One God Revealed In Revelation

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Updates, And Sponsors
• 2:28 Listener Questions Shape The Series
• 2:55 Why Daniel And Revelation Belong Together
• 3:47 Jesus Revealed As The Lamb Of God
• 6:43 Deity And Humanity Of Christ Distinguished
• 9:27 Read Around The Verse: Study Rule
• 11:00 The Lamb Who Conquered Death
• 13:43 I Am: Eternal Identity And Exodus Echoes
• 16:42 Alpha And Omega: One God Claim
• 19:32 Isaiah’s Witness To The Only Savior
• 22:24 Ancient Of Days Imagery In Revelation
• 24:57 Seven Churches As One Complete Church

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

Hello, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, JJ. It's so good to have each and every one of you here. So glad to see all the repeat listeners. And if it's your first time, we you can always go back and listen to any of the episodes. We keep them archived. If you're on iHeartRadio, I'm not exactly sure how the archival works. I know you can get up to a year. If you're on a YouTube channel, JJ the Apostolic, you can go back and listen to all the episodes. We will be starting a Rumble channel soon. There's a big announcement coming with that. As soon as we can figure out how to transfer all the old episodes over, we'll announce that page as well. Also, a big shout out to our sponsors, TrueBoss Lyricists and Exquisite Creations. Thank you all so much for your continued support, your likes, your comments, and also thank you guys for your questions. If you have any questions, send them to walkwithme Bible Study at gmail.com. Walkwithme Bible Study at gmail.com. Thank you all so much. Uh as a matter of fact, we're in the middle of a lesson series based on some questions that I got. Um, and if you do want your name to be mentioned in the question, uh go ahead and put your name in the subject line. That way I know to mention them. Otherwise, I'll assume that you just want to be anonymous because a lot of people um feel sort of intimidated or they just don't want people to know that they have that question. I it doesn't matter to me. A question is a question. Uh useless debate is useless debate, but I it I truly enjoy answering questions, alright? So, with that being said, I'm gonna get right into the continuation of our end-time study that was propagated by not only a series of questions that I got, but some you might call it uh social media things that occurred. Um, so quick, quick, quick recap, and we you can go back and listen to all the episodes, but quick recap. We like to look at revelation all the time, but I wanted to establish a a symbiosis, a a correlation between the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation. So we spent some time on that. Now we are in Revelation and we want to talk about what Revelation truly is, and then we're gonna talk about some things that are gonna happen, right? So the first thing we got to realize is that um for this study, because we're gonna go ahead and pick up where we left off for last week. Please understand that one of the first things that Revelations does is reveal Jesus as the Lamb of God. Now, what does that really mean? Jesus is is revealed as the glorified Christ and the Almighty, however, his humanity is not forgotten. Now, I I have to make sure that we we distinguish between the two because even in the gospels, you see distinctions between the two. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. However, he did not get rid of the humanity side, and so you will see things, you will see times where Jesus does things that uh men, us men, are required to do. We are required to eat, we're required to sleep. We are we even get mad sometimes. And then you will see things that immediately will switch over to the deity, which, like Jesus rose up and said, Peace be still, and the storms and the winds ceased. He went out and healed people, he healed people. That was the deity within him, he forgave people's sins, not, and this is why Jews tried to stone him, by the way. So I don't want to get all that to that, but you it's a very distinct, um, a very important thing that we must distinguish between the deity of Jesus and his humanity, and it's humanity that's revealed as the Lamb of God. Now, John had known Jesus while he was here on earth, so um John is often referred to as the faithful witness, and the suffering and and what happened to Jesus' body on the cross did not change this at all. And Jesus was gonna be the faithful witness even unto death. Now, if you look into some of the verses, oh, before I get started, we gotta mention the rule here. I'm gonna go through some scriptures, always read the verse or two above, verse or two below, but preferred the whole chapter. Not only do I not want you to take my word for it, I want you to be able to study it for yourself. Alright, so Revelation 1 and 5. Unto him that loved us and washed us from the sins of his own blood, that was Christ's ministry. It's right there. That's what Christ came to this planet for. We just celebrated Christmas. This is exactly the reason why he came. And 28 times in this prophecy, uh, Christ is revealed as the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world. John mentioned that in John 1 and 29. But you go to Revelation, you see it in Revelation 5 and 6. Still a lamb that as it had been slain. Revelation 5 and 12, worthy is the lamb that was slain. So that it's very important to understand that this is the same lamb that John mentioned in in the apostle, in the in the uh gospel of John. So, in along with this picture of Jesus as the Lamb of God who died, is the unveiling of Christ who conquered death. Well, what are you talking about? Remember when Jesus was on the cross, he said, Father, Father, why is thou forsaken me? This is literally his humanity crying out because the Spirit of God had to lift from Jesus' body to die, because God could not be killed. Satan, this is where Satan messed up his entire plan. He literally should have realized on the mount of temptation what he had gotten himself into. But like most people that you see today who kind of overplayed their hand, when Jesus said that, his body recognized the fact that the Spirit of God had lifted from him, and when the Spirit of God lifted from him, his humanity cried out. So that's why he became the sacrificial lamb. And when in Revelation 118 it says, I am he that liveth and was dead. This is Jesus' humanity body speaking out as glorified, and behold, I am alive forevermore, amen. And have the keys of hell and death. Now that that is a revelation, and this goes to why we have one God, not three, or not several. Now, how is that revealed? It's revealed in scripture. Revelation 1. Now, this revelation that um this revelation of Jesus, this actually astounded John, and this was the vision of Jesus as Jehovah in power and glory. And John heard the great voice. Um, look at Revelation 1 and 10, and he turned to look and see. That's around verse 12, and he fell as dead, verse 17. Jesus placed his hand upon him and told him, Fear not. Now, I want you to really pause right here and go back and read that entire section, chapter um verse Revelation 1, 1 through 17, and I want you to really get the picture and pray about it and really visualize what's happening. Because this is Jesus literally unveiling himself as God Himself, eternal eternity, and we're gonna call eternalness is one of the biggest and greatest attributes of God. He is the attribute of dwelling in the internal present, outside of time, within time, um, moving through and out of time, as as we can understand it. It literally talks about the concept that past, present, and future are all present in the past, present, and future. And this is where um when when Jesus said this thing to the other Jews, they got upset about it because he literally quoted Exodus 3.14 when he said, And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. So when Jesus said, I am that I am, now when you read it in the New Testament, it doesn't read quite that way. If you're not paying attention, you're not really picking up what Jesus is saying. But every Jew around him, every Israelite around him, knew immediately what Jesus was saying. Well, I'm that God, that's not what Jesus was saying. He was saying that when Moses said, Um, who should I say sent me? And God said, Tell him that I am sent you. Jesus saying, I am that I am. So this was the big revelation, and Peter got it, and then other people started to get it. Now, this is where when Jews heard that, they started um talking about how Jesus was falsely claiming that he was God and accusing him of blasphemy, and that's why they started stoning him. And then Jesus said, Well, um, why are you trying to stone me? Because I did something good? He said, No, because you said that you're God, and you can't, it's no man around here. You're not even 40 years old. You're running around talking about how you were you around when Abraham was around. Now, there are some uh scriptures that actually talk about Jesus being God, and this is also in Revelation. Uh, verse 4. We're still gonna stay in Revelation 1 for right now, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna get out of here, even though I'm trying so hard to um kind of breeze through it because we want to get to the good stuff. But in verse 4, verse 1 and 4, um, from him which is, which was, and which is to come, so that literally talks about the eternalness of Jesus. For I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending, saith the Lord, which is and which was and which is to come, the Almighty. Verse 8. This is look Jesus saying this now. If Jesus is saying this, then that means he is God. Because how can he be the beginning and the end and the Lord? If he had just come, showed up when John was around. So Jesus is literally identifying himself as God. Again, verse 11 saying, I am a Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Not we are the first, not us, we just came out of nowhere, and we're gonna continue to be. He says, I am the first and the last. Again, that two-word combination right there that really set off the Jews of that day because they knew exactly what he was saying. I am again, verse 17, fear not, I am the first and the last. I am the first and last, with a qualifier in the middle. So you will see quite a bit of um a few times in the book of Revelation where you will hear Alpha and Omega, and where that is coming from, this is a sort of a transliteration from the Greek alphabet. Now it's saying for us, it would be I am the A and the Z. So not only is he the beginning and the end, but he's everything in between. Now, this while this being a truth that is stated and how anyone can claim to be the beginning and the end, we have to look back in the old testament to see how it is stated. Isaiah 43, 10 and 11. That you may know and believe me and understand that I am. Wait, what it say right there? I am. Those two words again. I am. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be any after me. Even I am, there it is again, I am the Lord. Beside me, there is no Savior. That is 43, 10, and 11 in the book of Isaiah. Let's look on Isaiah 44. This is still old testament, guys. Thus saying the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. I am the first. Here it is again. I am. See those two words together. Nine times out of ten, you will be talking about God. I am the first and the last. Well, I am the first, I am the last, and beside me there is no other. Not I was, not I will be, not I am, I will always be am. So there is only one God and one savior. So it's a very important. I know we're talking about Revelation and end times, and here I am talking about one God again. It is imperative that we continue to um go back to that because it is central to the key of the Bible and therefore central to the key of Revelation and the end times. The Lord um God, Jehovah of the Old Testament, as you call it, is Jesus Christ in the New Testament, and he revealed himself as such, and he wanted God to record that, or he wanted John to record that in the prophecy. He wanted John to record that Jesus is Jehovah. I am, I am, not we, not us sitting upon a bench, not not three thrones, it's him that's sitting on the throne. We will continually see this all the way to the end of Revelation. So, and this sort of brings about the question of omnipotence. So in verse 8, Jesus literally declares himself to be the Almighty. Now, wait a minute. If there's two Almighty's, that will kind of contradict each other. It can't possibly be two Almighty. Either one has one is Almighty, or the other one is not mighty at all, or they share the power, which means they're not Almighty. Now, remember in the book of Old Testament, the old the book of the Old Testament, I'm gonna say it like that. Um, in Genesis, in the Old Testament, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I am the Almighty God. So now, wait a minute. If Jesus is saying, I am the Almighty, what happened to the Almighty of God? See, because once you start separating them and you start talking about Trinitarianism and stuff like that, this begins to be a problem. So, remember, this is the same Almighty God that appeared to Abram before he became Abraham that also revealed this uh series of prophecies to John, the same God, the exact same God. So, how many uh things are we gonna talk about? We and oh wait, you know what? Come to think of it, I remember now they were talking about the ancient of days. Jesus saw uh was seen by John with a similar description was given to the ancient of days in Daniel 7 and 9. Remember, we talked about that a couple weeks ago. There's none other than the Jehovah of the Old Testament picture as the judge wearing the garments refitting the poor office. Um, it was um Daniel 7 and 14. His eyes are flame of fire, revealing power, discernment, and searching the innermost depth. Verse 15, his feet like unto fine brass, speaking righteous judgment. In judgment, he shall tread down all who hate him. Verse 15 voice is the sound of many waters showing power and authority. Verse 16, his countenance is as the sun. The churches are lamps reflecting the glory of Christ who shines as the sun. Now, you will see this again. We're still talking about Daniel, but we're now we're talking about Revelation. Yet I just quoted scriptures out of Daniel. I want you to show, I want to remind you that we always have to keep this in our minds pinned up that Daniel and Revelation are sister books or brother books, however you want to put it, but they they work together. So let's go back to Revelation chapter 1, verse 6. Now, the original Greek here, um, being that most of the New Testament is written in Greek, um, is worded here unto God and Father. Now we know there can't be a God and then a father of that same God. That's not gonna work. So the phrase here does refer to one. We find a similar expression in Titus, leave us uh Titus 2 and 13, glorious appearance of the great God and our savior Jesus Christ. This is literally teaching us that Jesus Christ is our great God and Savior. This is just basic English, basic uh sentence structure. So when we talk about that, we understand that um it is this is where a lot of people get kind of mixed up because we don't we aren't taught basic sentence structure anymore. If you're not paying attention, you will think there's a God and a Jesus, but then you have to say, Well, what's the Holy Ghost? And then your whole theory begins to fall apart unless you make the Holy Ghost a separate God, too. So I know we keep see how it came back to there being only one God because it's it's all it's woven all through Revelation. So also, I want to point out something. People talk about the seven churches. Um, I want to I want to remind you us that there's it is only one church. Now I know we got denominations all over the place. We have a couple of even a couple of episodes of Walk with Me that are dedicated to why there's so many denominations, and I only touched the subject on that, the tip of the surface of the subject on that. Um, and perhaps if somebody reminds me in the questions or comments, I can come back to that. But there's only one church, these seven churches that you hear about in Revelation, that you read about in Revelation, are still represented, are representative of one church. Seven is the number of completion. Remember, that's God's perfect number. We talked about that last week. Now, Jesus is unveiled as the head of that church, Ephesians 1 22. Now, he's in the midst of the church, but also to judge the church. So, when in the seven, there's seven stars in his right hand, you'll see verse see that in verse 20. Uh And these are the way that our pastors are ministers of the church. And this teaches us that the ministry is the right hand of the Christ. This is the symbolism. The stars are in the right hand. The ministers are in the right hand of Christ. They are the right hand of Christ. This right hand, when you see that in biblical terms, it speaks of a place of prestige, of power. But the ministry is held in place in God's hand. So the problem becomes when we start getting out of hand or we start getting out of uh out of God's control, are we still in that hand? We are no longer in the church. We may go to a building that says church on the outside, but we are no longer in the church. That's an aside. I'll come back to that later. Now, being in Christ's hand does protect the ministry when it's really bad and Christians are being oppressed. And this is going on quite a bit. It seems like I'm gonna run out of time before I can get to where I really want to go. So let's go ahead and jump to the seven spirits of God because this is where a lot of people get kind of mixed up in Revelation when they talk about the seven churches. There are seven spirits of God. You have the spirit of the Lord, spirit of wisdom, spirit of understanding, spirit of counsel, spirit of might, spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Now, what does that really mean? Are there seven gods? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what we're saying. That's not what we're saying. All seven of these spirits of the Lord have to do with how it how these activities or these spirits work inside the the functioning of the one actual church. Because a you got the spirit of the Lord, which is the Holy Ghost, which has to be present in the church, you have the spirit of wisdom, which is the pastor or the minister being able to pray and reach out and touch God, be instructed by God, the spirit of understanding. We have to then turn around and understand what God is saying and not and keep ourselves out of it. Spirit of counsel, we got to be able to tell other people, hey, listen, this is what God is talking about. This is, hey, you got this problem here. Let me pray about it, and then I'll come back with an answer. Say, hey, this is what you should do. The spirit of might, you think you are not strong enough to get over that addict, uh, that addiction? Oh no, you do have a spirit that can get you over that addiction. Yes, you do. Spirit of knowledge, see how we come back to that because it's the same, it's not the same as wisdom. Because knowledge, you have to understand how to be able to explain it to other people. And then the spirit of the fear of the Lord means, hey, listen, if and and let me just stop right there because I was gonna say that you know, if you don't do this thing, you're going to hell. That generally works for some people, but the understanding the fear of the Lord is it's not like um sitting around waiting for some angry deity with a box of lightning bolts to grade a populace. No, that's not what it is. Fear of the Lord is understanding that God exists, God is bigger than you, and God will reward you if you seek him. That is basically this the fear of the Lord. Otherwise, when you start not believing that that God exists, you start getting off into other doctrines, so to speak, and this becomes a problem because you don't fear the Lord, which means you're not gonna follow his commandments, and then the rest of the it just all falls apart, and you start feeling like you're your own God, which often leads people into a very, very, very dangerous place. So, I hope that I know I covered a lot of ground today. Please, I beg you go back, pause some of pause it in some places, and we will um come back and visit it. If you have any questions for me to hopefully expound on some of this stuff, because we're gonna go come back to it, but I want you to go back and study this the verses mainly Revelation 1. Um, and we're gonna talk about what happens after that, after after we get to I don't want to end this, but I'm running out of time. Uh after we after Revelation 1. Because now we're getting into the some of the nitty gritties. All right. Love you all. Hope to see y'all in the next one. Y'all have a good one. Bye bye. God bless you.