Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives . Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, November the 25th. It is Thanksgiving week. How great is that? Talked about gratitude yesterday. I'm thankful for coffee today. I'm drinking this out of a Yellowstone mug that we got. Dean and I got this when we were in Yellowstone a couple years back. It's got a bear on it. I just have great memories from being there and this mug brings all of those back. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for you listening today and whatever it is that you've got working along here. Tea or coffee or Dr. Pepper or Coke Zero or Mountain, whatever it is, you need to grab it. You need to get ready. You need to get set because it's time. Let's go. I did talk about gratitude in the sermon yesterday, and I just think that works for the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It's important for us to remember that Thanksgiving is about more than football and Turkey. And while we wanna be thankful every day, and sometimes you get pushback when you preach about something like Thanksgiving. Well, we ought to be thankful every day . Yes, we should be thankful every day , but just as Israel should have been thankful every day for their liberation from Egyptian, that did not mean they did not have an annual celebration called the Passover to give extra emphasis and to make sure that they were thinking about that event. So there's nothing wrong, nothing wrong with being extra thankful this Thursday. And I'm gonna add then to the sermon I use the quote on Sunday where I said gratitude Actually , I didn't say this is a quote, gratitude makes what we have enough. So I'm gonna pull out another quote this from one of my heroes, Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt said, comparison is the thief of joy. And so maybe the thing to remember here is that comparison is the destroyer of gratitude. Remember the parable of the workers in Matthew chapter 20? Jesus tells about workers hired at the beginning of the day and they are told they will receive a denarius and they are thrilled to go to work. But at the end of the day when they see some workers who who got hired very late in the day receiving the same wage at Anari , they lose their joy, they lose their gratitude. So I want to urge all of us to be careful not to compare our thanksgiving to someone else's. Yes, somebody else's meal may look fabulous and better than ours. Someone else may have had Martha Stewart come in and decorate their home and table. Someone else may be cheering for a team that wins on Thanksgiving Day. Oh , hashtag envy. Don't let that throw you off. Don't let that throw you off. We all have so much go back over the four practices. Quit thinking you deserve. Don't listen to our culture. Count your blessings instead go on a complaint fast. And remember, gratitude is where happiness springs from and where it grows. I pray you'll have a blessed week this Thanksgiving week and a very special day on Thursday as well. Part of this week is still daily Bible reading. Let's stay with our spiritual disciplines. Let's talk about the book of Revelation. It is Monday and our reading today is Revelation chapter 12, verses seven to 17. I am going to start the podcast episodes each day a little bit different. I wanna start each day with something that I'm thankful for. I'm gonna put into practice the things that we talked about yesterday. So today I just want to say how thankful I am for the podcast team, the folks that put all this together and make all this happen for you are just incredible. John Cheney and Anisa Cuellar do a great, great job. In fact, last week I bought some stuff and Anisa edited it and made it all work right? And John puts it up and gets all the networking and gets it uploaded. I just appreciate them so very much. I am thankful for the podcast team and I'm gonna begin our reading today in Revelation the 12th chapter by sharing with you a quote from a wonderful scholar. I'm thankful for scholars. This is from Kesters wonderful book. On the book of Revelation, he notes that revelation regards evil as a kind of cancer that has invaded God's world. Cancer cells are malignant and as they grow they destroy healthy tissue around them. And as the disease spreads, life is diminished as more and more healthy tissue is destroyed. And if the cancer's left unchecked, death will result accordingly. Treating the disease means destroying the malignant cells that destroy life. And the goal is that life will thrive. That's an excellent way for us to begin this section of Revelation. Our reading today is Revelation 12, seven to 17, and this portrays a battle between God and the devil. We're really getting down to the heart of the book of Revelation right here because the devil, the devil is a cancer. Sin is a cancer in our world, and the devil here is defeated through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. He's no longer able to be the accuser. Verse 10, like he is in the Book of Job like he is in the book of Zechariah . He can't do that anymore. And notice verse 11, you can conquer Satan. So much of this book is about standing with the lamb so you can be a winner with the lamb. There it is in verse 11, they've conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony because they were faithful. Even they did not love their lives even unto death. So here you see, the way to conquer the devil is to persevere and endure. That's a huge message in the book of Revelation. That is the message of the book of Revelation. I've said before, the message of revelation is not Jesus and the devil get into a fight and Jesus whips him. The message of the book of Revelation is Jesus and his followers get into a fight with the devil and Jesus whips him and Jesus's followers win with Jesus. That was way too long. It's not nearly as succinct as Jesus and the devil fight and Jesus wins, but the lamb overcomes and you can conquer and overcome if you will stand with the lamb. Then we get a lot of imagery here as the devil continues to attack God's people. And the woman here has represented earlier in the chapter Israel bringing them aside to the world. Now I think the woman continues to represent God's people in the present , um, in the present for John's readers. They would rep , she would represent here the church. And there's a lot of imagery from the Old Testament like when Israel crossed the Red Sea or when they were protected in the wilderness. But all of this is to say that God knows where his people are and God is protecting his people. God is watching what's going on in this terrible, terrible battle, how encouraging that would have to be to those seven churches of Asia. These images are not literal. They represent Satan's efforts to destroy God's people. But those images would stick with them. And maybe the key thing to hold onto here is verse 17. Since Satan failed to murder the Christ child , he now makes war on the church. Think about it. Just because you're standing with the lamb doesn't mean you're exempt from suffering. That is an important message from Revelation 12. Our reading on Monday, revelation 12, seven to 17 . It is Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and today's reading is Revelation, the 13 chapter verses one to 10 . And I'm gonna begin, as I said yesterday, each episode of the podcast this week by being thankful. And today I'm thankful for our deacons at West Side . We talk a lot about our shepherds and we should, and we're thankful for our shepherds and we should be thankful for our shepherds. But we have a ton of deacons who do all kinds of things behind the scenes to make sure the plumbing's working and the grass is clipped and the bushes are are taken care of, and the sprinkler system's working and all these other physical things. Our baptistry in good running order, our deacons work really hard to keep everything in the physical plant on our campus working correctly. I'm just very thankful, just very thankful for that today. Then in regulation , the 13 chapter, we get two beasts . And these beasts get so much attention when people take the code approach to the book of Revelation. And that's that approach that if you can decode who the beast is, then you can figure out the calendar and sequence of events towards the end of the world or Armageddon or some such thing like that. So there's always lots of attempts to try to identify specifically who this beast is in human history. Interestingly, there's not much attempt to do that in Revelation 12. Not a lot of discussion about who the woman is, try to decode all of those things. And as far as decoding this stuff and trying to make this into some kinda literal person, notice the beast has seven heads, but he has 10 horns. Now how's that gonna work out? That can't be literal, can it? You end up with 1.4285 horns on each head. I did the math, how about that? Are you impressed Dina ? So there we clearly see this as a figure of a terrible, terrible beast. It's a composite of the features of the beast in Daniel chapter seven. And this beast comes and threatens God's people. The key here is verse four, people ask who is like the beast and who can fight against it? It seems like it is invincible. It is. It seems like it's more powerful than God, but John's readers have been prepared. We know who is better than the beast. Verse four, we know who can fight against this beast. That said, when you get to verse seven, it really looks like there's no hope. This beast is just going to win. He's making war on the saints and conquering them, and everybody's worshiping this beast. Looks like things are going in completely wrong direction, but verse 10 reminds us, the beast will not win. There is hope and we'll talk more about that as we move on in chapter 13. But get that last line of verse 10. Here is a call for endurance and faith of the saints. That refrain will be repeated several more times in the book of Revelation. And I say again, it is the main theme of the book of Revelation. Stand with the lamb, be victorious with the lamb. No zoom tonight. Lots of people traveling, lots of things going on with Thanksgiving week . So there'll be no zoom tonight. I'll see you on the podcast tomorrow, our reading for Tuesday. Revelation chapter 13 verses one to 10. Welcome to Wednesday. Welcome to Thanksgiving Eve. And our reading today is Revelation, the 13 chapter verses 11 to 18. But I need to stop long enough to be thankful. What am I thankful for today? Today I am thankful for cats. I am. I'm thankful for cats because cats help us realize how great dogs really are. Okay, that probably wasn't very nice to all you cat owners out there, but I am thankful for pets today. I've been blessed in my life to have a lot of pets, mostly dogs, had some gerbils and all kinds of other critters along the way, but dogs mostly, and they're just an incredible blessing from above. I wonder sometimes if we realize God did not have to make the animal kingdom with some animals in it that are willing to come over and be our friends . So whether that's a cat or a parrot or a rock lizard or or a dog, be thankful. Let's be thankful for pets today we're reading now about this second beast. I didn't say much about the identity of that first beast yesterday, probably to the minds of those in the seven churches, when they see that beast with 10 horns and seven heads, I'm thinking about the seven hills that Romans established on. That beast does seem to personify the Roman empire, but again, in a larger way it just personifies all threats against God's people. And here comes a second beast that makes people worship the first beast. And that's what this beast is all about. Verse 12, it exercises the authority of the first beast and it's inhabitants. It makes the earth and it's inhabitants worship the first beast and it performs these great signs. Verse 13, lots of fake signs in the Bible. I think about the magicians in Pharaohs presence. They try to do that. Simon in Acts chapter eight, he claims to be able to do some signs. He can't really do any real signs, but these signs deceive people. Verse 14. And so he causes people to give their allegiance to the Roman empire probably in this specific context, but to the powers that are trying to usurp the place of God. That's what you're seeing right here. And maybe it's important to note that everyone belongs to somebody. And that's made clear when it talks about the mark of the beast verses 16 and 17. And of course those who are involved in vein speculation, try to make that into the social security number that you carry or your credit card number or the universal product code or some kind of tattoo on your forehead. Hey, this isn't a visible kind of seal, a visible kind of sign any more than we expect the false profit in verse 11 to have two literal horns coming out of his head. He's just a parody of the lamb. Did you notice that? Verse 11, he's a fake lamb. He's not the real lamb. And the question here is all about your allegiance. Who are you going to follow? And I would give emphasis, I think to the end of our reading today in verse 13, I'm sorry, verse 18. Let him who has understanding, calculate the term for calculate is a special word that references that business where you make a number stand for a letter, maybe when you were a kid, you got the decoder ring outta your serial and you turn the decoder ring. A is one, B is two. And you could write coded messages. Nobody would ever be able to solve anything like that. And this is not a very difficult message in that regard. The 6, 6, 6 number. Some have thought that just stands for man as a failure because seven is the divine number. And so this would indicate man is never quite up to what God says. I'm gonna guess that probably the best explanation for that is Nero Caesar, that that would be what I think would come to mind in the original hero's minds as this is being read in the assembly. This is Nero Caesar. Lots of people have come up with other sorts of of explanations and you can make a lot of names fit if you monkey with the numbers a lot. But in this context to these people, then I think the Caesar would be who they are thinking of Nero, Caesar. And uh, I don't think that we should limit that though to, to just one person. It , it's not predictive. I wanna be clear about that. But I , I mentioned this last week in the Zoom call to a Christian in Germany in 1938 reading the book of Revelation and being persecuted for his or her faith. Who would they think of when they read Revelation, the 13th chapter? They would think of. They would think of the empire of Germany, the father land , and how people were falling down at the feet of Germany and the spirit of the Fatherland and its arms and military. And then along comes Adolf Hitler. And he is enforcing the worship of Germany, if you will, and persecuting Christians. No , this isn't a prediction of Adolf Hitler. But to a Christian in 1930s Germany, it would be helpful. The principles here would help them see, look at this Nero Caesar's coming out again in the person of Hitler. The spirit of the red dragon is once again active. And I need this book to encourage me and to help me when I'm being oppressed for my faith. I need this so that 13, 10, I can have endurance and faith as I serve God. And that pushes us into chapter 14 where once again, we see the contrast between God's people and the world and that God is keeping his people safe. That's our reading for Wednesday. Revelation 13, 11 to 18 . Now don't forget, tonight is absolutely the best Wednesday night of the year. It's our special Thanksgiving prayer service. And I want to urge everyone, everyone who's listening to the podcast, come to that prayer service. It will be themed this year to the book of Revelation because that's where we are reading in our daily Bible reading. And I have seen the plans that have been made for it. And it is an amazing, it's just going to be an incredible prayer service. You must be there. And if you can't be there physically, make sure that you stream the prayer service. Tonight is our annual Thanksgiving prayer service. Nothing gets you ready for thanksgiving tomorrow, like praying and being thankful with your brothers and sisters in Christ. I'll see you tonight at West Side as we pray from the book of Revelation together. Welcome to Thursday, it is Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Our reading today is Revelation 14, one to 13 . I wonder what you are thankful for. I'm thankful for my family and for good food and for cranberries in the can. I just love those. But I'm especially thankful today for the Macy's Day parade. I have watched that parade since I was a little boy and I just love that parade. We'll be watching it today and enjoying it today. But before that, let's get our Bible reading done. Let's , uh, let's get some coffee here . Oh , thankful for coffee. And let's get this Bible reading done. Revelation 14, one to 13 . Here's the great contrast between the lambs people. We've seen the beasts people now we see the lambs people and we were introduced to the 144,000 in chapter seven. That's the sealed servants of God. Notice here how the mark opposes God's mark, the mark that we saw yesterday. And in many ways, it makes everyone realize you have to serve somebody. Well, here's the 144,000 , the sealed and redeemed from chapter seven, and they stand with the lamb. Verse one, there's the theme of the book. And these people mow the new song verse three that connects us back again to Revelation chapter seven, where we saw them before and they are on Mount Zion. That's the place of safety. Now it's easy to notice verse four, that they are virgins. They've not defiled themselves with women. That's not a statement about the marriage bed . That's a statement about the sexual immorality that's so prevalent in the idolatrous times of the New Testament. And the people of the beast are gonna be involved in that. And we'll see more of that as we move further in the Book of Revelation. They'll be condemned for that. But don't get mixed up here. Don't get it twisted and decide that there's something wrong here with marriage. No , these are the people, verse four, who follow the lamb. Not the beast. Not the beast. They stand with the lamb. Then we get the message of these angels and these angels are gonna help us understand where the book is going next. The first angel talks about the gospel and that the gospel is gonna be preached everywhere. Notice how over and over the , the scenes just seem to repeat in the book of Revelation, the announcement of judgment to come, the announcement that God's people are protected, the announcement that God's people then are being persecuted. And then one last time to try to get people to repent. Stop persecuting God's people, join with God's people, stand with the lamb. And then kabam , here comes this mighty and awful judgment. So we're getting that again. The gospel is going forth to every nation, tribe , language, and people fear God and give him glory verses six and seven. And then the second angel says something very surprising. I need to start a list of all the surprising things in the book of Revelation. That'd be a long list, wouldn't it? Fallen. Fallen. Verse eight is Babylon the great Well. Well that's the first time that we have have heard about Babylon the Great. We will hear more about Babylon the Great as we move further in the book of Revelation. I think here it serves as a warning, not so much a statement of what has happened, but what will happen. Don't join with Babylon. Babylon is going to fall. Then the third angel announces the destruction of those who worship the beast and receive his mark verses nine, 10 and 11. Look at verse 12 kind of pushing here a little bit. Here's a call for the endurance of the saints. Those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus Christ. See how that is pushing us, pushing, perseverance, pushing, endurance, pushing. Stand with the lamb. You'll be victorious with the lamb. Blessed verse 13, are those blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on? Blessed indeed that they may rest from their labors for their deeds. Follow them. Think how encouraging that must have been to the seven churches of Asia. Think how encouraging that is for you and me at a time when there is increasing animosity towards Christianity in the public square. Hope you're having a great Thanksgiving today. Hope the Cowboys win. Wow. Don't have much hope for that, but it would be amazing and wonderful if it did. I hope your Thanksgiving feasting is just delightful. And I hope to see you tomorrow as we continue in the book of Revelation. It's Thursday and our reading today is Revelation 14, one to 13 . It is Friday. Welcome to Friday. It's Black Friday, isn't it? I'm old enough to remember when Black Friday men getting up at three o'clock in the morning to go stand in a line outside of Best Buy. So you could buy a big television set, it'd be freezing cold and you'd have to wait forever to get those special doorbusters, get really great prices on things. Now we all just stay home and click on our laptops and get the web specials. I guess I do have great memories of Black Friday shopping, especially with my girls. I have a tie that I still wear and whenever I wear it, I get all kinds of compliments on the tie. And that tie came about because Sarah and I were somewhere, I think JC Penney's at like four in the morning. And I was exhausted and weary and tired. And Sarah was saying, you need that tie. That's a great tie. I thought, sure, whatever. And we bought that tie. And everybody loves that tide. It always reminds me that my daughters have a lot more fashion sense than I'm ever going to have today. I am thankful for Black Friday and I'm thankful for the Christmas season. I know there's a lot that goes on in Christmas time , the materialism and some of the wrong ideas about the birth of Jesus that just drive people insane. Don't let drive you and saying , I it . It's a great time of year. It's a time of family. It's a time of fun. It's a time of of gifts that can be really special. It's just a lot of great things that happen in the Christmas season and I am thankful for all of it. Just, just love it. Just love it. Just love it. Well, let's read a little bit then in Revelation, the 14th chapter before we get our Black Friday shopping, going on and watching more football and all the things that go with Black Friday. Revelation 14 , verse 14 to 20 has , it seems to have two reaps here . One that's accomplished by one on the cloud. And that seems, seems like a good reaping. Maybe this is like the grain harvests, the first fruits brought into God. And and maybe this is, is the reaping of those who are the lamb's people. But the second reaping is not a good reaping. This, this is a reaping of grapes . And they, and in verse 18, gather the clusters from the vine of the earth where the grapes are right . And here this certainly seems to be referencing like Jeremiah 25, the wine of God's wrath because the angel swings his sickle across the earth, gathers the great harvest and puts it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden outside the city and the blood flowed from the wine press as high as a horse's bridal for 1600 stadia, which is like over 150 miles. So there's just terrible judgment that's being pronounced here. And as I said yesterday, that's the pattern in the book of Revelation. God's people stand with the lamb. There's all kinds of hateful persecution and there's every kind of wickedness, breaking loose. God announces judgment and urges people to repent. They don't do that. They, they persecute God's people more. And then finally, judgment comes. And so I think 17, 18, 19, 20, that judgment is coming and we're gonna see that same scenario played out over and over again as we move into chapter 15 on Monday, we'll just see the same basic storyline one more time. Satan hates the lamb. Satan hates the lamb's. People. Don't give in though Stand with the Lamb. You'll be victorious with the lamb. That's the podcast for the week. Thank you for listening. I am very thankful for all the people who are so encouraging to me about this podcast. And if it is helping you, I hope you'll tell others about it. Leave a rating and review so that more people can find it . So until Monday, cyber Monday, right? So until Monday when we'll open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna go to heaven and I want you to come to I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ Podcast. Monday morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page, our music is from upbeat.io. That's upbeat with two PS U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others and we look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee. Of course, on next Monday.