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Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190005A
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00:01 Where is Jesus now?
00:03 And what is He doing? 00:05 Heaven is a busy place. 00:07 And it's all about you. 00:32 One of the most fascinating scenes that we see 00:34 in the book of Revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ 00:37 Himself, is that He's standing right in the midst 00:40 of seven golden candlesticks. 00:43 Why is Jesus standing there in those seven golden candlesticks? 00:47 It's because heaven is a very busy place, as we're going to 00:50 find out in this time together. 00:53 The book of Revelation talks about the seven churches. 00:57 And Jesus is passionate about His churches. 00:59 The churches are the focus of His love, 01:02 and He has great expectations for His churches. 01:05 In Revelation 1:4-6, John is saying to the seven churches, 01:11 or Jesus is saying through John, 01:13 "John, to the seven churches that are in Asia..." 01:15 I'm skipping down just a little bit. 01:17 "To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins 01:21 with His own blood, and made us kings and priests 01:26 to His God and Father, 01:27 to Him be glory and honor and dominion forever and ever." 01:30 What John is really saying is that the Lord Jesus 01:34 has great plans for His church and for His people. 01:37 Exceedingly, abundantly beyond what we can imagine 01:40 or even think about. 01:43 Well, why are the churches so special? 01:46 Now a lot of people today, they take churches for granted. 01:48 You know, they look at them, they see them, 01:51 they hope somebody is going, but they're not going. 01:54 But the church to the Savior is very, very special. 02:00 And we want to understand that. 02:01 At the end of the seventy weeks, as we talked about earlier 02:04 in another broadcast, we find that as the nation of Israel 02:10 and its leadership, many wonderful Jewish people, 02:12 but as the nation and the leadership rejected Jesus 02:15 as the Messiah, the mission that had been given to Israel 02:19 now switched to the Christian church. 02:21 And the Christian church is now the agency by which 02:24 Jesus moves and communicates to the world. 02:28 That's pretty important. 02:30 Communication is a very important thing. 02:32 Without communication, you can't get your message across. 02:35 So Jesus is working through human agencies. 02:38 And the church of Jesus versus the great red dragon. 02:43 Because the great red dragon, Satan, 02:46 also works through human agents. 02:48 Now we're going to see more about that as we get into the 02:51 great dragon, and the beast from the sea, 02:54 and the beast from the earth, and all of those symbolic powers 02:57 that the Bible talks about. 02:59 But the church is the agency through which Jesus operates. 03:03 And in the first part of Revelation, 03:05 that's where the focus is at. 03:07 It's on the church of the living God. 03:10 In fact, Jesus wants you to be, He wants His church, 03:13 He wants you to be encouraged. 03:15 He wants to give you a lot of hope. 03:16 So right in the very first chapter of Revelation 03:21 we have these words, Revelation 1:8, it says, 03:25 "Behold, He is coming with clouds, 03:29 and every eye will see Him..." 03:32 So right away He says, "Look, I am coming back." 03:34 Yes, the book of Revelation is going to tell you about 03:36 a lot of tribulation, a lot of difficulty. 03:39 It's not all going to happen at one time. 03:41 It starts right in John's day and it covers 03:44 the entire Christian era. 03:46 We'll talk more about that. 03:48 But the church is given encouragement. 03:51 Encouragement because Jesus is coming back. 03:56 Sometimes people get, they think that the Lord has 03:59 delayed His coming. 04:00 But He knows what He's doing. 04:02 And He's going to come back and get His church 04:04 and redeem them. 04:06 So no matter what the church goes through, 04:08 the church has hope. 04:10 Now you know when Jesus was here and He was crucified, 04:13 He was mocked, He was made fun of, 04:15 it still just hurts me so much to think of how 04:20 here Jesus is dying on the cross and people are walking in front 04:24 of Him while He's dying making fun of Him, mocking Him. 04:30 But listen to what the Bible says. 04:32 The Bible says that those who pierced Him... 04:37 And I think that's going to include those who sentenced Him, 04:39 and mocked Him, and put Him on that cross. 04:42 They're going to see Jesus come. 04:45 They're going to see Him come. 04:46 There's probably going to be a special resurrection, 04:49 but they're going to see Him. 04:50 Remember in His trial Jesus told Caiaphas, 04:54 when he said, you know, "Who are You? 04:56 Are You the Son of God?" 04:57 I'm paraphrasing, using my own words. 05:00 And Jesus said, "You will see the Son of Man 05:03 coming in the clouds of heaven." 05:06 So that's going to happen. 05:09 This Man they mocked and hung on the cross 05:13 who had been so good, who gave sight to the blind, 05:17 who cured the leprosy, who raised the dead. 05:20 There's no one ever been like Jesus. 05:23 He's the incomparable Jesus. 05:24 He'd go through a whole village and not leave one person sick. 05:28 This wonderful Jesus is coming back. 05:32 And His church has hope. 05:34 It has a lot of hope. 05:36 And you hear it right there in the first part 05:38 of the book of Revelation. 05:40 So in Revelation we have a lot of symbols, 05:44 but these symbols are really rooted in realities. 05:47 They're talking about realities. 05:50 And so these churches, the seven churches 05:53 in the book of Revelation, they're all real churches, 05:56 but they're also symbolic. 05:57 And they also are instruction and messages 06:02 to God's church through all of the Christian era, 06:06 from the time of John all the way to the coming of Jesus, 06:10 I wish people would take the seven churches 06:13 and the messages from Jesus Himself, from His own lips, 06:17 I wish people would take that more serious. 06:19 We need to study those seven churches. 06:22 We need to understand what Jesus is saying to us. 06:24 Those messages are very important. 06:26 Because we have an enemy; he's cunning, 06:29 he hates the church, he wants to destroy the church. 06:32 He tries to destroy it from the inside, 06:34 he'll try to destroy it from the outside. 06:36 But Jesus has promised that the gates of hell 06:39 will not prevail against this church. 06:41 That even though it goes through trouble and difficulty, 06:43 even though it may even appear like it's going to fall, 06:46 it will not. 06:47 God's church will go through, because Jesus 06:51 is steering the boat, if you please, in the storm. 06:56 So we want to look at this imagery that Jesus has given us 06:59 in the book of Revelation. 07:01 Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary. 07:03 We're going to look at Revelation 1:19-20. 07:06 Jesus says to John, "Write these things which you have seen, 07:11 the things which are, and the things which shall take place." 07:14 In other words, the things which are present in John's day 07:18 and the things that are going to take place. 07:20 So this is a prophetic picture for God's people 07:24 and for the church till Jesus comes. 07:26 And then He says, "The mystery of the seven stars 07:31 which you saw in My hand, in My right hand, 07:35 and the seven golden lampstands..." 07:38 What's the meaning of those symbols? 07:42 So Jesus is going to tell us what He means by those symbols. 07:48 Then He says, "The seven stars are the angels 07:55 of the seven churches..." 07:57 So there are designated messengers for these churches. 08:01 We'll talk about that in a moment. 08:03 "...and the seven lampstands which you saw 08:06 are the seven churches." 08:07 So the seven lampstands represent light, 08:11 and they are the seven churches. 08:13 But it also says earlier that the seven lampstands 08:17 are the seven spirits of God. 08:19 Now the Holy Spirit is at work in the church. 08:23 And we want to talk about the Holy Spirit. 08:25 Before I do that, let's talk about the seven stars 08:28 for just a moment. 08:29 That word, "angel," means, "messenger." 08:32 Now I don't have any doubt that there are heavenly messengers, 08:35 heavenly angels, that are assigned 08:37 to look after God's churches. 08:39 I don't have any questions about that. 08:41 But it also can mean ministers, or the human agents that are 08:45 in charge of God's church. 08:47 I had a friend of mine that says, he took this and he says, 08:50 "You know, this is an important passage. 08:52 Because God, He's very interested in those who are 08:56 giving leadership to His church." 08:57 Now they're not better that anybody else, 08:59 but they have huge responsibilities. 09:02 Now many are faithful and they're going to get a 09:04 faithful person's reward. 09:05 And many of these leaders sometimes are not faithful 09:08 and they're not going to get a faithful reward. 09:10 But Jesus is watching over His church 09:12 and He does hold it in His hands. 09:14 So if you're a leader, if you're an elder in your local church, 09:18 or you're giving leadership in your local church, 09:21 or you're a pastor, or a member, just remember God has His church 09:26 in His hands. 09:29 So let's take a look at these seven golden lampstands 09:31 for just a moment. 09:33 We want to look again at the fact that the Holy Spirit 09:36 is operating at this. 09:37 At the end of every church Jesus will say to that church, 09:42 He will say, "He that has an ear let him hear 09:47 what the Spirit says to the churches." 09:51 So the Holy Spirit is speaking to the church. 09:54 Now the Holy Spirit is like oil. 09:57 And the oil is the fuel that makes the church 10:01 bright and light. 10:03 So if we don't have the Holy Spirit in the church, 10:07 the church is not going to burn brightly. 10:10 And this is a dark world, let me tell you. 10:12 There's darkness everywhere. 10:14 It seems like it's getting darker by the moment. 10:16 And if there was ever a time for the church to shine, 10:20 it's now. 10:21 And the church is no stronger than those who are the members 10:25 in that church. 10:27 So today we have, of course, lots of attack on the church. 10:31 We have an absence of the Holy Spirit in the church. 10:34 We need to be praying and pleading with 10:36 God for the Holy Spirit. 10:38 And when there's no Holy Spirit moving in the church, 10:41 the church doesn't burn. 10:43 Doesn't burn brightly at all. 10:46 So the Holy Spirit's job is to put the fuel and the power 10:51 in the local church. 10:52 That's the reason there are some churches 10:54 that have a form of godliness but they don't have power, 10:59 real genuine spiritual power that changes 11:02 the lives of people. 11:04 There was one church, big megachurch, 11:06 I won't say which one it was, some years ago, 11:09 I mean, they had a lot of snap, crackle, and pop. 11:11 They had thousands of members coming out. 11:14 And they decided that they would do a survey, 11:16 and found out that the moral behavior of their members 11:20 was no better than the John Doe in the street. 11:23 They were shocked. 11:26 They had a form of godliness, but no power. 11:32 The church must have power. 11:35 Power that changes people's lives. 11:40 That's why we have to have the Holy Spirit. 11:42 That's why your church and the leaders of your church, 11:45 and I appeal to ministers, don't turn your church 11:50 into a social club. 11:52 Don't turn your church into religious entertainment. 11:56 It's not about religious entertainment. 11:59 This is about getting people ready for Jesus to come, 12:02 because He is coming. 12:04 And He's coming soon. 12:07 You see, the only way to keep that from happening 12:09 is to have the power of the Holy Spirit. 12:11 Now the Holy Spirit is Christ's representative on earth. 12:14 He's the real Vicar of Christ. 12:17 He's the one who's in place of Christ 12:19 while Christ is in the heavenly sanctuary. 12:21 In fact, Jesus said in John 14:15-18, He says, 12:27 "I will pray the Father, and He will give you 12:28 another Comforter..." 12:30 In other words, "Someone like Myself." 12:33 And when the Holy Spirit comes, He brings power. 12:37 But He also brings the living Christ. 12:39 Because He said, "I will not leave you orphans." 12:43 So if you have the Holy Spirit, you have the living Christ. 12:46 And that's why we should be praying for the Holy Spirit. 12:49 Because He brings the living Christ into the church 12:52 and into the hearts of the members. 12:55 I want to share with you a wonderful quote from 12:58 somebody that I have a lot of respect for and appreciation. 13:01 It says, "The lapse of time has brought no change in Christ's 13:05 parting promise to send the Holy Spirit as His representative. 13:09 It is not because of any restriction on the part of God 13:13 that the riches of His grace do not flow earthward to man. 13:17 If the fulfillment of the promise is not seen 13:20 as it might be, it is because the promise 13:24 is not appreciated as it should be. 13:28 If all were willing, all would be filled with the Holy Spirit." 13:34 Now in just a moment I'm going to finish that quote. 13:37 But listen, the church can be filled with the Spirit of God. 13:41 You can be filled with the Spirit of God if we're willing. |
Revised 2019-07-02