The blessing is the spiritual benefits that derive from taking the prophecy to heart which means that taking heed of the warnings not to compromise. Taking heed not to be swept away by the drunken immorality of the city symbolised by Babylon which is materialism, love of luxury, marginalisation of the poor. Focussing on good deeds which we take into the new heavens and new earth as we have to leave all other things behind. The blessing will be participating in the eternal joy in His perfect world when He comes

Jesus is the root and the descendant of David which is based on the prophecy in Isaiah 11 which was fulfilled in His first coming when he came as David’s greater Son in fulfilment of the prophecy of the coming Messiah then. If that prophecy was fulfilled then the Isaianic prophecy of his second coming (Isaiah 60:1-3) of which describes His coming again as the rising of the morning star will also surely come to pass. Hence we can trust in His return and live and sacrifice in anticipation of His return

Why is it that we have a tendency of worshipping or placing inordinate amounts of trust in people rather than God? What should our attitude be if someone in whom we place a lot of trust in falls into sin like in the Ravi Zacharias scandal how should it affect us? How do we minister to others who are affected?

The prophecy of the impending return of Jesus will inevitably provoke an expected response from people. The gospel especially when it warns of judgement will always provoke a sharp reaction amongst the people who hear the gospel. For those outside the kingdom who are evil doers then will not heed the warning and will continue to do evil. For those who really seek for God and righteousness they will respond to the message even more faithfully and the message will serve as to encourage and strengthen them to persevere till the end. So the Gamma course on Revelations will achieve one of two ends, the ones who are spiritually deaf and uninterested will be even more turned off and those who are indeed thirsting for God will be strenghtened and encouraged and changed by the book.

The verse is very clear the warning is to the hearers of the word not the scribes who copy or translate the word of the prophecy. Hence it is of direct relevance to us when we read His word we are not to add or subtract concepts and ideas that are not in the bible which we like or dislike. For example, the Pharisees added a whole slew of extra regulations to govern the Sabbath whilst ignoring the real spirit of the law. The proponents of the prosperity gospel only take the verses in the bible that speak and promise of blessing and material gain but conveniently leave out those that require sacrifice.

We all so this because like in Deut 4 it is part of idolatry we worship the god or idol that fits our needs instead of we fitting the demands and character of our God we always attempt to remake God in our image. No the verse does not mean that we will loose our salvation. You must remember that the church in the NT like the church today is made up of “wheat and tares” like in the parable and those who do distort the message of the gospel and wind up “loosing their salvation” were probably never born again genuine believers in the first place because the prophecy will cause those who are righteous to continue to persevere to do righteous deeds and those evil doers will continue to do evil hence the separation of the wheat and the tares become more obvious as we see people’s fruits which will be evidence of their true faith.

How do we practically cultivate a longing for His coming again? Discuss