So let us hear then the word of our God. Revelation 1 verse 19. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. The mystery of the seven stars which 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 which you saw are the seven churches. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. As we begin here this morning, I want to ask you this simple question. Are we a citizen of earth or are we a citizen of heaven? Of course, the answer is yes. We are citizens of earth. Many here, of course, voted in the last few days. We've all eaten breakfast this morning, most likely, and so on and so forth. There are many things, earthly things, of course, that we are a part of. We're sitting here on earth. But we're also, at the same time, citizens of heaven. And we belong to heaven, ultimately. Stan was saying earlier in Sunday school about the conference that took place down in Butler, gospel fellowship here on Friday evening and Saturday morning, and how the final message in particular was reminding us how we are all pilgrims and sojourners here on earth. And so we are earth dwellers, but our real dwelling is in heaven. Our ultimate dwelling is there. And so in the meantime, we need to have a kind of balance, not be so heavenly minded we're no earthly good, and not be so focused here on earth that we forget about the heavenly realities that we are a part of. So with this in mind now, we come to these last two verses here in this section. The opening vision is drawing to a close. John saw and heard Jesus, and he saw Jesus with his church among the lampstands. He saw that Jesus is the Son of Man, and so this kingly figure of Daniel 7, but also a priest. He has the attributes of God, sovereign and powerful, majestic and awesome. And so when John saw this vision of Christ, fittingly, he fell down before him in worship, in humility, abject humility. But Jesus then touched John, strengthened him. and then spoke to him. And the words that he said were these. Simply, he says, I am Yahweh, using the I am statement here. And he then basically says, because I am the first and the last, because I am eternal, because I am sovereign over all time and the events of history, and because I have died for sin and rose again, and because I control death, holding the keys of death and Hades, Therefore, John here initially can be comforted. He can be strengthened. He can stand in the glorious presence of Christ and not be struck down. But then also, because of who Jesus is and the words that he says here, we as the church can be comforted. Even though we suffer, even though Jesus has not yet returned, we can have this confidence and strength and comfort because of who Jesus is and what he has done. And so, as we talked about last time, we too ought to humble ourselves before Christ. We should do so in our prayer, in our worship, And this, of course, prepares us for heaven. We shouldn't merely go through outward ritual of humility, though those things are helpful. We can kneel, we can bow our head and fold our hands and speak reverently. But ultimately, we, of course, need to be humbled in our spirits, just like we saw with Isaiah. We may respond physically in humility before God, but ultimately, it should be in our hearts, you might say. Well, John saw these ideas in verses 10 to 18, and now we see that he is commanded to write them down. Now, since verse 19 is considered by many to be such an important verse, and in fact, some would say it's the most important verse in the book, let me spend a few moments here this morning trying to break it down and help us to understand this. So notice then, again, verse 19, "'Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.'" Now, your translation, if you don't have the New King James, probably says, therefore, at the beginning. And we believe John probably included that, actually. And so, notice how it all flows together here. And even without the therefore, you can see this. Because of who Jesus is, because of what he has just said, and he has sovereignty and authority over all things, therefore now John is to write down the things that he has seen. This is somewhat similar to what we saw at the end of Matthew chapter 28, where Jesus says, all authority has been given to me, so therefore, go and make disciples. So obviously it's a different context and a different command, but it's a similar setup, the authority of Christ leading to this command, this response, fitting response. And the command here, of course, is to write. Now this is not the first time Jesus has said it. In verse 11, we see the command there as well. So the second time, this repetition shows the significance. Now for the first time, notice it was given before John saw things, and now we see it after this initial vision, or at least toward the end of it. As for the first command, the focus there is to send to the seven churches, the emphasis here is on this three-fold description. And so John is to write, and note these three ideas here, write the things which you have seen, Secondly, write the things which are, and then thirdly, write the things which will take place after this. All right, now, for the last few weeks, I have not really said much of anything about the different views of Revelation. But as we come to this verse, we really need to talk about that to some degree, because there certainly are varying understandings here. Now, the futurist view is, of course, the most common in the American church, and so the futurist, dispensational understanding of things. But they take it, let's start with their view, and they take these three different descriptions as three clauses that talk about history in this way. The first one, the things you have seen, refers to verses 9 to 20. So John's to write down what we've been talking about. The second one, the things that are, they say that refers to chapters 2 and 3. And so the things that are existing in the days of John here with these churches. And then the third, the things that will take place, this refers now to chapters four to 22, and there's some debate, some won't go all the way to the end and such, but anyway, from chapters four on, their view is simply that this is gonna take place during the tribulation and during the time of the millennium. And so this is how they subdivide the book, and more or less verse 19 is our guide. And everything we understand, especially in chapters four and following, we're talking about the very end, the tribulation. It doesn't really have anything to do with us now until we get to the time of the tribulation. Now one of the arguments that they give here is this statement here, after this, the end of the verse. This is the first time this is used in Revelation. The next time is in chapter four, verse one. After these things, note it's plural, and then at the end of the verse, the things which must take place after this. And so this then, they would say, is a clue. Here's now the third section. Now, after this is found actually nine times in the book, not just these three times, but six additional times. All nine of them are found in the seven various sections of the book. But this is some of the argument that they give. And so basically, the first two of these, the things you have seen and the things that are, take place in the first century or into the early second century, and the third happens at the end of time, right before the tribulation or as the tribulation begins and so forth. Now, a response to this is if you look there at chapters four and five, the description here of the heavens and the throne room of God and the lamb coming and opening the scroll and so forth. We'll say more when we get there. I just don't see how you can say this is only referring to the time of the tribulation. In fact, there's ideas of things in the past here. Maybe a bit more clearly for us to see in a short moment here is if you turn to chapter 12, here's another example of this. In chapter 12, excuse me, verses 3 and following, we see about the dragon coming and verse 4 is Tale taking a third of the stars and so forth. And it says, the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. She bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and his throne. And then the woman flees to the wilderness. Now, this is obviously referring to the birth of Christ and even his death and resurrection. So this is obviously past. This isn't just something we're talking about in the Tribulation. And then we can point to some other passages. Let's turn to one other, and that is in chapter 20. And I picked this one because this is such an important passage for the futurist viewpoint. Chapter 20, verse 1. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand." Now, we just talked about Jesus having the key of death in Hades. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who was the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. Now, who has the authority to do that other than Christ? I think this has to refer to Christ. I think it has to refer to his first coming. And so, therefore, the thousand years refers to the time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. This isn't just talking about the time of the Tribulation and a future millennium. So anyway. As I say frequently, there's so much that we could talk about here and I'm doing a disservice to this view just because of how short it is. But this is the most common view of how to take verse 19. Do you see the significance? Understanding of verse 19 is gonna impact how we interpret everything else in the book and how it applies to us or not. Now, as for the Preterist view, they will say something very similar to the Futurist view, but they would say that these three segments of time are all fulfilled in a short period of time of maybe just a year or two. And so the things that John is seeing, the things that are, and then the things that will take place after this, all happened there in the late 60s up to the fall of Jerusalem. in AD 70. And so they will say that all this is referring to that time frame. Now as I've said before, I think the biggest dagger, if you will, in the Preterist viewpoint is they just simply ignore the historical evidence. There's so much historical evidence that points to the fact that these things happened after the fall of Jerusalem, when John was on Patmos, when John wrote to these churches and so on and so forth. But anyway, as for the historicist view on verse 19, they and the fourth one, the idealist view, basically say something very similar in how they take this verse. Simply, they'll take the first part, the things that you have seen, to refer not just to verses 9 to 20, but actually to the whole book. And one of the arguments for this is the command to write is not just in verse 11 and in verse 19, but in fact there are 12 times in the book that John is commanded to write things down. And so it's not just what you have seen here with this vision of Christ and so on, but what you have seen and heard throughout the book, everything that is described here for us. And so right down to things you have seen then is all of it. And so therefore, the things that are and the things that will be, are referring to the rest of history, things that are taking place right now in John's day and things that are taking place throughout history. And so it's not just all in John's day or some in John's day and all of it at the very end, but in John's day and throughout history. So second, fifth, 10th, 12th, our day, you know, all these different centuries, these things are fulfilled. Okay? And so there is some fulfillment now in John's day and some later. Now, for the historicist's view, of course, they would say a particular thing is fulfilled in a particular event, and then it's not going to be fulfilled again. The idealist view says, well, that particular event may be a fulfillment of this word, but we may see another similar fulfillment in another century or something like that. In fact, maybe even in every generation. And so the idealist view, of course, takes this symbolic view of things. Now, one other point here in this particular context, when it says here in this third statement, the things that will take place after this, literally the Greek says, the things that are about to be. Kind of strange if you're talking about just the time of the Tribulation, at least 2,000 years from the time John or Jesus said these words to John. But it doesn't seem to refer to the distant future, but rather to the whole book that has meaning and relevance for the people of God in all ages, all churches, and in all places. including ours here in little old Rocky Springs and Western PA. And so just as God was and is and is to come, so in a similar sense, verse 19 is governing all of history of what was and is and is to come, what was in terms of John's perspective, what it is in his day and what will be including for us today. All right, now, one last thing then here in this context. Let me say a little bit more about after this. This is why Dale read for us from Daniel chapter two. So let's turn there a moment and take note of a couple things here. All right, Daniel chapter two, of course, we didn't read all of this, but you remember this dream came to Nebuchadnezzar, and he wants people not only to interpret it, but to tell him the dream, and he's gonna put him to death if they can't even tell him the dream. And so here comes Daniel, and God helps him, of course, to do what the king wanted. Notice the language in verse 29 here, first of all. As for you, O king, thoughts came to your mind while on your bed about what would come to pass after this. And then if you look down at verse 45, it is as much as you saw the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and in broken pieces the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and the gold. The great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. Now at some point we're going to have to interpret what that stone is. It sounds like Christ. But anyway, here is this vision, this dream that is given to Nebuchadnezzar, and he is basically given an overview of history from his day until the coming of Christ. The after this is referring to that roughly six centuries. where it's not just Babylon, but then Persia, and then Greece, and then Rome, that fulfill these ideas. And this leads us up, of course, to the coming of Christ. And so theater this has this, if you will, eschatological reference to the next six centuries. Here now, Jesus and John is using the same kind of language to not refer to something that's going to happen in the next year or two, like the Preterist view, And not something that's going to happen just at the very end, like the futurist view. But the after this seems to be covering not just six centuries, but now it's been 20, hey, however long it's going to be between the first and second coming of Christ. This language after this seems to be symbolic, seems to be communicating not just a literal idea here. And so, again, here's another clue that the message of Revelation is not just limited to the first century or to people at the very end of history, but to all of us, including us today. So, I know in some ways this is a bit more academic, if you will. But if we don't work our way through our understanding of this verse, it is going to impact how we're going to interpret the rest of the book, one way or another. And as I've already done, but now as I'm going to do especially once we turn to chapter two, you're going to see the import of this view on how we understand things. Notice how all three of the other views, Futurist, Preterist, and Historicist view are going to take chapters two and three and say that referred to the first century. And we can only apply it to ourselves today by some kind of general principle. But the Idealist view says chapters two and three apply to us right now here in this place. We have to learn how, but they're designed to apply to every church Every group of believers throughout history in one way or another, not just the first century, begins there, surely, but it continues. And so as we turn to chapter two, we're going to see the immediate application of the understanding of verse 19. And so, John is commanded to write down all that he has heard and seen for our benefit. His words of prophecy include foretelling of future events, but also the foretelling and application of God's word for God's people at all times and all places. Since Jesus is the sovereign Lord, his revelation to us is applicable to everybody. Alright, well, anyway, a few thoughts here about verse 19, though certainly more could be said. Let's now look at verse 20, and we have a similar challenge before us. I'm trying to understand this, but in a different way. So, verse 20 says, the mystery of the seven stars, which 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, which you saw, are the seven churches. All right. Well, whenever we have symbols and figures, like Dale read for us here a moment ago in Daniel chapter two, we always need to look for clues to help us interpret. And you saw him there, right? Hey, first Daniel gives the dream and he says, okay, now here's the interpretation. And we have actually a fair amount of detail to help us to interpret what those different things are. But here's now something similar. Jesus is giving us a clue. Here's how you need to interpret things. Now, notice then that Jesus is giving us a methodology, not merely, okay, the stars mean this and the lampstands mean that, but He's telling us that we need to approach the book of Revelation in a symbolic way. You might remember we started chapter one, verse one, with this very point. In chapter one, verse one, you remember the three things in that verse, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is the word apocalypse, which God gave him to show his servants, and then he sent and signified it. Those three words tell us that our methodology to approaching the interpretation of Revelation must be symbolic. And now Jesus is doing the same thing here in verse 20. There's a symbolic meaning that you must see behind the lampstands and the angels, okay? So that's our first point. The next point is, well, what is that meaning? Okay, well, notice he uses the word mystery. the word mystery. Now, when we think of mystery, we think of a mystery novel or movie or something like that. The word mystery can be translated as secret, and the New King James does that in Daniel chapter 2, as we saw. And when we think of secret, we think of something that is hidden, right? Well, the biblical meaning of a mystery or a secret here in this context is something that is hidden that is now revealed and that revelation is unexpected in some way. So Paul uses the language in the context of Jews and Gentiles, right? The Gentile inclusion was a secret. It was a mystery that is now revealed and it's unexpected. It wasn't unexpected the Gentiles would be included in God's kingdom, but it was unexpected, especially for the first century, that those Gentiles would be included in the same way as the Jew, and that is by grace through faith, as we read about in Romans chapters three and four. That's the unexpected nature of it, a secret, a mystery that is now revealed, in this case, now that Christ has come. So now here in this context, In Daniel chapter 2, the word secret or mystery is used eight times, and it's not found anywhere else in the Old Testament. Obviously, Jesus is taking us back here to Daniel chapter 2. And so the mystery that was kept secret and now revealed in unexpected ways, I'm sure Nebuchadnezzar is thinking that way. Well, now here in our context, the mystery that was kept secret that is now revealed to us and is a bit unexpected has to do with the lampstands, has to do with these stars. So how is that the case? Let's start with the easy one. I don't often rearrange the text, but let's start with the easy one here, and that is the seven lampstands. And it's easy for a number of reasons, but part of it is we've already talked about it. Back in verses 12 and 13, you recall, we talked about it when John saw Jesus among the lampstands. The lampstands, of course, point us to the Old Testament, to the tabernacle, to the temple. As the lampstand brought light for the tabernacle and temple, so Israel is to be a lampstand. They are to shine the light of the truth of God's word to the nations around them. This was the command given. Unfortunately, they didn't do so well with that at times. But this is the idea, of course, for the church. I referenced Matthew 28 a little bit ago and the so-called Great Commission. Let's turn to Matthew 5 here just a moment and recall these words of Jesus. In Matthew 5, verse 14, You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. And so we then are lampstands, God's people, and in particular, the churches where God's people gather. So, again, this is something we've talked about. It's pretty straightforward. This isn't all that mysterious, you might say. But it is a mystery in the sense that now the synagogue, the nation of Israel, the worship of Israel is replaced by the church. Okay? Or maybe a better way of saying it is, the church now is the culmination of what Old Testament worship was all about. It's not a change in an ultimate sense, but outward forms obviously have changed, and so on. Now, as for the number seven, we've talked about this a few times, of course, and seven is a number of perfection, completion, wholeness, and so on. And so the fact that there are seven churches is to communicate an idea of completeness. These seven churches were not the only churches of the first century, but it's to basically summarize all the churches of the first century. And in light of what we just talked about in verse 19, it's really referring to all the churches, the universal church throughout history, especially since the first coming of Christ. And so these seven lampstands are the seven churches. It's referring to the church throughout history. initially in John's day, but including ours. Excuse me. All right, well, that's the easy one. Let's now talk about the hard one. The seven stars are the seven angels. Okay, now remember where I started here in verse 20. Jesus is giving us a methodology, okay? We need to understand these ideas symbolically. And that especially, I think, helps us here. There are numerous ideas that have been given. And I think in this case, going over those will be helpful for us. And not just to summarize it for you. But the first view that I'm going to address, anyway, is a polemical approach to our understanding. And remember, a polemic is? Here's something that purports to be true. Here's the Bible that says, no, that's not true. This is actually what is true. So in this context then, the seven stars in the ancient world were typically seen as the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter and Saturn. Those are the seven stars of the heavens. And Caesar is often depicted holding the seven stars. Well, no, it's Jesus. He is the one who is holding the seven stars. So here you have a polemical idea. Okay. Now, how does that fit with angels then? Well, here a Jewish view, not all the Jews, but there are some Jews that we have some of their records and such talk about the stars actually being angels. And so they're not balls of gas or planets with rock or something like that, but they're actually angels. And so the polemical idea is against the secular view and the Jewish view. All right, that might be a part of this. So the second primary view that is given here is that these angels refer to human messengers. In both Greek and in Hebrew, the word for angel can also mean messenger. So, for example, in the story of Balaam in Numbers, it talks about how Balak, remember, king of Moab, he sent his messengers to Balaam and they want Balaam to curse Israel, right? Well, that word for messenger is the word angel. Well, God then sends his angel messenger to Moab, or excuse me, to Balaam, and tells Balaam, hey, you can't curse him, you can only bless him. And so the angel of Yahweh and the angels of Balak, or the messengers of Balak, the messenger of Yahweh, it goes together. But notice the point here. The point is the word can refer to human messengers. And so people take that and say, well, this must refer then to the messengers from these seven different churches who came to John and Patmos and received this message and took a pack to those various churches, read the letter publicly and so forth. And some say there were seven different copies, some say one copy, so different views. But the point is, it's a member of the church, and usually the views will say it was a leader in the church in some way, maybe an elder, maybe the pastor. And so the point is, this refers to a human messenger, a representative leader bringing God's message to each church. Now, you remember in Genesis 15, When God took Abraham out and said, hey, look at the stars. These are your descendants. So note the connection with stars and humans. In Philippians chapter two, verse 15, Paul says that we are like stars in the heavens. In Malachi, let me read for you just briefly here. This is Malachi chapter two and verse seven. The lips of a priest should keep knowledge and people should seek the law from his mouth for he is the messenger or angel of the Lord of hosts. So here's an example of a priest being an angel. Now this would fit in this way. As we read through these seven messages to the churches, there's going to be some rebukes by Christ. They are sinning in some way. There's going to be calls to repent, and that's fitting for human sinful leaders, right? Now, some of you may recall that in the past, when I've made reference to the angels of the churches, that I more or less upheld this view. And I said this is referring to the leaders, maybe the pastor of the church. But as I'm studying this more, I think I have to make my view more nuanced and more precise. Because the problem with this view, is primarily this. The word for angel is used 67 times in the book. We have the one time here plus once each for these letters, so eight times here in these first three chapters. And the remaining 59 occurrences all refer to a regular angel. It's a bit odd that all the times in every other part of the book refers to a regular angel, but not here. So because of this, the other view that you'll hear is that these are actual angels. Actual angels from God. You will often hear the language of a guardian angel or a patron angel. We've read from Daniel 10 the last couple weeks, that idea of Gabriel and Michael and so forth. So this kind of guardian angel idea. In one sense, this is the most straightforward idea. It says angel. But the problem is, does that fit our methodology of symbolism? And secondly, how can a sinless angel be rebuked for sin? Even if he is the guardian angel, how can he be reviewed for sin with, as we're going to see, Balaam and the Nicolaitans and Jezebel and so on and so forth. So that's a big problem. Other people will raise, well, how can you send a letter to an angel? What's his mailing address? You know, that kind of thing. So other people then will say, well, we're not talking about an actual angel, but we're talking about if you will, the spirit of the church, the characteristics of the church, the qualities of the church. And every church has them, we have them. We have certain things that characterize our church and make us different from, say, Calvary in town or whatever. And so some people will point in this direction for our understanding. Okay, maybe a bit odd to write to a quality I mean, as you read, just even here in verse 2, I know your works, your labor, your patience, you cannot. I mean, it sounds like a person. It doesn't sound like a characteristic. So, what's the right view? Well, I think it's this. As I started here in verse 20, and as we saw all the way back in verse 1, Our understanding of the text needs to be symbolic in nature. That's the characteristic of apocalyptic. So, what does that mean? Well, first of all, nowhere do we see angels representing or symbolizing humans in the scriptures. Now, they can be described similarly, Both of them are called sons of God or mighty ones. The first hymn we sang today does that. But what we are talking about is simply this. The angels are representing the heavenly reality of the church. The angels are representing, symbolically, the heavenly background to earthly churches. Now most everybody will agree that once we get to chapters 12 and following, that's what happens. Chapters 1 to 11, you have a very earthly focus. Chapters 12 and following, we have more of a spirit world, behind the scenes focus with dragons and beasts and harlots and so forth. But we have that idea here too. it appears. The church on earth already exists in heaven. We're sitting here, you are, in these benches. We're here on earth. I'm hacking around here because of this cold I've had this week. We all have this earthly dimension, but we're actually sitting in heaven at the same time. Let's turn a moment to Ephesians 2. Ephesians chapter two, let's begin in verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, note the past tense here, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Okay, we've been raised up spiritually, yes, but notice we're already sitting in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Because of our union with Christ and because Jesus is in heaven, we're already there. Obviously we're here, but we're not just earthly dwellers, sojourners, okay, that's true, but we're also heavenly citizens. we are also already existing in heaven. Now think about this point from the context of someone who is in exile in Patmos. Think about this in the context of these churches who are suffering for their faith. Think about this in the context of the sufferings we face. Isn't this an encouragement to be reminded that, yes, we are here on earth with all the filth and yuck and mess and so on and so forth of what this earth is all about because we're such rotten sinners. But at the same time, we're noble, we're kings, we're priests, and we've talked about that, but we also exist in heaven this very moment. This should be our viewpoint. not just focusing on death and decay, but focusing on life and light and eternal things. Christ holding the angels in his hands is pointing to the heavenly reality of his church. Now that may include actual angels that help us and guard us and guide us, Okay? That includes the human element of the leadership of the church and all of us in the church. That includes the quality of each individual church. And we can even throw in the polemic idea too, right? Do you see how this symbolic idea is saying, wait a second, let's not take these words literally. Let's take them symbolically, and once we take them symbolically, we actually open up to all the true points that these other views are bringing out, and putting them together here in this way. We call this the already and the not yet, or as I'll never forget, one of my seminary fellow students, he said, no, don't call it the already and the not yet. Call it the already and the about to be. And that's right. This is about to come about for us. It's near. Remember what we saw in verse 19? The things that will be that are about to be. After this, our heavenly existence is right around the corner in all of its fullness. Obviously, we can die, but Jesus can return at any time, and at the same time, we're already participating in it. Do you have this viewpoint? When you walk in these doors to worship, are you thinking that we are entering, in a sense, into heaven as we worship together? When you come before God to pray to him, Are you just thinking about the walls of your room? Hey, whether or not you're sitting comfortably in your chair? These earthly focused kinds of things. Or are you also almost ignoring the earthly to focus on the heaven? The heavenly component of our prayers, of our worship. Now we cannot be so heavenly minded we're no earthly good. Absolutely. But our tendency probably is to be so focused on the earthly aspects of what's going on around us that we forget we're actually seated in the heavenly places right now. And Jesus is holding on to us. And Jesus is walking among us. When it says Jesus is walking among the lampstands, it does not indicate here that he's on earth walking around among the various churches. No, he's in heaven walking among these lampstands and holding this heavenly component of who we are as his people. What an encouragement this is. What an encouragement this must have been to John, especially if he was in prison and not merely exiled. And so when you pray at home or elsewhere, when you come here for worship, hey, look heavenward. Turn your eyes beyond the physical to what is beyond us, but we're a part of. hold together this idea of being a heavenly citizen and an earthly citizen. Remember, we are pilgrims, we are sojourners, but we already exist as permanent residents of heaven. And so both together are given to us. And verse 20, taken symbolically, is pointing us in this direction. And so Jesus is explaining a symbol with a symbol, which doesn't seem all that helpful. But I think this is what he is communicating. I'm certainly not alone in this. And so today, I focus more on what does it mean. I've given some point of application for us. But as we turn to chapter two, the points of application are gonna be found in every word of what we've talked about here today as we seek to apply this principle of verse 19 and this symbolic meaning of verse 20. And so we will work that out, Lord willing, here in the weeks ahead. All right. Thanks to the Lord, I kept my breath. Let's pray together. Our Father in God, we are thankful for your word. We are thankful, Lord, that you have communicated these truths to us. And though we struggle and we labor over trying to understand this challenging literature here, this book, and these two verses in particular, we are thankful that even in the challenge, the points become rather straightforward. And so Lord, we do thank you that you are with us. You're among us, your church, your people, not just in the days of John, not just referring to the very end or even just heaven, but even now. And this has always been the case for your people. You're with us. Even though you're in heaven, you're with us by your spirit. And surely you use actual angels to minister to us. But you also have given us gifts, as we see in Ephesians 4, of the leaders in the church. And we are thankful, Lord, that you hold us in your hand and that the earthly dimension of our existence is not all there is, and that we already exist as kingdom citizens. And so Lord, give us this heavenly perspective, give us a balanced perspective that we would not ignore the earthly for the heavenly or the other way around. But Lord, we pray maybe especially as we, many of us sit here struggling with various difficulties, death of a loved one, health issues, emotional challenges, relational difficulties, you name it. We all face different things. May we not ignore them, and may we endure them with the reality that you are holding us, and that our existence is not merely here, but it is in heaven even now. And so Lord, we thank you for this, and we pray to this end, and we pray in Jesus' name, amen.