Christ Reigns As King In The Midst Of His People

Bethlehem Bible Church

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August 6, 2023

00:00: So, we're going to talk a little bit today about Revelation. Pastor Cooley emailed me,
00:06: I think, a week or two ago to ask if I could do this, and I told him, well, it's probably a bad idea because right now
00:12: I'm working in the book of Revelation, and that's the worst book if you want to do like a one -off thing on to go for Revelation.
00:21: So, if this is recorded, 902 is the beginning of a church split, you know, for historians later on.
00:30: But I'm playing it pretty safe. We're going to stick in Revelation 1, which most people agree with together on.
00:37: Not everybody, but we'll play it safe. What I'm going to do is we're going to actually start by reading two passages in Daniel.
00:44: Then we're going to read the actual passage I want to talk about in Revelation. Then we're going to read another passage paralleling it, also in Revelation.
00:54: Then we'll just sit in Revelation 1. Before we do that, Revelation is written to tell you, obviously,
01:03: God's plan, the fact that he's sovereign over everything. But the situation in the churches that John is writing to, the seven churches, is one of suffering and persecution, but it's also one of compromise because of that persecution.
01:25: A lot of people, in order to just be a part of society, had to worship idols.
01:35: So you've got a lot of idolatry going on. There's references to one sect that is basically encouraging people, you can go to these feasts, eat the meat sacrificed to idols.
01:47: During those feasts, that's when the idol worship was happening. They were saying, you can do that and still be a
01:55: Christian. So there was a lot of compromise going on. I think that's helpful to understand because it very closely parallels our own time or what we see coming.
02:05: We have a lot of potential in the near future to be asked or required to compromise on certain aspects of our faith in order to maintain our jobs or in order to continue working in society.
02:24: A good example might be certain things you might say, call sin is now going to be labeled hate speech, stuff like that.
02:33: So we're operating under some of the same pressures. In their day, if they were to not participate in the idols, that was the same thing.
02:45: Basically they would have to take a pass on going to their guild meetings or things like that.
02:51: So there were certain professions they couldn't even take place in because they were basically required worshiping idols in order to be a part of that profession.
03:02: So in the early Roman church, a lot of the Christians were seen as very anti -social because, for example, they couldn't be in the army because you had to sacrifice before you went out to war.
03:14: You couldn't be in the arts because a lot of that involved immorality and also idol worship. And then there's specific other jobs that they couldn't do because of the guild mentality and the guilds would come together.
03:27: So to be in those guilds, you had to worship idols. So that's the situation that we're dealing with and that's when this vision of Christ comes that we're going to look at.
03:37: We're going to start, though, in Daniel. I was going to, I'll just read it.
03:44: I was going to have people read, but we're a little short on people. So I'll read the first one. Then maybe if someone else wants to take
03:50: Daniel 10, 4 through 14. I'll start with Daniel 7.
04:00: We're reading these passages specifically because John is combining language from both
04:07: Daniel 7 and Daniel 10 when he gives this image of Christ in Revelation 1.
04:12: So Daniel 7, first off, starting in verse 9, it says, As I looked, thrones were placed, and the
04:21: Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was white as snow and the hair of his head like pure wool.
04:29: His throne was fiery flames. Its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him.
04:36: A thousand thousands served him and 10 ,000 times 10 ,000 stood before him. The court sat in judgment and the books were opened.
04:45: I looked then because of the sound of the great word that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.
04:54: As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away. But their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
05:01: I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man.
05:07: And he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
05:17: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. And his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.
05:25: And can I get someone to read Daniel 10, verses 4 through 14? Go ahead.
05:31: Thank you. And then we'll just read one more passage just to get it in our minds here, and then we'll sit in Revelation 1.
05:39: If you look at Revelation 19, and I'll read this.
05:48: It's just, I'm gonna start at verse 11, read through 16. Again, John picks up the very similar imagery here.
05:57: Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
06:06: His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems. And he has a name written that no one knows but himself.
06:13: He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name which he is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
06:24: From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.
06:31: He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written,
06:39: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. All right, and if you'll just flip back to Revelation 1 now,
06:45: I'm gonna pray quick and then we'll dive in to the text. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the fact that you reign sovereign over all and that you are reigning with us.
06:57: You're not far off distance, but you are near to your people.
07:03: And help us to be comforted by these visions, help us to understand them better, and help them to encourage us in our walk with you and our love for you.
07:12: In Christ's name, amen. So my goal here is really, if I were to be preaching, if this was a sermon,
07:20: I would get an immediate F, because I'm not gonna walk through the text like a sermon. I'm not gonna touch on every aspect here.
07:26: I'm just going to sort of pick things out. What I'm going to do is I'd like to show you that in Revelation 9,
07:34: I'm sorry, in Revelation 1, I'll figure out at least which chapter I'm in. That's another reason the sermon wouldn't be very good.
07:41: Revelation 1, we're going to be looking at Christ. And John presents Christ as a king and a priest here, but as a king and a priest in the midst of his people.
07:52: And I believe we talked a little bit about compromise in the beginning. This part of the reason he does this is, well, it's the vision he sees, but he's seeing this vision in order to encourage the church to faithfulness, almost to startle those who are in the midst of compromise, who are starting to walk off into idolatry, and to bring them back.
08:15: And then to comfort those who aren't falling away worshiping other idols, so that they can have confidence that Christ is ruling and he's the king.
08:28: So we're going to pick up in three, well, I said Christ is the king and priest in the midst of his people.
08:34: I meant Christ is the divine king and priest in the midst of his people. So we're going to look at Christ as divine,
08:40: Christ as king, Christ as priest, and then Christ in the midst of his people.
08:50: And the way we're doing this, I don't want it to be just a complete me talking the whole time.
08:57: So if you have any questions or anything like that, feel free to interrupt me, we'll take it from there.
09:03: I'm also not looking for 100 % agreement across the board on everything I'm saying, because we're in Revelation.
09:11: So it would be a little naive of me to expect that. I like Revelation 6, if you look at the first seal is a man on a white horse, and he rides to conquer and conquer.
09:24: And if you look at the commentary, some say this is Christ, and the others say this is a satanic figure. So there's a bit of a dispute on how to interpret passages of Revelation.
09:36: What I would like is to get the main points across. I have maybe specific understandings of the symbols, and hopefully we can be in agreement.
09:47: There's not a ton of disagreement early on, that's why we're in chapter one.
09:53: I didn't want to pull up chapter 20 and talk about the thousand year reign, because that would not have gone well.
10:01: So we're going to just sit in chapter one and look at some of the symbolism here.
10:07: So first, divine language. I'm going to cheat a little bit and go expand my verses.
10:14: We're not just going to sit in chapter one, nine through 20, but anything in here first strike you as divine or pointing to Christ's deity?
10:24: Yep. Yeah, exactly. A lot of the visions of God you'll see in the Old Testament include fire.
10:32: So I think Ezekiel one has God coming to Ezekiel, and there's fire, flames, things like that.
10:40: You see it on Sinai as well. It has to do with his righteous judgment.
10:49: Anything else? Yeah, yeah, his face shining like the sun is probably an allusion to Judges, which is talking about a warrior, and then the seven stars.
11:11: It's nice when you have a vision like this, and then at the end he says, oh, by the way, the seven stars are, which makes it so much easier.
11:20: The seven stars are the seven angels of the churches, which would be like the seven ministers or something like that.
11:27: Anything else? Yes, so the voice of many waters is as key, especially when we're thinking of divinity.
11:39: Let me flip over to Ezekiel quickly, or relatively slowly, actually.
11:52: All right, Ezekiel, this is talking about the glory of the Lord, and the parallel here
11:58: I think is deliberate. If I start in the right verse, that's even better.
12:10: Here we go, Ezekiel 43. Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east, and behold, the glory of the
12:16: God of Israel was coming from the east. And here's how he describes the glory of the God of Israel. The sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.
12:27: And that's, I think, a deliberate allusion that John is using to sort of tie these visions of God that we have in the
12:36: Old Testament with the one of Christ we have here. It's interesting, the way
12:42: John uses the Old Testament, he basically takes certain elements of different visions, at least in this chapter, and he just combines them.
12:50: Not to say he's making up a vision, combining all these elements, but that's how we can better understand it, by looking back at the
12:57: Old Testament. He does the same thing when he talks about that beast that comes out of the river later on in the book.
13:02: He basically took four beasts in Daniel, and he just squishes them into one beast, which basically lets you know, if I want to understand this,
13:13: I need to look back at what Daniel is saying. So we have his voice is very similar to the glory of God coming to the temple in Ezekiel.
13:23: Outside the passage, we have, or in the larger context, very clear indications of God's glory.
13:31: So if we look at verse eight here, this is God talking, I am the
13:36: Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the
13:43: Almighty. And then if we go down to the one verse
13:48: I didn't put in, here we go, verse 17. Christ says, fear not,
13:55: I am the first and the last, which is very similar to who is and who was and who is to come.
14:02: So he's tying, we have a very clear reference to God in verse eight, and then a similar reference is attributed to Christ in verse 17.
14:14: He does this at the end of the book too. So if you want to quickly look at Revelation 21, verse six, this is again
14:32: God, and he said to me, it is done, I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, to the thirsty I will give from the spring of water of life without payment.
14:40: And he says the same thing in 22 .13. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done.
14:52: I am the Alpha and Omega, which we've heard described of God in Revelation 1 .8.
14:58: And then he takes the first and the last, which we heard described of Christ in verse 17 of Revelation 1.
15:07: So one of the things we see in this vision is that Christ is divine.
15:15: Outside in the larger book of Revelation, it's very clear, you see in Revelation 5, he's in the same proximity to the throne as God when we're talking about the
15:26: Lamb. He's also worshiped throughout Revelation just like God. Revelation 4 is all about worshiping
15:32: God as creator. And then Revelation 5, you have the Lamb come. And at the end of that, they worship the
15:39: Lamb and God together. It's showing that Christ is God there. So in this passage, the first thing
15:47: I want us to see is that it's emphasizing the fact that Christ is divine.
15:53: You can also see that through some of the allusions to Daniel 10, which we already read.
16:00: But if you do that, you have to argue that the image that we see in Daniel 10 is not an angel, but it is a theophany, which you could argue, but I didn't want to base my argument on that because it's harder to argue.
16:16: Not to say it's not true, it's just clearer this way. Another thing we see is snow and wool referring to Christ's hair.
16:25: The same language was used in Daniel 7 to refer to the Ancient of Days, whose garments were white and whose hair was white.
16:33: One of them is snow. One of them is as wool, but I forgot which order they came in. So we have the divine language here of Christ.
16:42: Next, let's go to kingly language, specifically language of Christ as king in his role as a judge.
16:49: Anything that you noticed in 9 through 20 that would indicate his role as king or his office as king?
16:57: Yeah, yeah, he falls at his feet as if dead. That indicates also deity. That's the same response that the other prophets have in the
17:04: Old Testament when they have a vision of God. But it definitely points to his authority as well.
17:10: Anything else? Sorry, say it one more time.
17:18: Yes, yes, he has the keys of death and Hades. That obviously points to his authority.
17:24: He gets those through dying. Through death, he becomes the conqueror.
17:31: Anything else? One of the things we see here is the sword in his mouth.
17:45: I should have done all my prep work in this Bible because it's laid out as different. Now I can't find the sword in his mouth.
17:52: Thank you. Yeah, from his mouth came a sharp two -edged sword.
18:01: Some people argue the sword in his mouth means that he conquers through nonviolence, which is not true, especially given the fact it's still a sword.
18:16: But it alludes to other passages. Notice that the sword in his mouth is used again in Revelation.
18:24: Which we just read to talk about if he's coming to conquer and judge. If you want to look why the sword is in his mouth, turn to Isaiah 11.
18:49: I thought it would be easier to keep a small outline on one page, and it turns out
18:54: I should have copied and pasted all the verses to the outline, which
18:59: I'll do next time in one year when I do this again. All right, the sword in his mouth,
19:06: Isaiah 11. Let's back up a little bit to verse. We'll start at verse 1.
19:14: There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his root shall bear fruit.
19:19: And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the
19:28: Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eye sees or decide disputes by what his ears hear.
19:37: So pause there. Now we're talking about him as a judge. But in verse 4, with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
19:47: And here's his method or means of judgment in the middle of verse 4. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
19:59: So the fact that he has a rod in his mouth in this and the swords in his mouth in Revelation 1 indicate they're supposed to be sort of help explain each other.
20:10: So what we see here is his righteous judgments on the wicked and on the just are the reason that he's seen with the sword in his mouth.
20:21: He's the righteous judge. The sword is the punishment on the wicked, but he's declaring it.
20:29: Righteously. That leads us also to his eyes, which are seen as flames of fire.
20:35: And most people agree here that that image is designed to give you the understanding not only of judgment, but that his complete knowledge and his ability to see everything.
20:47: So you have the judge who's makes declarations of guilt or innocence, the sword in his mouth and the eyes seeing all.
20:54: You don't have to worry that maybe he missed something or conversely, you do have to worry like, okay, you think
21:00: I got away with this, but really he sees all. That interpretation supported by, if you go through Revelation 2 all the way through 3 and those seven letters to the churches in each one of them, it starts by Christ saying,
21:15: I know and you know, dot, dot, dot. Christ's omniscience is all knowing nature.
21:22: His, the ability to see that's what his eyes are. So he's the, in his king, his kingly role, he's the judge who's all knowing and he declares righteousness or guilt or innocence, obviously through his mouth, which is the sword is not there as a method of nonviolence or somebody described him very similarly to Gandhi, which was weird, but it's not an idea of nonviolence and he's just speaking and he conquers the world.
21:58: It's not even that he designed, that he's conquering the world through the gospel, which is true and you can see that in other areas, but the idea is that he's the righteous judge.
22:08: His declaration of guilt or innocence is combined with his punishment for the same.
22:18: Okay, so we've talked about his flaming fire, the sword in his mouth. The feet are also described feet like fine brass.
22:28: So that paralleled the man in Daniel, it also parallels the cherubim in Ezekiel one and the idea there is the brass is refined by fire.
22:43: So you have the idea of judgment there and also I was looking through the commentators and a lot of them agree it's the idea of judgment as well in other passages throughout
22:53: Revelation, it talks about stamping on the grapes in the wine press and the idea is here he's a judge, he's like a warrior judge.
23:06: Any questions on that? Because I'm not, I'm certain I did not explain that completely clearly, so there's probably some question.
23:19: Okay, so we've seen him as divine. We've seen in this image Christ as king. Let's look again at Christ as priest.
23:28: Any ideas where we would see this in the text? Exactly, that's my
23:34: Dora the Explorer imitation there. Yeah, if you look at the first thing
23:44: John sees and it's important that this is the first thing that John sees because it's interesting. So he hears this voice, he turns and the image of Christ is just amazing image but he doesn't tell you about that first.
23:56: The first thing he talks about is the lampstands and it's not a big phrase but in verse 13, in the midst of the lampstands, one like the son of man.
24:07: The lampstands, some people talk about them. I think Matthew Henry was talking, okay, the lampstands are the church which is true.
24:14: We get that at the end of this chapter and the lampstands are meant to represent the purity of the church and the church shining their light.
24:23: It's definitely true that the church is supposed to be a light in the world and that's one of the implications here but the main point of this is to point you back to temple imagery.
24:36: John is using the lampstands to sort of, it's almost like a picture of Christ in the temple but he's taken the lampstand that would be in the temple and he's divided it into seven different lampstands.
24:49: He's referencing Zechariah four, which
24:56: I'll turn to. It only helps if I put the sticky note in the right place.
25:12: So he references Zechariah four in several places throughout Revelation but if you look at four verse one, the angel who talked to me came again and woke me like a man who was awakened out of a sleep.
25:25: So this is one of, I think, seven visions, maybe six, that Zechariah sees.
25:32: He woke me like a man who was awakened out of his sleep and he said to me, what do you see?
25:38: I said, I see and behold a lampstand, all of gold, with a bowl on top of it and seven lamps on it with seven lips on each of the lamps who are on the top of it.
25:49: So this lampstand here is, in the context, we're rebuilding the temple after the exile.
25:56: The lampstand is meant to represent the people of God here and the people of God are rebuilding the temple but not by their own works.
26:06: It's explained later on when he asks, what does this mean?
26:11: He says in verse six, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power but by the spirit, says the
26:20: Lord of hosts. So the idea is Zerubbabel is not going to build the temple on his own, it's gonna be done through God's power.
26:32: The temple is the most important building in the entire
26:37: Old Testament because the temple represents God's ability to dwell with his people. If you remember at the dedication of the temple,
26:45: Solomon prays, it's almost like he turns the temple into a phone booth, which is kind of a crass image for the temple but it's the idea that through the temple, men now have access to God.
27:01: And so even one of the surprising things in the temple dedication that Solomon prays is that the foreigner can turn to the temple and have access to God as well.
27:15: But no, the temple represents God's, the fact that he can dwell with his people.
27:20: That's why in Ezekiel, it's such a big deal. People are relying on the fact that the temple is there, they don't think that they're going to be destroyed but then
27:29: Ezekiel sees the vision of the glory of God actually leaving the temple and that should be the most devastating part of Ezekiel.
27:40: So this lampstand is meant to sort of put you in the idea of temple imagery.
27:47: The other thing that it does is it reminds you of the priests. And that's why we're talking here about Christ as priest because the priests were the one who tended the lampstand and you can look at Leviticus 24 for that.
28:01: One of the things I like here is that you've got the priestly image and the kingly image combined and that you sort of see in the garments.
28:08: The garments that he's wearing is that white robe and the golden sash. That is, I think, intentionally ambiguous.
28:16: So people aren't sure, is this kingly or is this priestly? An indication that it might be priestly could be seen in Revelation 11.
28:26: You have the angels coming out with the plagues. That's not Revelation 11, but I didn't write it down.
28:33: Wherever, oh, here it is, Revelation 15. The angels ministering before the altar are dressed in the same clothes, which would put you in the idea that it's priestly.
28:44: The word, the Greek word there is used to refer to the priest's garments in the Greek translation of the
28:51: Old Testament as well. But it's ambiguous enough to give this idea of like a king priest.
28:59: And so in the commentaries I read, some of them were pointing out that you had during the
29:04: Maccabean Revolution, you had language of at least two people who were talked of as both a priest and a ruler.
29:12: Since I haven't read 1 and 2 Maccabees, I can't speak to that.
29:18: Also, it's better to just point out that you have it in the Bible.
29:23: So we have it in Zechariah. Zechariah 13 is, I like Zechariah, I'm sorry,
29:33: Zechariah 6, verse 13. I like this because it's supposed to surprise you.
29:40: You see a vision, you know, or Zechariah sees a vision, he should start to know what's coming.
29:45: A crown's being made, it's about to be placed on somebody's head. That crown is obviously, if you're tracking along with it, that crown is going on the head of Zerubbabel because he's the leader at that time.
29:57: But then it doesn't and that's the surprise. So I have to back up to verse 9 to see that.
30:12: So Zechariah 6, 9, the word of the Lord came to me, take from the exiles, and then a list of names, which
30:18: I would have practiced pronouncing if I knew that. I was gonna read this verse, who had arrived from Babylon and go to the same day to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, take from them silver and gold and make a crown.
30:31: So he's told to make a crown and set it on the head of, and this is the surprise,
30:37: Joshua, the son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest. So the crown that you're expecting to go straight on the head of the ruler
30:47: Zerubbabel goes on the high priest instead. And say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, the man whose name is the branch, for he shall branch out from his place and shall build the temple of the
30:58: Lord. It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule on his throne.
31:05: And there shall be a priest on his throne and the council of priests shall be between them both.
31:12: So that's one of the most clear passages in the
31:18: Old Testament where we've taken the priestly language and the kingly language and brought them together to know, to expect basically a king and a king priest or a priest king.
31:31: So we're seeing in Revelation 9, first we saw the deity, then we saw the office of king for the vision of Christ.
31:39: Now we've seen the office of priest. Any question on any of those? All right, so the one other thing then that I want to point out is that this king, this divine king priest that we've seen in Revelation 1 is where he's dwelling.
31:59: In Revelation 4 and 5, John is taken in the vision to the throne room of God.
32:05: And we see Christ reigning as king over all creation. But here his situation doesn't change.
32:12: He's still on Patmos. And that's significant because John is on Patmos suffering for the sake of the gospel and Christ is there with him.
32:23: So you have the divine king with his people. You see that also in verse 12, talking about him in the midst of the golden lampstands because John interprets the lampstands for us in verse 20 that the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
32:42: So basically the idea here is that you have this divine king priest and he's not off out ruling where nobody has access or anything, but he's in the midst of his people.
32:55: And that would be one of the key things that is going to lead his people to either be comforted by this vision or those who have given into idolatry and are now worshiping idols instead of God, that's going to lead them hopefully to repentance because you don't have a
33:14: God who is far off and this God, this judge with the sword in his mouth is present with his people.
33:23: So I wanna talk now just a little bit about the response that this would have caused.
33:30: Part of the point of a vision is to elicit a response, not just mental agreement.
33:38: So John could have just said Christ is God, Christ is judge,
33:43: Christ will come, Christ is priest. And it doesn't have the same effect as if you are told here's this person whose eyes are flaming fire and whose mouth has a sword and whose hand has seven stars in it.
33:59: It's designed to engage your imagination which is designed to evoke a fuller response, both mental and emotional.
34:11: On a side note, the point here is not to figure out, the vision is not to say here's what
34:17: Christ looks like in the sense of what will Christ be when we get to heaven and he's gonna look like that.
34:23: That's not the point of this. There's no literal sword coming out of his mouth.
34:33: Somebody actually took all of these images, symbols together and made an image of the person and it has the opposite effect as it's supposed to.
34:46: And it could have just been their ability to do it wasn't very good, but it looks just goofy.
34:52: This is not supposed to be a visual effect elicit like a laugh or an eye roll.
34:58: It's supposed to elicit fear for some and comfort for others.
35:04: So the responses are those two, fear and comfort. And I wanna look at the responses in three minutes or for three minutes.
35:16: And the responses are seen really in the next two chapters because what John does is he gives you this image of Christ and then in the seven letters to the churches, he refers to specific aspects of this image and it's a different aspect to each church.
35:32: So for example, the first church, Church of Ephesus, he says to the angel of the church in Ephesus, write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand.
35:43: Then later to Smyrna, he writes the words of him who is the first and the last. Sardis, the words of him who has seven spirits in the seven stars.
35:53: So he's taking aspects of these image and applying it to the church, to each of those seven churches in a different way.
36:01: He's doing that because that is best used to address the context that they're in.
36:08: But if we look at the judgments in two main categories or the response, sorry, one of fear, one of comfort.
36:18: So if we look at fear, look at 218 quickly. His eyes, the words of the son of God, whose eyes are like a flame of fire and whose feet are burnished bronze.
36:36: So he gives you that image and then he goes on to talk about the church. I have this against you, he says to the church, that you tolerate the woman
36:44: Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
36:55: So his point here is you have the vision in chapter one now applied to the church and those reading it are going to be afraid if they're part of this group who are compromising by idol worship and sexual immorality.
37:16: The sexual immorality is probably at the same time tied into the idolatry.
37:23: You have it again in Revelation 19, which we read at the beginning here.
37:33: And I want to, in that context, look at, nope, I don't, because I'm running out of time.
37:40: So we have this idea of fear and I'm running out of time, but I can't end all this about, here's the application, be afraid and go home and be blessed.
37:52: So you have this idea of Christ as judge, which for those who are compromising would lead them to fear, but you have
38:00: Christ as priest as well. And I'm going to rush through this, so I'm not going to poke around into the text as much.
38:06: The idea here though, is that Christ who is coming to judge also has the ability to forgive and to cleanse you from your sin.
38:15: And you can see that specifically in the Church of Laodicea. He has nothing good to say about them.
38:24: That would be startling. Here's a church and God, who's your king and your priest, has nothing good to say about you, but he counsels them to buy clothes, white garments, and to buy pure gold.
38:38: And he's basically telling them, I stand at the door, I'm knocking, come to me. And he has the ability to forgive.
38:45: It'll also be not only fear, but comfort. And so in the Church of Smyrna, he specifically tells them that they need not fear death.
38:54: They don't need to fear the second death because Christ has conquered. They know that they're going to likely die under the persecution that they're facing.
39:04: But Christ, who is in their midst, who knows his own and is the powerful one who has control over what happens through his death, he has conquered the last death.
39:19: So I rushed through the ending there. I apologize for that. Any questions before we pray quickly?
39:29: Sounds good. So future note, if you don't want any questions, do a
39:34: Sunday school lesson on Revelation. It's perfect. All right, let's pray quick. And then,
39:42: Lord, thank you for your might, for your power, the fact that you rule the nations, you rule over everything, and that you rule your church as well.
39:53: Thank you that we need not fear, regardless of where we live or what culture we live in.
40:00: We know that we'll be tempted at times to compromise, to deny our faith in order to live more peacefully or to live more comfortably in our culture.
40:11: But thank you for reminding us of your judgment, of your justice, of the fact that you are also our priest and have perfectly forgiven all our sins.
40:22: Help us to focus more on you than on the world around us. In Christ's name, amen.