Survivors of the Great Tribulation Today’s passage: Revelation 7:13–17 Focus verse: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14) If you ask people to name the main phrases or themes from the book of Revelation, […]
Everyone Today’s passage: Revelation 7:9–12 Focus verse: Before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9) Immediately after John details how many people from the tribes of Israel receive the seal of God, he describes a great […]
Breaking the Seven Seals Today’s passage: Revelation 6 Focus verse: I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. (Revelation 6:1) Jesus has just been declared worthy to open God’s scroll, that is, to access the words on the sealed document. One by one, Jesus will break each of the seven seals that […]
Who Else Is Worthy? Today’s passage: Revelation 5 Focus verse: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain.” (Revelation 5:9) Our scene in heaven continues to unfold: the four living creatures have declared God holy, and the twenty-four elders have laid their crowns at the feet of […]
Isaiah’s Prophecy Isaiah 9:1–7 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. (Isaiah 9:6) This passage in Isaiah’s prophecy opens with the word nevertheless. To gain insight as to what this means we must consider the end of the prior chapter. There Isaiah writes of the time when the people […]
Is Your Name on the List? Chapter 2 in the book of Ezra overflows with names. We often skim it or may face the temptation to skip it altogether. Buried among this dizzying array of names is a sidenote that’s easy to miss, but it carries an important lesson. Many of the Israelite exiles prepare […]
In the post “What is the Second Death?” we saw that the people whose names are listed in the book of life will escape the second death. That raises the question, what is the book of life? The phrase the book of Life is found once in the Old Testament and seven times in the […]