Unlocking your side of the door

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges, encourages and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

OK, let's get into the word this morning.

My computer is not wanting to cooperate.

We are in a short, at least it, it, it may be short, a short

series on what we'll see how long this goes, but a short

series on Revelation, the Revelation, the Book of

Revelation. Really what I want to get to is

just chapters 4:00 and 5:00. But I've been just marinating in

this. I, I got, got a bug this week.

I got sick. We launched the school on

Thursday and it Yeah. And I, I manned Wednesday

morning or Wednesday afternoon. All of a sudden I realized, you

know what? I'm sick and I called Bill

Buyer. I said Bill, because Bill had

called me. He said he's going to be in

Nebraska. I said you still over there?

And he said yeah, so you're doing anything tonight?

No, I said do you want to come over and preach for me tonight

and tomorrow morning? So Bill got on his horse and

rode and he and it had to be like an 8 hour round trip, I

think and came over and taught Wednesday night and Thursday

morning. And I believe that that that was

orchestrated, not my sickness, but Bill's visit was

orchestrated by God for him to be here the first day of the

school. So, so I got time to make up,

but so I had, I had time to just lay around and read because I

wasn't feeling well. You know, there's an old saying

it says in on earth, Tis said laid aside by illness in heaven.

Tis said called aside for stillness.

Now I don't know if that's, I feel like that's been true of me

at times where the Lord just gets me to slow down.

And, and so I've been just reading the Book of Revelation

over and over again. And I'm not really taught on

this book a lot over the years, but I've been captured by it and

especially chapter 4 and 5. And so we want to get there.

But before we can get there, I want to look at a couple of

things. We talked about this a couple of

weeks ago. The the meaning the the word

revelation, it is the revelation of Jesus Christ.

John had a prophetic revelation. He had he was caught up into an

encounter and God had him recorded.

In fact, let's look at verse one one listen to what it says.

The revelation of Jesus Christ. That word, the Greek word is a

compound word and it means it comes from 2 words to cover and

to, you know, to cover or conceal and then the other one

to remove. So a revelation is God removing

that which hides something or conceals or it's it's something

that keeps us from understanding.

So God gives a revelation. So John writes the revelation of

Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the

things that must soon take place.

He made it by sending. He made it known by sending his

Angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God

into the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Now we could spend a month in chapter 1 or verse one, because

it really is a biblical cosmology.

It's the way that God operates. It's the way that God

administrates his Kingdom and there's a complexity to what God

reveals here that is very important for you and on to

understand. We have a tendency to think

that, well, God wants to do something.

He just wishes it done. He decides it done and it's

done. But here it's very clear God had

something that he longed to show his people.

So what did he do? He sent an Angel and then the

Angel went to a guy and they and named John and he, this Angel

ushered John into a couple of revelations or encounters.

And that there's a, a biblical history, a tradition of Jewish

prophets who would go into these encounters.

Ezekiel was one, Jeremiah was one.

They would have these encounters where they would experience

things, see things, but they were seeing and experiencing

them for others. So they would, they would record

those, they would write those down so that God could get it to

the people. So God wants something to get to

the churches. God wants something to get to

you and I. So what did he do?

He sent an Angel and the Angel found a guy and ushered that guy

into an encounter, and then that guy went into an encounter and

then he recorded everything that he experienced, wrote it down,

did the hard work of writing it. They had to keep copying these

manuscripts and disseminate them to these seven churches that are

in chapters 3 and or two and three, and then multiply that

across the world so that you and I could get what God wanted us

to get. Now, I don't know about you.

That's a little more complex than I think of.

When God operates, I tend to think, well, God just wants

something to happen. He wills it so.

But what God does, he shows us in this verse.

There is always a partnership between heaven and earth,

between the angelic and the human, to accomplish God's will.

God has a family. They're sons of God in the

heavenly realms. They're angelic creatures, and

he has a family on earth, and he operates through both of them.

And there's this partnership between heaven and earth for

God's Kingdom to show up on the earth.

And so John has this encounter and he records this revelation.

Now, one of the things I was reading this week, laying in

bed, I was reading a, a summation of a book by Doctor

Craig Keener. Anybody ever heard of Craig

Keener? He, he's a theologian, past or

not, Pastors. He's a professor at Asbury

Seminary. Matter of fact, Rick Erewood, I

believe went to school with Craig.

He was already parsing Greek when he arrived at Bible

college. He's a brilliant guy, but he's

also spirit filled, believes in the gifts of the Spirit.

He just came out with a huge, I've got a, I've got a set of

commentaries by him just on the book of Acts is almost 5000

pages. He's got a big old book on

miracles that he wrote. And then he's got a little thin

one for the layman and it records, it's documenting

miracles today. And it's one of the

groundbreaking work that has just come out.

But I, I appreciate him because he's so brilliant.

He's, he's just puts out all kinds of material, but he also

believes in the life and the spirit.

And what I really appreciate about him is what I'm about to

read to you. And I read this and I thought

this guy is brilliant because he's saying just what I said,

just better. When I said two weeks ago, I

knew he was brilliant because he agrees with me.

And so listen to what he said. This is the introduction or a

summation of his book. This book is called, I love the

title, A spirit hermeneutic or spirit hermeneutics is what it's

called. Reading Scripture in light of

Pentecost. Spirit hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics is the science of literary interpretation and

especially Bible. So there are rules to interpret

writing. You can't just make things up

and just decide while this is what it means, there are strict

rules to interpret literature, especially the Bible, and that's

called hermeneutics. And it's a very boring class if

you take it. But he talks about a spirit

hermeneutic, and this is what he means by this.

The experience of the Spirit that empowered the church on the

day of Pentecost can and should dynamically shape our reading of

Scripture. All Christians should read

Scripture as people who are living in the biblical

experience, not in terms of ancient culture, but as people

living by the same Spirit who guided God's people in

Scripture. This means that we are

interested in biblical texts, not simply for what they teach

us about ancient history ideas, intriguing as that is.

He was one of the contributors to the Cultural Background Study

Bible. So he says, yeah, that that's

intriguing ancient history and ideas, but we should be

interested in it because we expect to share the kind of

spiritual experience and relationship with God that we

discover in those Scriptures. Jesus resurrection is not a mere

historical datum. Datum.

It declares, I believe that's how you say it.

I looked it up. It declares that the Jesus we

learn about in the Gospels is now the exalted Lord who has

sent his Spirit so that we may continue to experience his

presence. Throughout Scripture, we read

about people hearing from God, prophesying, experiencing

miracles. Though we may not all experience

all of these activities and of the Spirit daily biblical

pattern leads us to expect that the God who empowered these

activities throughout Scripture is the God who still empowers

them today and that'll preach this morning.

Matter of fact, it's So what we need to understand is when John

is receiving this revelation. It's very clear from verse one

that the reason John had these encounters was not for him

solely. It was so that he could get him

to the people of God. And here's the idea that this is

not just a revelation or an encounter, because when we talk

about revelation, especially when we read this book, we think

of, oh, a revelation of end time events.

That's not what John's saying. He said it's a revelation of

Jesus Christ that God wanted to get to the people so that they

would know what soon must take place.

Now, what is soon? That's for another time.

OK. But the point is, is that it's

not just so that we can read about this encounter.

John hadn't think, Oh, that's cool.

John had this encounter, but it's to record his his encounter

and to leave the breadcrumb trail for you and I to enter

into the same that there are secrets and Nuggets and Kingdom

protocol principles that we can cooperate with in order that we

can experience the same things. And that is what Keener is

talking about, that we're not just to read the Bible and say,

oh, those are great, the things that God did in the past, that

these things are for us today and we should expect

revelations. We shouldn't.

And that revelations is not just having insight of an idea, but

revelation in the biblical sense of the word often included

dreams and visions where people would have encounters with God.

You know the old phrase, a picture is worth 1000 words.

Well, a vision is worth a million because there are layers

to that. We've talked about this before.

There was a brilliant lady. She's with the Lord now, Leanne

Payne, she said that God, she had this phrase.

She said reality is so vast, it's too great to be summed up

in mere words. That's why God gave us symbols

and the prophetic is full of symbols and full of pictures

and, and moving pictures and all of that so that we can learn

about God. And we lean in and we ask for a

spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we can interpret the

revelations that God gives us. And God wants all of us to

experience him. It's not just something we read

and think, oh, that's neat. Wish I could have been back that

time. Jesus himself said, it's better

that I leave because I'm giving you a spirit like unto myself.

He'll lead you into all truth and that's for you and I too.

So let's look at chapter turn with me to chapter 4.

While we're going there, chapter one kind of gives the backdrop

of what's going on with John before he launches into this

vision. Chapters 2 and three, he

addresses these seven churches that God gives him an encounter

for revelation for seven churches, and he begins to

unpack them. And let me caution you, a lot of

people read that as 7 church ages.

And if that's what you believe, that's fine.

Just don't. Here's the problem.

Don't overlook the fact that these were 7 literal churches,

many of whom John knew, with people with very real problems

that John is addressing. And this book was written

initially to them and secondarily to us.

And we can't know what it says to us until we know what it said

to them. And there's a tendency for us to

kind of skip the hard work of Scripture and just look at it

and try to figure out what he's saying to us by looking at the

newspaper. And we need to do the hard work

of Scripture. There's some principles that

that the Lord is giving to these churches, and they were little

churches. And they are those principles

apply to us. But we first have to understand

what those principles worth in an ancient culture and then

apply them to our modern world. And there's some work that needs

to take place for that to happen.

And God rewards us when we do that hard work of study.

So he has these seven churches and the last church he speaks to

is the Church of Laodicea. And you know, many look at that

as the Laodicean age. I personally don't adhere to

that. I'm not going to arm wrestle

you. You know, if you believe that,

that's fine. Just understand, there was

really a place called Laodicea that had a Laodicean church that

was in a backslidden state. It was they were apathetic.

Their passion was gone. The Lord rebukes them and says

you are neither hot nor cold. I knew a preacher down in

Missouri many, many years ago. He could quote much of the Bible

and he had this message he used to preach all over about God

wants you to be a fireball, but if you're not a fireball, he'd

rather have you be a snowball. But if you're neither, he'll

make you a spitball. And it was a good preach.

It was a good sermon. I'm telling you.

The guy could preach. Yeah, So.

And with that as the backdrop, look at verse 19.

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline so as to be zealous

and so be zealous and repent. And so we know from Hebrews 12

that the Lord, one of the marks of sonship, is the correction of

the Lord in our life. If God never corrects you, you

really do need to question whether you're saved, because

the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he corrects everyone

he treats as a son. And if you're never disciplined,

then you are an illegitimate son, the writer of Hebrews says.

And so one of the marks, you know, we talk about the father

heart of God and, and there is this whole intimacy element to

the father heart of God and God's affections.

But the flip side is it's the discipline of God that is a

manifestation of the father heart of God.

And it's coming to us as it's, he says, don't, don't lose heart

and don't treat it lightly, but understand the weight of what's

going on and take it as the loving correction of the Father.

We can go to 2 ends of the pendulum.

We take it lightly. Ah, it's not a big deal.

Yes, it is the Lord's dealing with us.

But don't lose heart. When God corrects you, it is

actually an expression of his love and affection for you.

So he says, those who whom I love, I reprove and discipline.

So be zealous and repent. And then he says this, This is

fascinating. Behold, I stand at the door and

knock. If anyone hears my voice and

opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he

with me, the one who conquers, I will grant to him to sit with me

in my throne, as I will also as I also conquered and sat down

with my Father on his throne. He was ears.

Let him hear what the Spirit would say to the churches.

And then the next verse after this, I looked and behold the

door standing open in heaven. And so John goes from one

encounter to another, and we see this word showing up.

Behold, behold, behold. And it has this abruptness to it

that all of a sudden John is thrust into another encounter.

And it's kind of the connecting word to transition from one

encounter to another. Now we read this in chapters and

verses, and I'm grateful for that.

It's hard enough to keep track of this massive book called the

Bible without chapter and verse or with chapter and verse, but

so I'm grateful. But the the danger is, is that

we just kind of stop and we separate.

We turn our mind off and then we turn it back on and we go into

the next passage and miss the fact that John talks about two

doors. And that's what I want to talk

about this morning. When I was raising our babies,

my wife and I, we had a lot of kids and so when we were on the

road, sometimes we'd have to get 2H rooms.

You ever rented or, you know, paid for two adjoining hotel

rooms? Some of you people with large

families, I can see you been out in your head and what's

interesting is that you have two hotel rooms.

You got family staying in both of them and it's always divided

by two doors because what they don't want to do if they don't

have one family renting 2 rooms, they don't want to have some

weirdo in one room thinking, hey, I think I'll visit our

neighbors and open the door and look at, hey, how you doing

tonight? That would be disconcerting.

So there's 2 doors. It has to be opened from both

sides in order for the occupants of both rooms to have

fellowship. There's 2 doors and both doors

have to be open in order for them to have fellowship, in

order for them to access each other's environments.

And I would propose to you that John is Speaking of a similar

thing. There's two different doors John

mentions here, and there's two different dynamics to these

doors. A number of years ago, I ended

up stumbling into this principle and started looking up about the

windows of heaven. You know, there's three times in

scripture it talks about the windows of heaven, and it talks

about the abundance of heaven breaking into our realm of

things. The windows of heaven.

Twice it's a blessing and one it was judgment, but it's heaven's

environment, atmosphere breaking into ours.

So we have this idea of the windows of heaven, then we have

this idea of doors we have here, and then we have gates, and all

of those speak of access points between dimensions.

And again, we need to be very, very careful that we don't just

kind of water this down, oh, that's nice poetry and move on.

There's a reason that the biblical writers used this type

of type of terminology. They're trying to communicate

something to us and we can just blow past it and think, oh,

that's nice imagery and fail to ask ourselves why.

What's going on with that? Windows are not something you

climb through. You're not supposed to at least

teenagers. You're you know, windows are not

something you, you don't act, but what you do, is it like in

this weather, I'm enjoying this weather.

You open the window, you turn off the air.

Hallelujah. I'm a cheapskate.

I love this man. I have to run my air and the

environment, the, the climate, the, the, the atmospheric

conditions outside come into my, where I'm where I'm living and

I, I, it cools it down. I'm experiencing the atmosphere

outside of me and the windows of heaven are very similar.

There's there are dynamics where windows open up.

I had John Kilpatrick tell me one time.

He said I believe that every service in, every time the

people of God get together, a window opens.

And if you'll give way to that, that thing will become a door

and God will enter in. But we've got to give way to it.

We've got to be discerning what is God doing.

So there's windows and then there's doors, and there's

gates. What's the difference between a

gate and a door? They're both something you gain

access to from one environment to another.

Doors are for individual access and gates are for corporate

access. We read things like Psalm 24,

Swing wide, ye heavenly gates be lifted up you ancient doors.

So these gates are for corporate access and they're that's a

sermon for another time, but that's talking about regional

access. So there are gates and regions,

there are doors of access in the Spirit.

And in this passage, John has a very real experience by the

Spirit of God. An Angel actually ushers him

into this encounter and he gets this word for the the Church of

Laodicea. He said, listen, you guys have

been apathetic. You've lost your first love.

Behold, he stands at the door and knocks.

If any man hears his voice and opens the door, he will come in

and you will. The King James Version said Sup

with you. You ever saw someone say Sup?

He's going to Sup with you. He's going to, you're going to

have fellowship with the Lord that that's a powerful thing, He

said. If any man hears my voice, I

would propose to you that anytime God speaks to you,

there's more than just what he's speaking in the moment.

It's actually an invitation. It's a knock on your heart's

door. And if you'll open yourself up,

there's more that he wants to give you.

There's actually a feast waiting for you.

And the danger is is that we we get so you know God spoke to me.

I remember when when we hosted one time, Kara's father, Randy

Bixby was was running a House of prayer in Des Moines, Cahop and

they had John and Carol Arnot in and John and Carol were the the

leaders of the Toronto outpouring up there.

And he was going to have him. And he said we need a place to

meet. Can we meet at your place?

I said, let me pray about it. I meant.

And so we met here and I remember Carol Arnot praying for

a young evangelist. This guy had a touch of God on

his life and she laid hands on him.

He got blasted and she gave him a word.

And I thought you're exactly right.

I never recognized that about him until she said it.

But what she said is she said you are so zealous for a touch

from God that as soon as he touches you, rather than, rather

than soak in it and get everything you can, you're off

running with that little that little touch.

And you you don't get everything out of it that you could.

That thing kind of bounced off of him and got on me.

If any man hears my voice and opens the door, when God speaks

to you, anytime he speaks to you, it's an invitation for

more. There's an entire feast waiting

if you'll just pause and open the door.

There's always so much more than what we initially understand

when God speaks to us. When you're reading the Word and

you have a flash of insight and our tendency is to rush on and

go on to something else, when if we'll stop and we'll begin to

just dig into that. There's 3060 and a hundredfold

harvest that we can get. And too often we get excited.

We get the thirtyfold and we run off, not realizing we've left so

much on the table. And so he says, if any man

would, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man would hear my voice and open the door, I would come

in to him. I can't read this passage

without thinking of Song of Solomon chapter 5.

Song of Solomon 5 · chapter mention

Turn there with me real quick. Song of Solomon, chapter 5, and

Song of Solomon 5 · chapter mention

some of you know where I'm going with this.

It's verse 2. Verse 2.

I slept, but my heart was awake. This is the bride, and she's,

she's already gotten ready for bed.

She's in bed. I slept, but my heart was awake.

A sound. My beloved is knocking open to

me. He's speaking to open to me, my

sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one.

For my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the

night. So what it is is the bridegroom

has made him, made his way through the night.

He's now drenched. He's he's gotten himself all wet

in the dew of the night because he wants to see his bride.

He's knocking on the door. He's wanting to he was wanting

to hold her. He's wanting that encounter with

her. He's hungry for her affection,

that intimacy with her. And verse 3, I had put, this is

what she says. I had put off my garment.

How could I put it on? I had bathed my feet.

How could I soil them? She said, man, I'm already ready

for bed. This is inconvenient.

I mean, I love them, but man, I, I, I'm already in bed and, you

know, in that culture, you know, Dyson's hadn't been invented

yet. You know, her feet she had, she

would get her feet dirty and her feet were clean.

Verse 4 My beloved put his hand on the latch.

The bridegroom begins to shake the latch, and my heart was

thrilled within me, so I rose to open to my beloved.

My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid murrh on the

handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my

beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke.

It's an interesting phrase. My soul failed me when he spoke.

What does she mean by that? What she's saying is that her

affections she didn't arouse her to the point where she could

overcome her own apathy. She wanted comfort and slumber

more than she wanted another encounter with the bridegroom.

Jesus himself talked over Jerusalem, he said Jerusalem,

Jerusalem. I long to bring you to myself as

a mother hen with her chicks. But you would not.

You have missed the hour of your visitation, he says.

There was an hour of visitation. There was a beginning and there

was an end and they missed it. And when the Lord's dealing with

us, when the Lord comes to us, and I have found the Lord will

often come at inconvenient times because he wants to give us

something of great value. And if we'll respond, there's

there's those intimate moments we have with the Lord.

But if our soul fails us, if our our desire is for slumber more

than that encounter, we can miss those opportunities.

And she went out in the streets and she's looking for her love.

And I don't know about you, but there have been times where the

Lord has woken me up in the middle of the night.

There's times I've responded and there's times I haven't

responded quick enough. And there's times I've turned

over and went to sleep. My soul failed me, my affections

for Him were not strong enough, and we forfeit these encounters.

I was thinking this morning as I was reading over that I remember

it would have been 1980, would have been 1986.

I remember I was hanging out with a bunch of guys.

We were heading to this camp and we were just hanging out and all

of a sudden I felt the Lord calling me.

I just knew I got to go over to the church.

So I kind of snuck out of there and went into the church and all

of heaven opened up in this church sanctuary across the

street. I will never forget that

encounter with God, but it came at a really inconvenient time.

And because I responded, there was this encounter.

And I guarantee you there's other times that I've missed it.

And what I'm saying is, if any man hears my voice and opens the

door, listen, the Lord comes to us.

And this particular door that he's talking to the Laodicean

church about was a door of intimacy that the Lord wants to

build that with us. And we need to learn to respond

to him and go away with him. Now, I don't know what you think

about Benny Hinn, but I know a guy that was having dinner with

Benny Hinn and a bunch of important people.

And all of a sudden Benny stood up and he said, I've got to go.

They had just ordered the food. The food was still there.

And he, he said, I got to go. The Lord's telling me he he went

and just disappeared. And that's the way he's lived

his life for many years. And I've known people.

Hey, he's got a lot of flamboyant ways and you know,

the, the, the outfits and all that.

Hey, that's his style. That's that's between him and

Jesus. But I would be careful listening

to others reports about him. I knew a pastor, my mother in

He went down there and he was standing in the in the in the

group and Benny was preaching and Benny whipped his hand like

this and the whole section fell out, including him.

He got back up, drove home, got in the pulp.

He said, I don't understand it, but it was God and I'm never

talking about him again. There's a reason he carries what

he carries. Listen, man, the Lord and during

worship, Rebecca came up to me. Rebecca, where you at?

Wave at me. There she is.

And Rebecca came up to me and she was just crying, she said.

I just feel the Lord. He's longing for people and

people are having a hard time surrendering themselves.

And I'm telling you, man, God longs for you.

He's knocking at the door of your heart.

This first door is a door of intimacy.

It's the door that you and I control, and we have to open it.

He won't break the door down. He jiggled the lock and it

awakened the heart of his bride, but she waited too long.

And I'm just telling you that there are times where the Lord

comes to you and you need to respond.

Learn to respond. And if you will find, if you

will begin to steal away. There's this old phrase that

says secrets bind hearts together.

Something about husbands and wives.

There's little things they know about each other and little

words they say and they know what they mean and no one else

does. Those looks that they have at

each other and they know what that means.

And those secrets actually bind their hearts together.

And the Lord wants to have that with you.

Those little trysts where you steal away with him and, and I

remember back in Bible school, I'd be studying in the Lord

would just, I'd feel the stirring and I'd go off into an

empty room and God's glory would just come down.

I just, I long for that again. I long for those times where the

Lord would just visit me in that way.

If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.

That's the door on your side of the hotel room.

You want to get into his room and him into your room.

Then you've got to unlock your side.

And then we see. Look at, look at here at what

John says in chapter 4. After this, I looked and behold,

a door standing open in heaven. There's another door.

This door is already open. It's what Jace was saying here

during transition, that there's God.

God's heart is already open. The door is already open, but it

required something of John. He says, Behold a door standing

open in heaven. Of the first voice which I had

heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here and I

will show you what must take place after this.

At once I was in the spirit. And behold, a throne stood in

heaven. Once seated on the throne, and

he came and and he who sat there had the appearance of Jasper and

carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the

appearance of emerald. And around the throne were 24

Thrones. And seated on the Thrones were

24 elders clothed in white garments and golden crowns in

their heads of this extravagant throne room scene that John is

ushered into as he comes through this open door that he was

ushered up into. And all of a sudden, he's seeing

things that there would, he would have had no understanding

of had he not been thrust into this revelation.

And he left it for you and I. And some of what he saw was

Kingdom protocol principles that you and I can learn.

If we'll, we'll, we'll begin to look at what happened here so

that we can have these types of encounters.

Listen, these this isn't off limits to us.

This isn't for the special people, OK?

This is for the believer. John was ushered into this so

that he could bring it back for the entire church.

But it wasn't just to tease us and say, don't you wish you were

like John? God will often baptize someone

in something so that he can then use that that person to release

it on the rest of the body of Christ.

And it's accessible to all of us.

But you got to have your faith. Your faith has to rise.

And John heard the voice come up here.

He saw and he heard. And immediately he was there

because his heart responded. This is Speaking of ascension,

Psalm 15 or Psalm 24. Who can ascend the hill of the

Lord? Who can stand in His holy place?

Again, that's not mere poetry. David was asking this question

because he longed to get into God's presence.

Who? Who can ascend?

Who can stand? How does this thing work?

And David didn't side with consensus theology and say you

had to be a Levite. David understood.

He discovered something. He discovered a way in that he

left for you and I, that we're a Kingdom of priests, that we can

all go up. But there was a criteria who can

ascend? He has clean hands, a pure

heart, doesn't lift his soul to an idol or swear by what is

false. There's a heart posture that it

requires of us, and God longs to release those things to us.

And so we have this second door, the first door we have to open.

The second door already is. It's like we have these two

adjoining rooms, heaven and earth, and we long to get in

there. And he longs to get in here.

There's a longing for that, that fellowship that needs to happen.

His door is already open. Ours has to be open from our

side. And there's an intimacy to the

first door that will lead to an ascension in the second door.

And then what we see, look at with me here.

Oh my goodness, look at Chapter 5.

This is where we need to go. So he's talking about all that

he saw in this encounter, and it's amazing.

And you need to read it. You need to soak in it and ask

God for insight because there's so much going on.

It's an amazing thing. And then in chapter 5, then I

saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne, a

scroll written within and on the back.

So there's this scroll sealed with 7 seals.

So they were, they were a scroll that were written on both sides.

And then they would wrap these twins run and they would put a

wax seal over that tightly round wound string so that it, it

would hold it together and it would be, it would make sure

that it wasn't tampered with. And this particular one had

seven. That's the way wills were

transferred. They were, they were, they

couldn't be broken until the death of the benefactor.

And then the executor of the will would break it.

And then they would enact the, the legalities of that will.

So it's probably not a coincidence that the one that

opens it was also the one that died to enact it.

He was both the executor and the benefactor.

He's the one that left us our inheritance.

But John says he sees this. And I saw a mighty Angel

proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll

and break its seals and listen to verse 3.

This is so intriguing. And no one in heaven or on earth

or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into

it. It's like this evaluation was

made of all, of all the beings in heaven and earth and even

hell and heaven and on earth. And he went through all of it

and looked into hell and nobody was worthy.

And then what happens is this? And I began to weep loudly

because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into

it. John, this grief erupts in him

because John intuitively knows this is a significant scroll.

Something is written in this scroll that needs to be released

upon the earth for God's purposes to be manifest.

And John is so grieved. There's nobody there.

And I always get a kick out of this verse five.

And one of the elders said to me, it's like even in heaven,

the elders are up there working. One of the elders comes and

says, weep no more. Behold the lion of the tribe of

Judah, the root of David has conquered so that he can open

the scroll and it's 7 seals. Man.

When I when I was gripped with this was about 3 weeks ago.

And then the next week we sing it again, that song that comes

out of here. And I looked around the room and

people are just going after it, screaming open the scroll, open

the scroll. There's only one worthy and

we're all crying outbreak the seal and open the scroll.

And I them to my hair was standing up.

This is awesome. And then I realized, Oh my

goodness, I know where that comes from.

Do we know what we're praying? Do we realize what we're really

saying here? Because these 7 seals released

the judgments of God on the earth.

They what? Regardless of what your

interpretation of the Book of Revelation is, virtually

everybody agrees with this, that the breaking of those seals were

the release of the judgments of God to everything that opposed

His purposes in human history. And so God was releasing some

whoop em into the earth and he was judging principalities and

powers, wiping out opposition. And there was some pretty

drastic things that were happening with the opening of

these seals. And we're down here.

Open the scrolls, open the scrolls.

And I'm like, whoo. So I thought I got a circle back

around and read this. And the more I read it, the more

I want to sing it. This is powerful and I would

propose to you that God has purposes, scrolls, things

written from the foundation of the earth that will not be

released without the weeping of his Saints.

That there are things that God, just like in the 1st chapter

here, the verse one, God longed to get some revelation to the

people. What did he do?

He he said to this Angel. You go and usher that guy into

an encounter. And then that guy is going to

write it down. He's going to do some hard

physical work. He's going to stay up late

writing scrolls. And then he's going to wrap and

he's going to go and we're going to deliver him to the churches.

And if I was John, I'd have been thinking, isn't there an easier

way? Couldn't you just do one of

these? Lord, we all have our own.

But no, that's not how God operates.

And just like chapter 1 shows us to get revelation to us, chapter

5 shows us the purposes of God are not released on the earth

without the weeping of the Saints.

We've got to enter into this thing.

God is looking for a people that realize God.

Your purposes are so valuable that there's a grief in us that

it's not being manifest, Lord, that what you want to do in this

hour of human history is so important and we feel grief.

There's a weeping and a wailing and an intercession that breaks

forth. And it was then that the elder

came up and said, hey, weep no more.

He didn't say you shouldn't have wept before.

He just says, you can stop now because there's one worthy.

And it was then that the lamb stepped forward, the lion of the

tribe of Judah. And he steps forward as a lamb,

and everybody freaks out and bows.

And the rest of the book is God releasing his purposes into

human history. And I'm telling you, we've been

talking about Psalm chapter 2 and Psalm 149.

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

Psalm chapter 2 says, why did the kings rage?

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

And the rulers of this age imagine a vain thing in vain.

The Lord sits in heavens and laughs at them.

And he he, he mentions these four people, rulers, kings,

nations and peoples. And he says they're trying to

conspire against the Lord in his anointed 1 And they're saying

we're going to throw off his yoke.

We're not going to, we're not going to listen to what God is

saying. Then that's the second Psalm of

the book. The second to the last Psalm

mentions those four same groups of people.

But now it says you and I as the Saints gather together in the

assembly. The the Greek version of the Old

Testament, the Septuagint, translates that word assembly as

eklesia. When we worship him in the

eklesia and with the high praise of God in our mouths and a AA

double edged sword in our hand. One translation Espi said, I

think it says the praise of God in our throats just sounds more

manly. And he says, and it's, it's the

glory of all the Saints to bind their kings with fetters and

their rulers with shackles of iron.

Yes, yes, Hallelujah. And then he says to carry out

the sentence written against them.

I would propose to you that this scroll was one of the things

written against the kings of the earth that oppose God.

I'm not talking about having some some anger against human

beings. I'm talking about binding rulers

and principalities in heavenly realms through high praise, high

worship. When we do that, when we begin

to release the high praise, there comes a point, there's an

ascension that happens where we reach a platform of authority

and there are times where we release things and we make

declarations that will change and shape history and that is

the glory of all the Saints. Psalm 149 says go ahead and

stand. So you know, I'm going to quit.

Many of you remember Bob, Bob, Bob Phillips, many of you don't

know Bob. Bob was with us for one year on

staff. Wonderful man of God, a general

in the faith, a long history in the things of God.

The first time we ever had Bob come and visit to preach, we had

this amazing weekend. We got done Sunday morning and I

felt like we're standing here. I felt like a tornado had just

gone through. And I'm standing, my hair

whipped out, my half my shirt ripped off and looking around

the aftermath and people just, you know, all touched and and

I'm standing there looking at Bob and Bob said, Dave, I'm

telling you, he said, there's going to be declarations that

are going to be released from this house in worship, that

you'll declare them on Sunday and read about them in the

papers on Monday and the week to come.

It's that's this dynamic. It's this thing.

When Dean Briggs, the first time he came, he's he he looked at me

during worship. He said, Oh, my goodness, what

did this? And he said it the last time he

said, Oh my goodness, it's here again.

He said, this is high praise. And if some of you remember,

because Ben would share that recording at the front end of

worship. And what Dean said, he said it

so eloquently. I wish I could say it just like

he said it, but he was talking about high praise is the war

College in the spirit. It's where the children of God

learned to make war, where we impose the will of our God into

human history. It's it's it's not this angry

thing against people. People are the trophy we're

fighting for. They are they are the they're

the Pearl of great price. They're the thing that we're

going after. But we're binding kings with

fetters, with our praise. There's a place where worship

becomes intercession, where that weeping breaks forth into joy

and that authority to release things.

And this is a thoroughly biblical thing.

And that's what John was breaking into in Revelation four

and five. Thanks for listening to our

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