Coming quickly - Revelation 22:12-21

Okay, we're in Revelation 22, verses 12 through 21. We titled this, Coming Quickly, because that's what the Lord Himself says. One of the things that we bring up here is this rivers in the New Testament, because that's something that shows up here in the last chapter. The river of the water of life. And so we got these five bullet points. Outside of Matthew 3, 6 and Mark 1, 5, mentioning the River Jordan, Revelation is the only New Testament book to even mention a river. So it does so in a kind of an evil and worldly sense, and here in the new heavens and new earth in a good and wonderful sense.

Next bullet, Revelation 9.14.12.15.16 and 16.12 mention rivers during the tribulation period, but each is given in a negative context and on earth, an earth that will end. Revelation chapter 12 verses 15 and 16 use the word river as a figure of speech illustrating the flowing massive nature of Satan's wrath against the Jews. And then, in what is clearly a great contrast, Revelation 22, 1 and 2 speaks of a river of life in the New Jerusalem that flows eternally from the throne of God and the Lamb.

And here's something interesting. What you see as a pattern in the end of Revelation is throne of God and the Lamb, and so you're talking about, well, it sounds like different people, right? But how many thrones have you got? Isn't that interesting? So this by itself is an expression of the character of the Trinity. One throne, multiple persons, one God. Next one here, the picture is there to point our attention to Christ who is himself the continuous source of life.

He is the one, as Jesus said in John 10.28, who is constantly giving us life.

We have a question. It's on your handout. It's also on the screen. I'll bring the chart on the screen here. This idea of the new creation versus the original creation shows up on the chart like this. One is before the beginning. It's interesting. If you go through the Bible and look at the phrase in the beginning or before the beginning, In those kinds of terms, it's a fascinating study. What was true before the beginning?

But here, so you see that, then the original creation, and then you see the next, the new creation is implemented in history. How is the new creation implemented in history? Well, that is true, and that's towards the end, but how is the new creation implemented in history now, in the context of this present heavens and earth? Well, and that's actually the second stage. The first stage is Christ's own resurrection, is the beginning of the new creation, right? So implemented in history, that's Christ himself. It is effective in the believer.

Both Paul's letter, let's see if I can try to figure out whether it's the first or the second one, talk about us as a new creation. Certainly Galatians also does. A new creation or a new creature. Why? Because we've been identified with Christ. We as believers are, after Christ, the new creation already begun. So we look at the new creation as this final time that's described in the last couple of chapters of Revelation when in fact the new creation was begun with Christ himself and then with us.

Yes. The new creation includes New Jerusalem. Yes. Yes, and in the new heavens and new earth. And right now, the earth and the heavens are separated, ultimately, aren't they? In the new heavens and new earth, they will not be. Remember one verse we looked at in chapter 21, God says He will be among, three times in one verse, among us. No longer the separation between what is on earth and what is in heaven.

So, it is interesting when you talk about when does the new creation begin? Well, it already began with Christ. It has also already begun with you. When we go to see the Lord, that will be fulfilled bodily. Hi, how are you doing? You okay? Yeah. Did you get a hand out? Yeah, alright.

Okay, next question, Revelation 21.3, are these people the bride of the Lamb or someone else?

Does Revelation chapter 21 speak of more than one group of saints? And the answer here, the new heavens and new earth will be populated by all the saints of all time. We can make a mistake of thinking that the saints are simply those who are of the church, and that's not quite the right case.

It's one of the reasons people miss the fact that the Church is not in the Tribulation, because the Tribulation has saints coming out of it, but they're not of the Church. We could use what may be a rather mundane example. All nickels are coins. Not all coins are nickels.

The word saints applies to the Church, but it also applies to all the saved of all time. Got that? Make sense? Okay. Essentially, the word saints means set apart ones. It applies to all those who believe of all time, but not exclusively the Church Age saints. See also, we have a supplement. This is from Week 49, Revelation series from earlier this month. The three groups which make up the peoples of God in eternity.

Okay. Questions? Comments? Exasperations? Yes. Oh, no rapture at all? Yeah. Yeah, this is very much a Reformed covenant theology viewpoint. There are those who hold that, and they're actually of varying persuasions in terms of what they hold to. There's everything from a kind of a covenant, you know, amillennial or postmillennial, and it can even include varying degrees of what's called preterism.

That is, all prophecy in the Bible has already been fulfilled. Christ isn't coming back. For those who are full preterists, and this person you're speaking of may or may not be, for those who are full preterists, Christ has already come back, there is no second coming yet to be fulfilled, and Satan is bound now. Well, that pancantigraph. Pardon? Pancantigraph, yeah. Yeah, is at least a partial preterist.

But his reasoning is that God wouldn't have two programs. One, I couldn't get across to him, Well, you know what's interesting is is that's an assumption. read into the scripture. In other words, what happens is that God wouldn't have two programs. Well, the Bible does not say that. As a matter of fact, it says contrary.

But if you have that assumption, then you're going to read that into every passage that you encounter. I said, well then, God's promises to Israel has to be fulfilled. they're eternal and he'll be dealing with that to the end. And that's how he's going to deal with the Antichrist and all of that at the end of Revelation. And Israel finally as a nation turns to God.

But I don't know. It's hard to talk to them. Here is where a lot of that came from. Because this concept was not considered anything but heresy in the very early church. Where it came from is starting at the end of the 2nd century and into the beginning of the 3rd century to the middle of the 3rd century, the idea that was introduced is this.

Starting with Plato who said, I mean you hear about Socrates and Plato, his disciple. Plato said that the Greek myths were actually not historical reality. They were just analogies. They were allegorical. So what happened is a number of Christians, after the New Testament era, started giving a lot of credit for the Greek philosophers. There were some that even said that the Greek philosophers were as inspired as the Bible. And those people of that mindset who gave the same authority to Greek philosophy and to the Bible said, just like Plato did, oh, these things are allegorical. So they imposed allegorical interpretation from paganism. So all these ideas, there is no rapture, the church and Israel are the same, all that is imposing allegory that historically comes from Greek paganism onto the New Testament and Old Testament passages. And it looks upon Greek philosophy as equally inspired with the Bible. So it's really heretical. Just a few of them realize that. And what we're doing is we're taking the Bible literally.

We do not allegorize a passage unless it explicitly says that it's an allegory. Paul, for example, says that it's an allegory in Galatians when he has the picture of Mount Sinai and Mount Moriah and all these different things. He says it's an allegory. What we do as we go through is we don't impose an allegory unless the passage says it's an allegory. all other approaches, and I'm talking even mid-trib and post-trib raptures, have to begin allegorizing. And that's the serious error. It's real interesting. They get into real trouble in passages like Zechariah chapter 14.

Remember in Acts chapter 1, Jesus was there with the disciples on the Mount of Olives, right? and he was going to ascend up into heaven. And when he ascended up into heaven, what did the angels tell the disciples? You're looking up into heaven, he's going to come back in the same way that he departed. Zechariah chapter 14 says that God, okay, here's the deity of Christ, God will come back to the Mount of Olives, and it even says literally his feet will touch So we're not talking allegory, we're talking reality. His feet will touch on the Mount of Olives.

That's the second coming. So it matches exactly, literally, with what's said in Acts chapter 1. The preterists and many of those who allegorize scripture will say that that second coming then is not when Christ puts his feet on But they will say it's God's judgment through the Romans. It was actually the Romans' feet. It was Jesus' feet coming back. And those same group of people will say that Satan is bound now. We are living in the millennium. Do you like it? The rapture thing is that he said Christ was going to come.

He said he's only coming twice, the beginning and the end. But, you know, he's so totally ignored. That's right. He's not going to come three times. That's right. And so here's Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 18, where he says, you know, we'll be transformed and the Lord will meet us in the air and forever we shall be with the Lord.

So I don't know what that means. Well, they don't like it. Essentially, they get to passages like I just referred to, or in the Zechariah 14 passage, and they allegorize. And they try to mix things up together. They do not like a distinction between the Lord's coming for the church and the Lord's coming with the church.

And they also kind of use the idea that churches What I passed out earlier was a chart that showed the pattern of words and multiple times promised not to be subject to the wrath starting in Romans. twice in 1 Thessalonians, multiple times told not to be subject to the wrath. Here's the promises in the first couple of chapters, the first three chapters of Revelation. We're not going to be among those who dwell upon the earth. And where do you find the phrase, those who dwell upon the earth? In the tribulation period, chapters 6 through 19.

The pattern of words is abundantly clear and they have to be either ignorant of it or ignore it. When I said, well, why would he need the hundred What's interesting, if you look at that chart that I distributed earlier, the pattern of words is absolutely crisp. I mean, there is no exception to it, not one. And what they do is completely ignore that pattern of words, which is not minor, but abundant, and I would say extremely consistent. There's not one word of exception to it.

Notice when we start going through Revelation chapter 6 through 19, it's all about Israel and Gentiles again. You're mixing up Israel and the church in order to do so. It's a failure to make the proper distinction between the church and Israel. So then is the next step that you put the Christians under law? And that's the other thing, now all of a sudden you've got the Antichrist making an agreement with the Jews to make sacrifices and all that.

It's a horrific confusion. And it actually comes from being ignorant of scripture and taking a pagan system of interpretation. It may come from the Bible Answer Man, but it's ungodly and pagan. And I don't mind saying that flat out. It is not biblical.

Is it correct for us to question whether or not Hank is saved? I don't personally have a question about that, although what he teaches is not biblical, and I think a number of people have written about how he took over the ministry is also not biblical. He took it over in such a way that it was rather underhanded and other people who worked at that ministry, Walter Martin was formerly the head of it, other people who worked at that ministry and family members have, several of them, written and spoken that how he took it was underhanded and unethical. So I think there are reasons to call into question what he's doing, both from scripture as well as people's observations of things. But yeah, it's a pretty serious corruption of scripture to embrace what he has done.

By the way, years past, it's been a while since I've been there, but I used to go to the annual meeting of the Pre-Trib Study Group, which takes place earlier in December. And last year, not this year, last year they had Hank Hanegraaff come and speak to the group, real interestingly. They don't mind having controversial folks come and speak to the group. So anyway. Okay. Let's turn to page two here. And I will move quickly because we've taken some useful but some of our limited time for Q&A here.

Verse 12, Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to what he has done. And by the way, that word quickly is one we mentioned last week. It's often used by folks who want to press for Christ having already come through the Romans. In other words, Christ's second coming was when the Romans attacked. That's how they look at it. That's his second coming. That's it. He isn't coming again.

Christ coming through the Romans, with that they say, well then Christ would come quickly. But this word quickly does not mean soon like in Earth time, but it means His coming along with all the events along with it would be in rapid succession. We get our word, it's tachos is the Greek, and we get our word tachycardia, you know, fast, fast heartbeat. from that turn. And so this I am coming quickly, we saw in the first couple of chapters of Revelation, his coming will be accompanied with a sequence of events where everything takes place in rapid succession.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And as we saw through the book of Revelation, these judgments come one right after another in sequence there up until the time of the second coming. So, at any rate, let's look at the bullets at the bottom of page two. First, our Lord Jesus Christ is looking to reward believers, not looking for an opportunity to clobber us.

Okay? My reward is with me. You know, I think one of the things people will sometimes get pictured for them, when you get judged before the Lord, is that something that you should be just trembling, shaking, fearful? Oh, no. Okay? Now, do we take it seriously? Yes.

And I encourage you to do so. But also, look at what is the Lord's motivation. He wants to reward us. He wants to reward us. And I think that's important for us to remember. This is a gracious judgment. The exhortation is living in trust and in confidence and dependence upon Him. Not so that you avoid this big fear and panic, but rather so that He can reward us fully. That's the exhortation.

Even in the letters to John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, you'll find that message. Look for receiving a full reward. Look for receiving a full reward. This passage here lays it out. longs to, desires to, is motivated to reward us to the max. That's what he wants to do. He wants to reward you fully. So this is hopeful, not scary. Do we take it seriously? Yes, we do. I don't mean to throw it aside. But we look at it, the Lord's intent is to reward you fully.

That's the perspective that He has, and the perspective that we ought to keep in mind, which is why He says this. And by the way, what we're looking at, these are the last words of Jesus Christ in the Bible. So what does He emphasize? He's coming quickly, and He wants to reward us fully. And that's the perspective we most certainly ought to have. Next is reward is personal.

What's interesting is here are all these masses of people, and I don't know, anybody can guess, how many Christians have there been throughout time? How many Christians are there yet to be? We don't know. I hope the Lord comes today. I hope this is the last day, but we don't know. Yeah? It would be the same number as the number of angels on the hill. Yeah, you might have a good estimate there.

But I think the thing that's amazing with all those great numbers of people, we see evidence here in these last chapters, and in the second and third chapters of Revelation, remember that the Lord's relationship with you is personal. You will not get lost in the crowd. And the reason for that is because the Lord has a capacity as an infinite God To look at, here's this great mass of saints, and yet be greatly interested in you personally. See, when Christ died on the cross, he didn't just die for a lot of people. He died for you personally, and me personally. And that's a part of the thing that you see here.

Each one according to what individual he has done. The Lord's attention to you is not just, you know, you're one of those big masses of people and, you know, who are you? I don't know. The Lord is not a bureaucrat, okay? The Lord, although He deals with great numbers and masses, has a personal relationship with you and He wants exactly that.

And that's why we see repeatedly in the book of Revelation, especially at the beginning and at the end, the focus on personal and individual relationship. The Lord is concerned about you personally and individually. Finally, His reward to us will be based on our works.

But the works He will reward us for are the ones He has prepared beforehand, Ephesians 2.10, right?

And they are done by His life, Colossians 3.1-4. Isn't it amazing and gracious that the Lord rewards us for what He does through us?

For works He's already prepared beforehand? Do you get my point there? This isn't you making your best effort and trying really hard and then just kind of catching up with the Lord at the end and Him saying, how did you do? Yeah, He loves us so much that the reward that He has motivated to give us to the max is a reward for things that He has already prepared beforehand and He longs to do through us. We are His instruments, and then He wants to reward us for that. How gracious is that? Yeah, this is amazing stuff.

Okay, page 3. The top of page 3 has verse 13. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. We've already made clear identification that this quote and quotes like it say that Christ is claiming deity. This is a handout that we had here earlier this month. Here's one of the verses that clearly connects what Christ says here with the claim of God, the God of Israel. Isaiah 44, 6, Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God beside me. I want to make a strange insertion, if you'll bear with me for a minute. You know, you brought up the fact that this fellow that you're talking about doesn't see the different peoples of God. Here's something very interesting.

When you look at Jehovah, Yahweh is pictured as the husband of Israel, and Israel is his bride. You know that in the relationship between Yahweh And Israel, there is punishment. In the relationship between Yahweh and Israel, there's actually a divorce in the Old Testament. And, remember the account of Hosea? Hosea, you go out and marry this prostitute. And she's going to be unfaithful to you, but now you'll be a living picture of the relationship between me and Israel.

Look at that in comparison to Christ and the church as it's pictured in Ephesians chapter 5. Is there the picture of the church being unfaithful? No. Being sanctified so as to be holy and blameless. Is there a picture ever of divorce in that passage? No. There is not.

So a failure to understand the differences in God's program between Israel and the church is a failure to see those distinctions. And Nancy and I have counseled with a couple. I'm trying to remember, I think it was about a year and a half ago. Counseled with a couple where they were having marriage problems because they failed to make that distinction. When he read Ephesians 5, he saw his wife as a whore. Instead of seeing her as being sanctified and holy and blameless. When we told them, no, you've got a problem here. You need to make a distinction between the church and Israel and realize that the church is not pictured in Ephesians 5 as a whore and is divorced from God.

They've had that marriage problem solved since then. And so it has a practical impact. It's not just hypothetical and dealing with. the future out there, it had a practical impact on the marriage. It's real and does make a difference. It's not just hypothetical and out there somewhere. Anyway, quick point. Yes?

Okay, in this statement on 13, so do you feel that the Alpha, the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, all three of those are referring to the same thing because they all are preceded by the article? Yes, and they're also a Hebrew poetry pattern, a triple Hebrew poetry pattern. OK, the Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and the end, they're all the same thing and they are comparable. Here, for example, the first and the last, the Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of what?

The Greek alphabet, right? We would say A to Z, right? It includes the first and last and everything in between. The rabbis would say the Aleph and the Toph, the first and the last letters in the Hebrew alphabet. So what did John do since these people speak Greek? He just substitutes the Alpha and the Omega. The first and last, the beginning and the end.

That is a Hebrew parallel pattern of rhyming. And it's said three times. We've already made clear identification of this quote and quotes like it say that Christ is claiming deity. Very important point. Because you're right out of Isaiah. I am the first and the last. So therefore, when those guys come knocking at your door two at a time, and claim to use the New World Translation, and by the way, this is in their New World Translation, okay? I checked. They make a huge mistake.

Here is Christ, who by the way, when Thomas saw that he indeed was crucified, what did he say of Christ? My Lord and my God? And the Jehovah's Witnesses, by the way, teach that Jesus is an angel, right? And what happened to John when twice in Revelation he started worshiping an angel? What did the angel do? He said, don't worship me. Did Jesus tell Thomas, don't do that?

No. He accepted. the worship, and right here, it says, I am the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. This is a claim to deity, folks. Clear as a bell. It's right in the Jehovah's Witness New World Translation. It almost makes it sound like it's part of creation. It doesn't say that there's nothing in here that precedes creation.

He's talking about which usually refers to Genesis 1.1, that's the beginning. This kind of statement is similar to our, when we say A to Z, what do we mean? The first and the last and everything in the middle. He says, I am everything in here. I'm not just a part of this creation. I'm not just some aspect of life. He says, I'm the whole thing. That's what he's telling you. The entirety. Did he make just some of things? No. He made everything. All of history is summed up in him. That's Ephesians 1 10. God managed all of history to be summed up in Christ. It's a rarely used word in the New Testament and even in Greek writing. Everything is summed up in him. Everything. No exceptions.

Alright, verse 14, blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city. John has written blessed is or blessed are, how many times? Seven. If it's seven, that's something John did. We made a point of that earlier. He did it frequently in Revelation. Things are in sevenths. This is no exception. In this verse we find the last of the seven places where John writes that in this book, the last thread of his most impressive tapestry of words. In this, the seventh verse in Revelation saying blessed, John writes what our Lord says, blessed are those who wash their robes. Now this wearing white, and by the way, how did you wash your robes? Is that all something you did? You washed by faith, okay? What did Paul write to the church in Corinth?

This is at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 6. He says, you know, there was this and this and this and such were some of you. And he had all sorts of things. There was people who did things that were sexually wrong, people who did things that were otherwise wrong, that were not sexually defined. He had a list of ten items. Half of them were sexual, half not.

At the end, you say, what happened? You were washed. You were sanctified. You are justified. That's what he spelled out. Yes. But Jesus does tell the churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation that they are supposed to repent. Yes. Yep. And what's interesting is there is this distinction we make between our position and our condition. Here is Paul writing to the church at Corinth. In the very first verses, like verses 1 through 9, one of the things we looked at when we started in 1 Corinthians, he writes to these people who have a heap of problems.

I mean, they've got serious problems. I mean, real serious problems. This church is full of troubles. But what does he do before he even goes into the problems? He says, you've been sanctified. He used the perfect tense. All you people with all these problems on you, you've got a bunch of them. There's no question about it. But he addresses them as the church. He says, you've been sanctified. You've been made holy as a completed past action with ongoing results into the future.

That's your position. Now that we've dealt with your position, let's talk about your condition. It's that same first chapter, verse 30, where he says, it's by God's doing you've been made to be in Christ Jesus. You don't have any problems? No. But you've been permanently, by God's doing, by God's accomplished, been made to be in Christ Jesus. And then when he gets into dealing with their problems, he says, such were some of you, but you've been washed. Done deal. Yeah.

So is sanctified then normally, or always, a perfect tense, or at least an aorist? It is not always. And one of them I quoted in Hebrews, at the end of two Sundays ago, the main message. There in Hebrews, He died once for all for those who are in the process of being sanctified. It is an ongoing process of being sanctified. That's in our condition. But in our position, He died once for all.

It's a done deal. Isn't that a great thing? We have our position and we don't have to struggle to get our position. God already accomplished it. Are you in Christ this morning? Yes. If you believe you are in Christ, there's no reversal of it. Here's what's fascinating, is you'll find all these passages that say you've been united with Christ in His death and burial and resurrection and ascension and seeding. You've been made to be in Christ. I cannot find one that threatens or says that anyone is taken out of Christ. That you've been un-united with Christ in His death. Not one. But multiple passages that says that you're in Christ, you've been made to be in Christ by God's doing, you've been identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding, not one that even threatens to say that's going to be undone if you don't be careful. Which is, by the way, something to remember. You got any family members, maybe even kids, that at one time you were pretty sure they believed? Keep this in mind, would you? Keep this in mind. Okay. Now, let's turn to page 4.

The righteousness of Jesus Christ is the means to access into the Tree of Life and the gates of the New Jerusalem. The Tree of Life has been promised to the church in chapter 2, referred to three times in Revelation chapter 22. So we give the references there in bullets.

The Tree of Life points to the person of Jesus Christ who, in John 10.28, has said that he is constantly giving his life.

15. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers, the immoral persons, the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying. It was interesting as this is three times in this chapters 21 and 22 where those who are excluded from the New Jerusalem are spelled out. So we give the references there, both chapters.

It's not that those who lack the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ are positioned right outside the city. The point is that these are not in the New Jerusalem. They are excluded. They just aren't there. He keeps pointing that. It's not like they're right at the door, ready to come in. He just keeps saying they are not there. They're not there, and by the way, they're not there.

Yes? I was thinking the other day that The tree of life is actually a picture of grace, and the tree of knowing good and evil is actually a picture of law, right? So you have both of those right here, where you have the right to the tree of life, you actually do that through grace. Yes, and only by grace. Which is eternal life. And this other one, which you're talking about, all the people who have all these issues and problems. That's out of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, right? Exactly.

And so it's interesting, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were barred from the tree of life. Now, here in the New Jerusalem, which includes only those who are saved by grace, now all of these repeatedly are said to have access to the tree of life. Because the law condemns. The law condemns they cannot give life. Grace alone, grace alone gives life. We have some bullets down here. These dogs are Kuan.

This shows up in the book of Philippians as Paul writes to the Jews who were rather vicious and aggressive with their enforcement of law. He calls them dogs. Now, there are two different words for dogs in the Greek, and one of them is kouon here, which is a mangy, wild, roaming dog, often diseased and scrapping for food. If you get close to its food, it'll attack. I mean, that's the word that he uses here. It's the moral and spiritual low life. And a different word for a pet dog.

Sorcerers from the Greek, interestingly, pharmakia. It was a practice of sorcery that involved a mixture of drugs and alcohol and sorcery. They would use drugs from various herbal sources and involve that with their magic. Altered states of consciousness through chemicals. Yes, twice. As one of the practices that continue through the tribulation period. He's saying that's excluded from the New Heavens and New Earth. It is first listed as one of the works of the flesh in Galatians chapter 5.

Murderers here, this is phonos, is basically homicide. It's homicide. Idolaters. It's an image worshipper. And everyone who loves and practices lying. This is loves. It means to have an affectionate attachment to, or an affection for. And practices of Paleo does it. They love it and they love to do it. So with their hearts loved, their bodies put into action. With their hearts loved, their bodies put into action.

Verse 16, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star. What we saw in the very first chapter of Revelation, now twice in chapter 22, is that the Lord Jesus Christ has specifically sent his angel to convey these truths. So it says at the beginning, it says at the end, the word translated angel is angelos, which means messenger.

Jesus Christ is specifically intent upon and interested in you knowing and understanding the truth. God does not want us to stumble upon truth or just happen to figure it out some clever way. He has deliberately and intentionally revealed truth in order to bless us. Blessed are those who hear and read this book.

What does the bright morning star refer to? Well, let's take a look at that. Let's see if I have coverage on that. No, I don't address that. I think the thing is if you look at it, anybody seen the, what is the morning star by the way? It's a reflection which is off the sun's light which is Venus. And when do you see this so-called, when do you see Venus? What time is it? Pardon me? Yeah. Can you see Venus at night time? Earlier in the night? Yes.

And so, very interesting, you see Jesus, you see Jesus here pictured as the bright morning star. When was his first coming? When was his second coming? An early appearance and a later appearance. You see him as the bright and morning star. The morning star is the later appearance. That's this. He's pointing to a second coming. That's as I see it. He's also a big light source. When do you see the morning star? You don't see it in the middle of the day. You see it when there's darkness. But when the light is about to show up. When the light's about to show up.

Verse 17, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let the one who hears say, Come, and let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. And I keep making the point, we're going to see it in today's main service message, let does not mean allow anywhere from the book of Acts to the end of the Bible. Okay? Let does not mean allow anywhere. So it is not simply, you know, allow these people to come. It means must. They must come. They most certainly ought to come.

The Spirit and the Bride, now why do the Spirit and the Bride, why are those put together? By the way, who's the Bride? The Church. The Spirit and the Bride say come. Now, why both those say come? Why does the Holy Spirit say come? How does that happen?

Does the Holy Spirit have a ministry with unbelievers? Yes. The Holy Spirit says, you need Jesus to the unbeliever. There is a conviction of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And that ministry of the Holy Spirit tells the unbeliever, come. We in the church also have a ministry to the world to say, come. So he puts them both in there. The Holy Spirit working in the hearts, we expressing this message out into the world around us.

Both say come, and that's an imperative. And let the one know, and the one who hears must say come. Let the one who hears say come. He must be hearing. Yes. But I think that's also referring back to the statement in the churches where it says, and the Spirit says to the churches, that him who have an ear, hear. So isn't that...

And if you think about it, what is the Holy Spirit's ministry? The Holy Spirit's ministry to the unbeliever is to point them to Jesus for salvation. The Holy Spirit's ministry to the believer is to direct us to Jesus. This is the end of John chapters 14 through 16. The Holy Spirit's ministry to believers is to point us to Christ. Both of them. Yeah. To the unbeliever and to the believer, the Holy Spirit's significant and primary ministry here on planet earth is to point us to Christ. And let the one who is thirsty come. No, it's the one who is thirsty must come. That's how it ought to be carried across. and let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. No, it's not allow him. It's the one who wishes must take the water of life without cost. And by the way, when it says without cost, what does that mean?

It's free. It's grace. One of the things that we try to avoid, we're not perfect at it, but we try to avoid is songs that talk about us owing the Lord something. We don't owe the Lord anything. He's not said, now that you're saved, come and sign this whole thing here and pay me back. It's grace. It's grace. I can't even begin to pay the Lord back. I don't owe Him anything. That's why it's grace. It's all grace. The water of life had been offered before in chapter 21. We saw it all also way back in John chapter 4. Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. I'll give you living water. Living water. I'm the one. I'm the source.

Verses 18 and 19, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book.

Does that sound like it's not gracious? Why is it still gracious? The one who starts altering this message of grace, they're throwing grace away. By the way, that's what the Book of Mormon does. It throws grace away. That's the problem. That's why you have warnings like this. This isn't the only warning in Scripture. Jude, the book right before it. Jude is the book right before it and it says this.

I urge that you contend, and that's epiagonizami, which means an intense Olympic-level effort. I urge that you contend earnestly, is the way it's translated, but that's what it is, for the faith that was once for all. Same word hapax that was given in Hebrews that said Christ died once for all. The faith that was once for all given to the saints, and that word hapax means once given perpetually valid.

You don't need to go and come up with some additional revelation. Somebody says, hey, I've got this great book here. Bah humbug! Why? Because faith that was once for all given to the saints. It's a done deal, folks. We don't need some extra revelation. We don't need some new prophet. It's a done deal. It's finished. It's a completed book. Yes. has died prior to this, right? John's the last one alive, as far as we have any evidence. Yeah. John's writing the last book.

Right now we're reading the last verses of this last book of the last apostle that was alive. And without either an apostle's pen writing it or an apostolic sponsorship, like the writings of Luke, Mark, okay? That's apostolic sponsorship. Without that, it has no validity. So with this we're reading the last book that has any validity at all.

Nobody can come up with anything else that's inspired and a part of the Word of God and add to it. Anyone who is an unbeliever will go into the lake of fire. They're going to be punished. There may even be those who try to come up with additional books during the tribulation period. Any unbeliever during that period would receive the plagues of the tribulation directly.

It becomes very clear that John is very concerned about the prophecy of this book. In verse 7, the words of the prophecy of this book. Verse 9, the words of this book. Verses 10, 18, and 19, the words of this prophecy of this book, or the words of the book of this prophecy. Verse 19, which are written in this book.

There is a great emphasis in this last homestretch chapter here. upon what he has written. Huge emphasis. And I think that's critical, especially here's the last book being written. It's the last book sequentially in the New Testament. Great emphasis upon this is it, folks. This is the last one.

So why is John so concerned about maintaining the integrity of the book? Why does he warn anyone who might consider adding to or taking away from this book? I was mentioning before we got started how hundreds, about 800 books were written by about the 8th century trying to fake New Testament and Old Testament books. Finally, we have verse 20.

I'm running out of time, so I'll read that. He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming quickly. That's the theme for today's lesson there. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Grace, grace, grace. A blessed book, isn't it? It is a prophetic masterpiece. I've seen people mess it up, including the St. Canegraaff fellow. This book is a prophetic masterpiece.

I went through this book. I took over a year to go through it a week at a time with Brad Mastin and Jim Poole. So we sat down and went through it. And I said, guys, when we're all done here, does any of this look in question or confusing to you? No, it's not. And I hope that you've kind of gotten the same impression that this is really an amazing book, but it's a masterpiece. And it actually is quite clear.

And for all the different views of it, by the way, the views other than what I presented to you all impose allegory in some degree. For all the different views of it, taking it with literal interpretation arrives at, I believe, what we've presented here over this last year.

And that anything else ends up resulting from imposing an allegory upon the passage, of taking less than literal interpretation of the passage itself. The difference is, where do you allegorize it? And once you allegorize it, how do you control what the allegory means? Every cult uses allegorical interpretations.

I've looked through, I have the Jehovah's Witness commentary on the book of Revelation and it just allegorizes left and right. You know those scorpions back there during the tribulation period? Those scorpion creatures that come kind of like locusts and scorpions? They say that's the Jehovah's Witnesses pestering us Christians. allegorized interpretation, right?

Yeah. But see, that's the advantage of allegory is you can impose it anytime you want and make it mean anything you want. Therefore, once you begin imposing allegory, The door is wide open and that's why there are some 30,000 different denominations in the United States and throughout the world. Christian denominations. You can impose allegory. It's a wonderful tool if you want to manipulate what scripture says. Actually, if you press them, they will, but they will say that that's the correct way to do it.

They don't understand that they're doing what all... I mean, the Mormons, they allegorize. The Jehovah's Witnesses, they allegorize. The Christadelphians, they allegorize, you know. But I mean believers that are not rightly dividing. Well, yeah, what they will do is they will say the allegory is rightly dividing, is what they will say. They may not use the word allegory but they'll say spiritualizing. Yes, they'll use a different term. Spiritualizing.

See, there are folks, for example, who are covenant premillennial. That is, they're not dispensational, but they're covenant premillennial and they may even believe in a pre-tribulation rapture. But what they do is they still fail to make a distinction between the church and Israel. And so at some point they begin allegorizing, even though they believe in a literal rapture, a seven year tribulation period, and a thousand year millennial reign. They will still allegorize at various points in order to make the scripture say what they want it to say.

Anyway, feel free to see Nancy or Sue to get additional copies of anything. Talk to me, email me, phone, whatever's comfortable for you. If you've got any questions or afterthoughts, and let's pray. Okay? Lord, we thank you for just the honor and privilege and certainly, as you promised, the blessing of this book. And what immense and masterful truths are presented here. And we just thank you for the opportunity we've had over this last year to step through the pages of this precious book. We just thank you in Jesus name. Amen.