Intro / Review:
who, what, where, when, why, and how
who, where, why, how, when, what
(Rev 1:9)
- Who:
- Where:
- Why:
(Rev 1:10-11)
- How:
- When:
- What:
The Glory of Christ (Revelation 1:9-20):
- Christ is Present in His Church (Rev 1:12-13a)
- Christ is Priest of His Church (Rev 1:13b)
- Christ is Powerful in His Church (Rev 1:14-16)
- Christ is Protector in His Church (Rev 1:16-20)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:38-00:42
Open up your Bibles with me to the book of Revelation 1.
00:45-00:46
Revelation 1.
00:49-00:53
Last year, my friend Matt and I went to a concert.
00:54-00:57
You know Matt, he's the drummer, blond guy with the fin on his head.
00:58-01:04
We went to a concert that we wanted to check out, and Big Brother actually gave us tickets for the concert.
01:05-02:02
We went to this concert and had a blast didn't we Matt had a great time But something happened that night that really kind of took us both Caught us both off guard the band actually had brought somebody else up on stage to sing a song and It was not good Right. I mean it was it was just not good and and Matt and I were, we were, where we were, we were up in the lawn so you know we couldn't really like make out faces, you know what I mean? So we couldn't, it just looked like some really, it wasn't a, it wasn't a child, it looked, you know, the person was like adult size, and Matt and I were up there on the lawn and we're like, why would they bring that guy up to sing because he's obviously not a singer, like why would they do that? He was, he was no good, and then we got talking and we said, "You know what?
02:03-02:27
I wonder if it was like some sort of a make a wish type thing, like maybe the only thing this guy's ever wanted was to get up and sing and this band was gracious enough to bring him up on stage and let him sing." And I kid you not, we were crying.
02:28-02:33
We're like, that is the sweetest thing we've ever heard.
02:33-02:39
We're like, that is so nice of them to let them have this guy come up on stage and sing.
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And we, two grown men, standing on the lawn, crying at this incredible act of compassion that our minds obviously put together from this scenario.
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Then the next day, we found out who the guy was on stage with the band.
03:01-03:01
Mayor Bill Peduto.
03:07-03:08
Yeah, that's about what I thought too.
03:11-03:12
That is an absolutely true story.
03:14-03:22
You see, we were, Matt and I, we were in the presence of the mayor and we didn't even know it.
03:24-03:35
Well, in today's passage, we're going to see that John finds himself in the presence of another famous authority, the God of the universe, and there was absolutely no doubt.
03:36-03:36
There's no doubt.
03:38-03:39
Zero doubt.
03:40-03:42
In whose presence John was standing.
03:43-03:48
Last week, if you joined us, we kicked off Revelation, and the verses one through eight, if you missed it, that's the preview.
03:49-03:50
That was last week's message.
03:50-03:59
If you've ever gone to the theater and seen a movie trailer, you know, in a world where, Like, that's verses 1-8, giving us a preview of everything that's coming.
04:00-04:07
And John, in this passage we're looking at today, is setting the stage for us for the action that's coming.
04:07-04:14
He's introducing himself and what prompted - or we should say who prompted - the writing of Revelation.
04:16-04:19
And remember, we learned this clear back in elementary school.
04:19-04:22
Good journalism answers six questions, right?
04:23-04:25
the six questions, good journalism answers.
04:25-04:32
Who, say it with me, what, where, when, why, and how.
04:32-04:34
Right, you guys remember that.
04:34-04:39
Well, that's exactly what we see in verses nine through 11 except John's order is a little different.
04:39-04:41
He has them in this order.
04:41-04:45
He has who, where, why, how, when, what, all right?
04:46-04:47
So let's look at these verses.
04:47-04:49
This is John sort of setting the stage for us.
04:50-05:09
Verse nine, "I, John, your brother and partner and the tribulation, and the kingdom, and the patient endurance that are in Jesus was on the island called Patmos on account of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus." We'll stop right there.
05:09-05:12
In this one verse, John gives us who, where, and why.
05:12-05:12
Okay, who?
05:13-05:14
It's John.
05:15-05:17
This is the third time he mentions himself by name.
05:18-05:20
Interestingly, he doesn't even do that in the Gospels.
05:22-05:38
that he writes, but he does it here three times. Where? He says he's on the island that is called Patmos. That was an island that the Romans used as a prison. It was in the Aegean Sea. It was this island that the prisoners would be sent.
05:41-05:50
Why was he there? That's the why. For the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. That's John's crime. His crime was he was a member of an illegal religion.
05:51-05:54
So look at verses 10-11, we're going to see how, when, and what.
05:56-06:14
He says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, 'Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.'" Yeah.
06:16-06:17
Okay, so how?
06:17-06:18
That's in the Spirit.
06:19-06:22
Meaning this wasn't a dream that John had.
06:22-06:26
Everything that we're going to see here in Revelation is a supernatural experience.
06:27-06:28
We talked a little bit about that last week.
06:29-06:30
He was in the Spirit.
06:30-06:33
He was having a time of worship and fellowship with the Lord.
06:35-06:36
When?
06:37-06:38
It was on the Lord's Day.
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That's Sunday.
06:39-06:41
That's the day celebrated by Christians.
06:42-07:10
the day that we are meeting because that's the day that Jesus Christ resurrected. Then what? What is the what? He says, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches." These seven churches are in Asia Minor, what we today call Turkey, and these churches listed here appear in order. If you go So clockwise, these churches are listed in order.
07:11-07:14
And again, we talked about this last week in the preview.
07:15-07:18
This is really a message for all churches, right?
07:18-07:27
This was directed towards these seven, but we understand when the Bible is addressing a message to a church, it's for all churches, right?
07:27-07:37
The same reason we read Colossians and Thessalonians and Ephesians, you know, those were written to other churches, but we take them as God's Word for us.
07:37-07:39
Same with the book of Revelation.
07:40-07:48
And these churches that are listed, we're going to see typify the kinds of churches that exist in any age.
07:51-07:55
John says he hears a loud voice like a trumpet.
07:56-07:58
Underline the word "like" in your Bible.
07:58-08:02
John is doing his best to describe what he sees and hears.
08:02-08:08
Okay, that word "like" you're going to see that about 70 times in Revelation.
08:09-08:09
Okay?
08:10-08:28
There's times that John's just saying, "I see it and it looks like, it sounds like..." He's doing the best that he can to communicate, obviously under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but you're going to see that word "like" come up a lot.
08:29-08:30
So John sets the scene.
08:32-08:35
for what was going on in his life when his world was suddenly rocked.
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Okay, Lord's Day, in the Spirit, on Patmos.
08:40-08:41
Let me ask you a question.
08:43-08:44
What do you think Jesus looked like?
08:47-09:02
When He was on His earthly ministry, the three years that Jesus walked among us and fed multitudes and healed the sick and leading up to His crucifixion, And what do you think Jesus looked like during those three years?
09:05-09:11
You know, there have been countless attempts to try to capture an image of what Jesus looked like.
09:11-09:14
And you can get on Google and look at a bunch of these yourself.
09:15-09:17
This one might be the most famous.
09:17-09:19
How many people have seen this picture of Jesus?
09:19-09:28
Okay, some people are like, "This is what Jesus looked like." Some people are like, "This is what Jesus looked like." That's more of a scientific modeling scale.
09:28-09:33
They're like based on who knows what kind of criteria they amassed for that.
09:33-09:36
But they're like, "Jesus looked like that." And what else do we have?
09:37-09:42
Some people say, "Well, Jesus looked like that." Very American. Okay?
09:44-09:47
Okay, and some people are like, "No, Jesus looked like that.
09:47-09:56
He had that red sweater with the heart on it and stuff." He might have, I don't know.
09:58-10:00
And then here's my favorite image of Jesus.
10:01-10:03
I saw Jesus in my toast.
10:05-10:14
And there was somebody that was making breakfast, and they were like, "Wow, Jesus is in my toast." I mean, obviously, right? That's what he looked like.
10:17-10:20
Well, here's something that may surprise you.
10:21-10:25
Do you know there's not one word of description in the Bible about what Jesus looked like during His earthly ministry.
10:27-10:30
Not one word. Not one word.
10:30-10:35
The only thing we know about His appearance is that He looked like every other Jewish man.
10:37-10:40
There was nothing outstanding about Jesus' appearance.
10:40-10:48
Like, "Well, how can you say that?" Well, the Bible says, Isaiah 53, there's nothing about His appearance that would draw people to Him.
10:48-10:52
And also, interestingly, You remember when Judas betrayed Jesus.
10:54-10:58
Judas had to identify Jesus in the garden by kissing Him.
10:58-10:59
Why did he have to do that?
11:00-11:04
Because Jesus was with a bunch of other Jewish guys, and they didn't know which was which.
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And Judas was like, "Well, I know them well enough.
11:06-11:15
I know which one is Jesus." So Jesus, we don't know what He looked like during His earthly ministry.
11:15-11:23
But, but, but here in this passage, we get a full description of what Jesus looks like now.
11:25-11:32
We get a full description in this passage of what Jesus looks like as you and I are going to see Him someday.
11:33-11:47
And the things in this vision reveal some things about Jesus, specifically His relation to the church. His ministry to the church.
11:47-11:49
We're going to talk about that in chapters 2 and 3.
11:50-12:02
But I want you to jot some things down of what this image of Christ means, what it communicates to us regarding Jesus Christ and His church. Number one, Christ is present in His church.
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Look at verses 12 and the first part of 13.
12:09-12:13
So John sets the stage, you know, he did the who, what, where, when, why, how, and all that.
12:13-12:31
Then he hears this voice, "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." Stop there, the lamps are symbolic of the church.
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Like, well, how do you know that?
12:33-12:33
Jump down to verse 20.
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It says, "As for the mystery of the seven stars you saw in my right hand," we'll get to that in a second, "and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
12:47-12:51
Okay, so we know that these lamps represent these seven churches.
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Why are lamps used as the representation of churches?
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Because the church is called to be the light of the world.
13:00-13:02
Right, Jesus shining his light.
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We saw that in verse, we will see that rather in verse 16, where Jesus is described, His face was like the sun shining in full strength.
13:11-13:16
Philippians 2 talks about how the church is to radiate the glory of Christ.
13:16-13:19
We don't generate it, but we sure reflect it, right?
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So a lamp is an appropriate picture of the church.
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But here's what I want you to see.
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Don't get caught up in the fact that they're made out of gold, or that they were lamps.
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Here's the thing I really want you to catch here.
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Look at verse 13.
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Jesus is said to be in the midst of the lampstands.
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I want you to notice that Jesus was standing in the midst of the lampstands.
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He was standing in the middle of His churches.
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Why are we emphasizing that, Pastor Jeff? I'll tell you why.
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Because we live in a day, more and more, that people want to downplay the role of the church.
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I hear this all the time.
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People say, "I don't need to go to church.
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I don't need to belong to a church." I've heard people say this, "Church for me is when I'm out in my fishing boat.
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That's church for me." You know, church for me is when I'm at home in my living room watching Charles Stanley.
14:28-14:33
Revelation here does not say that Jesus is standing in the midst of your fishing boat.
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Nor does it say that Jesus is standing in the midst of your living room.
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I am not saying that He isn't with you wherever you are.
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What I am saying is this.
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Your living room, your fishing boat, your whatever, is not a substitute for the church.
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I love the church because Jesus loves the church.
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I am part of a church because Jesus is said to be standing in the midst of His church.
15:12-15:14
I want to be where He's working, right?
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And the place the Bible says that Jesus Christ is working is the what?
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The church.
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So Jesus is present in His church.
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Number two, Christ is priest of His church.
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Look at verse 13.
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Again, second part.
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It says, "clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around His chest." This robe was worn by the Old Testament high priests.
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You know, the word here is the same word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.
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It's the robe the high priest wore.
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And we're sure about that, because it was also the sash that the high priest wore.
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And this is so significant, and I want you to listen very closely to this.
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When we talk about a priest, especially in our geographic area here, we think of the leader of the church.
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We think of the guy who is the head of that church that we confess our sins to.
16:36-16:45
That we get in the little phone booth, and the priest is on the other side, And his job, according to the church's doctrine, is to mediate between you and God.
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"You tell me your sins, and I will mediate between you and God." And that priest, according to the church, has the power to grant or to withhold forgiveness.
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He has that power, according to that church.
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And listen, I know that that is a sacred cow in this area.
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But you have to know that that concept is completely unbiblical.
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It is completely unbiblical that a man is the mediator between you and God, and He grants and withholds forgiveness.
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That is a completely unbiblical concept.
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The Bible says all Christians are a royal priesthood, And there is one High Priest who mediates for us, Jesus Christ.
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Jot this down, 1 Timothy 2.5 Jesus Christ is the only priest of the church.
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High Priest.
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See, this church, we have pastors and elders and shepherds.
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And again, the Bible says that all believers are a nation of royal priesthood, but this idea that the leader of the church is this special guy That is unbiblical.
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And this is so significant because as high priests, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is interceding for us.
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What does that look like?
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That Jesus Christ is interceding for us?
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The picture that the Bible gives is like a courtroom picture, right?
18:19-18:22
Romans 8 type stuff?
18:24-18:28
"Who will bring a charge against God's elect?" What does that look like?
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You know, Satan is called the accuser of the brethren.
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According to Revelation 12.10, we'll get there. Not today, but we'll get there.
18:39-18:43
So in God's courtroom, it's like God the Father is the judge, right?
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And Satan is the prosecuting attorney.
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He's the accuser.
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And Satan is standing before God saying, "She's no good.
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Do you know the wicked things that she's done?
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She's a rotten person. And look at the evil that she's done.
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And you see, Jesus is your defense attorney.
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Jesus says, "I died for her." Yes, what he's saying is true, but I died for her.
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She is one of mine now.
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And because she received my death on the cross as payment for her sins, her payment is made in full.
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That's what it means that Jesus Christ is interceding for us.
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It means so much more than that.
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But how awesome is it to think that right now, at the right hand of God, Jesus Christ is sticking up for you.
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Jesus Christ is praying for you, because He's our High Priest.
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So John starts by describing Jesus' clothes.
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He's the High Priest.
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Then he moves on to his person.
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He's got this down, "Christ is powerful in His church." You see Christ is present in his church, He's standing in the midst, He's priest of His church, He's got the robes and the sash.
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I'm just going to read these couple of verses here and understand that every single one of these things could be a sermon.
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That's not our intention here.
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We're going to just bask in the awesomeness that is Jesus Christ.
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Look at verse 14.
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"The hairs of His head were white, like white wool, like snow.
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His eyes were like a flame of fire.
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His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters." Stop there.
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(motor running)
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All right, thank you.
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That is the best representation that John could give us to describe the awesomeness of the voice of Jesus Christ.
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Like the roar of many waters.
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The head and the hair is a reference to Daniel 7.
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Speaking to His majesty and His wisdom.
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In case if you're sitting here today and you have white hair, don't let those commercials tell you you need to darken it.
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You say, "I've got white hair like Jesus." You don't have eyes like Jesus, though.
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It says His eyes were like fire, penetrating to the depths of His church.
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Hebrews 4.13 says, "Nothing is hidden from His sight.
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All are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account." It says His feet were like burnished bronze.
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Last time the world saw Jesus, They threw a nail through those feet.
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How do they look now?
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Burnished bronze indicates that now they're fitted to trample His enemies.
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You know, the Bible says that's what Jesus is going to do in Isaiah 63 and some other places.
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His voice like the roar of waters.
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The powerful voice of authority that we heard a sampling of.
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That must have sounded like the John.
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All of these things speak to His awesome power.
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And finally, I'll jot this down, Christ is the protector of His church.
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Christ is the protector of His church.
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Look at verse 16.
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It says, "In His right hand He held seven stars.
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From His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword." I already saw this, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength.
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Look down at verse 20.
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Again, as for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
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Christ is the protector of the church.
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I want you to see the Bible says that Jesus Christ, In his right hand he held seven stars.
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The churches are depicted as being held in Jesus' hand.
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I remember when I was, gosh, five or six years old, Dad took me to my first wrestling match.
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Big time pro wrestling. Remember this?
23:59-24:03
Of course you remember because Darren made me a sign.
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You know, you take the signs to antagonize the bad guys.
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And I remember being five years old, that was my first one, just mesmerized by all of this.
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You're like, "You know that stuff's fake, right? I was five, all right?" But I remember, I don't remember very much about that night, but I do remember this.
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The bad guy came out to whom my sign was directed.
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And as usual, he's playing it up, and he's screaming, and he's kicking the ropes, and he's acting all...
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And a little five-year-old me, I turned to dad and I said, "Dad, do you think he saw my sign?" And you know what dad said.
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Dad was like, "I'm sure he saw your sign." And I'm sure in dad's mind, he was thinking, that's what he wants to hear.
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As soon as dad said that, I was terrified.
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I thought this guy was going to come after me.
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And so I'm like, "Do you think he saw my sign?" And dad's like, "Oh, I'm sure he did." I'm like, "Ahh!" "Ahhh!" So what I did, when Dad said that, I remember this so clear.
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I was standing on Dad's left side, and I remember I leaned in to his hip, and I took his hand like this, and I just stood there.
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And I'm telling you that when I did that, I wasn't scared of nothing.
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I wasn't scared of that guy.
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I wasn't scared if they would have brought out the whole locker room I'm full of these gorillas, because where was I?
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I was in my dad's hand.
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And if you can grasp just a picture, just a thought of what it means in church, you are in the hand of Jesus Christ.
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How comforting to know we're not floundering our way through, trying to stumble our way, hoping that we might get lucky and do something right.
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We're all defenseless and vulnerable out here.
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The Bible says we're in the hand of Jesus Christ.
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That's protection.
26:10-26:17
He says the seven stars are, verse 20, He says they're the angels of the seven churches.
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Revelation chapters 2 and 3, the letters to these churches are all addressed to the angel of the church in.
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And there's a lot of debate over what is meant by the angels of the churches.
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That really boils down to two main sides, right?
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Angel of the churches, does angel mean like an actual angel, angelic, heavenly being of the church, or does angel mean like the pastor of the church?
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And I'm not going to waste a lot of time on that, but I do want to explain both sides of the argument since we'll be talking about this a lot over the next couple of months.
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So here's both sides of the argument. Are you ready?
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Here's one side.
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Angel does not refer to heavenly beings, okay?
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But messengers, the words translated messengers really, and the pastors of the churches are what this is talking about.
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You know, how do we know that?
27:21-27:53
Well, angels are not depicted in the New Testament as church leaders, nor do angels need to repent like a lot of these letters say Revelation 2 and 3. Christ mediates his rule through church leaders. The Bible is so clear on that. He doesn't do it through angels. And in fact, this word is translated in other places in the New Testament to just mean messengers or pastors like Luke chapter 7, Luke chapter 9, James chapter 2. So the word angel here really just means messenger. That's one side of the argument.
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Do you want to hear the other? Here's the other side.
27:57-28:02
Look, if Jesus meant pastor, why didn't He just say pastor? Right?
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Why did Jesus say angel if He didn't mean angel?
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I mean, angels everywhere else in Revelation.
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And it's a lot. Everywhere else in Revelation, angel means angel.
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It's literal, straightforward.
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I understand that's what you said last week, right, Pastor Jeff?
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So, everywhere else that angels are talked about in Revelation, they're actually just heavenly being angels, straightforward understanding.
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So what this is teaching is, every true church has an angel assigned for guidance and for oversight.
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In fact, angels are often seen involved with the church.
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Hebrews 1, 1 Timothy 5.
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I have a whole list, almost as long as my arm, of verses in the New Testament to talk about angels' involvement with the church.
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So it's talking about literal angels.
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Those are the two arguments.
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And right now you're saying, "All right, which is it?" You ready?
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Write this down.
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It doesn't matter.
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It doesn't matter.
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What do you mean it doesn't matter?
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We can get so preoccupied with the messenger that we miss the message.
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It would be like if my wife Erin was like, "Hey, Darren called for you, and he left a very important message for you." I'm like, "Oh, did he?" She goes, "Yeah, Darren said this is really important." He said, "I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait And she's like, "I don't know what kind of phone he has, but he said this message..." No, hang on, Aaron.
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Until you explain to me whether he used an Android or an Apple product, I don't want to hear what the message was that he communicated.
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Now, wouldn't that be idiotic?
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It doesn't matter.
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It doesn't matter if he used a rotary phone.
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The means of the message isn't the important thing.
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The message is the important thing.
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Right?
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So as we get into Revelation 2 and 3, this is going to come up to the angel and the church, and to the angel and church, whatever.
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Whatever.
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Does angel mean pastor?
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Does angel mean actual angel?
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It just doesn't matter.
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But I will say this, here's where it does matter.
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If you hold the view If this word for angel actually means pastor, then you may refer to me as an angel.
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And I mean that.
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It says that from Jesus' mouth, verse 16, "came a sharp two-edged sword." That's the Word of God.
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The Word of God.
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Hebrews 4.12.
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Think about what that Word has done just by speaking.
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That Word created the world, didn't it?
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We're going to see in Revelation that that Word's going to destroy His enemies.
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Chapter 19, verse 15.
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And in this context here, he's saying it's the Word that protects His church.
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So we look at this vision of Christ, right?
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What do we say about that?
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What do you say about him?
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You know, when I read this passage, I can only really think about one thing.
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And that's this.
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The case can be made that during Jesus' earthly ministry, John was His BFF.
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Right?
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The case can be made for that.
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That John who wrote Revelation, the Gospel of John, 1, 2, and 3.
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The case can be made that John was Jesus' BFF.
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You're like, well, how can you say that?
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Here's why.
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One, John was one of the inner three disciples, right?
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John was the one who the Bible refers to as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
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John was the one who was leaning against Jesus during the Last Supper.
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So John spent a lot of time really close to Jesus during his earthly ministry.
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And at this point in Revelation, John had not seen Jesus in about 60 years.
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I want you to look at verse 17.
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Okay, reunion with your BFF.
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Look what happens.
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It says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead." That's how awesome Jesus is in this passage.
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John gets one look at Him, and is so overwhelmed by His majesty and by His glory, He just - boom! - collapses, passes out faints.
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He said, "I was like a dead man." Just like so many others in Scripture, right?
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Like Isaiah, Isaiah 6.
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He sees the Lord, "Woe is me!
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I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." Paul talks about this, right?
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When he met Christ, when you meet the glorified Christ, you will fall on your face.
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Even if you were his best friend.
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We see here Jesus comforting John as he experiences this awesome presence and he starts by identifying himself to John.
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Look at verse 17.
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Again, he says, "But he laid his right hand on me, saying, 'Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living One.
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I died.
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"Behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades." Christ says He has the keys of death and Hades.
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What's death and Hades?
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Well, the two terms really mean kind of the same thing.
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Death is like the condition, and Hades is the location.
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The Greek word for Hades is like the Hebrew word for Sheol.
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You see it a lot in the Old Testament.
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And it was sort of a generic term for the grave.
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lies, when I die and I'm put in the ground, Hades and Sheol were just sort of this idea of the grave. And Jesus here tells John, he says, "I have the keys for death in Hades." What does that mean?
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Well, you know, a lot of people, scientists, philosophers, they've tried to find the key of life and death and the key of immortality and Jesus said, "You're looking for the keys, huh?" He's like, "I got them.
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I own them.
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The keys are mine." So what's the picture of keys?
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Keys obviously are a picture of authority, right?
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Think about, for example, your workplace.
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When you get a job somewhere, maybe it's your job, maybe you have keys to the place in which you work.
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Keys are authority.
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It says, "Hey, we are entrusting you to be able to lock and unlock doors.
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We're trusting you to enable access and to lock people out if need be.
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for trusting you.
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And keys say, "I have authority here.
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I was given these, and I have the ability to open and shut doors." Jesus has the keys.
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He alone has authority over death.
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Jesus alone is sovereign, and He makes all determinations over life and death.
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Jesus said, "Whoever believes in Him will never die." And He has the authority to make sure that happens.
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So the vision concludes with verse 19, with the charge to John.
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Look at verse 19.
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Jesus says, "Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this." That's actually the outline of the book of Revelation.
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You take this verse, and it outlines the entire book.
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Jesus says, first of all, I want you to write down the things that you've seen.
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That's Him.
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That's what we just studied.
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Write down the things that you've seen.
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Then He says, write down the things that are.
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That's the state of the church.
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That's chapters 2 and 3.
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the way things are in the church right now.
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And he says, "And write down the things that will take place after this." That's chapters 4-22.
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All of the things taking place in the future, the end of the world, the creation of the new heaven and new earth.
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That's the outline of Revelation.
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Write down the things that you see, the things that are, and the things that will take place after this.
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And that is really good news, because do you know what that means?
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That means we are a third done with the book of Revelation right now.
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It seems like we just started. I know, right?
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Next week we're going to begin a seven-week series that's personally going to hit this church right between the eyes, because Jesus is going to give His progress report of the church.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank You that John wrote this down.
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I can't even wrap my brain around what this glimpse of Christ would look like.
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Just reading it on the page, this divinely inspired description, just reading it, brings us to a place of awe and worship.
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I can't imagine for John who saw it, who heard it.
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"But Father, we just want to come alongside John and stand in awe of who You are." We live in times of uncertainty here, Father, with the church, with just even general morality just decaying in our culture, resulting in the church becoming less and less and less popular.
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Persecution increasing abroad and here.
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I pray, Father, that our minds and our hearts are directed towards the glorious truth that the church is in Your hands.
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You are standing in the midst of Your church.
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You love your church. You died for your church.
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You rose from the dead for your church.
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And you're coming again to take your church back.
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In the meantime, Father, while we await your return, let this church be a place that not only cognitively acknowledges It is the truth that You are in our midst.
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Let us see with our eyes, Father, evidences, God at work type things that prove You are in fact working in our midst.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 1:9-20
Jesus is in the midst of His church (Rev 1:13). What does this say about His attitude of the church? What should this say about your attitude of the church?
What does it mean that the church is in Jesus’ right hand (Rev 1:16)? How does this comfort you?
Explain how Rev 1:19 serves as the outline for the whole book of Revelation.
Why do you think Revelation starts with Jesus personally appearing to John? What’s the significance?
(Bonus Question!) What exactly is meant by the “angels of the churches” (Rev 1:20)? Who do you (personally) think this refers to, an actual angel or the pastor? Does this ultimately make a difference in understanding Revelation? Why or why not?
BREAKOUT
Pray for HBC Pittsburgh North to be in awe of Jesus Christ, trusting His power and for the direction of the church.