PRECEPTS FOR LIFE
a Production of
Precept Ministries International
P.O. Box 182218, Chattanooga, TN 37422-7218
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The following is an actual transcript of the PRECEPTS FOR LIFE Broadcast. For the purpose of filling transcript requests quickly, they have received only light editing. If you have questions concerning the material covered in this broadcast, Kay has published a number of books explaining the Scripture in depth. These books may be ordered by contacting the telephone number or address printed above.
Have you heard, Beloved? Jesus Christ is coming.
He‟s coming with clouds of great glory. He is coming as King of kings. He is coming to rule the world. He is coming as the righteous One to judge sin and to put it away once for all. Jesus is coming. It won‟t be in the newspapers. It won‟t be necessary because every eye will see Him.
The question is: Are you ready?
PART ONE
There‟s nothing like the book of Revelation, nothing in all the Word of God, like this book because it shows us the triumph of Jesus Christ. It gives the church such a word of encouragement, such a word because they see the things that are shortly going to take place and they can be prepared.
And they can be prepared to stand and having done all to stand firm. Well what I‟d like to do is I‟d like to begin today‟s study with Revelation, chapter 1, and I want to read verses 1 through 3 again and then move straight into 4.
Now if you happened to miss the last program then you need to get the tape. You need to listen to it so that you are in context, because these first verses of Revelation are very critical. I mean he doesn‟t waste any time getting to his subject. He begins slam bang with the subject. “It‟s the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him, gave Jesus, to show to his bondservants ….”
That‟s you and me and the church, universal. “ … To show to His bondservants the things which must shortly take place; and He sent it and communicated it by His angel.”
Jesus sent it and communicated it by Jesus‟ angel to His bondservant John. That‟s the apostle John. That‟s the one that wrote the gospel of John. That‟s the one that wrote 1 John and 2 John and 3 John, those three epistles. It‟s the apostle whom Jesus loved.
It‟s the apostle whose head He leaned upon John‟s breast or chest, as you want to do it, as they were sitting there at the Last Supper. This is John. “John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to what Jesus Christ had to say, even to all that he saw.”
This was not just something that came to John in an audio version.
It came in audio and video.
In other words, he heard it and he saw it with his eyes. And as you go through the book of Revelation you would want to mark every time it refers to John seeing something. It says, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy.” Now Revelation is a prophecy.
It‟s a prophecy of the things which must shortly take place. It‟s a prophecy that God wants His people, the church, the bondservants to understand. So He promises a blessing to the one that reads it. Now remember, as I told you in our last program, they didn‟t have access to their own copies of the Word of God.
The printing press wasn‟t invented until the 14 A.D.‟s, all right. So this was written about 90 A.D. And so they didn‟t have their own copies. So they would take out these scrolls. They would read these scrolls. And the one who read it was blessed, those who heard it were blessed if they heard and heeded or kept the words of this prophecy. As I shared with you in our last program, prophesy is not simply an intellectual pursuit.
It‟s not just
something that you delight in, in the gymnastics of, of trying to figure it all out. Rather it is something that is given to you so that you might order your life accordingly in the light of it. So he goes on to say, “John, to the seven churches which are in Asia.” Now I want you to notice the tense of the verbs. John, to the seven churches which are. They were existing right then, not which were, but which are.
The seven churches which are in Asia.
So he picked seven churches that were existing at that time in what we call Asia Minor. If you look at the map, that‟s in the west side of current day Turkey. All right, and I‟ve been to all these locations. I‟ve taught there and it‟s been exciting to teach at some of them, but not at the others because basically there‟s not that much to see. But just recently I taught the messages to the four churches in four sights of those places that were in Asia.
He says, “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is, who was and who is to come.” Now if we stop there I would say who do you think that is?
And in all probability, if you‟re like many people and you‟ve never studied Revelation, you‟d say O the one who is, who was and who is to come, that‟s Jesus. And see that‟s what happens when we read the Word of God and we form a conclusion, which is really an interpretation, before we do accurate observation.
Now the whole purpose of this program is not only to teach you the Word of God, but to teach you how to study the Word of God inductively. By inductively I mean that we remove the middleman and we go straight to the Word of God ourselves to observe the text and discover what does it say and then to interpret the text in finding out what does it mean.
And you find out what does it mean by comparing scripture with scripture and letting scripture interpret scripture. And then how you apply it, and that is how do you take these truths that you learn and apply them? Do you need to change anything that you‟ve been thinking because you‟ve been thinking wrong?
Or do you need to change your behavior? Or do you need to start doing certain things in the light of what you‟re learning? So inductive study basically consist of observation:
discovering what does it say, interpretation: what does it mean and application. And application is how am I going to think and live in the light of this truth?
So you take that truth and you personalize it. You personalize it intellectually and you personalize it practically in the way that you live. So it says, “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from …,” This is the first from. “… from Him who is, who was and is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne …,”
Whose throne? The throne of the one who is, who was and who is to come; and, verse 5, “… from Jesus Christ.” Now the minute that you see those three „froms‟, you can automatically begin to tell who is who. Who is the one who is, who was and who is to come? Is it Jesus Christ?
No, because it‟s from He, who is, who was and is to come, from the one who seven Spirits are before His throne and from Jesus Christ. So it‟s not from Jesus Christ, and then the seven Spirits and from Jesus Christ.
It doesn‟t make sense, does it?
All right, so what you‟re seeing here is you‟re seeing that this message, that this grace and this peace is coming from three persons, three persons, all right.
Now who are those three persons? Well he describes them. From him who is, who was and who is to come. If you drop down to verse 8 it says, “„I am the Alpha and the Omega‟, says the Lord God who is, who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” So the one who was, who is and who is to come is God the Father. All right, and then, “… from the seven Spirits which are before His throne.” Before whose throne? Before God‟s throne.
Now if you study the scriptures and you let scripture interpret scripture, you see that it is God that sits on the throne. It is not Jesus Christ. It‟s Jesus who sits at the right hand of the throne of God. So this is from God the Father. This is from the seven Spirits. Just imagine them now, standing before the throne. Seven is a number of perfection. Seven is a number of completion.
God made the earth in six days. On the seventh day He rested because everything that He made, He had completed. It was done. So it‟s the number of completion. It‟s the number of perfection. All right, and then it says, “… and from Jesus
Christ …,”
Now let‟s see how they describe Jesus Christ. “From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” So He‟s the first born from the dead and He is the ruler of the kings of the earth. “To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood.” So here is a description of Jesus Christ. You go on and you read the next verse, verse 6.
“And He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father …,” So then immediately you know that the He refers to Jesus, “… because He‟s made us to be a kingdom of priests to His God and Father.” And then it says, “To Him …,”, speaking of Jesus, “… be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen.” And then it says in verse 7. Let‟s read it and then we‟ll come back and see what you need to do. “Behold He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him and even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him …,”
And then it says, “… even so, Amen.” Now that is a mouthful. And there‟s a lot for us to see here. And what you need to do is you need to mark with a triangle the references to God the Father as we taught you in our last program. You need to underline and then come up the side of the triangle and put a cross to mark every reference to Jesus.
But every reference to the Holy Spirit you need to take the other side of the triangle and then you need to connect those two lines with a cloud to represent the Holy Spirit. So that‟s what we‟re going to do when we come back. This is Jesus‟ message through the angel, through John, to the church, so that you and I can know what‟s shortly going to take place when He comes.
PART TWO
When you see truth for yourself, then what it does is it sanctifies you. Jesus prayed for you. He prayed to the Father just before He was going to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He would be arrested and then afterwards He would be crucified for you and for me. And He prayed, “Father, sanctify them.
Set them apart. Make them holy. Consecrate them through Thy truth.
Thy Word is truth.” You and I are dealing with truth. So this is a revelation that God gave to Jesus. Jesus gave it to His angels. His angels gave it to His apostle John. John, in turn, sat down and wrote these letters to the churches that are in Asia.
This message comes from the One who is, who was and who is to come. It comes from God, the Father, Almighty. It comes from the seven spirits which are before God‟s throne, and it comes from Jesus Christ. This is a message from the Godhead, the Godhead to you. You say, but it was to the seven churches which are in Asia. Yes, but you know what?
Those seven churches, really, collectively represent every kind of church and the situations that we are going to face down through the ages of history within the church. They‟re messages for us. They‟re messages for us saying, listen, I want you to know that if you will overcome, you will receive a blessing and that blessing is an eternal blessing that no one can take away from you.
So we‟re going to see that as he wrote to the church at Ephesus, he says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” So it‟s to all the churches. It‟s to all the churches down through the ages until the church ceases to be, until Jesus Christ comes and rules as King of kings and Lord of lords and all the nations bow before Him. He says, “Behold …,”
Look at verse 7. “Behold, He is coming with the clouds.” And this word for coming is e-r-c-h-o-m-a-i, e-r-c-h-o-m-a-i. And it means to come. It means to see. It‟s used in Matthew, chapter 11, verse 3. And so I want you to go to Matthew, chapter 11, verse 3. And you heard me say, “I want you to go.”
That‟s what I want you to do. It‟s important for you to see the Word of God for yourself. All right. And so it says in Matthew 11, verse 2, “Now when John, in prison, heard the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and he said to them, „Are you the expected One?‟” Are you the coming One, the coming One that can be seen? This is not some spiritual, whimsical, wafting of some little cloud in the air. This is actually seeing Jesus Christ face to face as He comes in person to this earth. So let‟s go back to verse 7. “Behold, He is coming. He is coming with clouds in such a way
that we will see Him.”
And he goes on to explain this just by saying it. “And every eye will see Him …,” See whom?
The One who is coming. Who is the One that is coming? It‟s Jesus Christ. So you want to mark Jesus Christ again. “… even those who pierced Him.” And you want to mark Jesus Christ there. “And all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.” And you want to mark Jesus Christ there.
All right now let‟s go back and mark these references to Jesus Christ from verse 5 on.
Because what I want you to see is I want you to see what you learn about Jesus Christ, okay.
So in verse 5 it says, “… and it‟s from Jesus Christ. He‟s the faithful witness.” In other words, He‟s an eyewitness. He‟s a witness that is not going to lie. He‟s a witness that is not going to color the story. You know you hear about all these athletes. You hear about their sexual escapades. He took steroids. No I didn‟t take steroids, you know. Who‟s telling the truth? And they go to court many, many times and they try to find out who‟s telling the truth. And every witness is not faithful. Everyone‟s not going to tell the truth. But who is Jesus? He is the way, John 14:6, “He is the way and He is the truth and He is the life.”
And I want you to know that whatever He says and whatever is said about Him in this Book is pure truth, in its context. Now the Pharisees called Him Beelzebub. They said He was of the devil. That‟s not true.
But you understand that from the context. But if you want to know and understand who Jesus Christ is you‟re going to meet Him in this book. And this is the book that becomes the plumb line and that‟s the symbol of Precept Ministries International, is the plumb line because a plumb line is what you drop to see what is accurate, to see what is true.
So we drop the plumb line of truth and we see that Jesus is the faithful witness. We see that this is from Jesus Christ. And number one, we see that He‟s the faithful witness. The second thing we see is He‟s the first born of the dead. Now what does it mean that He‟s the first born of the dead? It means this, that He is the first one to be resurrected from the dead.
He‟s the first one to die, to be buried, to be raised from the dead, now listen, never to die again. Because see you
would think of Lazarus and you would say well, Lazarus died and he was raised from the dead. Jesus raised him from the dead.
Yes, He raised him from the dead, but he died. After that he died. All right, and so you see the widow‟s son in the days of Elijah and he died. And Elijah laid on him and prayed to God and he in a sense was raised from the dead, but someday he was going to die again. Jesus is the first born from the dead. In other words, He is the one that has come out of the grave for the very first time as man, never to die again.
Now it‟s important that you understand that. As a matter of fact this is why some people, when they read he who is, who was and who is to come automatically think Jesus. Because they think O, He existed one time and He died and He was, and then He is to come.
And so they automatically ascribe that to Jesus.
But we know from the text that that belongs to the Father right now in this context. So Jesus is the first born from the dead. “He is the ruler of the kings of the earth.” In other words He is going to rule over all the earth. And you can see that and when that begins to happen by going to Revelation, chapter 19 and reading on through the end of the book. He‟s the ruler.
You can see it in reading the second Psalm. And you see that He is going to rule. And God says kiss the Son while there is time, because He‟s going to rule over you someday. So He is the faithful witness, number one. Number two: He‟s the first born from the dead.
And number three: He‟s the ruler of the kings of the earth. And then you see this and this is number four. He loves us. To Him who loves us. Listen, every human being is searching for love, whether they admit it or not. Deep down inside in their gut, they want to be loved. You want love?
This is where you find it. He loves us. And you know what else you want, is you want forgiveness from your sins.
And it says, “And He released us from our sins.”
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