@@janiceciampo While we appreciate your comment, we have located the camera- phone, actually- in a location where it will not be a hazard or a distraction.

@@AuntieKaia If we accept the presumption that the Post-Resurrection Jesus is the one telling John what to write- as it says in Revelation 1:1- then, yes, he is the speaker here. This comment would be very consistent with what Luke 4:8 indicates Jesus told the Devil (Accuser) during his “temptation”.

@@rosilatressler Your point is taken. A conversation I had following this study made me realize that: first, I didn’t fully understand the question I was being asked and, second, I should have done a better job explaining the scripture I was citing. In Habakkuk 1:13, the prophet says to God, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil”. This does not mean that God must close His eyes or turn His back when people start to sin. It is, rather, a recognition of God’s righteous character and the fact that “light has no fellowship with darkness”. The key to understanding Habakkuk’s comment is found in recognizing the parallelism of the poetry. Realizing this, “to look on” should be seen as parallel with “tolerate.” Habakkuk is essentially pointing at God’s holiness and saying, “You are too holy to look favorably on evil.” Because God is omniscient and omnipresent, He obviously knows about the sin and, thus, is present when the sin is committed; I should have done a better job making this clear. He does not wink at, nor turn a blind eye to, sin. He sees it, and, as Habakkuk rightly asserts, He does not see it favorably. Hence, as you rightly observe, God’s Spirit is the active Agent in the sinners conviction, and hopeful redemption. Confusion over the idea that God’s eyes are “too pure to look on evil” (Habakkuk 1:13) has led some to believe that God is not omniscient nor omnipresent, because He cannot “look” upon sin. He is, by His very essence, present at every human act; whether righteous or unrighteousness.

@@AuntieKaia God forbid that any church would fail to respect Jesus’s words, “Suffer the little children to come unto me”. It is his church, after all. If Jesus says kids are the stuff of the Kingdom of God, who are we to challenge his teachings?

@@AuntieKaia Throughout the latter part of chapter 17, it becomes clear that Babylon is used as a metaphor for the world empire of the time. A careful study and comparison of both Rome and the United States yields startling similarities; even down to some of the early American efforts to include certain Roman names and symbols. Chapters 17 and 18 include more than ample evidence of the Harlot being the apostate church. John casts the Harlot and the empire under one name, Babylon, because the two entities become “one flesh” through their “fornication”.

@@AuntieKaia The reference mentioned in the service is: Daniel 11:23-33.

@@AuntieKaia We will be more careful to indicate when things take place in the Revelatiin, moving forward.

We revisited chapter 12 to answer some questions which were generated by people who continued to study after we discussed it a few services ago. Oddly, if you listen to the whole video, it is clear that some of the people at the study did not realize that verses 1-6 reference Genesis 12 through Jesus’s birth and resurrection (the past), verses 7-12 are a parenthetic that took place from Genesis through Jesus’s resurrection (the past), and verses 13-17 reference the time from Jesus resurrection through Jesus’s Second Coming (the past, John’s present, and our future)…essentially the arc of Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 24.

Pessimistic people are waiting for the saints to be crushed, optimistic people are waiting for the sound of the trumpet.

While we agree that Believers are living under the Grace of God thanks to the offering of His Son, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, Jesus makes it clear in the Sermon on the Mount that he didn’t come to do away with the Law, but rather that he came to fulfill the Law. Therefore, obedience to the Law is still part of the Believer’s experience with God.

Correct, but the church is already teaching this lawless concept.

Agreed. Arguably the rebellion of 2 Thessalonians 2- the falling away, which is a clear reference to the backsliding church- has already begun. Lawlessness is already being practiced and taught. God will inevitably keep His word and SEND them a delusion, because they want to believe the lie.