Behold, I am Coming Quickly: Revelation 22 - Revelation: The Apocalypse

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Everybody in this room has character flaws.

We all do.

I do.

Just ask my wife.

You know, we all have character flaws, but we can become more like Christ in sanctification as time goes by if we want to.

And you gotta want to.

Does that make sense?

So he's saying here that those who will keep the words of this book, this prophecy of the book, you can be, and there it is right there.

Those that are holy can be holy still.

Today, Pastor Steve continues his series on the book of Revelation.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up whole-hearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

So we're in the book of Revelation, church, and this is the last message.

So if you're a guest with us today, you get to hear the last message of the messages you didn't hear.

Starts off in chapter 22 with this picture of a river.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

So what is this river?

I believe this river is a river of life.

Not a river that has life in it, but a river of life.

So the river itself, church, is life.

And doesn't it remind you of Jesus said that when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, it's as if we pour forth streams of what?

Living water.

So living water proceeds from God into you when you get saved because you get the Holy Spirit, and then each day we make a choice to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So in some churches, in some traditions, the filling of the Holy Spirit is like an event.

Oh, I got filled with the Holy Spirit and I spoke in tongues.

Or I got filled with the Holy Spirit because I fell down.

Or I got filled with the Holy Spirit because I got healed.

All that's true.

That's great.

But actually, the filling of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is a function of a choice of who's on the throne of your life every day.

So I love those experiences, and I've had plenty of them, and so have many of you.

But the reality is I still got married.

I still have to deal with her.

And she has to deal with me.

And then we had kids.

And kids just don't do everything you want them to do.

They just don't.

They're up to no good.

And they're little sinners.

And there's and there's little demons in them and stuff, man.

They're demonized, you know?

And you're like, whoa, where'd that come from?

You know, you kind of go, whoa.

Man.

I never had to teach my kids how to lie.

We never had a lying 101 class.

Okay, kids, here's how we lie.

But we've had a lot of classes on how to tell the truth.

Because kids do what they're going to do because they do that.

And so we have to intervene proactively and lovingly and intentionally to guide them and to disciple them, listen, toward the river of life.

You're not the river of life.

You're a muddy river.

You just are.

And we need the river of life.

And what does it say?

It flows from the throne and it flows from the lamb.

So last week, worship.

I heard from several key leaders in my church that some of you leave at the end of the service and head out.

You got the word, did a little communion, heard a couple songs, time to get to the restaurant or something.

I don't know.

Hey, look, we end this thing before noon, so that's no excuse.

You can do whatever you want.

It's fine.

But I'll just tell you this: you're missing out.

Because when you focus in, and many of you have never, never been taught this and you've never understood this, how powerful worship is when you focus on the throne of God and the Lamb and the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And so it's a discipline.

But you know, it's like everything else.

You know, if you want to stay in shape, you go work out.

If you want to have money at the end of your life, you have to save and you have to invest and stuff, right?

Everybody go like that if you know what I'm talking about.

Okay?

And if you're not going like that, you're in big trouble.

But let me tell you.

So here's the deal, guys: worship.

See, life flows from the throne.

How many here would say, I need a little more life these days?

Not coming from me.

Alright?

I need supernatural life, church.

How about you?

Well, it says here, and this is what we're looking forward to in those days with the new heaven and the new earth, as we studied last week and the week before that, is that the reality is it proceeds from the throne.

It doesn't proceed from you.

So you can keep living your life just on your own power.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Or you're here to get equipped through an impartation of the Spirit of God each time we meet and we worship here.

But you have to make that choice.

I have to make that choice to just say, I'm not going to think about my sermon.

I'm not going to think about church stuff.

I'm not going to think about family stuff.

I am going to focus for the next 20 minutes, next 30 minutes, and worship.

Because I know life flows from the throne, and man, do I need life right now?

Hello?

And so that's why we're here.

That's why God, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, created the church.

And by the way, you're not at church.

You're at a building.

We're the church.

Right?

So I'll just say this as a little addendum, and that is sometimes we're setting up appointments around here, and people say, Where do you want to meet?

And I and I'll say, at the ministry center.

And then they say, You mean at the church?

And I'll say, no, at the ministry center.

And so, just a heads up, I'm not going to say we meet at the church, because that would mean that I guess you're meeting me wherever I'm at.

But rather, we meet at the ministry center because you're the church.

This is not the church.

This is a facility where the church meets.

And so when we worship as a church at the facility that God's given us here, life flows from the throne.

And that's pretty fun because we get to do that.

And we're in a country where you can do it freely.

In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was this tree of life.

Now that sounds singular.

But then it says, which bore twelve fruits.

Then it says, each tree yielding its fruit every month, the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations.

The man, I spent some time on this, and there's all these different views.

Is the tree of life, one tree, and then actually the branches come over to the other side, or is it a bunch of trees?

I don't know.

I don't care.

The reality is this, there's this tree that we get to eat from, and it appears to be that tree that might have been in the Garden of Eden.

And it's got this fruit.

There's a fruit of the month.

There's a fruit of the month, okay?

And I don't know if this is where fruit of the loom came from or not, but there's a fruit of the month, and you eat it, and what's interesting is this is healing.

That's the word in the Greek where we get the word therapeutic.

Therapeutic.

So it is therapy to your soul.

Because there's going to be no more curse, there's going to be no more sin.

So there's nothing to be healed of.

I think what it means is it's therapeutic for the health of your life as you eat the fruit.

And here's what's weird is that we don't have this carbon blood-driven body in heaven.

We talked about this last week.

We have a spirit body, kind of like the resurrection body of Christ.

But here's what's crazy: Christ, in his resurrection state, ate fish with the disciples.

Abraham, who met three angels, fed them.

So here's the deal.

I think in heaven, eating is not for your health, it's for enjoyment.

I would love to, yeah.

Amen to that.

Especially as you get older.

You know?

Because it does, it just doesn't go anywhere.

It just stays there.

Like it goes in, it goes down, and it just stays there.

And it won't go away.

Go.

Go.

And you still could work out, and it's still there.

You run, it's still there.

And you're and you're having trouble seeing your feet each day as you look down.

You know.

So I believe, as I said last week, we'll have 30-year-old bodies.

You'll have 30-year-old bodies, you're gonna look like 30 years old all over again.

All you guys that are 28, like, I don't want that.

Well, you'll have you'll go as far as you went if the rapture comes.

So if you're 25, I guess you'll be 25.

But for us, we want 30, man.

30, 30 used to be like, oh, I turned 30.

Now it's like, I could be 30 again.

So it's it's health and it's joy, I believe.

And there shall be no more curse.

No more curse.

No mosquitoes, no bugs, no ticks, no bees that sting, and no, and no snakes that bite.

No more curse.

But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him.

So, church, I don't know what this means.

I'm not gonna pretend that I know what this means, but it seems like in heaven we're not on clouds with little harps.

I don't know about you women, maybe you dig that, but us guys, I can tell you right now, I haven't met many guys that that's really something they're looking forward to.

It says we're gonna serve.

So, in some way, shape, or form, in the heavenly realm, in the new heaven and the new earth, we're gonna serve the Lord.

We're gonna serve him.

And I'm reminded of Matthew 25, where it talks about the parable of the owner of the great ranch, and he leaves and he gives five talents and two talents and one talent, and then he comes back, and they, those that have multiplied says, come into my, come into fellowship with me, and I'm gonna give you more to rule over.

And so, and so there's something, I don't know if it's a planet.

Maybe we get a planet.

Um, I don't know, but we're gonna be serving him night and day, and there's not gonna even be a night or a day, but just continually serving the Lord.

And they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.

Turn if you have your Bibles with you.

If you have the app, I don't think it's on there, but it's Philippians 2 9.

I love Philippians 2, 9 through 11.

Therefore, God also has highly exalted him, meaning Christ, and given him the name which is above every name.

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So here's the thing about worship: worship exalts the name of Jesus, or it should.

One of the things that can be always a balance that we walk with some of the present-day worship that's coming out of some of the different places around the world of worship centers is too much focus on ourselves and kind of what Jesus has done for us.

There's a place for that.

There's a testimonial worship that has its place for sure.

But overarching in the worship and the praise at the road, we want to exalt Jesus.

We want to exalt the name of Jesus.

We want to flow with the Spirit in exalting and lifting high Jesus because that's what we see in Revelation 4 and 5.

That's what we see in Revelation 20 and 21 and 22 is this exaltation of Jesus, and there's just something therapeutic, healthy, joyful about not thinking about yourself sometimes.

Because you do that a lot.

It's just what we naturally do.

My kids do not naturally serve, but they naturally are selfish.

I'm naturally selfish.

It takes no practice, no training, no equipping to be selfish.

It takes intentionality and work to serve.

And so the name of Jesus being lifted up, and I won't go there right now, but you should look at Acts 3 and 4 later on this week, where this guy gets healed by Peter, and when he gets before the Sanhedrin, they say, Well, how did he get healed?

He said, In the name of Jesus.

Faith in the name of Jesus.

And by the name of Jesus, this guy was healed.

And if it's just for a good work, big deal.

But this is the name of Jesus.

That is what caused the Sanhedrin to get upset, was because they saw that the name of Jesus, the power of Jesus, was being released in Jerusalem, and that scared them.

So when we pray, church, for people for healing, pray in the name of Jesus.

When we worship, we worship in the name of Jesus.

When we take communion later on, we take communion in the name of Jesus.

I know several situations that I've had to be involved in with the demonic, with people who did not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

They did not know Christ in a personal way.

But because of their background and history of being in the church when they were younger, they came into a situation of huge addiction.

Cocaine, meth, stuff like that, that kind of level of addiction.

And they called on the name of Jesus, even though they didn't know Jesus, and the demon left.

Go figure that one out.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Because here's the deal that when you call on the name of Jesus, there is a release of power and light.

That even if you don't necessarily understand it all, listen, folks, even if you don't understand it all, something significant is happening in the heavenlies, and you may miss it because you don't have a relationship with Christ, but as you start to grow in your relationship with Christ, you'll understand it and you can flow with it.

And it is powerful.

And then he said, verse 6, and then he said to me, These words are faithful and true.

One commentator, I love this, he said, These words are faithful and of no fiction.

And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show his servants the things which must shortly take place.

Man, is God's time frame different than ours?

2,000 years ago when this was written.

Shortly take place.

So evidently God's view of time is different than ours.

It's this is probably around 90 AD when this is written.

But look what he says next.

And he says this six times.

He says, six times, come or coming.

He says, three times, behold, I'm coming quickly.

Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

If you remember in the very early days, you that have hung with me since the very beginning of Revelation, it said, Blessed are those who hear these words.

And now at the end, he said, Blessed are those who keep these words.

You've heard it 46 times.

Now keep it.

And here's what I think he's saying.

If you'll keep it, I'll come quickly.

And I think it's two meanings here.

I think that on one hand, there's a coming quickly, which is in the book of Revelation.

It's the eschatology of the church.

That he's showing us these are the signs of how you know, and I'm going to come back to the whole earth.

But he's also saying, church, if you keep this book, he'll come quickly to you.

He'll come quickly to you.

With your financial problems and your marriage problems and your parenting problems and your singleness problems and your student problems and all those things that are part of life, it's hard.

Really hard sometimes.

He'll come quickly.

Just hang in there and don't quit.

And by the way, quitting is way over it's overrated.

Quitting is way overrated.

I meet quitters all the time.

Oh, I used to go to church.

Oh, I used to be, I used to follow Jesus.

Yeah, we were part of that body.

We don't go anymore.

They're always so happy.

They're always so happy.

What do you do?

I'm like, man, we you know, we go to Pueblo Reservoir, man, we we dig our boat and everything.

Oh, that's cool.

Dude, you don't seem very happy to me.

Well, no, it's great.

No, we're awesome.

Yeah, awesome.

I said, you're a liar, man.

You're not awesome.

You you're in you're in a bad place.

Because here's the deal is the worst place to be is to have known Christ, to have touched his love and his grace and his power and walked away.

That's the worst place.

It's better not to have known him at all like I was all through up to 18 years old.

I was just a frolicking little chipmunk.

Seriously, man.

It's like, I mean, I did what I wanted to do.

I thought everything was fun.

I couldn't wait to go to these youth camps at our church so I could scope out the women.

I mean, that was all that I didn't have a con it didn't bother me at all.

I don't remember ever thinking I shouldn't have done that.

I just thought, dude, that was hot.

That was fun.

Let's do it again.

Then I got saved.

And then God started to work with new desires and new passions, and I've never looked back.

Except a few times.

But no.

No, we all look back, okay?

But the reality is that that's the worst place to be.

So now you're saved.

So get all in.

Like burn the boats and get all in.

Go for it.

And then here's what's cool is you can be the most miserable or the most joyful.

You really don't have a choice.

Really miserable, really joyful.

And I see these guys.

Man, I hate the church.

They, you know, this pastor, he was he was a jerk.

And these people, these Christians, they're all hypocrites.

And I go, yeah, well, what'd you think we were?

Of course we are.

So are you, you know?

So get over it.

Just say, I'm a hypocrite like everybody else.

But I'm growing less to be one.

And so keep the word.

Good thing.

Fun life, joyful life.

Really works.

Now I, John, saw and heard these things, and when I heard and saw, he fell down in worship before the feet of an 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.

Men and women, there are churches today that worship angels.

There are churches today that worship the saints.

And I, God bless them.

They've got their medallions.

Maybe some of you are wearing, you know, Saint Jude or Saint whatever, you know.

And I just say, fine.

We can honor the faith and the testimony of these great saints.

I just did earlier with St.

Francis.

I think he's, man, an awesome dude, you know.

But don't worship him.

Don't try to pray through him.

We worship in spirit and in truth through.

The Spirit to the Father and the Son.

And so life flows through that.

So even John, who's so, who's just so overwhelmed by this apocalypse, that he starts to actually worship this angel, and the angel has to say, no, don't do that.

Keep the words of the testimony.

Keep the words of the testimony.

That's what I say, you know what?

That's the fear, and that's the thing about Jehovah's Witnesses.

That's the thing about Mormonism.

Is it it has added to, we're going to read that in just a second, it's added to the word.

And it's the it's the church of latter-day saints.

And there's and there's this adulation there.

There's this worship there.

Not saying anything about ethics or morals, you know?

There's great, great, wonderful non-Christians that don't know the Lord, that have ethical lives and moral lives.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about whether they are saved and have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's the only way you get to heaven.

Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and life.

No one comes to the Father but through me.

So not through angels, not through saints.

And he said to me, Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is now 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.

What is that verse saying?

I'll tell you my interpretation.

My interpretation of this verse is it's really hard to change character.

You gotta really want to change.

That most people who are filthy stay filthy their whole life.

Most people who are liars stay liars their whole life.

Most people who are adulterers, they keep having serial adultery relationships.

Those who sleep around continue to sleep around.

There has to be an invasion of Jesus into that.

There has to be an invasion of the Holy Spirit in there, you will not change.

And I say this to my staff, I've said it to my staff many times, I've said it over the years.

I can't change your character.

I can give you skills on how to preach.

I can give you skills on how to show up to meetings on time.

I can teach you how to read a watch.

And if we say we're going to meet at 11, you know, you can look at your watch.

And you know, if you can tell time, you can show up at 11.

But I can't change your character.

Only Jesus can do that.

So if you got, and listen, everybody, everybody in this room has character flaws.

We all do.

I do.

Just ask my wife.

You know, we all have character flaws.

But we can become more like Christ in sanctification as time goes by if we want to.

And you got to want to.

Does that make sense?

So he's saying here that those who will keep the words of this book, this prophecy of the book, you can be, and there it is right there, those that are holy can be holy still.

We can be growing in holiness.

And behold, I'm coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work.

God's going to reward our work, church.

You get rewarded for working in children's ministry.

You get rewarded for being in the nursery.

You get rewarded for going out and painting houses in the poor section as we do the Springs Initiative.

You'll get rewarded for shoveling rock.

You'll get rewarded for tithing and forgiving.

You'll get rewarded for going to your neighbor, baking cookies, and showing love to your neighbors around you.

There's a reward.

Now, nobody else will reward you, but Christ will.

You see, it's like Jesus sees stuff.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, he says, do good works in secret, because man's not going to see it, but God sees it and he will aptly reward you as he sees it.

Isn't that exciting?

That's because the Pharisees would make these big presentations about how much money they were giving to the temple and let everybody know how much they were giving.

Versus those that was like the publican, the tax collector, the prostitute, who had nothing to show but was starting to learn to love Jesus.

Jesus said, That's what I'm after, is those who come because their hearts have been changed, transformed.

I'm going to reward that.

And they often omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Verse 14.

Blessed are those who do his commandments.

Not say they're going to do, not pretend like they do, but they actually do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life.

The therapeutic tree of life.

That's joy.

Man.

That's what we want.

And they may enter through the gates into the city.

But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie.

Isn't that interesting?

It's like immoral, sexual immorality is actually a lie.

You're being lied to.

When you're involved in sex outside of marriage or before marriage, or anything that's not through a marital relationship, you've been lied to.

Because you think that that's going to give you pleasure.

And it does.

See, that's the interesting part, is it does give you pleasure, but then there's something that's lost in your heart.

Because it's not all that it was meant to be.

So if you're doing that, quit.

Repent.

Stop.

Bad deal.

Go after truth.

Go after goodness.

Go after what God meant it to be.

If you're doing drugs, getting high on drugs, and you're starting to get addicted to drugs, it's a lie.

It's not the pleasure that you think it is.

You just got ripped off by Satan.

Bad deal.

Wise up.

Be smarter than the crowd.

Be an outlier.

This church is about outliers.

I'm going to make you sometimes feel a little bit like there's more.

I mean, some weeks I'm not very good, but every once in a while I'm actually anointed.

And when I am, we're building wholehearted, all in, burn the bows, disciples.

Because at the end of the day, that's what you really want.

Because that's what you were created for.

I had a Volkswagen.

I had a 1962 Volkswagen growing up.

Bug.

Red.

I was cool.

I had shag carpeting in that Volkswagen.

I kid you not.

Big old massive stuff that had songs on it, you stick in that deck.

Ooh.

CB radio.

My handle was summer breeze.

But I never took the Volkswagen to a Ford dealership, and I never took the Volkswagen to an Audi dealership.

I took it to a Volkswagen mechanic because he knew how it worked.

First of all, he looked at and he knew where the engine was.

Well, God created you.

He's the Capital M mechanic.

He knows how to get under your hood and show you how to run your life.

So if you aren't following him today, you should start.

It's called being wise.

And it's fun.

It's joyful.

Because he created fun and joyful for you to be transformed because you're in the center of his will.

And that's the truth.

I, Jesus, sent my angel to testify to you of these things in the churches.

I'm the root and the offspring of David and the bride and morning star, which is the last description of Jesus in the Bible, by the way.

The bright and morning star.

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.

And let him who hears my hears me say, Come.

And let him who thirst come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

You know, if I didn't do this in this particular Bible, my teaching Bible, but in my study Bible, I square this off.

I've got it squared off in my Bible, this verse, verse 17, and I've written over to the side, the purpose of the church.

This is the purpose of the local church.

The Spirit and the bride say, come.

Let him who hears say, come.

Let him who thirst, come.

Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

No strings attached.

Just come.

Get fed.

Stay thirsty.

That's the purpose of the road.

The purpose of the road is for us to always say to everybody in the lobby, everybody during the week, come.

You should come.

Well, why?

Because, well, because Jesus is there.

What?

I'll give you my little elevator speech.

You should come to the road because Jesus is there.

But if you come out of a background where it's really high stuff, like, you know, the robes and the big huge cross guy up front and all that, and big candles and stuff, you're not gonna like our church.

Because we're kind of rock and roll, and we do, we have a we have drums, and we have an electric guitar, and I don't wear any of that stuff.

I dress like you, and we we study straight from the Bible.

So you wouldn't like it.

So don't come.

Well, I'm how do you know I wouldn't like it?

Well, because you know, it's just it'd be too sort of normal and everything.

And then they come and they get saved.

And some of you are in here who got it that way at a service station or something from me.

So tell them not to come so that they'll come.

For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.

We have to be careful, church, if we're adding to the scriptures, if we're adding prophecies to the scriptures that are that they're not there.

Um there's a lot of cults that do that, a lot of sects that do that.

If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

So seven times, seven times in the final chapter, book is mentioned.

Book, this book, this book, this book, this book.

So we're concluding this book, and we're concluding this prophecy and this apocalypse to say that we can trust this book.

Church, you can take this one all the way.

I love history.

I love biography, I love it all.

But, you know, if I study Winston Churchill, there's stuff there that, ah, you know.

I study John F.

Kennedy, there's stuff there like, ah, you know.

You study uh Jay Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, ah.

I mean, but you study this book, and everything in it is true.

And we can depend on it, and we can memorize it, and we can meditate in it.

He who testifies these things says, Surely I am coming quickly.

Amen.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

What a great way to end.

It ends with Jesus saying, I'm coming quickly, and us saying, Even so, Lord, come, Lord Jesus.

And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Amen.

That's the apocalypse.

The apocalypse of John on the island of Patmos, where he had been before that, boiled in oil and beaten times without number, and yet he survived, and he wrote this through a vision that he had from the Lord to give us a warning of days to come.

So, church, you have it.

Now let's live it.

We got it.

Now let's bestow it in our personal lives in new and fresh ways.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.