and witness. Some church movements from the 1900 revival became holiness churches and others became Holy Spirit power churches. Others became doctrinal truth teaching churches and others missionary movements. And there always was and still is the possible drift from Philadelphia love and faith and holiness to Laodicea worldly power and image and complacency. But church history is not destined for abandonment, xand neither is the human soul. We can awaken and recognise any hypocrisy and that awakening sparks the Philadelphia stage of transformation.

The Philadelphia type churches receive encouragement, and though weak in worldly strength, if they remained faithful to Christ, they are promised an open door that no one can shut. 
The Laodicea type churches get rebuked for lukewarm self-sufficiency (the word Laodicea means ‘the opinions of the people). Though they were materially prosperous, Jesus called them spiritually poor and blind. Yet even here Jesus extends a gracious invitation to renewed fellowship: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Note – 

Philadelphia is the church of brotherly love - the name comes from phileo meaning affection or love – and delfos - brother, so it means brotherly love and this represents a historical movement experiencing genuine spiritual life of an open door of spiritual power - an open door that no human institution can shut. Laodicea has a closed door locked on the inside that Jesus stands at and knocks to be let in
But that brotherly love to one another and to God and the spirituality of grace and Holy Spirit freedom and renewal will operate differently to a religiously structured church like the church of Laodicea - the lukewarm church. And if the spirit of a Philadelphia church does not become compromised, they keep an open door that no one can shut and they receive no rebuke from Jesus.
That brings us back to all of us holding a dynamic history textbook, a ticking prophetic clock and a mirror of our transforming soul all at once. 

And the number of seven churches isn’t an accident. It represents end time completion.
These letters represent an exhaustive range of spiritual conditions found in humanity. everyone has a bit of all seven churches within them - we have a bit of Ephesus a bit of Sardis a bit of Laodicea somewhere within our own soul - this aligns with the apostle Paul's teaching in 1Corinthians 2:11 says that only our spirit can discern what we have in our soul, and he later says examine yourselves whether you are in the faith 2Corinthians 13:5

These seven conditions of the soul are deeply connected to those seven areas of historic church experience and spirituality, and they don't just exist in a vacuum. One spiritual state of a church directly triggered the vulnerabilities of the next stage in a remarkable progression and it does so also in our souls. 

Philadelphia can reflect or mirror a person’s soul or it can reflect an historical movement or a current day church that experiences the genuine spiritual life of an open door of God’s life and love and power - an open door that no human institution can shut.
Laodicea can reflect the soul of worldly religious mindsets and structures of opiniated complacency and self-sufficiency.

The Church of Philadelphia can stay pure by the grace of God at a grassroots level of relational integrity while the Laodicean church may resist that simplicity and freedom. The wealth and image of the Laodicean church that thinks they're rich and need nothing receives a divine diagnosis that is devastating. Jesus says ‘you are wretched and poor and blind and naked - that's a harsh reality check. 

So a question arises for me right here. If one stage naturally triggers the next - as we saw in the exhaustion of persecution in Smyrna leading to seeking relief in the worldly power in Pergamos which led to the superstitious pagan church of Thyatira. Then followed the faith reformation, then the dead religion of Sardis. Then the divergence of Philadelphia and inevitably the worldly power of the opiniated Laodicea. 
Laodicea looms as an historical dead-end doom loop. And is the human soul also doomed to a dead-end doom loop? Where do we get off? 

The answer is we get to choose where we stay on the map and it is unequivocally clear the antidote to the doom loop is to deliberately anchor ourself in the Philadelphia state of life because the text of the Scripture is entirely intentional here. The logos design in this text wants us to feel for our own souls the weight of that possible downward spiritual spiral we saw in the letters to the churches because we are accountable for the state of our own souls. Only the Philadelphia life brings faith and hope and love and freedom. A person can be living a Philadelphia type life in any kind of church if they know how and the Bible tells us how. and you stay free! And the Bible tells us how.
There are people attending a Laodicea type church that are living in a Philadelphia type church life in their soul and there are people going to a Philadelphia type church and living a Laodicea soul life. Only God knows the hearts, and we cannot judge peoples’ hearts – we can simply observe church structure and test the spirit of the church.

2Timothy 2:24 pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.

The entire purpose of Revelation unveiling these stages is to expose the recurring cycles whether you are analysing 2000 years of human history or just the last 10 years of your own personal spiritual development. Seeing the pattern and living the spiritual process of the salvation of the soul that marks the church of Philadelphia is the Scriptural way to break the cycle of perishing and completing the cycle of being saved and healed and how to break every chain of bondage.

We're living in days when because of the cultural immorality and chaos and confusion and betrayal that's going on in the world people can feel they’re in bondage to certain kinds of ideologies or feel if they don't believe what the group has as a certain kind of new age or some kind of way of thinking - if they don't join with them politically in their opinions they'll be left out. So they've become joined  to it and that can become a bondage to something that's got nothing to do with what God saying to the world. But we focus on what God's doing and what he’s saying. The end part of that little prayer of presence I presented last week is, Lord I thank you that you own this moment and that in this moment you are restoring and reordering all things out there in the world. I might be thinking in my mind anxiously about the chaos that's happening out there but my prayer is Lord this moment that you own is bringing your never-ending activity of reordering into all of that chaos and that brings me great comfort. The last line is, thank you Lord for including me in your reordering in the spirit - no matter what's going on and what other people are doing and no matter what kind of challenge that's making me feel my own emotional reactions and confusion I know that God is at work saying stay at peace, I am reordering everything. Watch and you will see the result of how I am bringing things to the surface and working these things all together for good to you because you're wanting my will in your life. 

It does come down to a very simple formula of rather than being self-conscious about what's going wrong, being God conscious of what he is now making right. That is his agenda no matter what is happening on the outside or whatever is being shouted from the rooftops and from pulpits, God is speaking to you on the inside and promising you he is reordering your life to be walking with him in his perfect will. 
And we will go through trials - the fire will burn - no pain no gain. The Clippers will be out to chop off the dead branches and they'll get thrown into the fire, and the fire can burn - that's not hell you going to - that's the here and now burning off of the dead wood - the loss of what is not of God. But as that outward part starts to get burned off and perish the inward is being renewed day by day. Amen.
Pul OSullivan – pauloss@me.com