This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I'm glad you're back, we're going to be looking at verses 17 to 20 of chapter 1
of the book of Revelation today, day 5 of our look together through this first
chapter. Let me begin by reading those verses, Revelation 1, 17 to 20, "When I
saw Him," this picture that we looked at yesterday of Jesus. John writes, "When
I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead, but He laid His right hand on me and He
said, 'Don't be afraid.

I am the first and the last. I am the living One who died. Look, I am alive
forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death in the grave.

Write down what you've seen, both the things that are now happening and the
things that will happen later. This is the meaning of the seven stars you saw in
my right hand and the seven gold lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of
the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

" Here we see in verse 17, John's first reaction to seeing this picture, this
reality of who Jesus is. He fell down as if dead. The truth is, I cannot, you
cannot, no human being can stand in light of the true holiness of God.

Even a glimpse of the holiness of God causes us to fall to our knees. The Bible
tells us if we saw the true holiness of God, we would die. That's how great
God's holiness is.

John falls to his knees, and then you and I, at the beginning of this book, this
book that's going to be so filled with things that would cause us to want to
fall to our knees and say, "It's maybe too great for me. It's maybe too much for
me. " Look at Jesus' encouragement.

Don't miss this encouragement at the beginning of the book. When you look at
your life and you see how unholy you are in light of the true holiness of God,
this is what he says to you. When you look at this book of Revelation and you
see how great this truth is in light of the ordinariness of your everyday life,
this is what God says to you.

Number one, he says, "Get your eyes off yourself," and number two, he says, "Get
your eyes on Jesus. " Get your eyes off yourself. Jesus says, "Don't be afraid.

" Don't be afraid. If I read the book of Revelation and it causes fear, I'm
missing Jesus' message. Jesus said at the very beginning, "Don't be afraid.

" The whole book is written to calm my fear, not to create fear in my life. Now,
I understand the strange picture. Some of us, we run away with those and it
creates fear.

That's not the message of this book. Every time you find your mind going in that
direction as we study this book, remember these words of Jesus. Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid. Get your eyes off of yourself. How do you do that?

The only way I know to do that is to get my eyes on Jesus, someone who is so far
above who I am, so much greater than who we are. Get your eyes on Jesus. Jesus
describes for us here who he is.

He says, "I am the first and the last. I get my eyes on the one who is the
beginning and the end. " Jesus says, "Get your eyes on me.

I'm the living one who died. " John knew that. He'd been with him as the living
one.

He'd walked with him for three years of ministry. He'd been there at the cross.
He saw him die.

But then these incredible words. Jesus stands before John, an old man now, at a
point where he wonders if his life is over and maybe all that's left is maybe he
gets to go to heaven and be with Jesus. And maybe he's got some doubts.

I find that no matter how old we become, no matter how long we've been in the
faith, we can be put in situations and circumstances where we begin to have
doubts. So maybe he's having doubts. Is it all real?

Is what I've been living for all my life really what happened? Is what I
remembered in that upper room where Jesus appeared, is my memory failing me? And
here on this island, on Patmos, Jesus stands before John and says, "Look, I'm
alive forever and ever.

It's not just that you saw me alive as we walked together in ministry for three
years or saw me alive after my resurrection in that upper room. Here I am right
now, today. I am alive forever and ever.

" What a picture of the hope of Jesus Christ. Maybe you need that picture today.
He is alive.

And Jesus says, "I am alive with power. " He says, "I'm the one who holds the
keys. I hold the keys to death and the grave.

" And he can unlock those things in my life and your life by giving me life, but
he can also judge those things in my life if I do not turn to him. I don't hold
the keys to death. I don't hold the keys to the grave.

I don't hold the keys to life beyond this life. We all know that. So I need to
turn to the one who holds the keys and trust him.

And then Jesus tells John, "I want you to write it all down. Write everything
down that you see, the things that you see happening, the things that will
happen later. Write it down.

" He even helps us to understand the meaning of the book of Revelation at the
last verses of this first chapter by giving us the definition, the understanding
of some of the pictures. He says, "The seven stars, those are the angels of the
seven churches. Stars in the sky, angels coming from heaven.

That's what I mean by those seven stars," he says. He wants us to get it. Now
some people have asked since these seven churches had angels, does that mean
that every church has an angel, a messenger of God looking over the church and
protecting that church?

Maybe. Maybe not. We know that these seven churches did and I'd like to think
that God honors every church in the same way and that in every church there is
an angel of God who is watching over that church in ways that we don't
understand.

If you feel in the church that you're in, in the ministry that you're all alone,
you never are. He says the seven stars and the seven churches, and earlier we
talked about the sevenfold Spirit of God. Somebody in our research team wrote,
"I would like to understand the significance of sevens throughout this chapter
and throughout the Bible since it's the first time I'm reading the book of
Revelation.

" I love that question because they got it. They're reading the chapter for the
first time and they see, "Wow, there are a lot of sevens here. " They picked up
on that.

Why are there a lot of sevens? Because seven is a picture of perfection. Seven
is a picture of God.

Six is a picture of man, of imperfection. Some of you know we're going to get to
that later in the book of Revelation. You have seven lampstands and seven
churches, a picture of the perfection of God at work in our lives today.

The end of this first chapter ends with these seven churches because in chapters
two and three we're going to be looking together at Jesus' message to the seven
churches and Jesus' message to you and I as we serve him together in the body of
Christ today. Now as we end this look at the book of Revelation, chapter one,
our first week in this book, I want to end by just reminding you once again to
see the big picture. I've always loved what Billy Graham had to say about the
book of Revelation.

He talks about looking at a painting by Renoir in the Louvre with his wife and
he says, well here's his quote, his exact quote, Billy Graham said, "I'd been
standing too close to the masterpiece and each individual detail, each patch of
color, each brush stroke kept me from seeing the effect of the canvas as a
whole. I was bogged down in the details. But when I stepped back across the
hall, the mystery suddenly disappeared and the beautiful image composed by the
artist was clearly visible.

" And then here's what Billy Graham wrote, "For too long, I suspect, too many of
us have examined the book of Revelation in the same manner. We have turned that
great masterpiece into a series of images and brush strokes and we've tried to
out-guess each other at the modern meaning of every star, dragon, and number. As
a result, we've lost the grand design of the prophet's mission and we may have
also missed the urgency of his warnings.

" I've always liked that quote from Billy Graham because it helps us to see the
big picture of the book of Revelation. See the big picture of what God's doing
and as we walk into the study of this book together, recognize the purpose of
the book of Revelation. The purpose of the book is hope.

If you read or study prophecy and you don't see the hope that's offered to
believers, you're not reading it right. I have met too many people in my days
who, because of what somebody has told them about the book of Revelation or some
Hollywood movie that's been made about the book of Revelation or some movie or
story that even we as believers have made about the book of Revelation. It's all
about trying to scare people, frighten people into having faith.

Fear is not the motivation for faith. The book begins by Jesus saying, "Don't be
afraid. " Hope, the kind of hope that only God can offer, that is the motivation
for genuine faith, for the genuine kind of eternity that God has for you.

So as we end this look at the first week, the first chapter of the book of
Revelation, let's end by thanking God for our hope. Our Father, we thank you for
the hope of our salvation. We thank you for the hope of eternal life.

We thank you for the hope of being with you forever and ever, rejoicing in who
you are with all believers of all ages. And we thank you for the hope that's
revealed in our lives today, that even in our problems, we can have hope because
we know that you're growing us. That even when we look at the evil and the
difficulties in this world, we can have hope because we know that you have a
plan that is better than that.

And that Lord, even when we look inside of ourselves and we are desperate for
change, we can have hope because we know that Jesus Christ is in us by our faith
in him and that you're at work. Thank you for the hope that is ours because of
Jesus Christ. In your name we praise you.

Amen. And we'll see you next week as we begin our look together at Jesus's
messages to the seven churches.