Living With Hope In A Dark World

WOLFL-2024-02

Transcript

Okay, living with hope in a dark world. We know God’s plan, that’s why we have hope. Now remember, most of the world doesn’t know where things are going. And if you at all say that you understand the Bible…, when I sit at Starbucks, I a lot of times sit there with a paper Bible. I have all kinds of electronics, but it helps people know what you’re doing. If you have a paper Bible, they’ll actually come and go like this and look at it. I’ve seen them do it. And I’ll be working away and almost every time I study at a public place, finally, some person will stand up and they’ll say, what are you doing? And I’ll say, I’m studying the Bible. And they go, why? I say, why I teach the Bible. They’ll go, I have a question. Did you know people down deep? I think it’s part of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. They want to know what the Bible says. They’ve heard about the Bible, good and bad stuff, and they feel this draw to it. When you tell them on top of that, that you know the plan for the future. It will fascinate them.

After I talked to that truck driver, that I told you about at the 7 Eleven, I went to get my hair cut, both of my hairs cut. That means I know that I don’t have very much. And the lady said, you know how at barbershops, it was a lady and she’s cutting my hair, there were eight chairs, they were all cutting, and she was clipping away, and she said, what do you do? They talk really loud to everybody. And I go, I thought if we’re going to be loud, I’ll be loud. I said, I teach ancient history. Oh, what kind of ancient history? I said, oh, I teach the primary doctrines of the Christian faith. She’s clipping away. She said, what does that mean?

I said, I teach the Bible. She said, you teach the Bible? I said, yeah. She said, what do you think what’s going on in the news? I said, I think it’s great. I said, I know how the world’s going to end. Did you know all eight chairs? Everyone stopped talking, it’s one of those quick clips or short clips or whatever where you’re just all boom, boom, boom by each other, everyone was there. She said, how’s the world going to end? I said and I started sharing the Gospel. Did you know the whole time I shared the Gospel, no one spoke in the whole barbershop. All you heard is, how they, the sound of those clippers. Buzz. And everyone was listening. And I said, I even have for you, and I always have this in my, whoop, it’s in this pocket, I said, I have something for you.

Everyone started to look like this. I said, has anybody ever given you one of these? And she said, I don’t know what is it? I said this is a paper with verses from the Bible. It’s called a tract. And I showed her, St. John, St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans. I said, everything I just shared with you, is written down. And I said, I would like to challenge you to read this. I use these because they only cost a nickel, the fancy ones, the booklets cost 50 cents and you can go broke giving those away. But I, these are a nickel and I buy them by the hundred, and I always, every day I take one of these tracts, I fold it in half and I say, Lord, I pray you’d give me a divine appointment to share the Gospel with someone.

And I put it in my wallet. And you know what happens? Because I’m not an evangelist, I really am, I don’t really enjoy doing that. It’s scary to me to interrupt people and tell them they’re going to Hell and they’re a sinner. I don’t like that. But I pray and it just like boom, that lady said, tell me, how do you know the world’s going to end? Tell me, what do you mean the Gospel? And that was my appointment. I shared it. So that’s what we’re supposed to do because we know God’s plan.

And the book of Revelation says the way we accomplish God’s plan is Jesus. See, Jesus is the answer to whatever you need to accomplish God’s will. Whatever…, I’ve only gotten this far, meeting all of you, I’ve got the first four in the front row, hearing how God has gifted you and what He’s doing in your lives and what you see His hand as being. But do you know the only thing that will get that accomplished is Jesus is all we need. And the book of Revelation was written to these struggling second generation Christians, who were going through persecution, who were going through martyrdom. It came to a point where the Romans, in this area, I’m going to show you on the map, in a couple of slides, would march people up to the edge of cliffs, and a Roman legionnaire would stand behind you, And it was just air in front of you and rocks down below, and he’d say, are you a Christian? Yes, or no? And you didn’t get to say, maybe, I’m thinking about it, it was a yes or a no. And they pushed off, actually in one town in Roman province of Asia, they pushed 10,000 people off the cliff and killed them. Can you imagine how easy it would be to go, no, you were safe. That’s all it took. Yes, or no? They didn’t quiz you, do doctrine, they didn’t check your Facebook, look in your phone, they just, it was a verbal yes or no. And that’s what these people were facing. You talk about the acid test of whether you’re going to stand for Christ.

That’s why they realized Jesus is the only one that’s always going to be with me. The only one that’s going to be able to help me. The one that is holding on to me, so I know I have eternal life. And so, they were faithful unto death. And by the way, that’s why the Roman Empire gave up on them. More and more of those centurions that were pushing people off the cliffs became Christians because they had never seen such hopeful, joyful, unafraid people. And the emperor started losing. He had to start executing Roman legionnaires because they became Christians. And so that’s how the Lord turned the tide.

Think about Revelation, because someday you’re going to wake up like John did. Think about the Apostle John in chapter 1, where we’re going right now. You’ll wake up feeling lonely. John was all alone. He was like 80 to 90 years old. He was as old as Bruce back there. Little older than me. And he was all alone, on this island. He was endangered. They had hunted him down. He was the last apostle. And so, the soldiers came looking for him until they found him. They caught him. They chained him up. They put him on a boat, and they put him out on this penal colony, it’s called a prison island. He was abandoned. No one knew where he was.

Where was he before they caught him? He was the pastor of the church in Ephesus. So, he was very famous to thousands of people. But without social media and cell phones, when the Romans came and took him, nobody knew where they took him. So, he was abandoned. Nobody knew where he was. He was all alone. He was left out. How would you like that? He didn’t know what was going on in Ephesus. There was no internet. Imagine what it’s like. Have you ever been when the power goes off and your phone doesn’t work, and the TV doesn’t work? Do they ever have power outages here in Florida? I was just teaching in New York in that blizzard two weeks ago, and the power went out in class. And it was just…, and in our room, and the heat went off, and everything went off. It was just power outage. Don’t you feel disconnected, especially if your battery runs out? What’s the first thing everybody does? They plug in their phone when they hear it’s going to be a problem. We don’t want to be disconnected.

John was disconnected from everybody. That’s why God sent Revelation 1 to John. Do you remember what John heard Jesus say? Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. That’s what Matthew 28:20 says. John was there, he heard Jesus say it. And he’s on this island, and he sees it happen. Jesus actually comes and stands next to him, and says, you’re not alone. Now, He doesn’t do that now, visibly, but it’s just as true. You’re not alone. Whatever it is God’s designed you to do, you’re not ever going to be alone. And that’s the message of chapter 1.

John was at the worst time of his life. He was alone. He was out of touch. He was weak because he was like 90 years old. He was in old age. He was in an insecure situation. He didn’t know if they were going to execute him. They had killed all the other apostles. He was the last one left. All of them had been hunted down. All of them had been horribly murdered. He was the last one. So he expected, whenever he heard the sound of a soldier coming, he didn’t know if they were coming there to kill him.

Revelation 1:9, he said this, I, John, both your brother and companion, now listen to this, in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. Every one of those words are important, but let me just talk about tribulation. The Greek word, and if, do you guys still use logos? Yeah. If you look up the Greek word, the Greek word for tribulation is an interesting word. T H L I P S I S, thlipsis. It’s hard to even say. Our tongues, thlipsis, how you say that in Greek is very hard. Do you know what it means? To be squashed. Tribulation is when everything around you, the events, the world, life, your situation, your health, everything, your emotions, squash you. It’s like when they make olive oil, they take the olives, and they put them through this crusher and then they squeeze them until all the oil comes out. John was in thlipsis. He was being pressured by life and the world. That’s what the tribulation, the kingdom, the patience of Jesus is.

I was on Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. He was on Patmos because he said, yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I am the Apostle John. Yes, I do know Jesus Christ. Yes, I am the last living apostle. See, they came looking for him. They didn’t have smartphones and Facebook, so they had to actually Remember how Judas had to stand next to Jesus and kiss Him, so they’d know which one to arrest? You remember all that from the Gospels? They didn’t have facial recognition back then. They didn’t have photos. So, someone had to identify you, that you’re the one. John just said, it’s me. So, John was at the worst time of his life.

John was a prisoner of the empire on Patmos. He had been hunted, he had been captured, he had been exiled.

Now he’s trapped right there. Do you see the red arrow? That’s where Patmos is. It’s just off the coast of Turkey and it’s just off the coast of Ephesus. They didn’t take him far. 40, 50 miles out into the water on this little tiny island.

John had been serving in that church, right there, the first yellow one on the left, Ephesus. And they had dragged him to the pink one, Patmos, that little tiny island. And there he was. And as he was there, he was in what historians tell us was the center of the Roman Empire.

Now here’s a little clip, little lesson for you. There are more Roman buildings in Turkey. That’s Turkey. That yellow part you see there, that’s Turkey today. There are more Roman buildings there than there are in Italy. There are more Greek temples there than there are in Greece. And that was the center of the Roman Empire. That was the locus of power. That was the commercial, military, everything. Now the political was still, the political headquarters was Rome. But the center of the empire was right there. And this group of churches were in the center of the hardest place to be a Christian, because it was the center of Rome. And what was happening in Rome is, and when Jesus sent Revelation, He knew that there were going to be century after century of these guys, up there.

Look at those mug shots. That’s an artificial intelligence rendering of what all the statues, if you took all the known statues of these guys and made them look colorized and like normal people instead of like a piece of stone. That’s what their faces would have looked like. Julius Caesar up there in the top left and Augustus Caesar next to him and Tiberius. These are the guys of the Bible. But they were absolute, ruthless leaders who killed anyone in their path.

By the time you get to the one on the far right, that’s Nero and then the next one after him, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and then you get to Vespasian, and then Titus, that’s the one that destroyed Jerusalem. And then the middle row, far right one, that’s Domitian, that’s the one that put John on Patmos. And we’re only in the first hundred years, you ought to see the rest of them. Revelation was sent to give believers hope in hard times.

John, when he said, I’m your companion if you look at verse 9, and I’ll read it to you again, it says, John, I John, both your brother and companion in tribulation. Do you know what he was saying? I’m facing what you’re facing. If it wasn’t persecution, it was rampant materialism. The hardships, surrounded by sin, false doctrine, pagan rulers. He said, I’m going through what you’re going through. John shared the same struggle as the faithful saints in the seven churches. And Jesus came to him and said, what you need on Patmos is to understand Me in the fullness of all that I am and communicate to these seven churches that Jesus is all you need.

The bottom line is, it’s never been easy to follow Jesus. Never.

Now, when I started in school, I went to Michigan State University. That is not Word of Life Bible Institute. Michigan State University had 50,000 students. When I checked into my dorm, there was a necktie on the doorknob. A necktie? Do you even know what a necktie is? It’s like a noose that men put around their necks, different colors, and they wear them when they dress up. I didn’t know what a necktie on your dorm room door meant. What it means is that the other boy that lived in my room had his girlfriend in the room in his bunk bed with him, and they were busy. That’s what a necktie on the doorknob means. It means we’re using this room for sexual activity. I didn’t know. I just walked right in my dorm dragging my suitcase. Welcome to Michigan State University. That was the beginning of my career there. So, I backed out and went to the men’s room. Thankfully back then they had men’s bathrooms and women’s bathrooms. And I went to my, the men’s room, pulling my suitcase. I was quite embarrassed. On the wall of the men’s room was a life size, five foot, five inch high, naked poster of a girl, a woman, a female. Welcome to Michigan State University. I thought it was terrible. I tore it down, wad it up, put it in a trash can. They almost killed me. That had cost someone $20. And they searched the dorm until they found out who destroyed our pinup girl.

So, here I am at Michigan State University, this Christian kid in this horrible environment. I got to my first class. My first class had 600 students. Alphabetically arranged, A’s, B’s, C’s, top row. A’s, B’s, C’s, down to the Z’s in the front row. Amphitheater setting. The professor, my first teacher at Michigan State University, wore playboy bunny pants. So, they were little tiny short shorts, this short. Disgusting for a man. So, they were little tiny short shorts. This short. Disgusting for a man to wear shorts that short. Had a big cut in them so you could see too much. His shirt was open to his navel. So, it was all open, big hairy chest, and he had a unicorn horn necklace. A unicorn horn necklace. Hairy chest. Smoking. You can tell how long ago it was.

He didn’t smoke the way the westerns smoke. He had his cigarette between those two fingers. He came out, this is the first moment of class, and he flicked his cigarette on the floor, went like this, and he said, my goal in this class, which is English literature, is to teach all of you that the Bible is mythology. It was an English literature class. English literature. If you know anything about English literature, it’s filled with metaphors about the Bible. All the stuff you’ve heard, Moby Dick is, so many of the Shakespeare, they’re all quoting Chaucer, all of them quoting the Bible. And so, he wanted us to know that the Bible is mythology. So, there’s my first class. I’d already gotten run out of my dorm room. I got into trouble in the bathroom. Now, I’m in my first class, and I’m in the very top. I’m a B. Barnett. So, I’m in the top row of 600 kids. And my mom said, when you go to school, if the teacher says something that you need to make a statement on, or you want a question or whatever, don’t just talk out, raise your hand. I said, okay. So, out of 600 kids, in the back row, I raise my hand.

Mr. Unicorn horn guy goes, son, speak! You don’t have to raise your hand. Say it. So, I stood up and I said, the Bible is not mythology. And I sat down. That’s all I could get out. He didn’t say a word. This is what he did. He went, just pointed at me and laughed. And when he got done with that, what he was saying is, there’s one dinosaur left in this class, and that’s the whole purpose of this class. No one should believe what he believes. He didn’t say it. He just pointed. As soon as the class was over, 50 minutes later, at least 50 kids, you should have seen them. They went totally uphill in the amphitheater up to me and they said we’re Christians, too. Do you want to start a Bible study or something? We’re scared to death. We didn’t know what to say. Thanks for standing up. And that started, we started a navigator Bible study at Michigan State University and memorized scripture. Taught them how to witness, told them to stand up. Did you know, I was scared to death? 600 people, after I already got in trouble in my dorm room, and I got in trouble in the bathroom, now I’m going to get trouble in the classroom. And you know what God will do? If you will go against the flow, it’s not easy to follow Christ, but He wants you to. And Jesus is all we need to make it, to stand up, to speak out for Him.

Okay, when John uses the word patience in verse 9, he’s using the word for God telling us to hold on to Christ and keep serving Him even when it hurts just to live. Now for these people, they were being hunted down. They’re meeting, they were meeting in secret. They were suffering. They were constantly surrounded by so much immorality.

Have you ever heard the word gymnasium? Do you all know what the gym is? Gymnasium, right? Did you know that’s a Greek word? Gymnós is a Greek word. Do you know what the Greek word gymnós means? Naked. Did you know that everybody in sports back then didn’t wear any clothes when they did their sports? Yeah. Oh my. The Olympics were performed completely nude. Those guys ran. Do you know what they wore? Olive oil. Have you ever been to see statues from the Greek world? Have you ever noticed the discus player doesn’t have a thing on? The people that are doing all those things in the museums from the Greco Roman world have no clothes on. Have you noticed that? If you ever go to a museum, probably your parents didn’t take you when you were little, because it’s hard to explain why they’re all naked. It’s because that’s what gymnasiums were for. Nudity.

Homosexuality was the… everybody in sports was involved in homosexuality, it just was. The emperor of Rome, his wife was a male slave. It was just the way the world was back then. They were surrounded by immorality. You couldn’t go to the gym. You couldn’t walk down the street in Ephesus, if you… and Bruce knows this, because you take groups there. Ephesus, the streets of Ephesus, were carved with little symbols that if you followed them would go to a doorway for every form of sexuality you wanted. There was homosexuality, bestiality, normal, prostitution, all carved into everywhere you walked. You are walking through a world of immorality. Why is the number one sin that’s mentioned in the New Testament fornication? That was constantly mentioned. Beware of fornication, because their entertainment, their arts, their media, their sports, everything was immorality. It’s like the internet. Just like this. Did you know that about 85 percent of all pornography is on mobile devices? Why? Because people can be in a corner, and nobody can see what they’re doing, and it’s convenient. We live in a world very similar to this world of the Bible. Okay, back to reality.

This is what your course guide says. This is everything you need to do. Number one, read Revelation. You get 30 points. Number two, do the Revelation project. How many of you have noticed that and wondered about it? Oh, good. I’m always happy for those that are looking ahead and want to do it. I will give you a quick view of it. And then you have your exam. And in your exam, I’m going to share with you one question that’s going to be… How long does it take to read the Bible out loud when you’re in the sixth grade? How long do you think it takes to read the whole Bible? Out loud, back when you were a sixth grader? 72 hours. Exactly. We have a genius right here. Second row, first seat. Did you know the average sixth grader, if they were sitting in front of a Bible and could pronounce all the words, could read the entire Bible in 72 hours? Let me ask you a quick question. Real quickly. How many of you read the whole Bible, in your whole lifetime, at least once? Okay. How many of you haven’t yet, but you’re hoping to read the whole Bible? Okay. You have, 72 hours is all you need. How long is one football game? Three hours. How long is a basketball game? Soccer game? How long is a normal movie? Maybe three, two. All the previews. Oh, a Marvel movie is three hours. Do you understand what I mean?

Do you know, as a pastor, what all my people in my churches that I pastored for 40 years told me? I’d say, hey, have you read the Bible? They’d say, I don’t have time. I said, you don’t have time? You have 168 hours a week. It only takes 72. I was your age, most of your age, I was 19 years old. I was in Bible college just like you. I had only read the Bible through one time because someone paid me $100 to do it. They said, I’ll send you to camp, I’ll pay the $100 if you read the whole Bible. And I sat and read the whole thing. Took me 72 hours like it does. One time. Boy, what a mercenary view of Bible reading I had.

I got to Bible college at 19. This guy taught the Bible like I’d never heard before. I went up to see him at the end of the class and I said, how on earth do you understand the Bible? And he looked at me, he was really old. He looked at me and he said, Son, you will never be able to teach the Bible. He said, you’re in Bible school, right? I said, yeah. He said, you want to teach the Bible someday? I said, yeah. He said, you’ll never be able to do it until you’ve read the Bible through at least once for every year you are old. I said, I’m 19. He said, yeah, you’re behind. He said, you’ve only read it once, right? So, I looked at a chart of my 160 hours a week and I knocked out all the stuff I didn’t need to do. I used to waste so much time, and I found two hours and 20 minutes every day that was unneeded for anything else and I divided it into little pieces. Like about 30 some minutes in each piece, and I would read the Bible for 30 minutes, 30 minutes throughout the day. I read the Bible through that month, once. All of it in one month.

And I look for only one thing. That’s what I learned as a key. You look for one thing. And I look for, the first time, every prayer in the Bible. I took a blue marker, and I marked every time someone prayed, how they prayed, what they prayed. How long they prayed. Anything about prayers. And when I got done, there was blue all the way through my Bible. And I had just studied every prayer in the Bible. It’s better than buying a book on it. I had found who prayed the most, what they prayed for, what they prayed about. What was the most often prayed for thing in the Bible. Who prayed the longest prayer. It was fascinating. What Jesus prayed for, marked. That was month one. I already knew more than almost everybody that I went to school with about prayer, because most of them had never read the whole Bible or even looked for that. The next time, I did prophecy. Everything the Bible says about the future. That’s how I found out a fourth of the Old Testament, I wore out my markers, it’s all about the future. Then I did every name of God. And there are hundreds of them. Hundreds of different, there are over 400 different names and titles, descriptions of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. The next I did marriage and family, and everything the Bible says about what a godly woman looks like, what a godly man looks like, what a godly father, what a godly mother, how to raise children, how to… it was the most amazing study I’d ever done. I was only on my fourth month. I kept doing that.

Last month, I’m at 120 times through the Bible. Every time I read it, I find something different. Something I go, wow, I never saw that before. Bonnie and I actually read the Bible out loud to each other, following a one year Bible. We read the Bible through once a year as a couple, out loud. It’s fun.
So that brings me to this.

That’s my lifelong habit, reading the Bible. I want to understand it so I can teach it. I would like to give you guys, for your project, an opportunity to do something that is my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

I call it the devotional method. And what you do is, you read one chapter of the Bible. You start with the title. You’ve already, you know how you title every chapter of the Bible. Do you still do that? Okay, so either you’ve already done it, or you can do it now for Revelation. You do a chapter title where you summarize that chapter. Then, while you’re reading, you look for the lessons, the truths, the doctrines that you can find. In your own words, you write them down. And then, at the same time, you can use a study bible, but you probably don’t have time or a good resource like Logos. But here’s the hard part, from your title and your things you’ve found, you write a prayer, where you don’t say, Lord, help my roommate to learn this truth, or my parents, or my kids, or my wife, or my husband, but me. You write a prayer where you ask God to apply those truths to you.

Now here’s, I actually am doing this with you. This I typed because I actually hand write this, but I typed it so you could see it. So Revelation 1, my title is: Jesus is the Risen Christ Today and Forever. That’s just my title. You guys can have any title. Anything you do is right, as long as it’s tied to the chapter. Which chapter? You pick 10 from the 22 of Revelation. So, while you’re reading through, you have to read the whole book. So, while you’re reading it through, find the 10 most interesting chapters to you. Write your title, and then here are the lessons.

You’ve already, I’ve already told you all these this morning. God gave us a map of the future, it says that. The things which are going to happen. We are to be God’s servants. I already told you that. God the Father wants us to see life clearly and be confident. That’s why He said, I wrote this so that you would know what’s happening. We can live the best life possible. Remember, he said he wants to bless us. If we read, if we hear, and we keep, that’s the best life possible. And this message is to all believers then and now, where it says to the churches, plural.

Here’s my application prayer. See how simple it is. It’s you writing a prayer out loud that you’re going to pray out loud to the Lord. And you say, 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. Then I get to verse 5. You love me and loose me and wash me from my sin. You are almighty. That’s verse 8. Verse 9, I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. Sunday is Your day. And then verse 11 on. As You walk around Your Church, may You find me healthy.

Did you know Jesus was looking, when He visited church, to find which one of them were healthy? That were actually living the Christian life? That’s what chapter 2 and 3 is all about, how healthy they were spiritually. He was looking not at the church building, or their music, or youth; the believers, whether they were actually living the Christian life. So, I wrote, 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, amen.

So that’s like about a half a page. So, if you do two of these on a page, and do five pages, you have ten. And put spaces around, get wide margins, you know what I mean? The goal is to do it, okay? Now this is, for several years when I was pastoring, my favorite ministry was starting small group Bible studies. And I had all different ones. I had retired policemen, I had coaches, and I had active duty policemen. Boy, listening to those guys. My one group I liked, that was interesting, I called them the Pottery Barn group. Every one of them owned their own business. They were mega successful. And they had these beautiful homes that looked like the Pottery Barn. You probably don’t know what a Pottery Barn is. It’s, girls like it, it’s a furniture store, and they have nice, matching, beautiful, expensive furniture. But all these groups wanted to study the Bible, but this is what killed them. They all wanted to sit around and talk about the Bible. None of them wanted to apply it to their life. I said, no. If you’re in this group, you have to write that prayer and read it out loud to all of us in the group, what you’re asking God to change in your life, this week. A lot of them said, we’re going to quit. But the leader of the Pottery Barn group said, none of you are quitting, we’re all going to do it. He said to me, read your prayer and then we’re going to do ours. So, I read a prayer like this.

You should have heard their prayers. Because God was convicting them. One of them said, I’ve never read the Bible out loud to my family. So, I’ve never blessed my family. Lord, help me to bless my family by… Do you understand? He was applying the Bible to his life. By the time a month went by, I would be at church and wives of these men that were in my group, they would meet me in the hallway, and they would go, what are you telling my husband? I said, what do you mean? My husband is changing. I said, what do you mean? My husband is talking about the Bible, he’s reading the Bible to our family at the meals, and he wants to talk to me and read the Bible with me. Are you telling him to do that? I said, no, I’m not telling him to do it. They so were transformed just by doing this devotional method. The transformational part is that prayer, where you ask God to change something in your life. See, most of us read the Bible because our roommate needs that, or our parents, or our kids, or our boss needs to hear that, or some pagan. We don’t see it as looking in the mirror every day, how God wants to change me. So that’s the devotional method.

Okay, back to John, and it’s 10:35 and we only have 15 minutes, and I have 15 slides, so I’m going to go really fast. John understood a lesson. We can stay full of the Holy Spirit, even in the worst times. Look what it says in verse 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. Did you catch where he was? He was on Patmos. Now, let’s see if this works. Here comes the video. Bonnie and I were just teaching. We taught on Patmos. I got invited to teach the whole book of Revelation on Patmos. And before I left, I took my cell phone. And what I’m going to show you right here is this Bible. That Bible there is on a rock in Patmos. And I sat, put my Bible on a rock right by the water. And I gave you a message. Here’s the message…

[start of video] What someone needs when they’re struggling, and alone, and in danger. The book of Revelation was written to 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. Rocky, barren, seaside island on the Aegean Sea. And 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 and they got him, and they put him here in exile. But 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 massacred or sold into slavery and now here he was, old, weak, alone, and endangered. So, 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. 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 humanity’s industries and CO2 emissions, it’s true. The earth is shaking, and drowning, and dying. Just like it says in God’s Word. And what’s the most encouraging thing that God could send to the Apostle John? It was this book, Revelation. And 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. And 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, but 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, and that’s what we need; to trust His presence, His care, and His plan.
What a joy [end of video] to teach the book of Revelation.

To these weary suffering saints, God sent the only picture and we’re going to look at it right now. The only picture of Jesus in the Bible starts in verse 11. Jesus introduced Himself, I am the Alpha and Omega. John turns in verse 12 and looks at Him. He saw seven golden lampstands, verse 13, in the middle of them, and look at this list, one like the Son of Man. What does Jesus look like? Clothed down to His feet in a garment. Girded around the chest with a golden band. Verse 14. His head and hair were white like wool, white as snow. Verse 14 continues. His eyes were like a flame of fire. Verse 15 says His feet were like fine brass refined in a furnace. That means glowing out of the furnace. His voice was the sound of many waters. In His right hand seven stars. His mouth had this sharp two edged sword and His countenance was like the sun. Basically, what John sees is the only picture of Jesus in the Bible.

His hair reminds us, white hair, of His eternal, ancient of days ness. Daniel says that. His omniscience, the eyes that see everything. His feet, the brass… the temple had the altar brass, which is where sin was dealt with, which speaks of His justice and righteousness. His omnipotence and that voice. The compassion of his hand. Remember John fainted when he saw Him. And Jesus reaches out His hand and touches him. His mouth, the sword of the Word of God, and His all glorious face.

But where was Jesus when he saw Him? When he turned in verse 11, or verse 12 it says, when I turned, I saw the seven golden lampstands. And verse 13 says He’s standing in the middle of the lampstands. Jesus shows Himself as walking around watching us. Jesus is not detached. If Jesus went to church in the 1st century, He comes to the Word of Life Bible Institute in the 21st century. Did you know He’s actually here? He actually sees you each individually. He knows what you’re thinking about.

When I sit behind the students, I usually come in the hour before and sit in the back. Do you know how many students I watch shopping on their computers during their Bible class? Shopping? It’s unbelievable, I thought. Wow, what if we projected up on the screen what everybody’s doing on their screen? That would make an interesting class. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s your choice. You’re paying the money to come here. But let me ask you this. What does Jesus think of that? What does Jesus think of your attitude in this class. Your attitude about your home church, your attitude about your parents, your attitude about life. He’s actually here, just like He was there. With those eyes, He can see our thoughts. He can read our minds. He knows what we’re saying. And the nice thing is, He’s not mean. He’s saying, I know it’s hard, and I’m acquainted with all your struggles. That’s what the book of Hebrews is about. Have you guys had Hebrews yet?

All points Jesus was tempted like we are, but without sin. He said, I know how to not sin. I know how to overcome temptation. That’s what this whole book is about.

But the good news is this, the Christ of the Gospels is now unleashed. Think about three years with Jesus.

Here, I’m going to summarize what you learned in the Gospels. Wherever Jesus went, His very presence made sure death fled, diseases faded, despair melted. He fixed the ruined lives. He repaired and restored the sightless eyes. He filled empty ears, the deaf could hear. Those missing fingers of the lepers were returned. And He fed people.

In other words, everywhere Jesus went, everywhere He was, every time He was there, His presence meant something good is going to happen. And Jesus did all that, but think about what the Gospels is about. He did all that being localized. What does that mean? He was in one place at a time. Think about that.

The Gospels record 89 chapters of Jesus only being in one place at a time. But look what happens in chapter 21 of John’s Gospel.

After the empty tomb, something changes. Jesus is now available everywhere. Something has changed.

Jesus was available to anyone that needed Him, anywhere they were, at any time and He’s just… He’s all over. He has all these 40 days of being with everybody. If they’re locked behind a locked door, scared to death, He walks through the door and comes to them. If they’re having a fishing time in the middle of the night, He stands on the shore and waits for them. He’s all over the place.

Do you understand what Jesus’ greatest miracle is? There are 37 recorded miracles you learned when you studied the Gospels. The healing, the lepers, and all the different miracles Jesus did. What was the greatest one? The only one that didn’t go away.

The people that got new sight, when they got 50 years down the road, their sight started dimming. The people that got new fingers, arthritis took over about 50 years later. The people that got fed, got hungry the next day. You understand? The wine Jesus made ran out. What was the only miracle Jesus did that didn’t go away? Even Lazarus, He raised from the dead, He had to die. He died after a while, right? After his lifetime was up. What’s the only miracle of Jesus that didn’t end? It’s the one He’s still doing. It’s the one He talks about in verse 5. It’s the miracle of forgiveness.

And the only reason Jesus left us here is for us to share with people the miracle He’s still doing. Did you know that you and I, Paul said, we are ministers of the reconciliation. That means I can actually go up to people, in fact, I’ll tell you one. When I was doing my dissertation, that Bruce helped me, at Dallas Seminary I had to write my paper to get my doctorate. It’s called a dissertation. So, I was a full time pastor and they paid me to be the pastor. And so, the church didn’t want me doing my schoolwork during church time. And so, I got a lunch hour. So, every day for my hour, I drove to Starbucks in downtown Tulsa, the busiest Starbucks in the city. It actually had lines like they have at security at the airport. That’s how busy it was. You would go in this line, and you would wait and keep going like this through the line to put up your order finally at the cash register. I’d never had been there where there wasn’t 20 people in line. And so, I went to that Starbucks every day. Waited in line, got my drink, spent my hour working on my dissertation, but I started noticing something.

Each time I went to Starbucks, and the barista came…, you know how they make your drink, and they set it on that little counter, and they slide it forward, and they look at you, and they say…, actually, they go like this- they go, venti latte! And they pass it across. I would stand there for mine, and I would look at the barista, and it was the same guy. He was wearing the black beanie, but he was goth. He had everything black. Everything was black. His clothes were black. His shoes were black. He had added black around his eyes. He was pierced with every metal you could put anywhere. His whole ears, his nose, his tongue, everything was pierced. He had a steel ball bearing, that big, in the middle of his tongue. It was unbelievable. He had metal on his pants. He was really into metal, heavy metal, big spikes. And he had a name tag.

So finally, one day, I started watching him. I’d look in his eyes when he’d pass my drink to me, and the whites of his eyes were not white. They were between the orange of that t shirt and the yellow of that backpack. They were, his eyes, the whites of his eyes were turning orange. All of you medical people, what was happening to him? Liver failure. The way they know your liver is failing is, it doesn’t filter out the poisons and it shows up in the whites of your eyes. That’s how they know kids have hyperbilirubinemia. And that’s a problem that newborns get, and they see it in their eyes. So, I knew he was killing himself with poison, with drugs. He was drinking too much, taking too many drugs, and his liver was failing, and it was showing up in his eyes. So, I got convicted because I never talked to him.

So, when I got my tract that week, I went like this. I said, Lord, I want to talk to the guy at the store, Starbucks, and so give me an appointment with Daniel. His name tag said Daniel. I said, I want to share the Gospel with him. But I said, Lord, here’s my deal. I don’t believe in witnessing to people on company time, and if there’s 20 people in that line, and I’m standing at the front sharing the Gospel, I’m holding the show up. You know what I mean? Isn’t it disgusting when someone holds the cashier up and asks them about the weather, and their dog, and you’re wanting to go, get out of there and they’re holding up the line? So, I didn’t want to do that. So, I said, I’ve never been in Starbucks where there’s no line, so at lunch, when I go, if there’s no line, I’m going to share the Gospel with Daniel.

And I got there the next day and there was a line. So, I stood in the line, and I was working on my phone and everything, and I didn’t think about it. But as I went to order, no one was behind me. So, I ordered really quick and ran down to the other end and waited for him to put my drink up. And he dropped it on the counter, pushed it across to me, and looked up straight into my eyes with his orange eyes, like that t shirt. I’ll never forget those eyes. Looked straight at me and I said, Daniel. Oh, it scared him. No one, he didn’t realize he had a name tag on. He said, yeah. I said, Daniel. I have something for you. And I have the Gospel tract. I said, you are going to die one of these days, soon. I said, I can see it in your eyes. And I said, when you wake up, you’re going to be in Hell. That is the shortest Gospel. People were starting to come. Wouldn’t you know, they were filing in to line. So, I pushed the tract across to him, took my drink, you know, said, there you go, and I went and sat down. And I started praying, I remembered Daniel.

I came in the next day, because I wanted to see if he read the tract. He wasn’t there the next day. So, I came the next day. He wasn’t there. I came for a whole week. He was never there. After one week, I went to the cashier and I said, where’s Daniel? And the cashier said, everyone is asking where’s Daniel? They said, did you know, one week ago, in the middle of his shift, he just walked out the back door and he’s never come back. I said, what day was it? And it was my day, you know? And so, I actually went around the back of Starbucks to see if he was in the dumpster or something, if he’d been murdered and put in the dumpster.

Six months went by, I never saw him. I was sitting back in the Starbucks and all of a sudden, as I was studying, I saw black boots. I saw black pants. I saw metal. He had a chain he always wore, I saw the chain. And I looked up. And there he was wearing his little black beanie. And he looked right at me with big, white eyes. And he said, hey man. I’ve been looking for you for months. He said, do you remember when you talked to me? I said, I do. He said, you scared the Hell out of me. He said, I ask everybody at work if they understood your tract. No one understood. So, he said, I walked out the back door and I walked down the street of Tulsa asking everybody I saw until I found one person that says, yeah, that’s a Gospel tract. He said, explain it to me. And he said, they led me to Christ.

He said, I’m a Christian. I’m now the lead singer in a heavy black metal band. He said, and every time it’s dark, the smoke’s out, the lights are on me, and I say, I want to tell you about the time this guy scared the Hell out of me. And he said, I share the Gospel with them. He said, thanks for talking to me.

Did you know the only reason we’re left here is to share our hope in Christ with our generation?