We are teaching through the Book of Revelation, my favorite book of the Bible, all this month at the fantastic campuses of Word of Life in New York and Florida (wordoflife.edu)

Here is the first lesson of 20 that I am teaching RIGHT NOW.

If you are interested in understanding what is happening around us in the sometimes daily global disruptions we see on the news, why not take the course with these hundreds of students?

We will try to post each new class every other day or so as they get edited.

I hope this time in the Word of God blesses you as much as we have been blessed by the hundreds of primarily teenaged NextGeneration students we have been surrounded by in Florida and New York!

Here's today's class--
The second-generation church saw the world, and it was very confusing.

It appeared that God was not winning. Rome was winning, expanding, and enslaving almost everyone in their path, as pride, cruelty, paganism, and witchcraft were all flourishing.

Christians needed hope.

Revelation is the most powerful dose of hope God could ever send.

God wins. Christ returns. God clarifies His plan.

Revelation connects ALL the prophetic dots of the OT and merges them into Christ and the Apostles' words in the NT.

Revelation explains the HISTORY of the future—God says there are 7 events left for humanity.

Transcript

Here we go. I'm going to read our text. Out of respect for the Word of God, even though you already have your computer on your lap, would you stand together with me? I'm going to read chapter 1, verse 1, and then invite the Lord to do something extraordinary here. This is my favorite book in the whole Bible, Revelation, and I could talk all day long and not stick with the slides. So, I'm praying that I share what the Lord wants me to share that will impact your lives as you serve the Lord. What a blessing.

I'm going to read verse 1 and then pray. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants things which must shortly take place. And He sent and He signified it by His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ to all things that he saw. Verse 3, Blessed is he who reads, that's me, and blessed are those who hear the words, that's you, of this prophecy - but here's the catch - and keep those things that are written in it, for the time is near.

Let's pray. Father, I've read, and I pray these students have heard. I pray that by the power of Your Spirit, by Your grace that You offer to pour out on us, that we would keep, and as that Greek word means, we would treasure and guard those things that You teach us from your Word, especially the next 20 hours that we share in this class. And we ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. You may be seated.

Here we go. God sent us hope in the book of Revelation and boy, did those people need hope. I want you to think about the theme of the book. The theme of the book is, I just read it, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It's the only book of the Bible that actually gives the title in the first word in English. Other Bible books do it in Greek and Hebrew, but this is the first one where you see it in English, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. But the real theme of the book is Jesus is all I need. I want you to think about how parallel your lives are to the lives of the people who got this book.

Now remember, the primary interpretation, or as we say in seminary, the first canon of textual interpretation, that's what they call it. The interpretation of any scripture that you read, the primary, the first, the most important, what God meant was, what He meant to the original recipients. Now see, we're not original. This wasn't written to me. Now every word in the book is written to me. I know we sing that. But it was actually written by Jesus Christ, look at this, to the second-generation Church over there in the red on that slide. None of them other than maybe the great grandfathers in the churches, but 99 point whatever percent had never met Jesus Christ in person. They had never met an apostle. They heard John was still alive. By the way, he was the one writing it. But they were going through a hard time. Do you know why? God wasn't winning. Rome was winning. The world was getting darker.

Have you ever thought about what it was like to live in the second-generation Church? Every apostle had been hunted down and executed by Rome, except one. The one that's writing this letter. He's the last one. God wasn't winning, as far as they could see. Rome was winning. Rome stood for everything opposite of the Bible, everything. It was pagan, they did witchcraft and were immoral. The emperor sitting on the throne had, the male Emperor of Rome sitting on the throne had a male wife. Okay? Homosexuality wasn't tolerated, it was flaunted, and it was the imperial way. That was just a tiny sample of the world of the Bible.

The second-generation Church saw the world and it was very confusing. It appeared that God was not winning, Rome was winning. Rome was expanding. Rome was enslaving everyone in their path, and pride, cruelty, paganism, and witchcraft were all flourishing. Christians needed hope. Revelation is the most powerful dose of hope God could ever send. By the way, from Church History, do you know what we know?

By the way, I'm going to be referring to this the whole time. This is my journal, because every time I teach a course, I do whatever the students are doing. So, I have my little tabs here, and I've read every chapter, I've done a devotional study on it, I've written a title like all of you have to do, a title for every chapter of the Bible, one of your assignments. Then I wrote an application prayer. I'm going to refer to this the whole time as I teach because I'm hoping to infect all of you with something that has become a lifelong habit for me. That is, I want to understand every chapter and every verse of the Bible. Not just understand it so I can talk about it but understand it so I can know God better and experience everything He has for me and share that hope with the world. That's why I'm here. So, Jesus is all we need.

The second-generation Church saw the world and it was very confusing. I told you that. It appeared God wasn't winning. Rome was winning. Christians needed hope. So, what does God do? Revelation is the most powerful dose of hope. As I was just saying, Church History shows us that.

Did you know there are philologists, people who study the text, the words of the text of the Bible? Especially in the 19th century, as they were excavating and finding all the manuscripts all over the place, and relooking at all the manuscripts that had been found during the Renaissance and the Reformation and since. They scientifically began to tabulate all the extant, that means continuing to exist, sermons of the 1st and 2nd century Church, of this time period. Other than the biblical documents and a couple of letters, there weren't any. But right after John on Patmos, in the 2nd century, that's from the 100s on, They started finding sermons. So, they started taking these sermons, some of them were in Latin, some of them were in Greek, and they started tabulating the actual words that were in the sermon.

They found that they could find passages from Genesis, Exodus, the Gospel by Mark, and the Book of Romans, etc. where the pastors taught the Bible, and they would quote a verse as they were teaching. So, they started tabulating all the verses found in the ancient sermons, and they started counting how many were in Genesis, and how many were in Exodus because they wanted to see what was the most popular book that was taught to the Early Church. The bottom line is this, there's only one book of the Bible in the Early Church sermons where you can find every word talked about and read before the congregation by the preacher. Only one book and it's not Genesis, it's not the Psalms, it's not Philippians and all the hope and joy, and it's not Romans and all that doctrine. The only book that we know was taught every single word of, the most popular book of the Ancient Church, is the one we're going to spend 20 hours in.

Revelation was so popular because it was the most powerful dose of hope that God could send. He shares the history of the future. Did you catch that? Do you know what Revelation is? Revelation is not a prediction. It's the actual history written by God of what's going to happen. Because from God's perspective, and I want you to think, God is seated on His throne and the book of Isaiah says, interestingly enough, that God sees the end from the beginning continuously at the same time. Now that sounds like Doctor Strange or whatever from the Avengers, that he can, I don't know how he does it, but he goes forward and backward in time with his witchcraft. By the way, that's witchcraft, and it's offensive to God for us to be entertained by witchcraft. It's not something that's a good thing to be a master of understanding all that.

But, God sees the ending from the beginning continuously. So, when John is transported in Revelation to Heaven, John stands there, and he looks down, and he sees everything. He's trying to write down what he's seeing. He's not seeing what will happen. He was actually seeing it happen. You go, wait a minute, if it hasn't happened yet, how could he see it happening? Because God is above time. Time is only one of many dimensions. We don't know how many dimensions there are, and don't let your science fiction stuff blur it. God sits above time because He created it and everything else. What He's told us, and we don't need to speculate about anything else, God sees everything happening at once. God knows what's going to happen. He wrote down, look at this, a history of the future. That's what you have here. This is priceless and it's very encouraging. The ending is that God wins. Isn't it good to know?

The Church needed to know that because it didn't look like it to them in the 2nd century. It didn't look like God was going to win. Rome was building aqueducts that were a hundred miles long. They were building massive amphitheaters and killing Christians in them. Rome was hunting down Christians, and they heard the Good News. God wins, Christ is going to return, and it all ends with us with Him. Do you remember what it says about Jesus coming at Christmastime? His name shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is what? God with us. If God is with us, the good news is we're with God. So that's the good news of the ending. God knows the future.

Okay, let's go through what it says. Now look back at verse 1. We're going to be looking either deeply or a little bit at all 404 verses. There are 404 verses in Revelation. There are 303 in Hebrews. When I teach that it's much easier because it's shorter, but there are 404 so I'm going to be talking very fast. You can listen fast and together we're going to learn. But it's the revelation of Jesus Christ. God reveals Himself in Christ. What do I mean by that? What does it say in Hebrews 1? It says Jesus is the exact representation of God. What did Jesus tell Doubting Thomas in chapter 14 of the Gospel by John? He looked at him, and He said, Thomas, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. Remember, Doubting Thomas?

Boy, I'm so glad for Doubting Thomas because he asked the questions all of us ask, and the other disciples were too embarrassed to ask them. He said, how are we going to get there? And how do we know? He just was so troubled. It's true about most Christians. I've been a pastor for a lot of years. A lot of Christians don't feel saved, don't have an assurance of salvation, certainly aren't bold, and hardly have a hunger for the Bible. That's what most Christians are like; a lot like Thomas. Jesus understands struggles and confusion and fears and doubts.

He looked at Thomas and said, Thomas? Look at Me. When you see Me, Jesus said, you're looking at the Father. I am the exact representation of God. Wow, so God reveals Himself in Christ. That's why He gave this to us. The revelation of Jesus Christ. This book is a gift from God, the Father, to Jesus Christ to give to us because look what it says, which God, the Father, gave Him, God the Son, to show His servants. That's us. To show us what? Number one is the revelation of Christ.

Number two is the map of the future. What is that? Keep reading the verse. The things which must shortly take place. Boy, that's an interesting word, shortly. It isn't soonly, it's shortly. Now, to all the boys here. I teach here every year and there was one year, I don't remember which year it was, but there was a guy that had a car or a truck so high you had to have a little ladder to get up into it. Its tires must have been this big. I don't know how much those tires cost. It was always parked out there, this monster truck. So, when I said tachometer, he sat right up in class, and I could see him. It was a car thing, and he was a car guy, so a tachometer. That's the Greek word right here, tachos, a tachometer shows how fast your motor is spinning. It means fast, or rapid. It doesn't mean soon, it means quickly, fast.

So, what He's saying is the things which must very rapidly take place. When these things take place, it's just going to be unstoppable, everyone's going to be watching it, and no one's going to miss it. It's just going to be a tidal wave. It's like all the pictures you've seen in the movies of The Day After Tomorrow or whatever they're called, where there's a disaster and they're all standing frozen as a wave comes and knocks over the Statue of Liberty and drowns them all. They're just paralyzed. That's what the Tribulation picture is. It's a tidal wave coming, everyone sees it and it goes.

Okay. To show His servants, that's us, the things which are going to tacos, take place shortly. He sent and signified them by His angel to His servant John, and John bore witness. He is on the island of Patmos. By the way, if the technology works, Bonnie and I, my wonderful wife, Bonnie, she distracts me. Even saying her name distracts me, but we were invited to teach the book of Revelation on the island of Patmos, the whole book. So, when I got done, I stood, put my Bible on a rock, and I taped a message to you guys, and I hope it works. It's the second hour and I'm going to play it. The audio is not very good. So, God gave the only map of the future.

By the way, that map of the future totally parallels another map of the future that Paul gives. Do you remember Paul? I'm not teaching Acts, but do you remember Paul? Have you already had Acts? Okay. Do you remember Mars Hill? He's talking to all those people, those philosophers, and everyone, and he gives the Gospel starting in verse 24 through verse 31, and he actually outlines the Bible in three parts. It was a good three-point sermon. In homiletics, they teach good sermons have three points and long sermons have more. But the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2, is about the Creator and we find Him ignored.

Starting in Genesis chapter 3, there's a promise of the Redeemer, but He ends up being rejected and crucified. This is what Paul's telling all these brilliant Athenians. But the interesting thing about Paul is, when he shared the Gospel, he always tacks on this impending doom stuff. What he said was, that a Judge is coming. That's how he ends his Gospel presentation. He said, that Creator that you've ignored, that Redeemer that came and died for your sins that you're rejecting, He's coming back. Do you know what it says in 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 7? He's coming in flaming fire bringing vengeance on those who have ignored Him and rejected Him. He's coming. So that's an outline of the whole Bible. Genesis 1 and 2 is the Creator, sin comes so we need a redeemer, He's rejected until God gets His saints around the throne in Revelation 5. Then it's the unfolding of the Judge coming, cleaning up, winning, and conquering the world.

So, if we were to, really quickly, overview the Early Church, why were they so excited about Revelation? In chapter 1, they found out we can have hope because while we're here in all of our troubles, we can love and serve God as we struggle through life. How did Paul describe Christians when you read his epistles? Paul calls us, and I will speak in Greek to see if you can understand it. I'm going to speak in Greek and see if it sounds like anything you've ever heard. The description Paul gave of Christians when he wrote to the Philippians, he called us sunagonizomai.

Does that agonizomai sound like an English word? What does it sound like? [audience answers] Agonize. Have you ever agonized? Agonized over a test, or studying, or a loved one is sick, or a parent or grandparent is dying? Agonize. Do you know what Paul called Christians? Sun, that's the Greek preposition with. S U N in Greek means with in English. Agonizomai means struggling, agonizing. Paul said Christians are fellow strugglers. That's why we're supposed to be close to each other. We're all struggling. We're all struggling with the same things. God says there's no temptation that's ever taken you that's not common to man. But God is faithful to always make an exit door. I love how they illustrate my sermons with, see that word, exit? Every time we're tempted there's an exit door, just like that one there. Guess who's standing with both doors open with their arms out? Jesus. He's saying, you don't have to give in to that, you don't have to disobey Me. Come on, come to me. God is faithful because He knows we're struggling. So, as they read Revelation 1, they saw John was struggling.

So, God shows Jesus, the risen, God the Son, in His power and glory, coming to help us and stand with us anywhere we are. Where was John? He was on Patmos. Patmos was miles from anywhere. It was a Roman prison colony, like Siberia, or a gulag, if you've ever heard of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The gulags out there in Siberia. We have hope because we're part of God's saints, we're fellow strugglers, and Jesus knows our address. He knows right where we are.

Then we get to chapters 2 and 3. Jesus walks among us. He's not just visiting Patmos. In chapters 2 and 3, we find out Jesus is actually walking among believers as they gather in fellowship at the Church. Jesus walks among us in His Church. By the way, Jesus comes to Church whenever it gathers. Whenever a body of true believers gathers, Jesus says, I'm there too. That's why I was brought up that whenever the Church met, my parents took us whether we wanted to go or not. Why? They said you don't want to miss Jesus being there. I don't think a lot of people go to church because Jesus is there. They go there because of the music, or they go there because their friends are there, or they go there because they have to. But the reason we're supposed to go there is, that Jesus walks among us, His Church, pointing out to each of His children what we're doing both right and wrong.

See, when Jesus goes to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation, He's pointing out, oh, that was really good. That's the church in Philadelphia. No, they weren't doing anything wrong that He listed. Were they sinning? Yes. Did He talk about it? No. Why? Because it is possible to have a life as a believer that absolutely pleases God. He doesn't have to criticize anything because we are convicted when we sin, we immediately confess and forsake and ask for His cleansing, and we go on. He goes, that's the way. They were the only church like that.

That's why people loved Revelation. They saw themselves in there. They saw you could live a life struggling and pleasing the Lord. They saw that you could live stumbling and falling into sin and yet confessing and repenting and forsaking and finding His cleansing. So, each of us, if we listen for Him pointing out what we're doing that pleases Him and what we're doing that doesn't. We can be more useful. Do you know what the greatest thing in all of life is? To be useful to God. That's what being holy is. It's being useful and set apart.

In our little illustration, Revelation has seven parts. Part one, part two, part three, four, five, six, seven. It starts with the first three chapters, the Church on Earth. That's where we are. The Church on Earth is promised to be taken. Jesus told Doubting Thomas and the rest, I go and prepare a place for you. Jesus said, in the same way, you see Me going, I'm coming back. Jesus said, in 1 Corinthians 15, that at the last trump, the dead in Christ will rise first, and we're all going. He said in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the dead will not be left behind and that the living will not precede those who are raised from the dead. Finally, in Revelation 3, He explains that we will be kept from the hour of His wrath.

Where are we headed? We're headed, and this is what really brought them hope, Jesus brings each of us safely to Heaven, just like He promised to do. We see ourselves there in chapters 4 and 5, standing around His throne after we've finished the plan. Remember, God's watching everything from the beginning to the end, and right there is our life. He says I have a plan. How did Jack Wurtzen put it? It's the duty of every believer to reach their generation for Christ, or something very similar to that. Boom! God says I have a plan for you. It's your duty to please Me, to do what I've planned for you to do.

How do we do that? We start every day, by checking in, like being a good employee. All the jobs I've had where I wasn't the manager, I had a manager, I would check with the manager; what exactly they wanted me to do that day because my time belonged to them, and they were paying me. They were in charge. That's all the Lord wants. So, we check in with Him every day till He's finished with us doing His plan. Then He takes us to be with Him.

So, the church saw that, and they saw themselves as they were the Church in Heaven. They saw that they were going to get the reward, that's what 1 Corinthians 3 and 2 Corinthians 5 talk about. That we're actually going to get a reward for how we live for the Lord.

But the Church also had hope because as soon as we get to chapter 6, finally, they're wondering, what about the bad guys that did all this evil? Who dragged off and murdered and did everything we're seeing today? All the murder and evil that's unabated. It's just going.

Lost humanity, and I love how God does this, believes in evolution, and denies biblical creationism, so the Creator Himself shows them His power. Finally, it isn't just ol' Answers in Genesis harping on the fact that there's a real Creator God and every evangelical witnessing servant of the Lord and pastor and ministry saying it. Finally, God gets everyone's attention. The Creator shows them His power, to the Earth dwellers who worship Mother Earth.

By the way, in the book of Daniel, have you guys had Daniel yet? It's coming. In the book of Daniel, do you know how it describes the Anti-christ? He worships the god of forces. By the time we get to Revelation, it's expanded and everybody that's unsaved is called an Earth dweller. What that means is this is all they care about. This planet, this place. We're going to do anything to save this place. We need this Earth. as opposed to how Hebrews describes us. Hebrews says we look for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Paul put it this way, our citizenship is not here, it's in Heaven, and we're expectantly awaiting being taken to the place He's prepared for us. So, there's a real contrast between the orientation of lost people, their orientation is here. Save the Earth. Protect the Earth, animals, plants, and now fungi are equally as valuable as humans. We'll protect any species while we don't protect the human species not yet born. Do you understand what I mean? It's so blatant in our generation.

Earth dwellers who worship Mother Earth. God first allows natural disasters to amplify at every level. You're starting to see that, aren't you? Aren't you seeing it? We had the hottest year on record last year. And boy, they already found out the forest fires in Canada didn't go out with the snow. They're still burning under the snow. They said, wow, 2024 is going to be one of the greatest forest fire years. Today, Rome, did you see any pictures of what it looks like in Rome today? Total smoke and dust in Rome. Why? It's just because we have natural disasters amplifying at every level.

Continuing, lost humanity is fascinated with demons. That's what it says in chapter 9. To the end, they won't stop worshiping their demons. You go, demons? Yeah, look at what most movies are about nowadays. About half of all movies, at least half, have demonic huge powers in them.

Lost humanity is fascinated with demons. So, God opens a pit and lets humanity taste the searing torment. That's what chapter 9 is about. Wait till we get there. God says you like demons so much, how about meeting some? He opens the pit, and these demons come out. It says they hunt people. Demons aren't stopped by doors, walls, cement, or steel because a demon is an immaterial spirit. They are a fallen angel. The word daimon, demon, is right here, the Greek word daimon means intelligence. It's an intelligent spirit that knows every language in the world. It is not stopped by any physical object, it can listen to you. They know where every treasure is hidden, they know where every person is, and they can guide people who surrender to them to do fantastic things. See, that's the lure of the occult. There's real power there. It's not from God. See, there are only two sources of power in the universe. Actually, one source and God has allowed Satan, at this current time, to be the god of this world. He's over the demons, and Satan also is the prince of the power of the air. He's over the weather, he's over the paranormal and can do all kinds of stuff. So, God shows them all that.

Lost humanity seeks to rule themselves and reject God's Messiah. So, God sends them a fake Jesus. He's called the Beast. He's the worst human that will ever live. He's indwelt by Satan, and he leads humanity to destruction by becoming their god, that's Revelation 10 to 13.

From 14 to 16, lost humanity believes in evolution, reveres the Earth, and denies biblical creationism. So, God the Son, the Creator, systematically destroys the atmosphere, the ocean, and the land. He sends earthquakes, smoke, fires, red tides, global warming, volcanoes, tsunamis, asteroids, comets, and meteors. Those are the final divine environmental destructions. That's chapters 14, 15, and 16 of Revelation.

Then comes, do you know what the crescendo is? Armageddon. That's the ultimate, boom! An earthquake hits, and then all of a sudden, they see the skies open. They just see this white thing and fanning out behind this white horse that comes into view is Jesus Christ and all the angels. It actually says in chapters 25 and 26 of Matthew, that He's going to bring all the angels, the first time all of them have left Heaven, then all the saints. Wow, that's us. We'll be with them at the Second Coming.

In the next chapter, chapter 17, lost humanity wants false religion and human achievement, so God destroys all religions. That's chapter 17. Lost humanity wants comfort, entertainment, and possessions more than God, the idolatry of covetousness, so God destroys all their possessions. That's chapter 18. Basically, all of that is right there.

Boom, the Tribulation. What I just read for the last five minutes is The Tribulation.

But it doesn't end there. Lost humanity rejected their Creator and Redeemer, so Christ the King, on that white horse I just described, returns as judge, and for a thousand years He keeps His promises. He shows He can renew the Earth, but nearly all of humanity rebels. Wait till we get to that chapter, it's so sad. So, the final judgment comes, and He casts all the rebels into the Lake of Fire.

So basically, what we have is the Second Coming of Christ, in flaming fire taking vengeance. He sets up His kingdom and we have the first time there's paradise on Earth since the Garden of Eden. Jesus is literally ruling. That's called the Millennium. Most people reject Him and so we have the Millennium. The rebellion in chapter 20, verses 7 to 15, and the GWT, which means Great White Throne. So that's number six.

Here's the final point of Revelation: as saints, we see ourselves enjoying God's invitation to dwell in His captivating, satisfying, sustaining presence. God is with us and we're at home in Heaven forever. That is the last part of the plan, and I guess that's why the Early Church got so excited. They're going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Most of the saints, the early saints, were poor and slaves. A great vast majority of them were very poor and many of them were slaves. That's why they had church at night because the slaves worked all day. That's why people were falling out of the windows when Paul was preaching, because they'd worked all day and now, they came to this evening service and they fell asleep and would fall out the window.

So basically, and this is very important if some of you have lapsed into somnambulism, you're half asleep or whatever. This is what the final exam is all about, being able to match these seven events. Now, this is in your notes, but just start thinking about this. You should start thinking about how Revelation has seven clear events. The first three chapters are about Christ's Church on Earth. Then chapters 4 and 5, and again in the first half of chapter 19, we see His Church and the saints in Heaven. Then the Tribulation unfolds from 6 to 18. Jesus returns in the second half of chapter 19. He reigns over the Earth for six verses in chapter 20. Then there's a rebellion and the whole horror of the Great White Throne and being cast in the Lake of Fire. The last two chapters describe Heaven. Why do we have that? Because God says, you need to know My plan. So that's why He sent us that.

In the next verse or the next part of verse 1, look what it says. He sent and signified by His angel to His servant, John. Look up. He gave this to show His servants. So twice in verse 1, it's this servant thing. By the way, these lessons, these are actually what, this is actually what's written down. I'm just telling you what you can see as you go through this book. This is how I think. I wrote, we're to be God's servants, and then I wrote, what does it mean to be a servant of God? Isn't that thrown around a lot? Oh, we serve the Lord. What on Earth does that mean?

God, anything we need to know, He defines it. In two verses, Acts 13:36 and 1 Corinthians 4:1. We find the same word used by the Holy Spirit to describe David in the Old Testament.

By the way, who's David in the Old Testament? He's the man after God's own what? [audience answers] Heart. Yeah. Even though he broke all Ten of the Commandments, Jesus is called the son of whom? David. That wicked, adulterous David? Jesus says I'm the son of David. Wow, David calls himself a servant of God in Acts 13:36.

Actually God, through His servant Paul, calls David a servant of God. Paul is the most important New Testament saint, the one who wrote half the New Testament we read, the one through whose Gospel most of us have come to salvation, who planted so many churches that crisscrossed the ancient world and went on all the trade routes. Paul and David are both called the same word, and it's the word for a Roman galley slave.

You go, what? The word is, here's the Greek word, huper retes. It's one word, huperetes. Huper means below or underneath, retes means rower. Look at this, this is Ben Hur. See this is a trireme, this is a rowing boat with Roman soldiers with all these paddles, these oars that are as long as telephone poles. To be a galley slave, all you had to do was row to the captain's beat, the captain would clap with a hammer up there, and he was hitting a hammer. Boom, you pulled your paddle. You had to row together. Look how many men are on each paddle. There were multiple people on the paddles. You had to trust the captain. By the way, you can't see it because it's so little, but they were chained to the boat. The galley slaves were chained to the boat. That means you had no access to water or food, and you were going nowhere, except what the captain wanted for you.

Fourthly, you were in it for life. Galley slaves were like AA batteries. What do you do with your AA battery when it doesn't work anymore? You should have a rechargeable one, but most people don't. What do you do with them? Oh, you put them on your shelf, and you remember them over the years. That one served me last year. No, most people throw them away. That's what galley slaves were. They were disposable. Actually, when they couldn't paddle anymore, they threw them into the ocean. Shark food. So, they were chained for life, and by the way, when they were doing their job, no one saw them because they were below deck.

Now that's a word study of huperetes, that David is called one of those. Paul is called one of those. That's a description of a servant. So, what does it mean to us? We're supposed to be submissive. That means we surrender and say, Lord, what do you want me to do? We're supposed to be sensitive. We realize we're part of a body of Christ with other Christians around us. We're supposed to be trusting. God knows what He's planned for us. He put us in that family. He made us like we are. He gave us all those opportunities. We're supposed to submit to that and trust Him. We're supposed to be chained to Him for life. That's called dedication. That's the campfire and just saying all I am all I have all I ever will be. We used to stick that in the back of our Bible. They gave us a sticker at the Word of Life dedication campfire services. I have one and Bonnie has one in our Bibles. Do you know what that is? Dedication. Saying, I'm chained by love to You for life, O Christ. By the way, we're supposed to be humble. A galley slave doing his job was never seen. So that's what God wants.

Let's go to the next verse. We only have six minutes. Let's go to verse 3. Blessed is he who reads, those who hear, and keep. This is the only place that God promises a blessing just for hearing Revelation read because, in the ancient world, they had one manuscript and a whole church. They read it out loud for everybody to hear because no one could afford a copy. If you listen to the Word of God, you are blessed. If you were the one who would stand in front and read it, you would be blessed. But it was tied to this, look at this: we're supposed to be exposed to the Word of God so come to where it's read or get your own copy and expose yourself to the Word of God.

Hearing actually means you focus in and listen. You actually don't just hear with your ears, you hear with your heart. So, you're focusing and saying, God, you're saying something. I want to know what it is. But then you say, I don't want to just be a hearer of the Word, like James said, I want to be a what? [audience answers] A doer. A doer. So, God said, that gives a great blessing.

Okay, five minutes. Following Jesus was for all believers then and now. Look what it says in verse 4. John to the seven churches. Plural. Why seven? Seven, we'll see, we're going to talk about this so many times. There were a lot more than seven churches. But seven in the Bible is a set, a complete set. If you can find a seven, you've found a set. Kind of like seven days in the week, so there's something about this that Jesus was for all believers. Then the second generation, and now.

Look at verse 5. I love verse 5. It says, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness - we're going to look at all these names - the firstborn from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the Earth, look at this, to Him who loved us and washed or loosed us from our sins with His blood. Jesus loves us, Jesus liberates us, and Jesus washes us.

Revelation explains, look at verse 7, He's coming in the clouds. All the Old Testament promises about the return of Christ, Revelation distills them down and tells us about them. His Second Coming. Then, in verse 8, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who is and was, and the Almighty. God offers complete security.

Now look at this. This is Russia's number one missile. It's called the RS-28, the Sarmat. It has 16 warheads. It can completely obliterate, incinerate, and melt 250,000 square miles. Russia doesn't just have one of these. They're scattered all throughout the mountains of Siberia in these hardened tunnels, and they pull them around on trucks and trains so that no one ever knows where they all are. Each of those 16 warheads travels at seven times the speed of a sniper bullet. We're talking about these things traveling 20,000 miles, 24,000 miles an hour when they're going to their target. One missile, one missile fired from either a submarine or one of these trucks, one missile would kill every living thing in France. The whole country. So just think what it'd do to us. That scares people.

So, there's supposed to be something about us knowing who we are, where we're headed, what's coming, who we belong to, what He can do, what's the end result of those who don't know Him, and where we're going that affects us.

Before we go, we have two minutes. This is a great time to evangelize. People around us are a little scared.

What happened is that Bonnie and I, what I'm doing right now is all we do. We just travel. I teach in Word of Life Chile, Word of Life Ecuador and Argentina, all over the U.S., Hungary, Korea, and Japan. Wherever we are, we teach. But what's amazing is, and that's what the QR code is. A lot of times wherever we go people capture it and they put it online and YouTube actually hosts us for free. They don't even charge us. They have every class I've ever taught for 30 years. Isn't that nice of them?

So, Bonnie and I landed at the airport in Tampa. We were speaking during COVID, and I was at the 7-Eleven. At the 7-Eleven they had all the glass up. Remember during COVID, so there was only a little hole. So, I was leaning over saying to the lady, you have three credit card machines, which one do you want me to put my credit card in? I was trying to figure out how to pay for my milk that I bought at midnight at the 7-Eleven. As I said that, a voice behind me said, Dr. Barnett. I'd recognize that voice anywhere. I turned around and the most gnarly, burly truck driver you've ever seen was standing there behind me with the biggest smile. He said I was scared to death. I'm a truck driver. I typed Knowing God into my computer. Google put a link to one of your videos. I started watching your classes. He said I've never seen you because I listen in my truck. I listen to the videos. He said I got saved in my truck. He said, thank you for pointing me to the Lord. What a time to evangelize.