The sermon 'Grace and Peace in Persecutions and Sorrows' by Scott Brown explores themes from the book of Revelation, focusing on the greeting of grace and peace extended to the seven churches. The sermon emphasizes the role of Jesus Christ as the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. It highlights the challenges and persecutions faced by the Church, as depicted in Revelation, and the ultimate victory of Jesus Christ. The sermon also underscores the importance of understanding and obeying the principles found in Revelation, viewing it as a revelation of Jesus Christ. The role of the Trinity is emphasized, with God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ delivering the message to the churches. The sermon encourages believers to cling to Jesus Christ amidst trials, recognizing His eternal dominion and love, and to find comfort in the assurance that He is coming again.

Please open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 1 and find verse 4. We'll be reading from verses 4 to verse 8. Verse 4. John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth, to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests to his God and Father.

To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold he is coming with clouds and every eye will see him even they who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. Even so, amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty let's pray father we are we are so thankful that no power of hell no scheme of man can controvert your great work and particularly your work to save sinners.

So lost, so helpless, but not so helpless for you. So we are so thankful to be here to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness. Lord, we're so thankful that we have these things before us to steady us in these times for your grace, for your peace in all the times ahead in our lives. Lord, we pray that you would take these things and burn them into our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.

Please be seated. Well these verses that I just read are a greeting. They are a greeting that is towering and very beautiful. Joe Beeke described this greeting as the most beautiful and profound greeting from the triune God to his people contained in all of the Bible. What a statement.

It is a beautiful greeting and affirmation for all of us. These verses are designed to give the Christian every possible reason to cling to Jesus Christ through all the ups and downs of life and all the experiences that you have ahead to cling to him in your sorrows, to cling to him in your poverty or your imprisonment or your earthquakes and just the recognition of the troubles that occur in the world against the Church of Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus did tell us that the wheat and the tares are going to grow together, and it will cause a lot of trouble in the world. And of course, Revelation gives us a sense of that. In many ways, Revelation teaches the church what to expect.

What to expect from Jesus Christ toward them and what to expect in the world. What kinds of things will happen in the world. And in many ways, I think in the book of Revelation God is setting our expectations as a church. He's setting them down with clarity. And you see this all throughout the outline of the book of Revelation.

You have this glorious greeting at the beginning that gives you such a sense of the power of Jesus Christ and his loving-kindness. And we're lingering here in this first chapter because of it. But when you get to chapters two and three you see the challenges of church life. There are seven churches and they're representative of all churches and then in chapters 4 through 11 you see the onslaught of persecution Against the Church of Jesus Christ the Lord Jesus opens the seals he is the one that brings about the tribulations in the world and you see him open the seals and blowing the seven trumpets and what you see are oppressive autocratic regimes you see conquering rulers you see tumult you see murder you see scarcity you see inflation and death and hunger and martyrdom and natural disasters and the expansion of the Church of Jesus Christ. In chapters 12 through 19 you see what's behind it all.

The dragon is behind it all And his minions, the beast and the false prophet and the harlot, always trying to distract and hurt the church of Jesus Christ. And then finally when you get to chapters, we're beginning in the middle of 19, 20 to 22 is heaven. It is heaven. Can't wait to get there. By the way, we're going to have a baptism this afternoon and we're going to have that baptism right after we read about heaven.

There you have it. So, Cling to him, seek him, meditate upon him. That's the message of Revelation. This is really a declaration of what kind of life the Christian has or can have in the midst of all these things. Last week we covered the first three verses and now we're covering verses four through eight.

In the first three verses we understood how to read this book. You have to understand how to read a book. You know, I was, I had a moment, momentary conversation with a young man yesterday. He said, hey, what's going on at the church? I said, I'm preaching through Revelation.

He said, oh no, nobody can understand Revelation. Well, actually the book of Revelation starts out by saying, you can understand it. So first, it is understandable. It is a revelation. It is an unveiling.

It's and it also has a very clear focus. It is Jesus Christ and it is very practical. God gave it to the church to show them things. And it speaks of historical realities, the things which must shortly take place. And it's filled with symbolism because he sent and he signified it full of allusions from the Old Testament.

404 verses, over 500 Old Testament allusions. So it's full of symbolism and it brings remarkable promises. Blessed is he who reads. And we learned that it's meant to be obeyed. And the encouragement that I want to give all of us is learn how to obey these things that are here.

How do you obey verses that aren't commands? Well, When you find a principle, when you find a truth in the Bible, it has an implication in your life and you can obey that implication. You don't need an absolute directive as a command to obey the Lord. All you need is a truth to bring into your heart and make your life consistent with that truth. So understand the implications of the principles.

Well, we're going to cover many of them right here. The doctrine here should move us into action. It's not just for intellectual play, but it's to bring these things into our hearts, into our thinking, into our relationships, into our work, into our family, into our church, and all the other places that we exist in. And so it's very important that we keep our focus on the focus of the book. It's very easy for people to get distracted about that.

And the purpose of this book is to reveal Jesus Christ. And frankly, This book of Revelation is the apex and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies of Jesus Christ. This is the pinnacle of the New Testament canon and we cannot ignore it. It is really the conclusion and the climax of revealed scripture. And I'm going to ask us as a church not to worry too much about the controversial questions that the book raises from your background or anything like that.

Enjoy the ride. Our systems are not nearly important as the king of kings and the lord of lords who laid out the system. And so I pray that that is our focus. So, relax, learn, take a couple years to learn. So chill out, you know.

Just continue your life of learning. Don't get too hot headed about the whole thing. Enjoy the ride and learn. Then read it as a child. It's a book of pictures.

Somebody described it like a puzzle box. You look at a puzzle box and it tells you the whole picture like that. I did a couple of puzzles with my grandsons the other day. And you need to look at the box first to see what it is, but then the pieces are a pain in the neck. But if you focus on the puzzle box, you'll see what it is.

And I think Revelation is like that. And it's a picture book, as we've said before. Now, this book is very practical, and I hope it is for all of us. God is very kind to teach us what's ahead. And he gives us principles and he gives us pictures of what is ahead.

And these pictures describe in general terms the kinds of things that the Church of Jesus Christ will experience. Here's what we need to know. Scripture is sufficient for all your troubles ahead and He's a gracious God. You know, there are scary things in Revelation And, but it's really important to understand what's happening behind the scenes and the end of the story. What's the end of the story?

What's the middle of the story? What's the beginning of the story? Jesus is king. Jesus wins. So we don't need to be afraid at all.

If you see, you know, if you're exposing these things to your children, you're afraid the visions will scare them, you know, just tell them that Jesus wins. You know, he's gonna take care of all the bad guys. Revelation makes that very, very clear. We're doing this to equip the saints for the things that we will experience in a wicked and perverse generation. I think this book is one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given the Church of Jesus Christ.

Because the theme is the victory of Jesus Christ over all the temporal events and powers of evil. And it's really designed to strengthen the church in the face of persecution of a secular state, the evil people in the world, and the temptations of Babylon. So it's a very helpful and practical book. Now, so keep these things in mind as the backdrop for every verse that we will go through in this book. Now, you have an outline in front of you and it's, boy, it's a really dense outline, but basically I just want to cover three big things that are in this text.

First, the blessings that Jesus Christ has for the seven churches. That's in verse four, the first part of it. And then the persons who are declaring the message because John is very careful to make sure we understand where this message came from. It came from God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then thirdly the person of Christ explained so beautifully.

I can't wait to get to that part. So let's begin first of all in verse 4 with the blessings that Christ has for the seven churches. John to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace. Now notice a number of things. This is a letter to seven churches.

This is an epistle. If you are part of the Church of Jesus Christ, this letter is to you, just like Galatians is a letter, Ephesians is a letter to you, and so forth. And this was written for, I believe, seven representative churches that were real churches in Turkey. The churches in Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea. And this is a letter to the churches of Jesus Christ.

You've got mail and it's a letter, it's an epistle. You know last week I was making the point that Revelation was an epistle, like all the other epistles. And there was a little boy sitting in this room, about three years old and he was listening and I was making the point that Revelation is an epistle and he perked up for a moment and he said Revelation a pistol my daddy has a pistol my mommy has a pistol So I told you it's under this book is understandable for all even the littlest children. But this book is written for to real churches and they are representative churches. What's the message?

Jesus Christ loves his church, speaks to his church, and sustains his church. You can always count on that. Now the churches are problematic though, aren't they? We've seen it. There's a word that we've all been exposed to recently, comorbidities.

Churches have comorbidities. They have shortcomings. You know what a comorbidity is. It's even hard to say. We've all learned to say that word recently.

A comorbidity is a simultaneous presence of two or more medical conditions or diseases and it just makes it makes you more vulnerable if you have some comorbidities. You can have a morbidity but if you've got comorbidities you're using bigger trouble than you thought. That's really the idea. But Jesus is speaking to churches that have comorbidities, and He's dealing with them. He's going to deal with ours.

We'll be there soon. It's very interesting when you look at these churches, you know, you look at the church of Ephesus, they labored hard but they were weary and they resisted false teachers but they lost their first love in the process. If you go to Smyrna, they experience this draconian government and tribulation and poverty and prison. In Pergamos, there were satanic influences and they had a martyr to prove it. In Thyatira, they were tolerating sexualization and the second generation, their children were affected by it.

In Philadelphia, you had religious fakers. In Laodicea, you had those who were there who were neither hot nor cold. They were lukewarm and Jesus is ready to spit them out of his mouth. So Jesus is dealing with all those things, all of those things in some, at some level and somebody's heart in this church exists here. And I pray that God will just use this time to cure the comorbidities of Hope Baptist Church.

So, it's a very exciting thing to see. Think of the blessing that is. Now, the Lord Jesus here is spoken of, the one who brings grace and peace to the seven churches which are in Asia. Grace to you and peace. You recognize those words.

All the epistles start this way. Grace and peace. And it starts with a summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Grace and Peace is a summary, it's a beautiful summary of the gospel. Just in those two words you find the whole of the gospel of Jesus and grace of course is unmerited favor.

We don't deserve salvation, we don't earn it, we don't get good enough to receive it. How ridiculous is that? That grace is greater than all of our sin. That God receives sinners. He receives the adulterers and the liars and the thieves and the homosexuals.

And he turns to them in the Corinthian church and he says, you know, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were cleansed. God is so kind. William Perkins, who is called the father of Puritanism, he says that grace, quote, is the foundation of all happiness and of all God's blessings. And he says that every good thing really depends on God's grace. Our election is dependent on God's grace.

Our redemption, our justification, our sanctification, our faith is a result of God's grace. Our repentance and our preservation is all a result of God's grace, so says William Perkins. What do you have that you did not receive? You know, I was listening to somebody who was making the point that there are two gospels. There are really only two gospels.

There's the Gospel of Rome. The Gospel of Rome is peace without grace. That's the gospel of the secular state. The Pax Romana of the Roman Empire was peace without the gospel of grace. And then you have apostate Judaism, you have peace before grace, where you have legalism that demands you to just clean out the outside of the cup, that's peace before grace.

But in Christianity you have grace before peace. The grace comes and opens up all the doors of life and you begin to serve in the strength that God supplies because of his grace that brought about peace. Well the church lives by grace and that grace produces peace. There's a sequence here grace and peace And so when we talk about peace, we're really talking about a word here that harkens back to the Old Testament. It harkens back to that great Hebrew word shalom.

You know, Study that word shalom. It is one of the most beautiful words that you can encounter. Here's what shalom means. It means peace from the top of your head to the end of your toe, Peace everywhere, peace in everything, peace washing all over you. That's what shalom means.

And John is going back to this proposition. By the way, grace mentioned before peace occurs 18 times in the New Testament. And so I think he's speaking of peace with God. He's talking about peace with yourself as The devil accuses you of being such an idiot. Peace with the church where you become of one mind and one spirit with one another.

Peace with your enemies at least on your side. And John casts a vision here of the church age where grace and peace are the sustaining powers of the church and while the tumult and the havoc of the beast and the false prophet and the harlot You will have peace. Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. Jesus said, in the world you will have tribulation.

But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. So, there is no peace in the world but in the little bubble of your life and the little bubble of your church and the little bubble of your family you can have it. That's the way God wired the world. My peace I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you.

You know Isaiah said he will keep you in perfect shalom whose mind is stayed on you. So you'll have trials from without but you'll have peace with him. God is not frowning on his church. They have grace coming from him. So you find this in this first phrase, just the triumph of grace and peace in the life of the believer.

With Christ you get shalom from God. So and then you find the person's declaring this message. You see this remarkably beautiful picture here right at the beginning where you find, where you find the blessings that Christ has for his seven churches and they all flow from grace and the peace that comes. But then when we get to the person declaring the message, John is very careful to make it clear who is doing all these things, who is declaring this to you. And the first thing that we learn is that God the Father is doing it, he's declaring it from him who is and who was and who is to come.

This is the eternal, unchangeable, immutable God, the only wise God. And notice who he is. He is the one who is, meaning he is always omnipresent. He who was, he always was, he who is to come, he always will be. Now this phraseology appears four times in chapter one.

Somehow we're supposed to get that message. By the way, hermeneutical principle, when something's repeated, check it out. So it appears. Now, here's what I want us to recognize. At this church, He kept you from eternity past.

He's keeping you today and He will keep you forever. And you'll always have all you need in this world, in whatever tribulations or challenges that you have. It's not for you to know times and seasons as Jesus said but it is for you to know who knows the times and seasons and it is for you to be his witnesses in the world. Now of course this phrase here has much to do with the Old Testament and really the rest of the Bible. In Exodus chapter 3, 14 we encounter these words, I am who I am.

John is pulling forward the doctrine of almighty God from Exodus chapter 3 verse 14. And of course the Lord Jesus Christ picks up the same theme when he says I am I am that I am the tetragrammaton he's declaring himself to be God and John's words here in Revelation are reminiscent of of Moses speaking in Deuteronomy 32 particularly in verse 39 where we read, now see that I even I am he there is no God besides me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal nor is there any who can deliver from my hand." In Isaiah chapter 41 verse 4 you find the same terminology. I the Lord am the first and with the last I am he. In Isaiah 43 10 and 11 you find the same thing he says understand that I am he before me there was no God formed nor shall there be after me I even I am the Lord and beside me there is no Savior. John is quoting Moses, okay, and to understand what he's doing you need to go back to Moses and Isaiah to understand that he is the I am as was communicated in Exodus chapter 3.

So and then you find the spirit. It's also the spirit is also delivering this message and from the seven spirits who are before him. So it's not only from God the Father, it's also from the Spirit. This identifies the means of the message. The sevenfold Spirit of God refers to the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

If we were able to engage in a full blown comprehensive doctrine of the Holy Spirit right now, and we declared everything that the Bible says about the Holy Spirit, that is what the seven spirits of God mean. It's everything about the Holy Spirit. Every work of the Spirit, every fruit of the Spirit, every grace of the Holy Spirit is loaded into this. What John is saying is that this message is coming not only from God the Father but also from the Holy Spirit, from the seven spirits of God. And you know this means many things.

One of the things that it means is that every single local church has an equal share of the Holy Spirit. The people in this church have full access to the Holy Spirit and it is for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And This idea of the sevenfold spirits of God is contained in the Old Testament. We run across this particularly in Isaiah chapter 11 verse 2 where we find that this sevenfold spirit is the power of the Son of God, of the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 11 2 just speaks of how deep and how powerful the Spirit is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so you have these seven manifestations of the Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord, Yahweh, shall rest on him. That's one. The Spirit of wisdom, that's two. The Spirit of understanding, three.

Spirit of counsel, four. Spirit of might, five, spirit of knowledge, six, and of the fear of the Lord, the seven spirits of God. In Zechariah 4 you have a very similar kind of idea, the seven lamps and the seven eyes refer to the Holy Spirit who has a seven-fold ministry. And in that text Zechariah says, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts. So this is from the Spirit.

It's from the Father and the Spirit and it is also from Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and from Jesus Christ. Christ means Messiah or anointed one. Christ is not Jesus' last name. Christ is a word that declares actually who he is. He is Messiah.

He is the promised Messiah. He was of course prophesied to come in Genesis 3, 17, where he would come and destroy the works of the devil. And we find this kind of language that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He is the one delivering this message. So just in these short phrases, You have the entire doctrine of the Trinity being communicated and it's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit that is communicating this message to the church.

You have this absolute divine authority communicating this message. This is a message from God. It's from God in three persons and each three each person of the Trinity is speaking. So now when we get to verse 5 here we find a disclosure of this person Jesus Christ this person you're clinging to Because Revelation is teaching us who you're clinging to and how to cling to him really. And what you find here are, I'm numbering them as eight declarations of the person you're clinging to.

Eight declarations. You see them in your outline. It's a very simple outline. The person you are clinging to, first of all, is the faithful witness. That's who you're clinging to.

The world is full of liars. How many of you have wondered if you should believe anything you read in the press anymore? Have you ever wondered that? Okay. Well, Jesus Christ is a faithful witness.

You can go there and you can get it straight from truth. Faithful witness, now the term witness is a common one in Revelation and other places. It's the word Martus. It's one who testifies, particularly who testifies in legal matters. You need a faithful witness when they testify regarding legal matters that, you know, in our land you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

But this phrase, faithful witness, appears 72 times in John's writings, in John and in 1 John and in Revelation. And the Lord Jesus Christ is a witness, But he is a witness against Rome and he is proclaiming himself to be the prophet and the priest and the king. And he testifies not to his own will but to his father's will and he brings the whole council of God to the church and it's not for the church to add or subtract anything from his words as we learned from the very last chapter of Revelation and the question that I have you do you believe the witness of Jesus Christ Or are you dead to his words? You know, there's this scene in the gospels where we read these words, we played the flute but you didn't dance. In other words, we gave you the gospel but you didn't move you.

You didn't dance to it. There was no joy in it. Is that you? Do you believe the faithful witness? He is a faithful witness.

He is the only faithful witness. Now there's a tremendous struggle going on in our nation right now over elections, over voter fraud, and you know I know there's tremendous concern all across the country and there are protests happening everywhere. You know how important is it to protect a witness that is faithful? But Jesus Christ is the faithful witness. His word is truth and he is faithful and he is true.

In chapter 19 you're going to see him on a white horse and he who sat upon it is faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and he wages war. So that's who we get here. So he's a faithful and true witness. That's the person you're clinging to. The second thing about this person you're clinging to is he's the firstborn from the dead.

He's the firstborn from the dead. That's in the last part of verse five. This is speaking of his resurrection but his appointment as the firstborn among many brethren. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who conquered death, the first who conquered death, and now believers have death conquered for them, his being the firstborn. And he was raised from the dead and the Bible makes it very clear particularly in the doctrine of baptism that you are raised up with Christ that you spiritually were simultaneously raised up with him as he was raised up.

So he is the first born from the dead and guess what? There's a lot that follow. There's the second born and the third born and the fourth born and the ten billionth born. Who knows what number you are? All I know is, oh Lord, I want to be in that number, whether it's the billionth or the billion and a half but what a blessing it is he is the firstborn you know the Apostle Paul speaks of the force and the importance of the statement in Romans chapter 11 verse 16.

Listen to these words. I hope this is so thrilling to you. For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy. So his being the first fruit is your hope that he would make you holy. And then he says, and if the root is holy so are the branches.

This is the great hope of the Church of Jesus Christ. You're being made holy by the Holy One. The holiness of Jesus Christ is one of the most blessed doctrines. Because he is pure, you can be purified. It's the sweetest of all the doctrines.

And then thirdly, not only are you clinging to the first born from the dead and will be born again or have been born again. Thirdly, the person you're clinging to is the ruler of the kings of the earth. He's the ruler of the kings of the earth. He is the king of kings and Lord of lords. He is now, and He's not just going to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords in the future.

He is ruling everything happening in the world today. All the lesser authorities are subservient to him. Romans 13 makes this very clear. There is a supreme authority over all the authorities and Christians have a very clear calling to understand that they have a super supreme authority over the lesser authority that exists above them. Christians respect their authorities, they obey their authorities, but they have a higher authority if there's ever a conflict.

So you can be assured that Jesus Christ is controlling the king and you will not fear when the Kings roar and You will not fear when the Kings lie and you will not fear when they are tyrants By the way Christians have always lived under tyrants except in the United States So don't worry about it Jesus already said all power is given to me in heaven and earth in Matthew chapter 28 verse 18. In Revelation 3, he says that he has the keys of heaven and hell to open and shut. He'll open any door he wants and he'll shut any door he wants and that's what he's doing right now. The Lord can put a bridle in whomever he wishes, the Lord can raise an army and destroy it, the Lord can raise a rumor and terrify and scare any of us or any king and the Lord can give bad counselors he's the king of kings and Lord of Lords So let not this church run around in fear. I don't sense you are but I just wanted to say it again He rules in the midst of his enemies.

That's Psalm 110 verse 2. He rules in the midst of his enemies. In other words, he has enemies They don't know that he's ruling them. That's the big joke. Okay.

The whole context of Revelation is a disclosure of these two kingdoms that are in conflict and Jesus is King. Now when you say Jesus is King you have committed treason against the earthly king. Do you understand that? When you make Jesus your king, you've committed treason. And The secular state always proclaims itself to be the solution to all your needs.

Well, that was true in Rome, Pax Romana, peace in Rome. It was the sales job of the Roman Empire, and the secular state always wants to be the solution to all of your problems. Rome wants to be your source of peace. Don't take it. It's a bad pill.

So John's words here really, they undermine the authority of Rome. You understand that? It's very clear here. And you'll see this in the book of Revelation that the Church of Jesus Christ actually has a higher authority than the Roman Emperor and there's much in the Bible that speaks of this. Read Psalm 2.

I have, I'm tempted to to read it. You know we learned that he is the lion of the tribe of Judah. I love that. The lion of the tribe of Judah. And that means that he is going to take care of all the bad guys.

And you don't need to fear what's ahead. He appoints tyrants, he puts them down, he ruins their plans, he keeps them on a tight leash, he keeps them in fear. Tyrants are always fearful and they ought to be because Jesus Christ is the tyrannocytical ruler of the world. So, dispensational theologian John Walvoord says this in his commentary, Jesus is not king now. Don't you believe it?

He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. So how do you obey this? How do you obey this? This is a proposition. There's no command here, right?

It's just he is the king. He's the ruler of the kings of the earth. How should this proposition shape us in our attitudes toward the kings of the earth and all the other things that are happening here. I just want to ask us all to consider how you obey this principle in your heart and in your life. You know I was telling some men in the church that we are we are thinking more about the government than any time in our lives and one of the young men piped up and he said and the government is also thinking about you and that's true but Jesus Christ is the ever-present all-powerful ruler who is who was and who is to come.

I'd encourage you to read Psalm 89 it's written by Ethan well not our Ethan, Ethan the Ezra height Psalm 89 It's a beautiful thing. He starts out, I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever with my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations. And then in verses 27 to 29 he says, and I will make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. My mercy I will keep for him forever, and my covenant she'll stand firm with him. His seed also I will make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven." He's on a throne and he's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Praise God for that. So also let's keep moving here. In verse 5 we learn the fourth thing about this person that we're clinging to and that is he loved us. To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Well that's such tender hearted testimony there.

Jesus Christ is the lover of sinners. He died for sinners. It says that he loved, that's past tense, that's at Calvary. He loved us and he washed us, That's in the present tense. He continues his cleansing.

You know the Apostle Paul spoke of this in Galatians 2.20. He said, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live, I live in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, who loved me and gave himself for me. The Apostle Paul so desired the Ephesian church to be rooted and grounded in love and to be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Boy, do I pray that for our church, that we are a church that's filled up with a sense of the love of God. But he not only loved you, he loves you. You might have self-doubt. You might have discouragement in your struggle with sin. But he loved you then, and you were probably worse then, and he loves you now.

And this is really the blessing of the doctrine of election. He loved you before the foundation of the world. And he cannot stop loving you because he never started loving you. He has loved you from all eternity. And that's how solid his love is.

And he washed you in, represented in the pictures of baptism, being cleansed from filthiness washing away our pollution when David committed adultery and he finally repented he said wash me thoroughly Psalm 51 verse 2 wash me and I shall be whiter than snow whiter than snow whiter than snow says the song wash me and I shall be whiter than snow, whiter than snow, whiter than snow says the song. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Is that you? Is that you? If that's you, then you just ought to spend the rest of the day smiling because Jesus Christ has washed you in his blood.

Now this is also, by the way, language from Exodus, loosed, Maybe we'll get to that at another time. Loosed from the bondage of Pharaoh by the sacrificial lamb and the blood on the doorposts. Loosed, set free. Okay, the fifth thing about this person that you're clinging to is that he has made us a kingdom and priests. He's made us a kingdom and priests.

I think there's a lot we can say. One thing I don't want to forget to say is that this helps us understand a little bit about how Jesus reviews you as his child. He has honored you as his child and he has elevated you. You know the Bible says you know humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and he will exalt you in due time. Well here he exalts his people.

He makes them a kingdom and he makes them priests. He gives them this title as a kingdom and a priest and it's remarkable that we would be treated that way, That we would be given such a high calling to be a kingdom as a people and he would make us priests. You know God has made us a nation we are a holy nation We are a kingdom and in our kingdom we have laws. They're God's laws. We walk by those.

And we are priests. We intercede. All of us are intercessors. We gather together on Wednesday nights. We're interceding.

We become a kingdom of priests when we gather together. I was so blessed by the prayers this morning, you know, we are a kingdom of priests calling out to God to intercede. When we get to chapter 8, you're going to find out something about your prayers that is probably jaw dropping. We'll get there someday. But we are living stones being built up into a household of God to be a kingdom and priests before our God.

Sixth, the sixth thing about this person that you're clinging to is that he possesses everlasting dominion. That's in verse six. To him be dominion, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So what kind of dominion is this?

Well, this phrase is repeated over and over again. It's in chapter 4 verse 9, it's in chapter 5 verse 12, it's in 513, it's in 712, it's in 191. This matter of dominion is a theme in the book of Revelation and you'll see it emerge over and over again. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and his dominion is forever. So you probably don't want to get on board with that kingdom.

It's the only one that's not going to fall down. All the other little kingdoms, all the other little idols are going to get thrown down. Isaiah says, you know, you're going to be really embarrassed about your idols. You're going to be so, you're just going to throw, you're going to want to just throw them down into the Bat holes you're gonna be so embarrassed that you trust it in such stupid things So if you're not trusting in Jesus Christ recognize there will be a day when you will regret it because his dominion is forever and he has a good kingdom. It's the best kingdom.

It's the sweetest kingdom. And then seventh, the person that you are clinging to is coming. He is coming. Verse seven, behold he is coming with clouds and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. Even so, amen." There's another amen.

So this verse starts with that word behold, means listen up. This is really, really an important theme in the book of Revelation. There are many descriptions of the second coming. You'll see them as we go along. There are these cycles.

You see cycles of persecution and trouble and then the second coming and you'll see that with the seals. You'll see the same thing with the trumpets and it'll end with the second coming. You'll see that pattern throughout Revelation as we read it But he is he is coming and they're going to be various pictures of his coming and He's coming with clouds. Coming with clouds. Why did John say that?

Well, in Acts 1.9, when he ascended, a cloud received him out of their sight. And then we're told, he'll come in the same way, in the clouds. And that's affirmed right here. At some point, we're going to do a doctrine of the clouds because you find clouds representing the glory and the majesty of God. You know, they, you have the, you know, the pillar of cloud that led the children of Israel through the wilderness.

You have the cloud that covered the tabernacle and then the temple. It's the glory of God and then he comes in the clouds from the east. It'll be all of a sudden, it'll be globally public. The careless and distracted will be mortified. All activities on earth will end.

Business will halt. Your schedule will be interrupted forever when he comes in the clouds. Your lunches, your dinners, your pregnancies will be dealt with at that moment. This is, he's quoting Daniel chapter 7, 7.13, and I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man coming with clouds in heaven. He came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

Then to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom that all peoples and nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed. He's coming. He is coming. It's a real coming.

It's a sudden coming and every eye will see him every person who's ever been born Will come out of their graves and every person who is alive will be taken up from the earth and They will meet him in the clouds and the people who saw him pierced there on that day in Calvary they will mourn and every person who did not repent of their sins will mourn as well. He was pierced and stabbed receiving the punishment that we should have had. And every eye will see him. This refers to those who have received Jesus Christ and those who have rejected him. The Christians will see him and mourn for their sins but rejoice in his loving-kindness and the unbelievers will mourn in a different way.

They'll be gnashing their teeth. They'll regret of their stupid idolatries. They'll regret that they ignored him and they will profoundly mourn because they did not care and they did not listen. No one will be indifferent. You'll find the tribes of the earth, every tongue and tribe and nation will be there.

The unbelievers will mourn and lament and they'll see their hopelessness and they'll feel the horror because they've received their summons and they cannot escape. They cannot put it off anymore. And then we come finally to the eighth characteristic of the person you're clinging to. Not only is he coming, but he is almighty. Verse 8, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was and is to come, the Almighty.

Jesus is declaring himself in the same way that he did in verse 4. Lord God Almighty occurs seven times in the book of Revelation and it is a translation of Yahweh from Isaiah chapter 6 verse 3 the Lord of hosts is his name this is God's unrivaled power This is God's unrivaled power and He is almighty, almighty, mighty over all and He is coming back. So the big question is, do you have the grace and the peace of the gospel? Do you believe in him who is and who was and who is to come? The Alpha and the Omega.

Do you believe in the one who's coming in the clouds? Are you walking in God's gracious supply? So The blessings of this book are explained here really out of the wellspring of grace and the peace that it brings. Now I have just listed so many blessings from heaven and as the history of your life proceeds this is how you get through it is by clinging to this one to come by clinging to Jesus Christ who is the ruler of the kings of the earth I counted up all the blessings that were here that I was able to identify. That he is speaking to this church.

He offers grace, he offers peace, he offers the fullness of his Holy Spirit. He brings a faithful witness. As first born, he takes you with him. He tells you how to think about all the rulers and all the authorities. He loves you.

He washes you. He makes you part of a kingdom. And he makes you a priest. And he's coming in the clouds. And he's the beginning and the end and he is the almighty.

Cling to him. Cling to him. Would you pray with me? Lord, you have given us many reasons to love you and follow you and walk with you.