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The transcription is discussing the book of Revelation and its relevance to the present day. It emphasizes that the word "soon" in the book does not necessarily mean a short time period, but rather refers to God's timing. It mentions the significance of the seven churches in Turkey and their connection to the last things and the rise of the Antichrist. The transcription also mentions the current political situation in Turkey and its potential role in the Muslim caliphate. It highlights the importance of the number seven in the book of Revelation, representing completion and perfection. The transcription concludes with a reminder of the glory and power of God. Alright, so with all that in mind, let's go to Revelation 1 and we'll spend a little bit more time in it. I just read this quickly, I think just the prologue when we started our intro, just to give a flavor for what we were talking about. So let's look at Revelation 1 tonight. Alright, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon take place. Now, don't get caught up by that word soon, because you might say, well, gosh, it's 2,000 years later. Yeah, but a lot of what is said here was still for His day. In fact, He's going to be told, write what is, what you see. He said, write what you see, what is, and what is to come. See, so that means some of the stuff you're going to write about is for your generation, John. And maybe just the generation after you, it's going to be unfolding in that time. But then there's going to be stuff that's going to be, I don't know if He told Him this, but it's going to be 2,000 years or more into the future. Write that, too. And if you don't know what you're looking at, don't worry about it. Just write what it looks like. Write what you see. Does that make sense? Okay? So when the word soon, it just means that, again, in the Lord's time, I mean, the Old Testament says and the New Testament says, a day with the Lord is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like a day. And so if it's been 2,000 years, guess how long it's been in the presence of God? Two days. So for the Lord to say this stuff's going to happen soon, I mean, He knows it's going to be 2,000 years in our time. But there are going to be generations of people that need to have this hope that the Lord is going to take care of it, and it is going to come. And then Daniel, if you remember what he said, that's kind of the revelation of the Old Testament, he said, behold, the end is going to come like a flood. In other words, things are going to really pick up. And I'm convinced that's after the return of Israel, because before the return of Israel, things were, you know, starting to heat up technologically and stuff, but not much. I mean, we still had black and white TV back then, and that was about it. You know, Israel returns, and look what's happened in the last 73 years. Look where we are now with the whole world. And so the word soon, and you'll hear it again in this prologue, it just means rapidly. It'll all happen, especially in the last days. It'll come quickly like a flood. But in the meantime, some of these things are going to happen in John's lifetime, or the generation after him. So it's appropriate to say that. But it's also appropriate because here we are 2,000 years later, and we're reading it, and we feel a real urgency as we see the world, what's happening in the world, the global demonic Antichrist spirit. We're the first generation to see that around the globe and communicate it 24-7 around the globe. So when we read this now, we really understand it's getting really, really close. We don't set dates with this teaching. We don't set dates in this church, but we can agree with God's word. It's coming soon, amen, especially for our generation or beyond. All right, so he said what must soon take place. And he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, that is, the messenger, who testifies to everything he saw, that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. So blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it. Here it is again, because the time is near. All right, so having understood all of that, look at this. John, that means I, John, am writing this, to the seven churches in the province of Asia. Sometimes you'll hear it said the province of Asia. Sometimes it's called Asia Minor. Sometimes it's called Anatolia, which was the province of the Roman Empire that encompassed what's now modern day what? Turkey. This is interesting to me. You write to the seven churches, and let's put it in our modern language, of Turkey. So the last book of the Bible, whose purpose is to expose the last things, is addressed in John's day to Turkey. Some, I guess probably a decade ago, I started getting really vocal about this. I touched on it in years past here in this church when I taught through the book of Revelation. I would come to this, and I would say, well, you know, that's the modern day area of Turkey. Now, several decades ago, it was considered to be a part of NATO, I mean, a big ally of the U.S. Why? Because it had a fairly solid democracy, primarily Muslim area, but it was all, rather than being run as a very deeply Muslim religious nation, like Iran, for example, that it is run very secularly, let's say, under a democracy and a constitution and laws and courts. And so they were considered a great friend and ally because that whole area is situated right in the middle of the 57 Muslim nations. And then, of course, Israel is located right there in the middle as well. So that was a good thing. But here about a decade ago, and I don't remember the exact years now, but I remember starting to teach as I saw things unfolding in that area. And then eventually what I'm going to use the word collapsing into, I saw things unfolding. It was going more and more, what I saw, into a hardline Muslim religious kind of government and persuasion. Then the guy now that's in charge, President, I think it's Recep Erdogan, he just has made it clear in the last seven or eight years that his desire is to turn the whole thing. He wants that to be the head of the entire Muslim caliphate of the 57 nations. He wants that to be like how we had 13 colonies and we had the United States of America with a centralized federal government. A lot of things he has said seems to indicate that's what he wants. He wants Turkey to be like Washington, D.C., and all the other nations to be like states of this big Muslim empire again. And he's really serious about that. And then Arab Spring kind of really ramped that up, and it brought Russia into Syria. Syria collapsed into an irreconcilable civil war. Syria still collapsed ever since Arab Spring. They have never recovered from that. Russia is still there with its troops. Turkey has troops over there. China has troops there cooperating with Russia. Russia and Iran are deeply connected together. China is deeply connected to North Korea and has been. They've had their spits and spats, but they're tied together. And so you've got Turkey now with Erdogan still in power, still wanting to be the Washington, D.C., of the Muslim nations, the federalized, centralized location of the caliphate, the leading government, the federal government, that loosely would translate to something like that. He wants to be the head guy. And so, I mean, this to me is another sign that we're living in unprecedented times because until six or seven or eight years ago, it just wasn't. Turkey just wasn't that way. But now a lot of people are very, very concerned with the way Turkey is headed or seems to be heading or might head. We don't know what's going to happen. But isn't it interesting that the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, that speaks of the last things and the last days and how it's all going to come unraveled into the days of the Antichrist and the return of the Lord. It's written to the churches in Turkey. Isn't that interesting? See? So as I said about ten years ago, and then that was when I was starting to get into a lot of media, I was really emphasizing that. And several other Bible teachers and prophecy teachers were as well. Joel Richardson is a dear friend of mine, and he was really, really coming down on it. And he's got a lot of connections to the Middle East and does a lot of ministry right in the heart of Muslim nations. Bless his heart. But he's written some books on it. He's got one book called The Islamic Antichrist. It's kind of controversial because he stepped way out there before a lot of other people began to see the possibility of that. But I told him when we were talking about it, I said, I don't know if the Antichrist is going to be Muslim or not. That's an amazing thing to think about. I said, but I do know that the last book was written to what is now trying to become the Muslim caliphate of the world. It was written to the churches in Turkey. So think about that as we move forward. Don't ever let that. There's a purpose for that. There's a reason. Why write to those seven churches? He was writing to the whole empire. Of course, he was a pastor in Ephesus area, which is in now Turkey. But why would the Lord say write this to these seven churches? And the number seven is important. It means something. It has something to do with completion and perfection. We see seven churches in here. We see seven angels. We see seven letters. We hear the voice of seven thunders. We see the seven trumpets. We see the seven bowls of wrath. The book of Revelation is filled with some 54 different variations of the number seven. Seven or 70 or seventh. Those words are used like 54 times in one book. So write to the seven churches. He says, grace and peace to you from him who is, who was, and who is to come. Well, who's that? Well, that's the Lord God, and particularly in the person of Jesus Christ. And from the sevenfold spirit, or some translations say the seven spirits. In the Greek, it can kind of be either of those. But we're talking about the Holy Spirit here. Father, Son, Holy Spirit before his throne and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all right there. The firstborn from among the dead, that is Jesus. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And the ruler of the kings of the earth. The powers, the entities. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and has made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve as God and Father. To him be glory and power forever and forever. Amen. Behold, verse 7, he, that is Jesus, is coming with the clouds, returning with the clouds, and every eye will see him. Remember, I told you about that word cloud. Now, we can use that word like the clouds. Or I can also speak of that as a throng of people, you know, the clouds. And the Bible uses it that way as well. And plus we hear the apostle Paul talking about returning with the host of heaven with him. And so the book of Hebrews says since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, now we hear he's returning with the clouds. What does that mean? You know, he's going to drag a bunch of thunderstorms behind him, maybe, maybe. But it could just mean that it's this picture of this dimensional shift. And we're going to see things. And the world is going to see. And they're going to know. There's not going to be, you're not going to miss the return of the Lord, y'all. Okay? I've heard people say, well, you know, the whole world will see him because, like, we've got television now. No, we don't need the television or Internet or YouTube. The Lord doesn't need that. When he returns, the whole world will see him. Now, he's got technology beyond our imagination. He doesn't have to go to a TV station. Can you put me on TV after he returns? And we need to make sure everybody sees. No, no, no, no. He's coming with the clouds. He's coming with the throngs, with the armies of heaven like a cloud. It's just going to cover the universe. Our eyes can see top of the earth, sides of the earth, bottom of the earth. Every eye will see him. Every tongue will confess. Every knee will bow. Amen? Okay, so he's coming. Behold, he's coming with the clouds of heaven. And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. Psalm 22, they have pierced my hands and my feet. Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our iniquities. Zechariah 12, and on that day you will look upon me whom you have pierced, says the Lord. And you will mourn for him as an only son. I mean, this is the whole world is going to see. And they're going to know. There's not going to be any doubt. There's not going to be a question. Well, is this another one of those false messiahs running around out there over in the Middle East somewhere? No, no, no, no. Jesus prophesied that. He said, look, he's out in the desert. Look, he's up in the mountains. Look, he's over there. Jesus said, don't pay attention to any of that. Because on the day the Son of Man returns, every eye will see him. It will be as like lightning flashing from the east to the west. Nobody will miss it. Okay? And here it is emphasized again. Every eye will see. And then all of the peoples of the earth will mourn instantly together. Not because he's on TV, but because they see it. They're experiencing it because of him. So shall it be. In other words, this is how it's going to be. I don't care who doesn't believe it, what preacher doesn't believe it, what atheist doesn't believe it. This is how it's going to be. Amen. I am the Alpha, the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Look at this. So in Hebrew, see we're reading it in English. And it comes from the Greek. And Alpha and Omega are Greek for A to Z, if you will, translating it to English. But in the Hebrew, what's Alpha and Omega? I've taught on this many times. The Alpha and the Tau. The Alpha and the Tau. I am the Alpha and the Tau. And we know in the ancient, ancient Hebrew language, back when the Hebrew language was basically written in hieroglyphics or pictographs, if you will. And now the modern Hebrew is those pictures but turned more into letters in their language. But back in the ancient Hebrew, the Alpha was represented, the first letter of the alphabet, is represented by an ox head. Okay, just as the most powerful animal to the agrarian society, agricultural society. And it pictured, it was a picture of God himself, the powerful one, the Almighty, the one that just, if you didn't own some ox or knew somebody did, you didn't eat because you had to plow the fields with it. You had to pull your carts with it. And as I've said before, it was the four-wheel drive and the John Deere tractor of those days. And in an agricultural society, if you didn't have four-wheel drive and John Deere tractor or whatever brand you want to use, but you know, you weren't going to have a farm. And if you didn't have a farm and that's all you had, you weren't going to eat. So the Alpha represented with an ox head. And the ancient Hebrews knew that that first letter always represented the first, the last. Okay, the first and the last. The first letter represented God himself. The last letter in the ancient pictograph was not an ox head. I wish I had the, you can go on the internet and see that I'm not making this up. But it's an exact, it's a cross. Not an X and not a plus sign, but a cross. So it's like God, who in the end is going to appear to us on the cross. You know, and I've taught you this about these pictograms before about Yud-Heh-Wah-Heh, the Tetragrammaton. Those are the Hebrew letters where we get the word Yahweh from. Or if you had it from the Germanic pronunciation of the letters Jehovah. So sometimes we sing about Jehovah, and that's just more the Germanic theological way of presenting it. But Yahweh is another way. Some people still, you know, they argue over the Hebrew and whether it even would sound exactly like that. But that's a pretty accepted form. But the Yud-Heh-Wah-Heh, they had pictures and they had meanings too. And I'm going to go ahead and repeat it very quickly here. But Yud-Heh appears twice. Hey, it's interesting because that meant behold. And I like that. It's easy to remember, right? Hey, hey. That's just English. That's just coincidental maybe. But Hey in Hebrew means behold or look, look at this, right? Yud means the hand. It's a kind of a pictograph form of a hand. And Wah or Vav, again, depending upon which way you pronounce that in Hebrew. Some people pronounce it Wah. Some pronounce it Vah. But Yud-Heh-Wah-Heh, Vav or Wah means a nail or a spike. Behold the hands. Behold the nails. The name of God, Yahweh. And it's one of the most ancient names for the Lord that we know that has ever been recorded in history. In the Bible, the most ancient name starts with Elohim. In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. That's a whole other study, and we'll do that sometime later. But I just want you to know that that word, that name Yahweh, I guarantee you the Jews did not invent behold the hands, behold the nails. You know what I'm saying? They didn't make that. They would have had no idea. But this was the name that God gave them. And it ties in to the expression that you know when Moses was standing at the burning bush, and he said, well, who will I tell this to? And he said, you tell them I am has sent you. And in the Hebrew, that's a derivative of that tetragrammaton, Yud-Heh-Wah-Heh. I am who I am. I'm the creator. I'm the all-powerful one. But Yud-Heh-Wah-Heh means behold the hand, behold the nails. Here, the Alpha, the Omega, or the Aleph and the Tau, the number one, the most powerful, the almighty, who's connected to the cross. And then you take his name, Yahweh, behold the hands, behold the nails. Isn't that pretty amazing? Now all this stuff is ancient. Long before the New Testament was written, long before Jesus came and was on the cross, the Aleph and the Tau existed. The name Yahweh existed. And so now these things are being uncovered in these relatively recent times. And so the book of Revelation written 2,000 years ago, all these descriptions are right there. I am the Alpha. I am the Omega. Says in the word Lord there, if it was in Hebrew, it would say says Yahweh. And the word God would be translated in Hebrew as Elohim. I am the Alpha and the Omega says Yahweh Elohim. Who is and who was and who is to come. I am the almighty El Shaddai. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Keep reading. Now John speaks. I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering kingdom and patient endurance. Those words are important because later when we get into the time of the Antichrist, John talks about those times. And he says these things will call for patience and endurance on the part of the saints. The word saints means separated ones. We'll talk more about that when we get to Revelation 13. John is saying that a kind of a foreshadowing of that is already happening in the Roman Empire. And so he says he has been a part of the kingdom work with great patience and great endurance that are ours in Jesus. In other words, Jesus gives us the patience. He gives us the endurance. I was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. The emperor Domitian was the emperor in John's time. And he had gotten full of himself like many emperors had before him. And he was insisting that people all around the empire worshipped him as some sort of deity. And there were places of worship set up, altars, wherein people had to do homage and had to bring sacrifices. And you could bring monetary sacrifices or you could bring animal sacrifices. And usually it was a pig that was required to be sacrificed on the altar. And it was a way of kind of separating out God's people, especially the Jews and even the early Christians, which were mainly all Jews, brought up Jews. And, of course, they believed Jesus was Messiah. But a lot of them still kept the dietary laws and believed that the pigs were unclean. And so then they brought the pigs. I mean it was tough. History tells us that a lot of Christians looked for ways to compromise. They said, well, we're going to go burn the pig on the altar and get our little certificate of worship. Yes, you got a little certificate showing that you had been knelt at the altar and that you had done what the emperor told you to do. And that if you were stopped by the authorities, you had to present your card of worship. I mean this is all in the history. And you had to present that. And John refused to do it. And he was a leader in the church at Ephesus and the churches surrounding. And so he was brought to trial. And he was sentenced to banishment on the island of Patmos, a rock prison camp similar to our Alcatraz, our ancient Alcatraz out there in the bay. I mean surrounded by sharks and everything. There's no way off of it, especially 2,000 years ago. That was it. So he says that's where he is. He's on Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And on the Lord's Day, that would have been a Sunday. That's referred to in the earlier parts of the New Testament. The first day of the week, the Lord's Day. Why? Because that was when they found the tomb empty, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. So on the Lord's Day, on the island of Patmos, let me see. I lost my place here. On the Lord's Day, here we go. I was in the spirit and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. In the spirit, don't let that throw you away. It doesn't mean that he was like a ghost or something. Look, Jesus said if we're going to worship the Lord, we have to worship him how? In spirit and in truth. And you say, well, what does that mean? Well, one of the things it means, just take the opposite of it. Do not worship him in the flesh and deceit. You get it? I mean there are people that can do that. They can cuss and fuss right outside those doors, come in here, and then they can just put on a show and be in the flesh putting on a show and then go right back out, cuss and fuss and carry on and trash talk people. You understand what I'm saying? So what were they doing in here? They were in the flesh. They didn't come in here worshiping the Lord in the spirit. Does that make sense? Everybody got that? Okay. All right. So he said I was in the spirit. Basically, he was worshiping. He was just worshiping. And I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet. That would be something like this. I don't know how that's going to sound on the audio version. I'm sorry, people that are listening. But it said, the voice said, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me, and when I turned, I saw. Look at me for just a moment. We're going to go to it. You know what has happened right here? He's worshiping the Lord. He's on the island of Patmos. It's on the Lord's Day. This is the details he's given us. He's worshiping, and behind him. Now, he's on the island of Patmos. It's a prison camp island. There's no temple set up there. And behind him, he hears this voice say to him, John, John, John, I want you to write what you see. He's worshiping. He's thinking, did I just hear a voice? John, and he turns around, and there before him is what's going to be shown here to us. It's been a dimensional shift. I told you this is all throughout the Bible. It's like Abraham. It says he looked up and saw three men coming. Where did they come from? And that later is two angels and God himself in the flesh. Where did they come from? I ask people that when they talk about it. They don't live up in the mountains. They weren't camping out in the woods. They didn't come down by UFO. They came through a portal, through a dimensional shift. And throughout the scriptures, we see these dimensional shifts. John is on Patmos. He's not in a temple. He's not in a church that says Baptist church or simply God church. He's on the island of Patmos, and it's the Lord's Day. And in his heart and in his spirit, he's just worshiping the Lord. And in the midst of worship, the Lord speaks to him. How many of you know that that's one of the reasons why God says, look, I know not everybody can come into a building and gather together. But when you can and if you can, you should. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. Why? Because then it's a spirit of worship, and it is a spirit of praise. And the word of God is imparted. I know a lot of people will watch our services, and I'm so glad that we can do that. But then they will say, it was awesome, it was amazing, the music was amazing, the choir was amazing, whatever. And, boy, Brother Carl just brought it down this morning. And then they'll say, but it's nothing like being there. You know, because there's a spirit here. You're in the spirit when you're together and you hear your neighbor's voice singing. And you get to touch somebody and hug somebody, right? Well, the same thing. In the early church, John is on Patmos. He has none of that. And so he's just worshiping in his own spirit on the Lord's Day. They don't even have remote viewing. You know, he's just worshiping. Probably lonely, probably misses his church and his brothers and sisters. Doesn't know if or when he'll ever get off the island. Doesn't know if he'll live through it. He's just worshiping. And how many of you know when you are worshiping, whether it's in church where you're more than likely to hear a word from God in your heart, in your mind, in your chest, words being preached. We've just bathed it all in praise and worship. How many of you know that a lot of the music that's presented, the word is in that and you hear God speaking to your heart through that? How many of you know that most of the time when you hear the Lord speak, it's when you're in the spirit, right? And what that means is not anything freaky. It means your mind and your heart is in an attitude of truly worshiping the Lord. And then God speaks. This time John was shaken to his core because he realized it was a real voice. And it was behind him. And he spun on his heels and turned around and this is what he saw. I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned, this is how we know a dimensional divide has been encroached, broached. Am I saying that right? All these words I'm pulling down. Anyway, a dimensional divide had been revealed to him. I saw seven golden lampstands. And among the lampstands was someone like a son of man. Interesting phrase there. That carries a messianic flavor to it. It comes most recognizably for students of the word from the book of Daniel, which is the revelation of the Old Testament, chapter 7, where Daniel has a vision of the throne of God in the last days. He sees what appears to be the Antichrist, this one with a little horn. And he sees the throne of God and he sees the 10,000 times 10,000 angels. And he is just caught up in this rapturous glory. And he says, then I saw one looking like a son of man. In other words, a divine being, but he looked like a human, yet he was divine. And he says, I saw him approach the throne and to him was given all power and glory and majesty to rule the nations. Well, who was that he saw? Well, it was Jesus, of course, the image of the invisible God. But he didn't know to call him that. And the revelation he got, if he was given that name, he was told not to write it because he did not write that this is the name, but he saw it. And so John is standing here saying, I saw these seven golden lampstands. I saw one standing among the lampstands like a son of man, dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet with a golden sash around his chest, tried to envision this. His head and hair were white like wool. Now, before you get in your mind, well, he was just a white dude with real gray hair. That's not what he's describing. He'll tell you on and on. You're looking at the Shekinah glory. In other words, it was everything about him was just enraptured in brilliance and glory. It will actually say that as we keep reading. He says his hair and his head, they were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. You hear this, like, like, like, like. His feet were like bronze. You don't really think you're looking at somebody with a bunch of white wool on their head with bronze, real bronze feet. No, he said like. It was like. He's just trying to describe this rapturous glory of this divine presentation of the resurrected one in all of his glory. Transfigured before his eyes, he says his head, his hair, white like wool, white as snow. His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace. His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand, he held seven stars. Now, they couldn't have been real seven stars because a star is a sun. Okay. And what we know of our universe, our sun is one of the smallest ones out there. It is 93 million miles from here or we'd burn up. So he wasn't. But he just saw what looked like seven orbs, apparently, that were just brilliant and burning. And so he said it looked like seven stars. And there's a purpose for this. Lost my place. In his right hand, he held seven stars, verse 16. And out of his mouth came a sharp, double-edged sword. All right. Now, stop. What if I all of a sudden had a sword coming out of my mouth? But where do we get the understanding of the Word of God is what? Sharper than any two-edged sword or double-edged sword. Okay. So the Word of God is coming out of his mouth. And there's imagery here. And you'll see why in a moment. It will all tie together. But I just want you to understand when you come to these things, don't be – I mean, just know what – read into it what you know from the Scripture. All right. And also see the word like. Like, like. Whenever you see the word like, it usually means it wasn't that. That's just the best word he had for it. Okay. Just like at Pentecost. It said something like tongues of fire came to rest over the heads of these people. It wasn't obviously a real human tongue, and it probably wasn't a real fire. But there was a kind of glow, something that was alive-looking almost, like a tongue, a fire over their heads. There was something visual, a visual confirmation. How easy it would have been for the disciples just to be up there worshiping and everybody leave and tell everybody, okay, Holy Spirit came. How do you know? We just felt it. Well, no. The whole earth shook, and there was a sound that went out through the city, and the people inside saw what looked like tongues of fire. And then they started preaching and teaching and praising God. And people from all over that area, some 13 different language groups, were saying, we hear that in our own language. No, I hear it in my language. No, I hear it in my language. See, something supernatural. It was auditory. It was visual. It was something from the mouth. It was something in the mind. It was visual signs. It was the whole city felt the rumbling. And, of course, you know, earthquakes were, you know, those things could happen in that area. But at that time, really, while they're in there worshiping, and they get up and they start speaking what probably they thought was their own Hebrew, yet it's being heard and understood in all the languages of groups that were there. So this is the same kind of thing when you read this like, like, like. It was like this. It was like that. This is all the words I have to describe it. It looked like this. But he was looking at the resurrected one in all of his beautiful glory, seven lampstands all around him, holding seven what looked like stars, burning orbs of fire in his hand. And out of his mouth comes this double-edged sword, the Word of God. He's speaking. His face was like the sun, shining in all of its brilliance. That's why it says when his head and hair were white like wool, white as snow, his eyes were like blazing fire. It tells us this obviously is we're looking at the resurrected Lord in his transfigured state and in this Shekinah glory of his being and his power. Does that make sense? And so John turned, and when he turned, he's on the rock, same rock island, standing in the same place or sitting in the same place where he had probably worshipped before. He probably had his own little secret place somewhere on the island where he just went out on the Lord's Day. When he had the opportunity, he spent some time in the Spirit. That is just worshipping. And in the middle of one of these sessions, this is what he experienced. He says, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said, Do not be afraid, John. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Who's talking to him? This is the book of Revelation. It has a lot of revelations in it, but it's not the book of Revelation. It's the book of Revelation given by Jesus Christ and from time to time. We use the English word angel, a messenger from glory that he sends to minister to John as he's receiving all of this. We know Gabriel was a messenger from heaven that came to Mary, right? Also showed up to Daniel. We also know that Michael shows up to Daniel in the Old Testament as messengers, right? So this right now, though, he is speaking to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is speaking to him. I'm the living one. I was dead. Behold, I'm alive forevermore. And Brandon quoted this next part in his sermon this morning. He says, And I hold the keys of death and Hades. And the word Hades, sometimes some translators say death and hell. Some of them say death and Hades. And there's a little difference between hell and Hades in the way that word's used. The word hell means like prison, the holding place for the great white throne of judgment. The word Hades is a little more general. It corresponds with the Hebrew word sheol. And it would sound a bit odd to my ears, to our ears, if we said, well, they died and went to Hades. You say, well, heaven or hell? You say, well, they're in glory. They're in paradise. But you just said Hades. That means hell. No, those terms mean they leave this dimension of life. And, see, I've said this before. I've said I can guarantee you, based upon the authority of God's word, that when you close your eyes in what we call death, separation from this, separation from this body, from this earthly existence, you will live forever, regardless of what you did with Jesus Christ. I mean, the Bible's clear about that. And, by the way, even the laws of physics are pretty clear about that, too. Matter never really ceases to exist. It just changes forms. But every molecule, let me give you an example. Take a pile of logs, put them in my backyard, pour gasoline on it. Not gasoline. Whatever. Some kind of lighter starter, pour gasoline on it. You're probably going to blow up the neighborhood. But put whatever on, throw a match in it, and it's on fire. And you leave it. You come back two days later, and there's basically nothing there. I mean, literally, if you leave it enough and it burns hot enough, it's just you see some gray ash, and that's it. Well, where did all that wood go? Well, it just went away. No, it didn't. Every single molecule of that wood still exists. It just exists in different forms. See, if you take a pot of water and you put it on your stove and you boil it, and you come back, you forget it. Forty-five minutes later, you come in, and the pot's doing this right here, and it's white ash in the bottom. Some of you all have done that, haven't you? Have you ever done that with eggs in there? You come back and say, wow, what a mess. Okay, but you just have water, and you're boiling it, and you come back, and you say, well, the water's all gone. No, it still exists. Every single molecule. Where? In the form of vapor now. But you didn't destroy matter. It's just a different form. So I can guarantee you, based upon God's Word and just take some simple laws of physics, that when we leave these bodies, because we're living souls. We're inhabiting. This is our vehicle, right? But, you know, what gives it life and animation and thinking and dreaming and speaking and emotions and all of that, it's not this body. It's what's inside. And there's a soul in here that even connects with God, and I can create. I mean, because we're made in His image, right? Monkeys swing in trees and eat bananas and swing poo. That's all they've ever done. Humans can basically do whatever their minds conceive within certain limits, and we can create, and we can write. We write books, and we invent Internet so we can communicate with the world. You understand? We're like gods to the monkeys, okay? So that, that lives forever. And so when Jesus says, I hold the keys to death and Hades, Hades means everything that's beyond this dimension. That's the Greek word. I know we've made it be the word hell. And so for me to say somebody died and went to Hades, the Hebrew word sheol, you'll hear in the Old Testament, you'll hear them talk about, you know, they went with their fathers. They're in sheol. And you think, oh, my gosh, everybody that died went to hell? No, it just means they're separated from this dimension, and then, of course, if their faith was in Yahweh, then they belong to the Lord. But, and they were looking forward to the Messiah bringing the ultimate sacrifice to cover their sins. But the point is that when he says, I hold the keys to all of that, he's telling you what Brandon was preaching this morning, perfectly contextually accurate, that Satan's power, Hebrews chapter 2, his power, it's kind of an illusion. His power is the fear of death, right? I mean, he brought that on in the garden, right? God says in the day you follow that dude, death's going to come. And they followed him, and death came, and still, is still here, in case you hadn't noticed, all these thousands of years later. Eight billion people on this planet, and not a single one's getting out of here alive unless the rapture comes in our lifetime. But other than, even then we'll be transformed. These bodies will be transfigured and left behind, and we will be fit for the kingdom of God, and it'll happen in the twinkling of an eye. By the way, I looked in the mirror this morning when I got dressed. I'm sure ready to get another body. I don't know about y'all, but I said, gosh, where did that come from? How did this happen? But, yeah, I mean, you reach a point where, you know, you're kind of like, yeah, even so, Lord, come, please, ready for the new body, right? But that's the point. I mean, when you know this, in this first chapter, the Lord tells you, I've got this under control. I hold the keys to it all. If I hold the keys to death, then do not be afraid of death. I went to the cross. You saw my body in this realm die. You saw me beat almost to death before to the point that I was not even recognizable as a human. Isaiah 53 said that. Then you saw me put in the grave. You saw a spear first run up my side into my heart, and blood and water came out, which means his heart sac was pierced and punctuated and punctured. I mean, he's dead as dead can be. You saw that, he says. But then three days later, as I had been promising you for three years of public ministry, and as the Old Testament prophecies promised it would happen, you saw me alive, and I walked among you for 40 days so you would know it wasn't a trick. I ate fish with you on the beach so that you would know that in heaven you're going to eat. Amen. I only heard one guy say that. Mark, you want to tell us your secret sin, brother? Okay. All right. Only one person. Mark goes, Amen. If I didn't learn anything tonight, I'll learn I get to eat fried fish in heaven. No gluttony in your Bible. Mark out gluttony. Go through it. Gluttony. Nope, nope. Just mark that out. Oh, my gosh. You know, people say, what's it going to be like in heaven? Well, Jesus gave us a test of it. I mean, a picture of it. When he came out of the grave, he looked at his disciples and said, because I live, you shall live. Now do you believe? And he's showing them. Thomas said, I'm not going to believe these other disciples until I see the nail prints in his hand. Jesus walks into the room the next night and Jesus says, come here, Thomas. Here, look at my hand. And he fell at his feet and he worshipped him. He called him Lord and God. He said, my Lord and my God. He said, my Yahweh and my Elohim. And he worshipped him. And Jesus allowed it because he's resurrected now and he's revealed who he is. So now, you know, he wasn't trying to fool the enemy, Satan, with anything. Now he's there. Now he's doing this to Satan, saying, ha-ha, you walked right into the trap. You thought you crucified me, but I'm the lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. It was all planned to catch you, Satan. So when Jesus proclaims, he holds the keys to all that, he is declaring himself, I'm the creator of everything. I created. I know people say, you mean, if he was a loving God, he wouldn't create hell. Do we have prisons and jails in this county? Why do we do that? Yeah, because if people just don't want to live by the rules and they just want to terrorize the rest of us, the only thing we can do as human beings in this physical world is to put them in a box somewhere and get them away. Now, you know, in America, we try to go through a system of justice and treat people fairly and all that. But I mean, still, if we as humans can separate out, why can't the Lord cosmically and eternally, after sacrificing himself for their opportunity to change it all, why can't the Lord God, creator of the universe, separate out forever and ever those who have tormented his people and spit in his face? Why can't he do that? Of course he can, and he has. He's created everything. The Bible says in Colossians chapter 1, and he is the image of the invisible God. And by him and through him, everything that has been made, the universe has been made. And everything that has been made was made by him and for him and in him. All things hold together. John sees this vision. He sees him there. And one of the things that Jesus declares, I am the Alpha, the Omega. I am the first and the last. I am the one who is living and dead and now alive again. And I hold the keys to life and death. And now, John, you're on the island of Patmos. You're in the spirit. You are worshiping. And I walk through a veil and show you again. And now I'm going to show you what's going to happen right up to my return. Write what you see. And you know there's something dimensional going on because it would have taken John a long time to write all this. Don't you agree? And I mean to get those visions down and to get the exact wording down. And from time to time when Jesus said, Now write this down, the name of this is this. Or here's what this means. And he would give some of that. It's scattered throughout this book. Well, what happened? I mean he's on a prison island. He's accountable. He can't just sit there for three days and write a book on a rock, right? No, he's in a dimensional shift. He's in a place where he can be gone to those looking upon him. They might not even notice anything. They might just see an old man sitting on a rock. But in the meantime, he has stepped through a veil. You know God can do that, right? He has stepped through a veil. In God's time, he could be back there for days. And the next thing you know, he's out. He's back. He's got the scroll in his hand that he's written. And if he had a wristwatch, he'd have said, Five minutes? How did I do that? You see what I'm saying? So when you see that phrase, I hold the keys to death and hell. Please understand this. Sometimes I'll hear people say, and I'm not being ugly here, but I've preached this ever since I've been here, and I think I'm contextually biblically correct, and I still stand by this. I've heard it all of my younger life. Almost every preacher preached that when Jesus died, he went to hell and he stole the keys back from hell, from Satan. Well, Satan doesn't own hell. He is the prince of the power of the air. He is the prince of this world. But he doesn't have the keys. He can't come and go as he wants from the prison or from hell. And we see a passage in the book of Revelation where it appears that either he or one of his cohorts is given a key to a pit that he's allowed to open because the name of the one is the destroyer. And all kinds of nasty things come out of it in the last days. A lot of people look at that as maybe a part of the demonic outpouring of the very, very last days. But it was given for that purpose. But he does not. Jesus did not steal. I know there's a passage that said in the Spirit he went and preached to the spirits that are in hell. We can talk about that later. But preaching to the spirits in hell are a whole lot different than Jesus having to sneak down there and steal the keys from said pickpocket. Jesus isn't a thief. Satan's not greater than him. Satan's not smarter than him. Jesus didn't have to outsmart him. He's always held the keys to all of the dimensions. He created the dimensions. Amen? Okay. The only thing that Satan has stolen, and he thinks he's come about it honestly, is this fallen, what we see the fallen creation when God dropped the veil in Genesis chapter 3 and put the seraphim around it to guard that. This is being reclaimed and rebought with the blood of Jesus. Amen. Jesus didn't have to steal it back. He paid for it, bought it back with his own blood so we could be restored to how it was supposed to be in the beginning. Does that make sense? So when he presents himself in the very first chapter this way, take heart, believers, you're on the winning side. If you're under the blood of Jesus, he holds the keys to it all. He knows how to make everything right, and that's what the last chapter says he does. He knows how to make everything right that this world and Satan has stolen from you. Some of you have lost loved ones lately. Some of you have lost loved ones over the years. Some of you have been lied about, mistreated. Some of you as children were abused and mistreated or as adults. And I know we have to carry those scars and we have to deal with these things all during our life. But in the meantime, if we belong to the Lord and know the Lord, his Holy Spirit speaks to us. He surrounds us with godly people. He gives us peace. He gives us glimpses of glory. We've got the promise of his word, and what he's saying is, Hold on, my child. I know you don't understand everything, but you can trust me. And parents and grandparents, you understand this. When you have a 3-year-old trying to ask you the deep questions of life and you cannot, in a million years, you cannot explain it to them, so what do you tell them? Just trust mama, trust daddy. I got this. You just do what I say, and everything's going to be fine. Right? Right? Well, just think of that. That's why Jesus said, Unless you have childlike faith, you cannot come into the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because there's just so much we don't know. We just have to trust that he knows what he's doing, and he's going to make everything right. And those are some of the last words of the book of Revelation. Behold, I'm making everything new. No more pain, no more crying, no more suffering, no more death. Am I right? It's in chapter 21. So here, in chapter 1, he says, I hold it all. I created it. They're mine. I didn't have to steal anything. I am the word that became flesh. I am the victor. Now look at verse 19 and 20, and we'll be out of here. Write, therefore, John, what you have seen. That is, what is now and what will take place later. Basically, the book of Revelation is divided into two chunks. What is now in John's day, but all of that has meaning for our day too because God's prophetic word is compounded like that. It will speak to the day in which it's written, but it also, if you know what you're looking for and know how to connect it to the other scriptures, it will speak right out into the future and often all the way to the end. And, of course, the book of Revelation does that because that's its purpose. But he says, you write, you write what you have seen, what is now, and you write what will take place later. And then he gives some clues right here. I want you to kind of mark off verse 20 there because he's going to tell you some things, and those will be useful in interpreting other things in the book of Revelation. Okay? They'll be useful later on. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Now, I'm not going to get into what all that means right now, but you will see all of that later as we keep moving through the book of Revelation. But right now, what we have, chapters 2 and chapter 3, are the seven letters to the seven churches, and we'll deal with that the next time we meet in greater detail.
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