Thank you Miss Pat. God be the glory. Amen. great hope we have in him the scripture says that he came the first time to deal with sin but the second time he comes he's coming for salvation for those that are looking for him Hebrews 9 27 through 28 so we give him the praise and the glory that we have such great anticipation he is our blessed hope That we are looking for and looking unto so and matter of fact that's right where we are in the book of revelation once you take your copy of God's word and turn there Revelation chapter 1, that's where we're going to begin today as we look at some of these things and this great blessing of a book that we have. There is much that can be said about it. There is much about it that I don't fully understand. I was talking with a preacher friend just the other day, Stephanie and I was, he's a very gentle older man very encouraging spirit about him brother Lamar Leifer and uh... he was we got to talking about the more we age in Christ the more we realize we don't know and he said yeah when he was twenty five he knew more about the book of revelation that he does today and uh... and I told him I agree you know on that that just a few years back I thought I knew more than i know now and uh... there's a lot that i don't know but at the same time there is some neat things that we can know and that i believe is the aim of the heart of all prophetic uh... promises that god is given us that we find and and and the book of revelation is just one of those things we want to keep in mind it is the title of the book we see in verse number one the revelation of Jesus Christ it's it's not the revelations but the unveiling the revelation of Jesus Christ and we want to keep that mindset as you read because we're not going to be able to to dig in the details of every chapter as you read through it. I don't know the details of every chapter, even if we could. I'm sure if we all gathered together and can accumulate each of the wisdom and insight that we have, we would probably still fall short amongst us all trying to explain it all. But what we want to keep in mind is this is what the book is in essence about. It is the unveiling of Jesus Christ and the whole book as we journey from chapter 1 on in the chapter 22 as you read it look for Him, look for what the the message is wanting to unveil to us which is going to help us. Try not to get caught up in all the specific events of the book because it's important for us to recognize that there has been no event that is going to be explained in the book of revelation or explained in Matthew chapter 24 or in other various parts of the Bible, Daniel chapter 9 In the book of Ezekiel, all the events that may be described and explained, the events will never produce holiness and righteousness in your life. It's the heart of what the message is all about, and it's the unveiling of Christ. It's to know Him more intimately, to see Him for who He is and what God wants us to see. And that's what chapter 1 helps us with, is that it says these. Let's just read it. that word means unveiling, the uncovering of Jesus Christ, which God the Father gave Him, Jesus, to show His servants things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant, John. who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ to all things that he saw blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near. Father we thank you today that you have given us the revelation of your son we're thankful that we we possess it we have it we know from past with any truth that is eternal it takes your supernatural work in our lives to glean the absolute most out of it or where you want us to be at this current stage of our journey We pray that we would have ears to hear, that we would have the capacity to hear, and that each one of us in this place today would also choose to hear. We're grateful and thankful for what has been accomplished through your Son that we can hear from you. And we pray that you would help each of us live in the light of His glorious return. I want to say that I love you. I thank you. I give you glory and praise. Thank you for using each of us. Thank you for desiring to speak to us. And thank you for being a friend that sticks closer than a brother. In Jesus' name, Amen. As we think on these things and just look at what we have, that's what we find in this particular book. It's one of the only books that we see, now we know all the Bible that we have is inspired of God. It's from Him and every book that we possess is a treasure, it's every promise is something that we can cling to and say yes and amen to but this is a book that from the beginning it starts out with those words blessed is he who reads and hears and keeps the words of this prophecy we don't find that if I'm not mistaken in another book which we know we are blessed by hearing reading and keeping all the Word of God. But this is one of the books that we find to be specific in its revelation saying, blessed is he who reads, who reads it. That is, you who read it, we who read the book, it also has really the strongest Emphasis toward blessed is he who reads the book aloud who reads it out loud who publicly? Reads this unveiling of Jesus Out loud like I'm doing today blessed am I for being able to read this to a group of people? but then he goes on to say and to those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep the things which are written in it for the time of near so there's a blessing we can thank God today that you are receiving a blessing from the Lord from here in this word amen whether we fully grasp it whether we can apprehend its entirety or not whether we can confer it to others or communicate it effectively that is irrelevant to the blessing the blessing is is that you can hear it And that you have been given the supernatural ability in Christ to keep it, to obey it. That is to honor what is said and live it out. And as we do that, we know that there's a blessing in it. And that's kind of what I want to talk about. It's a message given to God's people that they might, number one, rejoice. Number one, rejoice. It is a message that Christ has brought to his servant John. John has penned it so that we as the people of God can rejoice. This is one of the unique aims of the book is that It's a blessing to us. So if it being a blessing, blessings are given with no burden from the Lord. Keep that in mind. When God daily loathes us with benefits or blessings, He doesn't add burdens with the blessing. So when we read it, we don't want to be burdened by what the book is saying as much as we want to rejoice over what the book is saying. Because it's unveiling unto us our high priest in heaven. y'all know today that we have a a high priest that makes intercession for us in heaven that he ever lives to pray for us that as we are here there are things going on in your life there there's some issues that are happening with you that you don't even know you need to be praying for right now that he knows and I believe when Jesus prays his prayers get answered amen come on now think about it a minute script says if we pray according to the will of god we have what we asked for and i don't think jesus would ever pray for anything that couldn't be answered amen so whatever he is making intercession over it's always for our good for our best but ultimately uh... for his glory and and not just that the bible says those that have been born again that have been baptized into the Spirit of God, that is, the Spirit of God lives within them, God lives within them, the Son of God lives within them. The Bible says that the Spirit of God also makes utterances for us, prays for us, intercedes for us, things that we can't even utter ourselves or get across. There's times when we're lost for words. There's times when we just don't know how to pray exactly or what to pray exactly for, whether it be for us or for someone else. And you probably have heard me say this before or you've heard me pray this. When I'm praying for people or praying for someone specific for an issue or whatever it may be, I ask the Lord to give me wisdom so that i would know how to pray for them according to the will of god because i may not know why i may not know what's going on as a lot of things i don't know what's going on with with you in your thinker the most of the times you you may only give me just a a smidgen of what's happening You thinking in your mind, Brother Nick, you can't handle all that is going on in my thinker right now. You really don't want to know what's all there. Let me just throw out a little marshal to help you recognize I need somebody to pray for me, but I ain't giving it all to you. It may not be that you can't handle it, but I really don't want you to know what's all going on in here. Amen? Now, how many of you can relate to that? But you know, God knows. And that's one of the things we can rejoice about in this book. If we've been reading through it thus far, it helps us recognize that these seven churches that he sends this letter to, doesn't he tell them right off the bat? He describes a dynamic of who he is, an unveiling of who he is. But then he says, I know you. I know where you are. I know what you've been doing. I know what you haven't been doing. I know what I would like for you to do. And I'm inviting you to turn from what you've done that is not in line with me to turn and get back in line with me. We see that, we can rejoice over that, amen? Because he knows exactly where we are. He tells one church that he knows that they have abandoned their first love. They've gotten so caught up with what's going on around them that they were against this and they're against that. They can't put up with this and they can't put up with that. people begin to recognize them as people who were negative and and and had a problem with everybody but they've had fallen out of passionate love with Jesus and it was no longer being identified as people who were in love with him it was more about what you're doing wrong and this ain't right and you need to get this fixed and this this this and it's easy how many of you ever got judgmental with people I'm just, boy, I'm prone. I can be very judgmental. And I'm sure it's in you too. It's in all of us. It's a form of human nature. god's given us ability to make judgment on a matter for a protective measures the problem is is that sometimes those go unchecked and we don't use proper wisdom and understanding without discernment and we make judgments on people without bringing god in view and that's easy to do and and over time we can set ourselves up for a pattern of that and if we're not careful the more we understand things about god that is uh... what he demands and what he requires and what it's supposed to look like, the more prone we are to slip over in that area to be very judgmental. And the church at Ephesus, that first century walking with Jesus church who had leaders like the Apostle Paul and who had a pastor like the Apostle John, the one who wrote the book of Revelation, Also, Timothy who walked with it. These were great Bible teaching, great God-fearing, great reconcilers, missionary mindset of people who taught them the beauty of walking in holiness with the Lord and not to put up with false teachers and that type of thing. And that can consume us at times. And it consumed the church at Ephesus. and all they became was these apologetics who were against and they lost the earnest passionate fervor of desire to be passionate in love with Jesus. It can happen to all of us. It's easy. Then he tells another church that I know that you're situated right where Satan dwells. You're dealing with Jews who think they're Jews, but they're just a synagogue of Satan. Now, I understand where y'all are. I know what you're going through. And I know you're willing to stand in there and fight. As a matter of fact, some of you are going to go through some hard stuff. Satan is going to try some of you. And it's going to be difficult. Hey, we can rejoice, because this message tells us As he wrote to these seven churches that were in existence in Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Sardis, and Thyatira, and Pergamos, and Philadelphia, and Laodicea, all these churches that he wrote to, he was fully aware of where they were at, what was going on, and what they needed. And folks, we can rejoice over that because he knows right where you're at. he knows where we're at he knows what we're doing what we're not doing what we could be doing what we should be doing but more than anything what he desires out of us is to live in the light of his return and we can rejoice over that I love what chapter 1 verse 7 says I believe it's verse 7 look at that Verse seven says, behold, he is what? Y'all say that with me. Behold, he is coming. Let's say it one more time. Behold, he is coming. You see, that is a message that we can rejoice over. You've heard me say it a hundred times or more, that word behold, what kind of word is it? That's a faith word. He's saying, I know you can't see this with your natural eyes. You can't see this. It's out of your human reasoning. You cannot process this from the natural. You can't see it. You can't reason it. You have to see this from God's advantage point. Behold, He is coming. We can rejoice. Amen? He is coming. Now, in light of that, we live. We're to live in light of that revelation even though I can't see it Karen because I can't physically but by faith I trust what he says and he says he's coming I believe he's coming even though I can't see it even though I don't know when he's coming even Jesus shared with us when he was living in his humanity because Jesus was both human and God, He was both. And in His humanity, what did He say? I don't know the hour or the day. That is given over to who? The Father's care. I don't know when that is in His humanity. Now, of course, in the nature of who He was as God, He would know, and we see that with Christ, but we don't know. We don't know when He's coming, but we know He's coming. So in light of that, we can rejoice. We can rejoice because we can hear the words of this prophecy. We can keep them and obey them. And that we know He is coming for us. The second thing that I want to learn as I'm going through it and pick up on, not only can I rejoice, a matter of fact, let's just take it another step further with that light. All these descriptions of Him, let's just read a couple he says I might just start with verse number seven behold he is coming with clouds And clouds, I would imagine that would have the emphasis of something, some teachers will help us over the years say that's kind of a figurative way of saying with power, with cloud. Remember how when he ascended in the heaven and the angels came and told the disciples, as he has departed, he will also what? return. He ascended into the clouds. But clouds also come with the essence of power. You ever watch just the raw energy of a storm build and clouds start rolling in? You know something powerful was coming. People start running and hiding and finding a way to find cover and get cover in it. And it talks about something that is powerful, great energy, something noticeable, something that you can see from the sky. But also think about that idea of a multitude as well. Because of one, when the sky is filled with clouds, they're a multitude. A lot of times they You can't number them, they're just so many clouds. And think about Hebrews, when it talks about Hebrews 12, Hebrews 11, we're surrounded with so what? A greater cloud of witnesses, which is chapter 11 is talking about these witnesses, chapter 12 is the one who points back to it. But this great multitude, this cloud of witnesses, where He's coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him, even so, Amen. Verse 8, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, and who is He? the Almighty. So this unveiling now, this revelation of Him, who is Jesus? He's the Almighty. Amen? I, John, verse 9, both your brother and companion in the tribulation in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. And I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a loud voice as a trumpet saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. What you see write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girded about the chest with a golden band, and his head and hair were like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. He had in His right hand seven stars, and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun, shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me, and he said to me, Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. For the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels or the messengers of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches." And each church that he speaks to, he gives this description of him. of himself that goes back to this previous description that he's already given and then we get in the chapter four and chapter five we see other great declarations of and we see into heaven and we see these descriptions of him and as he paints these pictures for us we can't help but humble ourselves and and and rejoice over the fact that not only is he our priest but he is also our king and he is a king who is who is in the process and that's what we see in this unveiling of him who's in the process that there's common when we don't know that's going to be crowned on this earth as king of kings and lord of lords and every knee is going to bow and every tone is going to confess. Amen? You see, we can rejoice over this unveiling of who He is. I'm going to throw one more out there at you at the heart of what this book is about for us to rejoice before we go back to eat, but it's a book also that we would ready ourselves. That we would ready ourselves for His coming. Why? Because he tells us when he's coming. But he uses, when you're reading through this book, when you're reading this unveiling of Jesus, each time you come across the word soon, or quick, or immediate, or anything like that, just circle it. Make a note by it. Because you're going to see it on several occasions as these things that are soon to take place. They're soon. He's coming soon. All these things talk about something that's going to happen Quickly we don't know when it will be but it's coming now when we look at the space of the history of mankind And we look at the space of eternity soon Has a description to us like yesterday. You know we're impatient people when you say soon I would I would think of it's coming right now And that's the message that he's conveying to us as humans in who we are is to be ready to ready ourselves remember that those three stories that he told in Matthew chapter 24 in the 25 about the wise servant who was faithful and true who took care of the master's business and then he went into the second story in that three part parable about those ten virgins and five of them were ready and prepared and five of them wasn't ready and prepared the idea is that the book of revelation is one of these books not to get lost in every detail of it but to ready ourselves for his coming because he's coming to live in the light of his return so when you're reading through it just pick up on that soon soon he's coming soon quickly these things that must shortly take place they're coming ready yourselves ready yourselves We've lived with a theme in our journey, Stephan and I, we emphasized it in the first church that we passed. As a matter of fact, it was a motto that we had, put it on everything we had, was that thought, living in the light of His return. We wanted to live. We wanted to be ready. Ready in ourselves for His return. And I think that's part of the main emphasis that we find in the book of Revelation. If you're not careful, we've all been there. I've been there and I can get there today. I can try to figure some of these things out, Jake, and get frustrated. I read this fella who I trust and I read this guy who I trust and I read this historical reference that I trust and they all just don't, they don't always match. They don't always fit together because so many people see these things differently. and a lot of them see what they see as being legit and it's all good and I try to figure it out and the more I try to figure it out and I kink I get frustrated and I lose sight of the whole purpose is that he wants me to be ready he wants me to rejoice I got a coming king who's ruling and reigning over the affairs of this world amen and he's into the details But those details are within his control. They're out of my control. I can only run with what he's put within me and given me to walk with. And two of those things for sure, we're going to cover some more later on, is to rejoice and to be ready, to ready myself. Amen? Give him the praise. Father, we thank you. We thank you that we can approach your throne of grace and rejoice before you. There's a lot of details about these things that I want to admit I'm not quite sure about, but I am sure of you, and I'm sure that you have it all under control. I rejoice in the fact that you have affirmed again and again and over and over in my journey to be ready to be looking, to be anticipating, and to entrust the known and the unknown to your care. I pray that you will help us as we journey through it. Teach us. We will be careful to praise you for it.