Would you bow your hearts with me? Lord, we just come before you. We seek you out, Lord. We seek you for your counsel. We seek you for your wisdom. We seek you because we love you, Lord. We want to learn your pathway in life. We ask you to come and hover over us, Lord. We are blind and deaf and ignorant unless you send your Holy Spirit to teach us and instruct us.

So if there's anything standing between us, we ask you, Lord, to forgive us, wash us and cleanse us. We ask you to send your Holy Spirit to give us a word of life, your instruction from your very voice, from your heart. Lord, I need your anointing. Come and anoint that I may deliver your heart to us, your people. Speak for yourself, for you are our great God. You're the only one that can bring truth that sets us free.

Bring your truth and your revelation into our hearts and minds, into our lives physically. In Jesus' name I pray. Do you agree with me? We're continuing on in our study in the book of Revelation. We still have not made it to verse 1. We covered it in our last episode. Talking about John the Beloved.

The disciple that Jesus makes the comment, the one he loved. A special relationship between John and Jesus. There's some unique things about John. He had some sort of monetary tie with Nicodemus. He and Nicodemus were the ones that went into the high priest's home when Jesus was arrested. Of course, I told you that...

He's one, John is the one that made the way for Peter to come and stand in the outer court. Above all the other disciples, John and Peter stuck out the most because they believed the most. They had the most faith.

John believed the Lord so much, once there was something going on that was questionable. And John runs to the Lord and makes the statement, "Lord, let us call down fire on these people." And it wasn't because he was angry. He had seen the miracles and participated with God in the miracles, knowing that one of the miracles that Elijah the prophet did was call down fire from heaven.

So shouldn't he expect that if God is in their midst and something is defiling the moment? He had an expectation of that. Wrongly. True. The Lord corrected that.

I think his character is somewhat disparaged because he was bold, pure of heart, loving the Lord his God with all of his heart. He was one of John's disciples, John the Baptist's disciples. He came to Jesus. He was also a fisherman.

We've talked about that. I don't know if you know it or not. I know he is exiled as he's writing this. Epistle or letter, revelation. Hippolytus, which was of the end of the first beginning of the second century, did some writings about John before he was sent to the Isle of Patmos by Domitian, which was the emperor.

It says that the Romans actually arrested him, took him into the great place of punishment. His arrest may have been delayed because of some of the political clout that he had. I mean, if he had enough connections to walk into the high priest's home, which was the officiator of all of Israel, that's pretty connected.

They think he's wealthy because he had servants. His family did. Leopoldus wrote an account, which, I don't know, do you believe in miracles? You know, we say we do. Usually when we get a report of one, well, I don't know if I believe that one. That's going kind of far.

A lot of people don't believe Jesus was raised from the dead. A lot of people don't believe he healed the sick. It's actually written and reported that Hippolytus wrote that John the Beloved, after he was arrested, was taken to the torture pits of the Roman soldiers.

The vat of oil heated up to boiling. That they could drop animals into. They dropped him into it, according to the report. Not one thing happened to him. They couldn't kill him. They fished him out. And since they couldn't kill him, they sent him and exiled him to the Isle of Patmos.

If that's a true account, that would have been an amazing thing for the early century church. It would have been an amazing thing for the Roman soldiers. And they would think, "Wow, we better not try to kill this guy. He's in touch with the gods." They wouldn't know what gods.

Hopefully, they would start asking questions. Whether it's a fact or not, we don't know. We know it's purported by one of the early fathers in Christianity.

When I look at John, he gives us the greatest example of what it's like to walk in the Spirit. In his writings in the book of John, he's all the time referring to being able to hear and see and walk with the Lord in the first party part.

And he recorded some words that Jesus stated that the others didn't record as well. And that was Jesus making the statement to Philip. When Philip questioned him, he wanted to see the Father. And Jesus made the statement, "Have I not been with you so much time that you've not seen me?"

And he said, "I tell you, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father." He goes on to stress, God the Father lives in me. He could do everything that God the Father could do.

He was the Son, endowed by the Holy Spirit when John the Baptist baptized him with power from on high and the mind of God Himself within him. Literally, God incarnate is what one passage of Scripture, Emmanuel. God with us, walking on the face of the earth.

And John, above all the rest of the apostles, brings us into the mindset and pens it in a way that there's absolute clarity. That we're supposed to hear Him and see Him and walk with Him. He pens because Jesus is speaking that thing.

I love it in the Amplified. "If you love me, obey me." And if you obey me, I will reveal myself to you and then in you and then through you. Jesus goes on to say in that same discourse that he would send the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the one that would speak to us.

The Holy Spirit is the one that would speak the word of God to us. It was not talking about a Logos word. It was talking about a Rhema word. Because the New Testament church, the apostles taught straight from the presence of God.

You very seldom see them quoting a scripture. They're writing scripture by speaking it, by hearing God speak it. There's the word of God in our midst. As a matter of fact, the scripture says faith comes by hearing. That's by hearing God's voice speak to you.

When he speaks to you, now you can take it to the bank and cash it. Therein lies the problem. Because as we talked about in our last session, theologians, which even by definition that word was canonized by Aristotle and Plato...

It was a study of the attributes of God, or not our God, not Jehovah, but God's, the demonic forces. It was a study about them, about how you might appease them and act in some religious manner.

It was never the study of a relational, functional fellowship with a living being. Matter of fact, natural theology, which was the reality of the Catholic Church, is philosophy.

It's gone all the way back to Aristotle and Plato, and the two are mixed together. And that's where the Gnostic Gospels came from.

It finally got so bad that they were writing in the Gnostic Gospels that knowledge was God. That we've discovered God and now we are God because we have so much knowledge and they would sit around and talk about philosophy.

One guy wrote about philosophers or the guys that can take something that is so simple that it's not even worthy of making a statement about and make it so complex that it would take an atomic scientist to figure out what they said.

And so it is with so-called theologians. That want to talk about the knowledge of God. They have a sense of what God not looks like, but sounded like 2,000 years ago.

And a false philosophy crept in Christianity that Christ was in your heart. The Christ that's in the Bible walks with us and is King of kings and Lord of lords, not the King of your heart.

They say that prophecy doesn't exist. They say that revelation doesn't exist, as I quoted some of the founding fathers. They were the Protestant, but they still kept that same.

Thomas Aquinas was one of the, in my opinion, a heretic, although the evangelical and Catholic realms count him as one of the founding fathers. He at one time had been involved in the Manchurian religion.

He became a great philosopher and he was seeking out knowledge and decided to become a Christian and became a Christian there in Algiers and not many Christians there.

Eventually he was made a bishop there because of his great knowledge that he had. And he began to mix in quoting in his writings along with Scripture, Aristotle's thoughts and Plato's thoughts.

What makes us a part of God? Us thinking about words he spoke of history that is allegories and not reality. See, Christ talks about us living in reality.

John talks about us living in the reality of Christ being here. Him being King of kings, Lord of lords, and you having a head-on encounter with a real being here. Not some mythical something.

Of Christ, well, he's king in my heart. There's no power in that. It says that at the last days the church will deny the power of God.

And what is the power of God? It's the presence of God. And by them bringing natural theology is what it's called, which if you look that up and look at the definition of it, you're absolutely going to be shocked because that's what's taught in most seminaries or cemeteries.

It has to do with relativism. It has to do with whatever is relative. It has to do with other ways to God. It has to do with everything mixes together and comes out the same way.

We all belong to God and there's different ways to God and it doesn't matter how you get there as long as you're good and righteous. But now they leave the determination wide open of you're the one that makes the decision what's good and what's righteous.

There's no serving of God. And the serving and knowing of God is cut out of it. Instead, it's righteousness by you going and doing social things.

So John receives something so great from God that God himself is setting down a format for us. Of what it looks like to walk in the Spirit, what it looks like to see in the Spirit, what it looks like to hear God and talk with God and see God, what it looks like to receive instructions from Him.

What a discourse of prophecy looks like, what a discourse of walking in the Spirit looks like. And Jesus Himself shows up and officiates it so nobody can change it. No wonder the intellectuals in theology, want to do away with the book and scorn it because they haven't had those experiences.

They deny those experiences exist. They think that it was just allegorically that Jesus was speaking and he was just no different than you and I. He was here and he did a good thing and he taught a good philosophy.

We need to seize the philosophy because the philosophy is the God. So what I see is the greatest thing that's laid out before us in this book is now we can weed out instead of somebody that is not filled with the Spirit, that has never heard God, never seen God, never walked with God, never taught God, never been fellowshipping with God.

Was not taught, instructed by God, has never had any experience in God and denies that anyone has an experience other than saying, "He lives in my heart."

They deny the power of God and they teach me to deny the power and the reality of a relational, functional aspect of my life that's supposed to be alive and real.

Thomas Aquinas was one of the poisoners of the gospel, of the truth, of the reality that Jesus is here now. If he's not here now to you, and you haven't met Him in the form that He is available to meet.

Without that meeting, how can you be a witness of Him? And without the faith that He can do what He said He can do, you can never have that meeting.

And so we've been fed a poison in our... searching for a real relationship with the living God, it's been substituted with just words. Okay, say these words. Okay, Jesus, I accept you as my Savior. That's it. Now you've got a relationship. You're saved and you're walking with God.

And now we need to get you on a bus ministry. We need to do this and you need to do this and you need to do this. Well, wait a minute. I hadn't heard His voice.

I had been taught and instructed by him like the Holy Spirit says that he's supposed to come and teach me. Are you hearing the Holy Spirit teach you? Because see, they rule him out too and throw him into dispensationalism and saying that was only something that happened back there.

And once Jesus was resurrected, the Holy Spirit was taken off planet earth and he's not here anymore. They quote a scripture that says, when that which is perfect comes, then the Holy Spirit will be taken out.

But that's talking about the second coming of Christ because Christ is the one that said, when I die, I am going to send you the Holy Spirit. But it's men doing the same thing that Satan did and that's not wanting to give up their position of authority by the great knowledge that they hold.

John gives us an example of his life. When he was in Patmos in chapter 1 and verse 10. And he says, "I was in the Spirit on the day of the Lord."

In the Spirit. And so the whole rendition of everything he identifies for us is what it looks like to walk in the Spirit in real time today.

Not in history. Not in allegory form. He goes on to say, "I was in the Spirit in chapter 4 and verse 2, and I've seen the throne in heaven."

He goes on to say, "I was in the Spirit and carried away into a wilderness in chapter 17 and 3. A wilderness in the presence of God, of course.

I was in the Spirit and carried to a high mountain in chapter 21 and verse 10. I was in the Spirit and I heard thunder and voices and lightning and earthquakes.

And I saw a throne in Revelation 4 and 5. And I saw the seals. I was in the Spirit and these seals were there in Revelation 8 and 5.

And I was in the Spirit and trumpets going off in Revelation 11 and 19. I was in the Spirit and saw these bowls being poured out in Revelation 16 and 18. Real time experience.

A participation in the heavenly realms of what God is doing there and participation in earthly realms of what God is doing here on earth.

A participation with angels, celestial beings that walk about on planet earth waiting to hear your voice cry out for their help because they've been instructed, go and assist and be quick about it. These are my children.

We're taught they're irrelevant. We're taught, oh, they're somewhere up there in heaven.

And I'm not saying go pray to angels. We're not. They're servants like we are.

And the whole book is full of prophecy, full of relationship with spiritual beings, full of life in the presence of God here on earth, full of life in the presence of God in the heavenly realms.

And why I say full of life in the presence of God here on earth, where was John when he was seeing all this? Was it real time for him?

Was Jesus giving us an example? Because when we get in and see, I'm absolutely dismayed that many say that the book of Revelation is sealed up.

It can't be understood at this time. That it's a book for the end time and then it will be opened. But do you know what the definition of Revelation is or Apocalypse is?

19 times Revelation. To unveil, to uncover. That was a noun. Twenty-six times it's used to reveal plainly an open sight.

In the Greek, it's to reveal, to bring revelation, to uncover, unveil, to disclose a grand comprehensive word which includes not merely a thing shown and seen, but the interpretation of the matter by God Himself.

Furthermore, the unveiling of it by His own hand. He calls it the revelation. Did he say the book that's sealed? He's making proclamation.

The book that is open for man to see what it's like to walk with God. And I'm even going to take you to the end and show you the end because if you know you're on the winning team, it will help you.

14th century dictionary. The definition of revelation or apocalypse.

An act of revealing anything from the divine presence of God alone to man. It's something that is revealed by God to humans, definition number two.

An act of God alone revealing into view and making known His will. Something that is revealed.

Especially an enlightening and astonishing disclosure from God Himself. It is that which is unseen and unknown and uncensed being brought into the light and being seen, touched and felt and known as a result of God's intervention and direction and commands for it to take place.

To reveal 14th century dictionary. To make known through divine inspiration. See, you have to be inspired.

But that inspiration has to come from a divine source. That's why many who read this, if they're not spiritually inclined and spiritually inspired,

Where does the spiritual inspiration come from? Jesus canonizes that. My Holy Spirit will come and if you receive Him, He will fill you and He will teach you everything I've said and everything.

He will reveal the mysteries of heaven to you. That's His job. Someone that's not filled with the Spirit should not expect anything except chaos.

One theologian wrote it's insanity to think about reading it and if you do read it, you'll go insane.

The definition, again, in reveal, is to make something secret or hidden, publicly and generally known, to open up to view and to put on display.

The synonyms of reveal, a supernatural inspired manifestation of the truths and realities of God beyond the range of ordinary human vision and reasoning being made manifest into known reality.

Does it sound like God was hiding something there and saying that I'm going to seal this up and you're going to understand it? It doesn't sound that way to me, does it?

Just by definition of the name that he gave it, it's to disclose, discovering and imparting of the information previously kept secret.

It implies an imparting of necessary and useful information to make known what has been or should be concealed. It should be concealed.

And it is concealed from the world. The world cannot perceive it or understand it. They think

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription with proper punctuation, capitalization, and natural paragraphs:

NK your mind if you read it. They think your mind if you believe in prophecy. One theologian wrote that...

I see no prophecy. I see no apostolic authority in it. I don't see anything from God in it. My spirit cannot acquiesce to it.

Martin Luther. In chapter 1 of Revelation, Jesus begins, if you'll join with me, in verse 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, does your book say, some Bibles do, at the top, "Revelation." The Revelation of John. John the Revelator.

Well, if it does, then that book is in error. Because the Bible starts off and says, "the revelation of who?" Of Jesus Christ. This is not the revelation of John, which God gave to him. To whom? No. That God gave to Jesus Christ. Remember?

Jesus being asked, well, who's going to sit at your right hand? He said, it's not for me to make that decision.

Jesus still makes it plain to us that revelation comes directly from the Father's hand. This revelation was given from God to Jesus. Jesus gives it to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enlists an angel, and then the angel comes and stands before John.

The reason he does this is because he wants to show us the hierarchy of what it's like. If you receive revelation, guess who it's from? God the Father. Guess whose hands it's been through? It went to Jesus. Guess what Jesus did? He sent the Holy Spirit. Guess what the Holy Spirit? He sent angels, and you missed them. They're standing right there beside you, waiting to impart the revealed nature of God, revealing things of the future, revealing things of... Questions and answers about your relationship.

And the greatest thing is not about all the answers or the future prophecies. The greatest thing, God Himself is standing. Jesus Himself is standing there. We'll catch a little hint of that as we go on.

Going back up, it says, "the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass." You look in the Greek and that shortly. It doesn't mean the next day or two. It's talking about the whole age of time and considering the expanse of time.

We're in the end of that expanse of time of thousands of years. And if you look at it from God's standpoint, with this long timeline of everything that's gone on from the beginning of the time He made the universe to the end of the time it closes, we're right at that end time. And it's just like a quarter of an inch long on this chart that's miles long.

And He's saying, it's short time, guys. These things, let's go on here. He says, and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.

Now I'm going to go ahead and read some more of the chapter here and then we'll take a brief pause in reading of Scripture. But I want to do some reading in context. And then we'll go back up and pick out some points. But I'm not ready really to get into the text yet because I've got some more things to share with you about the book overall.

So let's back up and read. "The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass." He sent and signified it by his angels unto his servant John who bear record of the word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ of all the things that he saw.

Blessed is he that readeth. And they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written their end. For the time is at hand.

Let's pause there. I want to do a quick review. You know what signified means? Signified means that there's a sign that has been set forth. In Revelation it says "signified." And that means rendered into signs or simians in Scripture.

As a matter of fact, signs can also be translated as wonder. It can be translated as things that are miraculous. It's the same word used by John for the miracles that Christ did when He was here on earth. It's a spiritual code.

A sign has been put in there. A sign has been put in there. I don't know if you know this or not. There's 4,591 of these sigmas throughout Scripture from the beginning to the end in the New Testament and the Old Testament.

Signified in code by God. And he's saying, "I signified this." There's something miraculous going on. There's a signifying, a miraculous thing. So he's identifying for us, walking in the Spirit. There's supposed to be a signifying, a miraculous thing going on of you hearing and having relationship with God.

He signified it by sending his angel unto John. Have you had a visitation of an angel? You've had hundreds. You've had thousands. You just were not aware of it.

They're here to guard over you and watch over you and they report directly to God and they're His active soldiers and they're in His rank and file and they report absolutely everything that goes on in your life. They report what you're doing sin-wise. They report when you're giving glory to God, they report, wow, oh God, they're really worshiping you.

And they come and join and they can push demonic forces away. They watch you and I. When we're just lazy. They watch you and I. We'd rather spend time watching the boob tube than we would in God's presence.

I've seen some of them. I'll catch myself. I'll be doing something. Not necessarily sinful. It's just not godly. God-less. There's been times that the Lord... unveil my eyes and I'll see maybe 10 or 12 of them and they're looking right at me in dismay and shaking their head and looking at each other.

What is he doing? Why is he doing this? We don't understand that these creatures that God made are in his rank and file and everything we do is on display in the heavens. Headlines.

So and so is doing this. And I know you don't have any bad reports and headlines going on up there. You are just set on fire for God and they're giving all these great reports.

But you remember the great cloud of witnesses that he talks about? There's a great cloud of witnesses. Part of those witnesses are the angels that are supposed to... be manifest unto us to have experience with God. They're sent down on a daily basis for you to have a real experience with God.

If you and I are not ready for that, then we miss that experience. This code that is in the New Testament. This spiritual code. The whole thing is encoded and can be uncoded by just knowing the ultimate.

There's part of the problem. People that read this New Testament and Revelation don't even know the Old Testament. They don't realize that there's over 404 verses in the book of Revelation and there's over 800 references to allusions that are in the Old Testament. Just right there in the book of Revelation.

He goes on to say in verse 3, "Blessed is he that readeth and that they that hear the words of this prophecy." It's the only book in the entire Bible that declares there's a blessing for reading it. And it closes out saying that your name, if you don't read it or if you change any of it, that in the end times you will not be able to eat of the tree of life. You'll lose your salvation.

Now, there's one thing that is really particularly, I think, interesting, is that when John wrote the book of John, it was full of poetry. And that's what the theologians look for. How does it rhyme? Does it really rhyme? If it rhymes, it's from God. That's their basis of picking something, whether it has that Greek snap to it of being poetry.

Well, when he wrote 1 John and 2 John and 3 John, there wasn't as much poetry and it was kind of a different style of Greek. Not type of Greek, different style of Greek.

And then when he wrote the book of Revelation, it's totally different in its nature and aspect than the first writing. So much so that some of the theologians say, well, it doesn't have all the prose in it, it doesn't have all the poetry, therefore we don't even think it's from God and we're ready to kick it out of Scripture.

But now I ask you this. Twelve times in the book of Revelation, he's standing beside an angel and an angel is showing all this. And he said, see this and see this and do you understand this and this is what this means? Write this down. Write this down. Twelve times he's pointing his finger at him. Write this down.

Now what do you think John's doing? He's writing as fast as he can. He's writing as fast as he can in the abbreviated form of Greek. Direct to the point, telling exactly what's there, not changing one jot, not one tittle, listening, watching, and giving an account.

Twelve times he was prodded. Write this down right now. And then when he gets to the end of writing this down, a statement is made. Anyone who changes anything in this book, he will not be able to eat of the tree life.

Now I ask you, if you were John and you heard that, would you change anything in what you had written down?

I find that absolutely a beautiful thing because to the knowledgeable, it becomes absolutely senseless because it's not the same style. But you and I, with a spiritual mind, we can see how God would, it would obviously be, you would expect it to be a different style.

But you and I, with a spiritual mind, we can see how God would, it would obviously be, you would question if it was the same style more than I would question if it's a different style, especially something written in haste.

This book of Revelation, it presents God's complete plan for man with a cataclysmic conclusion at the end. Not for man, but for the world. And when I say not for man, not for his children.

Now, the book overall, there's four different forms and views of this book. There's the preterist, which they believe that "This book applies only to then, when John was hearing it." Had something to do with that time and with those churches, and it's got nothing to do with the end time.

It's got nothing to do with history. It's rhetorical, and it doesn't mean anything, therefore it's not applicable. There's a historical, which it just says it was a history. It's something that happened back there, and it doesn't have anything to do with today.

It's not how God speaks today. And then we'll make it a historical event.

And then there's the idealist, which is, they want to put it in, it's an allegory. And I'll be honest with you, all of your evangelical seminaries teach it as an allegory, which came from Thomas Aquinas.

Which mixed philosophy, and they're still teaching the same thing, that it's only an allegory. As a matter of fact, it's gone so far that if you look at the Methodist church now, they debate whether Jesus was really deity or not.

They debate whether he was born of a virgin. They debate whether he was really God. They do not debate, but they all agree that what he taught was a philosophy that we're supposed to be kind and love one another and do social things for each other.

How can it get from being in the presence of a living, loving God to being an allegory? Because if it's an allegory, it's a made-up bedtime story by somebody, some philosopher along the way.

And that's what they've turned Christianity to into, is a made-up bedtime story instead of a real experience that you could have. And they deny that you can have an experience. If you ask them if you can have an experience, they'll absolutely deny it.

Look at the book of Revelation as prophecy. And what is prophecy? Prophecy is the voice of Jesus in our midst, is what the Scripture says.

I always like to use the Scripture as its own definition. And so the Scripture canonizes for us that prophecy is the voice of Jesus and that we should not... Come against prophecy in our midst.

We should not squelch it. We should not hold it back. We should not change it. Because that's saying, Jesus, you no longer have a right to speak in our church.

The only thing that the evangelicals count as prophecy is that which was written 2,000 years ago. And I don't see John quoting much Scripture in his revelation that he's receiving.

He's seeing it first time having a real relationship with God. And he's not quoting Scripture. He's writing down what he's beholding as an example to us that this is what your life needs to look like as a Spirit-filled Christian.

Because every one of you are supposed to be having experiences of meeting face-to-face this living God. And the book of Revelation claims to be prophecy, as I just read to you a moment ago, in chapter 1 and verse 3, in chapter 22 and verse 7, in verse 10 of 22, in verse 18 and 19 of 22, in chapter 10 and verse 11.

Did you know the Old Testament? See, an idealist in allegory form doesn't believe that Christ is returning to be king.

A historical person doesn't believe that Christ has come to be king or will be king in the future. It was just history that he was here on planet earth.

The preterist applies and says, well, Jesus was back there and we don't think he's here today. He's somewhere off up there in heaven and you're supposed to have him somewhere in your heart.

But yet, in the Old Testament, There's 1,845 references to Christ coming and ruling on earth. Of Christ taking the throne of David.

And what about Gabriel making the statement to Mary, Jesus' mother, your son will sit on the throne of David?

And what about the 1845 prophecies that proclaim Jesus will come and rule here on the face of the earth? This is just in the Old Testament.

And it gives preeminence. In the New Testament, there's 216 chapters and there are 318 references to the second coming of Christ.

It's mentioned in 23 of the 27 books in the New Testament. And for every prophecy relating to His first coming, there are eight prophecies relating to His second coming.

So if you're a priest, you don't believe he's going to be here in a second coming. If you're historical view, you don't believe he's going to come and reign here on earth. If you're an idealist, it's just an allegory and he really doesn't exist.

If you're a futurist, aha, that means you believe that this is prophecy in this book. You believe that he can speak in prophecy and you believe that there was prophecy in the Old Testament because the founding fathers of the church from Calvin, To Martin Luther?

All of them proclaimed that the only prophetic that took place was way back there, and there's no prophetic that takes place today. It does not exist.

But yet, here we have after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the year about probably 81 to 85 AD, that's quite a few years after Jesus' death.

We have somebody receiving prophecy. And it just drives theologians absolutely nuts. Because they can't control it. It's not in their knowledge. It's not in their thinking. They do not have the ability to do this. Therefore, they have to discount it and say it does not exist.

I hate to dwell so much around this, but we have to see the intent of what Jesus is modeling for us. Not just go look at it as a historical text. Go look at it as some theologians want you to look at it as historical text. Some of them want you to look at it as a futuristic text. Some of them want you to look at it as talking about the bad things of the future.

Where's Jesus in that? Because the whole book is about Jesus. From beginning to end, Jesus stands in the middle of it. From beginning to end, the revelation is from God to Him. And then He begins to express that to us. He's the center of attention throughout this whole book.

It's him speaking in it most of the time. And him giving an account. All of it is his account. Even the conversation with the angel. I know there's part of it that's read where Jesus is speaking himself. And the other parts are responses from John. But Jesus is the one giving the revelation.

So the angel, every time he's speaking, he's still giving part of the revelation. Is he not? So the whole book, from beginning to end. It's prophetic. It's Jesus' voice in our midst giving us the prime example of what it's like to walk in the Spirit with God, with Jesus.

Which this really fools with eschatology, which is a real fancy word that the theologians use. It's a branch, the definition is a branch of theology concerned with the final events in history of the world of mankind.

It's a belief concerning death and the end of the world or the ultimate destiny of mankind, specifically any of the various Christian doctrines. Concerning the second coming, the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment.

See, a person that believes in allegories only don't believe in the second coming of Christ.

And if there's no second coming of Christ, there's no redemption. There's no deliverance. There is no resurrection. There is no meeting Him in the sky. There is no... Well, if none of that comes to pass, then there's no being taken into heaven, being walking in the garden. No eating of the fruit. No communing with God. No sitting at the banquet table.

All those are allegories. Which it should not be so. All millennial.

In this eschatology of understanding this, means that they just believe that when you repeat the secret words now, Jesus is in your heart. He's not here on earth. You can't have relationship with him. You can't see him. You can't talk to him. He will never speak to you in prophecy.

And he'll never reveal himself to you because the only way he revealed himself was in the knowledge that he left. And they're the kings of the knowledge. They're not the king of his presence. They're the king of the knowledge. We hold the knowledge. We hold God. Therefore, we are God. Therefore, we control you.

A premillenious believes that the whole Bible was breathed by God. That the whole Bible was spoken by God. That the whole Bible is true. And with it being true, prophecy still exists.

The knowledge of God exists in the form of a reality of a relationship with Him, not just knowledge about Him. So no wonder this book goes into such depth to take somebody in person on a roller coaster ride that scares the theologian to death because I

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

Am I the supreme authority? I've been studying this stuff for years. I know a thousand times more than these morons that are out there. Therefore, I have the way to God. But yet they've never had an experience with Him. We'll catch that in the text. Matter of fact, let's go back to the text for a moment. Because in the text we can pick up in verse 3, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the word of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein." Ah, that puts a responsibility on our part to keep what's written in here, doesn't it? All of a sudden it's bounced first party part for you and I to keep what's written in there. And if you don't believe it's prophecy, and you don't believe it's the voice of Jesus, and you don't understand it, how can you keep what's in here? How can you receive this blessing that's in there? Because it says "blessed are those who keep it, who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein." For the time is at hand.

John, now a whole other structure comes up. Verse 4, John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come. And so God is revealing himself in this prophecy. John is speaking. He's revealing himself in three different forms and fashions at the same time. Peace that was, peace that is, and peace that is to come. All of it is written in writing so you can understand the past, you can understand the present, and you can understand the future.

He says, from the seven spirits which are before his throne. That's where this peace comes from. And from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness. He's saying, this peace, Jesus is standing there in prophetic form and saying, this peace be upon you. Jesus Christ himself. It says, "and Jesus who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of kings of the earth unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins." In His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.

Now you know a little bit about kings and priests because we've studied the priesthood. And in studying that priesthood, where's our priesthood? It's before the living God. And here is somebody that Jesus is talking to. If you are supposed to be walking with him, Jesus is training you either for kingship, that's so you can rule here in life over yourself, over the things that Satan would want to rule over. Instead, you give rulership back over to God. Or you're a priest under the living God, which all of us, I believe, are called to be into that priesthood, to God our Father.

It says, "To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever." Amen. Now I'm going to go back and we'll contextualize these things. I'm going to go ahead and read probably the entire chapter because I want you to catch the overall view of it. Behold, He cometh with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him. How can He write that if He's not beholding that? So this is what he's seeing when he's in the Spirit.

And they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, amen, and I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, which is and which was and which was to come. Who's talking there? Jesus firsthand.

And which is to come? The Almighty. I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice as a trumpet, saying, "I am the Alpha and Omega, and the first and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia, unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyria, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea."

And I turned to see the voice that spake with me and being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the son of man clawed with the garment down to the foot and girded about with paps with golden girdle. His head and his hair were like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his feet like the fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.

And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet dead, and he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, "Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth."

And was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. I have the keys to hell and death, and write these things which thou seest, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter, the mysteries of the seven stars which thou seest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks, and the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou seest are the seven churches.

That's the end of chapter 1. There's a lot going on here. We've got angels going to and fro. We've got Jesus Christ showing up in a form John didn't recognize. He was the beloved of Jesus and now he sees Jesus for the first time as Lord of Lords and King of Kings. I can't say it's the first time because he may have had other experiences. He wasn't alarmed. He didn't run. He responded in a form and fashion that something had been going on that he recognized the Lord.

The Lord identified Himself and He begins this long discourse in this relationship with Him. Now, in Scripture, Christ in the Old Testament, Christ is in prophecy. He's prophesied about in the Old Testament. In the Gospel, that's the four Gospels, Christ is in history because that's when He was here on the earth and did His thing and taught the apostles and all that stuff.

But when we get to Acts, Now we see Christ involved in church in person after His resurrection. Involved in the church in person. And then when we look at the epistles, we see Christ in the church with the church experiencing Him walking amongst them.

And then in the apocalypse, which is Revelation, we see Christ in His coming glory. So the whole book is about His coming glory. The whole book is about Him sitting on the throne. The whole book is about Him overcoming evil. The whole book, this apocalypse, is Him unveiling for you and I, giving us and I... The understanding of what it's like to walk in the Spirit. The understanding of what it's like to see Him. To hear Him. To walk with Him. To intermix and intermingle with angels. To hear the trumpet blast. To have experiences before the throne.

Now, if you and I begin to have those type of experiences, your faith will become strong. You'll walk with Jesus in person. You'll learn to talk with Him. You'll be able to do as He commanded us. He said, "I want you to do the same things that I have done here on earth. Have you done those things? Are you able to pray and see the sick heal? Are you able to lay hands on? Are you able to be about your father's business?"

Jesus said, "I only do what I see my father doing. What I only see or only do when I hear him saying to me." So Jesus had the ability to see these things and do these things. And now he's showing us in first realm format.

That we, walking in the Spirit, because this is also to us, also, is it not? Because blessed are those who read and keep, so that is for you and that is for I. Because Him being in our presence, when I come into that mindset, it's a totally different mindset than the mindset that I had at one time.

I was raised Southern Baptist. Jesus was stuck somewhere up in the sky. When I prayed, it was somewhere up in the sky. My safety net was, well, He's in my heart. But I didn't have that interpersonal relationship of hearing His voice. Now, I could hear some rumblings of His voice throughout Scripture, but my heart longed and longed and longed and longed.

Oh, God. I want to know you. Oh, Lord, I want to walk with you. I want to fellowship with you. Oh, Lord, do you exist down here? I know you're up there. And I know many of you have gone through that same understanding inside of crying out for more.

So this whole book was written to give us the picture. It's like a hologram laid out for us. A hologram is you can go in and cut a little section out of the picture of a hologram and you can move to the side and you can still see what was there.

In this book, it's showing us no matter what happens if you're in the presence of Jesus, it's like a hologram so that you can continually to walk and abide in the Spirit. The Scripture gives us the command that we're supposed to live and move and have our being in the Holy Spirit, right?

So now we're getting the definition of what it looks like to live and move and have our being in the Holy Spirit. I was talked out of that for years in the theology by theologians, that these things died, that they didn't exist.

I heard things from the pulpit that, first of all, the Holy Spirit was from Satan. That changed over the course of time. That used to be preached from the pulpit in the Baptist church. That changed over the course of time.

Well, we can't deny that He exists anymore, so we'll just say that you got Him. The second you received Jesus, you got the Holy Spirit.

And then they made up this thing, well, the Holy Spirit's not really here, He's just in you, and the Spirit of Christ is the one that does these things within you. I'm thinking, why are you making up things?

It comes down to one thing, internally, is they don't hear Jesus. They don't hear in the Spirit and they don't walk in the Spirit. They don't have these experiences. If you talk to somebody after you have one of these experiences that is a theologian or has been trained by a theologian or has been given the theology or should I say philosophy of this world.

The God of this age, you will not be able to receive the deeper things of God, the revelations of God, because somebody has infected you with a philosophy that is against Scripture. They deny poignantly that God cannot do these things, that He's not capable of doing these things.

And when I look at the apocalypse, Satan hates... Two books intensely in Scripture. The first book is Genesis. And the reason he hates it is because it shows how he lost in a little skirmish with God. And it shows his revealed plan of how he manipulates man and makes us fall.

He despises that and he wants to rip those pages out of the Scripture. But there's one other section in the Bible that he hates even more.

And that's the book of Revelation because it shows him as defeated. It shows him that in chapter 12 he is thrown completely out of heaven. Completely. Right now he has access to go into the throne room of God and bring accusation against you and I.

In chapter 12 he is thrown out completely of heaven. Praise God. No longer the accuser that has the right to come and stand before God. And not only that, in the end he is finally thrown into a pit he cannot escape from. And Jesus totally defeats him and all of his forces and locks him up to where we are safe for eternity in the presence of a living God.

He despises the book. It shows him how weak he is. He does not want you to see it, hear it, read about it, or believe it. He wants to cast it so far in the future that it has nothing to do with you right now. He doesn't want to be known of right now. He doesn't want you to see how he's active in your life.

He doesn't want you to become aware of demonic forces. He doesn't want you to become aware of anything that has to do with him. So if you're not identifying him, then you're fighting against people on this earth.

You're constantly going to be ranting and raving about something because our fight is not against people. And if you're not posing your fight against Satan and against his demonic forces that manipulate you, then you're posing your fight against people here on earth.

The scripture says our fight is not against people. Not against any situation or circumstance. It's against the dark powers of this world, the demonic forces, the cosmo-craters, the ruling factors that rule this planet Earth by their knowledge that they impart to man.

Remember the knowledge of good and evil that was on the tree that they ate of. That knowledge is disseminated into the mind of man by these demonic forces.

The scripture says that we're supposed to take up the sword of the spirit which is sharper than a two-edged sword to cut asunder the thought from the intent. You're the thinker. Where did the intent come from? Intent was demonic.

If the Holy Spirit can divide the intent so that you see, well, that's not God's intent. That's not my intent. I don't want to do that. Why am I doing this?

Now you identify Him and you can resist Him. As long as you're resisting God's Word, His authorities, His instructions, His Spirit, you're walking in accordance with the way the demonic forces want you to walk and you'll give everybody here on earth hell.

The reason being is because you're inspired by the darknesses of hell. The prince of this world. Because you're cut off from being filled with the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, and if you're not walking in the Spirit and in the Word, then you're walking in the flesh.

Because the Scripture gives us the instruction, if you walk in the Spirit, you will not gratify the deeds of the flesh. It doesn't say, stop doing flesh.

Most Christians are taught in the evangelical world, stop doing flesh. But the Scripture says, start walking in the infilling of the Holy Spirit, directed by the Holy Spirit, hearing the Holy Spirit, walking in the presence of God.

And if you're doing that, you will not gratify the deeds of the flesh. You don't have to fight against it. That's why Paul so emphatically teaches in all of his letters to us.

Walk in the Spirit. Get to know God in the Spirit. Come and walk with Him and bask in His presence.

And then John comes along, the last book in the Bible, and gives us the example of what it's like to walk in the Spirit.

And yes, there's some things that we'll be covering about the future, about the apocalypse. But keep in mind, the apocalypse, it's been... Keyed as a phrase in our hearts and minds. It's when everything blows up.

That's not what apocalypse means. I read you the definition. It's the unveiling of how Satan is defeated. It's the unveiling of Christ being king. It's the unveiling of Him ruling the heavens. It's the unveiling of Him coming against the backdrop of the darkness of this world and revealing the darkness so we can see it.

Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just as dark outside when it's night. As the darkness is when Satan is near. You can't see into the night.

But if God shines His light into that darkness and you see the demonic forces, now you know where to walk. You know what He's doing. You know His plans.

God makes the statement that He wants us to become aware of Satan's schemes. And how do you think you find out what those schemes are? By walking in the Spirit.

So again, He comes in and gives us this model. So Satan hates these books and I shared with you why.

We're beginning a really serious study on the book of Revelation. Everything in it begins in Genesis and is consummated in Revelation. It's an integrated design. It brings forth a catastrophic end of the crisis for this present age, the age that we're in.

It brings back a spectacular reappearance of the King of Kings in his global empire here on earth. Him establishing himself, reigning for a thousand years here on earth.

It also shows us that Satan gets wadded up like a piece of paper and thrown into the abyss. Like it was no big event. Jesus just snaps his finger and throws him into the abyss.

How much power do you think Satan has against Jesus? He's got zero. Because Jesus stripped him naked of all of his power and all of his authority and made him walk down the main street of the heavenlies.

He lined up the demonic forces on one side and the heavenly forces on the other side and made a public spectacle of him showing all... celestial beings, whether they be darkness, beings of darkness, or beings of light, showing that He was the King of kings and Lord of lords.

So this is the culmination of showing us that. The angels got to witness what Jesus did.

And in this book, we get to witness firsthand seeing what John, what was revealed to John by the revelation of Jesus that God gave to Jesus Himself.

There's some very unique things. There's a final insurrection and there's a final abolishing of sin in this book. Not only is our sin forgiven, not only is redemption taking place, sin no longer exists.

God abolishes it. It no longer exists. And that's something that every Christian ought to stand up on their pew and absolutely cheer about.

It doesn't exist anymore. I cannot sin. I cannot do evil. It does not exist. He abolishes it.

I don't know if sin has been a plague in your life. My greatest enemy, I think sometimes, besides Satan, is myself.

Your greatest enemy is yourself. And if God abolishes sin, you know how to do right. You know when to do right. And you will do it. Never failing again in your entire life.

As a matter of fact, this whole book demonstrates for us its origin and its entire message.

It's not from this dimension, is it? It's not from this space-time continuum. See, we can identify some of the other letters and messages from the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Well, that's from this space-time continuum from people that are here.

But now, Jesus is speaking firsthand for Himself and it's not from here. It's from a different space-time continuum and He's making proclamation, this is

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

The greatness. See what's going on up here. And so it demonstrates that to us. The central theme in the Old Testament is the count of a nation. The central theme in the New Testament is the count of a man. The Creator became a man. His appearance is in the central events of all history. Jesus is the central event of all history. Including when we get to the end, guess who's still the central event? Jesus is. He died to purchase us and is alive now.

The most exalted privilege is to know Him one on one. That's why He gave us the Word and gave us the Spirit. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed. And the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed. In prophetic Scriptures, there are over 8,362 prophetic verses. There are 1,817 predictions in Scripture. There are 737 separate matters concerning Jesus ruling planet Earth.

And when I look at the book overall, just to do kind of a general review in closing, there's all these sevens that appear. The epitome structure of this book is marvelous. God, for some reason, loves the number seven. It starts out that there's seven churches in chapter 1, verse 4, and 11, and 20, and chapter 2, and 3. There's seven seals in chapter 5.

There's seven trumpets in chapters 8 and 9. There's seven bowls in chapters 15 and 16 and 17 and 21. There's seven lamps in chapters 1 and 13 and chapter 20. There's seven spirits in chapter 1 and chapter 4. There's seven stars in chapter 1 and chapter 20.

There's seven lamps in chapter 4. There's seven titles and pairs. In chapter 2. There's seven promises to the overcomer in chapter 2. We're going to cover all these things. There's seven horns. There's seven eyes in chapter 5. There's seven angels in chapters 8, 15, 16, and 17.

There are seven thunders that are let loose in chapter 10. There are 7,000 that are witnesses in chapter 11. There's seven heads. In chapters 12 and 13 and chapter 17. There's seven crowns in chapter 12. There's seven plagues in chapter 15.

There's seven mountains in chapter 17. There's seven kings in chapter 17. Man, the sevens go on and on and on in this book. There's seven blessings for obedient actions. There's a blessing to he who readeth. And there are those who heareth and keep the things of this book.

Blessed are the dead who die and the Lord. I meet lots of people that proclaim to be a Christian that have never met Jesus here on earth. They're not in the Lord. They may be saved, but they're not in the Lord. The Lord's not in them as it is shown in Revelation.

As it is shown when Jesus makes the statement, "The Father is in me, Philip." What do you not understand? He, the full embodiment of God, is in here. And let me give you a better depiction. When I send the Comforter, I will be inside you just like the Father's inside me.

And now we see, for the first time, a full example of what it's like to have Jesus Christ in you. Not just a little weaning, oh, I know, Jesus is in my heart. Well, is He alive? Do you talk to Him? Do you walk with Him? Do you see Him? Do you know Him?

Do you fellowship with Him? Because there's a blessing to those who know Him before they die. Blessed is he which watches and keepeth his garment. Revelation 16:15. Blessed are they who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. Revelation 19.

These are all attitudes. And blessings. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. And there's a whole set of circumstances for you to have part in that first resurrection. It's Revelation chapter 20. Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book in Revelation 22:7. And blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 22:14.

There's seven features in chapter 1. There's seven letters and seven divisions in chapters 2 and 3. There's seven personages in Scripture inside this book. There's the woman. There's a man, a child, a red dragon, a seven-headed beast, a false prophet, Michael, and the Lamb.

So there's seven different beings that are reported in this book. There's seven years of judgments in chapters 11 and 12 and 14. Seven I Am's of Christ. How many times does Christ have to come to us and say, "I Am"? Do you know what I Am means? I am here. I am the living God. I sat on the throne. I rule the universe.

When will you open your eyes and see, I am. God has not become the I am to us. Instead, He's either the I was or the I will be. He's not the I am. John points out, if God is I am, this is what He looks like in the book.

Next time you say, "I want to know God." Go look. Because if you're not having this type of experience with the living God in the book of Revelation, then He is not revealing Himself to you because that's what Revelation means. Him revealing Himself to us.

Do you know Him as I am? Do you see Him in this matter? Do you have enough faith to believe Him when He says that we are supposed to walk with Him just like He walked with the Father?

We're supposed to hear Him just like He heard the Father. We're supposed to see Him just like He saw the Father. We're supposed to have spiritual experience. There's the I Am. And the I Am has been taken out of Christianity.

And God puts this little book, this big book, right at the end. And if you got rid of it, what would you have as the end? You'd have the book of Jude. This little book of darkness and gloomness. And everything's gone to chaos.

And this dark world and a church that has lost the concept that God exists. A church that has stopped walking with Jesus Christ. A church that does not acknowledge Him. A church that is in vileness. A church that has been infiltrated by Satan himself.

And the infrastructure of the church is gone. And everybody is no longer having relationship with Jesus Christ. And what an ending for the Bible. No. Jesus comes right back and says, "That's not the end." I'm setting the backdrop and letting you know what the time will look like.

There will be such darkness in the church. But it's because men turned away to theology instead of revelational understanding and relationship with the living God. They took knowledge instead of I Am. They supplanted I Am with just knowledge about Him and thought that that knowledge about Him was a real living relationship with a real loving God.

And as a result, they impaled themselves. There's seven years of judgment, seven doxologies in heaven, seven I am's, and seven new things that will be released. And I could go on and on and on in the sevens.

In our closing, I hope that you catch before we go line by line and precept by precept, that you look at this as we enter into this corridor of a book so substantial out of 66 books and 40 chapters. God Himself speaks it. Jesus Himself officiates it. The Holy Spirit delivers it.

And then puts a blessing upon it for us partaking of it and it becoming reality so that God becomes I am again, giving us the example of what walking with and in the presence of I am looks like. Shall we pray?

North, you take my breath away sometime. For me to face the reality that I can have that kind of experience is beyond most people's faith.

Because we have received so much false instruction, so much disaccreditation of men who've never experienced it and therefore they say it doesn't exist and they give us all kinds of theology of why.

Oh God, forgive us and come and wash this stuff out of our minds. Wash it out of our hearts and let us take your examples and your statements that you are the I am and encourage us in our hearts to rush and seek after you, Lord.

For you to reveal yourself to us in such a manner that we become your witnesses. Not just somebody that can read a bunch of books and espouse men's philosophy about you. God, we need to hear you and see you and walk with you and know you.

So help us change the poison of the theology. Help us cough up that hairball that keeps us from being a part of you and knowing you. You said that you would know us. You said that we would hear your voice. You said that we would walk with you.

And every one of your children you promised a supernatural revealing of yourself to. Will help us get out of all that stuff. And cast it down. And saying no more Satan. We will not believe what we've been taught. We will believe what Jesus Christ is declaring.

That he is the I am. And if he's the I am and he's standing here. And I've been taught something that I can't hear him. Oh God forgive me. I renounce it. I cast that knowledge down because I want to hear him. I want to see him. I believe what you say.

Now prepare my heart to receive more of your spirit, more revelation, more understanding, not what men say about it, so that I can walk in your holy presence and know you. I love you and how I desire you. My heart chases after you.

And I was disqualified from the prize many years because of the falseness of men. No more, Lord. I pray this for my brothers and sisters in this hearing. No more. Become the great I Am. In Jesus' name I pray.