Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Amen.
What a blessed morning it is little, little cold, little
chilly, but it's but it's a blessing.
You know, I, I was just thinking this morning, you know, you
know, about all this cold. And then I was talking to a
brother and, and he said that for the next couple weeks, we're
actually going to be experiencing this, this cold
weather. And I'm thinking to myself, wow,
for the next couple weeks. I mean, it's hard for me to deal
with it, but but then I was thinking, I said, you know, God
has a reason for doing this. I'm wondering what it is he's
trying to kill off. And then the thought came, is he
trying to kill me off? And because this is hard to deal
with. But anyway, it's a blessing.
We thank God for him being in control of everything, even the
weather. I just want to extend also a, an
acknowledgement to the Hamley family as they are in dealing
with the loss of their father. And I got a chance to actually
meet that brother at one time and we we got a chance to spend
a little bit of time together. He was the very dear brother.
He was delightful brother, love the Lord, love the Lord.
There was no question about that.
So we know where he's going. But we do extend our condolences
and obviously, we want to give our support and our prayers for
the Hamley family as they deal with this significant loss.
Our sister Diane dealt with all the welcomes and all that really
sufficiently. So we're not going to go through
all that. We're just going to go ahead and
get into the word. Amen.
So let's turn our Bibles today to the Book of Revelation
chapter 1. And you know, it's 22 chapters
in the Book of Revelation. So I'm not even sure that we're
going to be here. By the time we finish this book,
in fact, I hope we're not, but in the event that we are, it is
22 verses. But to keep in mind, and this is
just a message for all of those that you know, the things that
are written in this book are so significant that it is, I mean,
it is truly life changing. I'm obviously for believers,
it's very good news and it's encouraging and all those
things. But but for those who are not
believers, I mean, this is not a scare tactic.
It's not anything to try to unnerve you, but it is a
warning. It is a warning.
He is taking us behind the veil and he's saying, look, this is
what is coming down the road. This is what's going to happen,
not what might happen. This is what's going to happen
and he's the one that's qualified to do it.
So I just wanted to put that out there.
And from time to time as we go through this book, I want to
give opportunities and make an appeal for anyone who wants to
come to Christ. If you've heard something
throughout the time that we we go through this book and there's
something that you hear that that touched your heart and you
say, OK, that was it. I want to come to Christ.
I want to have that salvation. We will do it.
I will give that appeal from time to time.
It is that serious. It's that serious.
So anyway, with that being said, let's go to prayer before the
Father and let's get into the Book of Revelation.
Put my phone on silence so I won't be the one violating that
policy. Oh boy, I messed up.
OK, let's pray. Father, I can't even express how
good it is for you to give us a book like this that we are able
to read, that we're to know the things that are going to be
coming. Father, you're giving us that
sneak preview and you're saying to us, Lord, that you love us
and that's why you're sharing this with us.
Father, what a grace it is for you, Lord, to do that for us,
and we're so grateful. And Father, I know that me
myself, I'm not qualified, Lord, to stand here and teach any of
this word, let alone this particular book.
But Father, you are the teacher. Your Holy Spirit is the one that
You sent to teach us all things. So Father, we just ask that You
would enlighten us this morning, that You would open our eyes,
open our hearts, open our minds, Lord, and cause us to receive
this. Let it change us, let it equip
us, let it encourage us, let it comfort us, but also let it warn
us and let it convict us in the areas where we need to be
convicted. So Father, we ask now that you
would just fill us with your spirit and help us to be able to
understand what it is that you want to share with us today.
Lord, if you don't speak, I won't have anything to say.
So I ask these things. We all ask these things in the
name of our Savior and our Lord. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
I think it's also important to note that over the last couple
weeks as we're listening to Pastor Clark take us through the
15th chapter, the book of First Corinthians, how timely that was
as we bout to go into the Book of Revelation and the the detail
in which he took us through that.
And I'll probably be referring to some of that or making
reference to some of that as we go through this book because
some of those things do overlap. But it was such a blessing.
I could have just let him go on and continue to complete the
whole book. He could have went into Second
Corinthians and I would have sat down and would have been ready
to listen to that, too. But as we go into this book of
Revelations, let us be reminded of just how true, first of all,
how true this is because a lot of people look at this and say,
well, maybe this isn't actually true.
It's symbolic. And we're going to talk a little
about about the ways to interpret the book of
Revelations. But this is literal.
This is true. This is not something that's
just symbolic. This is real.
And this has come from the mouth of Jesus.
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ that he gave.
So as we go through this, please keep in mind this is the Word of
God. This isn't somebody's opinion.
This isn't somebody's imagination.
This is the word of God and everything that it says, it's
going to do, that's going to happen.
It will indeed happen. So just to give a little
background first, you know, this is Revelation.
It's not Revelations. I know I used to say that.
I used to say that myself. You know, the book of
Revelations, the book of Revelations, it's not the book
of revelations. There's no S on that.
It is revelation. This is a composite revelation
of everything that Jesus Christ was sharing with the apostle
John. The author of this.
Now I said that the author of this is Jesus Christ because it
is Jesus who gave this revelation.
Now the but the writer is the apostle John.
Now John tended, but make no mistake about it.
This is about Jesus and it's from Jesus.
Make no mistake about it. Now you know, John wrote as we
know this, this is about the, this is the 5th book in the New
Testament that John actually wrote.
He wrote the, the Gospel of John, first John, second John,
third John, and now the Book of Revelation.
He's very consistent in his writing because John, probably
more than any other apostle, always expresses and emphasizes
the deity of Jesus Christ. And then this first chapter in
this introduction, we're going to be doing a lot of that as
John talks about the deity of Jesus Christ.
The recipients of this letter is the seven churches that are in
Asia. And we're going to talk more
about that as we move throughout this this chapter date.
This book is written is AD 95. That's what the scholars have
kind of agreed. That's about when it was was
written. And that's actually about how
old John was at the time that he wrote this book.
Now, now, John was a very young man when he first started
hanging out with Jesus and the other apostles.
He's a very young man, but now he's the only living apostle at
that particular time that he wrote this and he was up in age.
He was about 95 years years old at the time that he wrote it.
He had been exiled to the island of Patmos, which once we get to
verse 9 and beyond that, we will start to talk more about that He
was exiled. Now, you know, during this
particular time, the church was going through very heavy
persecution, you know, much worse persecution than what we
are going through here. Now.
There's some people around the world that are going through the
kind of martyrdom and persecution that this particular
church was going through at that time, but it was being
persecuted by a number of different Roman emperors.
You know, Nero vas passion and his son Titus was one of the
ones who were persecuting. In fact, he was under the
command of Titus that the that the temple was burned down.
And then of course, Domitian, who was actually the one who
exiled or the one that exiled John to the island of Patmos, It
was the the emperor Domitian. Now Nero, when he went through
his persecution, he persecuted those that were around the city
of Rome. So it was kind of local.
But Domitian, when he started persecuting, he persecuted
Christians all over the Roman province.
I mean, he extended it everywhere.
And that's when he decided that it was time that John, who was
probably one of the the loudest voices for Jesus Christ at that
particular time, he exiled him. Now, the church was going
through a lot of different things.
They were being pressured from without through the persecution
and those things and outside pressures that they were
feeling. But they were also dealing with
a lot of suffering. They were dealing with a lot of
spiritual warfare at that particular time.
And even internal, they were dealing with a lot of
challenges. They were, they were dealing
with heretical teaching, they were dealing with heretical
practices as well as spiritual apathy.
And that's one of the things that happens whenever you are
dealing with heretical teaching. Spiritual apathy can be born out
of that. People become very apathetic
about the things of the Lord because they're not getting the
truth of the gospel, they're not getting the truth of the Word of
God. So they can become very
apathetic about things. So they were dealing with that
as well. I mean, after all, Jesus had
promised he was coming back and they were wondering, well,
when's that going to happen? When's it going to happen?
We've been waiting and we've been persecuted and it hasn't
happened yet. When and when it does happen,
what is it? You know, how's he going to
return? What's going to happen when he
does return? So the revelation is this
promise that he gives the church.
You know, you know, God decided that it was time to encourage
these people who were failing spiritually, they were failing
emotionally, they were becoming weary and well doing.
And God said it's time to encourage them.
So the Book of Revelation comes as a a reminder to them or
encouragement to them that they are protected from the judgment
that's going to come on the world.
And we need to understand that as Christians, as believers, we
are protected from the judgments that's coming on the world.
In fact, the church won't even be here when when the great
tribulation happens. So this is an exhortation and an
encouragement for believers and a big, massive warning for
unbelievers. So no matter what things we're
going through, no matter what we're dealing with, no matter
what kind of pressures you are, you are currently experiencing,
this book comes to let us know that we have a good outcome.
It comes to let us know we have a good outcome.
Regardless of what we see in our political, because what we see
in social, because what we see going on in our own personal
lives, our own hardships, what we see with medical problems and
health problems and all those things, we have a good outcome.
We have a good outcome. It's going to work out good in
our favor. Now there's a number of
different ways that people interpret this book.
They interpret it allegorically. We, we, we kind of, you know,
touched on that a little bit. That means that they think all
these things are just symbols. There's nothing true about it.
It's just symbols of real things.
And some people look at it from a historical standpoint, what
they believe that this has already happened.
You know, we, they've already missed it.
It happened already. So we don't have to worry about
that coming ahead of us. But I, and I believe that most
scholars kind of look at it as a literal in a literal
translation, which means that these are prophecies of future
events. It's coming, it's coming.
Jesus Christ is coming back. I think it's interesting because
a lot of the, a lot of the Jews who haven't, who are not believe
or don't believe, they, they're waiting for Jesus to come back.
The first time. We're waiting for him to come
back. He was already here once.
We're waiting for him to come back.
So as we go through this, let's now start to open this up a
little bit. Let's look at verse one.
Verse one says the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him
to show his servants the things which must shortly take place.
And he sent and signified it by his Angel to his servant John,
who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of
Jesus Christ to all things that he saw.
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this
prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the
time is short. So now the word revelation is
actually comes from the Greek word apocalypsis or apocalypse
is our English word for it. And usually when people hear
that, they think about doom, you know, there's something
horrible. You know, when people make
movies and call it the apocalypse, I mean, it's like,
oh, the, the world's coming to an end and people don't have
food, don't have money, don't have nothing.
I mean, I mean, something obviously when we get to into
the, the, the more and the deeper part of the prophecies,
we're going to hear about some of those things that come from
the seals. But, but the word apocalypse
itself actually means the unveiling.
It means the revealing of something that has been hidden.
It's the uncovering. So it's like, you know, again,
like I said, Earl, it's like Jesus has opened up, opened up
the, the curtains and showing us what's behind the curtain.
It's, it's, it's the, it's the revealing of a, of a hidden
truth or mystery that was not revealed previously.
So the Book of Revelation basically reveals that that was
unknown. Now, Jesus gave this revelation
to John to show his servant. So he gave it to John to show
Jesus's serve to show us of those things which must shortly
take place. Now, when you talk about shortly
take place, he doesn't mean that it's going to take place in a
short amount of time. That's not what he said.
He's not saying, hey, look what, we're here today and next week
or tomorrow or next week. This is going to happen.
It could, because we don't know when Jesus is coming back, but
that's not exactly what he's emphasizing here.
What he's saying here is that when these things start to
unfold, when these things start to happen, it's going to unfold
quickly. It's going to happen suddenly,
so it's going to unfold quickly. So when you hear people talk
about, well, I'll wait until I see Jesus come back, and then
I'll, and then I'll repent. And no, no, no, no, you ain't
gonna have time to do that. These things are going to happen
quickly. So then he goes on and, and when
he talks about the, that he said he signified it.
And that word signified it. When he, when he uses that
phrase, that just simply means that he, it was made known.
He made it known. Jesus made it known and
communicated it. And how did he do it?
He did it by his Angel and possibly Gabriel.
And we, we, we know in the Scriptures that there's a lot of
times where an Angel is used to communicate something from, from
heaven and, and he and he used an Angel to communicate this to
John. Now we know that historically or
in the Old Testament we read about Daniel was approached and
was given information from an Angel, Mary, when she learned
about the, the, her, her birth, her virgin birth that came by
way of an Angel in Zechariah. And then there's other verses
that I want to just look at a couple other verses here in the
Book of Revelation. Turn to Revelation chapter 5 and
look at verse 2. Revelation chapter 5, verse 2.
52 Then I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice
who is worthy to worship the scrolling to loose the seals and
then go to Chapter 7, just a couple I'm going to look at here
in Chapter 7 verse two, he says. Then I saw another Angel
ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and
he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was
granted to harm the earth and the sea.
So he communicates quite often in the Book of Revelation by way
of an Angel. And then in here, in verse 2,
when he says, here John bore witness to the word of God and
to the testimony of Jesus Christ to all things that he saw, John
declared and he bore witness of the word of God.
It was the Word of God. Like I said, John didn't get
this from somebody that he knew. He didn't get this from somebody
who gave him this idea. He didn't imagine this.
He received this from the Word of God.
So he bore witness to the word of God, and he spoke the word of
God, and he testified of Jesus Christ, who is the word of God
according to John 1. Jesus is God's message in human
form. And this is exactly who we what
we are called to do is to communicate the word of God.
We're not to communicate things that ideas that other people
have. We're not we're not called to
that to communicate ideas that people have.
We're not called to, you know, read a book that has nothing to
do with the with the with the Holy Bible and get somebody's
philosophy about things and share that with people.
That's not what we're called to do.
We are called to testify to Jesus Christ and share the Word
of God, the word of God. And when we come here today into
church and we listen to the Pastor Clark and to the other
teachers as they share the word of God and thank God, we're in a
church that does read the Word of God and we all read it
together. So we encourage people to bring
Bible so that you can see it is the word of God and not ours.
It's nothing that we wrote down previously and then came and
shared it with you. This comes right out of the
Scriptures. It's the word of God.
So we can feel good about sharing these things and they
testify of Jesus Christ our Lord.
No prophecy of scriptures of any interpretation according to
Peter. Peter tells us that you know,
it's not there is no prophecy that that that's of any private
interpretation, nor is it come from the imagination or the
thoughts of men, but holy men spoke as they were moved by the
Holy Spirit. Holy man spoke.
So I hear somebody say Amen over there.
Thank you. I'll give you that piece of
candy after church blessing. So then in verse three, he goes
into the blessings and and this is this was exciting for me to
read this and go into the blessings.
In verse three, he says, blessed is he who reads this and who
keep those things which are written in it for the time is
near. So blessed are those who read
out loud and he's talking about reading out loud.
So you come into a church and you hear a pastor stand up and
he reads these things out loud. And that's another reason why I
love, you know, the way we do things here at Calvary Child,
because we read these scriptures out loud in your hearing.
And he says bless it are those who read it.
If you're at home and you're with your family and you're
reading these scriptures to your family, that's a blessing.
That's a blessing. So he said blessed are those who
reads it and those who hear it. Congregation, whoever it is that
you're speaking to, blessed are those who hear the words of this
prophecy and keep those things which are written in it.
Those two things go together. Hearing it and keeping those
things go together. It's not about just hearing it,
but it's about hearing and keeping those things, guarding
those things, protecting those things, obeying those things
which are in it, he said. There's a blessing in that
there's a, it's a great blessing.
And that in fact, throughout the whole book of Revelations,
there's about 7 times where he mentions the blessing.
And some scholars call this the, the, the, the, the, the seven
beatitudes of Revelation. Just going to look at a couple.
We already looked at where it says blessed it, you know,
blessed are the ones who read and hear and those who obey or
those who keep those things that are written.
But if you go over to chapter 14, over to chapter 14, he gives
us another blessing 14 verse 13, he says blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord from now on. So for those those who are being
martyred that are going to be martyred in the time of the last
days of the tribulation, he said blessed are those people who die
in the Lord. And then in chapter 16, verse
15, he gives another blessing. Here he says, blessed is he who
watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see
his shame. 19 and 9, blessed are those who were called to the
marriage supper of the Lamb. And then in 20 and verse 6,
blessed are blessed are and holy is he who has part in the first
resurrection. Pastor Clark was talking about
that about a week ago that that resurrection.
And then in verse 22, Chapter 7, 22 and seven, he says bless it
is he who keeps the words of this prophecy of this book.
So we see in the 1st chapter he says blessed are those who keeps
this these commandments. And then he says he repeats it
with another blessing in the end of the book.
At the end of the book in chapter 22, blessed is he who
keeps these words of the prophecy of this book.
And then also in 2214, he gives one more blessing.
He says blessed are those who do His commandments that they may
have the right to the tree of life.
Blessed are those who keep his commandments.
They have a right to the tree of life with a blessing that is so
John is saying here that there is benefit to those who read and
understand and obey this prophecy.
And then he says that he then he says because the time is near
now. When he says that he is indeed
speaking about the time period, he is saying that that time is
near. Now.
Our near is not the same as God's near, OK?
He tells us that 1000 day, 1000 years is like a day.
In the economy of God, 1000 years is a day and a day is like
1000 years. So we look at this from the time
Jesus ascended, it's only been about 2000 years.
I shouldn't say like it's only been about 2000 years, but in
the economy of God, it's only been about two days.
That means it's been less than three days that our Savior was
actually taken up. So for God, it's been a short
amount of time, but we don't know.
We don't know when he's coming back.
We don't know. So we don't know.
So he says when he says the time is near, we should heed that.
And unfortunately, you know, when, when you have people who
look at what's happening in our in our world, and you look at
the people who are unbelievers who like to mock us because we
have decided to live the Christian life and we have
decided to wait on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have put our trust and what he says in his word.
And we're waiting for him to come back so that we can be
glorified with him. But you got mockers who would
say why you keep waiting. I mean, how long you going to
wait? You, you letting your life pass
you by. Ain't nothing good.
Ain't nothing happening. You know, he's been saying that
forever over in first Peter, Peter talks about second Peter.
He talks about that over in chapter 3 verse, verse three.
He says, knowing this first, that the scoffers will come in
the last days and they're here. They're here.
There's a lot of people who consider themselves to be
atheists who constantly mock us for what we believe, constantly
mock us. You got people who want to be
liberal and they have an issue with the fact that we are living
a conservative life guided by the word of God and they mock us
for that. We probably, we might have
friends or family members who mock the way you live.
You don't have no fun, you don't do nothing.
He ain't coming back. Look, you just going to die and
you just going to go into the earth and that's going to be it.
This is what a lot of them will say, but this is what the word
of God says. The Word of God says, knowing
this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking
according to their own lusts and saying, where's the promise of
His coming? For since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of
creation. For this they willfully forget.
They willfully forget that by the Word of God, which is the
word that we're testifying to, which is the word that we
believe in, the Word that we trust in, by the Word of God.
The heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water
and in the water by which the world then that then existed
perished. He said it was going to perish,
and it did, being flooded with water.
He said it was going to happen, and it did, and it did.
Verse 7. But the heavens and the earth,
which are now preserved by the same word, Word of God, are
reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition.
That means the destruction of ungodly men.
But beloved, do not forget this one thing.
Take this with you, take this with you.
Do not forget this one thing that with the Lord one day is of
1000 years and 1000 years is as one day.
We just talked about that verse 9 says the Lord is not slack
concerning his promise. I make you a promise.
I may be slow in delivering it. You make a promise to me.
You may be slow in delivering, but he's not slack concerning
his promise. If he say he's going, if he
promises it, he's going to do it.
He is not a man that he should lie.
So he goes on. He tells us as some count
slackness, but his long-suffering that means he's
patient. He's patient.
So we should all hear that unbelievers don't look at this
that God is weak or he's lying or he's slow about making his
promise good or that he can't make his promise good.
Believer, unbelievers, if you're unbelievers that are listening
to me or here, watch. Listen.
He is patient. He's not weak, he's patient.
He's not unable to do it. He's patient.
Why is he patient? It says he's patient toward us,
not willing that any should perish.
He doesn't. He doesn't take no joy in the
death of the unrighteous. He says he desires all men to be
saved. He's not willing that any should
perish, but that all come to repentance.
Every day that you wake up, every day that you open your
eyes, saved or unsaved, it's an opportunity to get it right with
God. Every day that you open your
eyes, it's an opportunity to get it right with God.
For before all these things that are going to be coming that
we're going to talk about later comes on you.
But God is in his faithfulness, God in his loving kindness, that
which is his character, God in his supernatural patience,
because he's a lot more patient than we are.
He's giving opportunity for repentance.
And all I'm asking if you're unsaved, they take it, take it.
Don't think that is a it's just another promise.
That's it's a promise that's not going to happen.
I didn't promise it. If I promise it, I don't blame
you for doubting it, but he promised it and it will happen.
So then verse 4, verse four, he says John to the seven churches
that are in Asia. And we're going to talk about
more about those those churches as we move further into chapter
1. But these seven churches that
are in Asia, he's not talking about China or Japan, he's
talking about Asia Minor. So this is actually current day
Turkey, OK. And that's who he wrote these
two. And he says grace to you and
peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.
And from the seven spirits who are before his throne.
And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born
from the dead and the ruler over the kings of the earth, to him
who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and
has made us kings and priests to be his to his God and Father, to
him be glory. He he, he praises him to Him be
glory and dominion forever and ever.
So what he's saying here John is, is talking to these.
He he sent this letter to the seven churches which are in
current Turkey and he gives them the, the, the, the, the regular
greeting, which is grace and then peace.
Is this usually always in that order?
Because you need grace before you can never have any peace.
You know, the grace of God is the unmerited favor of God
through which every other blessing that he gives us flow.
And if we don't have that, then we're not going to have peace.
So he says grace and peace from him, meaning God the Father who
is, who was and who is to come, that's from God the Father.
So this peace that he's talking about is the peace that Jesus
left with the disciples, and he leaves it with us.
And this is a peace that we have within.
And this is in the midst of trouble.
Not peace because of the absence of trouble or because the
absence of conflict, but this is peace even in the midst of it.
So when you're in the midst of whatever it is that you're going
through, God's grace gives you peace to be able to have in
those situations, regardless of what the threat is, regardless
of what the, the, the, the, the turmoil is, regardless of what
your challenge is, regardless of the hardship, God can give you
peace in those things. How many of you have been laid
off work and you have peace and your coworkers are asking you
how, how are you so calm about this?
You know, you're, you're laid off.
You lost your job. Well, because your faith wasn't
in the job, your faith is in the one who was able to provide you
with that job at the time and can provide you with another.
Your faith is in Him. So we have that peace, the same
peace that Jesus had on the boat when he was in the middle of the
storm. They panicked.
He was sleeping because he had peace and we can have that peace
through the grace that is in Jesus Christ.
But he says here and who is who is to come?
That's who was from. So now he's talking about where
that grace and peace came from. And he's actually going to
describe here the triune God. He's going to describe the
Trinity here. And the first one obviously is
the God the Father when he says him, meaning God the Father who
is, who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who
are before his throne. Now some people look at those
seven spirits and they believe that well, 7 angels or it's like
7 spiritual beings. But when you know, actually it's
the, the sevenfold ministry of the Holy Spirit, it's the
fullness of the Holy Spirit, it's the, the completeness of
the Holy Spirit. All throughout the book of, of
Revelation, you are going to see seven being represented many
times. And it's the number for
completion, the number of fullness of perfection.
And when he talks about these seven spirits who are before the
throne, that's the presence of the Holy Spirit, the fullness
and the completeness, the perfection of the Holy Spirit.
And he talks about, he talks about that back in Isaiah
Chapter 11 when he talks about the Holy Spirit there.
And he talks about the completion of the Holy Spirit.
These are like the seven virtues of the Holy Spirit.
And it's the Spirit of God. Isaiah Chapter 11, verse 2, the
Spirit of the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of
knowledge and the fear of the Lord, Those are the, that's the
completeness of the Spirit that is before us.
And man, how do we need that? How much we need that?
We need that now. We need that complete Spirit to
be upon us even as we're studying this book.
Lord, give us the Spirit of understanding.
Give us the Spirit of wisdom. Allow your Holy Spirit to come
in its fullness and fall fresh on each and every one of us,
Amen. So that we can be able to not
only hear, but to obey and to keep those things that are in
this book and that is every day of our life.
We should be asking for that and it is the Holy Spirit that
stands before God constantly waits and just waiting for God
to to command them to send the Holy Spirit out to wherever he
sends the Holy Spirit to go. So then he also says here that
he's the first. He's a faithful witness and
Speaking of Jesus Christ because he says and and from Jesus
Christ, the faithful witness. Jesus Christ is the true and
faithful witness of God, the true and faithful witness of
God. When, when, when you consider
that his whole his whole life here in the earth realm was in
total obedience to the Father. He did everything that the
Father told him to do. He obeyed every command, even to
the point of death. He was the faithful witness, but
he was also the faithful witness because he embodied all of the
virtues of the Godhead. All the virtues of the Godhead
in Colossians 2 and 9 says that in him, meaning in Christ Jesus
do us all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, bodily.
So he was the faithful witness. John 812 says Jesus said even if
I bear witness of myself, my witness is true.
From the faithful, he's the faithful witness.
And then in Revelations 3 and 14, he he describes Jesus as the
faithful and true witness. Right here in Revelations
chapter 3 and verse 14. He is the true and the faithful
and true witness. He's a faithful witness because
he is the only one that was out that was without sin.
And later we're going to find out that when they were looking
for somebody to open the scrolls, Jesus was the only one
who could. It was the Lamb that was slain
was the only one that was qualified to open the scrolls
because He is the faithful witness.
Over in Hebrews 4 and 4:15, it says that Jesus was in all
points, tempted as we are, yet He was without sin.
He's the only one who could have died for us, the only one who
could have atone for our sins. Jesus Christ, the faithful
witness, the faithful witness. And then we go to the first
born. He's the first born from the
dead. If he's the first born from the
dead, that means there's going to be others that come after
him. And that's good news for us.
That's good news for us. He was the first born from the
dead, the first to arise from the dead with a resurrected,
glorified, everlasting body. I love when I heard Clark, I
think it was last week, who, when he said that our bodies
that we have here are prepared for Earth, but our bodies would
not be prepared if we went to Mars or Jupiter or any other
place, wouldn't be prepared for heaven the way we are.
Because corruption cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
And this, this is corruptible. This body is corruptible, but
when Jesus Christ came out of the grave, he came out with a
resurrected body. It was a glorified body when he
came out of the grave. Amen.
And it was a blessing for everyone around to see him.
And we too are going to be resurrected after him the same
way we're going to be. Our bodies will be changed the
same way Jesus's body was changed.
And then he says that the ruler over all the kings of the earth.
And he talks about how, you know, he is the ruler of all the
kings. All the kings are going to,
everybody's going to kneel to him.
Everybody's going to bow to him at one point.
He is the Lord of Lords and the King of kings.
He is He is the Lord of Lord and King of kings.
So He is the ruler of all the kings of the earth.
Even though they may try to rule over Him, they may try to or or
believe or convince themselves that they have as much authority
or power as He does. They do not.
He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords.
To Him who loved us and washed us and His and washed us from
our sins and His own blood, He loved us.
I like to change that us to me, I like to make it personal and
I'm asking you to do the same. Make it personal.
When you read that He loved me, He loved me.
I don't know how. I don't know why He loved me.
It definitely wasn't because I was lovable.
That's not why he loved me. But He loved me.
And I love the fact that it was past tense because it was a love
that He demonstrated on the cross.
He demonstrated it on the cross. He loved me.
Glory to God. So was a path.
He showed it when we were yet sinners.
The Bible says when we were yet sinners, He died for us.
And then he goes on here and he says that He washed us from our
sins in His own blood. You know, the very thing that
used to separate us from our God, which is our sins and our
iniquities, Jesus washed away in his blood.
Bible, Bible says over in Isaiah 59 that you have been, you're
separated from God. Your your sins and your
iniquities have separated you from your God.
But we're not separated from him because Jesus Christ shed his
blood for us. We were not redeemed with
corruptible things like silver or gold, but with the precious
blood of Jesus Christ, precious blood of Jesus Christ.
Hey man, and it and it is precious.
And he made us to be kings and kings and priests to his God, to
him be glory and dominion forever and ever.
We are king that we have changed our position in Christ Jesus.
Yeah. We used to be disobedient.
We used to be a number of things.
We used to be children of disobedience.
We used to be children of the wrath.
We used to be all those old things.
We were sinners. We, we, we were, we were under
the power of Satan, but he changed our position in Christ
Jesus and we're no longer under the power of Satan.
We are now under the power of Jesus Christ who loved us and He
gave himself for us. And then over in verse 7, he
says, I mean he, well first of all, he gives him a little, you
know, John gives him a little worship, praise and worship
service down here at the bottom of verse 6.
He says to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen.
And then he goes over into verse 7 and we're going to end here
because I don't want to start that verse and have to break it
up. So we're going to end here.
But I just want to say as we end here and prepare for our for our
communion, praise the worship team, you can come forward.
I just want to say that when he has changed us, I mean, he
literally took us from being ruined to being royalty.
Our lives were a mess. Our lives were a mess.
We we were corrupted and corrupted and corruptible.
You know, when when we look at just who it was we were at that
particular time, and you look back at Ephesians chapter 2, it
gives us a really good description of what we used to
be. And I'm just going to share that
with you. Says we were dead in our
trespasses and sins. We were sons of disobedience.
We were children of red. That's what we used to be.
But in Christ Jesus, we're now
kings and we're priests to his God, delivered from the Kingdom
of darkness, translated to the Kingdom of light, to his dear
Son, Kingdom of his dear Son, redeemed from all of those
things that we used to be. What a blessing it is.
So I will say here that we serve the true and living God.
We serve the one who will one day be coming back.
As we talk about next week, He's going to be coming back.
He promised it and He's going to do it.
And we all need to be ready. The Bible tells us that we need
to watch and pray. We need to be prepared.
We need to be busy about doing what it is he called us to do
when he's coming back, Not to find a church that's that, that
that's slothful or church that's that's, that's being lazy or
church that has turned away from him.
But we need to be a church ready for the, for the groom to come
back, church ready to receive him and excited about his
return. Amen.
So Jesus, as it's written here, Jesus, not only did he love us,
but he washed us in his own blood.
He didn't take a goat or a bowl. He washed us in his blood, the
precious blood of a lamb without spot or a wrinkle.
And I'm so grateful for him to that flesh sacrifice.
Because of that, I don't have to be judged according to my sins
and my iniquities and the way that I previously lived my life.
And neither do you. Neither do you.
But because of what Jesus Christ did, our sins have been washed.
And if there's someone here who has not trusted in Jesus Christ
yet, your sins can be washed clean today.
Clean the moment you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
So the night in which Jesus was betrayed, we thank you, Lord,
for your goodness. We thank you, Father, for all
that you have done for us, your your time on the cross, your
obedience on the cross. We thank you, Father, for the
love that you demonstrated while you were here.
And we thank you, Father, that we can look forward to your
return. We are all looking forward to
your return, Lord, those who trust in you, who fear your
name. So on a night in which Jesus was
betrayed, he took the bread. And after he had given thanks,
he broke it because that body was broken even before he went
to the cross. The body was broken, beat up.
But he said take and eat. This is my body which was broken
for you. Eat this in remembrance of me.
In the same manner He also took the cup.
And this cup represents the very blood that Jesus shed, His own
blood that He shed for us, that washed away our sins.
Thank you for the blood, Lord. Thank you for the blood.
He took the cup and he said, this cup is a new covenant in my
blood, which was shed for the forgiveness of sins of many.
Drink this in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup. Do show the Lords death till he
come. Amen.
We will get a lot, a lot deeper into the Book of Revelations
next week. The Lord bless you.