Please open your Bibles to Revelation 22, and I'll be reading from verse 6 to verse 11. Chapter 22, verse 6 through 11. Then he said to me, These words are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place. Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. Now I, John, saw and heard these things, and when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he said to me, See that you do not do that, for I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God. And he said to me, Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him be righteous still. He who is holy, let him be holy still. Let's pray. Oh Father, we thank you for this revelation of Jesus Christ and his wonderful kingdom. We thank you for the blessings that are promised for those who read, for those who obey. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are the ruler of the kings of the earth. You're the faithful witness. You are the firstborn from the dead, and you washed us, having loved us, and made us kings and priests to our God. We're so thankful, Lord. Pray that you would bless the words that are here on this page, that you would move us in the ways that you desire today. Amen. Please be seated. As we arrive at verse 6, here we've entered into the final section in Revelation. We began this book in early December 2020, and we're now in the epilogue. We're at the end of the book. An epilogue is a conclusion. Children, do you know what an epilogue is? This is an epilogue. It's the conclusion. These are the final words, the final testimony. And there are several final exhortations in this summary of the prophecy. These verses talk about the blessings of the prophecy. I'm here to talk about the blessings of this prophecy. You know, last week I was in California at the Shepherds Conference at Grace Community Church. It's a large pastors' conference. It's just a remarkable gathering. But this year, John MacArthur decided that all the preachers would preach on the remnant, and it was thrilling to hear the messages about God sustaining His remnant. God alone sustains His remnant. He'll sustain you. He will. He promises to do that. Every message, frankly, was the same. God alone in His sovereign hand will preserve His people. It was so thrilling. But on the last day of the conference, my friend Conrad Mbewe gave a message. It was the second to the last message. It was in Revelation 3. He focused on verse 2. It was the letter to the church in Sardis. And he focused hard on, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain. And what he said to all the pastors, probably 4,000 of them sitting there, is that you have members of the remnant in your church. The remnant is in your church. He said, go home, be an encouragement to the remnant. He said, be a source of comfort. Be a source of joy to the remnant. That's what he told all these pastors. I thought that message was for me. Of course, I'm preaching on the blessings of Revelation, so it won't be all that hard. But he talked about strengthening the remnant through the preaching, strengthening the remnant through making your church a place of prayer. Strengthen the remnant by flourishing the love of the brethren every way you can, by your activity and missions, by your call to holiness. He said, strengthen the means of grace, the elements of worship. And then he said this. He said, Jesus Christ treasures his remnant. Go home and treasure the remnant. I was so thankful for that message. He said, and I'm quoting him here, I wrote it down in my notes, encourage the remnant so they don't get tired from the apostasy of the world. Strengthen them so that they can mount a gallant fight. Well that was such a great message. And really in many ways as I was coming home I thought, I have such a wonderful passage to do just that to the remnant. They're the blessings of Revelation, the blessings of this revelation of Jesus Christ. There are so many blessings to reading this book. It's a tragedy that people neglect this book. But these verses tell us that it's a blessing. Well it is interesting, I think I've preached around 60 messages on Revelation. And it occurred to me this morning that almost a third of them were on heaven in chapters 22, 21, and 22, and that's not counting the visions of heaven in chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, and chapter 14. So we've been in heaven a lot. There have been a lot of blessings to look at here. It's very interesting too, these six verses have a very close tie with the very first three verses of Revelation, really nine verses of Revelation. And these are just the concluding exhortations to the churches for how they should apply the Revelation in the last days, the last days began at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You know, we'll be looking back in the next few messages on Revelation to what we've seen. But we've been told by John that the book of Revelation is not a hiding of the truth, but it's an apocalypsis, it's a revealing. It's a revealing, not a hiding. Revelation does not intend to hide anything from you, but to give you pictures of it. And it is revealing Jesus Christ. He's the faithful witness. He's the firstborn from the dead. He washes His children in His blood. He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. He's the Alpha and the Omega. That's what this book is about. And it's about His victory, His mastery over the forces of darkness, and also His love for His church and how He's going to rescue them throughout all their tribulations in all of history, every moment of history, all the way to the very end, every moment of your life, every moment of my life, every nanosecond, He's governing for His own glory because He wants to take you to heaven. That's the purpose of this book. He is the one who is, who was, and who is to come. He knows everything. He knows everything about everything. Do you know anybody who knows everything about everything? The Lord Jesus Christ knows everything about everything. And He knows your life as it is, as it was, and as it is to come. He knows everything. It's such a comforting thing to know that God knows everything. And we've seen all this vivid imagery in the book of Revelation. Vivid imagery. You know, we saw the snow falling this morning. That was a vivid image of the treasuries of the snow that Job talked about in the book of Job. But frankly, the imagery in Revelation, while it's so vivid, it's just like everyday life. The images of this day, of this everyday life are vivid. The colors, the textures, the remarkable constellations, the amazing features of geography. This is a vivid world that we live in, and God has given us a vivid world to give us a vision of a vivid future. It's not esoteric. These are pictures of reality. These are doctrine. This is doctrine in pictures. This is pictorial theology in Revelation. And really, when we read these words here, it's very clear that Revelation is the message that we need to hear, not to neglect. The church should not be neglecting the book of Revelation. I was reading a writer recently that described Revelation and what it shows us. It shows us the opposition that we can expect to escalate. It shows us the endurance we need to cultivate, the judgment we need to celebrate, the victory in which we will participate, the enemy Jesus will annihilate, the sorrow he will alleviate, the creation he will regenerate, the marriage he will consummate, the home we can anticipate. Isn't that good? I would just add the worship in heaven that we can replicate here on earth, the life of heaven that we can duplicate here on earth, the face of Jesus we can illustrate here on earth. Those are the blessings of the book of Revelation. And this epilogue shows that the prophecy is practical. It's meant to be put into practice. And as you'll see, there are five blessings in your outline of the book of Revelation. First of all, the truthfulness of the prophecy. Second, the relevance of the prophecy. Third, the blessedness of the prophecy. Fourth, the worship because of the prophecy and the present value of the prophecy. I hope that we can live in light of the book of Revelation. What would it be like to live in light of the book of Revelation? That's a question that I think we should really, really consider. What would it be like to embrace the worldview of Revelation? What would it be like to embrace the view of heaven that we find in Revelation? That Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. He controls all of history, my history, your history, the history of this church, everything. What would it be like to experience the blessings of this book? Now, in these five blessings that I have named in your outline and in this sermon, in the midst of these are heavyweight doctrines. Whenever I look at a passage of Scripture, I tend to ask, what are the doctrines that are communicated here? Where do they exist? Who communicated them and what do they really mean? But here, you have the doctrine of Scripture, the authority of Scripture. You have the doctrine of prophecy. You have the doctrine of predestination and of the final judgment. All these doctrines are loaded just in these very few verses. They're very dense doctrinally and they bring up matters that you can find from Genesis to Revelation. And then this passage ends with a warning, a strong warning. And it really opens up an opportunity for everyone to turn to the Lord, to recognize the stakes and how high they are. Okay, let's go into the text here. Let's start with the truthfulness of the prophecy. That's in verse 6, the first part. Then he said to me, these words are faithful and true. These words of the prophecy are faithful and true. And this is just a call to trust the words of the prophecy, to trust the Word of God. By the way, while everyone says that this is the summary of the book of Revelation, some say that because this is the final book in the canon, the last book of revealed Scripture, that these words apply to all of Scripture, everything that God has written to His church. It's not just a summary of Revelation, it's a summary of all of the revelation of God. That may be true. But here you have these words that are faithful and true, which really should help us to understand that it really is tragic to neglect the words of this revelation because they are faithful and they are true. Sometimes difficult to comprehend, almost always astonishing, but very, very beautiful. But notice these two words, faithful and true. What is faithful? Reliable, trustworthy, sound. They will not let you down. The Word of God never lets you down. It always leads you in the right way. And they are true, meaning that they are fully sincere and absolutely reflective of God. They are true. And so this exhortation really focuses on the integrity of the Word of God. This is the doctrine of Scripture. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey Word of God. That's the idea that's here. Now, I want you to notice there's some word repetitions in this section, in this last section. For example, the word logos. For word, it's used six times, verse 6, verse 7, verse 9, verse 10, verse 18, and 19. And there's also the word book or biblion. This word appears seven times in this section. Verse 7, 9, 10, 18, twice, verse 19, twice. Also, the word for prophecy, prophetia, it occurs four times in verse 7, verse 10, and verse 18, and verse 19. And not just prophecy, but the word prophet is here twice in this section, in verse 6 and or verse 9 in our section. And of course, this is not the first time we've heard these words in the book of Revelation. In chapter 19, verses 9 and 10, John repeats the same words. When he's talking about the marriage supper of the Lamb, it's the most amazing thing. And he says, these are the true sayings of God. These are true. You can count on it. And then John repeats these words, or the angel calls him to repeat these words in 21, 5, and 6. When he's speaking of the new heavens and the new earth, yes, there will be a new heavens and a new earth. He says, these words are true and faithful. So this is a common phraseology that we find here. But this prophecy is trustworthy. You can count on it. You can live by it in confidence. You can rest your whole weight on the word of God. It is faithful and it is true. And so this just sets forth the reliability of the Bible according to the doctrine of Scripture. Earlier this week, I was reading Joshua, and particularly Joshua 1, 8. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. And I take that to mean that when you have the word of God in your heart guiding your thoughts, guiding your ways, and even the greatest troubles of your life, there's always a way to walk in holiness. You'll always have a way to walk no matter where you are walking. This is such a blessing to know that. Those who have the word of God to guide them will have God with them wherever they go. It's so important that we saturate ourselves in the word of God. I hope you're doing that. When you have the word of God, you have nothing else that you need in order to prosper in your way. You will always prosper if you walk in the word of God. It's so easy to walk according to the feelings, according to the judgments of the world, and the world system, and the way that it thinks, and the ridiculous psychological principles that actually are so harmful to us. But to walk in the word is something that makes us prosperous. And frankly, our culture is descending into chaos because of its rejection of the truth. And what's tragic about it is that the Bible record makes it so clear that God abandons nations that abandon his word, and God abandons individuals who abandon his word as well. But God upholds those who hide the word of God in their hearts, and he helps them all their life long, and they're sustained by it. So this prophecy is true. We see the truthfulness of the prophecy. We may not understand every single detail of the imagery, but it should make an impression on us to give us a sense of reality. So the prophecy is faithful and true. Second, the relevance of the prophecy. That begins in the second half of verse six, the relevance of the prophecy. And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place. Now there are different words here that would be easy to camp on for quite a while. You have the holy prophets, you have the angel that is sent, you have his servants. This is the word slave. Modern translators have translated this servant, but it's the word for slave. And then shortly, what must shortly take place. Let's start with prophets, the holy prophets. This prophecy in Revelation is communicated by the prophets, and we've seen that over and over again. How many times have we gone back to Ezekiel? How many times have we gone to Isaiah? How many times have we gone to Isaiah and the Psalms and Genesis in order to understand what's happening in Revelation? It's the holy prophets that have spoken that now find their messages all coalesced into this book. There are, as I've said before, there are 404 verses in Revelation and over 500 allusions or direct quotes to the Old Testament prophets. And so it's so helpful to understand that we need to understand the Old Testament interpretive grid for this. And the prophets are helpful for us to understand. We've made it very clear, if you want to understand Revelation, the newspaper is not the first place you should look. You should look to your Bible, which helps you to understand how to understand it. And there's this, notice the sequence of God revealing himself from God to an angel, from an angel to John, and from John to the church. That's the progress of the communication of this prophecy. The prophets of old, God's prophets, always spoke accurately. Now, there's an interesting controversy in modern day about prophecy and the gift of prophecy, and there are some evangelicals who claim that if a person has the gift of prophecy or what some people call a word of knowledge, that it doesn't always have to be true. And the question is, can prophets be wrong? There are many prophets out there today, self-proclaimed, they're wrong. They might be wrong 90, right, 90% of the time, 95% of the time, 50% of the time. But in the word of God, there was severe denunciation of prophets who do not prophesy of God, who do not prophesy things that are authoritative. Always be wary of a person who proclaims himself to be a prophet. There are all kinds of people running around today, they'll look into your heart and tell you this or that. They had a dream or something like that. If they're wrong one time, it's a false prophecy. We have sort of undermined and downgraded prophecy today in the modern church, saying that it can be flawed. This undermines the authority of the word of God. Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 15 through 22 makes it very clear that it's dangerous to act like a prophet if you're not. And these things appear in the modern charismatic movement. And of course, the Bible speaks regularly about prophets and false prophets. The false prophets today are everywhere. They are in Hollywood, they're on Facebook, they're promoting themselves on Instagram, they are politicians, they're sociologists, they're university professors, they're public school teachers. There are so many false prophets around today, it's not even funny. And as a result of the false prophets, you know, all of the creation order norms are under attack. Gender, marriage, family, biblical sexuality. The modern prophets want to uncreate what God has created, and they want to legislate biblical norms out of existence. They're doing it all over our country. They're rewriting the creation account. They're rewriting the gender account. And even, you know, most of the governments, the state governments in our land have made calling for repentance or conversion therapy a hate crime. And it's a tragic thing. But God warns believers to be aware of the false prophets. But these are true prophecies. Matthew 7, 15, Jesus warned, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. The Lord Jesus in Matthew 24, 11 said, then many false prophets will arise and deceive many and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. And of course, we've been in 1 and 2 Peter containing numerous warnings. Trent has been bringing those to us about false prophets. People are so gullible today at the remarkable, amazing communicators. And that's why John said in 1 John 4, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. And they're wolves in sheep's clothing. So test everything by the word of God. This is a declaration of the infallibility of the prophets of God that they should be listened to. Deuteronomy 18, 20, but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of them. Now it says that these prophecies must take place. They must of necessity. They must happen. They will happen because of the sovereignty of God. It says that they are relevant. They are fulfilled shortly. They're fulfilled shortly. That means of course, shortly means very soon. We know that. That means that they're relevant. They're relevant to the early church. They were relevant immediately to the seven churches of Asia and they are relevant to every church that has existed since. They're not just relevant in a seven year period that some might allocate. Jobiki says it like this. The visions of revelation have immediate relevance for they describe the spiritual war presently being waged between the church and the world. The idea here shortly is that these prophecies will find elements of their fulfillment right away and they will continue throughout history. We have talked about these seven cycles of history that are portrayed in the book of revelation and most of them seem to end in the second coming. They are snapshots of historical experiences that happen in many tongues and tribes and nations. These things began to be fulfilled immediately and but at the same time there's a suddenness to them. They come quickly. Three times in revelation 22 he says he's coming quickly. Verse 7, verse 12 and verse 20 and he uses the present tense. He's not saying I will come someday. He says I am already on the way. This kind of quickly. He is quickly and immediately already coming and the idea here is that this word doesn't always refer to a literal timeline but it indicates that he is coming swiftly and he will come swiftly like a thief in the night. He will finally come like a thief in the night. Dr. Beeky explains it like this. Christ's foot is on the stairs of your personal life as well as all of history. He is coming and his coming is inevitable. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants the things which must shortly take place. That's the very first verse in Revelation. So this verse here is a near duplicate of the very first verse in Revelation. You know God has these bookends of these things which must shortly take place from the beginning to the end. Our church should always remember that Jesus Christ could come at any moment. Now he may come to you in your untimely death but he is coming. We should always be expectantly looking at heaven. We've spent some time looking at heaven to try to understand how we might live on earth so that we might be ready. Such a blessed time. But the Christian believes the promise. Now how do you understand this matter of shortly or coming quickly? I think there's a place to help us understand what it means. Open your Bibles to 2 Peter 3. And here in this passage is an answer to what shortly means, what quickly means, and how to interpret the delays that we experience because he has not come yet. There was a well-known pastor in Southern California who predicted that Christ would return in 1981 and he didn't. It was Chuck Smith. He didn't come. We wait. You know the church was so expectant and we should be expectant. So here we find in 2 Peter 3 verses 1-9. Let's go to verse 1 and I'll read the first 9 verses. Beloved, now I write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets. Same language in Revelation. And of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? So people are saying, you said he's coming quickly. Where is he? For since the fathers fell asleep, all these things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this they willfully forget, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. So one reason for the delay is God has pinpointed a day of final judgment, and everyone is waiting for that. And then he continues, but beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and as a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So the delay is a delay for repentance, that the church would seek repentance among the unbelievers, that the church would seek and save the lost, that the church would recognize that the world is falling apart and people's souls are so harmed. Preach the gospel, call for repentance, bring in the harvest. That's why God is waiting. It seems slow. We think, well, you said it would be quickly. He says, well, a day is as a thousand years in God. God has a wonderful plan, but this is relevant to the early church and to the church ever since. He is coming quickly in his own time, not fast enough for most people, but perfect in timing for him. And then third, the blessedness of the prophecy. This is verse seven, look at verse seven. Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. Well, the first three verses of Revelation explain this in almost the exact same language. And it all means that when you read the prophecy and you obey it, you'll be blessed. There will be happiness. It was meant to be obeyed and there are promises for those who obey it. This is one of the beatitudes. Well, you've recognized the beatitude. Blessed is he who keeps the words. Blessed is he. This is like the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. There are seven beatitudes in Revelation. This is number six. The seventh beatitude is in the next section that we'll hopefully cover next week. And we'll talk about these beatitudes. Seven beatitudes, isn't that interesting? There's seven of them. The number of perfection. Seven promises of blessing. Jesus and John used the same words for happiness, for happy, for blessed. And if you want to be happy, you can know where to find it. You can find it in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, notice too, this is in the indicative, not in the imperative. He's explaining a condition of reality. If you obey, then you will experience blessedness. So it isn't really a command to obey. He's just talking about the way life works. This is the way God wired the world. If you obey, you'll be blessed. That's the idea. He's not even commanding you to obey. He's just saying, hey, if you want the blessing of God on your life, then just obey. So many of our problems, our personal problems, our relational problems, our marriage problems, is because we just don't obey the word of God. We obey our feelings. We're obeying some ridiculous counselor out there that told us to follow our hearts or something like that. But God doesn't do that. God actually leads you to blessedness. This is a formula. It's actually a formula of life. If you obey, you'll be blessed. It's a promise. It's an inevitability. And of course, this is telling us that the word of God is not meant just to be heard, but it's meant to be obeyed. And in Revelation, there's so many applications for your worldview, for spiritual warfare, for understanding the political movements of the world, the military movements of the world, the spread of disease. All kinds of things like this are revealed in Revelation. Christians, you know, aren't living under a rock. They have been told reality about what's going on in the world. And there are lots of lifestyle implications of the prophecy that's here. You know, Matthew Henry, I was kind of taken by storm by Matthew Henry a few days ago when I was reading in Joshua 1.5. I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. And then Matthew Henry says, those that go where God sends them shall have him with them wherever they go. And they need desire no more to make them easy and prosperous. When you go with God's word, you go with blessing and he makes your way prosperous. What a great promise for a local church. Number four, the worship because of the prophecy. We've seen the truthfulness of the prophecy and the relevance of the prophecy and the blessedness of the prophecy. Now the worship because of the prophecy. Now there's this remarkable scene where John is interacting with this angel and verse eight. Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. You know, he did the same thing when the angel was showing him the marriage supper of the lamb. And now he's doing it again. Then he said to me, see that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant and of your brethren, the prophets and of those who keep the words of this book. So John is, he's awestruck, he's thunderstruck with what this angel is bringing to him. It was such an amazing message. By the way, this angel must have been very eloquent, very persuasive. And John, he falls down and worships the angel and even John, even the apostle John, he's in his eighties, he's seen everything, he's seen God be faithful. And I think it was a moment of weakness. If John would get mesmerized by some eloquent presence, maybe we might do that too. And we might idolize someone or their message. But of course this angel says, no, no, he was very, actually very terse. See that you do not do that. Actually in the literal representation of the Greek, it's see not. In other words, stop it. Don't do that. It was very, very terse warning. You know, if John could be distracted and place inappropriate importance to a messenger, to a created being, it teaches us that we might be vulnerable too by some eloquent, remarkable voice that's in the world today. I think that's here to help us to recognize our frailty. Even John was susceptible. But what I think the main point is here is that the revelation of Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation should cause us to worship God. The angel says, worship God. There were these amazing scenes laid before John. John worships the angel and the angel redirects his worship to God. This revelation is meant to teach us to worship God. You know, I did something on the airplane coming home from California yesterday. And I was pondering this and I thought, if the book of Revelation is a means to worship God, I'm going to read through it and I'm going to try to pray through the various contours of the things that are there. And you can use this book to help you pray. You can use this book to help you worship God. You know, often it's hard to pray, isn't it? It's hard to keep your mind. It is for me. It's hard for me to keep my mind on things and I don't know what to say. It really helps to open up the Bible and pray through the Bible. I need help to pray. I need a lot of help to pray. And you might just try that. Just open up the first chapter in Revelation and pray the elements that are there. I mean, it's so beautiful. He's the firstborn of all creation. He's everything. All of his attributes are there. And you can use the word of God to worship as a means to worship. I think we should do that. The word of God should cause us to worship God. That's why preaching is such a prominent aspect of local church life. It's meant to cause the people to worship God, to hear the word of God, to see how true, how powerful, how helpful it is, and to worship God, to just give thanks for his testimony that he's actually given us a way to live, a way to think about everything and it causes us to worship God. So open up Revelation and pray through it. It's a treat. The fifth, the present value of the prophecy, verse 10. And he said to me, do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book for the time is at hand. Do not seal. What does it mean to seal or not to seal the words of the prophecy? Again, we go back to one of the holy prophets, to Daniel. And Daniel chapter 12 uses this same language. So we need to go back to Daniel. And Daniel is prophesying a time when wickedness will prevail. He looks into the future and while it's far off, verse 9 in Daniel 12, I'll just read it to you. And he said, go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. In Daniel, he's being told that the words are sealed. In other words, there are these things that are going to happen, but you won't understand them. Seal up the words of the prophecy. Daniel did not understand how or when all this would unfold. He knew that it was not for his own day. So sealing in Daniel's book meant that the prophecies would not be fully understood until the end. But the angel tells John to do the opposite. He says, do not seal. Do not seal the words of the prophecy. It means that the prophecy should be opened. They concern the present. John Gill says, they are a public record to be seen and read by all. The afflictions of God's people and the victory of Christ must be known to the church so that they will be patient and confident and blessed. The church needs assurance that the Antichrist and his minions will be destroyed. The church will reign victorious. The church should be comforted. Open up the prophecy. Don't seal it up. Let it out. Read it. Obey it. See what it says about the times that you live. Dennis Johnson says it this way about sealing and unsealing. John's prophecy was not designed for some remote generation, but for the entire Christian church, including John's own generation. Therefore he is not to seal his book, but to leave it unsealed that all may read. It's relevant. The prophecy is relevant. There is present value to the prophecy. So don't neglect the book of Revelation. And then this section ends with a warning in verse 11. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him be righteous still. He who is holy, let him be holy still. This is both a warning for those who refuse to follow Jesus Christ and a comfort for those that do. And this is just a principle of reality. People will live according to their nature until the coming judgment. If you've not been given a new nature, then you will be unholy and you will be unholy still to the end. If your life has been transformed and the power of sin is broken, then you will be holy and you will be holy still. It's a promise of comfort for the believer. And it's also a word of terror to the unbeliever to turn. The unchanged will have little hope of changing. There's a time when there's no more time left. There's a time for the unbeliever where they've delayed too long and they're doomed. They were unjust. The die is cast. They're in a permanent state, unalterably doomed. Let him who is unjust, let him be unjust still. Remain. If you remain in the condition of the hardness of your heart, if you remain rejecting Jesus Christ, if you remain hating the commands of God, running from God, then you are doomed. You're doomed for all eternity. And yet God can give a new heart. To those who are doomed and the old man will be crucified, but there will be a time for those who do not repent and there were there will be no time left. But today there's time. Today is the day of salvation and you do not have to stay in that groove that you've been in your whole life. You can break out of the groove. You can break out of the pattern by turning to Jesus Christ and repenting of your sins and saying, Lord, I want to follow you. Forgive me of my sins. Change my life, Lord. Paul told the Corinthian church in first Corinthians six, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor sodomites nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers or extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, all of such were some of you. You're not that way anymore. God changed your life. You were washed, but you were sanctified, that you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the spirit of God. We've already been told that God delays the coming of his son. Because of the value of the souls that he will reap from the earth. And I think this should just help us be more urgent than ever to share the gospel. The time there's a time when. There will there will be no more time. And there really are only two groups in the world. There's the just and the unjust, the holy and the unholy. This really is also a summary of the doctrine of predestination. One of the great doctrines of the faith. But it's a statement of reality. When the Lord comes, there will be no more opportunities to turn for the Lord. So turn today, come to him today. Who are you in that list? The holy, the unholy, the filthy, the righteous. Who are you? This is left for us to understand who we are in this. This wonderful revelation. You know, we live in a time I don't think there's ever been such hopelessness in the culture as in my lifetime. I mean, people are committing suicide, contemplating suicide. The use of chemicals, drugs to try to pull people out of their despondency and their delusions is just astounding like never before. I grew up, I grew up at the beginning of the drug culture. Hey, you ain't seen nothing like what you see today. It's astounding. You know, there's so many broken people and Jesus Christ is there saying, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Don't seek it in the places you've been seeking it. Well, so these are the blessings of revelation, the truthfulness of this prophecy, the relevance of this prophecy, the blessedness of the prophecy, the worship because of the prophecy, the present value of the prophecy is right before us. So I do pray that I was able to fulfill Conrad and Bewe's admonitions to go home and encourage the flock to show them the glory of Jesus Christ and his word. It's right here in this passage. And I pray that we would just continue to enjoy this prophecy for the rest of our lives and don't neglect it like so many do. It's a huge mistake. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this prophecy. We thank you for the graphic and beautiful and terrifying details that show us the way things really are in the world. Thank you for giving us a picture book. It's so helpful. Thank you, Lord, for being so kind to give us an unalterable, ever true word of hope for everything we have in this world. Amen.