In this closeout sermon for the Testify! series, Dan Kent surveys the key points of Revelation 10 and 11 and highlights how the testimony of the church is crucial to what God is doing in the world. He then challenges us to practice the call to Testify!
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Provoking the Beast
• Dan Kent
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In this sermon, Dan Kent wraps up the Testify! series. He provides us with a panorama of the main points that we have covered in Revelation 10 and 11. He then drives home the theme of Testify! by showing how our testimony “provokes the beast.” In these two chapters the faithful testimony of the people of God is the way that the war is fought and won over the enemy.
Dan highlights two main points. First, he explains the faithful witness of Jesus in the cross. In Colossians 2:13-15, we read how on the cross Jesus cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness. In other words, the cross destroyed the entire sin economy that Satan used against us. Not only that, he disarmed the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them. Jesus did this by being a faithful witness, in the way that he died and the way that he lived. Jesus is the ultimate faithful witness. And his witness actually traumatized Satan. Now the church does the same. Christ’s faithfulness makes our faithfulness possible.
The second point identifies the power of our testimony. Our testimony is the telling of how the good news has made our life good, how the truth of God has changed us. It is like the testimony in a court room, the sharing of what we have experienced and seen. It is more than how we live. It is an explanation of why we live the way that we do. A testimony is not about being weird or coercive, trying to make people agree with us. It is simply talking about what God has done.
Dan concludes his sermon by challenging us to think through our story so that we are able to articulate how God has changed us. We can think of it as answering three basic questions: 1) What has God done? 2) How has God changed me? 3) How has Jesus been faithful in my life?
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Evangelism, Faithfulness, Salvation
Sermon Series: The Unveiling, Testify!
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The MuseCast: September 2
Focus Scripture:
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Colossians 2:13-15
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
