Category Archives: Reblogs

The First Interlude: The Great Multitude (Revelation 7:1-17) – Part 3

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

After John sees the vision of the witnesses and the angels that will protect them, he next sees a great multitude of people standing before the throne in heaven and before the Lamb. They are clothed in white robes and they are praising God with palm branches in their hands. And many angels and the twenty-four elders and the four cherubim were also worshipping God saying,

Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever.

Then one of the elders asked John about the great multitude: “Who are they and where have they come from?” As if he didn’t know.

But he did know, and John knew it. So he said to him, “My lord, you know.”

Then the elder told John who they were.

1. They have come out of the Tribulation.They apparently were not saved…

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How to Receive and Be Cleansed By God’s Forgiveness

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

God’s forgiveness is a gift that we receive by faith.  Just as we were saved by His grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), His constant, day by day forgiveness also comes by grace through faith.  We can’t earn it by works, nor do we deserve it; we receive it by faith.  And the way we begin to have faith in Him is by coming to Him in prayer with a broken and humble heart—to confess our sins and repent.  Then when God sees that we are genuine in our repentance, He will freely offer us His gift of forgiveness and cleansing.

But how do we begin to confess and to genuinely turn from our sins?  How does this happen?  Well, to begin with, God moves in us to change our heart.  But then when you feel Him moving you, it is up to you to respond.  You must trust Him…

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The First Interlude: More About The 144,000 Witnesses (Revelation 7:1-17) – Part 2

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

 Here are six points to consider:

1. They are all Jews from twelve tribes.These witnesses are not Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Mormon elders, or some symbol of the church. They are Jews. And even though most Jews today don’t know which tribe they belong to, God does. They are not lost to Him. He will select twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes that are listed in Revelation 7:5-8.

2. Israel will become the evangelistic nation she was meant to be.When Israel rejected Jesus her Messiah, she experienced a spiritual hardening. But the bible says (in Romans 11:25) that that hardening will not be permanent. When the fullness of the Gentiles comes (when the complete number of elect Gentiles are saved) and the Rapture occurs, then God will turn His focus on Israel. The 144,000 Jewish witnesses will be the first fruits of a new redeemed Israel; and…

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How to Forgive: 9 Steps to Follow

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

According to Matthew 5:23-24, the first thing we are to do when we remember that someone has something against us, is to go quickly and make friends with him, even if we are in the middle of prayer.  In fact, that is the time that the Holy Spirit will bring it to your mind.  And really, it doesn’t matter who the offender is, whether it is another that offended you or you that offended another, you are responsible to go and make reconciliation.  Don’t think that he must go to you.  When you meet him you must confront him in love.  If he has sinned you are to reprove him, but in private (Matt. 18:15).  If you have sinned then you must confess to him and ask his forgiveness.  If we practice this law of reconciliation then we will live in freedom from the chains of bitterness. 

But what if…

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The First Interlude: The 144,000 Witnesses and The Great Multitude (Revelation 7:1-17) – Part 1

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

Suddenly, as the cosmic disturbances were still stirring and as people were still hiding from the wrath of God (as I believe that all of the judgments will be continuous), God gave John another scene to look at; a scene, which we will call an interlude, to show us how God throughout the Tribulation will be working to evangelize and redeem certain ones who will choose to believe in Him.

This interlude will answer the question posed in Revelation 6:17: Who is able to stand? That is, who is able to survive the wrath of God during the Tribulation? The answer found in this seventh chapter is that two distinct groups will survive: 1) the 144,000 Jewish witnesses, and 2) their converts who will be martyred but immediately raised into heaven.

So, this, in general terms, is the purpose of this interlude: to give us this wonderful news of souls…

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The Consequences of Not Forgiving: Five Progressive Steps

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

 D. L. Moody, in his book, Prevailing prayer, said, “…When you go into the door of God’s kingdom, you go in through the door of forgiveness…If we are unwilling to forgive others, God cannot forgive us.”  Consequently, if He doesn’t forgive us of sins, then they remain with us to create havoc on our body and soul.  We will discuss now that havoc in five progressive steps:

 1.  Fellowship with God is lost.  My relationship with God depends on my relationship with others.  For His love for us and for our neighbors cannot be separated.  He loves us all the same, and He loves the whole world (Jn. 3:16).  Therefore, when we refuse to love and forgive a person whom He loves and forgives, we are cutting ourselves off from His flow of love and forgiveness to us (Matt. 6:15), because we in a sense are…

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The Sixth Seal — Revelation 6:12-17

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

When the Lamb broke the sixth seal, John looked and saw (and may have experienced) a great earthquake. There have been many earthquakes recorded in the bible, and many more in this present day. But this one and also the one at the very end of the Tribulation (Rev. 16:18) will be the greatest in world history. In fact, they will be more than earthquakes. MacArthur writes, “All the earth’s faults will begin to fracture simultaneously, resulting in a cataclysmic, global earthquake.”[1]

Another author, Hal Lindsey, in his commentary of Revelation, There’s A New World Coming, says of this passage that this quake will be “the granddaddy of them all.”[2]

And he believes, because of the description here (verses 12-14), that the quake will be set off by a nuclear explosion. Lindsey comments particularly on verse fourteen:

Do you know what happens in a nuclear explosion? The…

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Forgiving Our Offenders: What It Should Look Like, 6 Points

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

 

Our forgiveness of others should look actually the same as God’s forgiveness to us (look at my post right before this one—Understanding God’s Forgiveness).  There should be no difference; forgiveness is forgiveness.  Of course, since we are human, our forgiveness will not be as complete as His is; however, the nature of our forgiveness and its aim should be exactly like His in every way.  So as we plan to forgive others we must endeavor to make our forgiveness as His.  He has set the example and the standard for us.  Now here are six aspects or parts of forgiveness, which taken together, will help you to see the big picture of what it should look like.

 1.  It is confrontational.  First of all, we must understand that though we should always unconditionally love our offender (as God has loved us), we should never offer…

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The Fifth Seal — Revelation 6:9-11

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarStudying Bible Prophecy

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal John immediately got a vision of the heavenly temple; and his focus was under the altar of incense where he saw the souls of those who had been slain.

Who are the souls under the altar? These are the souls of the redeemed who were martyred very early in the Tribulation. It is possible that they were saved just after the Rapture of the church, as a result of the preaching of the 144,000 witnesses.

There is another group in Revelation 7:9-17, that is mentioned as a “great multitude” and as “ones who come out of the great Tribulation.” This is possibly a later group, which are from the last half of the Tribulation, and that is mentioned in Revelation 6:11 as “their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been…” Or, it may be that…

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Understanding God’s Forgiveness: 5 points

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Stephen Nielsen's avatarPrayer A to Z

Here’s another post from my book Prayer A to Z.

1. His forgiveness is rooted in His unconditional love.  Though God does not always forgive everyone—He forgives only those who will repent of their sins—He does love everyone unconditionally.  And that unconditional love is what draws sinners to repent so that He can forgive them.  Thus, forgiveness is always contingent on repentance; but that doesn’t mean that He doesn’t always love us.  He has always loved us and He always will, because that is His nature; God is love; it comes out of His own righteous and merciful character (Titus 3:4).  God loves the whole world and He desires all to repent so that He can forgive them (2 Pet. 3:9).

2.  His forgiveness was costly for Him.  God purchased our forgiveness by the blood of His own son Jesus.  Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Him [Jesus] we have…

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