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SEEING JESUS AS HE IS
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Transcript
John Barnett here and welcome to week 50. Can you believe it? Look there, it says week 50, Revelation 1. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since you’ve been in our small group going with us all over the world. As you can see, we’re on the road, I’m wearing my not-wrinkle-very-much travel shirt, living out of suitcases. In this setup, I’m on this little plastic table that’s going to tip over at any minute. I hope the Lord can help everything hold together so we can get this to you. We’re going through Revelation, which the Bible is my favorite book in the whole world, and within it are 66 smaller books. Any book I’m reading in the Bible is my favorite because it’s part of the Bible, but especially Revelation is my favorite. I want to show you my journal right here. Remember if you look down in the description of this YouTube video, you can see the links to all these materials.
Some of you are just joining us. I know that because I get a notice when you subscribe. I taped in my journal the whole schedule and how to do the 52 chapter study. Then I’ve made pages for every week, just like you, but let me get to where we are now. Here we go. This is where I started this week. I wrote this and then I wrote two more pages and took notes. Then I wrote two more pages. Then I wrote two more pages. I got carried away this week. That’s why this was delayed in getting to you. I’ve typed all this out and I’m going to show it to you in a second. I realized how important, again, the book of Revelation is.
Here on the slide in front of you, this is week 50 and it is just Revelation 1. As it says in the scriptures, God Almighty’s guide sent to us through Jesus Christ, we’ll see, for living during the last days. Look at this picture. When we were last serving in Europe, we actually were teaching in Greece. We were able to take a plane and fly out to multiple islands when we did different classes. This one is on Patmos. Look what I did. I put the book of Revelation. This is our Patmos lesson right here in the Aegean Sea. Do you see the water? I can’t believe it. That we got to, and now we’re getting to again, teach in the context. In the next slide, I’m going to give you my summary.
Remember part of the 52 Greatest Chapter Study is that you spend all week long in the Bible taking notes in your journal, using your study Bible, your MacArthur Study Bible. Of course, I don’t have it with me because we’re on the road and I only have it right here. I have my electronic copy of the MacArthur Study Bible here and Grudem. Both of those I’m using in our lesson today. You studied the chapter, read it through every day, looking for all the lessons and principles, and then writing that prayer. That’s what I’m going to do with you.
Here’s my summary, the longest living and serving apostle was John. John was central to Christ’s ministry. He was the one Jesus loved. The other disciples called him that because he was the one at the last supper that had his head leaning on Christ. He could tip his head back and whisper. Just think of that. There were 70 that went out under Christ’s command during the Gospels, then there were the 12, and then there were the three, Peter, James, and John. Then, there was the one. 70, 12, 3, 1. The closest disciple to Christ. The beloved disciple is John.
He was the one Jesus loved right there and was central to God’s New Testament plan. At the cross Jesus chose John to care for His mother, Mary. After the cross when Jesus restored Peter, do you remember when they were on the seashore in John 21? He told Peter that He had special plans for John, not to worry about John. He said, if he tarries till I return, don’t worry about it. That meant God had special plans for him. He did, John became the final apostle. He was the last living link to God the Son in human flesh upon Earth to an entire generation of churches, especially in Asia.
When we’re reading the book of Revelation, the one that was most well known in the world of Christendom was the Apostle John. For six decades he served Christ since he followed Him as a fisherman and walked with Him through those three years of ministry. He stood at the cross, witnessed the resurrection, and then launched out into decade after decade of service. After the cross, he had over 50 years of ministry. Unbelievable what the Lord used him to do. John served in the largest church. Eusebius, the church historian from Caesarea, tells us that Ephesus was the largest church. The total number of believers that communicated through Ephesus, the Ephesian church, was maybe as many as 50,000. It was a mega-church even back then. He wrote the premiere Gospel, the Gospel by John, he wrote three more epistles, but then comes the apocalypse.
John was the apostle of love. Do you remember he loved that word? He uses it in all of his Gospels and epistles. He had a unique friendship with Christ that made him the one that Jesus wanted, look at this, to finish the word of God and to deliver the final message that God had for believers on Earth. John knew Jesus from his calling on the shores of Galilee. He followed Jesus during his entire ministry. He stood at the cross at the end, he ran to the cross on the resurrection morn. When John wrote his account guided by the Holy Spirit of the life and ministry of Jesus, that’s the Gospel by John, it’s 90% different from the other three Gospels. He was unique, special, chosen, gifted, everything you want to call it.
The last part of the introduction is that only John got to see the long view. Most of the other apostles, the other disciples, were picked off and killed and martyred and beheaded and speared and everything else that happened to them. John got the long view of what God was going to do. Six decades of watching, following, serving, pondering all he saw. The whole time teaching the word of God everywhere he went. Me, John, the one Jesus wanted to use, to send.
Listen to what Revelation is, what God’s plan was. God’s interpretation and definition of all the scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. How do we know that? Because the book of Revelation weaves together over 800 other quotations and allusions to other portions, every other part of the Bible. It’s God commenting on how the Bible fits together. How the Old Testament message fits with the New Testament message. How do both the Old and New Testament messages apply to us who are trying to live in these ever-darkening days? God had a plan, one summary message. What it was is God wanted this unveiling of Christ to be the conclusion of His word.
Do you remember the Mount of Transfiguration? I think John never forgot that. Jesus was up there, and the glory cloud came down and do you remember what Peter said? Oh, let’s build three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for You, Jesus. God said, this is My beloved Son, listen to Him. God wants the focus to be on Christ. Look at this slide. That’s why God gave this final summary message to His Son, the Lord Jesus, who met John on Patmos. Do you remember? On the Lord’s day, on Sunday on that island. In the background here, He said, here it is, write this down and get it to everyone. That’s my paraphrase of what Jesus said.
Remember why we’re doing what we’re doing now. I know some of you just joined. This is the very first one you watched. You saw Revelation that looked interesting. You’re in a one-year-long study through Genesis to Revelation. We’re looking at the entire Bible, the message of the whole Bible that is summarized and crystallized in 52 passages. We’re using what I call the devotional method, in which we write down some specific things. Look at the slide. First, we make a title for every one of the portions that we’re studying. Then we’re jotting down as many lessons and truths and doctrines. We use the MacArthur Study Bible to answer questions, to look for background, for cross-references, for historical data, grammatical data, everything like that’s in there. Online resources. I use both the Blue Letter Bible and the Logos Bible software.
Look at this, we don’t want to merely be a hearer. I think we have too much of that nowadays. We have people that could win every Bible trivia course, but they fall apart when they find out they have any kind of debilitating disease or job loss, or they’re scared to death of COVID. They spend their whole time politicizing the world, trying to get their way, whatever their political persuasion might be instead of sticking to our great commission call to please God and make disciples of Jesus Christ. Why does that happen? Because they’re not applying the scriptures to their life. This is how I do it and this is how I encourage you to do it. Write a prayer in which you ask the Lord to unleash into your life at least one of the truths or lessons that you’ve found in your study today. I’m going to show you at the very end, how I do that. I show you that in every lesson.
This is where we are right here. This chart you can find on Facebook, on our page. Do you remember it’s the 52 Greatest Chapters of the Bible? That’s our Facebook page and all of these lessons are posted there. In the photo section, you can print off this chart right here with the how-to and all the chapters we’re on. An even better source is discoverthebook.org. That’s our website. There you can download a document, a PDF in our resource section. Go to www.discoverthebook.org and there on our webpage you’ll find all of these videos, and you’ll find all these resources. Just a word to you. This is our chart looking at where we are. We’re on week 50, two more weeks to go.
I wanted to thank you for praying for us. I’m going to ask you at the end to keep praying for us, but Bonnie and I are on the road right now. In just a few weeks we’re headed off out of the country. I’m going to be working overseas, coming back, doing some more Bible institutes here, then going again for three months. We’re scheduled to be in the United Kingdom then we’re going to be on the continent teaching. Then we’re going to go to the Middle East and we’re ending up training at one of our favorite training centers in Asia, out on an island off of China. It’s just the most amazing time to be training the next generation. That’s what we’re called to do. At the end of this video, I’ll show you our prayer card. Do pray for us just like this. We’re always in a borrowed home staying somewhere often eating different food.
My wonderful wife, Bonnie, is over there. She’s running this from her iPad. I’ll never forget in one of the Asian places where they wanted to honor us. They had batter-fried bugs, beetles, all different sized beetles, and they fried them for us. They fried them in front of us because we were the guests of honor at this church. We were speaking and Bonnie got to be the first one to eat a bug. Oh, her eyes got this big and she’s such a blessing. She just took the platter; they brought her this platter with the bugs on it deep. They were hot and crispy right out of the fryer. They offered her the platter. She took one and put it on her own plate and we prayed. I prayed silently for much grace. They prayed in their language, and I couldn’t understand it. I was praying in my heart and Bonnie picked up that bug and just popped it in and chewed it up. She said she was full and didn’t need any more bugs.
Here’s the slide. This is Revelation 1 to 22’s message for all of us. Remember, I’ve been working on the whole book, and I’ve already done the 52 chapter method on every chapter, all 22 of them. This is my conclusion, how to live for God in an ever-darkening world. I’m going to go through every part of this chart, but because of my little bubblehead, I’m going to go like this and make it a little smaller so that you can see it. Here’s a chronology. About 30 AD Jesus starts His ministry, is crucified, and the ascension by 33 AD, He returns to Heaven. Then we have the church you read about in Acts and then after that, you start reading about Paul’s missionary journeys. The early forties to the fifties, and then he’s in prison by the 60’s. He’s martyred before the 70’s and the rest of the apostles are gone so that by AD 90 only John is left. John may have been as long as a decade on Patmos, we don’t know.
Domitian, and Domitian if you want to do a study on emperors, he was an amazing emperor. I had the privilege of teaching Romans and Galatians in the city of Rome a few months back. I couldn’t believe that I had the privilege and was invited to do that. On one of the free days, I took just a handful of students with me to go see Domitian’s house. His house is on the Palatine Hill from which the word palace comes. He took Augustus Caesar’s home that had been lived in by Tiberius and others. He didn’t think it was big enough, so he enlarged it to cover the entire Palatine Hill and that’s where the word palace comes from or palatial in English. That massive structure had fountains, indoor fountains, and hundreds of rooms. It covers the whole top of the hill towering over the forum. That’s what his emperorship was like. Towering over, overpowering everybody by its massive power displays.
One of his power displays was when he found John and put him on Patmos. Why is this so important? Because Jesus comes back and before He sees John on Patmos, Jesus visits all the churches that had received the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and all the epistles. Everything was everywhere by the time we got here. Jesus comes back to what we’re like. See, we have all the epistles, the Old and New Testament, all the Gospels and epistles, everything in the Bible. Jesus comes back and checks what’s going on in the lives of the people that know what God expects from them, that know God says we should not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. To know that He stands and knocks at the door and wants to meet with us every day. Of all the things we know in the Bible, Jesus came back to see how the churches were doing.
Look at this, the first-generation Church, the ones that were alive during Christ’s ministry had come and gone. Remember people only live to be in their fifties. If you’re in your 60’s, you’re considered aged. That’s what Paul was called. If you’re as old as John was in his 80’s, you were unique. By looking at the archeological dental work that is in the sarcophagi and the ossuaries and all the bone collections of the ancient world most people lived to be old in their fifties. Few people made it beyond that. That generation was gone by 60 AD and the apostles were gone. We’re in the second generation Church that no one other than John had personally experienced in the flesh. They were only living by the word of God being taught in their churches and that they personally read if they had a copy, if they were wealthy enough, or looked at someone else’s copy. Jesus comes back to see how they’re doing. This is the most applicable book to our generation. Our high-tech, everyone has everything on their phone, generation of the world, which God says this the last days. He said that in Hebrews chapter 1. This is Jesus looking at us as He looked at them to see how they’re doing with His word. Okay. They have the word; Jesus comes and reports to John what he found out. That’s the whole book of Revelation, how to live for God in an ever-darkening world, and it’s totally tied to how we do with His word.
For just a moment, I want to give you an overview of Revelation from Patmos, and here’s my Bible sitting on a rock. This is the Aegean Sea looking off in the distance at the island of Patmos and here we go. Watch this 2:39 clip.
What does God think someone needs when they’re struggling and alone and in danger? The book of Revelation was written for someone just like that. The Apostle John was on a rocky barren island called Patmos on the Aegean Sea. That’s exactly where we are right now, on a rocky barren seaside island on the Aegean Sea. John remembered the loss of all of his beloved brothers in ministry. The apostles had each been hunted down and martyred by the empire. He was the last one. They got him and they put him here in exile. As the years went by, he began to remember. He remembered his beloved city was gone, destroyed, leveled. The hundreds of thousands of fellow Jews that were massacred or sold into slavery. Here he was old, weak, alone, and in danger. What does God think you need when the empire is against you and hunting you down and when the world seems to be headed toward destruction? It sounds like the times we live in. If you’re listening to the news at all about global warming and water scarcity and the environment being destroyed by humanities, industries, and CO2 emissions it’s true. The Earth is shaking and groaning and dying, just like it says in God’s word. What’s the most encouraging thing that God could send to the Apostle John? It was this book of Revelation. He said you’re blessed if you read it and you’re blessed if you heed it and you’re blessed if you keep the things that are written in it.
That’s what this course is about. We’re looking at the book of Revelation. We’re looking at every chapter, we’re looking at every word, we’re looking at every truth and doctrine and attribute of God. We’re seeing God’s roadmap of the future. Most of all, we’re getting the blessing of being encouraged as God tells us what’s ahead and the fact that He knows right where we are. He knew John was here on a rocky island and He knows your address today. That’s what we need to trust His presence, His care, and His plan. What a joy.
I can still hear the waves as I stood there and recorded this clip for all of you. It’s just such a blessing to see the book of Revelation sitting there on that rock, just like John was on that rock out in Patmos.
Here’s my journal and I’ve waved it around in front of you for so long here it is typed out. This is what I write in my journal, week 50, Revelation 1. Remember we all do a title one time because I do this multiple times. Every day I study through. Jesus today, I wrote as one of my titles, and then another title is the risen Christ today and forever. Another one was how to live in these darkening days. Here’s the summary. The book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ sits at the end of the Bible for many reasons. It’s unique. It’s the only book of the Bible God gave to Jesus to give to us. Notice that it’s the only book of the Bible that God gives to Jesus to give to us.
Think of that. You have a book that God gave to you via His Son. It’s like if someone comes to visit you and they say, oh, I have a present from your grandmother or your parents or your wife’s sent this. God sent this. His Son, our savior, Jesus Christ gave us a gift from God and that should make us pause. I think we all need to pause. I think for a lot of people Revelation has become ho-hum. It’s oh, it’s all that gory stuff, or it’s all that confusing stuff. No.
Look over here at my Bible, I want to show you what I mean. Let me get to the right page here. I’ve been waving it around so much that I had it open to the right page, but here’s Revelation. By the way, on this last trip, it got ripped here. The pages are coming out, but I’ve got a new one. Don’t worry. I brought this one on this trip, but here we are in Revelation, and look at what it says in verse 1. “The Revelation” and I wrote here, this is the Greek word apokalupsis, which means unveiling “of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him.” God the Father gave Him, Jesus Christ, to show His servants. That’s us, we’re the servants. “To show His servants– things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John.” Jesus came, and we’re going to cover that in this chapter, and talked to John with a loud trumpet-like voice.
Then we see after Jesus talks to him in chapters 1, 2, and 3 that an angel takes him on a tour of Heaven. From Heaven, we look down through John’s eyes and see the Earth during the tribulation. What a gift this is. Look back. It’s what God gave Him, Jesus, to show us His servants and “His servant, John who bore witness.” This is John’s testimony to the “word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things he saw.” This is John saying, yup, raising his hand and saying, I’m telling the truth, the whole truth. Then look at this, “blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and” look at this, “keep those things.” Can you see I’ve been writing? It has been an incredible week. I hope that this video launches you into one of the best studies. That’s why we’re at 50, 51, and 52, the end of our year-long study because this is the best.
Back to the slides. That’s why God the Father set this book apart from all the other 66 books. They’re all inspired. They’re all God-breathed, they’re all flawless, they’re all inerrant, they’re all the word of God, but Revelation is all of that plus something. God the Father wants Christ’s Church, that’s us, to understand what He has planned not just so we become prophecy buffs or something. Look at this, we live with a guidebook to enter the last days of what’s been going on, a cosmic battle that has raged since before the garden of Eden. We could summarize that Revelation is a map of the future to guide us in making wise and proper eternal investments with our life.
Wait a minute. If you have a choice of what to do in life, do you give a personal testimony? When I was in high school I won several prizes. All of us win prizes in high school, so I won a prize. I won an oceanographic scholarship to go on the Calypso with Jacques Cousteau. I wanted with all my heart to be an oceanographer. I was a scuba diver. I was certified. I loved oceanography. I did all kinds of experiments in high school, in the lab and I turned them in and got into contests. Of course, my parents pushed me. I’m sure you do this with your kids, or if you’re a child and you’ve seen your parents do that, you try and push your kids forward. My parents really pushed me, and I won. I got a full scholarship to go on a year-long oceanographic exploration on Cousteau’s boat. He was on the boat. That’s not all. I got another scholarship to go to MIT, to work on data transmission on lasers in 1974. You’ll have to look in Wikipedia. They just figured out light amplification by stimulating emitted radiation. That’s LASER.
I’m telling you that simply because I had incredible opportunities, full scholarships, and others and you know what? The Lord got my attention. I won’t tell that story, but I got called up short by some choices I made that I knew from the Bible I shouldn’t. I had a law official from the Attorney General’s office drop off a subpoena to me to testify in a trial where I was a part of the proceedings. Boy, did I cry out to the Lord and say I know I’m running from You. I’m trying everything. Whether it’s oceanography or law or MIT physics. I want to serve You.
Do you know what I did? I turned down the scholarship to Michigan State University, to the University of Michigan, to the Oceanographic Institute to MIT and I went to a Christian school in South Carolina, where they made you cut your hair and wear a belt and tuck your shirt in all the time. I learned a lot of discipline and I learned the Bible. That’s where I was challenged to read through the Bible once for every year I was old. While I was there at that school, that’s where I met a former alumnus of the school named John MacArthur. That’s where he invited me to come on staff with him and it changed my life only because of this. Look back right here. A wise and proper investment of our lives, time, treasures, and talents. I learned that the greatest thing in the world is not to make as much money as possible and have as much fun and as much adventure as possible and everything else, but to be God’s servant. I hope that’s what you learn from Revelation.
Here we go. Here are my lessons. I don’t know if I’m going to make it through all of them because I found so many. I found more than 20 lessons in the first chapter. Don’t rush through this. You might need to take two weeks, and three weeks to do the chapter 1 study. When you get to chapters 2 and 3 I don’t know how long it’ll take you, but here we go. Revelation 1:1a. Look over here at my Bible. This is just the beginning. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants.” Look at this slide. God gave you a map of the future. In Revelation chapter 1, verse 1, the first part of it, that’s what the little a means, it means the first section of the verse. Revelation is God giving Jesus the map to the future for Jesus to share with us, His servants. We will always know and operate in life understanding how we fit with God’s plan for the future. That’s my first lesson. Okay. See how easy these are?
Here’s my map. I teach through, and you can find this on our website or YouTube. You can find the Understanding Revelation. All of the books I’ve taught are called Understanding. They are playlists on YouTube and they’re on our website discoverthebook.org. This is from my Understanding Revelation. This is a little animated slide. Let me show you. Here we are, all of us right now, according to Revelation 1, we’re the Church on Earth. The next thing that happens is what the Bible calls the Rapture. It’s described in John 14, Luke 24, Acts 1, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4. We go and stand before the judgment seat of Christ and we become what we see in Revelation 4 and chapter 19, the Church in Heaven. While we’re up there, John is shown the tribulation on Earth and it’s most of Revelation, chapters 6 to 18. Then it ends with Christ’s coming in fiery indignation, executing vengeance on all His foes. That’s where they’re killed at the battle of Armageddon. Then, Jesus actually reigns as king on the throne of David, as the Christmas carol goes. He shall reign on the throne of His father David if you know that Christmas carol that’s right here. Okay.
Then there’s a rebellion after a thousand years. Even with Jesus on the Earth and a nearly perfect environment, most of humanity rebels. God extinguishes them and puts them in front of the Great White Throne and that’s how Revelation chapter 20 ends. Then when He’s done with that Revelation 21 is Heaven and we dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That’s a quick summary of the book of Revelation.
Here’s my second lesson from my journal. We are to be God’s servants. Look back over here at Revelation 1. It says, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show.” What’s that right there? “His servants– the things which must shortly take place.” Okay. Back here, to the slide. Remember that there’s hardly anything revealed in Revelation that’s new or original. Rather it is a systematic repetition of everything God the Father says we need to know from all the rest of the Bible, it’s from everywhere else. It’s from the Old Testament and quotes almost every other New Testament book. It alludes to everything that God the Father says from the whole Bible that we need to know to choose to live the rest of our life, look at this, as God’s servant.
It’s the whole purpose of Revelation. God says I’m going to show you what’s going to happen. I’m going to show you the ending, so you see there’s nothing better in life than serving Me. It’s better than a wall full of trophies. A friend of mine has a wall full of golf balls. Can you believe this? He collects a golf ball from every course globally. He goes not only to all the American ones, but he also goes overseas. Did you know that serving God and being a servant is better than having a wall of golf balls? Why? Look at this. Remember that was the plan Jesus had for His life? Remember the old bracelets they used to wear, WWJD, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? Matthew 20:28. Look over here at my Bible. As my wonderful wife Bonnie reminds me, she said, not everybody knows all those verses you say, so show them. So, I will. Matthew 20:28, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Back to the slide. Matthew 20:28, that was Jesus’ plan for His life. It was also the operating system that Christ’s greatest follower, named the Apostle Paul, used to accomplish more than anyone else recorded in the New Testament for the spread of Christ’s Church. Paul was the greatest follower of Christ. What was his operating system? See it right there. 1 Corinthians 4:1.
Look over here. Let’s get to 1 Corinthians 4:1. Oh, pages are falling out. You know what? If you see someone whose Bible is falling apart, most likely their life is not. That’s what my professor told me once. Let’s get to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 1. “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ.” I wrote here that there are eight New Testament words for servants. This is the lowest, a galley slave. It’s the word huperetes. Up here I wrote down all the things. Bonnie and I got to teach in Athens, and on one of our field trips, we went to Corinth. I got to teach 1 Corinthians chapter 4 standing on the tramway.
Look at this next slide right here. This is a galley slave in this boat right here. See all these telephone pole size paddles are right here. Here are the Roman soldiers and all of them are up above deck and look down here. All these slaves are chained down to the deck and they have shackles on and they’re paddling these paddles. They were called galley slaves. This is Paul’s testimony. He chose to live 1 Corinthians 4:1 as a servant, here’s the Greek word huperetes, of Christ. Which, by the way, it’s the same word used for the other greatest servant. There are two great servants of God.
In the Old Testament the greatest figure that has more chapters written about him, 141 to be exact, is David. The greatest New Testament servant who wrote half of the New Testament is Paul. Both are described by the Holy Spirit with the same Greek word, right here it is on the slide, huperetes. It’s the same word used of David in Acts 13:36. Over here in my Bible, Acts 13:36. One of these days you can find out if my slides have a mistake. Here, “For David, after he had served,” look what I wrote, galley slave, huperetes, “his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried.” Wow. This is God’s description through the Apostle Paul of David. He served God’s purpose in his own generation by the will of God. Wow.
Back to the slides. What does huperetes mean? What is a galley slave? One of the people that were on the tramway that I stood on that connected the Saronic and the Gulf of the Tyrrhenian sea going over to Italy. The incredible galley slaves that powered the Roman Empire’s boats. What were they like? Number one, they didn’t do what they wanted. There was a drum and it said paddle and they did. They learned to row together because they were chained together and if they didn’t, they got whipped and thrown overboard and died. They had to learn to trust the captain because only he knew when they were going to get water, food, and where they were going.
By the way, they were chained for life. They were like disposable batteries. When you couldn’t paddle, they threw you overboard. When they were working, notice where they were, under the deck. Who was seen? Just the important people, not them. When they were working they were never seen. If you ever saw a galley slave out in public, he wasn’t doing his job.
What does that mean spiritually? They were submissive, sensitive to each other, trusting of the captain, dedicated for life, and humble. How do I please the Lord? By making the daily choice to be His bondservant. Look back here at Revelation chapter 1. That illustration on this slide is this verse right here, “to show His servants.” This is another Greek word. It’s doulos, which isn’t a huperetes, it’s the most common servant. They were just bondservants. They were just bought for something. That’s what all of us are, we’re bought by the Lord. Look, John was a servant, all of us in the Church are Christ’s servants.
When you get to Revelation, the ending, I love this. What’s around at the end? Two things in Revelation 22, are God and His servants. “And there should be no more curse,” in Revelation 22 verse 3, “but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him.” There are only two things left at the end. God and His servants. Wherever God is, it is Heaven so we, His servants, are in Heaven with Him. Back to the slides. That’s the picture I want you to have in Revelation, that we’re His servants.
Here’s my third lesson. Remember I found about 20 and I’m going to speed up. God wants us to know His plan and be confident it says in Revelation chapter 1 and the next part. “Things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified by His angel to His servant, John.” Signified it, showed it. This book was sent to show us God’s plan. It’s a personal touch right from God the Father. He wants us to know His plan. He wants us to be confident. Have you ever said, hey, I’ve been left out? Everybody else knows about it, but me. Have you ever had that feeling at work or school or in your neighborhood? Everybody’s doing something and you got left out. God says you’re not left out. I want you to know what’s happening and I want you to be confident in My plan and what I want you to do.
My fourth observation, I’m still in the first verse. Jesus chose the most deity-focused Gospel writer. John who chartered a path of presenting Christ as divine didn’t follow the pattern of the Synoptics. That’s the see-together Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John continues his lists of sevens to show more condensed and powerfully stated truths about the divinity of Christ drawn from every corner of the Old Testament plus the Gospel of John. That is more than in any other book of the Bible. That’s why this was called the unveiling of Christ because this is an all more concentrated truth about Christ than any other part of the Bible. That’s why I wrote Revelation is a gold mine of Christology. Jesus picked John to follow Me. That’s John chapter 1, verse 40.
Let’s look at it. I’ve got it marked here. John chapter 1 right here, “follow me.” That’s the lesson that Jesus gave. That’s what He says in John 21 verse 22 when He reminds the disciples of their calling. He says “What is that to you? You follow Me.” Look at the slide. Jesus picked John and the other 12 to follow Him. John did follow Him. He wrote the Gospel that was written to prove Jesus was the Christ, says John 20:30 and 31. We can’t get a higher rating for authenticity than such a start as the book of Revelation that says this: God says, I’m giving this map of the future to Jesus who says I’m giving it to John, my beloved apostle, to give to My Church. God the Father gave it to Jesus, God the Son, who gave it to His beloved apostle who gave it to each of us. It’s the very inspired Word to help us live in the last days.
Here’s the fifth lesson I learned. Notice it says a because it’s so big it takes two slides. Okay. How to live the best life possible. That’s verse 3. Let’s look at verse 3 over here in my Bible, because I want you to mark these things. Don’t mark as much as me because it’ll make the pages come out, but just mark enough so you can remember this. Look what it says in verse 3. “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written.” Over to the slide. How do you live the best life possible on Earth? Verse 3 says God wants each of us to know His pathway is simple. Read, hear, and keep His plan.
The word reads in the 1st century, the elder/pastor of each assembly who got this letter, the only copy, and communicated by every means to the saints. Remember they didn’t have a Bible back then. They didn’t have their own copy. They didn’t have multiple copies on their digital device. There was one and it was precious. It cost a fortune to copy it on that scroll and to ship it. When it came the pastor/elder of the church would undo the scroll and pull it open and stand in front and read it to them.
Look back at the slides. That means that he did it from house to house because not everybody made it to service. He did it at the gathered service, this elder/pastor, and he did it at personal small group times because some of them maybe were hard of hearing or slow of hearing or whatever, and they just needed help. The key to this word is this: exposure. Blessed is he who is exposed to God’s message so others can know what God has revealed. For us, that means getting our copy of God’s word before us and personally studying what He’s said.
Secondly, hears means that the goal was that the listeners of the reading stopped on any other voices or activities, or events and tuned into listening to God’s message. It’s like putting your headphones on or your AirPods and turning everything off but one sound at a time for your brain to process. Blessed are those who get exposed to the word of God, but not just exposed. It’s not like lots of other sounds. It’s like walking through the mall and hearing all the different sounds and music and people talking and everything else. It’s when you see someone put on their headphones and they go, ah, they’ve tuned everything else out. Or they push in their AirPods and if you’re talking to them and they push in their AirPods that they’re focusing on one thing. Look at this, put in your spiritual headphones or AirPods, and tune out everything but one thing. What’s that? Hearing God’s message.
The next slide, the key to this word hears means to focus. First, we get exposed, then we focus on just God’s message till we get it. Then the word keeps. This is when we go from merely being a hearer, but now a doer. The word literally means to guard, tēreō, is the Greek word for keeps. It’s like a treasure. When we realize we’ve just received something different from everything else that is common and regular or temporary, it becomes a treasure to us. We have to hold onto it tightly. If you have a treasure you keep track of it constantly. Have you ever noticed how people spend so much money on their phones they know where it is? They guard their expensive earpieces and headphones. I see people when I travel, who have these expensive Bose silencing ones and they wear them in the airport around their neck. They don’t want to lose them. Your wallet, your purse, your pin. Everything important to us is a treasure and what? Look at this slide, we guard it. We hold onto it tightly.
By the way, how does Paul describe what it means to treasure? Let’s look at 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 6 to 16. Here we go. “Instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of good doctrine which you have carefully followed. But reject,” verse 7, “profane and old wives; fables, and exercise yourself to godliness.” Look at verse 12, “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” Again, they’re reading the Bible out loud because they didn’t all have their own copy.
“Do not neglect to gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things.” This is what I wrote, deepen your walk, devote yourself to the pursuit of Christ. “Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them.” 1 Timothy 4 from 6 to 16 are the steps of how to treasure the word of God. You read it, you study it, you meditate on it, you share it, you know it, you live it and you let it transform your life.
Next lesson, number six. The message was to all believers then and now. Back to my Bible. We’re only on verse 4. Do you all remember the whole way that this study started? In 2016 Bonnie and I were happily leading 10 small group studies. Bonnie was discipling women of all ages, especially young mothers and those that were training their children and teaching. I was teaching men’s groups. I had all these men’s groups, policemen and sportspeople and businessmen and all kinds of groups. Then the Lord laid on our hearts to go to reach those that don’t have all that we have here, to go as missionaries overseas. I felt bad leaving all my groups behind. I told you when I started this, that starting in 2017, when we were on the road, I said, honey, I want to have a small group. I started having small groups online and you are my ultimate small group. I’m sitting at this little rickety table that I keep shaking. You probably see it in my Bible shaking, but I imagine that you’re sitting over there. That I’m showing you my Bible and that I’m asking you to show me your notebook. I’m saying, what did you learn this week? How did you do studying? What are some of the applications? Let me see your prayer and what is the Lord doing to change your life? See, that’s what God wants us to do.
Look at this slide. In verse 4 I would show you if we were sitting at Starbucks or Chipotle or Panera, wherever, what it says. Here it is, verse 4. “John, to the seven churches which are in Asia.” Notice I highlighted this. Look at his focus, seven churches. They’re all in orange, seven churches, seven churches, seven churches, seven churches, seven churches, seven churches. You get it. Seven churches, the churches, you see? Look at the slide. To the seven churches, which were local churches in the 1st century. He speaks of seven, a complete set, and churches plural is all churches. Why did he say it was to the seven churches? Because there were a lot more than seven churches in Asia, he picked seven to be a set of churches. They were all probably planted by the church in Ephesus through Paul’s work or maybe through John later, but it doesn’t matter how. Everyone knew that there were a lot more than seven, but when he picked seven, to those that knew the Old Testament, it was a complete set. A complete set of all the churches.
Back to the slide there. John was the human instrument Jesus chose to deliver this vital message. Why? Simply because John and the other apostles obeyed Christ’s simple call. They just followed Him. John followed Jesus. Jesus used John. It was that simple and it still is now. Do you want to have a very strategic life? Very significant? I just had a conversation with someone, and they said I want to do something significant with my life. I thought, what’s the most significant thing you could do? Well, to find out, God the Father, the almighty God of the universe, through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior, sent us His plan for every one of us to live the most significant, the most strategic life possible and He wrote it down. It’s right here.
I’m going to just go by, this is my seventh observation. Jesus loved me and washed me. From verse 6, our eternal purpose is to be His priest. Number nine in verse 7, Christ’s coming will be seen by all and some will mourn, that’s what He says. By the way, the seven churches are right here. This is Turkey. This is Cyprus. Up here is Lebanon, Syria. This is Israel right here. You know where we are. This is the island of Crete. Look at this, Ephesus, Smyrna, this dot is Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. Look, they didn’t mention the church in Miletus, the church at Colossi, all these other churches. Perga, the Galatian churches. Peter is writing the Cappadocia and Bithynia. There were lots of churches. These seven were a complete set.
That takes us to my 10th observation. We’re only in verse 8. Jesus is the alpha and omega, the almighty. Jesus embodies all the attributes of God the Father, as Hebrews says. Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father who’s invisible. Jesus said, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. What does that mean? Simply this, if we just apply the big four most well-known truths or attributes about God, we can say this: God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, and all-loving. All-powerful is omnipotent. Omniscient is all-knowing. Omnipresent is all-present. All-loving is that He is good and gracious. He’s faithful. He’s just. Those are just truths. How do we apply them? Let me show you.
Jesus wants us to put this theological box around our life that we find in verse 8. If we use those four attributes as a divinely built car that we drive in through life we know nothing can get into our car’s interior. The God we know as defined by His Word hasn’t chosen to enter our space. The reason I’m saying that is I just read about the latest Lexus. It was on Bloomberg. They said that it has the most amazing system where it’s totally airtight and no air comes in except what comes through their system. It’s totally filtered. I thought about being in this little bubble where you’re surrounded by steel and high-tech stuff and filters.
Look at this slide. Nothing is going to get into our car like that Lexus. Nothing gets to us that God didn’t know about in advance as being best for us. That’s what omniscience means. God knew ahead of time what would be best to have entered our car. He knows what can get by the filter of His omniscience, what can get by the filter of His omnipotence. See this. There’s nothing that God didn’t allow as being best for us and that God didn’t plan as being best for us. That God is not right there with us during its arrival. God knew it was coming, omniscience. He was powerful enough to filter it out if He didn’t want it. He is so loving. He knows what’s best for us and He’s there with us when it arrives.
Let me illustrate that. We can apply the attributes of God to all of our struggles and fears. I just read again that right now there is a mental health crisis. People are scarred, people are injured, and people are permanently, and emotionally disabled because of COVID. For all the things they’ve been living in, anxiety, they’re going to die. Then they’ve been living inside of their mask, and it wasn’t right. Then they’re not sure whether they have enough of the boosters of the COVID shots or they’re not even sure they should take the COVID shots, or they’re convinced that they’re poison. There’s this anxiety going on. They’re starting to unmask and they’re having new boosters and they’re having new variants and some countries are abandoning things and it’s just caused confusion and fear and insecurity. With our struggles and fears, how do we deal with that?
Here’s a listing of all God’s 25 attributes. Independence. Unchangeableness. Eternity. Omnipresence. Unity. Spirituality. Invisibility. These are from Grudem. Okay. Look at this, His big four. Omnipresence, omniscience. Those are the ones everybody knows. His love, God is love and omnipotent. Watch this. We can apply the attributes of God to get our fears and our struggles and our anxieties into perspective. Let’s put them into the box. Okay. We need to learn to trust God with our accidents, our financial hits, our unexpected losses, and cancer. Whatever we’re facing. Okay. We’re trusting God, God is good. He always loves us. God is omniscient. He knows everything before it happens. God is omnipresent. He’s with us right here in the car and God is so powerful. Nothing can break into our car that we go through life in; that God doesn’t lovingly cause to happen, omnisciently know, with us, omnipresently face and all powerfully not keep away.
What does that mean? Either God is good or bad. The next thing that happens to you, you lose your job or you get a bad test or someone tragically dies, either God is good or bad. He’s either wise or dumb that He missed that. When He’s either all-powerful or He couldn’t prevent that from happening, He’s either everywhere present, or God is cosmically absent.
Look at this. Revelation says our responses to life’s struggles declare to a watching world whether we’re trusting God. Trusting God means nothing accidentally touches us. He always loves us. He always knows us. He’s all-powerful and He’s with us. There are no accidents. Nothing touches our lives that God has not planned. That was my 10th observation.
Here’s my 11th. We can stay full of the Holy Spirit even in the worst of times. The Apostle John endured the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem, the massacre of a million fellow Jews, and the systematic hunting down of his fellow apostles by the Roman Empire. This is when he’s on Patmos. When John gets Revelation, he’s gone through all these things. He’s seen the wickedness of Nero. He’s seen the empire convulsed by four competing emperors after Nero. Finally, the very personal adversary of John becomes the emperor Domitian. Remember the one with the palatial hilltop home that hunted down John, captured John, exiled John, and left him far from anyone who he loved and served.
Look what Revelation 1:9 says. “I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,” that’s aka hunted down by Domitian, “was on the island that is called Patmos.” Uh-huh, Domitian, “for the word of God,” because I wouldn’t back down, “and for the testimony of Jesus Christ,” because I kept telling everybody there was only one way. “No other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved,” Jesus Christ. He wrote a very popular book about it, the Gospel by John.
Look at this, verse 10. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” Back to the slide. John says we can stay full of the Holy Spirit even in the worst of times. Yet, here it is again, a Sunday, and wherever John finds himself that’s always the Lord’s day. Look at verse 10. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” Back to the slide and note this, John is in the Spirit on that Sunday. That’s the key to serving God at the End of Days. Did you catch that? We must stay full of the Spirit walking through life in Christ. We can live in the Spirit no matter what’s going on around us or what we’re going through.
Let me show you that real quick right here in Lamentations 3. It’s a chapter from God entitled how to make it through anything. Take your Bible and in past greatest chapters I’ve alluded to this, but I just want to show it to you. Bonnie reminded me that I didn’t show you, I just told you. Look at Lamentations 3. This is what Jeremiah the prophet is going through. “He has led me and made me walk in darkness.” He had an unclear path. “He has aged my flesh and my skin.” He had broken physical health. “He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness.” He had deep emotional strain, sounds like COVID long-haulers they call them. “He has set me in dark places.” He was depressed. “He has hedged me,” and I’m trapped. “He has made my chain heavy.” I’m burdened. “He shuts out my prayers.” I’m out of touch. “He has blocked my ways.” I’m frustrated. “He has made my paths crooked.” I’m confused. “He has been to me a bear lying in wait,” that’s fear, “like a lion in ambush.” “You have moved my soul far from peace.” I like that. That’s being anxious. “I have forgotten prosperity.” That’s being sad. “My strength and my hope.” That’s my strength has gone. That’s weakness. My hope has perished. That’s hopelessness. Look at that.
Look at verse 20. I’m on Lamentations 3:21. This is how bad Jeremiah was. He had broken physical health, an unclear path, was strained, depressed, trapped, burdened, out of touch, frustrated, confused, fearful, anxious, sad, weak, and hopeless. “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.” How on Earth did you have hope? By the way, the Greek word for hope is hupomone. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,” it’s based on doctrinal truth about God, “because His compassions fail not, they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Look at this Old Testament statement of being in Christ. “‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!'” look back at the slides. The only way to make it at the End of Days is to stay full of the Spirit walking life in Christ. Like Jeremiah declares, you can make it through anything with God. That’s my 11th observation.
By the way, when we get to next week, I’m going to talk to you about Nero. I’m talking about Domitian, there’s his face, and even the worst of them all, Diocletian. That’s when we get into chapter 2. Nero started martyrdom Domitian kept it going and it just got worse for the Church. For 300 years, the Church was hunted and savaged.
Number 12. The only picture of Jesus in the Bible is in Revelation 1, 9 through 20. You can just look at His hair, His eyes, His feet, His voice, His hands, His mouth, and His face. It’s such a good study. In the 13th lesson, the eternal one has a message for every believer. In my 14th lesson, Jesus is watching you right now and always from verse 12. Jesus is compassionate. He feels our fears, weaknesses, and pains.
Look at verse 13 really quickly. This is one of the richest chapters in the Bible. If you have to stop and go eat dinner, just put me on pause, but I’m going to finish this because it was so good. Look at verse 13. “And in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.” This term, the garment, the Greek word is only used in the Old Testament. When they translated the Old Testament into Greek, the Septuagint it’s called, that word is only used for the priest. It’s very probable that John used that word from the Old Testament to say, look at the slides, that Jesus has dressed as a priest. I put a Priest-Physician because that’s where priests were in the Old Testament. They examine people for whether they had leprosy, whether they were clean or unclean if they were over their disease, and all that. In verse 13, Jesus is examining us as a priest-physician, but He’s also the Son of Man.
Look at these two passages. I want to read those to you. Look at Hebrews chapter 2 with me. If you don’t have these underlined this is vital, Hebrews 2:14-18. “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself,” that’s Jesus, “likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Jesus destroyed the devil. Verse 15, “and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Look at verse 17. “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation…for in that He Himself,” that’s Jesus “has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” If you ever feel that you’re tempted like no one else, Jesus says, I understand. Maybe your friends don’t, maybe no one’s gone through what you’ve gone through, but I have, and I understand.
Look at Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 to 16. “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Verse 16, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Back to the slide. Jesus is the compassionate one. He feels our weaknesses and pains. He was tempted in all points. He feels our pain, our struggles, our weaknesses, our fears. He wants to help us in every time of need. That might be the best lesson. That’s number 15. What was the most frequently recorded emotion of Jesus in the Gospels? Moved with compassion.
Revelation chapter 1 has all these lessons. Here’s another one. Number 16, Jesus is glowing white, not like flat white. His hair was glowing. His feet are brass. His voice is huge. His words are like a sword. Those are 16, 17, and 18. The 19th one. Jesus is the great I am. Look at verse 17 of Revelation 1. See, this is just a launch. You’re going to need extra time this week. Look at verse 17. “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet…But He laid His right hand on me saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.'”
Look back at the slide. Jesus says I am the first and last. Remember, John the writer of the Gospel by John is the I Am recorder in his Gospel. Eight times He says I am in Revelation. Alpha and omega, beginning and end, and here are the references where they are. You can find these when you read through. Alive forevermore, root and offspring. This parallels what John did in his Gospel. Look at these, I am the bread of life, 6:35. I’m the light of the world, 8:12. I’m the door of the sheep, 10:7,9. Look at this. As the bread of life, He sustains us apart from His is only unsatisfied hunger. He illumines us. We’re in impenetrable darkness without Him. He admits us to life, without Him we’re hopeless. See, all of these I Am’s are just what builds into the book of Revelation. That’s huge. You can spend some time this week looking at that.
Number 20, God unfolds this message about the future in three phases. The 20th lesson is so important. It’s the outline of the whole book. God unfolds this message about the future in three phases. Look at verse 19 and see how He does that. “Write the things which you have seen and which are.” Notice I wrote chapter 1 there. “The things which you have seen, and the things which are.” I wrote chapters 2 and 3 right there. “And the things which will take place after this.”
Look at the slide. “The things which you have seen” chapter 1, “the things that are,” chapters 2 and 3, and “the things which will take place after this,” are chapters 4 to 22. Isn’t it amazing Jesus explains the calm around God’s throne? That’s chapters 4 and 5 before the chaos of the disintegration of Earth’s environment until hardly anyone could survive. Look at this. The throne is the only way to understand the future. That’s part of this outline and that’s what we’ll see in our final week, week 52.
Here’s number 21. We’re called to reflect Christ’s light in the world and that’s in verse 20. Look over at my Bible. “The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels.” Remember that the word angelos means messenger. The messenger of the churches was never an angel like an angel with trumpets flying around. They were always people. These messengers are the unique, called, gifted what every other part of the Bible calls the pastor-teachers of the churches. The stars, it means Jesus is holding these stars that represent the called elders and pastors and teaching-elders of the churches. Here’s the point. “And the seven lampstands which you saw the seven churches.”
Look back over here. We, in the Church, are called to reflect Christ’s light in the world. The lampstands are the churches, the stars are the messengers to the churches. The oil in the lamps of the tabernacle pictured the Holy Spirit. If we, as a Church, are like a lampstand when we’re ignited by the Spirit, in other words when we’re born again, we can shine and hold forth the Word of life. That’s the light of the world, Jesus Christ. That’s the purpose of the Church, to be His lights in the world. Wow.
My application prayer. I wrote out many of these. Here’s just one of them that I want to share with you. If we were sitting at the table having coffee or lunch or supper doing this Bible study, we would each read them, but I’ll read mine. Lord, I want to know and follow Your plan. Help me to read and hear what You’re saying and keep what You want me to keep. You love me. You loose me, wash me. You’re the almighty. Sunday is Your day. As You walk around Your Church, may You find me healthy. Use Your sword in my life to keep me useful and pure. For Jesus’ sake, I pray. Amen. I summarized all my prayers. I hope that you can apply part of this wonderful chapter to your life this week.
The two final challenges I share with you every week, don’t do this alone. The Christian life is not meant to be lived solo, alone. Find someone. If you know another believer, say hey, would you be my accountability partner? Let me read to you my prayer. Let me show you what I’ve found. If you don’t have any Christian friends, this is an evangelistic tool. Say, I’m doing a Bible study. Most people have never studied the Bible. Say, would you listen to what I found? It only takes five minutes. I’m going to read it to you. Then share your findings and say, I’m asking God to change my life. If they’re an unsaved person, they’ll go, what is that? Does He do it? Does He change your life? You can testify to them. You can tell them about Christ dying in your place, taking away the load of your sin. What a tool. If it’s a believer, they can start reading the Bible. Every time you see each other, say, where are you? What do you think? What are you seeing God doing in your life? It’s the best way to live.
The final challenge. Pray for us. As I told you, we’ll be going out of the country in a couple of weeks and we’re going to be teaching. After that, when we come back to the states, we’re going to two Bible colleges and a Bible conference. Between all of them, we’ll be speaking, 20, 45, 53, about 60 times over one month. That’s twice a day for a whole month but pray for us. This is my wonderful wife Bonnie who’s over there on the iPad recording. We teach throughout central Europe and the Middle East and in all different settings. Look at this, we equip and mobilize partners to reach the least-reached people, the next generation. Pray for us as we do that. Have a great week studying Revelation 1. When I come back next time we’re going to do Revelation 2 and 3 and it’s just as good as chapter 1, maybe better. God bless you. See you next week.
Slides
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