Well, I'm planning to start a
new series today. We finished the one in Psalm
119 a couple of weeks ago, and I want to come back to the book
of Revelation, the very end of Scripture. Scripture is clear,
perfectly clear throughout. This world is going to end in
judgment for sin. And what is sin? It's the violation
of God's perfect holiness. The God who has made all things
is a God of absolute moral purity. And anything which is a violation
of that absolute moral purity of God, His Word calls sin. And
this world is going to end in judgment for that. And his kingdom,
God's kingdom of righteousness and peace, will triumph over
this world's kingdom, the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of
Satan, the kingdom of Antichrist, which is a kingdom of a fake
utopia, always trying to, with their globalist agenda, to make
things better. But it's an agenda which pays
no regard and no respect for divine justice, the justice of
God, the righteousness of God. And this world, unlike what most
so-called Christianity thinks, you know, they think their job
is to try and make this world a better place, this world is
beyond reformation. It's beyond reformation. God
is going to judge it, as he did. You read the scriptures and you
will read. In these days, it's like it was in the days of Noah.
They were carrying on, they were marrying and giving him marriage,
and the world was going on, and it says that the evil intents
of the hearts of men were just continually there, new heights
of deprivation, of depravity. And God said he would judge it,
and he brought a flood upon this earth. And he says that's exactly
what it's going to be like in these days, not with a flood,
but his judgment will come. When? You might ask the question.
When? Well, Jesus said this to those
that were hearing him in Matthew's Gospel chapter 16 and verse 3. They asked him, show us a sign
from heaven, and he said, you can discern the face of the sky,
but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. He said, you can
look at the sky at night, and you say, oh, red sky at night,
shepherd's delight, it's going to be nice weather tomorrow.
Or in the morning, if it's a red sky, there's going to be rain
coming. And we walk down our lane here, and all the way along
the lane, we see snowdrops and daffodils coming out. And we
discern the time. the signs of the time. Spring
is just around the corner. We were sat out just before we
started this morning and it felt like a summer's day. You discern
the signs of the times. You can see what is happening.
But when we look at things that are happening in this world,
Jesus said, can you not discern the signs of the times? We're
living in evil days. We're living as Paul wrote to
Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1. He said, in the last
days perilous times shall come. And he lists all sorts of things
that will be signs of those times. We're living in those days. I
believe firmly that the last 30 years especially has completely
inverted true morals. Now, now, everything that was
regarded as complete corruption and sin is now turned on its
head and it's the opposite way around. So that we get in Scotland,
as was attempted recently, that a convicted male rapist, convicted
of crimes against women, suddenly decides that he's no longer a
man, he's a woman. And so therefore they have to
send him, because he said that, to a woman's jail. It's just
utterly inverted morals, you know? And yet for saying what
I'm saying, you are cancelled for saying that sort of thing.
No, there is utter and complete contempt for God's wisdom. Should there be fear and alarm
at the days in which we're living? Yes, there should indeed. It's
a perilous situation to be in, if, if, and it's a big if, if
you do not know that you have been redeemed from the curse
of sin by the payment of your sin debt by God's Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he took your sin and bore it in his own body
on the cursed cross of Calvary, the tree, to pay that debt so
that the justice of God is satisfied. If you know, by God's testimony
in your soul, by God telling you in your soul, through his
word, by his spirit, that Jesus Christ died in your place to
satisfy offended divine justice, do you know, you have a glorious
destiny in God's eternal kingdom of righteousness and peace. In
these days in which we live, if you're a believer, you need
encouragement. You need to know that God is
with you, that God is on the throne of the universe, that
nothing will happen that will harm your eternal soul, that
all things, even in these evil days, as Romans 8, 28 says, that
all things will work together for your eternal good if you
are in Christ. And so I want to come back to
the book of Revelation. Now, it's seven or eight years,
2015, 2016, when I preached right through this. the first time, and then that
led to the writing of the book that I wrote, The Kingdom of
God Triumphant, that New Focus Publications, Go Publications,
published. And you can still get it, you
can buy it at Amazon, even in these days. If you want a copy
of it quickly, go to our website, biblicalgospelchurch.org, and
there on the first page down at the bottom is a PDF file,
that's the whole book is there. So why am I coming back to it
again if it's only seven or eight years since we looked at it?
It's because of the signs of the times in which we live. It
seems to be becoming ever clearer that the days in which we live
are the last times. Revelation 20 and verse 3 right
towards the end of the book, talks about Satan's little season. The ability of Satan to deceive
the nations, the peoples of the world, with the lie of unbelief
of God, You know, that went on for a symbolical thousand years,
you know, from the time of Christ right the way through until not
very long ago. But it says, then he must be
released for a little season to deceive the nations again.
I don't think I've ever seen such widespread disbelief of
God than in the days in which we live. Jesus said, when he
comes again, will he find faith on the earth? Because it's a
rare thing, but in these days, especially rare. There's talk
of this in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, and Paul there, writing to
these Greek believers in the first century, and he talks about
how things will develop, and talking about wickedness in the
last days, all deceivableness, and unrighteousness in them that
perish, because they receive not the love of the truth that
they might be saved." You must receive the love of the truth
of God if you are to be saved. And for this cause, because they
wouldn't believe, for this cause, God, it says, shall send them
strong delusion. that they should believe a lie. Look at the lies that people
believe in these days. That they all might be damned
who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. That's the situation of the world
in which we live. We live in a world where there
is aggressive globalism going on, trying to produce this worldwide
utopia where we don't have any respect or regard for the justice
and the wisdom of God, but we think we're all making it so
much of a better world to live in. We've had experience. Since I last preached on Revelation,
we've had the experience of the COVID so-called pandemic and
all of the restrictions on freedom that went with it. And wasn't
it, isn't it, just like Orwell's prophetic novel 1984, Big Brother
Constraint on Freedom, false science, false science. I've
told you many times that when I was a science teacher, We used
to aim to teach our pupils how to think, not what to think.
That's been completely turned on its head. You are now told
what to think. You are now told that sea levels
are rising, whether you like it or not. You're told these
things, and you're a denier if you go against that agenda, against
that narrative. These are the days in which we
live. Certain minorities call for opposition to it. You know,
I notice, I observe the ills and the wrong in it all, but
there are minorities who call for rebellion. for resistance,
for protest against it. But you know what Jesus said?
Jesus said in John 18, 36, he said, my kingdom is not of this
world. When he came, he came preaching
the kingdom of God as opposed, as set against the kingdom of
this world. He said, my kingdom is not of
this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight. But his servants don't fight,
because his kingdom is not of this world. We don't fight, we
don't join. We observe, we look at the signs
of the times, but we don't join the protest. No. Jesus' servants
don't fight against it. What do they do? They hear God's
word, they hear his promises, they seek to keep them in that,
not only to obey them, but to grasp them, to apprehend them
in their hearts, and they patiently wait, they patiently wait, comforted
by what his word says, because it certainly will be fulfilled
exactly as he has said. What has he said? Everything
that's in this book, everything that's in the Bible, this is
the word of God, this is what he has said, all of it. But in
these days in which we live, I think the book of Revelation
is especially comforting to the people of God. And that's why
I want to come to it again. How far we'll get, I don't know.
It's as the Lord leads, and whatever depth we go into, I don't know
at this stage. I just want to look this week
at the first chapter of Revelation. So, what has it got to say to
us? Well, let's see what it's about,
first of all, and let's see the prologue to it. And by that,
I want to start in verse 9 of chapter 1. Verse 9, I, John,
who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, in
troubles, in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was
in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the
testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's
day, and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying,
I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. And what thou seest,
write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which
are in Asia, and to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos,
and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. The time of this, we can be pretty
certain, is about AD 95, 95 years after Christ was born in Bethlehem. And John is the Apostle John. the writer of John's Gospel,
the writer of three letters in the New Testament, 1st John,
2nd John, 3rd John. He is the last apostle alive.
All of the others have been martyred for their faith, they've been
killed, they're ended, they've gone, they've gone. So it's AD
95 and there's a church around the then known world, all around
the Mediterranean lands and further away, there's a church. In AD
70, Twenty-five years before this, Jerusalem had been destroyed. The emperor Tiberius, Roman emperor,
finally put down rebellion in Jerusalem, and exactly as the
prophet Daniel had said, many, many years, hundreds of years
earlier, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Where the
temple was, you know, Jesus said, not one stone will be left on
another. You can go there today. It still hasn't been rebuilt.
There's the Muslims' temple there, but there isn't the temple of
the Jews there anymore. It was destroyed. It was destroyed.
Why? It was destroyed because Christ
came and fulfilled everything that it spoke of. There was no
need for it anymore. It had served its purpose. So
exactly as the prophecy said, it was destroyed then. So believers
are thinking, well, when's the end coming? When is Christ coming
back? Because he said he's coming back.
When is he coming back? And here in Revelation, this
vision, seven visions in fact, seven distinct visions in what
later was divided up into 22 chapters of the Bible, he was
given that and he was told, as we read, what thou seest, verse
11, The Spirit of God says to John, what you see, write in
a book and send it to the seven churches. Send it to them, the
seven churches which are in Asia. Seven is always God's number
of perfection. And therefore, although these
were physical, real churches, You can go to these places. You
can go to the Isle of Patmos today in the Aegean Sea. You
can go to the ancient city of Ephesus. You can trace where
Smyrna and Pergamos and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and
Laodicea were. You can go there. You can see
them. But they are symbolical. of God's church, of God's people,
his believing people in this world throughout the remainder
of history. This is written to the church
of God. The church of God is the body
of Christ. The church of God is the people
of God. It's the believing people of
God. The God whom he has loved, as his word says, with an everlasting
love. The people to whom he has shown
his truth and his light. The people that he's qualified
by his redemption for citizenship of his eternal kingdom. the people
who, when he returns, he will take to be with him for eternity. That's the message of this book.
It's the confirmation of the final triumph of God's kingdom. Now then, what does he see? So
now we'll go back to the first three verses of Revelation chapter
1. where we read this, the revelation
of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants
things which must shortly come to pass, and he sent and signified
it by his angel unto his servant John, who bear record of the
word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things
that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth and
they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things
which are written therein, for the time is at hand. The time
is at hand. This was revealed by God, the
revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him. You could
ask, is this the revelation that Jesus Christ gave, or is this
the revelation of Jesus Christ himself? And I am very firmly
of the opinion that it's the latter. This book of Revelation,
as the whole of Scripture, is to reveal Jesus Christ. You know
what Jesus said to the Pharisees in John's Gospel, chapter 5 and
verse 39? They were questioning him, always
trying to trick him. And he said to them, you search
the scriptures, for in them you think that you have eternal life. There, this is where you will
find eternal life. This is where in this world of
death, where it's appointed to man to die once and then the
judgment, in the scriptures you will find the words of eternal
life. But he said this, he said these
words in this book, which words do I mean? Oh, just the odd one.
No, all of it. from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Psalms, the whole lot, right the way through to Revelation.
He said, these are they which speak of me. Obviously the New
Testament wasn't written when he said those words, but we can
be confident that he meant the entire scripture as it's going
to be given. This speaks of Jesus Christ. It all is the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Why? Why is it the revelation
of Jesus Christ? Because he, and he alone, is
the manifestation of God. He's the manifestation of God.
No man's seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is
in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. He has declared
him. If you would know God, again,
something I quote often, In John's Gospel, chapter 14, about verse
8, Jesus on the night before he was crucified, he's speaking
with his disciples. And Philip, one of the disciples,
said to him, Lord, show us the Father and that suffices us,
that will do for us. I just want to see the essence
of God. And Jesus said to him in response,
he said, Philip, have I been so long with you? And yet you
haven't seen me. He who has seen me, said Jesus,
has seen the Father. He is the manifestation of the
unknown God. Look at what his word says. I'm
just going to pluck in a couple of places. Isaiah chapter 64
and verse 4, and you don't need to turn to these, just listen.
It says there, for since the beginning of the world, men have
not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen,
O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth
for him. There's knowledge of the truth
of God and eternal life that the natural man, we in our natural
state, cannot possibly discern for ourselves except God reveal
it to us. How does God reveal it? By his
word, by his spirit. Oh, you say, well, it's mechanical
then. Every theologian that reads this
is bound to have it revealed to them. No, they're not. It's
by the spirit of God in the heart. God is the one who chooses to
whom he shall reveal it. He reveals it to his people.
And that verse is quoted in the passage that we read earlier
in 1 Corinthians 2. In verse 9, as it is written. Where is it written? Where we
just read, Isaiah 64. Eye hath not seen, you know,
physical eyes, the eyes that you look with. You've not seen
the things of God. Ear has not heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared
for them that love him. There are hidden mysteries. There
are glorious things that God has prepared for the people that
love him. Why do they love him? Because
he first loved them. We love him because he first
loved us, is what John told us. God has prepared glorious things
for his people, but in our natural state we can't work them out,
we cannot dig into them, as verse 14 of that chapter says, the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.
because they are spiritually discerned. They're spiritually
discerned. God must give that spiritual
discernment to see the truth of the kingdom of God, the truth
of the message of the gospel of his grace. And it's all manifested,
all of God is manifested in Jesus Christ. the one who was made
man. You know, when the fullness of
the time was come, says Galatians 4 verse 4, God sent forth his
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who
are under the law, that his people, we might receive the adoption
of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. We call God our Father
in him. And Christ is all. Christ is
everything. Colossians 3 verse 11 uses those
very words. Christ is all. God has given
him, Christ, a name which is above every name. In him, we
read in Colossians chapter 2 verse 9, in him the fullness of the
Godhead dwells bodily. Can you get your head around
that? Of course you can't. But it's what the word of God
reveals to us. as one of the hymn writers wrote, God, the
infinite God. What can contain God? The heavens
can't contain him, the earth, where can you go from his presence?
God, infinite God. It says God contracted to a span,
incomprehensibly made man. That baby that was born in Bethlehem,
In the days of Herod the King in Judea, that baby, God contracted
to a span. There was the one who made the
stars, the universe, the earth, all of these things, and holds
them in orbit, who holds the laws of physics together, which
control the world in which we live. He there is our God, and
He is all. And this book is the revelation
of Him. He's the one who is supreme,
a name that is above every name. His name is the Word of God,
and God says in Psalm 138, verse 2, that He has exalted His Word
above all His name. I don't think that's quite the
correct quote, but never mind. Look it up for yourself, Psalm
138, verse 2. This is so important. If you would know God, you must
know Jesus Christ. He said, I... Would you come
to God? Would you have eternal life?
Would you know God, the living God? Would you know that you're
at peace with God for eternity? That though you die, yet you
shall live? Would you know all of these things?
You must come to Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. If you would come to God, don't
think that you can read about him in some book of philosophy
and come to the truth of God. No, you must come to Christ by
faith, looking and believing. He said, seek and you shall find,
knock and it shall be opened to you. If you find Jesus Christ,
if you find the true Christ, not the Christ of religion, no,
that's a false puppet. That's an empty charade. No,
the Christ of Scripture, if you find Him, you find the truth
of God. You find the truth of eternal
life. You find the assurance concerning
your eternal state and your salvation from sin by the redemption that
He has accomplished. All of this is light and life
from God, and it's all and only through Christ. He is the one
who reveals the unfolding of the history of this world. He
does it especially in this book of Revelation, and he does it
to give comfort and assurance. Why does it give comfort and
assurance? The answer is this. He who reveals these things is
not like some gypsy with a crystal ball gazing into it. No. He who
reveals these things has ordained these things. How is it that
he knows the end from the beginning? How is it he knows the end? Is
he just a good guesser, our God? No, our God knows the end from
the beginning and his word tells us because he has ordained it. He has ordained the things which
shall come to pass. He's done that. He who reveals
these things has ordained them and predestinated them. He's
signified it, he says. Look, to show unto his servants
things which must shortly come to pass in the age in which we're
living to show things that must shortly come to pass he's signified
it by his angel angel means messenger in the scriptures the angel is
the messenger From the ordinary messengers, if there is such
a thing, the messengers of God, the pastors of churches are called
angels, the messengers. We'll see that later in the chapter
if we get there this morning. But even the supreme angel of
God is Jesus Christ himself. In those Old Testament appearances
of the pre-incarnate Christ, it says, the angel of the Lord
came. That was Christ that came to them and spoke with them.
No man has seen God at any time. But he who is in the bosom of
the Father, he has made him known. He sent and signified it. What
does that mean? The message is a message of heavenly
truth. And we, in our natural state
of flesh, cannot understand heavenly truth. We can only understand
the language of the flesh, of this world, of this physical
existence that we're in. And therefore, visions are used,
and symbols of earthly things, earthly language to convey heavenly
reality. That's what it means, that's
why this book is full of visions, and symbols, and signs, and means
by which God conveys to his people the hidden truth of heavenly
reality. And he did it by his angel and
to his servant John. Who is John? I've already said
he's this last apostle in AD 95. And John says of himself
in verse two, who bear record of the word of God and of the
testimony of Jesus Christ and of all things that he saw. I
think he's not just talking there about the vision that he was
given for the book of Revelation to write in this book to the
seven churches, but I think he's talking about the things that
he wrote before in his gospel, in John's gospel. In the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
and so on. That is John bearing witness.
John spent three and a half years with Jesus walking this earth,
with him in his ministry, with the others of the twelve disciples. He spent that time with him in
intimate conversation, learning the things of heaven. from the
one who had come down from heaven and brought the truth of God.
And here is John spoken to by God by being in the very presence
of the Son of God. He ate with him. He communed
with him. He saw his miracles. He saw miracles
that no man had ever seen before. He saw The sick cured. He saw the demon-possessed freed
from their possession. He saw the dead raised to life. Lazarus, Lazarus, come forth.
And Lazarus came out of the grave bound. John saw these things
and he bear record of all of this, of the truth of Christ
and of the salvation that is in him. He was with him the night
before his crucifixion. He was with him when the band
came to arrest Jesus and took him away. And he went through
that cruel, cruel period with the Jewish leaders and with Pontius
Pilate, the Roman governor, and then the crowd that had a few
days earlier been singing the praises of Christ as he rode
into Jerusalem on the foal of an ass in fulfillment of prophecy. They then, just days later, are
crying out, crucify him, crucify him. What should we do with him?
Crucify him. Release Barabbas in his place.
And he saw him die, and he saw him rise. He saw him after he
was risen from the dead. that he did exactly what he had
told them he would do. And he was there when he saw
him go back to eternal glory, to heaven. And he was there in
the upper room, Jerusalem, waiting on the day of Pentecost, when
exactly as the Lord had promised, the Holy Spirit was sent. And
they were filled with the Holy Spirit. He performed the signs
and wonders of God that God gifted them to do, to authenticate the
message of gospel grace. And now, here he is, writing
God's final written word for the rest of time. This is the
last book of the Bible. There's no more revelation from
God. You read the warning at the end of Revelation, not to
add anything to it, not to take away anything from it. This is
the final revelation from God. And those that read it, verse
3, are blessed. They that read it are blessed.
They that hear it are blessed. Blessed is he that readeth, and
they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things
which are written therein. For the time is at hand, the
time of the end. the time of his return, the time
of the final judgment is at hand. But blessed, blessed, divinely
favoured, favoured of God, divinely favoured are those, it doesn't
say, isn't it good, it doesn't say blessed are those who understand
it, because there are some complicated things in this book. There's
not an exam at the end of it to get you into heaven, no, no.
Blessed are they that read it. that hear what God says through
it, that hear the words of this prophecy, even when you don't
understand, that keep them, that say, as the scripture says, Romans
chapter three, let God be true and every man a liar. Whatever
the opinions are put against God, God is true. But every other
man, by comparison, is a liar. And so we keep, we believe these
words of God, the words that are written herein. We apprehend
them, we grasp them, even though we don't understand them, we
say, yes, they're mine. This is my assurance, this is
my legal document, if you like, of an eternal hope, of an eternal
promise, for the time is at hand. So this is it, the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Time is rapidly going, so I'm
not going to go much further, because I just want to get across
the key point of this chapter. John is writing verse 4 to the
symbolical churches, and I'll come back to it, I think, in
more detail next time, because the time is getting well on. But we saw what he said in verses
9 to 11, and that this voice that he heard behind him was
the one who was the Alpha and the Omega. The Alpha and the
Omega. I am the beginning and end. Look
at verse 8. Look at verse 8. This same one,
this God, this Jesus Christ, this glorious second person of
the Trinity, the one by whom God is manifested, said, I am
Alpha and Omega. They're the first and the last
letters of the Greek alphabet. What he means is that everything
started with him and everything will finish with him. He encompasses
all things, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, the
Lord who is God, the Lord who is the manifestation of God,
the one which is and which was and which is to come. What's
that speaking of? His eternity. There was never
a time, it's an odd word to use in this context, But there never
was a time when there wasn't God, for God was before time.
And God will be after time, outside of this time. He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. He is the eternal,
unchanging God. I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is and
which was and which is to come, the Almighty. Do you know that
name especially stresses the omnipotence, the ability to do
all things of the one who is our God. There is nothing that
he says in this book which he will not be able to fulfill and
to complete. This is the Almighty that's speaking.
And then John hears this voice as of a trumpet. He was in the
Spirit on the Lord's day. particularly mindful of the things
of God. On this island, in his imprisonment,
he was there because he'd been preaching the truth of God, and
they'd locked him up, as they did so many others, as they did
to John Bunyan for 12 years in Bedford Jail a couple of hundred
years ago. You know, these things... They're
just typical of the kingdom of Satan versus the kingdom of God. And in verse 11, this voice says
the very same thing that's said in verse 8, I am Alpha and Omega,
the first and the last, what you see right in a book. And
then down in verse 12, He turns to see the voice that spake with
me, to look upon the voice that spake with me. And being turned,
I saw seven golden candlesticks." So vision, vision. He turns around,
he's in this island, in his prison on this island, and he's in the
spirit, he's conscious of the kingdom of God. And he turns
around to hear the voice, the Alpha and the Omega, which is
the Lord, which he was and is and is to come, which is the
Almighty. He sees seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst
of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed
with a garment. There he sees Christ, the risen,
glorified Christ, one like unto the Son of Man. The Son of Man
was the name that Jesus used of himself in his ministry more
than any other. He's the Son of God, but he used
that name, the Son of Man, more than any other. It echoes back
to Daniel chapter 7, Daniel chapter 7, where Daniel, this is about
500 years, 600 years before Christ came, I saw in the night visions
and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of
heaven. they speak of majesty and glory,
and came to the Ancient of Days. Oh, he is the Ancient of Days,
isn't he? Yes, this is a mystery, the mystery of the Trinity. And
they brought him near before him, and there was given unto
him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations, and
languages should serve him. His dominion, this is of the
Son of God, the son of man, his is an everlasting dominion which
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not
be destroyed, unlike the kingdom of this world, which shall be
destroyed. In chapter 3 of Daniel, just
a couple of pages earlier, where we have the account of Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar looked
into that furnace and he said, we've thrown three men into the
furnace. And he said, but look, I see four men loose walking
in the midst of the fire and they have no hurt. And the form
of the fourth is like the son of God. That was Christ with
those there. As I said earlier, John 1 18. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who reveals the unknowable God to us. And all I want to
say now, I'll close with this, there's so much more to say,
but we won't try and bite off more than we can chew. In the
midst of the seven candlesticks, what are the seven candlesticks?
Look at verse 20. He's holding, another vision
is that he's holding seven stars in his right hand and the seven
candlesticks. Now what's that mean? Look at
the very end of verse 20. The seven stars are the angels
of the seven churches, the pastors, the messengers, the ones who
bring the word of God to the people of God in their local
locations. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches,
and the seven candlesticks, which you saw, are the seven churches. Back to verse 13. In the midst
of the churches, in the midst of the seven candlesticks, in
the midst of God's people on this earth, in the time from
when he returned to glory to when he comes again, in that
time, in this time now that we're in, There's one like the Son
of Man in the midst. He is in the midst of his people,
in this world. Whatever happens in this world,
you know he prayed to his father in John 17, I pray not that you
should take his people out of the world, leave them in the
world for a while, but keep them from the evil that is the world.
Here he is in the midst of his people, keeping his people in
this world. I love it and we'll get to it
in a few weeks time if we keep going with this. Revelation 13
is a most dreadful chapter of the kingdom of this world and
of the satanic beasts and their manifestation in what we see
all around us today And it is so vivid and so true to the extent
that those that believe God are prevented from trading and operating
in this world. Life is just made so difficult
in that respect. But then you read on into chapter
14, verse 1, and there, 144,000 on Mount Zion with the Lamb of
God, with the Lord Jesus Christ. People of God, there is no need
to be concerned, there is no need to be worried. Keep believing,
keep resting, keep trusting, keep looking, keep watching,
keep hoping, keep waiting. Because look, verse seven of
chapter one. Behold, he cometh with clouds,
and every eye shall see him. And they also which pierced him,
and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even
so, amen.