This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day three together of our look through Revelation chapter 19. We're
looking this week at some great events that happen at the end of time that put
our lives in perspective. We've also seen that the word hallelujah puts all of
human history in perspective.

That's where it's headed. And if you really focus on all that we're talking
about, verse 10, right in the middle of this chapter, helps you and I to see the
attitude of heart, the conviction of mind that puts it all into perspective. Let
me read for you that verse.

What happened, John? "At this," he says, "I fell at his feet," the feet of the
angel, "to worship him. But he said to me, 'Do not do it.

I'm a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony
of Jesus. Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

'" I love this verse. Revelation 19, 10 to me is the focus of the book of
Revelation. Those words, worship God.

That's the focus, the worship of God. And when you think about worshiping God,
John is encouraged in two specific ways to worship here. First, he's encouraged
that you worship only God.

He has just seen, think of what he's just seen, these multitudes in heaven, this
awe-inspiring scene. And having seen all of this and this great, holy angel is
before him, he falls on his knees to worship. And the angel says, "Stand up.

Don't worship me. " Now, thinking of all that he has just seen and how
worship-inducing that might be, this is a powerful, powerful encouragement to
worship nothing else but God. It doesn't matter what kind of grandeur you see in
creation.

You don't worship creation. You worship the Creator. You don't fall on your
knees in front of the Grand Canyon or in front of the Himalayas and worship what
God has made.

You worship the Creator. It doesn't matter what glorious things God does in
heaven, as he's doing here. You don't worship those who are serving God and
creating these moments of glory.

You worship the God whom they are serving. This is reminding us very powerfully.
You don't worship any other person.

You don't worship any other experience. You don't worship any other emotion. You
don't worship any other thought.

You don't worship any other action. You worship only God. Worship means that I
ascribe worth to something.

That's the meaning of the word, worth-ship. It's the old English word. It means
I give it worth.

And to worship God means I see him as being of ultimate worth. Nothing is more
worthy than he is. And so I worship only him.

So the challenge in my life and in your life is, is there something else that
I'm worshiping right now? How do I know that I'm giving something besides God
ultimate worth in my life? Well, you do what John did here.

You fall on your knees before it. You allow it to become the priority and the
focus of your life. That is what we worship.

What's the priority of your life? What is the focus of your life? If it's
anything but God, then you're worshiping that thing above God.

We all say I wouldn't worship anything else but God. I mean, God's the only one
that I sing to when I go to church. God's the only one that I think about when I
read the Bible.

But when you understand the definition of worship, it's giving worth to
something, ultimate worth, ultimate priority. That puts it in perspective a
little bit. And it reminds me that just like John, I can fall on my knees before
something else besides God.

I can let it begin to control me. I can let it become the focus of my life. So
you don't worship any other person.

Is there some person that's controlling your life above God right now? Maybe
because of something they have done to you or something they're holding over
you? Maybe it's even their approval that they're holding over you.

A lot of people worship the approval of others. You don't worship any other
experience. Maybe there is some horrendous experience that's happened in your
life.

And it is controlling your life right now. Do not worship that experience. Don't
give it the worth that it does not deserve.

God deserves that worth. Maybe there's some glorious experience that happened to
you. And everyone stood and applauded for you.

Maybe a whole stadium of people. And that is what you're putting your ultimate
worth in. Don't worship that.

You don't worship any other emotion. A lot of us, we fall on our knees before
some emotion. There's some feeling that we're looking for.

And so we do what it takes to get that feeling. Maybe it's a feeling of peace or
a feeling of pleasure. So you take what you need to take.

You do what you need to do. You get involved with what you need to get involved
with to get that feeling again. That's your priority.

That's your focus. That is what you are worshiping. For some, we worship a
thought instead of God.

The thought of our own importance or the thought of the importance of what we're
doing. We want to do something that's more important than anyone else. Well, the
truth of the matter is, God's more important than it all.

And you don't worship any other action. Some of us would fall on our knees
before some action, even a good action, some right thing to do for mankind. But
it's become more important to us than even God.

I can fall into this trap. John certainly did. And he's one of the greatest
saints that ever lived.

And you can fall into it, too. Worship of God means that you worship nothing
else but God. And he has to continually keep rooting out these false worships,
these false idols, these false priorities in our lives.

John learns two things about worship this day. First, he learns that you worship
nothing else. But then he learns something else.

The angel says to him this phrase, "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy. " Now, what does that mean? It has a lot to say about worship.

Revelation is one of the prophetic books of the Bible, along with Daniel and
Ezekiel and Isaiah, among others. And this verse is one of the key verses to
understanding Bible prophecy. The spirit of prophecy is to testify about Jesus.

That's true, by the way, whether it's prophecies of Jesus's first coming, as
they're given to us throughout the Old Testament, that he'd be born in
Bethlehem, that he'd be born of a virgin, what would happen to him on the cross.
All those prophecies look forward to Jesus. Or whether it's prophecies of his
second coming, as we're reading here in the book of Revelation.

What this is saying is the testimony of Jesus, the witness to Jesus, is the
spirit of prophecy, is that any true prophecy will point to Jesus. That's what
prophecy is all about. Prophecy is not just about telling the future so I can
figure things out.

Prophecy is about pointing to Jesus. You and I think about all that's been
written in the book of Revelation. You've seen it as we've read through this.

Everything points to Jesus Christ. It's not just, let me tell you, the events
that are going to happen at the end of time. Revelation is, let me tell you what
everything is pointing to.

It's all pointing to Jesus Christ. He's the Lord of lords. He's the King of
kings.

He's the one who's on the throne. When prophecy glorifies the human prophet, you
know there's a problem because prophecy always has to point to Jesus. When
prophecy is just about what events might happen next year and you get some of
those kind of prophecies, maybe in some newspaper or something, that's not true
prophecy.

True prophecy always has to point to Jesus. You want to know about the prophecy
of the book of Revelation and understand it? When you understand that it all
points to Jesus, all of a sudden it all becomes very, very clear.

Jesus is the main character in the book of Revelation. In many ways he's the
only character because everyone else dims, every other life dims and diminishes
to almost nothing besides the greatness, the glory of Jesus Christ. Let me bring
you back, as we close this day together today, to that two-word sentence in the
middle of verse 10, "Worship God.

" That's what it's all about. That's what the book of Revelation is all about.
That's what human history is all about.

That's what your life is all about. You were made to worship God. Jesus said it
when he was asked, "What's the first and greatest commandment?

" He said, "Here it is. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your
mind, all your soul, all your strength. And right next to it is the second,
'Love your neighbor as yourself.

'" So right now, I don't want to miss out on the number one thing I was made
for. Right now, let's spend a moment together worshiping God. Our Father, we
worship you for who you are, the God of the universe.

And we ask your forgiveness for those times, and we allow other things to become
priorities. Sometimes it's our material things. Sometimes it's some pleasure.

Sometimes it's some pride. Sometimes we allow our worries to become priorities
above you, God. Sometimes we allow the opinion of others to become a priority
above our worship of you.

Lord, you know us. We're human beings, and we struggle. But we want to struggle
towards worship.

We don't want to settle for anything less. We know that this is going to be our
lives for all of eternity. So we know that this is what we're made for.

And the whole idea that somehow worship is boring, or it doesn't fulfill us, or
it doesn't bring us pleasure, that is not true. We just say that to you,
clearly. What is true is we are made to worship, and that's where our joy is,
that's where our life is, that's where our eternity is.

And so Father, right now, we worship you. We give you the worth that only you
are due. We see you as the priority.

You are first. You are the first and the last. We worship you.

In Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to talk together about the
visible return of Jesus Christ.