Are you prepared for what's to come? This bold question is the driving force behind our latest podcast episode, as we explore the miraculous and treacherous times we are living in. Drawing from the wisdom of the book of Revelation, we examine the rise of a one world currency through the advent of digital currencies. Our dialogue brings God's hand into sharp focus in the happenings around us, urging you to choose hope over fear. We delve into the urgency of spreading the gospel truth to those yet to embrace it, preparing for the return of Jesus.
We push the envelope further by challenging the depth of your commitment to God's cause. Drawing inspiration from the gripping narrative of Elliot Ness and Malone from The Untouchables, we urge you to fortify your relationship with Jesus Christ. The significance of repentance isn't lost on us, as we implore you to renew your commitment to God. We provide a prayer of recommitment to aid your fresh journey with Him. Prepare to be inspired, to live with hope, and to fulfill the Lord's mission, as we navigate these turbulent times together.
Are you prepared for what's to come? This bold question is the driving force behind our latest podcast episode, as we explore the miraculous and treacherous times we are living in. Drawing from the wisdom of the book of Revelation, we examine the rise of a one world currency through the advent of digital currencies. Our dialogue brings God's hand into sharp focus in the happenings around us, urging you to choose hope over fear. We delve into the urgency of spreading the gospel truth to those yet to embrace it, preparing for the return of Jesus.
We push the envelope further by challenging the depth of your commitment to God's cause. Drawing inspiration from the gripping narrative of Elliot Ness and Malone from The Untouchables, we urge you to fortify your relationship with Jesus Christ. The significance of repentance isn't lost on us, as we implore you to renew your commitment to God. We provide a prayer of recommitment to aid your fresh journey with Him. Prepare to be inspired, to live with hope, and to fulfill the Lord's mission, as we navigate these turbulent times together.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I give you thanks for today. I give you thanks for the power of this medium, for giving me the strength and Perseverance to do this, with the urgency I hope and pray that it requires. I know that I could never have that or an urgency outside of you, lord. I hope that I hope and pray that you never Remove that urgency from me. We are living in both treacherous and miraculous times and I am humbled beyond measure to be able to Be a voice In these times. I pray for the all the people within the sound of my voice, wherever their lives are, whatever Circumstances, and that they find themselves in Lord, that you would be with them, that you would give them your peace where needed and allow them to rejoice where needed. Father God, I Give you thanks for this study. I give you thanks for this wonderful book so often misunderstood, this book of hope, this book of of finality and this book of glory, the glorious revelation of your son, jesus Christ. May your words go out today, not my own. May everything that is done here be a measure of where your spirit would lead us. In Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go ahead and get started. We are continuing our study in the book of revelation and we are going to cover Wait for it one whole verse. Today we are in revelation 1 9. If you wouldn't mind turning there For me you'll. We'll pick up right where we left off last week.
Speaker 1:You know, as I said in the open, in prayer, we're living in in in both treacherous and miraculous times. Now there are some of you that will probably say to me miraculous? I don't know that I'd call it miraculous. I mean, if you watch the news and yes, I, I have, and and I would I would Challenge you with the same question. If you don't believe that we're living in miraculous times, I would challenge you to watch the news, and I know that that's hard and more often than not a very depressing exercise. But when you watch the news, when you watch the news with spiritual eyes, with spiritual eyes, you can see the chest pieces being moved into place. You can see in all the tumultuous Goings on in this world, you can see God's hand in it.
Speaker 1:Just a small example monetarily, I believe that we're closer to a world bank and a one world currency now more than ever, than any time in history, something that never when, when, when, when our contemporaries read the book of Revelation and it talks about a one world currency later in the book and it talks about Not being able to trade or to buy or to sell and all of these things. Nobody thought that was anywhere near possible. But in the event of, of, of Digital currencies and and and all of those things, it's very possible and People are clamoring. Now, am I saying that this is a good thing? No, I mean, it is and it's not. And that's the conundrum that Christians find themselves in. And the reality of it is that, you know, nothing frustrates me more, on the one hand, than to have a Group of believers Basically saying well, it's all gonna burn and that's good, because that means Jesus is coming back. Well, yes, it is good. It is good because Jesus is coming back and as Jesus said in the Gospels, in the Bible, he said you know, you understand the seasons, but you can't see the signs of the times, and that was in Matthew. That was in Matthew and he's right.
Speaker 1:But I think that we as believers as a side note here miss the point a little in that, yes, it's all going to come to an end and Jesus is going to reign, and what a glorious day that'll be Whether we meet him in the air and the rapture, or if we pass away from this world and our next breath is with him in paradise. No matter how that works out, it's miraculous. But I would stress, not to forget the why, the why, the why are we here? Why are we here? Is it simply to wait for it to all quote unquote burn? And I don't think so. Matter of fact, I know not.
Speaker 1:One of the one of the keys to this ministry is that there's no one I wouldn't want to see in heaven, and that's why I do this. That's why this is done and, as Christians, this is what we have to grasp. Is that you know what? Yes, that's true, but is there somebody else? It's true that that Jesus is going to come back in this world and its way of doing things and all of that is all going to go away and it's going to be completely transformed and changed and Jesus is going to rule and reign. That's all true.
Speaker 1:But in the meantime, don't forget that there are people out there who have not accepted the truth. There are people out there who have not accepted the truth, and there's no greater measure of love than to share the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've called it many times, the secret that we have that we're reluctant to share. If you had the cure for cancer or Alzheimer's, or hate, or bitterness, or sadness, sorrow, wouldn't you share it? Well, you do. You have that gift and, as a precursor here, I would just encourage you to find ways to complete our mission here on this earth. We're travelers, but we have a mission that wasn't supposed to be and none of that was written. But that's what was on my heart this morning, that's what we were, that's what's on my heart this morning.
Speaker 1:Everything's moving so very fast and, like I said, we have a choice. We can choose to live in fear and be engulfed in everything that comes at us, all of the hand wringing and the concern and the shifting that is the 24 hour media cycle or we can trust the truth, as I said, in the open. Jesus is coming back and, more importantly, we can be ready for it. How do we do that? By being about the Lord's business, and I want you to write that down. I want you to write that down Next year open Bible.
Speaker 1:It's always good to have a notepad and if you're on an iPad or a tablet or your phone. Make a note Be about the Lord's business. And what do I mean by that? Be about the Lord's business? Well, it was put to me this way during a Bible study once what is it you'd like to be doing when Jesus comes back for you? What would you like to be doing? That's a heck of a question, and I challenge you to ponder that this week. What would you like to be doing when Jesus comes back for you? For me, I want to be about the Lord's business. I want to be doing the things that he has called me to do. So what? Indeed, in detail, okay, my calling and that's what we're talking about here is a calling. What is the Lord called for you to do? My calling is different from yours, and it's also the same. I'm called to work in corporate America. Okay, that's what I'm called to do. I'm called to be a part of a unit that works in corporate America and conducts business in that realm. You may be a nurse, a lawyer, an engineer, a garbage collector, a retail worker, a restaurateur even, or a stay-at-home mom or dad, a first responder, or a gasp, even a politician.
Speaker 1:The point is, we all have different calls on our lives, the air go. We're all very different. I did, however, say that we were the same as well. Well, here it is. As we learned last week, through the acceptance of the gift of salvation, jesus has made us kings and priests to his God and Father. That's Revelation 1-6. It's a little bit up the page or up the column from where we are. So, no matter what you do, do it as unto the Lord, we are members, rather, of a priesthood after all, a priesthood. It's pretty heavy stuff. And so now that brings us to Revelation 1-9. If you'll take a look at it with me, it says I, john, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. So let's just take that first bit, because there's a ton there. John calls himself our brother and companion, and it's the power of the priesthood and the kingship that we spoke of earlier In Christ. This man from thousands of years ago is our brother today and our companion today. As we read his God breathed words, john is writing to every church In this book. We share the priesthood with him. John is writing to the early church. He's writing to us as well. He is our brother in Christ. Let me give you an example.
Speaker 1:I was blessed. Many of you that followed me for a while know that I was blessed to go to Jerusalem, israel. I was blessed to go to Israel proper in 2019. And one of the first things I was able to do, I was blessed to lead a mission group. We have my church has a missionary couple in Israel and we went down to support them and help support the ministries that they run down there in Israel and it's called Bet Yadahim, which in Hebrew means house of compassion, and one of the first things, jet lagged and everything else. It's nine hours. It's nine hours from Newark to Tel Aviv, and so jet lagged and everything else. That first night, what we did is we went to church with them. They have a congregation that they belong to that runs a Hebrew and English Christian church service. So that was excellent and one of the things I learned in the next couple of weeks you're going to learn too.
Speaker 1:For me, it was a mind bender about this particular book and the sum of the imagery that lives within it and how it's tied to the Jewish faith. But we were there and struggling to stay awake and we get done with service and, of course, just like every church around the world, there's a time of fellowship afterward, okay, and everybody's talking to everybody, and our hosts, of course, are members of that congregation. So they had people that they wanted to speak to and so on and so forth, and so we were kind of left to our own devices for a while. And so what did I do? I found a lady, a Hebrew, amazingly, that I was able to introduce myself to and I was able to talk to and I was able to pray with. I was able to pray with her. She and I were able to come into the throne room of Christ together. I didn't know her, she didn't know me, past the three or four minutes that we'd spent in small talk and other things, but then we got right to the heart of the deep spiritual matters of Christ and these two people, the Gentile and the Hebrew the Gentile from literally half of half a world away and the Hebrew joined together in their shared common belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world and we came into the throne room of God through prayer and I was able to pray with her and minister to her, and it was absolutely amazing. That's the commonality gang, that's the priesthood Okay, that's the priesthood.
Speaker 1:And so John is writing to the early church. He's their companion in their tribulation and the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. John is acknowledging the persecution of the early church and the tumultuous, turbulent times that are rocking the kingdom of Jesus at the moment. The church was under the Roman boot and that's no small thing. They were being persecuted. So, finishing the verse, it says, was on the island that is called Patmos. This is John now writing in Revelation one nine, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. That's Revelation one nine, new King James version. So let's read the whole verse together. I John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. John tells us that he was on the island of Patmos. Why? For the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. So he was in exile for preaching the word of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ unto salvation for all who would believe. It's a gospel. He's being persecuted for what the what would be called today proselytizing.
Speaker 1:And let's talk about the early church and the believers and the twelve and and and all of that for just a minute. You know there are a lot of people who say, oh, that's just a book of fables and fairy tales, meaning the Bible. They didn't really believe that. There's no way really. Well, if it was all one group, lie, okay. Why then did all of Jesus disciples save John Markers for their new faith? Why did they? Why were they willing to go to death, run through by swords, beheaded, hung upside down? Because they, because Peter, didn't believe that he was worthy to die in the same way that his Lord died. So he was crucified upside down. How do you do that? If it's all one group lie, you can't. There's no way. If you make up some big elaborate ruse and somebody calls you on it and says well, you know what? That's a big fat lie, and if you don't tell me the truth, I'm just gonna kill you. I'm pretty sure everybody within the sound of my voice would be like all right, so I lied, do I get to live? Good, cool, I lied, okay, but they didn't. They all died, and it wasn't for lack of trying with the apostle John, john before he was exiled to Patmos, mostly out of frustration. History tells us that John was boiled in a vat of hot oil. They were trying to kill him, but Jesus had other ideas. Jesus had other ideas. And here in America and I'll speak to my American listeners for a moment here in America we don't really understand what that persecution is. We've not been persecuted, not in the way, in the shape and form and fashion of the early church or even other places around the world.
Speaker 1:Here comes a book recommendation. It's a book called. There are two of them that I would strongly recommend that you add to your spiritual library. One is one is Fox's Book of Martyrs. You can get it on Amazon or Kendall, whichever way you wanna do it. And then the other is called Jesus Freaks. Okay, jesus Freaks is put out by the alternative band that was called DC Talk and the Voice of the Martyrs, which is a ministry that highlights those people who are suffering for their faith around the world, and these are modern stories. Gang Fox's Book of Martyrs goes back all the way to the beginning, back to the first Christian martyr, which was Saint Stephen. Okay, but the reality of it is this is happening all over the world in the Middle East, in Russia, in China. They're being persecuted, they hide out in basements.
Speaker 1:I've told the story many times of a group of believers who consecrated a graveyard okay, for the martyrs of their faith in Fallujah, because they knew they would end up dying. Okay, and they were willing to do that. Why? Because of Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus Christ. That's why. So we hear and we see and we know all of these things that people were willing to do. John was willing to go to this little rock in the middle of the Mediterranean which, by the way, wasn't Club Med. It sure wasn't. No, no, it was a. It's a rock, it's a little rock. They call it an island. It's a little rock he had. I mean, it was a hard life. It was a hard life and we're gonna find out next week what it was he was doing when Jesus came for him, when Jesus came to see him and provide for him what we now call the book of Revelation.
Speaker 1:I'll put it like this Christian, when I was younger, I used to love movies, oh, movies. I used to love movies. Used to love to go to the movies, used to love to buy movies. I had them on DVD and you know everything else. Of course, now everything's digital, but One of my favorite movies as a young man was the Untouchables, with Kevin Costner, okay, and Sean Connery. Robert De Niro played Capone. You know it was. It was a heck of a movie.
Speaker 1:Now, the Premise of it is is that Elliot Ness, who was a real person, elliot Ness was tasked with taking down organized crime in Chicago in the 30s. Capone on the city, capone on the city. And Malone is an old beat-up beat cop who knows all the dirty little secrets. He knows what holes to look in, what rugs to look under to find all the rats. So Malone takes Ness to a church in the beginning of the movie and and it's a, it's a famous monologue and again conversation, monologue by Malone and then conversation with with Ness In the movies. And Malone says look, the rules here are different. The rules here are different. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. And the the famous line and I'll change it because I don't like the way it was written, but but the famous line is if he puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way.
Speaker 1:And what Malone is saying is Plain and simple look, things are different. You're gonna have to go and do things that you're not comfortable with. Okay, you're gonna have to do stuff that you're not comfortable with. And the famous line at the end is what are you prepared to do? How far are you willing to go? And you know what friends? That's what I challenge you with today. How far are you willing to go?
Speaker 1:You know the devil is Satan is the Satan's got control of this world right now. He does, and the question is Christian. What are you prepared to do? Are you prepared to sit around and wait for Jesus to come back, because I got news for you? I've told people before. I don't want to have that discussion if I'm sitting flat-footed when he shows up. Larry, I had stuff for you to do. What are you doing? I was waiting for you. Yeah, that's not gonna work out Well, gonna get scolded. I don't want to get scolded. So what are you prepared to do? Are you prepared to share the gospel with people? Are you prepared to go to work every day knowing that you're doing that job as unto the Lord, which means if you have a bad day, you're allowed to have a bad day. It's a matter of how you handle that bad day. Do it as unto the Lord. Become that person, that man or that woman who, every time they walk into an, to a, to a situation, they are the light, they are the gift, they are the gift, they are the one that people turn to, who don't even know why.
Speaker 1:The famous quote always is If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? What are you prepared to do? What are you prepared to do? We're working. That's plain and simple truth. That's we are at war for souls. That's exactly what we're doing right now. That's where we are as Christians, and I would say this If you feel like the Holy Spirit is asking you to recommit yourself to him, recommit yourself to Jesus, recommit yourself to the cause, then do that. And For those of you that are listening to me, for those of you that are listening to me who don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ and You've heard me say words like salvation and all of those things throughout this message I would say to you this as you can see by looking at the news, we're not promised tomorrow. There's all kinds of craziness going on in the world, and it's not a scare tactic, it's just the truth. There's all kinds of craziness going on in the world. Settle your final destination. Settle it. Settle it right now. It's a free gift.
Speaker 1:If you want to repent of of your sins and if you're, if you're feeling that tug right now that says man, I got to do something, then do it. Do it, and it's real simple. All you have to do is talk to him and you can say Heavenly Father, lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner in need of a savior. I Want to repent of my sins right now. I'm so sorry for all the things that I have done that have kept me separated from you, jesus. I believe that you came and that you lived and that you died and on the third day God raised you again from the dead for me, from my sins, and I want to repent of my sins right now and I want you to be my Lord, my God, my Savior, my friend, and I want to follow you all the rest of the days of my life. Thank you, jesus, amen.
Speaker 1:If you prayed that prayer for Recommitment or as a new believer, then God bless you. And I mean that my pastor always used to point to people, as we did the altar call and and say God bless you. And you know what he meant it, and so do I. He meant it, and so do I. God bless you guys. God bless you guys, and that's all the time we have today. That's all the time we have today, but I'll be back next week and we'll look. We'll soldier on through this book. Until then, make it count and be blessed.