Three Revelations Part 1: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 This John got this on the isle of Patmos. He was banished by the local authorities to the isle of Patmos after he had been tarred and feathered and somehow survived for preaching the gospel. I mean, if you really want to go out and preach the gospel, people aren’t going to like you. It is not like the church in America today where we flatter people. And this is what you’re going to find in the book of Revelations, these guys that really went out and preached the gospel, they were [unclear], they were in prison, they were beaten, I mean they were subject to abuse all the time. Today, not so, because we’re really not preaching the gospel. We’re preaching a very flattering message that doesn’t challenge anyone, doesn’t shake up anyone. Most, now not all the church, but the majority of the church, and the majority of the church is on TV and radio, because you want numbers and you want money, you have to water down the message. You don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But John wasn’t like that. He preached the gospel, he was tarred and feathered, and they banished him, and on that island, in that kind of affliction, he got this book of Revelation. And so when somebody pays a price like that, we need to listen to them. Could that be an

▶ 1:28 amen? Revelations 1:1, it starts out by saying “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Not the beast, not the revelation of Satan, not the revelation of the [unclear] sitting on the seven mountains. Are you hearing me? It’s the revelation of who? Jesus Christ. This book is going to tell us about Jesus Christ. Revelation means to disclose, to reveal things, even things that have not been seen before. Okay, and so we’re going to have the revelation, the revealing, the disclosure of Jesus Christ. And we find that there’s three revelations in the New Testament. That’s the revelation of Jesus, the Lion, the Lamb, the Captain of the host, the Head of the church. I mean, He’s the big guy, He’s the chief honcho in the Bible, and when you read the Bible, if you’re not looking for Jesus, you’re going to miss the whole point of the Bible. Secondly, it’s the revelation of the

▶ 2:38 judgment. The Bible tells us there’s a revelation of the eternal judgment, and you don’t hear this message much anymore, that you’re going to be held accountable for what you say and do, and God is going to sentence you by what you say and do. You don’t hear this much anymore. When I was a kid you heard it all the time. They scared the hell out of you. I mean, man, you wanted Jesus and you wanted to get to heaven. But then we got into the love thing, everybody’s okay. And then the revelation of the church. I meet very few American Christians that even understand the basic revelation of the church. They think it’s a building with people in it. And I’d submit to you today, you don’t know it.

▶ 3:31 Because if you did, it would change your life. It would change the way you do things. When we get through with the book of Revelation and you see what the church really is, it should revolutionize the way you schedule your time and you approach your God. It will make all the difference in the world, because the church isn’t some building with people in it. The Bible refers to it as the body of Christ. You see all those heads? See, we are the body of Christ and each one a member in particular, with a particular function. We have a function. Your little finger has a function. The smallest in God’s church has a function, a purpose and an objective. We are a flock, we follow the Shepherd, we need His protection, but we’re also an army, and we’re also a house, a temple of God. But we will get into that later, and this is what the Bible speaks of, these three revelations.

▶ 4:34 Now Revelations 1:1 has three points in it. Number one, the revelation of Jesus Christ, as we talked about, which God gave to Him. Who gave this to Him? God. All right. It’s not like Muhammad, it’s not like Joseph Smith. Those are imitators, as we’ll show you a little later. And you got to be [unclear]. You got to know

▶ 5:13 truth if you want to be free and you want others to be free. It’s the truth that sets you free. Free from what? Your traditions, your unbelief, your [unclear] doctrines, your doctrines of men. It sets you free from these things. Amen. And sin. Now number two, “to show unto His servants things.” Okay, He’s going to show us things, and it’s not just to the seven churches in Asia. To show unto His servants, all of us who accepted Christ. Christ is the King and we are His servants, and so He wants to show everybody, not just the seven churches of Asia. This is directed to everyone, isn’t that true? And He’s going to show us things. How many want your eyes open to the things He wants to show? Yeah. You got to pray. One of your main prayers is not only wisdom, but you need to pray that God gives you understanding of the scriptures, because the Spirit is the only one that can open the scriptures up to you. That’s what the Bible says, they are spiritually discerned. The Spirit has to do it. See, we can use our human intellect, but it is the Spirit that really bursts the truth in us.

▶ 6:37 Amen. And number three, read this last one with me: “which must shortly come to pass.” Read it again: “which must shortly come to pass.” Now I submit to you, it’s 2,000 years. Shortly? It doesn’t sound very shortly, does it? Hallelujah. These words, Revelations 22, now we’re at the last chapter of the book, all right: “These words are faithful.” You can count on them. The words of Revelation, they are truth. They’re just like all the other books in the Bible. “The Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants.” There we are again, to show who? His servants, all of us. Do we need some special prophet opening the book of Revelation to us? No. Why? Because He wrote it for all of

▶ 7:44 us. You see, only in America do we have this mentality, we need the gurus, we need Osteen, we need Joyce Meyer, we need somebody. Why? ’Cause that’s what they tell us, they preach we need them. But here it says this is to who? All of us. Is God partial? We just taught on it. Do you have every right to every inheritance just like anybody else? Absolutely. Do we need preachers and teachers? Yes, we do, but they’re not the ones to follow, and they’re not the ones to worship. They should be leading us to the One, and our faith should not be in any man or any man’s teaching. Our faith should be in the Jesus Christ and His truth.

▶ 8:41 Amen. The things which must what? Shortly come to pass. He emphasizes it again. And what do all these end-time prophets do with Revelation? They twist and stretch all kinds of scriptures to get it to fit into our last days. Am I right? I am right. And it says plainly, these things must what? Shortly come to pass. Wow, you youngins got that? He says you need to take heed. Jesus told him, take heed, beware of the doctrine of the scribes and the Pharisees. Why? What you believe is what will determine your behavior. And the Pharisees had made up their own doctrine, and the Sadducees had made up their own doctrine, and have, you know, there’s people today making up their own doctrine, and people will try to please a church group in their doctrines of faith rather than please Christ and His book of faith. Could that be true? Now you young people understand this now. This is good stuff. This is deep stuff. This is not for the weak-hearted.

▶ 9:57 This stuff is meat. It will get into your innards and work powerful in your life. So these three things: revelation of Jesus, He’s going to show His servants things, and it’s going to be brought about what? Shortly. Shortly. Okay, let’s look at the revelation of the righteous judgment of God in Romans chapter 2. Now we’re going to use the book of Revelations as the book. We’re going to pretend that we’re on an island, we got shipwrecked, and we’re on an island, and we were just a dumb sinner before that, and then this book comes floating in on shore, somehow it got in the ocean and it washed up on shore, and we got one book and it’s the book of Revelation. We’re only going to use other true scriptures to confirm the book of Revelation. Is that fair

▶ 10:57 enough? Are you with me? How many of you know, a book of aerodynamics, it states in the introduction and all the rest, this is a book on aerodynamics, how airplanes may fly. Okay, so what’s the book going to be about? How airplanes fly. Now in the book they talk about electric storms in the heavens, and they talk about, uh, what they call that when it plain shakes? Turbulence. Now is the book about storms and turbulence, or is it still about aerodynamics? Aerodynamics. Okay, this book is about the revelation of Jesus Christ, and if He talks about other things, the book isn’t about those other things. It’s about what? The revelation of Jesus

▶ 11:55 Christ. And so the New Testament gives us three revelations: the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of the judgment to come. See, the book isn’t complicated, it’s not 20 revelations, it’s how many? Three. “With your hardness and unrepentant heart you’re treasuring up wrath in the day of wrath.” Is there a day of wrath? Yes. “And the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” So the two are synonymous, the two are happening at the same time. There’s a day of wrath and the unveiling of the righteous judgment of God. Now isn’t that easy to see? See, it’s not complicated. You don’t need the Hebrew and Greek, and you don’t need somebody on TV telling you what it says. It says what it

▶ 12:56 says. Amen. “Who renders to each one according to his”, faith? Is that what it says? No. According to his grace? No. According to the church he goes to? No. According to your deeds, your work, your lifestyle, how you speak and how you act. You young people got that? That’s why the Bible says in Ecclesiastes, remember the Lord thy God in the days of thy youth before the evil day comes. Obey God, live right in your youth, because there’s a penalty coming. Eternal life. Then He tells us what’s going to happen by our

▶ 13:52 deeds. You say, did Judas believe in Jesus? You’re looking at me like you’re afraid to answer. Absolutely, he did. Did Judas preach the gospel? Yes. Did Judas heal the sick? Yes. Did Judas cast out demons? Yes. Was Judas a thief the whole time? Yes. Jesus said, “I’ve chose you 12 and one of you is a thief.” Jesus knew who Judas was when He picked him, and He picked him because He knew his heart, and he would fulfill what the scriptures had designated to be fulfilled, and there was a lot of Judases that day, He just picked this one. Are you out there, church? So because someone’s preaching the gospel and the gospel works, does that mean they’re great? No. It means the gospel’s

▶ 14:49 great. Do you young ones get that? See, the gospel works no matter who’s preaching it. Because the gospel just works. Hallelujah. So He’s going to tell us what’s going to happen because of our works and our deeds. When our works are right, we get eternal life: “to those who by patience and continuing in doing good.” They patiently serve God whether things are good, whether things are bad, whether people serve God or whether the people don’t, they just stay faithful, they patiently serve God doing good things. Amen. And they get what? Eternal life. But I’m going to get eternal life because I believe on Jesus. That’s the

▶ 15:49 step. But you believe on Jesus and you live like Judas did, you’re going to hell. Did Judas go to heaven? No. Did Judas find repentance, by the way? No. Are you there? See, it’s best to just serve God all the days of your life. And then there’s wrath to those who are self-seeking, who do what they want to do. They just do what they want to do. Their life’s about them. Everything they do is something to their advantage. What do I get out of it? Most of the church world in America have no compassion for the lost. They don’t weep in their prayers for the lost. You know, we got a lot of teenagers coming in here on Friday night who need our weapons of warfare exercised so that the kingdom of darkness’ hold on them is broken, but people don’t care. The kids are coming in, let them have fun, let them play games, you know, “I’ll just stay away.” Uh, you know, no. See, we don’t understand the

▶ 17:15 church. Just getting them here isn’t it. It’s getting the darkness broken off of their light. It’s getting the Jesus into them. It’s getting them transformed into another kind of person that lives right, their mind changed, thinking right. And parents don’t care, they just drop them off. The church members don’t care, they just stay home and watch TV. Why? Because we don’t understand these things. We don’t understand that we’re in a spiritual warfare, and this is a serious thing. And my prayers and my compassion for those kids, and my touch and not loving them and putting my arm around them and listening to them, is important for them to make it in. We have weapons of warfare that aren’t fleshly, and we have to exercise them to tear down the strongholds of the enemy. Just coming to church doesn’t do

▶ 18:17 it. Amen. Now is this good? Now you never hear this out of the book of Revelations when they teach it on the TV and the radio and all that and the little books that come out. Why? ’Cause they’re in it for money and sensationalism sells, and darkness sells. You know, the tribulation sells. You tell people there’s a glorious church, they’re not interested. You tell them there’s seven years of tribulation, “What? 666, it’s going to be tattooed on your forehead? Oh yeah, you got my attention.” And these guys make a fortune. They live in million, multi-million dollar homes, they have two or three of them, they drive the best cars, and have their own

▶ 19:09 airplanes. And we have just as much right to go to the book and go to Christ as anybody does, and we’ve let them trick us and seduce us into thinking they have some great revelation. John’s got the revelation. I don’t need the revelation, I need to understand John’s revelation. Could that be an amen? Could that be an amen? I just need to get off my lazy butt, open the book and start reading it and learning it. Could that be an amen? Wrath to the self-seeking, those that disobey truth. See, you can believe in truth, but if you don’t obey it, what good does it do? Am I right? That you can believe in working to supply your own needs, but if you don’t go to work and just still live off welfare, what good does it do? You can believe that medicine can cure you, but if you don’t go to the doctor and take it, what good does it do? And it’s the same way with the gospel. You may believe in this gospel, in this book, but if you don’t apply it, it doesn’t work for

▶ 20:18 you. Amen. So there’s wrath to those who hear it and don’t do it and obey unrighteousness. People just want to sin. Some people just want to sin. That’s a bottom line. Now Revelations 20:12. See, John backs it up. We got to make sure everything John tells us is backed up by the rest of the scriptures. That’s how we know that it’s real truth. Revelation says, and He’s going to open it up with more detail, “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.” Is everyone going to stand before God? Yeah. It doesn’t matter how small you think you are, and a lot of us, we feel like the wimps of the kingdom, we’re the flea on the dog, you know, and some of us think we are just the greatest thing this earth has ever, you know, had. It doesn’t matter how great you are and how small you are, all of us are going to stand before God. “And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” So what’s in these other books? Everything we say and

▶ 21:42 do. The Book of Life, is your name in the Book of Life? You get your name in the Book of Life, and Jesus said you thank God and praise God because your name is written in the Book of Life, and people still refuse to thank Him and praise Him. They’ll just come to church and stand there. What, that’s self-willed. You’re doing what you want to do. But the Book of Life is so important, it should ignite us to praise God and thank God. Through His death on the cross I can be forgiven, I can be cleansed, and my name written in His book. But there’s other books, and these other books record everything I do. Now how do I get rid of the recording in those books as a believer? Let’s say, you know, I lied. It’s written down. How can I get that out of the book? I go to Christ, I admit I lied, I ask Him to cleanse me, and the Bible says in 1 John 1:9 He is what? Faithful and just to forgive and cleanse me of all sin. So now it’s blotted out and my book has blank pages again. Are you glad for that principle of repentance

▶ 22:59 for the power of the blood that works for Christians as well as unbelievers? Yeah. Amen. But if we don’t repent, see, if we don’t use our weapons of warfare, then it stays in the book. So, revelation of the church. Romans 16:25, “the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, now made plain by the prophetic scriptures.” Okay, there was something kept secret till Jesus came. All right, what was it? Ephesians 3:3, “by revelation He made known to me the mystery,” “in other ages not made known to men.” Here it is again: “but now it’s revealed to His apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” See, I told you things, you get truth by the Spirit revealing it to you. So that means you got to study, you got to read, you got to go to Bible studies, you got to apply the things so the Spirit can open it up to you. And just because it’s in your mind, does it mean it’s in your inner

▶ 24:18 man? “But now revealed to His apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be heirs of the same body,” body, the church. See, the Bible says His body is His church. They’re synonymous terms, so we understand what he’s talking about. “And partakers of His promise.” Hallelujah. So see, the church is one of the revelations. It’s not in the Old Testament in clarity. It is there in parables. Now that we have the revelation, we can see the church all through the Old Testament, but before Jesus came and revealed the church, we didn’t get it. And the church was revealed. So the church is very important, and it’s not just a building with people in it or an association like the Southern Baptist or the Northern Baptist or the South Baptist or the West Baptist or whatever, the Catholic. It’s not that. The church is His body, many-membered body of Christ. We are a powerful group on the earth that God has chosen to be the messenger of His message. We have the power to bring down strongholds, to stop the enemy. We have all these things, as we will

▶ 25:43 see. This is a great mystery, Ephesians 5:32. Here it is again, the word mystery: “But I speak about Christ and His” what? Church. So see, the church is a serious revelation, and we need to understand it. How many would raise your hand and say, “Man, I want to understand this church”? See, we are so narrow-minded in our thinking of the church. All right. Now Revelation 21:3, another scripture in Revelations: “The tabernacle of God is with men.” See, the Bible says we are His house, we are His building. “The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them.” Wow. “And they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God.” Now this is just one verse in Revelations about the church. God said He would be with us. Should we settle for anything

▶ 26:48 less? Absolutely not. Do we just need good speakers in the church? No, we need Him in the church. He promised that He would live with us, He would be here. In fact, Jesus said, “You’re the vine,” or “I am the vine and you are the branches, and without Me you can do nothing.” So is He the most important ingredient? Absolutely. But us connected to Him is where the results come from. He chooses to use us, but without Him we’re worthless. But with Him, nothing is impossible for His church.