Dragon Slayer Intro

· Rev 1:1-5

· Obedience is better than revelation

o Do what He’s already told you to do

o Be threat to Hell

· Helicopters aren’t locus and vaccine isn’t 666

· Revelation is a letter

o Written to specific people at a specific time in a specific place

o Written to them and for us.

· Written in 96AD amidst 30yrs of persecution

o Nero 65 AD first wave of persecution

o Vespine in 67 AD dipped Christian in oil and used them as living torches

o 70 AD Jerusalem destroyed, Peter, Paul, and Timothy all publicly martyred

o Domitian ordered all of Rome to worship him as god and publicly declare “Caesar is LORD” and sacrifice.

· Temptation is live in comfort of compromise v discomfort of persecution

· Prophecy

o Focused on what God says for the future and now

o Not linear/chronological. Series of windows into supernatural (turn and saw/hear/heard)

· Apocalypse

o Unveiling/disclosure

o People are often represented by animals

o Historical events are shown and natural phenomena

o Colors and numbers have meanings

o Inform our minds AND ignite our imaginations

§ Example of birth of Christ

§ What stirs up our affections more?

o Doesn’t just want to set us in the future it also wants to set us, anchor us, in the unseen realities of the present and future.

o Reminds us that we fight a spiritual enemy that is out to divide us and destroy us

§ It’s hard to hate your enemy when you are aware of the spiritual powers at work.

§ IF they are prisoners, it’s easier to love enemies and each other

o God is not nervous because America looks rough. It’s bigger than that the US.

· 351 AD 350 million Romans call Jesus LORD (51%)

· 7 Sons of Scheiva (Acts 19:14-16)

o Jewish Exorsists

o Got their pants beat off