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Revelation - Chapter 1 (C. Trimble 7-28-24)
Good morning. How is everyone? You guys good? Good? All right, good. I know we like to chat and hang out for a little bit before we teach, but we have a lot of stuff to go over today. And so we're going to have to jump into it relatively quick. If you are new here, we go through whole books of the Bible, chapter by chapter, line by line, just as long as we need to take to go through them, usually about a chapter week. And we just started a new book of the Bible. I've done this a couple of times. It's, it's, it's a fun one. We started this last week, but all we did last week is we just did a preface. We did not actually get into the scripture yet. So a couple of things. One, I would recommend, if you were not here last weekend, one, shame on you. I can't believe you weren't here. Two, go back and watch that, that, that lesson. Again, we are not getting into the scripture, but it introduces some different approaches. And, and I would call them tools that we use to approach revelation. And I think it will just set up this book of the Bible and make it a little bit easier as we work through it. So if you haven't seen that, go back. All the notes and everything are online. And that takes me to the next point. If you are a physical copy person, which means I'm still a physical copy book person, I still like to write things on paper, things like that, if you're one of those, keep the notes that you got when you walk in here. Now they will be available on the website and on the app, but if you're going to walk through this, this whole book with this, hold on to those notes. It'll be good just for you to be able to go back and reference those. Hold on to those. And again, that brings us to the other point. Everything will be online. Everything will be on the app. So, so you should have all those resources available to you as we work through this book of the Bible. I said this last weekend, I think you're going to be shocked over the next couple of months as we work through this. How much of this is comprehensible? How much you are going to be able to understand? People rarely tackle this book of the Bible because they're afraid it's just way over their head. And I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. Okay, that's the first thing. So, if you brought your Bible, we are in the very last book. We're going to do chapter one today. And here's going to be kind of what our thesis is. Every weekend I do this, regardless of what book of the Bible we're teaching, I throw kind of our main theme up there for the lesson. And we'll go back and revisit that. I'm going to do that with Revelation as well. But starting in about chapter four, I'm not going to do the first three chapters because they're kind of clumped together. But starting about chapter four, I'm going to put also kind of a brief recap. So, when we get into four, five, six, and beyond, I'll go, here's what we talked about in chapters one through three. Here's what we talked about in chapter four. Here's what we talked about. And I'll continue to do that as we work through so we can keep the chronology and the narrative of Revelation kind of in the proper sequence, all right? Just so we're kind of fresh every week when we do it. Okay, all that being said, this weekend is we do chapter one. And I think you're going to enjoy chapter one. And as we get into chapters two and three, which are interesting because it's all Jesus, chapters two and three is all red letters, all Jesus talking, is we get into these first three chapters. Here's what we're going to be focusing on a lot because it's what Jesus focuses on. Is that if the church, that means us as a church, us as the global church and us as Christians, individuals, if we do not address our internal struggles, our sins, our temptations, our faults, our failures, if we do not give those things to God, our internal things, eventually and inevitably we will fall to external pressures. If we do not deal with the internal, eventually the world, the culture of the world, the society of the world, the thoughts and practices of the world, they're going to crush us. They're going to get us. Okay, that's what we're going to focus on today and a little bit next weekend and the weekend after that, all right? So with all that being said, let's pray. Let's dive into chapter one. We're going to slice it in a little bit more acutely small pieces because there's just a lot that we need to cover and very little time to do it. So let's pray. Let's dive into the Word and we'll see where we go for chapter one of Revelation. All right. Thank you so much for being here. Let's pray. Father, God, we love you. Lord, I just want to tell you thank you. Thank you, Father, for everyone in this room, Lord. I thank you, God, for people taking the time and making it a priority to be at church. To hear your Word, God, I pray, Lord, that as we get into this particular part of the Bible, God, and to the book of Revelation, I pray that you do what your Word says it is going to do, that you will bless those who hear this, who listen to this, who read this and apply it to their lives. God, we pray for that over our church, that you would bless our church. We pray not only for our church, we pray for every single church in our city. We pray for our other campuses, the churches in those cities, and we just pray, God, that everything we do, that it's not about us at the end of the day, God. But, Lord, that it is about you, it is about your kingdom. I pray that in some way, God, our work today, our study today, our time today can be a blessing to you, that it can honor you, God. We love you. We thank you. We praise you. We pray all these things in your son's name, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Small bits, guys. We're going to read a little bit, and then we'll go back and we'll talk about it, okay? This is what John writes, chapter 1. "The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatever he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near." Okay. So, if you've ever read any great pieces of literature, it's been a long time since I've just read for fun. I read a lot of really boring books nowadays, except for the Bible. That's a very fun book. But in the great pieces of literature, my undergrad was in English Lit, when you read a great piece of literature, typically there was always a title page. It gives you kind of the thesis of the entire book. Paraphrasing, we get that in Revelation verses 1 and 2 of chapter 1, that this is the revelation of Jesus written by John for the followers of Jesus. Pretty straightforward. This revelation, I said this last week and it's not Revelations. It's one revelation. This revelation is exclusively, it exclusively belongs to Jesus. It is delivered to John so he can write down what he sees and what he hears. Why? Because the time is near. Now, I'm going to give you permission. It doesn't make you a bad person. If you read that and you're like, "What do you mean near?" That was written over 1900 years ago. That doesn't seem very near or very soon to me because he says soon and near. Well, that's a relative term. Though this book was written, Revelation, over 1900 years ago, when it says because the time is near, that has to be taken not from an earthly perspective, but from a heavenly perspective. From God's perspective, time doesn't really mean much. He is infinite. The Bible even says in 2 Peter that a day to God is like a thousand years and vice versa. It doesn't really matter to him. Now, the reason why this is important for us to point out is Revelation is very unique in the fact that we are going to talk about things that have happened in the past, things that are presently happening in heaven and things that are going to happen in the future. And so the point of Revelation is this. It is not to pinpoint a definitive hour when Jesus comes back. A lot of people want to get into Revelation so they can pinpoint the exact moment when Jesus is going to come back. That's not the point of Revelation. The point of Revelation is for us to be ready for whenever that happens. That's the point. It's not to know exactly when it's just to be ready for whenever that is to be prepared. Think of John as we go through the book of Revelation. Think of him as kind of like a courtroom reporter. If you've ever watched a courtroom proceeding, I don't know why one would just willingly do that. But if you have watched one of those, you'll notice over on, I just offended all the lawyers in the room. If you go over to the side of the courtroom, you'll see that there is a court reporter. And this man or woman is not adding in their two sense. They're not saying anything. They're just observing and documenting everything that is taking place. And that's what John's role is, to look, to listen, and to document. So what he is writing, as it says, will bless everyone who reads it if, if that's a conditional promise, that the book of Revelation will bless those who read it and listen to it if they keep what is written in it. So what are we to do? What are we to do as the recipients of Revelation? That's not just people in the first century, it's us today. What are we to do is the recipients of this book. We are to do three things. This is what we're to do basically with the entire Bible, but specifically it says this for Revelation. To read it, to listen to it, and to do what it tells us to do. To read it, to listen to it, and to take the message to heart, which means we obey, what the Word tells us to do. Let's keep working forward. John, to the seven churches in Asia, grace and peace to you from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and has set us free from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests, to his to his God and father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Verse seven, "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and everyone will see him, even those who pierced him, and all of the tribes of the earth will mourn over him, so it is to be a man." "I am the Alpha and Omega," says the Lord God, the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. So, we just got done with 2 Corinthians. If you were here, if you've been with me for any length of time, here at the church, we just got done with one of the works of Paul. If you read the works of Paul, all the epistles of Paul, they have the theme of grace and peace, right? And so, Revelation begins similar to the works of Paul, where John says, "Grace, be to you." He's coming out with this idea of grace. Now, the idea and theme of grace is going to permeate all the way through the book of Revelation, and those of you who have read Revelation, you're like, "How do you get grace throughout Revelation?" Here's how. God is going to go to extreme measures to do everything he can to get people to turn to him. That is a very gracious act. He's going to move the universe, he's going to move the earth, he's going to shake every foundation in the hopes that people will turn their eyes to him. That is a very gracious act. Now, we only see the word grace, ironically, one time, we just read it. That's it. It's the only time in the book of Revelation we're going to see it, but grace permeates throughout the whole book. Now, where does this grace come from? John tells us. It comes from the triune God, the Holy Trinity, the fact that we believe, if you're a Christian, in one God manifested in three persons, and he gives the titles of God, the one who is, the one who was, the one who is to come, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, and the seven spirits, here we go, that are before the throne. And so we get these titles of the triune God. Now, the first thing that we notice, and you have to look kind of hard, it's very easy to miss this, but it happens twice. There is a very subtle difference right here in Revelation 1 than in other parts of the Scripture. The common order that we refer to God the Father is the one who was, who is, and who is to come. But two times in Revelation chapter 1, it changes the order. And it says the one who is, the one who was, and the one who is to come. It reverses a couple of those titles. Why? Now, it seems subtle and maybe even insignificant to some, but it's very important. What that shows us is, is that God is outside of time and space. It's not like you and I who think of things that have happened in the past to us, how we're living in the present, and what's going to happen in the future. God is outside of all that, and he sees it however he wants to see time. He is infinite. And this is something very important for us to remember as we're studying the book of Revelation, because like I said earlier, Revelation is unique in the fact to all other books of the Bible that it encompasses the past, the present, and the future. But all of that, Jesus is beyond all of that. He sees everything, and we just need to keep that in mind as we're working through this text. Another thing that we see, and I guess this is kind of our first symbol that we have to decipher, is it says the seven spirits before the throne. What the heck is that? Nowhere else in Revelation does it mention these seven spirits? It does not give us an explanation in Revelation as to what that is. So again, here's one of those things. People will read that and go, well, I guess we can't study Revelation. It doesn't explain what that is. Now, if we go backwards, which I guess is the only way to go when you're at the last book of the Bible, when you go backwards in the Bible, way back to the book of Isaiah, I think it gives us clarity as to what these seven spirits represent. The seven spirits before the throne are the seven characteristics of the Holy Spirit, and Isaiah chapter 11 lists them out, wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, reverence, and fear. So here's what we learn from this. We learn we come to our first symbolic thing in Revelation, and with a little bit of work, we can figure it out. The Bible explains itself. Okay. All right. Maybe that takes a little bit of the trepidation or the fear out of moving forward through this book. So if you weren't here last week, we talked about the context in which this book was written. John was an exile. He had been kicked out of the Roman Empire, well, a certain part of the Roman Empire to an island called Patmos after he was boiled alive, and he was exiled to this area. And so to establish that Jesus is superior, John reminds us that Jesus is the first born from the dead, meaning Jesus is the only one who has ever conquered death. Now, the reason why John writes this is because throughout all of human history, if you get a wild hair and you go back and research the Egyptians or the Babylonians or the Assyrians or the Greeks or the Romans, and if you go back and study any great empire from the past, every great empire had a certain obsession with trying to conquer death, with trying to beat death. That's why many of the leaders would claim immortality that they were gods and things like that because there was this obsession with trying to cheat death. I would even say in the Western world that we live in now, there is still this obsession with somehow trying to cheat death, and in America we're in this kind of stage of arrested development, right? We want to prohibit death physically and we don't want to grow up mentally and spiritually. We want to stay in a stage of youth forever, and that's just impossible. The only one to have ever conquered death was Christ. The only one who has ever proven his immortality and his ability to conquer the grave was Christ. The emperors could say they were gods, but they all died, and so John reminds us he is the only one who has conquered death. John also reminds us he is the ruler of the kings of the earth. The Roman government had conquered virtually the entire world at the time when John wrote this, but John wanted to remind the reader the Roman government may be the most powerful thing on earth right now, except for the creator of the earth, which is Jesus Christ. Now listen, when we all decided to do the book of Revelation in an election year, I was the last one on board. I was the last one that wanted to do this. I pastor the biggest of the four churches and therefore get the most complaints, and I didn't want to go into a book about the end of the world during an election year. I think it's going to work out well for us probably, but I didn't want to do it. Because even when we're not going through Revelation, even when it's not an election year, I feel like I have to constantly remind people that regardless of what happens in November, regardless of what happens with the economy, regardless what happens with interest rates and housing markets and all these things, we as Christians have to be constantly reminded that Christ still sits on the throne, that he is still in control. That's good to hear, right? And that Christ still has a plan. Imagine being John on an island after being boiled alive and kicked out of his own homeland by the Caesar and him going, "Hey, Jesus is still the king of kings. Jesus is still the king of kings." More than just a powerful king of kings, Jesus is in control, but John also tells us that Jesus loves us, that he has set us free from our sin by his blood, and then he makes us kingdom priests. So like I said earlier, at the core of Revelation is the love of God and the grace of God, that Jesus died for our salvation. He adopts those who love him, is heirs to his kingdom. This is a very, very important thing. When we get to the end of Revelation, we're going to see that when we go to heaven, it's not going to be like St. Peter giving us shovels being like, "You better start digging ditches for Jesus." It's not going to be indentured servitude. We're going to get to heaven, and Jesus is going to say, "It's yours. You haven't inherited this. We are co-heirs with Christ," the Bible says. That's a big deal. That is a big deal that we are, and that's how much Jesus loves us. That's why he wants to be gracious and merciful with us. Now, verse 7 gives us our first prophecy. Not just our first prophecy, it's in essence the Revelation. It is the prophecy. It encompasses the entire book of Revelation. And so what John does is he takes a little bit of Daniel, chapter 7. He takes a little bit of Zachariah, chapter 12, and he kind of mashes them together, and he gives us these couple of sentences right here. Look, he is coming in the clouds, and he says a couple more lines there. And what John is doing is he is contrasting the first coming of Jesus with the second coming of Jesus. Now, most of us are very familiar with the first coming of Jesus. That's what we celebrate at Christmastime, the birth of Jesus Christ. That was a very humble, meek, and very private, right? Very few people saw that take place. It was a very private and meek coming of God in the flesh. The second coming of Christ is going to be the exact opposite of that. It's going to be global. Everyone is going to see it, whether they want to or not. Everyone is going to see it. It is going to be a global event, and he's not going to come meek, right? In meekness, he's going to come in power. He's going to come in strength. We're going to see it. We're going to hear it. It's going to be very, very obvious that Jesus Christ has returned. And it says, "When the Alpha and Omega, the one who is, who was, and is to come returns, this is maybe the first troublesome passage that we're going to come across in Revelation. It says that when he returns, those who chose to not follow him, will mourn." Here's the sobering thought, right? The sobering fact about Revelation. The book of Revelation gives us no indication that Jesus' return will prompt repentance out of those that didn't follow him. They will mourn. Why? Because at that moment, they will realize that they have lived their life for the wrong things. And at that point, it will be too late. That should kind of make your heart palpitate a little bit. That should make your stomach sink a little bit. When we hear something like that, that should bother us a lot. And I'm not saying that it's because we're lost, but I'm saying there are people that are living incorrectly. When Christ comes back, it's not going to be a good thing. They're going to mourn. They're going to weep over that. "I, John, your brother and partner in the affliction, kingdom, and endurance that are in Jesus was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God in the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard a loud voice behind me like a trumpet saying, "Right on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches." Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. So John wanted his readers to know that he did not think he was better than anyone else. John was a big deal. John was the only one present when Jesus Christ was crucified out of the 12 disciples. According to the Gospels, the one that John wrote, he was the loved disciple of Jesus. John was a big deal, wrote five books of the Bible, but John didn't want any of us who read this to think that he thought he was elevated above us. And so the early Christians shared in a lot of suffering. John wrote this book of the Bible towards the end of the first century, about 95, 96 AD. He died probably about 98 AD. He was an old man when he wrote this, and he had gone through a lot of suffering, a lot of persecution. Now back in John's day, because the church was under persecution, churches didn't fight over who had the best worship band or coolest building or who the best pastor was and how many likes they had on social media. They didn't have time for that bullcrap because they were being persecuted. They had to band together and strengthen each other as Christians. We'll get there again one day, but we're not there yet, right? So the first mention of persecution is right here, that John is exiled to the island of Patmos. Why? He tells us why, because I believe in the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. He says it. And so as a result of his beliefs, listen to me, as a result of believing in the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, he was exiled from society. We'll talk about that more as time goes on. Okay? So it can be difficult. John was a good man, right? He was a good man, a pivotal person in the Christian faith, but some really, really awful things happened to John. And in times of affliction, again, it's not wrong of us to step back and go, man, if God loved this guy so much, why did he go through so much stuff? Well, here's the very hard answer. God allowed it for a reason. God allowed John to be boiled alive and exiled to an island in exclusion and exile. Why? Because God saw that the best means for him to be alone to download the book of Revelation. And so this is a very hard truth. We often say, well, God, why am I going through hard times? Why do bad things happen to good people? Because I'm such a good person. And we say things like this. But here's the thing, sometimes it is only through hardships that we are able to learn things. Do you understand what I'm saying? Sometimes God has to let our cage get rattled a little bit before we stop and be still and look up and go, hey, what's going on? Some of us live way too comfortably. And we never hear from God because we're so concerned about our comforts and our pleasures and our passions and what we're doing. And sometimes God has to rattle that cage. You think that's happening maybe in our nation a little bit? Maybe God's shaking some things up, right? We've been a little too comfortable, a little too long, haven't we? And sometimes hardship is the only way that people will turn their eyes back up to God. And we have to trust that God knows what's best for us, that God has a plan for us and that things happen sometimes, right? Because God allows them to happen, to position us, to download information. And so here's the thing about John, though. John positioned himself to download that information. John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." The Lord's Day that he's referring to is more than likely Sunday. So post the resurrection of Jesus, the followers of God, they used to worship on Saturdays, and then they started officially worshiping on Sundays. So you guys are okay. I told all the Saturday night people, we're not sure about their souls, but you guys are all good in here. So that's encouraging. No. When it comes to the Sabbath day, the Sabbath day is more of a lifestyle than an actual day of the week. The book of Romans talks about that, several of the places the New Testament talk about that. Now there are official days that churches meet, some on Saturday, some on Sunday, some both, like ours, and that's not really the point of the Sabbath. The idea of the Sabbath and why it's a commandment is that we have to take the time, whether it be a Tuesday, a Saturday, a Sunday, whatever, to set aside time to worship, to rest, to meditate on God. So John was doing that on Sunday. More than likely, he was somewhere, right, on Patmos, maybe by the ocean, maybe somewhere, I don't know, and he's sitting there and he's praying, or maybe he's singing, maybe he's got his hands lifted, maybe he's worshiping, maybe he is remembering the Scripture, maybe he's reading Scripture, and as he is worshiping, right, it says to all of a sudden he heard a loud voice like a trumpet. That doesn't mean that the voice of Jesus sounds like a trumpet. It means that it was loud, it got his attention. Imagine if you're praying or you're worshiping and someone blows a trumpet right behind you. It's going to get your attention and it did. Now before John turns around, right, the voice that sounded like a trumpet said this, write down everything you're about to see. And the voice commanded John to write seven short pithy letters, that's a good word, isn't it? Pithy letters to seven different churches that were located in western Turkey. The Bible calls it Asia Minor, it's not Asia as we think about it, but it's in western Turkey. The churches were Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodiceum. These are very famous churches in the Bible, one because Paul had started and ministered several of these churches, ministered to several of these churches, so they're mentioned several times throughout the Bible. The other thing that is important about these seven churches is for the last almost 2000 years, these seven churches have been examples to all churches, all churches, and that's what they are meant to be, that Jesus is going to take these seven churches and every single church that exists can kind of be plugged into one of those seven templates, if you will. And Jesus is going to point out good things about these churches, he's going to point out bad things about these churches, he's going to point out things that he says you've got to change this or it's not going to end up well, right? So what we are to do in chapters two and three is to read about these seven churches and go, uh-oh, we do this, we got to change that, uh-oh, we don't do that, we got to start doing that, and we learn from that. That's what chapters two and three are all about. So a voice like a trumpet says, write this stuff down, and this is where I think the neatest part of this chapter is, and then John's going to turn around and look at who's talking to him, okay? Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. When I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like the son of man. Dressed in a robe with a golden sash wrapped around his chest, the hair of his head was white as wool, white as snow, and his eyes like a fiery flame. His feet were like fine bronze as it is fired in a furnace, and his voice, like the sound of cascading waters, he had seven stars in his right hand, a sharp double edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was shining like the sun at full strength. That's pretty neat. We'll talk about that here in a second. So as John turns to see who is speaking to him, the first thing he noted was not Jesus, it was the seven golden lampstands. Now, if you're trying to picture what that looks like, think of the menorah in the Old Testament. That's probably what this would have looked like. Yeah, I could be wrong on this. I'm not an expert in this. They used a seven candle menorah inside the tabernacle. I think a nine candle menorah outside of the tabernacle, but that's what this would have looked like. There are seven of them. Now here, that candle, that lampstand, is going to represent seven churches. And the connection to that is this. Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, that the church is supposed to be a light to the community. So just like a lit candle brings light, it illuminates things, that's what the church is to do. Just like a candle would in the tabernacle, we are to be the light of the city. So here's what's interesting. And I said this last weekend, we have so many artistic depictions of Jesus, but nowhere in the gospels does it ever tell us what Jesus looks like. Now, we can imagine what a Jewish man in his early thirties looked like, right, whether there's still Jewish men in their thirties. And we can look at people from that part of the world and get kind of a make a good judgment on what Jesus would have looked like, but it never describes what Jesus looks like. Here, in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we get the first description of what Jesus actually looked like. This is the risen Jesus, the resurrected Christ. But what John sees, and he tries his best to describe, is he sees both the literal and symbolic. So some of it is literal, some of it is very obviously symbolic. And we have to give John a lot of grace, right? John is trying to describe something that is beyond description. The book of Exodus says, God said to Moses, because Moses said, "Hey, can I see your face?" And God's response to Moses was, "You can't look at my face and live." And so John is getting a very rare opportunity to look into the face of God. And he's going to do the best he can to describe what he's seen. The first thing he says is he says, "It's one like the Son of Man." So even in Jesus' glorified state, Jesus still looks like a human. There are some people that believe when we die and we go into eternity that we're some kind of like electrical force or that we become kind of this spirit thing that floats around in drifts. That's not biblical. We're going to look somewhat like this. Not like me. That would be some of your hell, right? But I'm saying you'll have like him? No, you'll have some kind of, we will have bodily form. We will have arms, we will have legs, we will have a face, things like that. And the reason why we know that is A, right here, and then B in Genesis 1 and 2, we are made in the image of God. We look like God. So God looks something like this. The other thing he notices, he says, "There's a golden sash in a long robe." Now this is imagery of the Old Testament High Priest. In the Old Testament, authority was given by God to the High Priest to make judgments and to teach his word and maintain the integrity of the Word of God. Not only that, in the Old Testament, salvation always came through God, but you had to go through the mediator of the High Priest to communicate to God. So we see in Jesus that he is the method of salvation. He is the one that holds all authority. Maybe one of the more interesting things is this says that his hair was white. And I think this is literal. I think his hair was white. The book of Proverbs says that gray hair is a sign of wisdom. That's not with all people. Some people are just old, right? But if gray hair is symbolic of wisdom, and Jesus' hair is as white as it can be, that shows us extreme wisdom, extreme respect, complete omniscience, which means he knows all things. I find this very interesting because we often see artistic depictions of the resurrected Jesus. And according to the Bible, he would have had white hair. And that's just very, very interesting to me that when we see him, he's going to have white hair. Another thing it says, his eyes like a fiery flame. Now, God is a God of grace and love. He is, right? Jesus loves us. He is merciful. He is gracious. Jesus is also righteous, and he loves his people. And when his people are persecuted, when there is evil in the world, when people are hurting other people, there is a righteous indignation that starts to flame up in God's eyes. And that's what John has seen. It also says his feet are like fine bronze. What does that symbolize? This gives the imagery of an all-powerful king that can trample any evil that is in front of him. The book of Isaiah, chapter 66, says that the earth is God's footstool. This gives us the imagery of such a powerful king that there is nothing that stands in his way. He has unlimited power, unlimited ability. Okay, feet like bronze. I love this one too. John says his voice was like cascading water. Now, you have to imagine, I don't know if this is what John did or not. This is just me kind of thinking out loud. John was exiled to an island, something that John constantly heard in the background was the crashing of the ocean against the rocks and against the shore. And so, as he heard Jesus speak, maybe the first thing that John thought about alluding it to was the power of the ocean. I love that. That gives me chills. The power of the cascading ocean, of the ocean, pummeling up against the rocks and the shore. If you have a voice that sounds like the roaring of the ocean, that's a voice that cannot be ignored. It has to be acknowledged. It has to be obeyed. We have to listen to that voice. It also said that his hand, in his hand, he held seven stars. Now, that's not literal stars. We learn what that is. At the end of it, Jesus tells us. The stars are angels of seven churches, these seven churches. Now, some people believe, and I think this is very interesting, that God appoints a guardian angel to every church. And if you believe that, and I don't know what I believe, I go back and forth, if you believe that, that's kind of neat to think the experienced community church would have an angel set aside for it by God to just protect the church. Now, in Matthew chapter, I think it's 11. I could be wrong. It's later on in the PowerPoint. That could also mean pastors, that God sends pastors to teach the word, to keep the integrity of the word of God, to watch over the sheep, if you will, to be a shepherd to the sheep. And it could mean pastors. The main point, though, is that God is sovereign and God protects the seven stars in his hand of the seven churches. It also says that a sword came out of Jesus' mouth. This is obviously symbolic, right? Obviously. We know it's obviously symbolic, because this happens twice. It happens here, and at the very end of Revelation, we're going to see that sword come out of Jesus' mouth again, very differently than here. What we're going to see at the end, and I'm going to spoil it for you, is that the battle of Armageddon, all the evil forces of the world are there ready to fight Jesus. Jesus comes back, and it's a pretty anti-climactic fight that just says that Jesus opens his mouth. The sword comes out and absolutely decimates all evil. The sword is his word. The word of God has the right to cut, divide what is right and what is wrong. The word of God has the ability to judge mankind. That is the sword that comes out of Jesus' mouth. Lastly, and I like this one too, John says, "Looking at Jesus was like looking at the sun at noon." Imagine if it was a clear day. I don't advise doing this. Don't do this. Of course, he said to go look at the sun at noon. Don't do that, but if you were to walk out one day, and it was a clear day, imagine just looking straight up at the sun at its most powerful time. John says that's what it was like looking at Jesus. What we are reminded of is John isn't looking at an angel. He's not looking at a man. He's looking God in the face, and that's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing. Last part. When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. That means he passed out. He laid his right hand on me and said, "Don't be afraid. I am the first in the last and the living one. I was dead, but look, I'm alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades. Therefore write down what you have seen, what is, and what will take place after this. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lamp stands is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches." So some of our first symbolic things that we encounter, Jesus straight up tells us what they are. Now, this is interesting. When John encounters Jesus as he falls down like a dead man, we read of this way back in the Old Testament when Moses encountered God. He fell down in much the same way. He fell down in fear, John and Moses, in front of God. Now, this isn't an unhealthy fear. This is an understanding that John and Moses had. Listen to me, that we are the creation and that is the Creator. I need you to hear that because the Bible says the beginning of all wisdom is a fear of the Lord. Now, I'm talking about with professing Christians. I think the reason why the church and the Western world, specifically the United States, is absolutely tanking is because I believe a lot of professing Christians have lost a proper reverence and fear of God. There's a lot of professing Christians who are like, "Oh man, Jesus, my homeboy, my bro, my, my this, my that." Now, listen to me. Would you walk up and take all your politics off the table? Would you walk up to the president of the United States and be like, "What's up, bro? You're my homie." Would you walk up to the prime minister of Israel or the UK and go, "What's up, man? What's up, bro? What's up? Would you walk up to the king of England? Would you do that? Would you walk up to your boss or the CEO of a major company?" Be like, "What's up, homie? You wouldn't do that. Why?" Because it's disrespectful and immature. So why do we do that to the king of kings and Lord of lords? Then we have a bunch of churches that talk about Jesus like we're co-equal. We're not. We're not co-equal. I know that he's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. I know he loves you. I know he wants to wrap his arms around you. He is also the creator of everything. John 1, "Everything was made by him, through him, for him." And there is a certain amount of healthy respect that we need to have for the creator. I am the clay. He is the artist, right? And I need to keep that in proper perspective. He is God. And the reason why the church is falling apart in the Western world is we have forgotten that. And when we don't even have the fundamentals and the starting point of wisdom, how in the world are we going to make wise choices as a church and as a church community? How are we going to do it? So here's the thing. John falls down like he's dead in reverence to God. I mean, he collapses. And the same hand that holds the seven stars, listen to this, puts that hand on John's back and says, "Don't be afraid. I'm the first and I am the last. I hold the keys of death. I hold the keys of Hades. I've got it all under control." Now listen, you're going to think this is wild, but think about it. If we properly fear God, we don't have to be afraid of God. Do you hear that? If we have a proper understanding of who God is and who we are in relation to God, we don't have to be afraid of God because we're submitting to him. And if we're submitting to him, we're going to be fine. You don't have to be afraid of him. Now, if we have irreverence towards God, if we don't fear God, we should fear God. We should be afraid. But if we have a proper reverence and respect of him, we don't have... He is the same God that puts his hand on his back and says, "Come on, John, get up. We have to talk. We have something that we need to talk about." And he says, "Write down what you've seen and what you're going to see." The main point of John recording the book of Revelation is to let people know that Jesus is the living one and that through the living one, we can have life too. The whole point of the book of Revelation, like I said earlier, is not to just pinpoint a certain day or try to, like, find a sign so we can live like hell and then repent at the last minute. That's not the point of Revelation. The point of Revelation is just like the point of every other book of the Bible to let us know that Christ is the Savior and that only through him we have eternal life, that through Christ we can overcome our sinful nature, that we can overcome shame and guilt, that we can find joy both now and for eternity. But that all comes through the living one. Life only comes through the living one. And so now that Jesus has comforted John, right? John gets up, maybe Jesus is like, "All right, let's brush you off a little bit." He's comforted again. Now they are ready to begin the Revelation. And Jesus starts off by clarifying something that might be confusing. He says, "Okay, John first, that the stars are the angels of the seven churches and the lamp stands are the churches." Now the Greek angel there, angelos, simply means messenger. So that could be literal angels or it could be a pastor who is delivering the Word of God. And again, Matthew chapter 11 kind of alludes to that might be talking about pastors, but that's one of those that doesn't really matter either way, okay? And so here's the last thing. And we'll talk about this from chapters 1 through 3. The thesis that I said at the very beginning of the lesson that permeates to the first three chapters of the book of Revelation is this. Jesus himself, all of chapter 2 and all of chapter 3 is in red letters. That means it is straight from the mouth of God, straight from Jesus himself. And he is going to warn the churches and Christians that if they do not address their internal problems, they will fall to external pressures. They will adopt the destructive, decaying culture of the world around them. If they are not set right in their hearts, if their hearts are not firmly set on God, we will start to adopt the destructive culture around us. Okay. So every four years, my wife and I love watching the Olympics. I like watching the summer Olympics. I like watching the winter Olympics. Every four years you get into a sport that you didn't care about for the last four years, like curling, right? Yeah, you bring up curling. You totally forgot about curling. But in two years when the winter Olympics roll around, I'm going to be up at two o'clock in the morning watching the Canadians doing their thing and I'm all into it, right? All into curling. Canadians got some good curlers up there. What else do you do in Canada, right? You curl. So the summer Olympics started, right? We turn on the TV. We watch the opening ceremony about 10 minutes in. I'm like, what in the heck is going on? Like, this is just crazy. And I don't know what any of it has to do with sports. And so I'm watching this whole thing. And again, there's been so much talk about it. I've seen all the comments and the posts and no one's ever going to watch sports again now and all this kind of stuff that has gone on because there was some very debaucherous sacrilegious making fun of the Last Supper, which I'm not trying to sound whatever that didn't surprise me. That's become very common in our day and age to make fun of things like that. And a lot of people missed it, but I caught it before I saw that. The scene in the library when the two guys and the girl are in there and they start passing each other books, they end up having a threesome up in a room. Most people didn't even catch that one. And I don't know what that had to do with the Olympics. I'm sure sex will eventually be an Olympic sport, but all this was going on. Give it time. You know, the original Olympics were done naked. So anyways, so all this is going on. And of course, everyone's just losing their minds. And I'll tell you what I what I took away from it, what I took. And I'm going to go ahead and confess to you. I'm going to watch some of the games. I watched rugby last night. I watched handball. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I watched some other things and I get into it. I don't think it's the athlete's fault. But I started to think about this whole opening ceremony thing. And what bothered me more, hold on for a second, what bothered me more than the sacrilegious depiction of the Last Supper and the promoting of open sexuality and threesome for some reason in the Olympic games, what even bothered me more than that is the entire opening, every commercial in between the entire opening had had one common theme. It was the elevation of the individual. It was the lifting up of self. I don't know if you know this, the God of the Western world, which France and England, they fall into the Western world, the God of the Western world is the individual, it is self. The only thing taboo in our society is to tell someone that they can't do whatever they want. That is the most taboo thing you can do is to chastise someone for doing something wrong. Everything is on the table, nothing is off the table. We live in the most hedonistic, self-centered, narcissistic culture. And that's what I saw. Every commercial, there was a Nike commercial. Does it make me a bad person that what's mine is mine? What's yours is mine? That I'll win at any cost. And I'm sitting here watching and going, yes, that is the definition of a bad person. You are describing what it is to be a bad person. That's absolutely wrong. Yes, terrible, terrible to be that. My little girl is going to be the fastest runner in the world one day. It's all about my little girl and it's me and it's me and Google write a letter about my daughter and everything's about the elevation of the individual. And the first thing I thought of is we were watching this just cornucopia of garbage and self-indulgence and self-elevation as I'm watching all that. My brain went to Matthew chapter 24. So Jesus is there with his disciples and his disciples walk up and they say, "Jesus, what's the world going to be like about the time you come back?" And Jesus said, "It's going to be a lot like the days of Noah. People are just going to be doing themselves. They're just going to be about themselves. They're going to be eating, drinking, partying, having a good time, doing their job, making money, buying more stuff, just focusing on themselves." And then right in the middle of that, something's going to happen. It's going to be like the days of Noah. People are just going to be doing life, never taking a serious inventory about what they are living for. Every advertisement, every commercial, every post, every whatever is, I'm going to go into the grocery store and just dance and record myself and that's life and I'm just going to dance my way over here and do this over here and I'm not going to work for the common good or strive to educate myself or challenge myself or do anything or do something better for the collective good. It's none of that. It's all about the... We have this self-inflated view, this just ridiculous and inflated view of who we are. And now, look, I'm not telling you that Jesus is going to come back next week. I'm not telling you any of that. But I think what I witnessed in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics is not just these two things that bothered me. It is this culture that permeates that the self is above all things. So what will it look like when you're ready to return Jesus? People are just going to be doing themselves. It's going to be all about them. Now listen, that even applies to a lot of self-professing Christians. There's some of you in this room who are not here to know more about Jesus. You're not here to grow more in righteousness and holiness and get closer to him. A lot of people are in this room because they just don't want to go to hell and possibly get blessed a little bit in the meantime. A lot of people don't come to church to contribute to the kingdom. They come to see what they can get and it's the same mentality, right? It's the same mentality. It's the same cancer that is in the society of the world. We need to be careful and we need to take a step back and take an inventory of what in the heck are we living for and who are we living for? So will we choose to acknowledge that not only does Jesus exist, there's a lot of people who say, "Yeah, Jesus exists. God exists." But he is the all-powerful Savior and righteous judge. And he has a calling for those of us who will accept it. For you older cats in the room, I just listened to a two-hour interview a couple of weeks ago with George Carlin. He's a comedian. He's passed away. He was a pretty brilliant and intelligent man. He was an atheist, a staunch atheist. And the reason why he said he was an atheist in this interview is he says he couldn't believe in a God that would make judgments. But someone has to make judgments. Someone has to say that the child molester is wrong. Someone has to say that the greedy person that makes their money off the backs of innocent people is wrong. Someone has to say that the liar is wrong, that the adulterer is wrong. Someone has to determine that there is good and bad. And the only one who has the power, the sword, to cut that up and decipher that is Christ. So it's not just that I acknowledge Christ, but I acknowledge that he is the righteous judge. And then he has a calling for me, if I will accept it. So a lot of people say, "Well, I've never heard God speak to me. I've never seen God do anything in my life." Well, here's the thing, going back to our narcissistic society, it is impossible to see Jesus when we're constantly just looking at ourselves. It's impossible to hear Jesus when we're watching YouTube and watching Netflix and listening to several things and all these talking heads and static and noise around us all the time. It's no wonder that we don't hear Jesus. It's no wonder that we don't see God working. The interesting thing about John in Revelation is John strategically placed himself in a position to hear God. He was praying. He was worshiping. He was listening. He was looking. He was obeying. And what do you know? Jesus stepped in. Are we even looking for the things of God? Are we even looking in that direction? Of course, we're not going to see him if we're not even trying to find him. It's never going to happen. And so here's the thing though, if I choose to acknowledge Jesus, if I position myself to see and hear him, I then have to properly acknowledge, listen to me, that there may be things in my life that are separating me from him. I'm going to challenge you a little bit, and I'm not trying to be controversial. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be any of those things. Jesus hates sin. Why does Jesus hate sin? Because sin destroys people. I'm going to challenge you a little bit. You ready? Jesus does not hate those 12 individuals or 13 individuals who posed in a very blatant mockery of the Last Supper. Jesus does not hate those people. Jesus hates what they are doing. Why? Because the mockery of Christ will separate them from God for eternity. Jesus doesn't hate the three individuals who are in the commercial about the threesome up in the attic or whatever the apartment above the library. Jesus doesn't hate those individuals. Jesus hates that what they are doing is destroying them and destroying a lot of other people in its wake. That's what he hates. And this is why we are instructed. Listen to me, and some of you won't like this, and I'm going to tell you, as a pastor, I've just gotten past the point of caring if you don't like this. But I'm going to say it because it's truth. If you and I spend more time criticizing sinners than praying for sinners, we're wrong. Do you hear me? Listen, if you put a big old post about how evil these people are and you didn't say one prayer form, shame on you. Shame on you because such were some of you. First Corinthians, chapter seven, such were some of us that we were in that place once upon a time. And someone prayed for you and someone prayed for me and God heard and God worked in our life. Paul was one of those. A lot of the people who contributed to the Bible were those. And so if what we're doing is attacking sinners more than praying against the sin, we have missed the boat. We have missed the boat. Jesus said, pray for those who persecute you, love those that hate you. That is a direct quote from Christ himself. And if that makes you mad, if the word of God makes you mad, this is not a good church for you because that's what we're going to hang our hat on. Here's the thing though, if you and I fail to let Jesus address the internal things in us, we're so good at saying, Jesus, look at the sins in them. Jesus addressed that in Matthew, chapter seven. How dare you try to pull a splinter out of their eye when there's a log of wood in yours? We have to first, the Bible is not written so we can point out the sins of everyone else. The Bible is written so we can address the sin in ourselves. And only then can we do the work of God. We have to address the things within us. Our failures, our faults, our temptations, our sin. And if we do not address those things, we will inevitably fall to the same culture that we're constantly talking bad about. Well, I'm not going to agree with all that stuff and all this blasphemy. You know, you're just going to be divisive and hateful. And that's part of a culture that we don't want to be a part of either. That's not kingdom culture, divisiveness in hatred and slander. That's not kingdom culture. What I'm saying is if we don't address, if we don't let God address the things within us, we're going to fall to the pressures of this society. And divisiveness is a product of this society. Here's the thing. We're going to end on a positive note. A lamp stand cannot give light by itself. It can only hold light. A candle cannot produce light by itself. It has to be given the light. What the world will tell you is, is look inside yourself. There's good in you. There's not. You're a candle, but the only way that candle can serve its purpose, the only way that candle can illuminate light is the light must touch it. Do you hear me? We can produce nothing good in and of ourselves. We have to have God. Fortunately, this is the good news. Fortunately, that's what God wants to. He wants us to possess that light. He loves us. He's willing to walk with us. He's capable of saving and changing us. He longs for a relationship with us. He wants us to be a bright, shining light, not just so we can have joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control and all these things, not just so we can possess those things, but so that light can illuminate and touch the lives of others as well. That's what God wants for us. But we have to position ourselves to see Him. And we have to address anything that may separate us from Him. I love you and I appreciate you. And I'm sure I said some things today that maybe some people didn't like and sometimes that hurts a little bit. We have got to rise above the way that our culture does things. Do you understand me, Christians? We listen. We don't fight fire with fire. The Bible says we don't return evil with evil. That's not how we do it, right? We are to live differently. We're to live better than that, okay? All right, buy your heads with me, please.