A Prophetic Warning from Jesus to the End Time Churches

This is a revelation of Jesus Christ. It's not a revelation of things that are going to happen like bombs and plagues and everything else. We are going to talk about the Book of Revelation. However, we're only talking about the 7 churches. These letters are written from Jesus personally to these 7 churches. The Word of God is not bound to a time period. At any given time over the past 2,000 years, there are churches around the world that can fit into one of these 7 churches. Everybody listen to this carefully. God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen. We see this, this image that John sees when he falls down like a dead man before Jesus of what we're going to look like. Hey everybody, welcome to the John Bevere Podcast. I am joined with my son Arden.

Yes. It's so good to be here.

It's just great to be with you. Always so excited because we're now announcing what we're going to be doing. And I don't think this one will take a year like 2 Peter did.

No, but I think it's going to really intrigue people very significantly because this has always been a topic that I think as I go through it, I'm like, man, I want to know more about this. I want to understand why, why John kind of given a little, little preview is talking about these things and what all does he mean by it?

So what we're doing is we are going to talk about the book of Revelation. However, we're only talking about the 7 churches. Now, I don't want to do Revelation 4 and on because we have talked so much about that when we did our 2 Peter podcast. Yeah, but Arden, in— with these 7 churches, I have had some of the most intimate times with the Holy Spirit in my entire life. I have several times been reading these these chapter 2 and chapter 3, where these letters are written from Jesus personally to these 7 churches, and literally wept as I felt the Holy Spirit convicting me of areas that needed to change in my life. Yeah. And so I'm really excited, and I'm believing that the same thing is going to happen with our listeners, our dear friends, our dear patrons that are listening, uh, that he's going to do a work in them. Yeah. And so I think the best thing to do is just open up with this book and read the first 10 verses. So we have, and this is from the New Living Translation, This is a revelation from Jesus Christ. So first and foremost, this is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's not a revelation of things that are going to happen like bombs and plagues and everything else.

This is a revelation of Jesus Christ, which I actually saw something saying that they used to have it as the Revelation of John, and then they changed it to the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Because they realize because it's the first sentence.

Exactly, exactly right. And it says, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. So they rightly changed the name because this is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now verse 3 just really blesses me.

Yes, of course.

God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy. That's why I'm reading it. Yeah. To the church. And he blesses— there's a double blessing here— all who listen. So guess what? Special blessing. And he blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says, for the time is near. So we just heard soon take place, and we're hearing the time is near. This is, this is getting my attention already. This letter is from John to the seven churches in the province of Asia. Grace and peace to you from the one who is, who always was, and who, and who is still to come, from the Sevenfold Spirit before his throne. And from Jesus Christ. He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead. I want you to listen to these words: the first to rise from the dead. That means there's— if there's a first, it means there's a second, a third, a fourth, right up to your number and my number and your number.

Can I ask a question around that? Obviously too, because Lazarus was raised from the dead before Jesus. So what exactly is he meaning by that?

And that's an excellent question.

You're gonna hold off to answer that?

No, I'm gonna answer it right now. That's an excellent question. Lazarus same body.

Yeah.

When he came out of the tomb, he had the same body he had before he went in the tomb. Yeah. When Jesus came out of the tomb, he had a resurrected heavenly body. Yeah. So here is— here, here's the thing. Paul the Apostle writes that this is a great mystery, that we're not all going to sleep, but we're going to be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye. And what's going to happen is that immediately This body, those of us who are alive, is going to be shed and we're going to get a brand new heavenly body. And the saints that are in the dust, their bodies are going to come out of the dust and they are going to have brand new glorified bodies which are just like Jesus. So we have to remember that the people that are, are gone right now, the people that have passed away in Christ, they're like Jesus was on the 3 days and 3 nights. See, Jesus still had a spiritual body, but he didn't have a glorified physical body. Remember, he said to Thomas, handle me because the spirit doesn't have flesh and blood, bone as you see I do. Notice he didn't say flesh, blood, bone, and blood like you see I do. I believe because the glory of God will flow, will flow through our veins like our physical blood flows through our veins. But if you look at Jesus, he could eat fish. He could appear and disappear. He could one, one, one moment be on a road to Emmaus, next moment he's in Jerusalem, whatever. And that's the way it's going to be. I believe in the new heavens and new earth. We'll have this thought. Well, let's just go to the millennium. We'll have this thought. I'm in New York City right now. I need to be in Jerusalem. Boom, I'm there because I've got a body that can do that. So obviously there is more than 3 dimensions. This body can travel in and out of the 4th dimension, 5th dimension, 6th dimension, whatever there is in the spirit. We just don't know. Yeah, but as of right now, the only human being in the universe that has this body is Jesus. But at the moment when he descends, we will all get that body, and we'll talk about that in just a moment on this podcast.

That's good.

And, and, and, and I want to make this emphasis because anytime I say the human being Jesus Christ, he is 100% man, he is 100% God. He is called God our Savior. He is called God our soon coming King. He is the one that created all things. So I, I, I, I want to on purpose on this podcast say he is a part of the Godhead, one of the three persons, okay? Even though we're gonna have bodies just like him, he is still God. Yeah. All right, so great question. Where were we? Where— okay. And from Jesus Christ, he is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the ruler— I love this— of the kings of the world. All glory to him who loves us and freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. You know, people in the last days are actually removing the importance of him shedding his blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. If you ever hear somebody teaching and they're removing the shedding of blood, minimizing it, minimizing, taking away from the virgin birth, do not listen to them. There is no way Jesus could be 100% God unless he was fathered by the Holy Spirit. It It took Mary being conceived by the Holy Spirit for Jesus to be 100% man, 100% God.

Yeah.

Now I love this, verse 6. He has made us a kingdom of priests. Now the New King James Version says, he has made us kings and priests unto our God. I like that because Jesus is making his children into kings and queens. And you say, why is that important? Because the Bible says we are going to rule and reign with him in the millennium. So that's why he is the king of the kings of the earth. All right. Look, he comes. This is one of my favorite verses in the New Testament. Verse 7. Look. And there's a look with an exclamation point.

Look.

He comes with the clouds of heaven, and everyone will see him, even those who pierced him, who drove the nails into his hands and feet. And all the nations of the world will mourn for him. Yes. Amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come. The Almighty One. I I'm getting so excited. This is Jesus talking. I am the Almighty One. That's our Savior. I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God's kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. Boy, I love that. And I don't think that should be glossed over. The patient endurance. In other words, it is appointed us not only to believe in Jesus, but also to suffer for his sake. Yeah. And we, we grow closer. I can tell you this from the sufferings that I've endured in my, my 46 years of walking with Jesus. The sufferings have brought me closer. Unfortunately, some people allowed the sufferings to make them bitter. They had this, why, God, why would you allow this to happen to me? We live in a fallen world. Jesus said, in this world you're going to have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome. So if we handle suffering correctly, it actually brings us closer to him. I love that.

Which, I mean, that's a beautiful illustration of even you see history is when the church was persecuted more, what happened is they got closer. Well, they got closer and then it grew significantly more. You see, as the church is persecuted more—

Can I just interject something?

Yeah.

When you get closer to Jesus, the church will grow. You want to know why? You can't light anything on fire if it's not lit. Yeah. Like, I could take a match and if the match is not lit, I can't light anything on fire. But if that match is lit, I can catch things on fire. The church naturally grows when we get on fire.

Well, can I ask this question, though? Do you feel like— and I know maybe this is obviously this is what we're going into in addressing the seven churches, but right now, the state of the church, do you feel like there's a lot of churches that are not lit because we're not seeing this exponential growth or exponential just conversion that's happening outside the church because I'll say in the Western church, because I know we have a lot of stories of international where they're under persecution, they're under hardship, and we're hearing as the underground church is just continuing to thrive and explode.

Iran right now, the church is exploding.

Yeah, but then we see in maybe the Western church is there's a lot of comfortability, but I'm almost wondering even within the time period that we're coming into where a lot of things where even governments are getting more involved into what the church can say and cannot say in countries like Canada, Australia, and things like that. Do you see that this could be an opportunity for the church to not just be, okay, well, we're just going to— we're going to die down, we're going to shrink back, but we're believing that with this tribulation, we're going to see more, more exponential growth and no longer so much lukewarmness? Because I do feel like we've gotten comfortable.

In a way. When people, when people suffer for the, for the name of Jesus, it gets the unbelievers' attention. You'll find that there were many Roman centurions, Roman soldiers that got saved when they saw how the Christians handled, yeah, the persecution of being thrown into the arena with wild beasts, when they were being burned at the stake. There were so many Romans that got saved when they saw the grace of God And I've heard this in other nations. I've heard that other nations, people are getting saved because they see how the Christians are behaving when they're being persecuted, how they're still loving. And you know, Arden, it takes the grace of God to do that. You can't do that in your own strength. And I think if any of you are ever concerned about, hey, what if persecution, physical persecution begins, God will give us the grace because Jesus said it will be a testimony to him. If you look at Paul, Paul said the soldiers in this prison are all getting— or they're not all— they're getting saved because they see how I'm handling these chains and afflictions. I mean, when you got two guys that are praising God in a dungeon and the jailer— all of a sudden the earthquake happens and Paul says, hey, hey, don't kill yourself. And the guy's like, I want to know, who is it? Who is it you're serving?

Yeah.

So persecution. Recently we heard somebody speak to our staff and he was, he was a Navy SEAL. And he said, you know, I found that it was easier to serve God when it was hard.

Yeah.

And I find it's harder to serve God when it's easier.

That's so good.

There's actually a pastor who was touring the United States. He was going to several big churches, and the pastor actually looked at a friend of mine who's a pastor. He was at his church, and he said, I have so much admiration for you American believers. He said, because it's hard. It's hard for me to serve God in this nation of luxury, comfort, and convenience. So, you know, I— we look and we're so quick to condemn the American church, the Western church, when in reality, to stay on fire for Jesus, it takes intentionality. Yeah. Because you're going to find out as we go through these 7 churches, some of these cities, a couple of them, 2 that I'm thinking of right now up front. Yeah. Were very prosperous.

Yeah.

And as a result, the church got affected by it.

And he talks about it.

He talks about it. And we're going to get to it. Yeah.

And that's— please, I hope people aren't hearing that. That's not like we— oh, you need to— and which we'll talk about this down the road, like, oh, you need to find persecution.

Don't ever look for persecution.

You got to understand, persecution will come in some form or another. And in a different country, it probably looks significantly different. It might look more physical persecution. You being locked away for your faith, but there's also persecution that will come that is very spiritual here in the Western church that will come into your life. So you don't need to go look for that persecution and say, oh, I need to get more applied.

It's really more in the soul. You know, thalipsis means pressure. Thalipsis is the Greek word for tribulation. It means pressure. And it actually says in the Greek dictionaries, pressure exerted in the soul or physically. And I find that the sufferings we go through right now in the American church is more in the soul. Yeah. And I find that people, what happens is they lay down under it instead of fight it, instead of war against it. You know, Peter said these things war against your soul.

And, and so I feel like it's the workout mentality. People, a lot of times they say pressure is privilege. I feel like actually we have a guy on our team, Andrew, and he wears a shirt that says that pressure is privilege. Like, Understanding, you know, having that ability to experience something like that, that's not a, oh no, this is terrible. What woe is me? It's if you look at it correctly and understand, no, this is, this is actually a privilege that I get to go through. And even what we're seeing is he's writing here is that we get to suffer in the way that he gets to suffer, like a fellow partaker in the tribulations of the kingdom and persevere, which are in Jesus, you know, on and on. Like he's, he's almost boasting in that because he understands this is not that I got this because, man, I got just dealt a bad hand. No, I actually am going through this because it's a privilege. And I was faithful in my faith.

And I still feel some hearts trembling out there. And I just want to say this statement, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, please, you go look this up, says there is no temptation that has taken you but such as common to man, but God is able. God is able. With that temptation to make a way of escape that you are able to bear it. So let me tell you this right now. This will bring comfort to your soul. There is absolutely nothing you are going through right now or you will go through that God has not given you the grace to not only overcome it, but to be triumphant in it. That's why Paul had that grace to be triumphant when he was in prison, when he was being beaten with rods 3 times, when he was being scourged 5 times, which is, to me, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind about being scourged because I understand that scourging process that Paul went through, but Arden, I do remember when we preached, and you didn't go there, but when we preached in Vietnam, the 5 pastors had dinner with us the night before we spoke to the thousands of leaders the next day. The 5 pastors had been in jail more than they had been with their families for the previous 20 years, And yet their faces radiated. They literally radiated. I remember one guy, teeth missing because of the torture he went through in the prison, yet he's radiating. And I'm thinking, why am I teaching you? You should be teaching me. And so I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering in God's kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. So patient means I remain consistent. Endurance means what? I am able to bear up under anything. And God gives us the ability to do both. I was exiled to the island of Patmos, and we're going to talk about this in a second, for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus. It was the Lord's Day and I was worshiping in the spirit. Suddenly— and this is the way God always does supernatural things like this— I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast. It said, write in a book everything you see. And send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. So let's talk about these seven churches. Okay. All right. These were actually seven very important cities in the region of Asia Minor. Now, these cities are very unique in that they had a road system that actually it actually connected all these cities in a big circle. And John was living in Ephesus at the time. Now, of course, he got it in Patmos. Yeah, but Paul was beheaded between 62 and 64 AD, experts estimate. So he is the one that birthed most of these churches. But now that he was beheaded, his influence was lost. And so John kind of moved in, and the last 30 years of John's life, he lived in Ephesus. Now Ephesus was like the golden city of Asia Minor. In fact, it was the fourth largest city in the world at the time.

Wow.

Your largest city was Rome, second was Alexandria, third was Antioch, and fourth was Ephesus. And now when Paul was close to his death, he appointed Timothy to be the pastor at the Church of Ephesus. But that, I don't think, went as long as John was there, because John lived to be 100 years old. Yeah, that's, that's their estimate, you know. And those last 30 years, so from 70 to 100, he was living in Ephesus, which would have put him in Ephesus right around 70 AD. To the turn of the second century. So 70 AD to 100 AD, right?

Yeah.

And so which—

and just to clarify this too, because I thought this is good— is Asia Minor, Minor is, is modern-day Turkey.

It's modern-day Turkey. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good blank to fill in. Help me fill in some of these blanks if I don't, if I don't make it here. Okay. So this message from Jesus comes to John. Now, what's going on with John? So at the age of 90, okay, this would be 93 AD. So as you can see, John was born, what, about 3 AD?

Yeah.

So at the age of 90, he's arrested and brought before the emperor. Now, the emperor at this time is a guy named Dom— Domitian. Am I saying it right?

I think so.

Emperor Domitian. All right. And he was one of the most wicked emperors of the first century.

Yeah.

And when John stood before him, Domitain commanded him to burn incense to a pagan god. And John, of course, said, no way. This infuriated Domitain. And so Domitain immediately said, all right, you're gonna be sentenced to boil in a vat of oil. So they got this big cauldron, right? And they boil this oil to where, can you imagine how hot oil is when it's boiling? All right, so it's boiling. They lower John into this boiling vat of oil. And he comes out praising God.

Come on.

Unscathed.

Yeah.

Unscathed. Now, this scared the emperor. And so the emperor said, okay, you get exiled to Patmos. Now, Patmos is this island. It's, it's a rocky island that's 25 miles off the coast of Asia Minor. I think it's about 60 miles from the city of Ephesus. So they would have to travel some distance, then take the boat out there. It would be a lot like our Alcatraz, or if you've ever seen the movie, what is it called? The one you really like. Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first I want to thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages, so thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patron. Now let's get back to the show. So if you remember the movie The Count of Monte Cristo.

Monte Cristo.

Remember how they had to bring him out to this rocky place where this— all right, so Rome's worst prisoners were shipped out to Patmos, and there were really two types of prisoners. There were the really, really, really wicked murderers, and then there were the political ones. They were giving a— they were given a little bit of a reprieve, not treated as badly. And I, I was going to say Alcatraz. I've had them as the, the real bad murderers. Yeah, so they had a little bit more freedom. What was on this island? And John was on this island, I think, for 18 months.

Wow.

And what happened, just to finish that, when Domitain died, there was a new emperor, and I'm trying to remember this guy's name, Nerva, Emperor Nerva.

Which wasn't his son, right?

I don't believe so.

Yeah.

And so in 96 AD, Nerva actually gave him asylum. So he pardoned John, and John was then taken. So he only spent 18 months out there. In that 18 months, this is when the revelation of Jesus Christ was given to him. How amazing, right? God just gives him this time out there so he can write it, not be distracted by the everyday affairs of life and get this thing all written down. Because back then, to write a book as long as Revelation, I mean, come on, I'm writing a book right now and I know how long this takes. And you know what? I, you know, I get really frustrated is when the office calls me or there's a, there's an administrative meeting or, you know, I got to go do, you know, take the garbage out or I got, Hey, I don't complain about doing those things 'cause they're all necessary, but God sometimes says, "I need you to get this thing written down uninterrupted, so I'm gonna put you in a little timeout here on an island called Patmos. And by the way, you're gonna get to really freak all these Romans out when you come out of this boiling vat of oil without even having a burn on you and unscathed." I mean, God is so cool when you think about this, right? So in essence, John gets this message, He then is pardoned by Nerva, Emperor Nerva. He comes back, and because of his 30 years in Asia Minor, spending that 30 years in Ephesus, he has massive respect of the churches. So when this letter comes from John the Elder, I mean, think about it, guy lived to be 100 years old. Most of these other guys were martyred when they were young. So he really, really spans. And let's just all think about this for a second. I mean, The— well, Judas is gone. The other 10 apostles have all been martyred like at least 3 decades or 4 decades earlier. 30 years is a long time. I mean, if you go back, you're 31 years old.

Yeah.

So this guy is the last of the apostles, not just the last couple of years of his life, the last 3 decades of his life. Yeah. They're all— the other ones are gone. So when he gets this revelation, let me tell you something. He's got authority that God's given him, and he sends these messages to these 7 churches. And these are the messages we're going to talk about. Now, there are 3 different major theories of why we have these letters in our Bible. Now, there are more theories. I've actually heard some of the other theories. I don't like them as much, so I'm going to give you the 3 main theories. The first theory is called historical theory that simply states that what is written to these churches applied to them and them alone.

Yeah.

And they were put in there for inspiration. I don't like that because I believe if God allows a message to get into the holy word of God, yeah, I believe it still applies to today.

Yeah. And I feel like a lot of people will say that about the Bible as a whole. So I don't— I mean, I don't love that theory because they'll be like, well, that was written for those people back then. It's nice. For me just to read it and like think it's a great story and acknowledge some parts of it, but I really don't need to take some of these lessons from it 'cause it wasn't written for me.

Yeah. The second one is kind of interesting. It's called the prophetic or the dispensational view. Now basically what this one states is each of these churches represent the big church, big C, down through the last 2,000 years. Now this is the way they look at it. Ephesus represents the apostolic age, which is Pentecost to 170 AD. Smyrna represents the age of persecution, which is AD 170 to 312. Now I've got problems with that already because the church was greatly persecuted between 60 AD and between 170. So I, I'm trying to understand why you're all of a sudden assigning the persecution to this time period. I know the persecution intensified but they were really persecuted in the beginning too. Uh, Pergamum represents the age of false doctrine, which is 312 to 606. That's when kind of Constantine legalized Christianity and they became very worldly, the church. All right, Thyatira represents the age of darkness, which would be 606 to 1520. Sardis represents the age of reformation, which meant the church was alive had a name that said she was alive, but she was dead. But I don't see that. Okay. I don't see— I mean, what's the time period on that one? And then Philadelphia, of course, represents the age of missions, which is 1750 to 1906. I'm kind of cool with that. And Laodicea, of course, the indifferent church, would represent the age of apostasy, which would be 1906 to present. I really have problems with this, although I believe there are some aspects of this I can see.

Yeah, I feel like it's almost a mixture of those two. I do.

I do. The one I buy into.

Yes.

And this one I believe we all should buy into is the universal or timeless view. And that says that at any given time over the past 2000 years, there are churches around the world that can fit into one of these seven churches.

Yeah.

I like that because, as I said earlier, the word of God is alive. It's powerful. The word of God is not bound to a time period. It is. It is now. And if Jesus is giving specific messages to churches that those messages don't apply anymore, I have a real problem with that one. Yeah.

Well, can I ask you this question? And I know maybe we need to get a little bit more into each one of these churches, but I think for you, as someone who has been spending 35-plus years just continuing to travel to all different kinds of churches around the world and, you know, a ton here, what would you say is the state of the church when you're looking at it from a prophetic point of view, talking to the Book of Revelation?

I can see. And that's why I'm the— that's why I'm the— what's the third view? I said it was the universal— universal. Thank you so much.

I'm—

the reason I feel so strongly about that is I've been with the persecuted church. Yeah, I've been with the poor church. I've been with the church that's indifferent. I've seen— I've seen indicators of this church in regions of the world. Like, I can look at the Western church and say, wow, I can really see a couple of churches it applies to. Yeah, I look at the church in Iran, the church in the Middle East, and I see a church it really applies to. And so I feel like the privilege of being to 60 countries is that it shows me a little bit more of the global view of the church, big C church of the world. And so let's read from Revelation.

I was going to say, I think that's a really great understanding because I do think we so often— I do this a ton— is we so often filter everything through. If we're in the Western culture, we filter it through the Western church, but not realizing there's the greater capital C church that we need to look at as a whole. We need to look at— and when we're thinking about the church, we need to think about those people in China and underground churches, those people that are in Iran, they're persecuted.

Yeah.

The things that are going on and look at it as a greater state.

And there's a lot of persecution in India, tremendous persecution in the 'Stans, the Turkmenistan, the, you know, Afghanistan. And then there's a lot of persecution in Syria. Oh my gosh, Syria is really going through it right now, the church in Syria. And we should be praying for them. All right. Now I'm going to read verse 10 through 20 in Revelation chapter 1. John said, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard of— I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. And what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia. And he names out the churches. When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands. Standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. Now listen to this description, everybody. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like flames of fire. His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace. And I like this. His voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. Hey, we were just down at the beach for spring break, right? We know when that ocean stirred up how loud it is. All right. He held 7 stars in his right hand and a sharp, two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face— now listen to this, everybody. Listen to this carefully. His face was like the sun in all its brilliance. Now, I want to— I want to really stop and highlight something here. The Bible says in 1 John 2:3, Beloved, now, now, right now, not after we die, right now we are the children of God. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when he is revealed, in other words, when he returns, we shall be like him, for we will see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. I want you to listen to Jesus' words in Matthew 13:43. 'Then,' talking about this time period that John's talking about, 'the righteous will shine forth as the sun.' I don't think we talk about that enough. All right, his face shone like the sun in all its brilliance, right?

Yeah.

Jesus himself said, 'Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' Daniel said the same thing. Daniel 12:3, those who are wise shall shine as bright as the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars— stars are suns— forever. So we see this, this image that John sees when he falls down like a dead man before Jesus of what we're going to look like, what we can look like. I mean, I mean, it's amazing to me that I don't know if I'd say this as strongly if Jesus didn't say it. Maybe if Daniel only wrote it, maybe if John, but when Jesus said, "Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun," you're like, "Wow." And he's saying now too.

Love it, now.

Now we're the sons of God, but it doesn't yet appear what we're gonna be.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, I just go out and pray in the morning's ardor and I just get blown away thinking, Okay, this whole creation— because when I go out, it's early and the stars are still out, and you're looking at the awesomeness of the sun coming up, and you're like, this declares his greatness, this declares his glory. And yet this one chose to make us his kids. Yeah, it's mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. Yeah. All right. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. Now this is the closest disciple to Jesus, is the one that put his head on his chest. He said, hey, the disciple Jesus loved, he sees Jesus and he falls down like a dead man. Does that tell you the difference of what Jesus appears like?

Yeah. What he experienced in his glory.

In his glory. See, I'm going to give you another scripture. Colossians says, when he appears, we shall appear with him in glory. I mean, it's, it's amazing when you stop and think about it.

Yeah.

He put his right hand on me and he said, don't be afraid. I'm the first and I'm the last. I'm the living one. I died, but look, I'm alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys to death and the grave. Write down what you've seen, both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen. Now, as we close, I just wanna cover a couple things. He said he walked in the midst of the 7 golden lamps.

Candlesticks.

And he gave the interpretation. He said they represent the church. Now I want to say this to you guys. This church met together. They did not forsake the assembling of themselves together. I know it's— I know it's delightful to spend time alone with God. I know it's delightful for you to listen to YouTube when you've got anointed messages coming forth from, from ministers of the gospel. But Jesus said when we gather together When 2 or 3 are gathered together, not on YouTube, when we're gathered together, he said, there I am in the midst of them. Now, he said that he's everywhere. The Bible says that I can go to the highest mountain and he's there. I can go to the lowest valley and he's there. Why would Jesus say I'm in the midst of them if he's everywhere? There's an actual special manifestation of his authority, his presence, his power when we gather together in his name. He is making it clear, I am the one who's walking in the midst of the candlesticks, which means it doesn't mean I just do one loop. It means I'm walking around and around and around and around and around because my authority is on those churches. I will build my church and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. There is something about us gathering together. That we can't substitute with social media, with YouTube or other platforms. Please, please don't fall into that trap. That is why I believe Hebrews 10:38 says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together, especially as you see the day of the Lord approaching. In other words, the writer of Hebrews prophetically spoke and said just before Jesus comes back, people are gonna stop gathering. Don't stop gathering. Do not stop gathering. Please don't buy into that lie. Please, Don't allow the effects of what COVID did to keep you at home. Get back in your local church where God has placed you. All right. Second, he says he has the 7 stars in his hand. The 7 stars represent the angels of those churches. Now, the Greek word for angel is the Greek word aggelos, which means messenger. Most of the time in Scripture, it refers to an actual angel from heaven. However, sometimes it refers to a pastor or an elder. When he says, I hold them in my right hand, that speaks of his authority. I believe these are the pastors, the bishops, the elders of these seven churches in the city of Asia. Jesus now is bringing a message to them that they are to bring to their church. And you know what else this tells me? Jesus doesn't bypass the authority that he has set up. Boy, did I learn that as a young leader. I remember as a young leader, I would go directly to a team member and I would bypass the manager I appointed over the team member. And I should have gone to the manager first. And I remember some of my team members coming back and saying, hey, couldn't you come to me first? And I was like, yeah, you're right. I'm the one that made you the manager over that person. I should have done that. When Jesus sets up authority in the church, he's going to first of all go through that authority, because all authority is delegated by God. And the Bible is so clear about that. And so I find it so beautiful that Jesus is going to the pastors, the elders, the leaders of these 7 churches in these 7 cities first to have them bring this message to their people. So in our next podcast, we're going to go through each of the 7 churches. Now, of course, I think it's going to take— probably going to take one podcast per church. But the wealth of insight, wisdom, practical knowledge that is gained by going through these— like I said, I don't think any portion of Scripture has so affected me as when the Holy Spirit was walking me through these. And there's not just been one time, it's been a couple of times. Literally, I've been in tears as he showed me things that needed to change in my life. And you're going to see a pattern, and I'll share that pattern with each of those 7 churches as we start with Ephesus in our next podcast. And so till next time, unless you've got something else you want to know, that was great. This has been the John Bevere Podcast. I want to remind you, the new book You Are Called is out. You can get it on Amazon. We are not only called to be children of God, we are called to do something to build God's kingdom. If you'll remember, there is a parable of talents, and there was a guy who didn't do anything with what God gave him in order to build God's kingdom. And that, that servant was called wicked and lazy. We don't ever want to hear that. We want to hear from Jesus, well done, good and faithful servant. That's what I talk about. Also, I will say, on these 7 churches, the foundation of every single one of them is the Holy awesome fear of God. That is what this book talks about. I've written 25 or 24 books. These are the two I want to highlight because I feel they're so relevant to today's times. I've had so many people stop me in airports and say the awe of God has transformed their life. I highly recommend that you get The Awe of God. I love you guys. Arden, it's been great being on with you. Can't wait to talk about Ephesus.

Yeah.

Guys, till next time, God bless you.