Jeff Miller

November 4, 2018

Coming Soon!

To the Compromising Church: Use Discernment!

Jeff Miller

November 4, 2018

Coming Soon!

  
    Intro / Review:

  Progress Report: Pergamum (Rev 2:12-17):

The COMMENDATION. Holding Jesus' Name (Rev 2:13)
  
The CRITICISM. (Some) Holding false Teaching (Rev 2:14-15)
  
The CORRECTION. Repent (Rev 2:16)
    
The CALL. A new Name ! (Rev 2:17)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:38-00:45
Revelation 2, we're going to be picking up in verse 12 today.
00:45-00:57
"To the church in Pergamum." Several years ago, and to just give you an idea of how many years ago it was, I was reading the newspaper.
00:57-00:59
How many people remember what a newspaper is?
01:01-01:02
Yeah, that's how long ago this was.
01:03-01:26
And I was reading the newspaper, and I came across this giant ad in the newspaper, and I was associate pastor of a church in Butler, but I came across this ad for a church in Evans City, and it was "Texas Hold 'Em Poker!" With free draft beer and a cash bar.
01:29-01:29
At a church.
01:32-01:41
There's some times that I can just keep flipping through the paper and not let it bother me.
01:41-01:45
I don't know what it was, but that really bothered me for some reason.
01:45-01:49
That just like attached itself to my heart somehow.
01:50-01:51
And I was bothered by that.
01:51-02:00
I'm like, why is the church having this gambling and alcohol and it just, it really, really, really bothered me to the point that I'm like, I just, you know what?
02:00-02:03
I'm gonna call the church." And I called the church.
02:05-02:07
And I talked to the head guy at the church.
02:09-02:15
And I said, and I didn't tell him who I was, I just, you know, I said, "Look, I just had to call and ask you.
02:15-02:32
I saw in the newspaper that you were having a Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament with draft beer and a cash bar." And he's like, "Yeah?" I said, "Can you help me to understand Why a church would be doing that.
02:34-03:46
He goes, "Well, what do you mean?" I said, "I don't know, gambling in the church?" I said, "It just doesn't seem right to me." And he said, "Well, Jesus was a gambler." I'm like, "Oh? Do tell." I said, "What do you mean by that?" He said, "He came down to the earth, didn't he?" "Yeah." He said, "He died on a cross, didn't he?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "See? He's a gambler." And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't understand how those events make Jesus a gambler." And he said, and I quote, "If that doesn't make Jesus a gambler, then I don't know what the hell does." I said, "All right then." I said, "You know, when Jesus knew exactly every single thing that was going to happen to him before it happened, that's the very opposite of what it means to be a gambler.
03:47-03:50
But have a nice day." But I got off the phone with this guy.
03:53-03:55
I was still bothered, but in a different way.
03:55-03:56
You know what I mean?
03:57-04:01
Like, what is the mission of the church?
04:01-04:18
I mean, and this isn't an isolated incident, but the thing that really bothered me was how can the mission be so clear in the Bible, And how can so many people get so off track?
04:19-04:20
The mission is so clear, right?
04:21-04:24
Make disciples. That's the mission of this church.
04:24-04:30
We want to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission, which is, in short, make disciples.
04:31-04:33
You're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, that's brilliant. I didn't come up with it.
04:34-04:45
Jesus said that's what the church is to do. So why are we...?" Texas Hold 'Em, man. Free drafts. Cash bar.
04:45-04:46
How did we get there?
04:49-04:54
I think it's a little bit like the frog in the tea kettle or whatever, right?
04:56-04:57
I don't think you get there overnight.
04:59-05:00
I think you get there through compromise.
05:01-05:03
A little bit here, a little bit there.
05:03-05:33
It's "We're a Bible church!" sort of evolves into, "We don't want to be too Bible." And the next thing you know, you have people in the church that are teaching things that are "wrong -ish," which means wrong, but we want to call it "wrong -ish." And those people are never rebuked, they're never removed, and undiscerning people just buy it up because it sounds so good, and suddenly it spreads like a cancer.
05:34-05:41
And that is what was going on in the church in Pergamum that we're looking at today.
05:42-05:52
They were starting down the road of compromise because they were allowing some false teaching to reside in the church.
05:53-05:56
And that had a direct effect on the way that some lived.
05:58-06:15
So Revelation chapter 2, I'd just like to remind you, Revelation, we're going through this verse by verse. It was written by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, one of the apostles. He was exiled on Patmos for preaching the gospel. And Jesus shows up in all his glory and says, "John, I want you to write down three things. Write down what you see.
06:17-06:30
Write down the things that are. And write down the things that will take place after this. The things that John sees." That was Jesus. He wrote that down. That was chapter 1. So we're like a third done with Revelation. Jesus said, "Write down the things that are." That's the state of the church.
06:31-06:36
And specifically, there were seven churches in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey.
06:36-06:45
There were seven churches that Jesus had specific messages for, and these churches sort of typify the kinds of churches that exist throughout history, if the shoe fits, right?
06:46-06:48
We pay close attention to what Jesus says to the church.
06:48-06:54
And then the third part, Jesus said, "Write down the things that will take place after this." That's chapters 4-22. We'll be getting to that shortly.
06:55-07:01
So, where we are in Revelation now, 2 and 3, these are what I'm calling progress reports.
07:01-07:12
Jesus is looking at these churches and He's showing up and He's saying, "Okay, here's what you're doing right, and here's where you need to change." Just look at verse 12.
07:14-07:25
It says, "And to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword." Okay, so this is the next stop on the route.
07:25-07:30
These cities, these churches were all on a postal route.
07:30-07:36
So you had Ephesus, you had Smyrna, and the next stop on the route was Pergamum, which today is the Turkish city of Bergama.
07:38-07:44
Jesus identifies himself, as he does throughout these letters, using imagery that we see in chapter 1.
07:44-07:50
And here he identifies himself as him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
07:51-07:53
Now you know what the two-edged sword refers to, right?
07:53-07:55
What's a two-edged sword? If you have one, hold it up.
07:56-08:01
You got one? Yeah, that's right! The sword is the Word of God.
08:03-08:08
Hebrews 4.12, Ephesians 6.17, the Bible is so clear about that.
08:08-08:13
When Jesus talks about the sword, this is the sword that He is referring to.
08:15-08:22
You have to see that this description of Jesus is also the first, I guess you could say, ominous description.
08:23-08:26
You know, when Jesus says, "Hey, I got a message to you, by the way.
08:26-08:38
This is coming from the one with the sword." You know, you kind of read that in the same sense of, "Hey, this is a message from Dad with the belt." Some of you know what I'm talking about.
08:41-08:43
And I don't mean the belt that holds the pants up.
08:45-08:47
Let's look at the Progress Report, Pergamum.
08:48-08:49
First of all, the commendation.
08:50-08:52
There's a general formula, we talked about it the last couple of weeks.
08:53-09:03
Jesus starts by saying, "Here's what you're doing right." Here's a commendation, "They were holding Jesus' name." Look at verse 13 with me, church.
09:04-09:09
Jesus said, "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.
09:10-09:15
Yet, you hold fast My name, and you did not deny My faith.
09:16-09:24
Even in the days of Antipas, My faithful witness, "Who was killed among you, where Satan dwells." Stop there.
09:25-09:26
Let's break this down a little bit.
09:26-09:31
He says, "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is." Okay, well, what's Satan's throne?
09:34-09:44
Well, you do a little studying in history and archaeology, and there's a few possibilities here, and I'm going to tell you what the possibilities are, and then I'm going to tell you which one it is, alright?
09:45-09:52
So some people say, "What's this?" The throne of Satan refers to this altar to Zeus.
09:53-09:57
The altar to Zeus in Pergamum is one of the seven wonders of the world.
09:58-10:00
It was this horseshoe shaped altar.
10:00-10:03
It was 120 by 112 feet.
10:04-10:07
Just the podium of this altar was 18 feet high.
10:07-10:09
It was a massive structure.
10:09-10:11
You can get online and look at images if you want.
10:11-10:16
Just Google altar to Zeus Pergamum and you'll see some images.
10:17-10:19
And some people say, "Well, that's what Jesus was talking about.
10:20-10:29
"That is Satan's throne." And some people say, "Well, no, really what he's talking about is "the paganism." Now, you're gonna have to give me a second.
10:31-10:34
I've been working on pronouncing this name all week and I know I'm gonna butcher it.
10:35-10:40
But this pagan God of healing, Asclepius.
10:42-10:48
Everybody say, "Asclepius." You got it right out of the gate, and I sure didn't.
10:50-10:55
Okay, Asclepius, actually that's where we get the word "scalpel." He was the god of healing.
10:56-11:01
Believe it or not, you've had some familiarity with images of this god.
11:01-11:06
Have you ever seen in the medical community the snake on the pole?
11:07-11:09
You ever see how many people have seen that? Snake on the pole?
11:09-11:13
That's Asclepius. That's his image.
11:14-11:16
Okay? Has nothing to do with the snake and the pole from the Bible.
11:18-11:35
But some people say, "That is the throne of Satan that Jesus is talking about." Actually, in his temple at Pergamum, this was Asclepius' temple.
11:35-11:38
Here's what you did. This was like going to church at this cult.
11:40-11:45
The floor was covered with non-poisonous snakes.
11:46-12:02
What you would do with this deity, which we know is Mickey Mouse, not real, what they believed is if you went into the temple, and you laid down on the floor, and one of these snakes came and touched you, then you would be healed.
12:02-12:04
How many people want to go to a church like that?
12:06-12:07
Not me either.
12:08-12:09
But that's what they believed.
12:10-12:31
So some people - I have to wonder when I was studying this, I'm like, "I wonder if that was covered by Medicare." But I have to wonder also if this idea of the snakes, and we think of Satan appeared as a serpent in the garden, and some people say, "Well, that's obviously the throne of Satan." So others say, "No, no, no.
12:32-12:38
The throne of Satan refers to..." Pergamum was really, really steeped in emperor worship.
12:38-12:41
We talked about that in Smyrna, but there was a big difference.
12:41-12:49
In Smyrna, you were required by law to worship the emperor one day a year, offering a sacrifice. In Pergamum, it was daily.
12:50-12:52
You were required to worship the emperor.
12:52-12:54
It was a wicked pagan place.
12:55-13:02
And I'm like, "All right, Pastor Jeff, which one is it?" And I believe this a thousand percent.
13:02-13:03
I believe it's all of the above.
13:04-13:21
Do you really think that Jesus saw all of this and was like, "Okay, the snake thing's okay, but the altar to Zeus, that's bad, and the emperor worship, all that." I think Jesus saw all of this paganism and all of the footholds that Satan had on this city.
13:21-13:25
And Jesus is like, this whole city is like Satan's throne.
13:27-13:28
I think it's all of the above.
13:29-13:34
You see, Jesus said, "I know where you dwell." Not in Satan's neighborhood.
13:37-13:39
Where Satan's throne is. Right there.
13:41-13:42
Right in his living room.
13:43-13:45
So Jesus commends them for two things.
13:46-13:52
Really, it's the same thing. He says, "You hold fast to My name, and you did not deny my faith.
13:53-13:57
He says, you hold fast my name, the name of Jesus.
13:59-14:01
It's a beautiful thing to his people.
14:03-14:08
And at the same time, the name of Jesus is offensive to the world.
14:11-14:16
You see, Jesus was commending this church because they were holding fast to his name.
14:16-14:23
And there's something about holding the name We're not just trying to make the Almighty a generic concept.
14:24-14:32
And a lot of churches are going that way because we'll get more people in the door if we don't offend them by talking about Jesus.
14:34-14:35
And that's compromise.
14:37-14:38
And that's leading nowhere good.
14:39-14:47
In fact, a few years ago, someone was doing some stats on a well-known preacher.
14:47-14:48
I'm not going to mention his name, it's not important.
14:49-14:50
the forest for the trees here, all right?
14:51-14:55
But the pastor of one of the biggest churches in the country, somebody did a study on his tweets.
14:56-15:00
In this one-year period, he had 806 tweets.
15:01-15:02
Okay?
15:04-15:05
806 tweets in one year.
15:05-15:11
And this pastor tweeting for the church 806 times.
15:11-15:14
Guess how many times he mentioned the name of Jesus in those tweets?
15:17-15:20
One time. One time.
15:22-15:28
One time he mentioned the Savior of the universe, the one who founded the church, the author and finisher of our faith.
15:28-15:30
One time? One time he gets a shout-out?
15:30-15:41
Like, "What did he talk about?" "Oh, he talked about dreams, he talked about our greatness, he talked about favor." But the name of the Lord of the universe?
15:43-15:44
One time.
15:45-15:51
Somebody's like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, how would you like it if he quoted you or mentioned your Twitter account?" I would love it!
15:53-15:58
What place does the name of Jesus have in your life?
16:01-16:08
You see, sold-out people recognize that even their faith is His.
16:08-16:09
Did you notice that?
16:11-16:27
Jesus said, "You did not deny..." He didn't say, "You didn't deny your faith." He said, "You didn't deny my faith." Even what I think is my faith is really Jesus' faith.
16:28-16:29
Everything belongs to Him.
16:32-16:34
You see, the people that are sold out say, "I don't care what it costs me.
16:34-16:37
I don't care who it offends. I don't care what people say.
16:37-16:40
I'm holding on to the name of the One who saved me.
16:41-16:45
Jesus Christ. I'm holding on to His name.
16:45-16:47
And that's what Jesus commended the church for.
16:49-16:53
May the Lord help this church always hold on to His name.
16:55-17:03
Do you notice also, He says, "Even in the days of Antipas, My faithful witness who was killed among you..." Like, who's Antipas?
17:03-17:20
Well, we don't really know anything According to tradition, this was a church leader who would not deny the faith, and he was roasted to death in a giant brass bowl.
17:22-17:28
And I love this letter, how Jesus holds him up as an example.
17:29-17:33
Could you imagine Jesus holding you up as an example?
17:34-17:37
Like, "Hey church, look at this guy." Could you imagine that?
17:38-17:42
Could you imagine Jesus, the Lord of the church, like, "Hey, church, look at Alex!
17:42-17:50
Look at how he holds on to the faith, even to the point of death!" So that's the commendation.
17:51-17:54
They held on to Jesus' name and harvest again.
17:56-18:01
May we be a church that holds on to the name of Jesus no matter what.
18:02-18:03
Number two, let's look at the criticism.
18:05-18:11
The good thing is they were holding Jesus' name, but there were also some who were holding wrong beliefs.
18:13-18:16
You'll see the language very clearly here. Look at verses 14 through 15.
18:18-18:20
Jesus said, "But I have a few things against you.
18:20-18:39
You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality." Also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicoletians.
18:42-18:45
So you see, the past couple of weeks we looked at Ephesus and we looked at Smyrna.
18:45-18:48
They had false teachers in their neighborhood.
18:48-18:49
Here's the problem.
18:49-18:52
Pergamum had false teachers in the church.
18:54-18:59
The problem that Jesus pointed out, notice he says "some," not all, "some." Circle that in your Bibles.
19:00-19:13
of them were buying in to the false teaching and that was leading some into sin. You're like, "Well, what's the teaching?" Two things. First of all, the teaching of Balaam.
19:15-19:30
"What's the teaching of Balaam? That sounds kind of familiar." It should. That's from the Old Testament book of Numbers, chapters 22 through 25. Just a quick review of that where Balak, who was the king of Moab, hired Balaam.
19:30-19:31
He was a prophet for hire.
19:32-19:34
And he hired Balaam to curse Israel.
19:34-19:38
Balaam tried three times and he failed three times.
19:39-19:42
Balaam's also the one that the Lord intervened by speaking through his donkey.
19:45-19:47
So he couldn't curse Israel.
19:47-19:53
So instead, he convinced Balaak to corrupt them.
19:53-19:55
We find this out in Numbers 31.
19:57-19:59
How did he corrupt them?
19:59-20:01
He used the Moabite women to seduce Israel.
20:03-20:13
Israel turned to idolatry and sexual immorality, which is mentioned here in this passage, and God intervened.
20:14-20:22
And the Bible says that the Lord cut down 24,000 people in Israel, including some key leaders to cut the cancer out.
20:25-20:26
It's a serious business.
20:28-20:31
What's the teaching of the Nicoletians?
20:34-20:38
That's just the New Testament version of the teaching of Balaam.
20:39-20:43
It's the same immorality. It's got a different label on it, but it's the same immorality.
20:44-20:48
It's the idea that, "Hey, we're God's people, right?
20:49-20:51
So God doesn't care if we sin.
20:52-20:55
You know, we can be sexually promiscuous.
20:55-20:56
God's not going to care.
20:59-21:17
So some in the church at Pergamum believed that, listen to this, at Pergamum, they believed they could be involved in pagan practices, they could disregard the Lord, they could indulge in sexual sin, and then just show up in church and worship Christ 'cause God doesn't care.
21:19-21:23
So right now you're like, "How could they have been so foolish, Pastor Jeff?
21:24-21:31
How could they have been so blind?" Church, I want to tell you, every single one of us are in danger of this.
21:33-21:36
Every. Single. One. Of us.
21:37-21:44
Everyone that's going to be listening to this is in danger of this same sin.
21:45-21:52
The danger is this, it's trying to live with a foot in the world and trying to live with a foot in the church at the same time.
21:55-22:01
God doesn't care, I'm forgiven in Jesus, I'm claiming the victory, so I can live like the devil the rest of the week.
22:01-22:07
And I can show up at church and worship, and God don't care.
22:10-22:19
If you are not faithful to your spouse, and you think God doesn't care, then you are holding the teaching of the law.
22:22-22:36
If you are having an affair, whether it's a physical affair or an emotional affair, and you think God doesn't care about that, you're holding the teaching of the law.
22:38-22:47
If you're addicted to pornography, and you think God doesn't care, then you are holding the teaching of Balaam.
22:49-23:05
If you're bowing at the altar of addiction, if you're bowing at the altar of self-centeredness, if you're bowing at the altar of hatred, and you think God doesn't care, you're holding the teaching of Balaam.
23:07-23:13
And according to many places in the New Testament, 2 Peter 2, Jude 11, I believe.
23:13-23:19
And right here in the book of Revelation, the teaching of Balaam is serious business.
23:20-23:23
That takes us to number three, the correction.
23:24-23:24
Repent.
23:27-23:27
Repent.
23:28-23:29
You're like, "Wait a second, Pastor Jeff.
23:30-23:31
Your outline's a little wonky.
23:31-23:41
We have holding Jesus' name, holding wrong beliefs." If you're really interested in consistency, then write this down.
23:42-23:47
"Holding the door for false teachers to leave." How about that?
23:48-23:50
"Repent." Look at verse 16.
23:51-23:53
Jesus says, "Therefore repent.
23:54-24:02
If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth." The word for "repent" means to change your mind.
24:04-24:09
This idea that, "Hey, it's okay to have these people teaching these things in the church.
24:09-24:20
It's okay for some people in the church to be living this way." Jesus said, "You better change your mind about that now." You see, with the Nicoletians, Ephesus encountered them too.
24:21-24:26
But the difference was Pergamum was allowing some people in the church to hold on to that doctrine.
24:29-24:31
It wasn't just a matter of conduct.
24:32-24:35
It was a matter of allowing the false teaching to reside.
24:36-24:41
And you have to see that Jesus puts the burden of correction on whom.
24:42-24:52
He didn't say, "Hey, you who hold the doctrine, you need to stop holding the doctrine." Which is true. That's not what Jesus said.
24:53-24:56
He was addressing the church. You have people in the church that are doing this.
24:59-25:22
Jesus is telling the church, the leadership of the church, "You cannot permit people in your church to hold on to, promote, and believe in false teaching." Harvest Bible Chapel, this is a call for us all to use discernment.
25:25-25:33
Everything that is taught in this church must be evaluated based on the truth of God's Word.
25:35-25:37
And that requires discernment.
25:39-25:41
And that's something that only the Holy Spirit can do.
25:44-25:53
We live in a day that compromise and tolerance just sounds so noble, but not when it comes to upholding the truth.
25:55-26:02
We cannot allow false teaching to happen in the church in any way, to any degree.
26:04-26:11
Church needs to be a place where sin and false teaching, those things are confronted, those things are not tolerated.
26:14-26:59
So because of the seriousness of Jesus' words to this church, And I know that you know this, but I have to remind you, whether it's teaching up here, whether you are helping to teach in the youth group, whether you lead a small group, whether you teach men's Bible study or ladies' Bible study, whether you teach the kids, if you are teaching unbiblical things in this church, and you will not receive correction, then you will receive evacuation." Like, why?
27:00-27:03
Because look at Jesus' next phrase.
27:05-27:23
"I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth." Jesus said, "If you don't deal with this stuff, I'm showing up with the sword." And you're like, "Well, what does that mean?" Do you really want to find out?
27:25-27:27
Do you want to find out, Frank? Do you want to find out what that's all about?
27:27-27:28
I don't.
27:31-27:42
Jesus says, "You either cut out the false teaching, or I'm going to be bringing my sword, and I'll do some cutting. How about that?" So that takes us to the call. Verse 17.
27:44-28:05
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, "To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it." "He who has an ear." Jesus said that over and over and over.
28:05-28:09
That's one of His favorite phrases, not just in Revelation, all through the Gospels.
28:09-28:19
What Jesus means is this, "If you're tuned in, turn the volume up." So the promise, three things, first of all, hidden manna.
28:21-28:22
What's hidden manna?
28:22-28:26
Well manna was this bread that God used to feed Israel in the wilderness.
28:27-28:29
Manna literally means "what is it?" They didn't know what it was.
28:29-28:38
God just allowed the stuff to form in the ground and every day except the Sabbath, they would gather it up and eat it and it was the perfect food.
28:40-28:41
What's hidden manna?
28:41-28:50
Some of the manna was kept in the Ark of the Covenant, you know, the box that went in the temple where God's presence uniquely dwelt.
28:50-29:00
And the reason God told Israel to keep some of the manna in the Ark was it was to be a reminder for future generations how God fed Israel when they went through the wilderness.
29:02-29:07
But I don't think Jesus is talking about a jar of bread here.
29:09-29:14
In John 6, verse 51, Jesus said that He is the true manna.
29:14-29:16
He is the living bread.
29:16-29:21
And I think this promise that Jesus is making is Himself.
29:24-29:28
You receive Me when you receive these instructions.
29:30-29:33
He also promises a white stone. What's the white stone?
29:33-29:37
There's a lot of ideas about what the white stone is.
29:37-29:40
Some people associate it with the breastplate on the high priest.
29:40-29:43
Some people say it refers to a diamond because it was so valuable.
29:44-29:51
Some people say it was this ticket that was given to Roman athletes to go to a victory banquet.
29:52-29:59
And I'm not so interested in the stone as I am what's on the stone.
30:00-30:01
Look at that again.
30:03-30:06
He says, "I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone.
30:07-30:10
No one knows except the one who receives it.
30:12-30:16
I want you to wrap your brain around this this week, if you can, because I can't.
30:19-30:36
To the one who perseveres, to the one who overcomes, and that's all true believers, true Christians, who are all called overcomers according to the Bible, one of the things that God is going to give you a new name that He picks just for you.
30:37-30:43
Nobody else knows but Him and you. Right?
30:45-30:47
Why is that significant?
30:49-30:57
Because when you study God's Word, when He renames someone, it always has incredible significance.
30:59-31:01
Game-changing significance, right?
31:02-31:03
Can you think of some examples?
31:03-31:04
I'll tell you my two favorite examples.
31:05-31:06
Remember Jacob in the Old Testament?
31:08-31:17
Jacob, you know, and had the thing going on with Esau, and the Bible says the one night God showed up and wrestled with him.
31:19-31:34
Put him in some kind of a figure four leg lock thing, wrenched his hip out of the socket, and Jacob's like, "I'm not gonna let you go "until you bless me." And as a result of that whole encounter, God renamed Jacob to what? Israel! And what does Israel mean?
31:36-31:44
"Wrestles with God." So the rest of Jacob's life, as he limped along, he had this name.
31:45-31:49
And his name had incredible significance.
31:50-31:59
"I am a person who wrestled with God." Another one of my favorites, New Testament, Simon.
32:00-32:04
Simon, and remember Jesus, what is it, Matthew 16?
32:04-32:06
Jesus renamed Simon to what?
32:07-32:07
Peter.
32:07-32:08
And why did he rename him?
32:09-32:21
Because Peter means rock, and Jesus said that on the rock of Peter's confession, Peter is going to be part of that bedrock of the church.
32:24-32:25
It's a game changer.
32:27-32:36
Like Simon's walking around, he's like, "No, no, no, you're the rock now." What do you think your new name's going to be?
32:37-32:41
I don't know. Only you're going to know that. God knows that, obviously.
32:41-32:42
But only you're going to know that.
32:44-32:46
But I do know for sure it's going to be a very personal thing.
32:48-32:54
So I was going to rename you in a meaningful way.
32:56-32:59
So hey, ears open, Harvest Bible Chapel.
33:01-33:06
Make sure that everything that is taught and practiced in this church falls in line with His Word.
33:06-33:08
On that we are not going to compromise.
33:11-33:15
Sometimes I offer the short version of the sermon at the beginning for people that need to leave.
33:16-33:20
For today, I'm going to give you the short version of the sermon at the end.
33:20-33:21
Here it is.
33:23-33:32
We can either use the sword of the Lord, or He will show up at church and war with the sword of the Lord.
33:34-33:35
Which option do you want?
33:37-33:38
I know which one I want to go after.
33:40-33:40
Let's pray.
33:41-33:51
Father in heaven, we take Your Word very seriously at this church, Father, because we see that You do.
33:52-34:00
Father, today we took a look at a church that was compromising and allowing some other teaching to infiltrate.
34:00-34:09
And Father, I just pray now, I pray, Father, Your Holy Spirit, give the leadership of this church incredible discernment.
34:09-34:29
I pray your Holy Spirit give every listener of every message in any context in this church incredible discernment, so that everything that is taught and believed at this church is according to your Word.
34:31-34:32
Father, I thank you.
34:34-34:42
The reason that you want doctrine to be pure is because you want people saved.
34:44-34:53
You want people to come to know the glories of what it means to be a blood-bought child of Jesus Christ.
34:56-35:02
This church can't do that if we drift from the purity of your Word.
35:04-35:05
Father, keep us centered.
35:07-35:27
Let Your Spirit and Your Word just permeate and saturate every heart and mind that we are ready to deal swiftly with any false teaching that comes in the church so that You don't have to deal with it.
35:29-35:30
Thank You, Father.
35:33-35:42
For the promise of a new name, I don't even know if I can fully wrap my head around how awesome that is.
35:45-35:46
But I can thank You for it.
35:47-35:50
We praise You in Jesus' name. Amen.

Small Group Discussion

Read Revelation 2:12-17

What is the strangest thing you have heard taught at a church? (Pastor Jeff took a Facebook poll, if you have access to that and want to discuss!)
What are some ways idolatry creeps into the church?
Specifically - what steps should you take if you hear false teaching at Harvest Bible Chapel?

BREAKOUT

Pray for discernment for HBC always. Pray we stand strong against any false teaching that is held by people in the church.

Jeff Miller

October 28, 2018

Coming Soon!

The Persecuted Church: Do Not Fear

Jeff Miller

October 28, 2018

Coming Soon!

Intro / Review:

"To [church], from Christ (using descriptive phrases from Chapter 1): I know what's going on there. Here is what you are doing well, here is where you need to repent, I am Coming Soon, do this. Heed the Word of the Lord and receive this promise from the Lord!"

The Progress Report:

The Commendation and Command (Rev 2:9-10)

  
    3 Statements to Remind Yourself When You Are Suffering:
  
  God is allowing this for a Reason
God is in control of every Detail
It's going to be Worth It

The Criticism
The Correction
The Call (Rev 2:11)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:40-00:43
Open up your Bibles with me please to the book of Revelation, chapter 2.
00:44-00:52
We are going through the book of Revelation verse by verse, in a series called "Coming Soon." It was a very long week for me.
00:52-00:56
And I don't know about you, but does it work like this for you?
00:57-01:03
When your Monday starts out rough, you sort of feel like it's going to set the tone for the way the rest of the week is going to go.
01:03-01:04
Anybody else like that?
01:04-01:13
Let me tell you how things went Monday, and you understand what a trial it's been this past week.
01:13-01:22
Monday morning, we ran out of the coffee creamer that I prefer, and I had to use one of the other three kinds that were in the refrigerator.
01:23-01:31
And then, I don't remember if this was Monday or Tuesday, because I was still reeling from that event, but the car frosted over, and I was taking the kids to school.
01:32-01:38
So I actually had to go out into my driveway and start the car, and then go back inside and wait in the warm house.
01:38-01:42
For five minutes I waited while the car defrosted.
01:42-01:47
One night I got home from work, and this is when things really started to get rough for me.
01:47-01:55
I couldn't find anything to watch on TV, and I mean not on Sling, Tubi, Amazon Prime, Hulu or Netflix.
01:56-01:58
Could not find a thing.
01:58-02:01
And just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I had to make a phone call.
02:01-02:10
and I pulled out my phone, and I saw that it was low on battery, so I actually had to take the charger and plug it into the wall.
02:10-02:11
Can you believe this?
02:11-02:17
I had to make my phone call with my phone tethered to the wall.
02:17-02:19
Like, what am I, Fred Flintstone?
02:20-02:22
Like, now I know how they felt on the Oregon Trail.
02:22-02:31
I made my phone call, and I thought I was going to settle down, I was going to watch some videos on my tablet, then I found out I had to reset the Wi-Fi.
02:31-02:33
Do you know what a nightmare it is to reset the Wi-Fi?
02:34-02:35
Do you know what a nightmare that is?
02:35-02:45
You have to unplug it and wait for 30 seconds while the stupid thing resets, and then you got to plug it in, and then you got to wait like another minute and a half for it to turn.
02:45-02:46
What do we call these?
02:46-02:49
Yeah, first world problems.
02:49-02:57
Because reality is, let's be honest, these are the types of things that get us sideways, and they amount to nothing.
02:58-03:00
We don't really have problems.
03:00-03:04
Not the way the first century church had, but the days are coming.
03:04-03:07
And look, I'm not going to pretend. I'm not going to pretend.
03:07-03:19
I'm not going to get up here and say, "Okay, we're preaching a passage about a persecuted church, so let's pretend we're persecuted so that the passage somehow fits." I believe the days are coming. But let's be honest here. Come on.
03:19-03:21
We have first world problems.
03:22-03:28
So today we're going to look at a church that endured much and was commended by Jesus Himself in my hope today.
03:28-03:35
My sincere hope today is this prepares us for when we really face difficult days as a church.
03:36-03:47
So just by way of introduction, we've seen chapter 1, John was exiled on Patmos because he was preaching the gospel. He endured some persecution through his imprisonment.
03:47-03:52
Jesus Christ appears in all his majestic glory and tells John to write down three things.
03:52-04:01
First of all, what he sees, that was Jesus. Write down the things that are, That's the state of the church. That's where we are now in Revelation 2 and 3.
04:01-04:05
And then thirdly, Jesus says to write down the things that will take place after this.
04:06-04:09
That's the stuff that happens in the future. That's chapters 4 through 22.
04:10-04:17
So, chapters 2 and 3, where we are now. These are progress reports to the churches from Jesus Christ.
04:17-04:23
These were seven actual churches located in Asia Minor, which is today we call it Turkey.
04:23-04:28
And these churches that Jesus is addressing typifies churches throughout history.
04:29-04:35
And the question that scholars and commentators and theologians, the question they ask is, "Who is being addressed here in these letters?
04:36-04:43
Was it just these churches or is it churches through history?" And here's the answer, "If the shoe fits." Right?
04:43-04:44
If the shoe fits.
04:44-04:52
If Jesus is describing something about this church in this letter, then we need to pay attention. Right?
04:53-04:56
So I believe these letters are for all churches throughout history.
04:57-04:59
We should pay close attention.
04:59-05:04
Again, this is a review. Each of these letters follows a general basic format.
05:05-05:07
The format is this. In general, it goes like this.
05:07-05:13
Jesus says, "To this church from Christ," and he uses descriptive phrases from chapter 1.
05:14-05:16
He says, "I know what's going on there. Here's what you're doing well.
05:17-05:29
Here's where you need to repent. Hey, I'm coming soon, so do this." And he closes each of these letters by saying, "Heed the word of the Lord and receive this promise from the Lord." That's sort of the general structure of all of these letters.
05:30-05:45
So let's look at the next one here. Revelation 2.8 "And did the angel of the church in Smyrna write the words of the first and the last, who died and came to life?" Smyrna. Where is Smyrna?
05:45-05:48
Well, today it's the Turkish city of Izmir.
05:48-05:51
And it's not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible.
05:52-05:58
Everything we know about this church is found in this passage that we'll look at today.
05:59-06:04
Our best guess is Paul, or one of his converts, planted this church back in Acts 19.
06:05-06:08
We know this church was 35 miles north of Ephesus.
06:09-06:13
And we do know that this city was a place of emperor worship.
06:13-06:20
to the point that if you did not worship the emperor, it was a crime punishable by death.
06:20-06:26
You're talking about patriotism. Like this was patriotism as far as patriotism gets.
06:26-06:33
So Jesus addresses this church and he refers to himself as the first and the last.
06:34-06:36
Underline that in your Bibles. That is so significant. Why?
06:38-06:41
Because that's how God in the Old Testament identified Himself.
06:42-06:49
Isaiah 44.6, Isaiah 48.12, this is another reminder for us from God's Word that Jesus is God.
06:49-06:51
He's not just some prophet or some teacher.
06:52-06:56
Jesus is God in the flesh, and He was reminding the church of this.
06:56-06:57
So let's look at the progress report.
06:58-07:01
First of all, the commendation and the command.
07:02-07:07
Jesus said, "I know," verse 9, "I know your tribulation." I want to stop there.
07:08-07:14
Jesus, in all of these letters, He says, "I know." And when Jesus knows something, He knows something.
07:15-07:28
So it wasn't like Jesus said, "Hey, I heard through the grapevine," or "I saw something on Twitter about what's happening." Jesus knows every single detail that's happening in the church.
07:28-07:32
So when Jesus says, "I know what's going on," trust me, He knows what's going on.
07:32-07:34
I just want to pause here and say there is incredible comfort.
07:35-07:38
This church faced incredible hardship.
07:39-07:43
And there would have been incredible comfort for them to know that Jesus knows.
07:44-07:52
Because there is nothing more comforting when we're going through a hardship than having someone who knows. Right?
07:52-07:58
This past March, our next-door neighbor growing up lost her 27-year-old son.
07:58-08:08
And at the time, my sister said, "I can't imagine what you're going through." She said, "That's my worst nightmare." And a day later, my sister lost her 27-year-old son.
08:09-08:15
There's a comfort that exists in their friendship now, that wasn't there before.
08:16-08:17
Why?
08:18-08:19
Because they know.
08:20-08:24
Do you know what it's like to lose a child like that so suddenly?
08:24-08:28
Well, these two know exactly what it's like.
08:28-08:33
So do you understand there's a comfort when somebody knows?
08:33-08:38
Church, I just want to remind you there's a comfort knowing that Jesus knows.
08:39-08:44
Because He doesn't just know because He's omniscient, which He is.
08:45-08:48
He also knows because He's experienced everything that we experience.
08:49-08:51
Have you ever felt abandoned? Have you ever felt like that?
08:51-08:53
Have you ever felt completely abandoned by everybody?
08:54-08:55
Jesus knows what that feels like.
08:55-08:57
Have you ever been denied?
08:58-09:01
Jesus knows what it's like to have one of his best friends denies and even knows him.
09:02-09:03
Have you ever been betrayed by a friend?
09:04-09:07
Jesus knows exactly what that's like because that happened to him.
09:07-09:25
It gives us great comfort to know that Jesus isn't some, you know, detached deity from heaven that we're down here like, "Well, you don't know what it's like!" He says, "Yeah, I know exactly what it's like." So when Jesus says to this struggling church, "Hey, I know what's going on there," He knows what's going on there.
09:26-09:26
Alright?
09:27-09:28
So how are they struggling?
09:29-09:30
Well, look at verse 9.
09:30-09:32
Three terrible afflictions.
09:32-09:36
He says, "I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich.
09:37-09:46
And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan." Stop there. Three afflictions this church was going through.
09:46-09:48
It's all right here in the text. We're not making this up.
09:49-09:50
Three afflictions. Jot these down.
09:50-09:53
"Tribulation, poverty, and slander." It's right there.
09:54-09:56
I wanna talk about these just quickly for a second here.
09:57-09:58
Tribulation is pressure.
09:58-10:00
Literally, that's what the word means, pressure.
10:00-10:03
It's being crushed under a weight.
10:03-10:05
Have you ever felt like that at work or at home in your family?
10:05-10:09
Have you ever felt like you were under such pressure that you almost felt it physically?
10:09-10:10
Have you ever felt that?
10:10-10:15
Like, I just feel this intense, like overwhelming pressure.
10:15-10:16
That's the word tribulation.
10:18-10:21
Interestingly, the word smyrna, The name of the city.
10:22-10:26
That name came from a Greek word that's also used to translate myrrh.
10:27-10:29
You're like, "Wait, myrrh, that sounds familiar." It should be.
10:29-10:39
It's a perfume that was used for the living and the dead, and it's mentioned a few times in Scripture that this perfume is actually an appropriate picture of this church.
10:39-10:43
Because you see, myrrh, in order to make perfume out of it, it had to be crushed.
10:44-10:45
That's sort of what this church was like.
10:45-10:53
It was crushed and gave off an aroma, a perfume of loyalty to Jesus Christ.
10:53-10:58
So this tribulation, this persecution the church was going under, this pressure...
10:58-11:03
As soon as you hear tribulation, as soon as you hear pressure, as soon as you hear persecution, you think...
11:03-11:10
Our minds automatically go, "Persecution is bad. Persecution is a bad thing." But really, really it's not.
11:11-11:15
Because persecution always results in greater purity of the church.
11:15-11:18
Why is that? Because hypocrites don't stick around.
11:19-11:20
Erin and I were talking this morning.
11:20-11:34
She said, "Do you think the events of yesterday are going to keep a lot of people away from church?" I said, "Not at all." I said, "I'm expecting a full house, because I know the type of disciples that attend this church." Is there a reason to be afraid?
11:35-11:38
I guess in our culture today we would say, "Always." Right?
11:39-11:41
Is that going to keep us from coming and worshiping?
11:41-11:42
Never.
11:42-11:46
But you see, persecution brings the purity because hypocrites don't stick around.
11:47-11:47
They just don't.
11:48-11:55
When going gets tough, God's true people, you can't get them out of the church with a stack of dynamite.
11:55-11:55
Right?
11:57-12:07
So he says, "I know your tribulation, secondly, your poverty." "Your poverty," he says, "but you are rich." Now, we talk about poverty, we're being honest here, right?
12:07-12:10
Somebody right now is thinking, "Oh, I know about poverty, Pastor Jeff.
12:11-12:18
One time I had to eat ramen noodles for lunch because I couldn't afford to go to Chipotle.
12:18-12:30
I know about poverty." And the answer is, "No, you don't know about poverty." This word for poverty here is the kind of poverty that you would use to describe a beggar, somebody that doesn't have two nickels to rub together.
12:31-12:33
That's the kind of poverty this is.
12:33-12:34
What kind of poverty is this?
12:34-12:45
We had a fantastic missions meeting yesterday, and Pat Summers who conducted the seminar and gave some help, our church leadership get some direction, permissions for the church.
12:45-12:46
He was telling the story, remember this Russ?
12:47-13:05
About this pastor from Cuba, on one of Pat's trips, he gave him a pen and he said this pastor wept because he so badly wanted some kind of a writing instrument to take notes so that he would be able to give better sermons.
13:05-13:08
"He wept over a pen, people." That's poverty.
13:09-13:11
That's the kind of poverty that's being talked about here.
13:12-13:31
And I have to say this, when we talk about poverty and we talk about the church, in our culture, we have all these preachers and teachers on the radio and on the TV that teach you if you're faithful, if you're faithful, if you have a genuine faith, that God makes you rich, that God wants you to be rich.
13:32-13:34
Let's look at some of these quotes, shall we?
13:35-13:41
Some people come to me and say, "Well, I came here to get some peace, not money." And I tell them, "You need money.
13:42-13:46
Otherwise you ain't gonna get no peace." Some people say it's about peace, joy, and love.
13:46-13:48
No, it's about money.
13:49-13:51
That's a quote from Creflo Dollar.
13:51-13:53
Do you think Dollar's really his name?
13:53-13:54
Something fishy there.
13:55-13:56
Here's from Leroy Thompson.
13:56-13:59
"The Lord told me this is the end time message.
13:59-14:02
He is coming to look for his church without spot or wrinkle.
14:02-14:29
But one of the biggest wrinkles the church has being broke. There's one from, actually two from Joel Osteen here. He says, "If you're struggling financially, then you have not got the victory." Later, "God didn't create you to be average or poor." One more, about all I can stomach. "Why would he, God, want all of his people poverty-stricken, while all of the people that aren't living for God have everything?" That's from Joyce Meyer.
14:30-14:33
Listen, yes, God provides.
14:33-14:48
Yes, God provides in miraculous ways, and I could keep you here until Valentine's Day, telling you stories of the ways that I've seen God miraculously and awesomely provide for our family and for this church.
14:48-14:51
I believe that when you give to God, God gives back to you.
14:51-14:55
I believe everything the Bible teaches about money.
14:56-14:57
I believe it's all true.
14:57-15:01
But the Bible never teaches that if you have enough faith, God's going to make you rich.
15:01-15:06
Or to put it negatively, the Bible never teaches that if you lack faith, you're going to lack money.
15:07-15:09
The Bible never teaches that.
15:09-15:16
And in case you're still on the fence on whether you're going to believe these jokers, I want to encourage you to look again at Smyrna.
15:16-15:17
What did Jesus say about Smyrna?
15:18-15:21
He says, "I know your tribulation and your poverty." Look at this next phrase.
15:21-15:30
Jesus said, "But you are rich." They were dirt poor, but Jesus looked at them, when Jesus is like, "You guys are rich!" What did He mean?
15:30-15:39
Well, He meant exactly what Paul, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote in 2 Corinthians 6.10, when he said, "We have nothing, yet we possess everything." That was Smyrna.
15:39-15:41
The tribulation, poverty, thirdly, slander.
15:42-15:43
Slander.
15:43-15:48
The early church had to deal with all kinds of false accusations and slander.
15:48-15:50
A couple of them, cannibalism.
15:50-15:53
You're like, "Yeah, the church was accused of cannibalism?" Yeah, they were.
15:54-16:00
Because there were people that heard, They get together and they eat the Lord's body.
16:00-16:07
We have the Lord's supper, which represents the body and blood of Jesus, but people spun that.
16:07-16:09
Say, "Oh, they engage in cannibalism.
16:09-16:13
They drink blood." That was slander that they had to endure.
16:13-16:17
They were also accused of having orgies because of the fellowship feasts.
16:18-16:20
Last night, we had a harvest party here.
16:20-16:22
It was spectacular.
16:22-16:31
We had, there was food and there were carnival games, and they set up and there was candy, enough sugar to kill a horse, and it was just a spectacular night.
16:32-16:37
But see, those kinds of parties, they do things like that in a similar way in the 1st century.
16:37-16:42
And people are like, "Oh, they're having orgies, they're having these immoral parties." Well, who was doing the slandering?
16:42-16:46
Well, it says, "Those who say they are Jews and are not." Like, well, who is that?
16:47-16:48
We're not really sure who they were.
16:49-16:51
But I do know this for sure.
16:51-16:52
The church knew who they were.
16:53-16:58
that Jesus knew who they were, because he referred to them as a synagogue of Satan.
16:58-17:02
I would suggest to you, that's probably the worst thing the Lord could call you.
17:02-17:07
And here's a group of people that are so wicked, Jesus called them a synagogue of Satan.
17:07-17:08
Slander's rough.
17:08-17:11
I mean, lying is bad enough, right?
17:12-17:21
But when you're lying for the sole purpose of tearing down somebody else's reputation, that's just, that is so wicked, and that is so destructive.
17:21-17:23
And that's exactly what this church was going through.
17:24-17:25
Look at verse 10.
17:26-17:30
He says, "Do not fear what you are about to suffer." Do not fear what you are about to suffer.
17:31-17:38
Like, "Pastor Jeff, do you have anything you can speak on regarding 'I will not fear'?" That was our whole ministry theme last year.
17:39-17:43
Alright? So if you need a refresher, all of our sermons are available on our website.
17:43-17:48
And you can go home and listen to every message last year because this is the theme that we sort of hung the hat on last year, right?
17:49-17:52
Jesus reminds this church, hey, there's more suffering coming.
17:53-17:57
So for you, Harvest Bible Chapel, I want you to jot this down.
17:57-17:59
Three statements to remind yourself when you're suffering.
18:00-18:01
Maybe some of you are suffering now.
18:02-18:04
Maybe some of you will be suffering soon.
18:05-18:07
Regardless, here's three statements I want you to remind yourself when you're suffering.
18:07-18:09
They all come from the text.
18:10-18:10
Again, look at verse 10.
18:11-18:12
Do not fear what you're about to suffer.
18:12-18:17
Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested.
18:17-18:20
And for ten days you will have tribulation.
18:21-18:26
Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life." Three statements to remind yourself when you're suffering.
18:27-18:30
The first one is this, letter A. God is allowing this for a reason.
18:31-18:33
Just because you don't know the reason doesn't mean that there is no reason.
18:34-18:40
But he said that some of you are going to be thrown into prison that you may be tested.
18:41-18:42
That's the reason.
18:42-18:45
And here's the thing that might baffle us about this passage.
18:45-18:48
Jesus didn't stop their suffering, did he?
18:48-18:49
Did he stop it?
18:50-18:54
Some of you are about to be thrown into prison, but I'm going to intervene and keep that from happening.
18:54-18:56
No, listen, you've got to note that church.
18:57-18:59
Jesus didn't stop their suffering.
19:00-19:02
From what I can see here, he simply informed them that it was coming.
19:03-19:11
And the reason you need to note this is because the biggest lie that Satan tells that we believe is this, if God really cared, you wouldn't be going through this trial.
19:12-19:18
And I'll be honest with you, I've been tempted to take the bait many times in my life, thinking down that path.
19:18-19:21
If God really cared, why am I dealing with this?
19:21-19:23
If God really cared, why is he allowing this?
19:24-19:26
Trials don't mean that God doesn't care.
19:26-19:30
Every real church, every real Christian is going to face tribulation, 2 Timothy 3.12.
19:31-19:39
Jesus said, "I'm allowing this that you may be tested." Not an easy pill to swallow, but the reality is if you want stronger faith, and every true disciple does, right?
19:40-19:48
Every true disciple wants stronger faith, The only way your faith gets stronger is by trusting God, that He has a purpose when I'm undergoing a trial.
19:48-19:49
That God's allowing it for a reason.
19:50-19:53
Secondly, letter B, God is in control of every detail.
19:53-19:54
He knows very specifically.
19:55-19:59
He says that you may be tested and for 10 days you will have tribulation.
20:00-20:02
God is in control of every detail.
20:02-20:03
10 days.
20:03-20:07
Now I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, right Frank?
20:08-20:10
I knew I'd get a hearty amen from that.
20:10-20:24
But see, some people look at this, and I do a lot of reading, but commentators and scholars and theologians and people, I guess smarter than me, but 10 days, there are people like, well, that 10 days, what does that mean?
20:25-20:32
What could that possibly, well, here's one, maybe that refers to 10 waves of Roman persecution coming on the church.
20:32-20:39
And then, I read somebody else this week, it was like, well, no, this 10 days refers to 10 years.
20:40-20:48
Like I said, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but when I read this, and I read it straightforwardly, do you know how I interpret 10 days?
20:48-20:49
Also, it's not just me.
20:50-20:52
I believe in reading the Bible straightforwardly.
20:53-21:01
So Jesus is like, "You're going to prison for 10 days." And I'm like, "Okay, it looks like some of them are going to prison for 10 days." Well, there's a difference between you and Smyrna.
21:02-21:04
The difference is they knew how long they were going to suffer.
21:04-21:05
We often do not.
21:05-21:06
God knows though.
21:07-21:07
See, God knows.
21:08-21:09
I love it, He knows ahead of time.
21:10-21:11
Jesus is calling it ahead of time.
21:11-21:13
You're going to suffer, but it's only gonna last 10 days.
21:13-21:18
There's huge comfort in knowing that God knows the days of your suffering, even the ones ahead.
21:18-21:22
And you're like, okay, I'm with you, Pastor Jeff, but what if it never ends?
21:23-21:28
They dealt with 10 days, and I'm sure those were 10 brutal days, but what if my suffering never ends?
21:28-21:33
What if my suffering that I'm going through is going to last me the rest of my life?
21:34-21:34
Well, look at the text.
21:35-21:36
Be faithful unto death.
21:36-21:40
You and I are called to be faithful even if it's literally for the rest of our lives.
21:41-21:42
We're called to be faithful.
21:42-21:45
You're like, "Pfft, why would I want to do that?" Because of letter C.
21:46-21:47
It's going to be worth it.
21:47-21:48
It's going to be worth it.
21:48-21:49
Look at that last phrase.
21:50-21:52
Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
21:53-21:55
That word for crown, that's Stephanos.
21:55-21:57
That's the victor's crown.
21:58-22:00
That's like the trophy crown.
22:00-22:01
There's your motivation.
22:02-22:02
It would be like this.
22:02-22:11
What if I said to you, "Hey, can I, would it be okay If I pinged you in the throat really hard, would that be all right with you?
22:11-22:12
Just kind of tilt your head back.
22:12-22:15
Let me ping you in the throat as hard as I can, and I can ping hard.
22:15-22:17
How many volunteers do we have for that?
22:17-22:18
Why not?
22:18-22:21
"Well, Pastor Jeff, that'll hurt." What if I said this?
22:21-22:27
If you let me ping you in the throat just one time, I'll give you a winning Powerball ticket.
22:28-22:31
What is it, like 1.117 trillion or what?
22:31-22:32
How much is it now?
22:33-22:33
Whatever.
22:34-22:37
What if I said you get the one point, what is it?
22:38-22:40
I really should have read this before I got up here.
22:40-22:41
That was dumb in retrospect.
22:43-22:47
But what if I offered you the, for sure, it's not a gamble and you're not investing.
22:47-22:50
For sure, this is the winning Powerball ticket and I'll give it to you.
22:51-22:52
You just have to let me ping you in the throat.
22:53-22:57
How many people would be willing to go, how many people would be willing to take the ping then?
22:57-23:00
All of a sudden, "Oh, you're right here, Pastor Jeff.
23:00-23:03
"Don't miss, don't miss, right here." Well, why?
23:03-23:05
What changed? What changed?
23:06-23:07
The reward changed, didn't it?
23:07-23:10
You mean a ping in the throat for nothing? No thanks.
23:11-23:15
Oh, you mean a little bit of suffering for a huge reward?
23:16-23:18
You see, that's the point. That's the point.
23:19-23:32
2 Corinthians 4.17, "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." That's the point, is the crown of life outbalances the testing.
23:33-23:36
I can't even wrap my brain around this, church.
23:37-23:41
First of all, I can't wrap my brain around the fact that Jesus Christ died for me.
23:42-23:43
Think about this.
23:43-23:56
The day is going to come for those who are faithful to those who truly belong to Him, the King of kings and the Lord of lords is going to put a crown on your head.
23:56-24:00
How can you think about that and not weep?
24:01-24:03
He is going to crown you.
24:04-24:09
So that's the motivation to persevere no matter how hard it gets, because it's going to be worth it.
24:10-24:11
All right, that was point one.
24:12-24:13
Oh, three more.
24:14-24:15
Marathon day, Pastor Jeff.
24:16-24:17
Well, here's some good news.
24:17-24:20
The criticism and the correction, nothing.
24:20-24:22
But let's not gloss over this too quickly.
24:23-24:24
Pretty significant.
24:25-24:29
Jesus addresses seven churches and two of them received no criticism.
24:29-24:37
How awesome is it that the Lord of the Church looks upon a body of believers and offers no word of "here's where you can do better." He just doesn't do it.
24:37-24:43
Samaritan in Philadelphia, neither one of them receive any criticism or condemnation or anything of the such.
24:43-24:45
So let's get to the call, verse 11.
24:46-24:49
Jesus says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
24:49-25:00
The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death." He who has an ear, again, that's a phrase that Jesus used a lot in his ministry and that just simply means this.
25:00-25:02
If you're tuned in, turn the volume up.
25:03-25:10
The death in this world is entrance into life and a better world for the believer in Jesus Christ.
25:10-25:12
He says, you'll never face a second death.
25:12-25:13
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
25:13-25:15
What is the second death?
25:15-25:15
What is that?
25:16-25:18
Very specifically, we know what it is.
25:18-25:22
Revelation 20.14, Revelation 21.8.
25:22-25:24
The second death literally is the lake of fire.
25:25-25:41
The Bible says, and we're gonna get there, Lord willing, Everyone who has rejected God's gracious gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, everyone who stubbornly and selfishly has rebelled against their Creator, someday are going to be thrown into the lake of fire.
25:42-25:44
And the Bible says that is the second death.
25:44-25:45
Well, why is it called the second death?
25:46-25:48
Because of this biblical truth right here.
25:49-25:50
Jot this down. Some of you know this.
25:50-25:53
This is going to be new for some of you, but you need to have this in your toolbox.
25:54-25:55
You need to have this tattooed onto your heart.
25:56-26:00
The statement is this, if you're born once, you die twice.
26:01-26:03
And if you're born twice, you die once.
26:04-26:05
If you're born once, you die twice.
26:05-26:07
How many people here were born at least once?
26:08-26:09
Okay, that was a test, very good.
26:09-26:16
If you're born only once, as we all are born at least once, but if you're born only once, you die twice.
26:16-26:18
You're going to die a physical death someday.
26:19-26:22
And apart from Jesus Christ, you're going to die a second death, which is the lake of fire.
26:22-26:25
See, the good news is if you're born twice, you only die once.
26:26-26:26
You're born twice.
26:27-26:31
As Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3, you must be born again.
26:31-26:34
That's the supernatural regeneration.
26:35-26:42
That's when you give your life to Jesus Christ, receive Him as your Lord and Savior, and God's Holy Spirit comes and indwells you.
26:42-26:44
You are born again.
26:45-26:46
God's life is put into you.
26:47-26:51
And if you're born twice, yes, you're still going to die a physical death someday.
26:51-26:55
But the second death will not hurt you, as Jesus says here.
26:55-26:59
No matter how bad it gets, I believe worse days are coming for the church.
26:59-27:00
Keep this now.
27:01-27:02
Save this for a rainy day.
27:03-27:04
Three truths that you can celebrate.
27:05-27:06
Hey, God's allowing this for a reason.
27:06-27:10
God is in control of every detail and all.
27:10-27:15
Someday, someday, I'm going to look back and I'm going to realize it was all worth it.
27:16-27:16
Let's pray.
27:17-27:22
Father in heaven, we thank you again for the glorious reality of who you are.
27:23-27:26
Father, I thank You that You have given us these words of comfort.
27:27-27:30
Father, I believe that the days of trouble are still ahead for the church.
27:31-27:35
But Father, I believe that there are true followers of Jesus Christ in this room.
27:35-27:54
And I pray, Father, that You would equip us, that we can be like Smyrna, that whether we're dealing with tribulation or poverty or slander or ten days in prison, whatever it is we deal with, Let's give off the aroma of Jesus Christ in a powerful way.
27:54-27:57
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Small Group Discussion

Read Revelation 2:8-11

GROUP

What do you personally believe about faith and money (Rev 2:9)? Does “victory in Jesus” mean being rich? How can wrong teaching about money and faith bring harm to the church?
Tell of a time you have been comforted knowing that “Jesus knows” what you are going through.
How would you answer someone who asks you: “How do you trust God when a trial doesn’t seem to be ending?”

BREAKOUT

Pray for the future of HBC, to stand strong when persecution comes.

Jeff Miller

October 21, 2018

Coming Soon!

The Loveless Church: Remember

Jeff Miller

October 21, 2018

Coming Soon!

Intro / Review:

The Progress Report:

The Commendation (Rev 2:2-3,6)
1. Hard Working
2. Persevering
3. Discerning

The Criticism (Rev 2:4)

Abandoning the love they had at first

The Correction (Rev 2:5)

Remember
Repent
Return

The Call (Rev 2:7)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:33-00:37
Open up your Bibles with me please to Revelation chapter 2.
00:38-00:43
Has anyone here ever been to one of those really enormous indoor water parks?
00:44-00:45
How many people have been there?
00:45-00:57
"Oh, okay, a lot of us have. Oh man, I love those, yo!" Like Splash Lagoon, and Kalahari, and Castaway Bay, and the Great Wolf Lodge.
00:58-01:17
You know, Aaron and I, there were times that even before we had kids, we would go, I mean, if you haven't been to these things, I mean, there's wave pools, and there's water slides, and there's like water roller coasters, and then there's like lazy rivers you can just get on and float around, and you've been to these places?
01:18-01:20
I hate those places, man.
01:20-01:21
I really do.
01:22-01:30
I compare it to this, it's like, I call it, taking a five hour cold shower in a warehouse with 300 strangers.
01:31-01:32
Oh, but we go every year.
01:33-01:39
We go and I smile and I splash, but I always got one eye on the clock.
01:39-01:40
Like what happened?
01:40-01:43
I sincerely, we did, didn't we?
01:43-01:44
And we love those things.
01:44-01:46
Once upon a time, we loved those things.
01:46-01:58
And I'm like, now I go and I go through the motions and I look like I'm having fun, but I'm having a horrible time, and what happened?" And you're like, "You got old, Pastor Jeff.
01:58-02:04
That's what happened." Like, you're just a little too self-conscious to show off that dad bond you've been working on.
02:05-02:16
I mean, anyone else here have something that you used to love, you used to love it, and you still do it, but your heart just really isn't in it anymore?
02:17-02:18
You have something like that in your life?
02:19-02:21
Is that something called church?
02:21-02:23
For a lot of people it is.
02:24-02:26
We're in Revelation 1.
02:26-02:30
Verses 1-8 is the preview. It's like a movie trailer for everything that follows.
02:31-02:36
And then John introduces himself and sets the scene for us in the rest of chapter 1.
02:36-02:41
Sets the stage. Jesus Christ shows up in all His majestic glory.
02:41-02:45
And we saw this last week. John was sort of describing what Jesus looked like.
02:45-02:48
And he relays the commission that Jesus gave him.
02:49-02:55
which is to write. He says, "I want you to write down three things." And this is basically like the outline of Revelation.
02:55-03:01
Jesus said, "Write down the things that you see." That was seeing glorified Jesus, and John did that.
03:01-03:04
And that means we're a third done with Revelation now.
03:04-03:10
He said, "Write down the things that are." That's like state of the church. That's chapters 2 and 3.
03:10-03:13
And Jesus said to write down the things that will take place after this.
03:13-03:15
That's the stuff that's going to happen in the future.
03:15-03:19
And that's chapters 4-22 that we will be getting to.
03:20-03:26
So chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation, we're going to be spending seven weeks, one for each church. These are progress reports.
03:27-03:29
To the churches from Jesus Himself.
03:30-03:32
We talked about this a little bit. What are these churches?
03:32-03:35
Are they real churches? Are they symbolic? Do they mean something?
03:35-03:41
Well, these were seven actual churches, but they do typify churches that have always existed throughout history.
03:41-03:44
These are the kind of churches that have just always existed.
03:44-03:48
These are the kind of churches that exist in the Pittsburgh community as well.
03:48-03:51
These are the kind of churches that can describe us.
03:52-03:58
So each of these letters that we're going to look at, there's a basic format that they follow.
03:58-04:01
And the basic format looks something like this.
04:01-04:06
Okay, this is kind of generic, but Jesus sort of uses the same format for each letter.
04:06-04:13
But Jesus says, "To this church, from Christ," and He uses descriptive phrases from chapter 1.
04:13-04:14
and we'll see that.
04:14-04:19
Jesus said, "I know what's going on there, and here's what you're doing well, and here's where you need to repent.
04:20-04:24
I'm coming soon, so do this." And then he gives him some instruction.
04:24-04:34
And then he says, "Heed the word of the Lord and receive this promise from the Lord." So that outline is just sort of like the basic form that Jesus takes with this.
04:34-04:35
So look at Revelation 2.1.
04:36-04:42
Again, if you're visiting with us today, we're so glad that you're here and we are going through the book of Revelation verse by verse.
04:42-04:43
We're not skipping anything.
04:44-04:46
So this is where we left off last week, right?
04:46-05:01
Revelation 2.1, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write, 'The words of Him who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.'" So this first letter is addressed to the church in Ephesus.
05:02-05:05
We spend a lot of time talking about Ephesus going through Acts.
05:05-05:08
The church was founded, Acts 18, Acts 19.
05:08-05:15
We saw the church sort of founded and growing, Paul himself eventually spent almost three years in Ephesus.
05:16-05:25
And here's where, I found this really interesting, but history tells us that the apostle John probably spent about 30 years at this church.
05:26-05:38
See, historians think that this was the church where John wrote his epistles, and this is the church where John was attending when he was arrested and ultimately exiled to Patmos for being a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
05:39-05:44
Jesus identifies Himself as the one who has the seven stars in His right hand, walks among the seven lampstands.
05:44-05:46
We talked about that last week.
05:46-05:48
Those are terms from chapter 1.
05:48-05:52
And it's just Jesus' way of reminding them who's addressing Him.
05:53-05:55
This isn't what Grandma thinks about your church.
05:56-05:59
This isn't what your harshest critic thinks about your church.
05:59-06:01
This is what God thinks about your church.
06:01-06:05
So that means we need to listen really closely to what God says about the church.
06:06-06:07
So if you're taking notes, write this down.
06:08-06:10
Here's the report card, progress reports.
06:11-06:12
First of all, let's talk about the commendation.
06:13-06:14
The commendation, here's what you're doing right.
06:15-06:21
We're going to look at verses 2 and 3, and then we're going to jump down to verse 6 because Jesus sort of circles back and reminds them of something they're doing well.
06:22-06:36
He says, "I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
06:36-06:51
I know you are enduring patiently up for my namesake, and you have not grown weary." Verse 6, again more commendation, he says, "Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicoletans, which I also hate." Stop there.
06:52-07:06
Commendation, Jesus said, "I know your works." Now that word for "know," I think you know this without me having to explain it, but when Jesus knows something, He knows something, okay?
07:07-07:18
This wasn't like, "Hey, I heard a rumor somewhere, "or I was looking at your Facebook page "and sort of put some things together." Jesus said, "I have perfect full knowledge "of everything that's happening in that church.
07:18-07:26
"I know the hearts of every single person there." So when Jesus knows something, He knows something, right?
07:27-07:28
And here's Jesus, and here's what I know.
07:28-07:30
Here's the commendation, three things, jot these down.
07:30-07:33
He says, "First of all, you're hardworking." You're hardworking.
07:34-07:35
That's that word toil.
07:35-07:40
That's the word "toil." At the risk of being offensive, some of you don't know what this word means.
07:41-07:44
But the word "toil" means you work until you're exhausted.
07:45-07:47
And I know some of you do know what that means.
07:47-07:52
That you work, and you work, and you work, and you work, and I'm not stopping until I'm done.
07:52-07:55
That's toiling. It's working until you're exhausted.
07:56-07:58
That's the first thing Jesus commended them for.
07:59-08:03
The church - reminder - church is not the place that you go to get.
08:04-08:07
Church is not the place that you go to get entertained.
08:08-08:16
And I think especially in our culture, with so many good churches and a consumer mindset, I think people have the idea that church is the place you go to get.
08:17-08:19
Like what can this church offer me?
08:19-08:20
What can I get from this church?
08:21-08:22
Which church is the most entertaining?
08:23-08:26
Which church is going to give the most to my kids?
08:28-08:30
That's just a terrible reason to pick a church.
08:31-08:35
You need to find a church where God is feeding you and where God is using you and get involved there.
08:35-08:39
But church is not the place you get, church is the place where you serve.
08:40-08:42
Church is the place where you give.
08:42-08:48
And yes, as we are in a community of people giving, there are times that we get and we reap the benefits of that.
08:48-08:51
I'm not saying that, but I'm talking about the mindset here.
08:52-08:53
Jesus said to this church, "You're hardworking.
08:54-09:02
"You work until you can't work anymore." It's not just, "Oh, what can you do for me, "Church of Ephesus?" Church isn't a place you get or get entertained.
09:02-09:09
It's a place where you worship, walk, and work for Christ in a community of believers.
09:09-09:10
That's what church is to be.
09:11-09:12
And the Ephesians got that.
09:13-09:15
You show up to work.
09:16-09:16
Merit.
09:17-09:17
Alright?
09:17-09:19
The second thing is you're persevering.
09:21-09:21
Persevering.
09:22-09:23
That means being patient in hard times.
09:23-09:28
Not criticizing, not complaining, not boo-hoo, not wanting to give up.
09:28-09:29
You persevere.
09:29-10:01
stand strong in hard times and I'm not going to get into all this, you can research this, but this was a tough culture to do that. It was the center of Artemis/Diana worship and the priestesses at the temple were basically prostitutes and it just permeated everything in their culture, their economy. It was a horribly pagan, nasty culture that this church was sort of nestled in and Jesus is like, "You're standing strong in the midst of that. You of like Chick-fil-A, right?
10:02-10:06
But you're standing strong for Christ in the middle of a cesspool.
10:08-10:08
You're persevering.
10:09-10:11
And it was for the best motive, right? We saw that.
10:11-10:12
He said it was for His name's sake.
10:13-10:14
No greater motive than that, right?
10:16-10:20
The third thing that He commends them for is He says, "You're discerning." You're discerning.
10:21-10:26
And that's going to be a broad category because of three things that He says.
10:26-10:29
But Jesus says, "You're discerning." How are they discerning?
10:30-10:35
Well, first of all, He says, "You cannot tolerate evil men." They were sensitive to sin and they dealt with unrepentant people.
10:36-10:38
They did it. They went after that.
10:38-10:49
"You don't tolerate evil. You don't tolerate evil people." He says, "You test those who call themselves apostles." I was kind of laughing to myself this week.
10:49-10:53
I don't know about you, but when I was a young Christian, I came to Christ when I was 20.
10:54-11:03
And when I came to Christ, I thought that everything and everyone that called themselves Christian was totally legit. Right?
11:04-11:19
I thought everything, whether it was the guy on TV, or the speaker on the radio, or different magazines, Christian publications, Christian books, I thought everything that was called Christian was actually Christian.
11:19-11:25
And boy, I found out in about three weeks of my walk with Christ that that was not the case.
11:25-11:31
We need to test everyone who says that they're speaking for God.
11:31-11:35
You see, that's what Jesus commended the Ephesian church for.
11:35-11:36
Did you see that?
11:37-11:41
He says, "You have tested those." You've tested those. How do you test?
11:42-11:47
Well, when somebody says they're speaking for God, does their message line up with God's Word?
11:47-11:49
Are they agreeing with what God has already said?
11:50-11:51
That's how you know they're speaking for God.
11:52-11:58
If they're communicating something that is contrary to, or not in this book, they are not speaking for God.
11:59-12:05
Then you jump down to verse 6, "Jesus said, 'You hate the deeds of the Nicoletians.'" You hate the deeds of the Nicoletians.
12:06-12:07
Like, well, who are the Nicoletians?
12:09-12:10
Nobody's really sure.
12:11-12:17
Nobody's really exactly, specifically, positively identified this group.
12:17-12:23
But based on statements about them here and later on in the church to a Pergamum, Jesus mentions them.
12:24-12:28
These were people that apparently promoted sin in the name of liberty.
12:29-12:32
Especially in areas of food, areas of sexuality.
12:34-12:35
And they led other people into sin.
12:36-12:39
You see, such people still exist in our day.
12:39-12:44
You know, the mindset is this, "Well, God is glorified by forgiving sin, right?
12:44-12:47
And Christ has forgiven all of our sin, right?
12:48-12:56
So therefore, when we sin, we're already forgiven, and God's already glorified because our sin is forgiven, so it doesn't matter if you sin or not.
12:57-12:58
Sin really doesn't matter to God.
12:59-13:01
Just sin as much as you want, because it's already forgiven.
13:02-13:03
We are free in Christ.
13:03-13:07
And there are people that, "Oh, free in Christ!
13:08-13:11
And I have liberty. I can do whatever I want.
13:12-13:15
And I'm free in Christ." Such people still exist today.
13:17-13:20
And I would say to such people, you're also free to read the Bible and get a clue.
13:20-13:24
Because that is not what Christian liberty is about.
13:24-13:26
We are not free to sin.
13:27-13:36
I've heard people say such foolish, ignorant things like, "Jesus paid for your sins, so get His money's worth out of that." And just stupid.
13:38-13:39
Such foolishness.
13:40-13:46
But that's the kind of people that this church had to deal with, and that's the kind of people which you're going to have to deal with at some point or another.
13:47-13:59
But here's what I want you to notice specifically about this in verse 6, where Jesus said, "Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicoletians, which I also hate." You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
13:59-14:01
Are you saying that Jesus hates?
14:01-14:04
And Jesus is commending the church for hating?
14:04-14:10
Well, that certainly doesn't sound like the Jesus that I grew up hearing about in Sunday school." Well, look at your text very closely.
14:12-14:14
Jesus hates the deeds, not the people.
14:15-14:15
Did you see that?
14:16-14:18
He hates the deeds, not the people.
14:19-14:22
And He commends the church for hating the deeds and not the people.
14:23-14:30
This is a whole other sermon and I'm really fighting temptation to not just launch into it right now, but the church has done a horrible job with this.
14:31-14:34
When I say "the church" I mean the church in general, the church at large.
14:34-14:41
You know, instead of like, hate the sin, love the sinner kind of thing, It's, you know, we love the sin.
14:41-14:55
And we want to tell people, "It's okay if you sin, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay if you sin, you don't have to change." And we start to accept sinful lifestyle behaviors as being okay.
14:56-14:58
Whatever happened to repentance?
15:00-15:05
Whatever happened to, "Jesus Christ radically transforms your life!" Whatever happened to that?
15:06-15:16
people that are living a sinful lifestyle, we say, "Well, you don't need to change." And we're robbing God of the opportunity of transforming that person's life?
15:16-15:20
We're robbing that person of the blessing of experiencing the grace of Jesus Christ?
15:21-15:22
Oh, I said I wasn't going to get into this sermon.
15:23-15:25
I'm going to stop there with that point.
15:26-15:29
But notice that Jesus hated the deeds and He commended the people for hating the deeds.
15:30-15:34
The church was hardworking, they were persevering, and they were discerning.
15:36-16:33
good progress report right and at that point they were like okay so we can leave now we're done right now there's more look at verse 4 the criticism the criticism Jesus said here's what you're not doing so well church verse 4 but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first to this church they were working hard they were standing strong they were holding the truth and everything looked so good on the outside. But that was the problem. It only looked good on the outside because Christ points out they had a major issue that they needed to deal with. That's they abandoned the love that they had at first. You're like love for what? The love for everything that matters. The love for everything that needs Specifically, the love for Christ.
16:34-16:36
The love for Jesus Christ Himself.
16:36-16:37
How about the love for the church?
16:38-16:40
How about the love for the lost?
16:40-16:43
That's what Jesus is talking about here. It's all of the above.
16:43-16:47
You have walked away from the love that you had at first.
16:48-16:51
First love is all about sincerity.
16:52-17:01
And when you drift from that, you may still do the right things, like at the water park, but your heart just isn't in it.
17:02-17:09
According to Jesus, if I'm reading this right, I want you to write this down, why you do matters just as much as what you do.
17:10-17:12
Why you do matters just as much as what you do.
17:13-17:16
For those of you who are married, you hopefully are getting that now.
17:17-17:26
Because this sort of problem can happen in a marriage, just like the Ephesians had become loveless, It can happen in a marriage, where the marriage becomes loveless.
17:26-17:30
Oh, the couple might still share a home, share a bed.
17:32-17:35
They may still share the kiss goodbye. They may still share vacations.
17:36-17:41
But that honeymoon has long been over, and they're just phoning it in now.
17:42-17:46
"I do what I do because this is a husbandly role," or whatever.
17:46-17:54
"I do what I do because I'm a wife, and a wife, I guess, is supposed to do these things." and is not motivated by love.
17:55-17:57
Why you do matters just as much as what you do.
17:59-18:00
So what does that look like in the church?
18:02-18:04
Conviction time for all of us.
18:04-18:06
What does it look like in the church?
18:07-18:07
You can jot these things down.
18:08-18:09
No sincere heart love for Jesus.
18:10-18:13
No sincere heart love for Jesus leads to empty religion.
18:14-18:15
That's what it looks like in the church.
18:16-18:22
I still show up on Sunday and I mouth some songs and I pray in church when called upon.
18:22-18:38
But you know, really, if I'm being completely honest with you, I mean, if I'm being completely honest, I don't really love Jesus as much as I identify Christianity as my religious affiliation.
18:39-18:42
That's what happens when there's no sincere heart love for Jesus Christ.
18:43-18:44
We turn into a religion.
18:45-19:19
No sincere heart love for the church, for the people sitting here, leads to tolerance. And I don't mean that in a good way, and that tolerance is the highest of virtue ways that it's often promoted today. Here's what I mean. We come to church and we pretend to care about people, but if we're being completely honest about it, people are kind of annoying. And I attend small group because I kind of signed up for it and they're kind of expecting me. But you know what, Pastor Jim, really the truth is I don't really love people as much as This is I tolerate people.
19:19-19:21
That's what happens when there's no sincere heart love.
19:21-19:26
This is what the Ephesian church drifted away from, and this is something that we can drift away from.
19:27-19:29
No sincere heart love for the lost?
19:29-19:30
What does that lead to?
19:31-19:31
Programs.
19:33-19:33
Programs.
19:34-19:35
We're going to have a program.
19:36-19:42
Because as a church, we're sort of obligated to do these events to get new people to come to our church.
19:42-19:48
And I show up at these outreaches, I guess we should be involved in the community thing.
19:49-19:58
You know what, Pastor Jeff, I don't really love the lost as much as I feel obligated to be part of these programs to get new church attendees.
20:00-20:06
So do you see how you can look like you're working so hard, but your heart's just not in it.
20:07-20:09
Following Christ becomes mechanical.
20:10-20:12
It becomes obligatory.
20:13-20:16
It's a duty, not a delight.
20:17-20:33
And you're like, "Oh, as the pastor, you probably never wrestle with that." More than anybody in this room, I promise you, because there is a real sense in which, well, I have to do this because the church provides for my family by doing this, and the temptation is stronger for me than you realize that it is.
20:34-20:39
And I am constantly, church, hear me, I am constantly on my face asking God to check my motive.
20:40-20:42
God, let me do what I do for the right reason.
20:43-20:51
This is something that I'm constantly needing the Lord to work in my heart, because it's so easy to get there.
20:51-21:08
Your mind acknowledges that all these things that we do are right, and it's right to work hard, and it's right to endure, and it's right to use discernment, and it's right to hold the truth, but your heart just isn't in it, but we still do it because intellectually, we acknowledge that it's right.
21:09-21:11
You're like, "Bro, how can that happen?
21:12-21:14
How does that happen? I'll tell you how it happens.
21:16-21:24
You focus on buildings and capital campaigns and facility stuff, and you lose sight of the mission.
21:25-21:29
Now look, we're in the middle of working on some things for the building and capital campaigns.
21:29-21:31
We're in the middle of working on these things.
21:31-21:36
I'm just saying these things become a real danger of becoming the focus of the church.
21:36-21:43
All of our energy and thoughts and resources, and we're all focused on this so much that we forget why we're even here.
21:45-21:46
That's how it happens.
21:46-21:47
Here's another way it happens.
21:49-21:51
I would say much worse than the previous.
21:52-21:53
You get jaded with people.
21:54-21:55
You get jaded with people.
21:56-21:58
Go ahead, try it sometime.
21:58-22:01
Completely pour your heart out and be unappreciated.
22:03-22:03
Repeatedly.
22:04-22:07
By the very people that you're trying to serve.
22:07-22:08
"Oh, that's a treat.
22:09-22:16
That's a real treat." And if you've been involved in ministry for more than five minutes, any level of ministry, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
22:17-22:18
It's rough, man.
22:18-22:21
Our old church, we had these community meals.
22:21-22:23
What was it like once or twice a month?
22:23-22:25
Have these community meals, and here's the mindset going into it.
22:26-22:35
We're going to love our community, and there's these people out there that are, whether they're poor or hungry or whatever, whatever, and we're gonna bring them in and we're gonna give them a hot meal twice a month.
22:35-22:43
We're gonna hot meal, no charge, and we're going to pour out our love, and these people are gonna come in, and they're gonna be having their hot meal.
22:44-22:49
And they're like, "Oh, my heart is so warmed by this meal because this church loves me so much.
22:49-22:54
I wanna know the God that they serve." And that's the idea that you have when you set these things up, right?
22:54-22:57
It's all people are gonna love this, they're gonna love this.
22:57-22:59
You know what it actually looked like?
22:59-23:07
A line of people on their iPhones, stepping up to the counter going, "Spaghetti again?
23:08-23:11
We just had spaghetti at the church that we went to yesterday.
23:11-23:18
I'm having spaghetti again." Then the next time it's time to show for the community meal, how do you feel about that?
23:19-23:21
Oh, go through that a few times.
23:22-23:33
Go through that a few times and forget that you're doing this for Jesus and let people's reaction have more of an impact on you than the Lord's opinion about what you're doing.
23:34-23:36
And eventually your heart's just not going to be in it.
23:37-23:38
Jesus' criticism remains true.
23:38-23:41
Outward service does not make up for a cold and different heart.
23:42-23:43
Okay, so the correction.
23:44-23:45
That's the criticism.
23:45-23:46
Let's talk about the correction.
23:48-23:56
Verse five, Jesus says, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.
23:57-24:02
If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place you repent.
24:03-24:05
Now correction, three things, three R words, you ready?
24:06-24:07
Number one, he says, you remember.
24:08-24:09
Remember from where you have fallen.
24:11-24:12
That's how this all starts.
24:12-24:13
We forget God and what he's done.
24:14-24:15
We just, we forget.
24:15-24:16
We forget about God.
24:16-24:19
We forget about what God has done for us.
24:19-24:20
We forget.
24:20-24:23
And that's what started us down the wrong path.
24:23-24:30
And what Jesus says to the Ephesian church, which I echo to you right now, I want you to think back in your life right now.
24:31-24:33
Close your eyes if it helps you think as it helps me.
24:33-24:37
But think back to when you first came to Jesus Christ.
24:38-24:43
Think back to when you first understood who He is and what He's done.
24:43-24:46
Think back to how overwhelmed you were with His love.
24:47-24:49
You are totally forgiven of your sins.
24:50-24:53
You have the promise of heaven secured.
24:54-24:55
Can you think back to that time?
24:56-25:01
And can you think back how excited you were to serve him out of love?
25:02-25:03
At that time, he said, you know what?
25:03-25:07
I'm gonna get involved in the churches, you know, Harvest Kids or Sunday School or whatever that thing is called.
25:07-25:08
I'm gonna get involved in that.
25:08-25:10
I'm gonna teach kids about Jesus.
25:10-25:18
I'm gonna get involved in the youth group and I'm gonna tell these teenagers not to make the same stupid mistakes I have and how awesome Jesus is.
25:18-25:23
And I will clean the bathrooms in the name of the Lord.
25:25-25:27
Because the reality is nobody gets involved in the church.
25:27-25:31
Nobody gets involved in ministry because they love cleaning bathrooms.
25:31-25:33
If you do, that's weird.
25:34-25:36
That's not why people get involved.
25:37-25:43
Nobody gets involved in ministry because they love sending emails or having meetings or praying with strangers.
25:44-25:46
You do all of these things, why?
25:47-25:49
I do all of these things because I love Jesus.
25:50-25:53
And this is a way that I can serve him by loving his people.
25:55-26:02
So step one is to remember, take a trip down memory lane to when you did what you did purely and simply because of Jesus.
26:03-26:04
Can you get to that place?
26:04-26:06
It was just for Jesus, man.
26:06-26:07
It was just for Jesus.
26:07-26:08
I didn't need payment.
26:09-26:10
I didn't need recognition.
26:10-26:11
I didn't need acknowledgement.
26:11-26:12
I didn't need thanks.
26:13-26:14
I did it because I love Jesus.
26:14-26:17
Can you get back to that place in your mind when that happened?
26:18-26:19
Then that takes you to step two.
26:19-26:20
Jesus says to repent.
26:21-26:23
Repentance literally means to change your mind.
26:23-26:26
And here he's talking about acknowledging this.
26:28-26:29
My loveless attitude is sin.
26:30-26:33
My loveless attitude is wrong.
26:34-26:36
You have to get alone with God.
26:36-26:43
Get on your face, and I mean literally on your face, and confess this to Him, if this is you.
26:44-26:47
Say, "God, you know, my heart hasn't been in it, God." By the way, He knows, right?
26:48-27:00
But there's something powerful and life-changing about confessing to God, agreeing with God, to say, "God, you're right, and I've been wrong, "and I'm confessing that to you right now.
27:01-27:02
"God, my heart hasn't been in it.
27:03-27:11
"God, I need you to restore in me a heart "that serves you out of love and appreciation "for what you've done." And the third thing is return.
27:12-27:14
Remember, repent, return.
27:14-27:14
Return to what?
27:15-27:20
He said, "Repent and do the works you did at first." Like, wait a second.
27:21-27:26
We've already established that this church has been doing good works, hello, working to the point of exhaustion.
27:27-27:28
We've already established that.
27:28-27:33
So how is doing good works a solution to the problem?
27:34-27:37
Because the deeds you did at first were motivated by love.
27:37-27:38
Get back to that.
27:39-27:40
Get back to passionate worship.
27:41-27:42
Get back to fervent prayer.
27:43-27:48
Get back to serving Christ and his people and reaching out to the lost because of love.
27:48-27:50
And that's why this is step three.
27:50-27:52
This isn't step one, right?
27:52-27:53
This is step three.
27:54-28:07
Only after you remember from where you've fallen for what you used to do, only when you change your mind and confess this to the Lord, are you ready to get back to doing things with the right heart attitude that God calls you to.
28:08-28:17
Jesus said, "If you refuse to repent," you notice he says, verse five, "I will come to you and remove your lampstand "from its place." What does that mean?
28:18-28:22
Well, Jesus is saying he's going to bring an end to the Ephesian church.
28:23-28:25
That doesn't mean that people are going to lose their salvation.
28:25-28:26
It doesn't mean that.
28:26-28:28
We know scripture is quite clear on that.
28:29-28:36
He didn't mean the church is going to suddenly turn into ashes or the church is just going to suddenly disappear.
28:37-28:38
But what did he mean?
28:39-28:41
Well, here's the thing.
28:41-28:43
Churches end all the time.
28:44-28:48
Some churches have already ended And the congregation was just too busy to notice.
28:49-28:56
All the buildings still there, and people still meet, and things still happen, but it's not a church.
28:57-28:57
That's the correction.
28:58-29:02
Remember, repent, return, get back to this.
29:03-29:04
And finally, the call.
29:04-29:11
The call, verse seven, Jesus said, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
29:11-29:17
To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
29:18-29:22
He who has an ear, Jesus closes all of the letters with this.
29:22-29:25
When Jesus says this, he means you better pay attention.
29:25-29:30
If you can hear what I'm saying, you better listen really close to what I'm saying, is what Jesus is saying.
29:30-29:34
If you're tuned in, turn the volume up, is what he's saying.
29:35-29:37
To him who overcomes, what's an overcomer?
29:37-29:41
Well, that's just a name that John used frequently to describe Christians.
29:41-29:44
Look at 1 John 5, verses four and five.
29:44-29:48
An overcomer is another name for a Christian.
29:48-29:52
The promise here is to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.
29:52-29:53
What is that all about?
29:54-30:00
Well, Genesis 2.9, in the Garden of Eden, God put the tree of life.
30:01-30:06
But because Adam and Eve sinned, this tree was lost to mankind.
30:06-30:09
Mankind was forbidden to eat from this tree.
30:10-30:11
Genesis 3.22.
30:12-30:15
Mankind was forbidden to eat from the tree of life.
30:16-30:21
The good news is Jesus says the heavenly tree of life is going to be there for all of eternity.
30:21-30:25
We're going to see that in Revelation 22 when we get there soon.
30:26-30:31
But the tree symbolizes eternal life, and obviously the paradise of God is talking about heaven.
30:32-30:35
So do you need incentive to get back to being motivated by love?
30:36-30:40
See, what Jesus is saying is this, there's a glorious promise for God's people.
30:41-30:44
His love provided you heaven.
30:44-30:53
So let your love for Him and for His people drive you to worship Christ, to walk with Christ, and to work for Christ.
30:54-30:54
Let's pray.
30:56-31:02
Father in heaven, we confess to you that this sin is so easy for us to fall into.
31:03-31:05
Maybe that's why it's listed first here.
31:06-31:16
God, we readily acknowledge the danger in getting so caught up in stuff, so caught up in busyness that we lose sight of why we're doing what we're doing.
31:17-31:19
Father, please forbid that ever happen to this church.
31:20-31:35
Father, please forbid that that ever happen where the leaders of this church are more driven by numbers or money or a name than they're driven by Your name.
31:36-31:39
and who you are and what you've done.
31:39-31:50
And that Father, let everything this church does, everything from harvest kids to the worship, to the hospitality, to small groups, and there's just so much happening in this church.
31:50-32:00
But Father, I pray that everything in this church is done for Jesus Christ and because of Jesus Christ out of a sincere heart that wants to serve Jesus Christ.
32:01-32:12
Father, we thank you for the glorious promise that You give us. Help us, Father, to repent where needed. Always stay focused on our motivation.
32:13-32:15
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion

Read Revelation 2:1-7

GROUP

1. What was the Ephesian church commended for? How is HBC doing in these areas? How could we do better?

2. How do you know when a church has abandoned “the love it had at first” (v4)? What are the signs? What signs would you look for to make sure HBC hasn’t drifted from being motivated by sincere love?

3. When you drift from “the love you had at first” (v4), how do you get back to it? How can an entire church get back to it if the church at large has drifted from “the love it had at first”?

Bonus: The Ephesian church was commended for enduring with good works (v2-3). Yet Jesus said she had to get back to “doing the works she did at first” (v5). What needs to change? In other words, if the church was already doing good works, how can Jesus call the church to getting back to good works?

BREAKOUT

Pray for one another, your SG, and HBC - that we are always motivated to sincerely love Jesus, each other, and the lost.

Jeff Miller

October 14, 2018

Coming Soon!

The Glory of Christ

Jeff Miller

October 14, 2018

Coming Soon!

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!

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.
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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.
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You see, we were, Matt and I, we were in the presence of the mayor and we didn't even know it.
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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.
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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.
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He was having a time of worship and fellowship with the Lord.
06:35-06:36
When?
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It was on the Lord's Day.
06:38-06:38
That's Sunday.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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How many people have seen this picture of Jesus?
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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.
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And then here's my favorite image of Jesus.
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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.
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Well, here's something that may surprise you.
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Do you know there's not one word of description in the Bible about what Jesus looked like during His earthly ministry.
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Not one word. Not one word.
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The only thing we know about His appearance is that He looked like every other Jewish man.
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There was nothing outstanding about Jesus' appearance.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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We get a full description in this passage of what Jesus looks like as you and I are going to see Him someday.
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And the things in this vision reveal some things about Jesus, specifically His relation to the church. His ministry to the church.
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We're going to talk about that in chapters 2 and 3.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Philippians 2 talks about how the church is to radiate the glory of Christ.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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Romans 8 type stuff?
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"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.
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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.
21:58-22:08
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?
22:19-22:25
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.
23:07-23:14
From His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword." I already saw this, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength.
23:16-23:17
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.
23:32-23:35
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.
24:03-24:06
You know, you take the signs to antagonize the bad guys.
24:07-24:14
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.
24:25-24:30
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...
24:37-24:45
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.
24:45-24:53
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.
24:54-24:57
As soon as dad said that, I was terrified.
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I thought this guy was going to come after me.
25:00-25:11
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.
25:23-25:27
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.
25:59-26:02
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.
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He says the seven stars are, verse 20, He says they're the angels of the seven churches.
26:20-26:27
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?
26:49-26:58
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.
26:59-27:00
So here's both sides of the argument. Are you ready?
27:02-27:02
Here's one side.
27:05-27:09
Angel does not refer to heavenly beings, okay?
27:10-27:18
But messengers, the words translated messengers really, and the pastors of the churches are what this is talking about.
27:19-27:20
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?
28:03-28:06
Why did Jesus say angel if He didn't mean angel?
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I mean, angels everywhere else in Revelation.
28:12-28:17
And it's a lot. Everywhere else in Revelation, angel means angel.
28:17-28:19
It's literal, straightforward.
28:20-28:21
I understand that's what you said last week, right, Pastor Jeff?
28:22-28:31
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.
28:59-29:01
So it's talking about literal angels.
29:02-29:03
Those are the two arguments.
29:05-29:11
And right now you're saying, "All right, which is it?" You ready?
29:12-29:13
Write this down.
29:14-29:15
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.
29:28-29:56
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.
29:58-30:06
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.
30:07-30:08
Now, wouldn't that be idiotic?
30:09-30:09
It doesn't matter.
30:10-30:12
It doesn't matter if he used a rotary phone.
30:13-30:16
The means of the message isn't the important thing.
30:17-30:19
The message is the important thing.
30:21-30:22
Right?
30:23-30:28
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.
30:29-30:29
Whatever.
30:31-30:33
Does angel mean pastor?
30:33-30:35
Does angel mean actual angel?
30:37-30:38
It just doesn't matter.
30:39-30:40
But I will say this, here's where it does matter.
30:42-30:50
If you hold the view If this word for angel actually means pastor, then you may refer to me as an angel.
30:53-30:54
And I mean that.
30:55-31:05
It says that from Jesus' mouth, verse 16, "came a sharp two-edged sword." That's the Word of God.
31:06-31:07
The Word of God.
31:08-31:09
Hebrews 4.12.
31:10-31:13
Think about what that Word has done just by speaking.
31:14-31:16
That Word created the world, didn't it?
31:17-31:23
We're going to see in Revelation that that Word's going to destroy His enemies.
31:23-31:24
Chapter 19, verse 15.
31:26-31:29
And in this context here, he's saying it's the Word that protects His church.
31:32-31:36
So we look at this vision of Christ, right?
31:39-31:40
What do we say about that?
31:41-31:42
What do you say about him?
31:45-31:48
You know, when I read this passage, I can only really think about one thing.
31:49-31:49
And that's this.
31:51-32:00
The case can be made that during Jesus' earthly ministry, John was His BFF.
32:00-32:00
Right?
32:01-32:02
The case can be made for that.
32:02-32:05
That John who wrote Revelation, the Gospel of John, 1, 2, and 3.
32:05-32:08
The case can be made that John was Jesus' BFF.
32:09-32:10
You're like, well, how can you say that?
32:10-32:11
Here's why.
32:11-32:15
One, John was one of the inner three disciples, right?
32:16-32:21
John was the one who the Bible refers to as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
32:21-32:25
John was the one who was leaning against Jesus during the Last Supper.
32:28-32:32
So John spent a lot of time really close to Jesus during his earthly ministry.
32:34-32:39
And at this point in Revelation, John had not seen Jesus in about 60 years.
32:41-32:42
I want you to look at verse 17.
32:43-32:45
Okay, reunion with your BFF.
32:45-32:46
Look what happens.
32:46-32:54
It says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead." That's how awesome Jesus is in this passage.
32:55-33:05
John gets one look at Him, and is so overwhelmed by His majesty and by His glory, He just - boom! - collapses, passes out faints.
33:05-33:11
He said, "I was like a dead man." Just like so many others in Scripture, right?
33:12-33:14
Like Isaiah, Isaiah 6.
33:15-33:17
He sees the Lord, "Woe is me!
33:18-33:23
I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." Paul talks about this, right?
33:23-33:29
When he met Christ, when you meet the glorified Christ, you will fall on your face.
33:31-33:32
Even if you were his best friend.
33:34-33:41
We see here Jesus comforting John as he experiences this awesome presence and he starts by identifying himself to John.
33:42-33:43
Look at verse 17.
33:44-33:55
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.
33:57-33:58
I died.
33:59-34:11
"Behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades." Christ says He has the keys of death and Hades.
34:11-34:12
What's death and Hades?
34:12-34:15
Well, the two terms really mean kind of the same thing.
34:15-34:19
Death is like the condition, and Hades is the location.
34:20-34:24
The Greek word for Hades is like the Hebrew word for Sheol.
34:24-34:26
You see it a lot in the Old Testament.
34:26-34:28
And it was sort of a generic term for the grave.
34:29-34:54
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?
34:55-35:12
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.
35:13-35:14
I own them.
35:14-35:18
The keys are mine." So what's the picture of keys?
35:18-35:20
Keys obviously are a picture of authority, right?
35:22-35:25
Think about, for example, your workplace.
35:26-35:33
When you get a job somewhere, maybe it's your job, maybe you have keys to the place in which you work.
35:33-35:34
Keys are authority.
35:35-35:42
It says, "Hey, we are entrusting you to be able to lock and unlock doors.
35:43-35:48
We're trusting you to enable access and to lock people out if need be.
35:49-35:50
for trusting you.
35:52-35:55
And keys say, "I have authority here.
35:55-36:04
I was given these, and I have the ability to open and shut doors." Jesus has the keys.
36:05-36:08
He alone has authority over death.
36:08-36:13
Jesus alone is sovereign, and He makes all determinations over life and death.
36:14-36:22
Jesus said, "Whoever believes in Him will never die." And He has the authority to make sure that happens.
36:24-36:29
So the vision concludes with verse 19, with the charge to John.
36:30-36:30
Look at verse 19.
36:31-36:45
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.
36:47-36:51
You take this verse, and it outlines the entire book.
36:53-36:56
Jesus says, first of all, I want you to write down the things that you've seen.
36:56-36:57
That's Him.
36:59-37:00
That's what we just studied.
37:01-37:02
Write down the things that you've seen.
37:03-37:04
Then He says, write down the things that are.
37:05-37:07
That's the state of the church.
37:07-37:09
That's chapters 2 and 3.
37:12-37:14
the way things are in the church right now.
37:15-37:21
And he says, "And write down the things that will take place after this." That's chapters 4-22.
37:23-37:31
All of the things taking place in the future, the end of the world, the creation of the new heaven and new earth.
37:33-37:34
That's the outline of Revelation.
37:36-37:39
Write down the things that you see, the things that are, and the things that will take place after this.
37:39-37:41
And that is really good news, because do you know what that means?
37:42-37:46
That means we are a third done with the book of Revelation right now.
37:48-37:51
It seems like we just started. I know, right?
37:52-38:06
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.
38:06-38:07
Let's pray.
38:08-38:13
Father in heaven, I thank You that John wrote this down.
38:13-38:20
I can't even wrap my brain around what this glimpse of Christ would look like.
38:22-38:32
Just reading it on the page, this divinely inspired description, just reading it, brings us to a place of awe and worship.
38:32-38:36
I can't imagine for John who saw it, who heard it.
38:38-39:03
"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.
39:06-39:10
Persecution increasing abroad and here.
39:12-39:20
I pray, Father, that our minds and our hearts are directed towards the glorious truth that the church is in Your hands.
39:22-39:25
You are standing in the midst of Your church.
39:27-39:31
You love your church. You died for your church.
39:31-39:33
You rose from the dead for your church.
39:33-39:36
And you're coming again to take your church back.
39:38-39:56
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.
39:57-40:09
Let us see with our eyes, Father, evidences, God at work type things that prove You are in fact working in our midst.
40:11-40:13
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.

Jeff Miller

October 7, 2018

Coming Soon!

The Preview

Jeff Miller

October 7, 2018

Coming Soon!

  
    Interpreting Revelation
Preterist approach
Historicist approach
Idealist approach
Futurist approach

  

Introduction:

The Premise. (Revelation 1:1-2)
The Promise. (Revelation 1:3)
The Person. (Revelation 1:4-6)
The Preview. (Revelation 1:7-8)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:40-00:42
We're going to be starting our new series this week, maybe you've heard.
00:43-00:46
Turn in your Bibles with me please to the book of Revelation.
00:47-00:55
While you're turning there, Bible students, I want to give you a little introduction to how we are approaching this book.
00:56-01:00
Because there really have been four main approaches to interpreting Revelation.
01:00-01:02
How do we go after this book?
01:02-01:06
Well, there's four main approaches if you want to jot these down.
01:06-01:14
I'm giving you this for clarity's sake so you understand where I'm coming from as we move forward, okay? The first approach is called the Preterist approach.
01:15-01:34
The Preterist approach. That approach believes that everything described in the book of Revelation happened in the first century. Like, it's all been done. But there's a huge problem with that approach, is because Revelation itself says that it is prophecy, and obviously the second coming of Jesus Christ has not yet happened.
01:34-01:41
So the idea that this is all done and over, I don't see that in the text.
01:41-01:43
I just do not see that at all.
01:43-01:44
It's forthcoming.
01:45-01:48
The second view is the historicist approach.
01:48-01:52
And that view says that Revelation serves as an outline for church history.
01:53-02:01
You just sort of look at the history of the church over the last 2,000 years, and Revelation sort of covers the timeline of church history.
02:01-02:04
And I think that that view has some problems.
02:05-02:10
But the third way people approach Revelation is the idealist approach.
02:11-02:15
And they say this, "Revelation is not really history, and it's not really prophecy.
02:15-02:24
Revelation is just like this poem, this extended metaphor of the battle of good versus evil." That's really what Revelation is.
02:24-02:41
It's just sort of talking about how God is good, and Satan hates God and his people, when this battle sort of played out. And again, you're going to see as we go through the text, Revelation is not presented that way. The fourth approach is called the futurist approach.
02:41-02:49
The futurist approach. That view believes that chapters 6 through 22 take place in the future.
02:50-02:54
I would suggest to you also probably chapters 4 and 5, we'll talk about that.
02:55-03:27
But this view believes that, approaches Revelation rather, in a way that everything is about real people and real events that are yet to come. And this view takes God at His word, that revelation is prophecy. So if you, however long you've been here and heard sermons at Harvest Bible Chapel, I think you know the approach that we take to God's Word here. And the word that I'm going to use, you're probably going to hear me say it a lot over these next several months, is the word Straightforwardly.
03:28-03:32
That's how I read and understand and approach God's Word.
03:33-03:34
Straightforwardly.
03:35-03:38
Assuming that God means what He says.
03:39-03:41
I don't believe that God gave us a puzzle book.
03:42-03:49
I don't believe God gave us some cryptic writing and said, "See if you can figure it out." I don't believe that.
03:49-03:56
I believe God wants us to know some things, so He wrote it down so we could read it and and know some things.
03:57-04:07
That's why when I read the Bible for myself, or when I teach the Bible, or any of the other guys get up here and preach the Bible, it's always straightforwardly, God means what He says.
04:08-04:13
And with that, this is also important, we allow Scripture to interpret Scripture.
04:13-04:25
Especially in Revelation, we're going to be seeing the Old Testament being the key to unlock our understanding of the concepts of Revelation.
04:25-04:29
Do you know the book of Revelation does not directly quote the Old Testament?
04:30-04:37
But, out of the 404 verses in the book of Revelation, 404 verses, okay?
04:38-04:42
278 of those verses refer to truths from the Old Testament.
04:43-04:44
So that's how we're going after Revelation.
04:45-04:54
We're going to be reading it verse by verse, assuming God meant what He said, seeking to understand it straightforwardly.
04:55-05:02
Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we approach your Word, we do it with reverence, God, because this is the book that you wrote.
05:02-05:09
And I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would open our spiritual eyes that we can see very clearly what you wrote.
05:10-05:17
There are some people, Father, who are in this room and some people are going to be listening to this who maybe have not ever read Revelation.
05:17-05:19
This is going to be a huge blessing for them.
05:19-05:22
There are some people, Father, in this room and hearing this who don't know You.
05:23-05:31
And I pray that You would use this as a way that You bring them to repentance, that You grant repentance through Your Holy Spirit working with this Word.
05:33-05:40
Father, just as Sam demonstrated earlier, Father, we want to see Your hand at work transforming lives.
05:41-05:43
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
05:43-05:46
So, have you seen any good movies lately?
05:47-05:48
Who has seen a good movie recently?
05:49-05:51
Nobody. Awesome.
05:52-05:54
Peter, you saw a good movie recently. Thank you.
05:54-05:55
What did you see that was good?
05:56-05:57
Love Finds You and Sugar Creek.
05:58-06:00
I got to admit, I've not heard of that one.
06:00-06:01
Well, Peter, thank you.
06:01-06:06
Apparently, you're the only person that knows how to find decent movies because nobody else has seen a good movie.
06:07-06:09
All right. Who has ever seen a good movie?
06:09-06:13
Okay, some of you are really harsh critics because some of you did not put your hand up.
06:13-06:14
I've never seen a good movie.
06:15-06:17
Calm down there, Cisco and Ebert.
06:18-06:22
All right, how many... let's try this then, since that works so awesomely.
06:23-06:32
How many of you have seen a movie trailer, and after seeing the movie trailer you thought to yourself, "I want to see that movie"? How many of you have done that?
06:32-06:35
Okay, thank you. Should have started with that, Justin.
06:35-06:37
I should have started with that.
06:37-06:39
Movie trailers, let's talk about movie trailers for a second.
06:40-06:41
I had to look this up, I didn't know this.
06:41-06:42
Do you know why it's called a trailer?
06:44-06:45
They used to show them at the end of movies.
06:46-06:51
But there was a problem with that, because after the movie was over, people left.
06:52-06:54
I'm not sticking around to watch a commercial.
06:54-07:14
So they're like, "Well, we'll put the trailer at the beginning, so if you show up early for the movie, you've got to watch our commercial." But we've all, at times, have seen a trailer, a movie preview, and thought to yourself, "Man, I've got to see that. I've got to see that." That happened to me this past week. A trailer came out for a TV show that I love.
07:14-07:17
The next season's coming out and the trailer came out.
07:17-07:20
I watched it like three or four times in a row.
07:20-07:26
I was like, "This is gonna be so cool!" Okay, well, a good trailer gives you some things.
07:27-07:30
First of all, a good trailer gives you the premise of the movie, right?
07:30-07:32
You want to know like, what's this movie about?
07:32-07:33
Is it action?
07:33-07:34
Is it comedy?
07:34-07:36
Is it drama?
07:36-07:38
Is it a scary movie?
07:38-07:39
It gives you the premise.
07:41-07:45
But a good movie trailer also promises to deliver something, doesn't it?
07:46-07:47
It promises to deliver something.
07:49-08:07
They say things like, "This is the feel-good movie of the year." Or, "This movie will have you on the edge of your seat." Or, "You will never look at possums the same way again." Or whatever, but they make some sort of a promise that they want you to go see the movie so they can deliver it.
08:08-08:16
So they give you a premise, they give you a promise, they give you the person, the movie, about, right? Who's the star? Who's the main character? Who is the protagonist?
08:16-08:29
Who's the person the movie's about? And then the trailer obviously has to give you a preview of the action, or the drama, or a preview of the comedy.
08:30-08:35
Just to give you a little taste so that you want to go see the whole thing.
08:36-08:45
Well, this introduction to Revelation, this passage that we're looking at today verses 1 through 8, this passage is a movie trailer for the rest of Revelation.
08:45-09:27
Okay? Everything we're looking at today is really the trailer for everything that follows, because we're going to see in these first day verses, we're going to see the premise, we're going to see the promise, we're going to see the person, and we're going to see the preview of everything that's coming over these next several months as we go through the book of Revelation. This introduction today, These verses today, reading through these and looking really closely at what is ahead in the rest of the book, these should make you want to say, "I want to absorb every single word that the Lord is going to give me from Revelation this year." So those are the elements of a good movie trailer.
09:27-09:31
Those are certainly the elements of this teaser here.
09:31-09:32
So write some things down here.
09:32-09:36
Number one on your outline, let's look at the premise of what Revelation is all about.
09:37-09:37
This is the premise.
09:38-09:39
Let's look at the first couple of verses.
09:40-09:43
We're going to break some things down here because there is a lot happening right out of the gate.
09:43-09:44
All right?
09:44-09:45
Look at the first two verses.
09:45-09:55
"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place.
09:55-10:07
He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God into the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
10:07-10:10
So right now we have the premise of Revelation.
10:10-10:11
What is Revelation about?
10:12-10:20
Well the word Revelation, the Greek word, apokalupsis, means uncovering or unveiling.
10:20-10:22
And it's used a lot in the New Testament.
10:22-11:17
But what Revelation literally means, what that word literally means, is something that was previously hidden or not seen and now it is uncovered. Like God says, "Nobody's seen this before, but now I'm going to pull the curtain back and let you see what's back here." That's what Revelation means. Right? That's why I struggle, church, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't want this to sound critical, but I struggle when I've heard other churches and pastors say, "We'll never cover Revelation. It's too controversial." I've heard pastors say, "I'll never touch Revelation. You're never going to hear me preach your Revelation." God gave us Revelation not to conceal things. He gave us Revelation to reveal some things. God wants us to know what He wrote down in Revelation. So why in In the world would we ignore that, right?
11:18-11:21
So it's the revelation, it's the uncovering.
11:21-11:21
What are we uncovering?
11:22-11:22
What are we unveiling?
11:22-11:23
Well, look at your text.
11:24-11:25
We're going to see what the text says.
11:25-11:27
It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.
11:27-11:33
You see, in the Gospels, we saw the humiliated Christ.
11:34-11:40
In the Gospels, in our church, we spent, what was it, two years going through the Gospel of Mark.
11:41-11:50
What we saw was Jesus' majesty was veiled, but he would occasionally give glimpses of his glory, right?
11:51-11:54
What's the most notable glimpse, obviously, is the transfiguration.
11:56-12:04
In the transfiguration, Jesus gave three of his disciples just a peek of his glory.
12:05-12:17
And every time Jesus performed a miracle, he was giving just a little glimpse that he's It's not just some Jewish teacher that he is glorious and awesome God.
12:18-12:20
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
12:20-12:22
God is unveiling who Jesus Christ really is.
12:22-12:24
I want you to think about something.
12:25-12:27
This has been going through my mind a lot this week.
12:27-12:31
You realize the last time the world saw Jesus, where was he?
12:32-12:34
The last time the world saw Jesus, where was he?
12:35-12:36
He was on the cross, right?
12:37-12:44
Yeah, Jesus appeared to hundreds of people, but he only appeared to his disciples, and to people who believed in him and followed him.
12:44-12:46
He only appeared to believers.
12:46-12:52
But to the world, the last time they saw Jesus Christ, he was beaten and bloody, hanging on the cross.
12:53-12:57
In Revelation, the premise is this, the world's about to see Jesus for who he really is.
12:58-13:08
Notice it says, "He made it known by sending his angel." This is the only book in the New Testament that's communicated by an angel.
13:09-13:12
Angels are actually mentioned 71 times in the book of Revelation.
13:13-13:14
So mark that.
13:14-13:23
And who is it given to? Well it says, "To his servant John, the disciple whom Jesus loved." A couple of weeks ago we looked at John chapter 21.
13:24-13:36
And Jesus said of John, in verse 22, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?" We saw that the rumor was circulating that, oh, Jesus said John was never gonna die.
13:36-13:38
And John's like, no, he didn't say that.
13:38-13:40
He said, if it's my will that he remain until I come.
13:41-13:47
John did not live forever, but he did outlive the rest of the disciples.
13:48-13:51
History tells us they were all killed for their faith.
13:52-13:54
John outlived them all in order to record revelation.
13:54-13:56
He wrote this about 95 AD.
13:56-14:08
But even though John wasn't killed at this point for his faith, He was still suffering for his faith because when he wrote Revelation, he was exiled on the island of Patmos.
14:09-14:12
It was basically a prison island.
14:13-14:15
The Romans put him there for preaching the gospel.
14:15-14:16
We're going to talk about that next week.
14:16-14:17
It's right in the text.
14:18-14:26
But it was during this exile that John received these series of visions that we are going to study in Revelation.
14:27-14:31
And I gotta tell you, Revelation to me is just completely mind-blowing.
14:32-14:36
And I've thought so much over the years, like what it must have been like for John.
14:37-14:39
How did he receive this information?
14:40-14:52
Was it like, did, I've thought before, did Jesus like sit John down and have like this movie theater screen where John like watched all of these events on a screen?
14:53-15:00
That's not really the case, because you're going to see in Revelation that John is very interactive with the things that are happening.
15:01-15:02
What was it like?
15:03-15:13
Somehow, John was taken, he was translated through time and space to witness all of these events, the way the world is going to end.
15:13-15:46
He witnessed these things in a way that I can't fully wrap my head around, but John gets to see what happens in heaven and what happens on the earth, and he's told what it and what how did this happen? Well believe it or not the answer is right here in verse 1. It says the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show circle the word show that word show literally means miracle or sign so when you ask yourself how was John able to see all of these things in heaven and interact with angels and look it's it says right in the first verse that this This was a miracle.
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He miraculously was able to be a part of seeing how the end of the world comes about.
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We're going to see throughout Revelation many times John's just like, "I'm just recording what I see." There are some things that John witnesses that are just so incredible that by his own admission, he's like, "I'm just doing my best to try to describe these things as I'm watching them. So here's the premise. John saw how Jesus Christ is going to return in glory and close history. Secondly, let's look at the promise.
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Let's look at the promise verse 3. Revelation has a very special promise attached to it. Look at verse 3.
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"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it for the time is near." That The word for near literally means imminent.
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Jesus could come back any moment.
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Do you realize Jesus could come back during this sermon or later this afternoon or in 20 years?
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I have no idea, but it's imminent.
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It says the time is near.
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Understand the word for time there, there's different words for time in the Greek and the word for time here isn't like the time on your watch or the dates on a calendar.
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The word time here literally is seasons.
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In other words, when John says the time is near, he's saying the next thing on God's schedule is the return of Jesus Christ.
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But here, a blessing is promised to people who will do three things.
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Did you see it?
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Three things.
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First of all, who reads aloud the words of this prophecy.
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We're not skipping a verse here, people.
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We're not going to be like, "Ah, that's controversial and some people might leave the church." Well, if that's your business.
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we're going to go through every verse.
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Why? Because there's a blessing reading this aloud.
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So not only blessed are those who read it, but blessed are those who hear.
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That means come ready to study this with me.
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And then finally, to those who keep.
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That's the only way you're going to know the power of God's Word, by the way.
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Not just Revelation, but all of God's Word.
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You've got to read it, you've got to hear it, and you've got to keep it.
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And this is a promise not from me, this is a promise from God.
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That if you want to see real supernatural life change, this year as we go through Revelation, okay, here's what you got to do. You got to read it, you got to hear it, and you need to get plugged into a small group where you can talk to people about how to apply the Word of God. You learn in deeper ways how to keep the Word of God. That's the promise attached to Revelation. Thirdly, the person. So we get the premise, we get the promise, let's talk about the person. Look down at verse 4. "John to the seven churches that are in Asia. John is not the person, by the way. He is supporting caste at best here. John to the seven churches that are in Asia, "Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before his throne." Stop right there for a second. What are the seven churches? Well, these are actually real churches. Today it's called Turkey. In John's day it was known as Asia Minor, but It's that geographical region.
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So this message was given to John to communicate to seven churches.
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And it's obvious for us that this is for all churches of all time, right?
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Kind of like the Bible has Thessalonians and Galatians and Ephesians.
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Those were written to specific churches, but they were written to us too, right?
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That's how Revelation is.
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It was written to a bunch of churches, but also to us.
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We're going to talk about those churches a lot in the coming weeks because they're mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3.
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The seven spirits.
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What are the seven spirits? Who are the seven spirits?
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Well, the seven spirits refers to the Holy Spirit.
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But what's with the seven?
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Well, seven is a number of fullness or completion.
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And Revelation is full of sevens.
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But just jot this down. You can look this up later.
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Isaiah 11.2 talks about the Holy Spirit sevenfold in character and imputation of his attributes.
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One Holy Spirit, yes, there's one God, but he's revealed himself through these seven characteristics.
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Isaiah 11.2, we'll talk about that down the road perhaps.
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But John mentions, okay, we saw he mentions God the Father here, who is and who wasn't was to come.
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He mentions the Holy Spirit here, the seven spirits.
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So who do you think he's gonna mention next?
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Any guesses?
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He mentions the Father, he mentions the Holy Spirit, who do you think's next?
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Go ahead, shout it out if you think you know.
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Jesus, very good.
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Have you read this?
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Yes.
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Look at verse five.
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Here's the person, here's the star right here.
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And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings on earth, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
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So here's the star, Jesus Christ. And John tells us, gives us some titles for Jesus, some descriptive titles, and he also tells us some things that Jesus accomplished in relating to us. The titles, I'm going to go through these quickly. He says Jesus is the faithful witness. That word for witness in the Greek is where we get the word martyr.
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What is a martyr? It's somebody faithful to death. I will die for Jesus Christ. I will not stop short of that. That's a martyr. See Jesus Christ, His faithfulness took Him all the way to death. But He wasn't just a martyr. Because look at the next phrase, the firstborn of the dead. He's the firstborn of the dead, speaking to his resurrection. He's the greatest person to have ever resurrected because his resurrection guarantees and promises our resurrection. And I love this. It says, "And the ruler of the kings on earth." Who's in charge? Shout it out if you know. Who's in charge?
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Jesus is in charge. Spoiler alert. The world is about to acknowledge that. The world is about to acknowledge what God has already declared, and that is this.
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Jesus Christ is the ruler of everything. Okay? So whether it's President Trump, or Kim Jong-un, or Vladimir Putin, or that actress that became a princess this past year. What's her name? You know who I'm talking about. What's her name? Yeah, thank you. Megan Markle. Oh yeah, that one. Yes, that one. Guess what? Jesus rules over all of them. That's who he is. And if you think that's awesome, John mentions three things about Jesus relating to us. First of all, get this. He says to him, "Who loves us?" I don't know why Jesus would give us a thought.
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Right now, at your place, wherever you hang your hat, your home, your apartment, wherever, there's probably an ant crawling around somewhere on your property, and you wouldn't give that thing a second thought.
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Compared to Jesus Christ, we are so much less than that.
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But here's the awesome thing, He loves us.
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I don't know why Jesus would give us a thought or even tolerate us, but He loves us.
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That says nothing about who we are, but it says a lot about who Jesus is.
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Notice the second thing that Jesus has done for us.
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It says, "He has freed us from our sins by his blood." Because he loves us, he solved our biggest problem, which is sin, with the greatest cost, which is his blood, which gives us the greatest result, which is we are free.
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We are free people because of Jesus Christ.
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in the last phrase, three things about Jesus relating to us.
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He made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.
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Man, every year in July, I spend a week working on the preaching calendar for the whole year.
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It's kind of an intense week for me because basically during that week, I am pre-preparing 40 some sermons.
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So it's round the clock work, study, and for the brain cells I have that still work, and it's very taxing.
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And it requires every bit of attention and focus that I can muster.
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You know, we're about to go into Revelation this year, and I'm going through and studying the whole book and pre-preparing and where are we going and holidays and all of the...
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So it's just an intense thing to put this calendar together.
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And I'm trying so hard to focus, but the one night I was like in the zone trying to get this thing hammered out.
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And I heard a knock on the door of my office.
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And I went over and opened it up and nobody was there.
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But I heard little footprints running around the corner.
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Little footsteps rather.
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No, I didn't hear footprints, that would be weird.
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I heard footsteps running around the corner.
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And I'm like, okay, whatever.
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I went and closed the door, went and sat back down.
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And you know, I'm working this thing and I hear knocking again.
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And I get up and I go over to the door and I open the door and I hear the footsteps again.
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but this time I hear a little giggling around the corner.
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Like, this happened like five times.
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I'm like, all right, game on.
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So my officers, you know, the door has a window and there's blinds, so you can kind of like peek out and see, so I just knelt down and I waited, like a jaguar.
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And I saw the little feet come to the door and I jumped up and opened the door.
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And it was three of the little kids from the jujitsu class, just like little kids, opened the door, they froze.
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And I just stared at them for what I hoped for them felt like an eternity.
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We just locked eyes, we just stared.
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And I said, "If I give you some candy, will you stop doing that?" And they said, "Yeah!" "Awesome! Come on in." So they took some candy and they stopped doing that.
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Now they come back once a night just for the candy.
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But here's my point in that story.
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Imagine if Jesus did for us just that.
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That Jesus was like, "Look, you people are annoying "and you're rebellious and you're sinful.
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"Okay, you know what?
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"I'm going to cancel hell for you, that's it.
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"You don't have to go to, you believe in me, "you don't have to go to hell, that's it.
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"Now you leave me alone." If Jesus just did that for us, wouldn't we be eternally grateful that he canceled our wrath?
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We would be rejoicing if that was all that he did.
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But look at what he did on top of that.
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He made us a kingdom.
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He made us priests to his God and father.
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He didn't so much more than shoo us away.
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It would be like if I took those kids into, and I said, "Hey, you know what?
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"Can I adopt you guys?" And I brought them home.
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And again, like, and then the police are like, "Why'd you do that?" But it's an illustration.
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It'd be like if I said, You know, I want to care for you and take care of you, and I want to give you everything that I have.
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That's what Jesus Christ has done for us.
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He made us a kingdom so we might reign with Him.
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He made us priests unto God.
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I don't know what else to say about that.
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Revelation is going to introduce us to a lot of people, to some angelic beings, to some demons, to some nations, to some leaders, to some evangelists, and to some rebels.
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But the star of revelation unquestionably is Jesus Christ.
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This whole thing circles around Him.
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And finally, here's the preview.
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This is where John really gives the "hey, spoiler alert." The verses 7 and 8 are the preview.
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He says, "Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him.
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Even so, amen.
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I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." This is the preview.
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It says in verse 7, "He's coming on the clouds." That is a direct fulfillment to Daniel 7.13.
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Jesus talked about that Matthew 24 30 and really verse 8 is like the signature right?
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That's God's signature. I'm the Alpha and the Omega. God's like that's just a fancy way of saying I'm the beginning in the end I'm the first letter. I'm the last letter. I'm the A to Z. I want you to look at verse 7 Because he mentions two people groups. This is very significant. First of all, he says He says every I will see him, but then he breaks it down even those who pierced him even those who pierced him He's talking about the Jews and this is a direct reference to Zechariah 12 10 Zechariah 12 10 says the day is going to come When Israel will look upon?
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God whom they pierced and by the way, that was written before Jesus was on the earth doing his ministry That was written for Jesus was on the cross, but all of Israel is is going to realize it was our ancestors who put Jesus on the cross ultimately, and that's going to stir a massive revival in Israel.
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Then he references the tribes of the earth. Did you see that?
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He says, "And all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him." And that word for wail is wailing out of terror.
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That's a horrified scream.
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In other words, Revelation we will see is going to give us the culmination of salvation and condemnation.
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In other words, you're either going to experience Jesus Christ as your Savior, which means you are rescued and freed, you're adopted as a child of God, you have the promise of heaven, You have the glorious eternity of joy in the presence of God to look forward to.
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Or, you're not going to experience Jesus as a Savior.
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The alternative is experiencing Jesus as a judge.
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Standing condemned, cast out of His presence, facing the forever torment of hell, where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die.
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Because you refused to come to Jesus Christ to receive His gift of salvation.
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You refused. You thought it wasn't necessary.
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You thought you were good enough. You thought God had no place in your life.
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Revelation has a word for you.
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That's why to me, or really to everybody who's ever read it, at the same time, Revelation is the most comforting and the most terrifying book.
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at the same time.
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If you know Jesus Christ, you're going to read Revelation and see this preview of eternal heaven and His presence, and you're going to feel unsurpassed joy.
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But if you don't know Christ, and you have no intention, then these words of Revelation should terrify you.
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So, that's the preview.
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And I was thinking about this this week, you know, what if Revelation was a movie?
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What if I was going to be one of those voice actors to do the trailer for the movie?
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You know what I'm talking about?
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So we're going to give this a try. You ready?
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Okay, I'm going to try it anyways, even if you're not ready.
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Alright?
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In a world ravaged by sin and groaning in misery, one man will step forward to right every wrong, to save every child and to punish every enemy.
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Things will not remain as they are.
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Every story has an end, and this is the end of God's story.
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This man who is God is about to destroy everything, so he can restore everything.
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This is Jesus Christ, and this is his Revelation.
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Father in heaven, what a taste you've given us!
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In these few short verses, we're already driven to, I guess like the song we sang, "standing in awe of you." Father, we want to be people in this church who read aloud the words of this book, who hear them, and who keep what is written in them.
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Only by your grace, we can be saved.
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grace and your power, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion

Read Revelation 1:1-8

Why do you think many people avoid Revelation (reading it, studying it)? How does Rev 1:3 speak to that?
The Bible is clear we are saved by grace, not works (e.g., Ephesians 2:8-10). So what place does “keep(ing) what is written” have in the life of a Christ follower
Why do you think John starts this writing as he has? Why do you think he gave a recap of the ministry of Jesus (Rev 1:5-6)?

BREAKOUT

Pray for the Holy Spirit to be our teacher through Revelation this year!

To the Compromising Church: Use Discernment!

Intro / Review:

Progress Report: Pergamum (Rev 2:12-17):

The Persecuted Church: Do Not Fear

Intro / Review:

The Progress Report:

3 Statements to Remind Yourself When You Are Suffering:

The Loveless Church: Remember

Intro / Review:

The Progress Report:

The Glory of Christ

Intro / Review:

The Glory of Christ (Revelation 1:9-20):

The Preview

Interpreting Revelation

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Intro / Review:

Progress Report: Pergamum (Rev 2:12-17):

Audio Transcript

Intro / Review:

The Progress Report:

3 Statements to Remind Yourself When You Are Suffering:

Audio Transcript

Intro / Review:

The Progress Report:

Audio Transcript

Intro / Review:

The Glory of Christ (Revelation 1:9-20):

Audio Transcript

Interpreting Revelation

Audio Transcript