Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Well, we’ve been in this study called “Mysteries of the Apocalypse” just week three.  So if it’s your first week here, you’re not too far behind.  We’re just getting started in chapter 1.  And we said in weeks 1 and 2 that the book of Revelation is the unveiling of Jesus Christ, because the word “revelation” in the Greek language is apokalupsis, which is where we get our word apocalypse.  And it literally means “to unveil, to reveal”.  And so the revelation of Jesus Christ makes Jesus the main character of the book of Revelation.  And as we’re discovering here in chapter 1, He’s also the main figure throughout all of human history.  John got us started last week by giving us a vision of who Jesus really is.  And we said gone are the Sunday school images from Revelation 1.  There’s no picture of the rugged and renegade rabbi here with dusty sandals walking through the streets of Palestine.  Gone is the picture of Jesus surrounded by children at His feet and with a lamb slung over His shoulder.  I mean, all the Sunday school…even gone is the image of the limp body of Jesus hanging on the cross.  No, this is the resurrected Jesus, the glorified Jesus.  And the reason it’s important for us to go through chapter 1 is not only because God gave it us and it’s beyond worth reading—it’s imperative that we do—but because we need to have a vision of Jesus as He really is today in all of His glory.  This is a Jesus like you’ve never seen Him before.  And through all of the imagery, which is easily understood as we reach into other sections of the Bible to help interpret these images, this is an important, important text of scripture for us to get a hold of, preparing us for all the juicier parts of Revelation that we all love to get into regarding those future events in Bible prophecy.  I’ve titled this morning’s message “The Mystery of the Seven Stars” because in chapter 1 the word “mystery” appears for the first of four times in the book of Revelation, thus the mystery of the apocalypse.  We’ll get to that as time goes on here.

 

0:02:37.0

But one of the first things I want us to notice here is that, beginning in verse 9, John continues giving us a vision of Jesus.  He also pauses to tell us a little bit about how this vision came to him, where he was and what was going on at the time.  Because this was happening in real time and in real history in a real place to a real person named John the Apostle, who was one of the 12 disciples that walked with Jesus.  And he says in verse 9, “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos.”  You can go to Patmos today.  It’s a small island, just a little rock out there in the Aegean Sea, beautiful, blue Mediterranean waters.  Patmos 2000 years ago was the Alcatraz for the Roman Empire.  It’s where they sent their political and religious dissidents.  And John was now in his 90s, having faithfully served the Lord Jesus Christ for all these years, faithful to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.  And for the reason, an evil emperor named Domitian, in an attempt to wipe out all attempts of the early church getting started, sent John the Apostle—the apostle whom Jesus loved, who had a special relationship—sent him to Patmos, to this rock in the middle of the sea, this prison.  And it’s worth noting that John says, “While I was on Patmos, I was also in the Spirit on the day of the Lord.”  Interesting phraseology here.  And it reminds us of this twofold thing going on.  He was on Patmos in a prison in dire and difficult circumstances, but also in the Spirit.  The implication being, “I was right in the center of God’s will.  I was right where God wanted me to be.”  And it was on the day of the Lord that I received this vision.”  The day of the Lord being a reference to the new day that the early church started worshipping.  Not on the Sabbath anymore, not on Saturday, but now on Sunday, the first day of the week.  Tipping their hat, of course, to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  There’s a whole lot going on in that phraseology “on Patmos”, “in the Spirit on the day of the Lord”.  The point I want to make here is simply that the idea of being in difficult and dire circumstances is not at odds with simultaneously being in the center of God’s will.  And that’s hard for a lot of us to get a grasp on as believers in Jesus Christ because, you know, you might have thought that when you became a Christian everything was just gonna go hunky dory for you.  And the reality is it might get worse.  It might become more difficult for you.  Certainly, as we race to the end of the age and to the last days of planet earth, and as we peek behind the veil of these future events in Bible prophecy, to those who are faithful to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ as John was in the 1st century, it will become more and more difficult as the days go on.  But don’t confuse the fact that you can be on Patmos in a place of difficulty and dire circumstances and in the center of God’s will right at the same time.  And that’s John.

 

0:05:54.5

Now, the Lord Jesus told John to take this vision, which, remember, last week we said came from God the Father to the God the Son by means of the Holy Spirit to an angel to John to a book and to us.  That’s a lot of transmission there. But He told John to “write what you see in a book,” verse 11.  Write it down.  You see, God spoke to John through a vision.  And don’t be upset about that or think, Oh, what’s that all about.  Because throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, early church times even, God spoke in dreams and visions.  Even as the Word of God was being written by means of the Holy Spirit and through the 40 authors that God used to pen His Word, that Word oftentimes came first in a dream or a vision or a “thus sayeth the Lord” kind of thing.  It came to John that way.  But look at what the Lord says to him.  “Write it down in a book.”  Write it down in a book, because the primary way that God speaks to us today is through His written Word.  And He wanted all that He was giving to John to be written down in a book and initially sent to seven churches in the 1st century.  They’re mentioned here—Ephesus, Sardis, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Laodicea.  You can actually go to those places today and find the ruins of these 1st century early churches.  And these were real churches in real places, a real book, a real vision.  I just say that to say God is still speaking today.  Make no mistake about that, friends.  And He certainly has the ability to speak in visions and dreams and all that if He wants to.  But the primary way that He speaks to us is through the Word of God.  And if you say, “Oh, I heard the voice of God,” or, “God was speaking to me,” that’s fine.  It’s always in complement to His Word.  And to if it isn’t, then you either had a bad enchilada the night before, or the devil himself is speaking to you.  Okay?  God told John, “John, I’m giving this to you in a vision, but I want you to write it down because I’m gonna speak to future generations through a book that I’ve written.”  And this is the primary way He does that.  Certainly there are times—and it’s happened in my life as I’m reading through the Word of God and saturating y  heart with it—the Spirit of God has a way of grabbing a text of scripture or a verse and speaking it in a very direct way to my Spirit and saying, “Boom!  This is my Word for you at this time and in this circumstance.”  Oh, He does that all the time.  That’s why you’ve got to get into God’s Word and let Him speak to you through the pages of His Word.  And He’ll always do that consistent with His Word.

 

0:08:43.4

Now, there are several things that John continues to reveal to us about Jesus.  And, again, gone are the Sunday school images.  Not that those images aren’t important, but we’re seeing Jesus as He really is today in glory and as He is coming again.  We said last week that Jesus came to this earth sort of like an undercover boss.  Remember that reality TV program?  Sort of veiled His deity to some extent.  Gave a little glimpse of it on the Mount of Transfiguration when His glory shined through His clothes.  And Peter says, “Wow, this is so good.  Let’s just hunker down right here, build ourselves a tabernacle and enjoy it.”  And Jesus closed up the veil and said, “No, we’ve got work to do yet here.”  The next time we see Him in all of His glory is in Revelation 1 and He’s coming again.  And here’s is what John tells us about Jesus.  Let me categorize them four or five ways.  Number one, He’s a royal priest, a royal priest.  Verses 12 or 13 John says, “Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.”  The clothing that John describes there is the clothing of a king and/or priest, a king priest, a royal priest.  And John references here the “one like a son of man”.  And there is some language here that you say, “Wow, what is this all about?”  John was steeped in Old Testament scripture.  He knew the Bible well.  And oftentimes when you’re dealing with apocalyptic literature, which is very vivid in its imagery, let the Bible interpret the Bible.  Saturate your heart in the scriptures and look for ways that other scriptures interpret.  Look for ways the old interprets the new and vice versa.  So John is probably referring to Daniel 7 here or drawing from that.  In Daniel 7:13-14 Daniel says, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.”  Jesus had many titles during His earthly ministry, but two primary ones were son of God and son of man, referring to His 100% deity and His 100% humanity at the same time.  Daniel describes this “one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven…and he came to the Ancient of Days,” Ancient of Days being a title of God the Father in the Old Testament.  So we have God the Father, and we have God the Son in the Daniel vision here.  And “coming on the clouds of heaven”, probably an Old Testament reference to His second coming that we’ll get into the weeks ahead.  And so here is a picture of Jesus, this one like a son of man, even from the Old Testament book of Daniel.  And he goes on to say, “To him was giving,” listen to this, “dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”  This is a royal priest who also possesses incredible authority and power.  This is the Jesus that John is describing here.

 

0:12:21.2

Now, he goes onto say that he heard something.  He heard a voice that sounded like a trumpet, and it made him turn around and look and see who was there.  And he says, “Then I saw this one like a son of man,”—now that we’ve gone to Daniel you know who that one like a son of man is—“standing in the midst of the lampstands.”  Well, that sounds mysterious, doesn’t it?  What’s that all about?  There were seven lampstands.  And this one like a son of man, this Jesus, is standing in the midst of them.  Well, we don’t have to speculate or guess as to what the seven lampstands mean.  In fact, Jesus tells us straight up.  He solves the mystery for us in verse 20.  As for the mystery of the seven golden lampstands, the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”  What seven churches?  Well, the ones that received letters in chapters 2 and 3, churches that were actual congregations like ours only 2000 years ago.  And they got some letters from Jesus.  It’s a reminder that the church in every generation needs a revelation from Jesus and needs to know what her place is in that generation and in that culture and in God’s future and eternal plan.  That’s why it’s so important to study even the letters to these seven churches.  But here is what I find very interesting.  We see Jesus standing in the midst of the churches.  Now, let that picture just sink in a little bit.  He’s here.  He’s here watching, listening, leading His churches.  He’s not a distant and remote head of the church in His ivory tower.  No, He’s standing right in the midst of His churches.  Years ago in the business community, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote a book called In Search of Excellence.  It was a bestseller to business leaders and all of that.  And they coined the phrase “management by walking around”, MBWA.  And what they did was they encouraged senior executives to get out of the ivory tower and walk around a little bit, out in the trenches of where people are actually working.  And you might get a better sense of what’s really going on in your company.  That’s the picture of Jesus here.  He was the original MBWA.  The manager, the leader, walking around, up and down the aisles and in and out of the rows and watching and listening.  Paying attention to everything we do in His church.  He’s the royal priest.  In New Testament language, He’s the head of the Church.  Don’t ever say this is Ron Jones’ church, you know, or some other pastor’s name.  It doesn’t belong to me.  It doesn't belong to you.  Jesus is the head of the church.  He is the royal king priest, and He has ultimate authority in this place.

 

0:15:18.6

Here is the second picture that John gives us of Jesus as he continues on.  Not only is He a royal priest, He’s also an ancient sage.  Verse 14, “The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow.”  This has maybe given rise to kind of the false picture that people have of God as kind of that doting old grandfather rocking in the sky.  Don’t be confused by that earthly image when you come across something like this, that his hair was like white wool, like snow.  We don’t value age in our culture like the Bible values age.  You know, it’s a youth culture, right?  You kind of figured that out when you hit your 40s and 50s and you’re looking for a job.  And the job goes to somebody younger.  People in Hollywood figure this out too.  I hear actresses saying, you know, “I got to a certain age, and I stopped getting the roles that I got when I was younger.”  Or I was watching the winter Olympics not too long ago.  And there was a skier named Bode, and he was a downhill skier.  And, you know, had been to many Olympics before.  But they were talking about how now he was over the hill.  And I think he was 32 years old.  You got to be…I mean, is that over the hill now?  But, you know, whatever it is.  In athletics or, you know, Hollywood or just our general culture, we’re a youth culture.  And then you read something like this.  His hairs of his head were white like white wool.  Oh, yeah, that’s that doting old grandfather in the sky who’s just know decrepit and says, “Oh, boys will be boys, won’t they.”  Oh, no.  Oh, no.  One of the reasons we fear aging is because we fear the loss of intellectual and physical capacity.  And that’s happens to us in our sinful, fallen state, right?  You know, the minute we were born, we start to die.  And we reach that age where our bodies don’t work as well and our minds don’t work as well.  We don’t see as well as we used to.  When it comes to the  Ancient of Days or to this one who’s hair is as white as wool, this ancient sage, there’s not an iota of intellectual, physical or spiritual capacity that’s lost.  Not at all.  And these people who want to suggest today that God is learning and growing, He’s evolving…that’s hogwash.  He’s never had to learn a thing.  He’s an expert in quantum physics and in agriculture all at the same time.  And you name the area of study that you’ve spent years in school trying to master and become the best in your industry.  He knows it better than you do or anybody else in your industry or a collection of bright minds out there.  And He knows every industry upside down and backwards.  He doesn't evolve.  He has perfect knowledge, intellect, capacity, and yeah, that wisdom, you know, that gray hair that we’re always trying to cover up.  I remember years ago, my dad, as he was getting a little bit gray,  you know, tried to put a little bit of the men’s stuff, that color stuff.  And his mustache turned green.  So, you know, that’s kind of the way we are.  We’re just…we don’t want age to hit us, right?  But in the Bible…here’s what the Bible says about age.  Proverbs 16:31, “A white head is a crown of glory.”  Well, if that’s true, then the Ancient of Days must be full of all kinds of glory, right?  Leviticus 19:32, “You will rise up before the white head and honor the face of the old man, and you shall fear your God.  I am the Lord.”  (0:19:00.0) He is an ancient sage.  He looks the part of wisdom and experience without any loss of capacity.  This is the God of the Bible and this is Jesus.  You’ll never find the Ancient of Days sitting in a wheelchair or checking into an assisted living center.  Oh, no.  He is ancient in every sense that we might understand beyond time and eternity without the shrinking of capacity.

 

0:19:31.5

Number three, He is passionate, passionate and full of conviction.  Look at this in verses 14 and 15.  “His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze…his face was like the sun shining in full strength.”  Little anatomy lesson here.  He goes from His eyes to His feet to His face.  And notice His eyes.  You look into somebody’s eyes, you might be looking into their soul, some people say.  (0:20:00.0) The eyes say everything.  You meet somebody that has shifty eyes, you know, you don’t trust them very much, do you?  You know, I watch these guys interviewed on television sometimes and they’re asked a hard question, and their eyes immediately go down.  That tells me they aren’t very comfortable with the answer, right?  We watch the eyes.  It’s one thing to have a, you know, passion in your belly.  It’s another thing to have some fire in your eyes.  And that’s what you see when you look in Jesus’s eyes.  John says His eyes are like a flame of fire.  There’s passion in those eyes.  There’s conviction in those eyes.  There are two kinds of people in this life.  There are firefighters and fire-lighters.  You know what a firefighter is?  That’s somebody who comes along and throws cold water on your passion.  Stay away from firefighters.  A fire-lighter is somebody who comes alongside you and fuels your passion.  You want to know who the biggest fire-lighter in the universe is?  It’s Jesus, whose eyes are full of fire and passion.  And you get close to Him and you get filled with His Holy Spirit, you will exude the passion for all the right things and for the things for which He created you.  You find that you’re losing your passion?  You’re taking your eyes off of Jesus, whose eyes are full of passion.  And there’s conviction there as well.  There is conviction.  “His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were burnished bronze.”  A picture of conviction.  You know, G.K. Chesterton once said, “Tolerance is the virtue of the person without convictions.”  Why do I say Jesus is a person of convictions?  Because he said, “I am the truth.”  He had no confusion in His mind at all about matters of truth.  He didn’t say, “Well, you know, your truth is your truth.  Truth is relative to the individual, whatever you want to make that to be.”  Hogwash.  He says, “I am the truth, and I am the way, and I am the life.  And no man comes to the Father but by Me.”  Tolerance is the virtue of those who have no convictions.  And yet Jesus was full of passion and conviction, yet He did it with a sunshiny smile on His face.  Look in verse 15.  “His face was like the sun shining in full strength.”  That’s the beauty of Jesus who was full of grace and truth at the same time.  You want to know how to be full of passion and conviction about something without being mean-spirited in a way that you have the smile of the sunshine on your countenance and in your face?  Well, that’s the picture of Jesus.  Full of passion, full of conviction, but with a sunshine smile on His face.  Try saying that three times.

 

0:22:56.9

So He’s passionate and full of conviction.  Fourthly, John paints yet another picture here.  And I would say it this way, that He’s the voice of authority.  Revelation 1:15-16.  His voice was like the roar of many waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword.”  Interesting, isn’t it?  His voice.  He goes from His eyes and His feet and His face now to His voice.  There’s twice in John 1 where John mentions, “I heard the voice of God.  First it sounded like a trumpet and it made me turn around and look and see who it was.  And it was the one like a son of man who was standing in the midst of the seven lampstands.”  Now he hears the voice of God, and it’s the sound, it’s the roar of many waters.  I’ve never been to Niagara Falls, but I’m told that the sound of the roaring waters and the vibration it creates makes your heart race a little bit more.    I don’t know, maybe it’s the romantic spot too.  I don’t know what it is, but there is something about the sound and the roar of many waters.  It’s a voice of authority.  Oh, we know elsewhere from scripture that God can sometimes speak in a still, small voice.  But in Revelation He speaks with the sound of a trumpet and with the roar of many waters.  He is the voice of authority.  Why do I say authority?  Because John goes on to say, “From his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword.”  What’s this two-edged sword all about?  Again, we don’t have to speculate.  We don’t have to, you know, leave it in the realm of mystery.  If we know our Bibles well, we got to Hebrews 4:12, which says, “The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.”  We could also go to Ephesians 6, which calls the sword of the Spirit the Word of God.  So out of this voice of roaring waters, this sound of the roar of waters comes a sharp, two-edged sword.  Jesus is the voice of authority as He speaks His Word to us.

 

0:25:28.1

Now, I’m concerned that there are a lot of voices in our culture today that are trying to speak and get our attention.  I mean, just the 24 hours news chatter, the social media chatter.  I mean, we’ve got these smart phones, the dumb phones, the everything phones that are beeping at us and chirping at us and trying to get our…somebody is trying to speak to us somewhere literally 24 hours a day.  I mean, there are times that I forgot to turn off my phone at night.  And at 3:30 in the morning, “bing, bing, bing bing”.  Wakes me up.  Who in the world is trying?  You know, you’ve been there before.  And if we’re not careful, all of these clamoring voices will drown out the one voice of authority we should be listening to, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ.  We’d all love the Lord to speak to us in a loud voice to get our attention.  More often than not, He speaks in a still, small voice, doesn’t He?  Right through the pages of His word, which means we’ve got to be in His Word if we really want to hear the voice of God and to hear that voice of authority in our lives.

 

0:26:37.7

And then in verse 16, right in the midst of all that, John says, “And in his right hand he held seven stars.”  Another picture of His authority, but it introduces us to the mystery, the mystery of the seven stars.  And like this mystery, again, we don’t have to speculate.  We don’t have to guess.  Jesus tells us.  He solves the mystery.  He says in verse 20, “As for the mystery of the seven stars, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.”  Well, that answered a question in one sense, but it also introduced another one.  And that is, what does He mean by the angels of the seven churches?  Does that suggest that every church has an angel assigned to them, kind of like a guardian angel of a church?  Some people go that direction in their interpretation.  Others say that the word aggelos, which is translated “angels”, can also be translated “messengers” and that this is really speaking of either the prophets or, let’s just say, the pastors of those churches.  Because John records for us in Revelation 2 and 3 seven actual letters written to seven actual churches in physical places 2000 years ago.  It would be reasonable to suggest that everyone that was introduced to the angel or the messenger of the church, that they were directed to the pastors.  And this picture of Jesus holding the seven stars, which are the angels or messengers or pastors to those churches, in His right hand is a picture of Him having authority, not only over His Church, but anybody He puts in leadership in those churches.  That’s again why I say don’t ever say this is Ron Jones’ church.  No, it’s not.  I’m just an under-shepherd here.  I report to the head of the church.  I’m one of those guys He has in the palm of His hand.  He has authority over me just as He has authority over His church.  He said, “I will build my church.”  Not, “You will build my church,” or, “I will build your church.”  Pay attention to those personal pronouns.  “I will build my church,” Jesus says.  He is the head of the church.  He is the voice of authority.  And if we ever mess that up, you read on in some of these letters to the seven churches.  The threat is, “You mess this up, I might take away your lampstand, your place of influence in a community.”  You go to western Turkey today and visit the sites of all the seven churches.  Not a one of them exist today.  It’s rocks and rubble and a mosque on the top of it.  Now, sometimes that’s the cycle of a church.  A local congregation might last about 70 years, not because they were doing bad things.  Or because they drifted away from the one true voice, and it’s possible that God says, “I’m removing your lampstand.  I’m removing your lampstand.”  Because the Church is to be a voice of influence in the culture.  Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”  And then He turned to His disciples and said, “You are the light of the world, and you’re the salt of the earth.”  We’re to shine the gospel light and to be a place and people of influence in a culture.  And if we don’t fulfill that purpose, He shuts it down in one way or another.  That’s a very real threat that we find in the pages of these letters to the churches.

 

0:30:15.9

There’s one final thing, a picture that John gives to Jesus.  And that is of Jesus as a comforting presence.  Let’s look in verses 17 and 18.  “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.  But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one.  I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.’”  Don’t you love the picture here?  This is very common in scripture.  John and others who came into the presence of the Lord—sometimes it was just an angel that caused this—but John falls down like a dead man, worshiping the Lord.  And that’s when Jesus with His right hand just reaches out, puts a hand on John’s shoulder and says two very comforting words.  He says, “Fear not.”  Fear not.  Some of you need to hear those words today.  Some of you got some news earlier this week that you didn’t expect, and the fear that came to your heart eclipsed all the faith that you had.  And you need to hear the words “fear not” from the One is a royal priest, an ancient sage, one who is full of passion and conviction, one who is the voice of authority and has it all under control.  Puts His hand on your shoulder in the middle of the night when it’s dark and you're scared, and He says, “Fear not.”  And why fear not?  “Because I am the living one,” Jesus says.  “I died.”  That’s the greatest thing we fear, isn’t it?  The fear of death.  He says, “I’ve been there.  And I died.  But now I’m the living One.  I live forevermore.  I’ve conquered.  I’ve conquered the greatest fear you could possibly have, the fear of death.”  And then He goes on to say—get this—“I have the keys of Death and Hades.”  You know, Jesus carries around two sets of keys with Him.  This is kind of an interesting study in the Bible.  Matthew 16.  He said to the disciples, “I will build my church.  The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  And He says, “And I give you the keys of the kingdom.”  Handed them to Peter and to the disciples and to leaders of the Church in every generation.  That’s one set of keys, the keys of the kingdom.  It suggests that we go in His name and in His authority in some way as His representatives.  But then He talks about the keys of Death and Hades.  I go into this in detail in my book Mysteries of the Afterlife, but Hades is the temporary holding place for departed spirits.  What happens at death?  The spirit separates from the body and unbelievers go to Hades, not technically hell.  Nobody is technically in hell today.  They’re in Hades, in a  place of  unimaginable torment, awaiting the day that this Jesus we’re getting introduced to in the book of Revelation will take both death and Hades at a time known as the Great White Throne Judgment.  Now I’m in Revelation 20, where all unbelievers are standing before the great throne of God.  And Jesus says, “That’s when I take both Death and Hades and inhabitants of them and cast them into the lake of fire,” which is a synonymous term to hell itself.  He holds the keys to that.  There are no duplicate keys.  Nobody else has an extra one laying around somewhere.  He alone has the power and the authority.  He holds those keys.  For John at this moment, it was a source of comfort, a comforting presence.  “John, don’t fear.  Don’t fear.  You don’t even have to fear death.  I overcame that.  I’m alive forevermore, and I’ve got the keys.  I’ve got the keys to your future.  I’ve got the key to your eternal destination.  You place your faith and trust in me, you’ve haven’t got a thing to worry about because I hold the key.  You reject me, I also hold the key.  And one day I’m gonna take Death and Hades, cast it all into the lake of fire, and I’m done with it.”  It’s a sobering, sobering moment.

 

0:34:34.1

But we’re getting ready to launch into, oh yeah, some of those juicier parts.  We’ll get there in a few weeks.  We’ve got a little bit more groundwork to do to talk about those events in Bible prophecy as we race towards the end of the age.  Boy, before we get to that, we need a vision of Jesus, do we not?  And I’m so glad for Revelation 1 for that very reason.  To see Him for who He really is, even as He unpacks a few of the mysteries and solves them for us.  All of the mysteries of life and death are found in Jesus Christ—mysteries of the afterlife; even mysteries of the apocalypse.  Let’s pray together.

 

0:35:17.7

Father, thank You so much for Your Word, for giving it to us, for making it plain for us to understand, even though we plow through and it’s a lot of hard work to study and to learn.  Lord, the most important part is taking what we have learned and putting it into practice.  Help us to carry this vision of Jesus as He really is.  That royal priest, that ancient sage, that One who is full passion and conviction, the singular voice of authority, and, yes, a comforting presence.  Lord, customize that and apply that specifically to our lives.  And do that individually and to families.  Help us not to lose sight of who Jesus really is.  And for those that are here today and they’ve never trusted Him as their savior…maybe they’re still locked in a Sunday school world or, worse yet, in a skeptics world, and they have a picture of Jesus, certainly, that is far, far away from how You have revealed Him.  Lord, I pray that Your Word would align their understanding of who Jesus is and bring them to faith in Christ today.  And we pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.

 

0:36:50.8

“Every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

Romans 8:28 MSG