 Well, good morning, and it's so great to see all of you here today. This is a great day to be in the house of the Lord and just to talk about the things that really matter. I don't know about you, but my head is spinning after Bill Federer's message. I'm telling you, it's like taking a sip of water out of a fire hydrant, you know? It's just, it kind of overwhelms you a little bit, you know? So I was telling Pastor Joey I've got to get those files from him. I've got to get that presentation somehow. Well quickly, I'm going to take a little bit about a couple of things in my ministry. We're going to dive right into the book of Revelation this morning together. First of all is my TV show, Jeff Kinley Live, which you can watch every week on his channel. It's a great Christian network that has over 70 million viewers every month on their network. Jeff Kinley Live, I do 30 minutes just on Bible prophecy every week. And as Joey mentioned, I've taken over the teaching duties of The King is Coming, a television program when Dr. Ed Heintzen passed away and very honored to do that. Can't feel his shoes, but taken over that role. And then one more is that My Vintage Truth podcast is on Jack Hibbs Real Life Network. If you heard of Jack Hibbs Network, it's an amazing place to get great Bible teaching, so you want to make sure you check that out. Now we're going to be in Revelation chapter one this morning. And so if you have a Bible, I invite you to turn there. And we are going to do a sort of a jet tour over the book of Revelation here, rather the first part of the book of Revelation. Now a few months ago I was walking through my kitchen area and a voice, a lady's voice came into the room and the lady's voice said this, the millennial kingdom has arrived. And I said, no, wait a minute, where'd that voice come from? And it said it again. I said, who said that? I said, the millennial kingdom has arrived. And I turned around and there was this little round box called Alexa. And I said, Alexa, what did you just say? She said the millennial kingdom has arrived. And I had two thoughts. I said, number, I didn't even know Alexa was in the Bible prophecy. That's number one. And number two, I didn't know she was an ah, millennialist. She thinks we're in the millennial kingdom right now. Well then it dawned on me. I ordered a book by Dr. John Walford called the millennial kingdom. And Alexa was just telling me the millennial kingdom has arrived. So sure enough, it had arrived, but just in book form, okay? Well, we're not there yet, my friends. There's some things that have to happen before that glorious millennial kingdom comes on the scene here. But you know, there's a lot going on in the world today and people are talking about the latter days. They're talking about the end times. It's not just Christians. It's non-Christians as well. People ask me all the time, people that I know that are not believers. They say, Jeff, what in the world is going on? What is happening? Where are we going? Where are we headed? And there are many things we see on the horizon. Things that tell us that Bible prophecy is being fulfilled. We have globalism converging. We have a digital economy emerging. We have apostasy infiltrating. We have the spirit of anti-Christ rising. Those enemies threatening and moral deception spreading. And so all around the world, we're seeing really the prophetic narrative that God has prescribed for the end times. It is coming together like tributaries of little rivers coming together into one mighty prophetic narrative. You see, God wants us to understand what's going on in the end times. And so he wrote a book for us. He wrote a book called The Book of Revelation. So that you and I could understand what's going to happen in the last days. Now I know a lot of Christians today, they won't touch the book of Revelation. In fact, they come to Revelation and they see a big sign there that says keep off the grass. It says, none shall pass. It's like when I was growing up, my grandmother had this room in her house that she kept under lock and key. And we had about 15 grandchildren. Every single one of us just was dying to know what in the world is she keeping in that room. And it wasn't until many years later, I found out that she kept her fine china locked under lock and key into that room to keep us rambunctious grandchildren out from breaking her china. Well, a lot of people look at the book of Revelation like that. God's got this book under lock and key and you're not allowed to go there. It's not for you, it's for prophecy experts. It's for PhDs and what I call the PNTs, the prophecy nerd types, okay? Only for those people, but not for you. Guess what? The book is called Revelation. It's not called the book of cryptology. It's not called the book of hidden things. It's a book where God reveals himself. He unhides things in the book of Revelation. As we come to Revelation, it's the 66th book of the Bible. It's the last book that God would ever write. And you know what? Last words are lasting words. As an author, I've written some 40 books now, and when I come to the last chapter of my books, you know what I say to myself? I say, Jeff, what are you going to say in this final chapter that's going to really grip your audience? How are you going to really bring the whole message in so that they can leave having something of substance? And God did the same thing with Revelation, God's last word to His church. And at this point, we're about two generations past the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The church is at a stage where she no longer recognizes herself. In fact, she's strayed so far from her original purity that Jesus himself had to come down and say, we need to talk. And Jesus walks among the lampstands of His churches, even today, saying, we need to talk. And in five of those seven churches, Jesus delivers an excoriating rebuke to them. And then we get into heaven, and then we get into the tribulation period. But here's what God wants us to know. The last book of the Bible is a book that is 95 percent Bible prophecy. And yet 95 percent of the body of Christ and pastors avoid it like the plague. God has something to say through His book then, He has something to say to us today. Now here's where we're going to go today. We're going to look at Revelation chapter 1. We're going to see something about who Jesus is, what He has done, what He's going to do, John's vision of Jesus, John's response to Jesus, and then finally, Jesus' response to John. And because it's God's written Word and because it's Revelation, because it's inspired, then we need to pay attention. Now I'll tell you this as a thesis statement of this whole talk here, is that the key to understanding the book of Revelation is to first see and encounter the glorified Christ. That's the thesis of the book of Revelation. And God wanted us to know, yes, about the end times. He wanted us to know about the rapture, about the tribulation period, the Second Coming, the Monial Kingdom, New Heavens and New Earth, Great Wife Throne Judgment, Antichrist, Seals Trumpet Bowl Judgment, all those things. But as it turns out, God's last book of the Bible, He wanted you to know something about Himself as well, because encountering the Christ is the key to being able to understand all of these things. God's last written Word is His grand finale. Let's dive into Revelation chapter 1. Verse 1 says, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And now there's your first clue right there, is that guys, it's not the revelation of end time events, it's the revelation of Jesus Christ. Christ is packed throughout the entire book of Revelation from chapter 1 to chapter 22. Now what does God want us to know and remember about Jesus? How does He want us to reboot our perception of our God? Because what we think about God is the most important thing about us. Look at verse 3. He says, blessed is He who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near. You see, there's a special blessing that God promises every Christian that is encountering the book of Revelation. Whether you hear it, whether you read it, or whether you obey it, God says, I will bless you. He says, what is that blessing, Jeff? I think one of the blessings is you get to know what's going on in history. God gives us a heads up on history. In fact, Bible prophecy has often been called history written in advance. And so God lets you know, Christians are the only people on the planet who know what's going to happen in the world. Do you know that? You know why? Because God already told us right here in His Word. I think the second blessing of Revelation is that you get to encounter God in a way that you never have before. And yet most people miss those beautiful attributes that God gives us in this great book of Revelation. There's so much dense theology just right here in chapter 1. So let's talk about who is the Christ of Revelation, beginning in verse 4. He says, John to the seven churches who are in Asia, grace to you in peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before the throne, and from Jesus Christ, and here we go. Here's the first attribute of God, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. So he is the reliable Christ. So what does that mean? The faithful witness. It means that His Word can be trusted. It means that everything that Christ says is true. John, you need to know that everything you're going to hear from me in this book of Revelation, you can bank on. I'm not giving you a book of symbols. I'm not giving you a book of metaphors. I'm not giving you a fairy tale. I'm going to give you some sort of narrative you could make up and mean whatever you want it to mean. John, when I speak, I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. And that's one of the greatest principles of what we call hermeneutics or Bible interpretation is to simply believe that God means what He says. Now certainly God uses figures of speech. There are symbols in Scripture, that type of thing, but we can interpret those symbols from other scriptures. I love what Tim LaHaye used to say. She says, when the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense, lest you end up with nonsense. And that's what a lot of people are preaching today. They're preaching nonsense. But this is the reliable Christ. It means that everything He says is trustworthy because it comes from a trustworthy God. See, Jesus in John 14, what did He say? He said, believe in God, believe also in me. My Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. And I go to prepare a place for you so that, and I will come again so that where I am there, you may be also. Do you believe when Jesus said, I'm going to come back again? He meant it? Amen. Amen. And He is coming back. I'm going to talk more about that in my second message today. But He's the reliable Christ, and He's contrasted with what we're going to see later in Revelation, which is the anti-Christ who is energized by who? The Father of Lies. The Father of Lies, John 8.44. So He's the reliable Christ. Secondly, He's the risen Christ. He says He's the first born from the dead. You say, what does that mean? That means that Jesus Christ was the first fruits of the resurrection. This word, first born, is the Greek word, partoticus, and it refers to someone who is preeminent, who is sovereign, who is overall. So Christ is not just someone who has risen from the dead. He is the one who has risen from the dead. And by the way, because He lives, you will live also. Scripture tells us, 1 Corinthians 15 says that we're going to be changed one day. First test 4, verses 13 through 17, tell us that we're going to be raised from the dead if you don't know, if you die before the rapture, you'll be raised from the dead. And you're going to get a brand new body. I'll tell you more about your new body here later on this afternoon. Okay? Anybody want a new body? Okay. I could use one as well. All right. Here we go. He's the preeminent one. He's also the ruling Christ. I love this. Verse 5, it says, Jesus is described as the ruler of the kings of the earth, the ruler of the kings of the earth. And we know from chapter 19 that He has a title, and that title is the king of kings, the Lord of lords. You see, Jesus trumps all earthly rulers. And if you want a great devotional sometime, just read Isaiah chapter 40. And Isaiah chapter 40, the Lord himself is speaking, and he says that all the rulers of the earth are as nothing before me, God says. In fact, he says they're less than nothing. He says they're like the dust on the scales. He merely blows on them and they're gone. So that is why, my friend, we don't have to fear presidents, premiers, prime ministers, popes, kings, czars. It doesn't matter. God is over all of them. And they are just simply nothing before him. He says they're like dust in the wind. I love this because I believe this is sort of a preview of the fact that Jesus one day will rule over the kingdoms of the world. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, you know, we quote during Christmas, you know, for behold, a son is given, a savior is born, but the very next verse says, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. You see, a king is coming, and he's coming back to claim his kingdom. He's the ruling Christ. John goes on to tell us about this redeeming Christ. I love this in verse 5. This says, to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood, and he has made us to be a kingdom, priests to his God and Father. This love here is a gapé love in the Greek. It's his loyal love. That's the equivalent of the Hebrew, chesed, which just means an unconditional ever giving nonstop love. You know, there's nothing you can do in your life to get God to love you anymore, and He loves you right now. And you know, sometimes I think it's just wise and healthy. Just to remind ourselves, God loves me. He loves me. He not only loves me now, He loved me in eternity past. He set his heart of love upon me. Right back when before the foundation of the world of Ephesians chapter 1 tells us, and Jeremiah 1 tells us that even when you're in your womb, God knew you and your other's womb. You see, God has a great love for us, and it's unlike any love that we've ever had for any of our loved ones. You know, I love my three sons. I love my grandchildren. I love my wife. But as great as that love is, it doesn't even compare to God's love for me. I need to remind myself of that. And that's why John wrote this here, because Jesus wants you, the church, His beloved bride prior to the wedding, just to remind you the fact that I love you. So remind yourself of that. God loves me. But it says also, He redeemed us from our sins by His blood. That means that we have been unshackled from the dominion of the slavery to sin. It means that we've been saved from the penalty of sin in the past. We are being saved from the power of sin, and one day praise God will be saved from the presence of sin. It means that Jesus Christ has basically taken all the teeth out of sin, and it no longer has power over us today. That is why, when Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, when he, in Philippians 4, 13, back in Romans, when he says, oh wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of sin and death, praise God Jesus has done it. Every day in our lives, you and I face challenges, we face struggles, we face temptations, but my friend, there is nothing, nothing on this planet that can overcome you if you have the power of the Holy Spirit working through you. He redeemed us. He redeemed us. We're bought people. And He's made us, it says, to be a kingdom of priests to our God. That means we have perpetual access to God through the blood of Christ. I love what Hebrews 4, 16 says. It says that we can draw near with confidence to the throne of grace to receive mercy in our time of need. You know as a believer, when you come to God now, you never receive condemnation. Never. Ever. Because Romans chapter 8 verse 1 says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You know why? Because the condemnation fell on the Jesus at the cross, right? And so because He exhausted God's wrath on the cross with His blood, you no longer have to face that wrath. God's not mad at you as a believer. Now He's angry with the wicked every day, but He's not mad at you. And the Bible says now we have this access as priests to God, and it says we can draw near with confidence. We don't strut into God's presence, but we don't crawl on our face saying, I'm just a worm, I'm nothing, I'm unlovable. No. We come in with confidence. You know why? And we can come up to Him and we can say, Father, I need, I need. You know what He says? He says I will give you grace and I will give you mercy 100% of the times you come to me. So that's why we should keep praying. That's why we should keep pouring out our heart to God. He knows your heart anyway, right? So why don't I just tell Him about it? God, I feel cruddy. God, I feel sinful. Lord, I don't like myself. Lord, I don't like what's going on. God, just tell Him about it. Pour out your heart to Him. A priest to our great God. Just amazing. And look at the natural response to all this so far. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever, amen. You see, there's some 12 to 13 doxologies or praise worship services in the book of Revelation as you walk through Revelation. Occasionally, you just have to pause and just say, let's just praise God for a law. Let's just tell Him how great He is. And that's exactly what this passage is doing, is telling you how great your Jesus is. What He has done for you. And you know that song, Count Your Many Blessings, right? To see what the Lord has done. And it's healthy and wise, I think, for us just to pause sometimes and say, let me just think about how good God has been to me. With all the things that are going wrong in the world, let me tell you about how great my God is to me. Well, He goes on. He says in verse 7, He's also the returning Christ. And verse 7, He says, behold, He is coming with the clouds. And every eye will see Him, those who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him, even so, amen. You see, this is talking here about the second coming of Christ, which takes place at the end of the tribulation period. And unlike the rapture, which we'll talk about later today, in the second coming, every single person on planet earth is going to witness it. They're going to see it, supernaturally. And there's several things out throughout Revelation that the whole globe gets to participate in. They're going to see Jesus Christ come back, it says they're going to mourn for Him. And this is not mourn like, oh, I'm so sorry that you died for my sins. No, it's a mourn like, uh-oh. It's an uh-oh mourn. And when those armies are gathered at Armageddon, they're going to turn up and they're going to see someone break through the clouds. And by the way, you're going to be with Him. You're going to be with Him. Amen. Scripture says we're going to be riding, or I would say gliding, on white horses. So if you've never ridden a horse, here's your chance. I've got my good buddy, Don Perkins, says he's already named his horse. He's already, he's calling it Nelly, okay? So Nelly's been taken, so you got to come up with your own name for your horse. But God says, and Jesus is riding on a white horse of victory as well. That giant white steed of victory, and He's going to come back and you and I are going to be with Him at that great return. It's going to be amazing. Verse 8 tells us he's also the unrivaled Christ. He says, I am the Alpha, and the Omega says the Lord God who was, and who is, and who is to come. See, Alpha's the first letter of the Greek alphabet, Omega's the last letter. Christ is saying I am everything. I am the sum total of knowledge. I am the sum total of everything that there is. Jesus says in Colossians chapter 1, it says that He is the beginning and the end. He's the one who created all. You can't get any higher than Jesus, any greater than who He is. He's unrivaled. He's the very reason for our existence. The Bible says in Colossians 1 that all things were created by Him and for Him. You see, the reason that you and I draw breath in our lungs is Jesus. The reason, by the way, you're still here is because of Jesus. Because He has something for you to do and someone for you to become. You see? So Christ wants to be, that's why He needs to be our all, in all. Because He is the unrivaled Christ. And what we're going to see in the whole book of Revelation, this is important for us to see this, by the way. To know that He is this great sovereign God, because when you read Revelation, you go, wow, that's terrifying, that's horrific, that's scary. And Jesus is saying, hey, church, I got this. I got this. You know why? Because I'm the Alpha and the Omega on the beginning and the end. Well, it goes on. In verse 11, He says, He is the revealing Christ. John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet saying, write in a book, 12 times in Revelation, John's told the right. Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. It followed the basic order of the Roman mail route, those list of cities there. Just circulate this letter called Revelation. By the way, the early church read the book of Revelation together. Isn't that amazing? And I talk to Christians all the time that email me, that write me letters, that talk to me at conferences saying, I can't twist my pastor's arm to touch the book of Revelation. Why not? Because they read it in the first century. Why not now? They thought it was relevant to where they were. But He's the revealing Christ. He said, John, I'm going to give you something to write down in a book. And that's why we have the book of Revelation here. Revelation is a gift to us. It's a gift to the church. It's not a code to be deciphered, but a truth to be believed. And in verse 12, He says, I turned and I saw these seven golden lamp stands and the lamp stands represent the churches of that day. There's a lamp stand for this church, by the way. There's a lamp stand. And as long as this church, and it will as long as this pastor here, his pastor here, preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. This lamp stand will shine brightly in the Pensacola. This true story, a good friend of mine was a pastor of a church and he was preaching the gospel. A lot of people in the congregation didn't like the fact that he just stuck to what the Bible said. So they took a vote and they decided they were going to get rid of him. And so he's sitting on the podium there one day and there was this big lamp stand in the foyer of the church. And they were in that congregation there and they were reading the vote. Here's a yea, here's a nay, and they were just tallying the votes there. And when they got to the end, they said, well pastor, we've decided we're going to vote you out. And so it's, you know, so many for the nay, so many for the yea. And as soon as he said that, the back doors of the church flew open and a rushing wind came in and that lamp stand toppled over. Jesus is saying, I'm going to take your lamp stand away if you take this pastor away. So be careful about taking away your pastor. Don't vote him out unless he's preaching heresy, okay? All right, here we go. But he's the revealing Christ. Now, here's what happens next. John now pivots and he takes this hairpin turn here and all of a sudden things get to where while I'm worshiping this wonderful Jesus, oh, it's been great, all the wonderful things you've done for us, Lord, this is amazing, we're having this worship service. And now Jesus says, now let's get down to business. John, I want to take you even closer. John, I want to give you an even more specific vision of who I am. And that's why he begins now telling us about himself in verse 13. We see now that he is the righteous Christ. Verse 13 says, in the middle of the lamp stands, one like the son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to his feet and girded across his breast with a golden girdle. This is speaking of this, the high priest role in the Old Testament and this garment here that's used in the Old Testament version of the New Testament, Greek version of the Old Testament. It's the same word of robe here that the priest would use. It's the same word that talks about the ancient of days in Daniel chapter 7, verse 9, is speaking about his righteousness. In verse 14 says, his head was like, his hair were white like wool, like snow. His eyes were like a burning fire. And it says that he had these flaming eyes that were looking at John. He said, what does that mean? Why does Jesus have white hair in this picture here? Well, it's the idea of glowing white brilliance. It's the picture of wisdom. It's the picture of glory. He's a glorious Christ that he wants us to see. He's the supernatural sage of history. Colossians chapter 2, verses 2 and 3 tell us that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. Christ is no longer passing out fish and healing lame people on the side of the road. Jesus is now standing in judgment. He's here to do business. And it's going to begin with my church, and then we're going to the world with it. It says here he's got eyes like a flame of fire. It's the same flaming eyes we see in chapters 2 and 3. We see the same flaming eyes in chapter 19, verse 12 at Armageddon when he comes back. The Bible tells us that this is a penetrating gaze. It's Jesus being able to see through us. He X-rays us. He sees down past our actions, past our external, all the way down to our soul, the pit of our soul, all the way down to the hidden motives that we have. A few years ago I had the privilege of writing the, co-writing the autobiography of Dr. Raymond Damadian, who is the man who invented the MRI machine. Anybody ever had an MRI in the crowd? Yeah, you got Dr. Damadian to thank for that. When he was about six years old, growing up in the Bronx, he was an Armenian refugee. His family came over after the genocide in Armenia, and he was six years old, and his grandmother lived with him upstairs. And she contracted breast cancer, and he said, I could hear my grandmother wail night after night after night as cancer was nothing anyone could do for her. And he said, I prayed to God as a little boy, God, help me one day, help people like my grandmother. And he said, God gave me the idea for the MRI. And they said it was impossible. I learned from him that the MRI can see things that an X-ray can't see. It sees things that a CAT scan can't see. It goes past the bone marrow. It sees things in you that nobody else can see, and made discoveries that have helped heal and save untold millions of people all across the world. As I sat in his office, this man who was like an Albert Einstein with books and papers stacked all around, I said, Dr. Damadian, surely you've been recognized for your great discovery. He said, well, I was up for the Nobel Prize. I said, really? The Nobel Prize in medicine? I said, well, why didn't you get it? He said, someone uncovered the fact that I believed in a literal six-day creation. And they black-balled me from the Nobel Prize. You see, the MRI machine can read deep. That's what these penetrating eyes of Christ can do. They penetrate our lives. They do an MRI on us, you know? That's what the Word of God does. I mean, you read the Word of God, yeah, but the Word of God reads you. And it gets down deep, and it tells us who we really are. And so he sees this righteous Christ here. And surely that begins to be intimidating because any time we see who Christ is, what happens? We see who we are. That mirror of the Word. And it caused us to do self-evaluation. You know, maybe you came here today and you're thinking, well, I'm going to come and give some, you know, cool thoughts about prophecy and maybe tell me who the antichrist is, something like that, right? No, Christ wants you to do some self-evaluation through His Word as well, in addition to just getting some great information and great facts. Well, he moves on. He says, these also are refining Christ. Verse 15, he says, He has feet like burnished bronze. In other words, His feet are glowing like fine brass, like the altar in the tabernacle that was covered with brass, and when it was heated up, it would glow white hot. His feet are standing in judgment because He's about to bring judgment to His church. By the way, you've never heard words spoken to churches today like you hear Christ speak to those seven churches back in the first century. And I believe they're emblematic of churches today. I believe when you look at the church at Ephesus, who's lost their first love, oh, they were doctrinally sound, but they're cold towards Jesus. You look at a church like Laodicea that's just lukewarm, they're just going along to get along, you know, right in culture. You see that today. So you see churches and individual Christians that are standing before this divine judging Christ. And then we see that He's a reproving Christ in verse 15. It says He has a voice that sounds like many waters. Now previously in verse 10, His voice sounded like a trumpet, and a trumpet is used to get your attention, and now these mighty waters sounds like an authoritative voice. Now keep in mind, John is well into his 90s probably by this point. He's been exiled to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, an island about 10 by 12 miles long. And I call it the Alcatraz of the Aegean Sea, and he's there because of, he says, the testimony of Jesus. You see John, even as an old man's age, he said, look, if it cost me, it cost me. And the church fathers wrote that earlier in John's life or preaching the gospel, and they took him and set him into a pot of boiling oil and boiled him up alive. And it says he kept preaching in the pot. Listen, it doesn't matter how hot the pot gets, you keep telling the story. It doesn't matter how much the government tries to put their hands on your neck or the society or the culture or whoever's out there that's working for Satan. You keep standing up and you be strong for him. He's going to be opposition as we move closer to the end times. The Bible says in verse 16 in his right hand, he holds seven stars. And I believe those seven stars are the pastors of the seven churches. In fact, in verse 20 it says the seven stars are the angels or the angelos, the messengers of the seven churches. And the seven lampstands are the churches themselves. So the Bible interprets itself right here. So he holds these pastors in his hand, the hand of authority here. In verse 16 we see that he's reproving Christ because it says out of his mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword, a sharp two-edged sword. Now there's two words for sword that the Bible uses. One is a word that's Makaria, that's the word that's used in Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12 in Ephesians 6 as well. Makaria was like a dagger sword, okay? It was called that because there was a group of men called the daggermen in that day who would walk around. They would assassinate Roman leaders. They were insurrectionists. They would go out and kill Roman leaders in a crowd and slip away. That's the word that's used in Hebrews 4 and 12, but the word here is another word. It's the word Ramfaya. And Ramfaya means a word, a sword rather, there's more like a brave heart sword, if you will. It's a sword you yield in battle. You use that sword to do battle against your enemies and against those who would come against you. That's the word that he's using here. Swords are not made for display, but they're made for battle. And so this is the same sword, by the way, that Jesus uses in Revelation chapter 19 of the second coming. So he's a Christ that's coming to reprove and to correct his church. And by the way, there's evidence that some of these churches turned around, but the others didn't. I wonder what Christ is saying to the churches today. I wonder which churches will heed his message today and turn around. Well, let's move on. It says he's also the radiating Christ. It says that his face was like the sun shining in its strength. And this is speaking of the glory of our risen Christ. You know this is why we can't just walk into heaven right now with our bodies as we have right now. You know why? Because his sun is like the shining brilliance. His face like the shining brilliance of the sun. The glory of God would burn us up immediately because he is so holy, so righteous, so brilliant. Ever tried to look into the sun itself? Don't do it, by the way, because you'll burn the cornea, you'll burn the retina of your eye. You can't do that. John can't even look at this Christ. This is not the Christ you hear preached in many churches on Sunday mornings. So John is really, I think, I think he feels the glory here. I think he's experiencing the glory of Christ with this great radiating essence of who he is. Verse 17 says he's also the revered Christ. In verse 17 he says, now when I saw him, after seeing this Christ, this portrayed here, he says, I ran up to him, put my arms around his neck, said, Jesus, I'm so glad to see you. Nope. I frogged him on the arm and said, buddy Jesus, friend Jesus, nope. It says, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as a dead man. Why? Why John? Because I'm overcome, I'm traumatized by holiness. I'm traumatized by this risen, glorious Christ. I'm like Isaiah who says, I am a man of unclean lips. I am undone. I'm ruined. My friend, when we see this Christ, there's only one response, fall down in worship and realize who we are in the presence of a thrice holy God. This is the Christ of revelation. Seeing this Christ should wreck us. It should wreck us. And this again is not the Jesus that you hear written about today. Not the Jesus you hear talked about today in Christian circles. We've taken God and we've drug him down to our level because we wanted to be like us so bad, want him to think like us and act like us and God says, I am not like you. I'm a transcendent God, but I sent my son Jesus to show you what I'm like. I sent my son Jesus to feel what you feel, to feel every emotion, everything you've gone through in life. My Jesus experienced that. In fact, he experienced death. He experienced your sin. So yes, I've done that for you, but when you appear before this glorious Christ, my friend, we have to fall on our face before him. Now listen to what happens in verse 17. This is the beauty of this passage here. Verse 17, he's the reassuring Christ. Jesus says here, it says, He laid His right hand of authority upon me saying, do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. And I was dead. I am old. I am alive evermore. I have the keys to death and Hades. What's he saying there? He's saying, John, I'm not dead. I'm alive. And because I'm alive, I can give you this revelation. And by the way, John, because I'm alive and I've conquered death, that means everything you've ever done for me counts. It counts. He's telling John here, John, that boiling and oil incident that you had, it's all been written down. It's all counted. Your exile here on the Isle of Patmos, your loneliness, your isolation, it counts. He's saying that nothing you will ever do for me will go unnoticed. Why? Because I'm alive. You see, you know, the Christian faith has the only religious founder that's still alive. Everybody else is in the grave. You're not going to find Buddha walking the streets today or Muhammad or Confucius or Krishna. They're not there, my friend. They're dead. They're dead. Jesus is alive. We have a living Lord. Amen. He's the resurrected one. And I love what it says here. He says, I have charge over and control over death and Hades. You see, some people think, well, yeah, I'm going to go to hell and party with Satan. No, you're not. Satan doesn't rule over hell. Everything's going to be in hell being punished and being tormented by God's wrath. In fact, the Bible tells us in Revelation chapter 14 that the smoke of the torment of all those in hell rise up before the holy angels and God. So God is the one. Jesus rules hell because it's His wrath that keeps them there. I'm in charge of death. I'm in charge of the afterlife. I'm in charge of Hades, he says. Jesus is God. Jesus is alive. Jesus is in charge. And this tells us that meeting Jesus Christ, this Christ, is not a flippant encounter. It's not just something we see Him and we walk away unchanged. John was radically changed through meeting this Christ. And this is the Christ we need to know. He says in verse 19, therefore, write the things which you have seen, the things which are right now and the things which shall take place after these things. That's the outline of the book of Revelation right there. And so John is told to write these things and to write this book. Let me ask you today, is this the Christ that you know? Is this the Christ you're accustomed to meeting with on a daily basis? You know, today George Barnett has done a study. He says that 18% of Christians read their Bibles once a week. 19% never read them at all. 14% of Christians read their Bibles once a day. 14%. He did another study during the whole COVID thing. That 14% dropped to 9%. We went home, but we didn't go back to Jesus. And you wonder why there is so much... You talk about a pandemic. Here's your pandemic. It's a pandemic of biblical illiteracy in the bride of Christ today. And my friends, I'm not overstating this case when I tell you, you are in the top 1% of believers on the planet today because you get the actual Word of God every week. And that produces biblical discernment, which enables you to walk in this confusing fog we call the world out there today. Christians who know their Bible, who know Bible prophecy, have X-ray vision. They have those night vision goggles. You can see in the dark, and you can know what's coming, you can know how to navigate the difficult things that we go through. I do a Bible study on Wednesday nights, and I said, what do you want to study? I said, we want to study Revelation. So we took about a year and walked through Revelation verse by verse. And we got to the end of it. I said to them, I said, do you see now how critical this book is to the church today? And they all said, we had no idea. We had no idea. I had one of my folks that come to the Bible study says, Jeff, I've been going to my pastor saying, pastor, would you talk about what's going on in the world? Tell us what's happening. Tell us about Revelation. Tell us about Bible prophecy. This was his response. He said, I get 37 minutes on Sunday morning. I just want to preach Jesus. And I said to my friend, I said, go back and tell your pastor that the book of Revelation is all about Jesus. Every time you turn around Revelation, you're going to bump into Jesus. Something about Jesus in Revelation. It is his church in Revelation. It's his revival in chapter seven. It's his throne in chapter four. It's his scroll in chapter five. It's his script for the whole book. It's his sovereignty in chapter four. It's his judgments in chapter six through nineteen. It's his hundred and forty-four thousand witnesses. It's his two witnesses. It's his second coming. It's his wrath, his victory, his millennial kingdom, his flight throne judgment, his new heavens and the earth, his glory. It's him. It's Jesus. And now we know why the angels said to John in chapter nineteen, John, don't worship me. He said, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. So when you study prophecy and you don't bump into Jesus and get to know him and love him more, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. He's the main character. He's the storyline. He's the plot. He's the point. And God's will for the church today is for them to encounter this Jesus. That is revival. That's revival. Now prophecy begins with Jesus, prophecy begins and ends with Jesus Christ. It begins in chapter one, it ends in chapter twenty-two, couple of take home thoughts. Our view of God determines everything about us. I love that A.W. Tozier said that, not me. He said the most important thing about you is what you think of when God comes, when you think about God. Because your view of God will determine what you think of yourself, what you think of others, what you think of life, what you think of marriage, what you think of sexuality. Everything comes from God. And we get all that, these attributes of God in this great book. Revelation's portrait of Christ has to be what informs and influences our minds and hearts today. And the next, because he is the author of Revelation, everything you do for him matters as well. You see, because God is alive, I love what 1 Corinthians 15, 58 says, therefore my beloved brother and be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Now why? Knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. You can waste your life being a gamer. You can waste your life just pursuing wealth. You can waste your life just pursuing love. But if you serve Jesus Christ, my friend, everything you do will count for him. He's taken everything down. And you know, I often say this, you know, people sometimes, you know, they'll come up and, you know, tell me something, oh, I loved your book, oh, this guy, your TV shows, Grez. I said, you know what? When I get to heaven and I get my reward from God, I might get one crown and I'll be happy to get it. But you know what I'm really going to be doing? I'm going to be walking behind some other dear saint with a wheelbarrow carrying their crowns. Some person that nobody in the church knew their name, but they served Jesus in their job, in their home, in their church, in their community. You know why? They didn't need, they didn't need celebrity status, they didn't need their name to be recognized. But in heaven, God knows who they are. That's right. Amen. Maybe that's you. Maybe that's you. Seeing this Jesus in Revelation causes us to realize that he is more glorious, more majestic, more holy, more righteous, more wrathful, more gracious, more loving, more sovereign, more beautiful than we ever thought or we ever believed that he could be. I love what Jay Oswald Chambers says. He says, when we see him, we will wonder that we ever could have disobeyed him. That's how beautiful your Jesus is. That's how glorious he is. And according to Revelation, that's how worthy he is. Take in that thought for a moment. You're standing before Christ at the Bema or at the rapture. And you see him for the first time, and you say to yourself, wow, I never knew. I never knew. God wants you to know. He wants you to know how great he is. How can we possibly encounter this Jesus in Scripture and remain asleep? It can't happen, because he's the voice of a trumpet. He's the voice of many waters, and he's that glorified Christ that he wants you to know him today.