And so let us hear then the word of our God. Revelation chapter one, verse 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and 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, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one, like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like brass, fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice is the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars, out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was like the sun shining in its brilliance, in its strength here. Sorry, different translation in my mind. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. As we begin here today, I want us to think of the times where maybe we've been watching a movie or reading a book, and we go to a different place. And sometimes when we are done, all of a sudden we're like, oh yeah, I'm sitting on my couch or whatever it is. And this idea of being taken somewhere to see something, to hear something, to read about something, Well, in a somewhat general sense, that's what's happening with John. He is going to be taken to see things, to hear things, and we see that described for us here in verse 10. We initially concluded the opening section in verses 1 to 8, and we saw in verse 8 God speaking to us. Whether it's the Father or the Son, God is speaking to us, and it brings words of comfort. Since God is eternal, since God is in control of all things, all events of history, this indicates to us that any tribulations that we are facing now are not random, and they are not beyond God's plan and purpose. Then we transition to the first main section, verses nine through 20. And John first identifies himself and identifies himself with us, saying that he is a fellow believer, a brother and companion. He says that we share together in three things, the hardships of life, as well as being part of the kingdom. We have power and authority to stand against sin and evil, even when we're oppressed by those earthly and evil powers. And then thirdly, he says that we share in patience. This isn't just something we do individually, but as believers, we share together in these hardships, in this ruling, and we patiently persevered together amidst the struggles, overcoming them as kings as we are united to Christ. And we also saw John telling us that he was on the island of Patmos as a political prisoner for proclaiming the gospel. At the very least, he was banished there and not allowed to leave. He may have been imprisoned and even forced to do hard labor. There is No clarity in the text here, and church tradition and other traditions are mixed on what that was like for him. But whatever the case, he's on the island, and now, as we see, he's gonna receive this opening vision. And so, verse 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet. All right, now first of all, we have, if you will, vision-like language, and then we're gonna have something a bit more everyday in the second part. But there are three main things here in this verse, and the first one is in the spirit. John uses this language four times here in the book, and let's look at them briefly. Here's the first one. Let's turn to chapter four, and if you look at verse two, He says, immediately I was in the spirit and behold, a throne set in heaven and one sat on the throne. Now he doesn't specifically say he was taken to the heavenly throne, but that's obviously the implication, right? And then if you turn to chapter 17, the third occurrence is here. Chapter 17, and if you look at verse 3, he says, so he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast and so on and so forth. So you see here the connection with Babylon and so forth. And if you look at chapter 21 and verse 10, So here you have two that clearly say John was taken by the Spirit somewhere. into the wilderness, or in this case, into the new heavens and the new earth, seeing the heavenly Jerusalem. The implication is that was the case in chapter 4, that He was taken into the heavenly throne room. And here, it appears like we should assume the same, that He is taken to where Jesus is. And the Spirit leads him there. And one of the reasons why we think this is because of the connections, not only here in the text, but also to the Old Testament. Let's turn here a moment to Ezekiel now. And first of all, let's look at chapter 8. Chapter 8 here in Ezekiel. All right, look here a moment then at verse three. You'll see there in verse one, it's the sixth year, okay? He's in exile, right? And he looks, he sees this likeness, this appearance. We'll talk more about that appearance, Lord willing, next time. And then now verse three, he stretched out the form of a hand and took me by the lock. by a lock of my hair and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem to the door of the north gate of the inner court and so forth here okay note the the the glory of the Lord is there you see the presence of God So here with Ezekiel, he is taken by the spirit. Now, not literally, he was not taken from Babylon to Jerusalem, literally, but in the spirit, through this vision. And notice, we see the presence of God here. For John, chapter four, it's the presence of God. In chapter 21, it's the presence of God. And now, of course, here in chapter one as well. Let's turn also then to Ezekiel chapter 11. Remember chapter 10, the glory of God departs from the temple, and now here in chapter 11, note verse 1. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the Lord's house, which faces eastward, and there at the door of the gate were 25 men, and He keeps going. Verse 5, the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me and said to me, Speak, and so forth. If you look at verse 24 at the end of the chapter, then the Spirit took me up and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea to those in captivity. So, you know, he's not jumping on an airplane or a helicopter or not being teleported somewhere, you know, whatever. But by the Spirit, he is led to these different places by way of vision. Whatever that exactly means, I don't think we can say definitively. But this is a real event for Ezekiel. Now we see the same kind of thing here for John. Some describe it as a kind of ecstasy, which, okay, fine, just as long as we keep LSD out of it. We're talking about the Spirit who is leading him in this very unusual way. He's given spiritual sight, spiritual meaning. He's in his right mind. This is not a dream, but it is a vision that includes transportation to some degree here, whatever exactly that means here for us. So he's led by the Spirit, filled with the Spirit here in this way. Obviously, this is not John's doing. This isn't Ezekiel's doing. It's the work of the Spirit. And so it is highly unique. This is not like, if you will, a normal prophet receiving a word from the Lord. This is a vision in this specific way. This is not like the Urim and Thummim where you have light and dark stones and that somehow communicates a yes or no answer that the Lord is leading. It's not the imagination station at wit's end either. This is an actual event. Can you say it's sort of like a movie that is shown to John? We are left with many questions, but this really happened. All right, well, let's look now here in Revelation 1 at the next part of the verse. He says this happened on the Lord's Day. Now, let me touch on this topic here just a little bit this morning. The Lord's Day here is a reference, of course, to Sunday. The implication here is that John is worshiping. It doesn't specifically say that, but It certainly makes sense that that would have been the case. He, at the very least, would have been praying. Maybe he was worshiping. Maybe there were other people with him. We don't know exactly. Depends on how much freedom he had there on the island. But it says here that this took place on the Lord's Day. Now, let me go down this path a little bit farther. This is the first time in the historical record that we have, at this point anyway, that this is called the Lord's Day. 50 years later, by the mid-second century, you see it everywhere. And so the first time this language is used is here, but the idea of worshiping on Sunday appears to have taken place prior to this. We have some hints of this. So let's turn here just briefly, first of all, to the book of John. and chapter 20. You remember here we see the resurrection of Christ and he appears to Mary and then to the apostles. Now remember you had the Passover and then you had a week of unleavened bread and they would meet together and have some holy convocations and so forth and so it makes sense there you see verse 19 the first day of the week this is right in the middle of all that. All right. Remember, of course, Thomas is not there. So if you look then farther to verse 26, after eight days, the disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. If we count the first day and the last day, which is likely how we should do this, it's the first day of the week again. Why would they meet on the first day of the week? The feast is over. Do you see the implication? The implication is they're meeting, not just gathered together, but for worship. Remember, they were given the message to go back to Jerusalem, or excuse me, to Galilee. So why are they still there? So it doesn't give us clarity, but it does give us a hint. If you turn to Acts chapter 20, and here this is when Paul's on his third missionary journey. He has just written the book to the Romans and is now heading to Jerusalem, and of course, he's arrested there and so forth. But along the way, you see in verse seven, he stops at Troas, and it says, on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, right, he speaks, and the guy falls out the window, because he falls asleep and so forth, right? But again, why are you gonna meet on the first day of the week? Well, you could say, it's just because that's when Paul came through. But it does seem also to suggest this is the day they're meeting for worship. Let's turn then to 1 Corinthians chapter 16, and our last one here in this way. 1 Corinthians 16, we have another hint. Verse 2, Paul says, on the first day of the week, let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, and there be no collections when I come. Remember, Paul is on his third missionary journey here. He's gonna come to Corinth, so this is before Acts 20, before he writes the book of Romans. And he says, look, when I come, hey, don't make the collections at that point, I already do it, so that I can take it back to Jerusalem right away, and so forth, right? Now, again, you see the implication. Why meet on the first day of the week if you're gonna meet the day before on the Sabbath, if that's your day of worship? And normally the first day of the week would be a day of work. So it doesn't say it specifically, but it does hint at the idea that the early church was already starting to worship on Sundays. And they did so, of course, because Jesus rose from the dead on Sundays. And so there is some suggestion in the historical record that the early church worshiped on Saturday and Sunday initially. And also some suggestion that by the time you come to the fall of Jerusalem, they no longer worshiped on Saturdays. It was only done on Sundays. So we have hints, we have suggestions, but again, here in Revelation 1, this is the first time it specifically calls it the Lord's day. So what this means then is that all the commands from the fourth commandment apply now to Sunday. We're not doing away with the fourth commandment. We're just changing the day. So prior to this, of course, you have the creation pattern. It was all done on the last day of the week. But now here at Christ's resurrection, it's done on the first day of the week. And so all the commands of not working, not causing other people to work, of setting it aside for worship and rest, all of that is still in place now. And so if we work on the Lord's day, unless it's necessity and mercy as a biblical standard here, then we're telling people we're trying to work our way to heaven. And we're not being kind to others if we cause them to work and so forth. Now, just a couple other brief points here. Some people have tried to make the case that we should translate this not as Lord's Day, but Day of the Lord. Now let me just say here very briefly, the Greek does not allow us to do that. This is not a genitive case construction, it's a regular adjective. And you cannot translate it, the day of the Lord. It must be translated the Lord's day. There is no indication anywhere in the Septuagint, the New Testament, the early church of translating it as the day of the Lord. And so for those who say, oh, look, there's this eschatological trumpet here in the verse, right? And John is taken to the second coming, that doesn't fit. It's saying, I was worshiping on the Lord's day and this is what happened. And then one more point, and that has to do with a polemic. Remember, a polemic is, you've heard this said, but that's not true. This is what is true. So in the first century, there was something called Emperor's Day, the Lord's Day. And they did it once a month, typically, where they would worship Caesar. And so by calling it now the Lord's Day, it in part is a polemic against the pagan kings and focusing on the true king. But also, it does seem to be a polemic against the Sabbath-only kind of people. The seventh day of the week, that has now been set aside. It now has become a day of work, and the first day of the week is now our day of rest and worship. And the reason why the change has come is pretty simple. Prior to Christ's coming, we look forward to his coming. We would work all week, and we look forward to the rest that he would provide. Now that he has come, we look backward to the first day of the week. We rest first, and then we work the rest of the week. And this follows this pattern of Christ's coming. Now certainly, we still look for his second coming. But here in this weekly way, we look backward in particular. All right, well, this is a rather involved discussion and you have some people who insist we still should worship on Saturday, but by the middle of the second century, nobody did. There's no indication of that at all. So, it was all Sunday. So anyway, let's now look at the third point here in the verse. John now says, I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet. Now, as we'll see in verse 12, he's going to turn to see this voice, which tells us that he is not merely seeing things. It's not a silent movie kind of thing here, but he's hearing things as well. So what we would say is he has a vision and an audition, but we're not auditioning for a choir or an orchestra, but he is hearing things in his visions. And he says that this voice was behind him. So in verse 12, we're going to see him turn. We are told here that this voice is a loud voice. In other words, it's clear. It's unmistakable. It is powerful. It is divine. In fact, loud voice is found 20 times in the book, plus a few more. They don't say it exactly that way, but are still communicating the same point. And so here John is not hearing a whisper, okay, like Elijah heard, the still small voice, but he hears a loud voice. And he describes it as being like a trumpet. He did not hear a trumpet. He heard a voice like a trumpet. Note the simile here. Now, when we think of trumpets today, we think of an orchestra, or maybe a marching band, or something like that. In that day, when they would hear a trumpet, it was usually in the context of three things, either the heralding of a king's arrival or some important person, or a trumpet that would be used during battle to help give direction for what was going on, or thirdly, to call people to worship. And so those would be the three primary ways. Now you do see evidence of them using trumpets in a musical sense there in the Psalms, but primarily it is to get people's attention. Now for us today, we might think of the church bell calling everybody to worship. Or we might think of the sirens as the motorcade of the president goes down the Pennsylvania Avenue or something like that. And so think of something that's really loud. That's the image here. So again, he's not hearing a trumpet, but a voice that's loud like one. Not surprisingly, There are Old Testament connections to this as well. So let's turn to Ezekiel chapter 3 and turn to the passage that we read earlier. And as I indicated to you when we read it, the connections with our passage do not fit with the overall message of the chapter. But we do see some of these, if you will, more minor connections at this point. And so here in chapter three, of course, we see about him eating the scroll and so forth. And if you look at verse 12 in particular, and the spirit lifted me up and I heard behind me a great thunderous voice, blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place. So notice focusing on God's presence. So the spirit is taking him, he's hearing this voice, we see the presence of God referenced there. Verse 14, the spirit lifted me up and took me away, and so forth. So, the connection here with Revelation is, again, intentional. If you turn a moment to Exodus chapter 19, we do have a connection here in this way with an actual trumpet sound, a trumpet blast. And this is when Israel, of course, came to Mount Sinai, and God is ready to speak, and they had to prepare themselves. Remember, we looked at verse six a few weeks ago about being a kingdom of priests. So verse 16, it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunderings and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of a trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Verse 19, when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice, and he came down on the mountain. So note again here now, this is an actual trumpet, but note the loudness of it again, and note the presence of God. So as we've seen things in Ezekiel, and we see this here, and we compare it to first, excuse me, to Revelation 1, we see some of these same kinds of ideas. God is bringing John by the Spirit into this place, wherever it is, and he's seeing this vision, and right away we see this loudness of the voice. All right, so let's look then at verse 11. And a couple things to mention here about this verse. First of all, let's read it, and notice there's probably some differences if you have another translation. Verse 11, 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, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. All right. You know, verse 10, you're like, well, how does that apply to me? Well, the Lord's Day applies to us, but the rest of it, like, well, that's not gonna happen to me, right? This happened to John. Well, now here in verse 11, it's a much more, if you will, personal. because we're receiving a message, and we'll see that, of course, in chapters 2 and 3. Now, the verse begins, if you have the Old King James or the New King James, you include the names, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. If you don't have one of those translations, you don't have those things, because all the other manuscripts do not have the names. But remember what we saw in verse eight, the alpha and the omega, and we'll see in verse 17, the first and the last, we know that these names are legitimate names. So the only question we're dealing with here is, did John actually write it in verse 11? And really our conclusion needs to be, he did not. Somebody added it in later. But the point of the names are just as relevant here as they are in verse eight and in verse 17. And that is, Jesus is the all-sovereign God. He is governing all of history, and He now is telling John to write these things to these churches. Alright, now notice then, the next part of the verse says, what you see, write. So far, in verse 10, it's only been what he heard. But now he is told what you see in this vision, write it down. And notice then the two commands, to write in a book, and secondly, send it to the seven churches. As for writing it down, 12 times in the book of Revelation, John is commanded to do this. And there's only two times in the rest of the whole New Testament that anybody is commanded to write something. This is very much specific to what God is doing here with John in the book of Revelation. He has commanded what you see, what you hear, write it down. And we, of course, are thankful that he did. This then doesn't only apply to verses 12 to 20, but to the whole book, because, again, we see it over and over again. And so he is writing down what he sees. Now the question for us is, how did he do that? Did he receive this vision and then write it down right away? And then did he get another vision a few weeks later and write it down right away? Did all the visions happen at once and then he wrote it down? We don't know some of that. But he's commanded to write, and he did, led by the Spirit. And so here's what we are to know. All right, now, secondly, then, he is to send what he has written to these churches. Now, notice, it isn't merely chapter 2, verses 1 to 7, that message goes to Ephesus. Chapter 2, 8 to 11, that message goes to Smyrna. But all of what's here in the book is to be sent to the churches, including those messages, but more than that. As I mentioned before here, look at chapter two, verse seven. He who is in ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. So it isn't just a message for Ephesus, it's a message for all the churches. And so the whole book would have been sent to every one of these churches, most likely one copy that circulated around and so forth. Now notice then, we come to the number seven again, just like we saw back in verse four with the seven spirits. So now, here again, we see it, seven churches, and we're gonna see the seven stars and all that as well. Seven, of course, is a number of, a symbolic number that points to fullness and completion. Now here, again, is a little difference. In the New King James and the Old King James, it says about the seven churches which are in Asia. Your translation may not have in Asia. But do you know what Harrisville was called 300 years ago? I don't either. Okay. So imagine you're 300 years after John, and some people are like, now where was Laodicea again? I've heard about that. So somebody adding this in at some future time makes some sense, and it's probably what happened, but John didn't have it initially, according to the manuscripts. But anyway, he is gonna write it to these churches. Now let me add one more thing here before we talk about the churches. Notice he is not to send this letter to Jerusalem or even to Antioch, but he's to send it to these churches. This is another clue, a hint, that this is after the fall of Jerusalem. Prior to the fall of Jerusalem, right, everything was centered around Jerusalem. Things were shifting, but still, right, Paul kept going back to Jerusalem. We have the Jerusalem Council and so on and so forth. It was the center of the church. But after the fall of Jerusalem, that was no longer the case. And the first center of the church afterward was in Asia Minor. So it's no surprise, then, we see these seven churches here in this area and not in Judea. Now, of course, later, it shifted further west to Rome. and so forth, and of course you have the Eastern and Western Church. All right, now here's where I want you to look at your map again, and I know I've called our attention to this before, and so maybe you can recall it, but if you look here on the map, you'll notice now these seven churches, and we start with Ephesus. And if you have an imagination here, think of a clock and go clockwise. It's not very round, but note the clockwise direction of these churches. In order, it's from Ephesus, north to Smyrna, then to Pergamum, and then to the southeast, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. This is the order of the churches that are listed here and in chapters two and three. And so again, note this very general clockwise direction here for these places. Now, as for these places, Church tradition says that John, after he fled Jerusalem at the fall time frame, went here and actually was in Ephesus. And this was his locus of authority and oversight. Some have even said John oversaw all seven of these churches, but that's not clear. But what is clear is that these cities were prominent cities at the time. And for those of you coming in Sunday school and been watching these videos, you can see that. Today we talked about Pergamos. And it was the key city in Asia Minor for a long time. And then Ephesus took over that and was the key city at the time of John here. But all these cities were prominent. They were political centers, they were judicial centers, and they were centers for mail. So USPS and FedEx and all that, right? This is where they would go, and then they would send out their mail from there. But these were seven key places in the first century, so it makes sense that the letter here would go to these places because of their importance and centrality in this way. As I've mentioned in the past, remember, we know there were other churches. So it wasn't just these seven. but these are the ones that are chosen. Now, because God only chose seven, we must understand them then as representative of the other churches in the area and even of other churches in church history. So we take our symbolic number seven, we also take just the reality of only seven and the fact that we know others were there. And so the message, for example, to Laodicea it would probably be a very similar message to the church in Colossae, because they're basically right next door. The letter to the church in Pergamum may have been very similar if a letter were written to the church in Troas, because again, they're not that far apart. And so these seven churches have a representative message. Oh yeah, it was real for them, it was for them, but it also has some application to the other churches. And as we continue throughout church history then, The way we should understand this is that the messages to these seven churches are messages to us. Now it may be that our church is most like, you know, whatever one it is, but we need to take the message to these seven churches and see how it does apply to us. And so that's what we will be doing when we get to chapters two and three. How does the message to the church in Ephesus apply to Rocky Springs? or the church in Smyrna, the message there, and so forth, okay? And so, again, seven here gives us the symbolic understanding, and this is how we're going to apply it. So we're not just gonna say, oh, this is for those churches, and it has nothing to do with us. No, we're going to learn from it. All right, so let's look now at verse 12. Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. Remember John, verse 10, he heard it behind him, so now he's turning, and he hears a voice, now he's gonna see a voice. How do you see a voice? It's kinda like seeing the wind. But the point here, obviously, is that he is seeing the person who is speaking. And so notice that we have here this poetic device being used. Some people will say it's a synecdoche, some will say it's a metonymy here, but either way you go, you get the idea that the voice is representing the whole person. And so it's referring to the person speaking. But before we talk about the person speaking, notice our attention is drawn to what John sees first. And that is the lampstands. The person is in the midst of the lampstands, obscured to some degree by the lampstands. And so our attention is drawn here first. And so let's make our connections here then in this way. So let's turn again to some of our Old Testament connections. Let's turn first to Exodus chapter 25. The first time we see a reference to the lampstand, obviously, is in the building of the tabernacle. In our reading of Leviticus here a little bit ago, we saw about Aaron taking care, excuse me, of the lampstand, the continual burning of the lampstand. But here in chapter 25, you'll see especially verses 31 and following, you shall also make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be of hammered work, its shaft, branches, bowls, knobs, and so on and so forth, right? So it's not wood overlaid with gold, it's solid gold. And the lampstand has seven lights all together, right? The branches, three off each side, and the one in the middle. And so this is to represent, in part, the light, the light that shines in the tabernacle so that we can see. But there's one of them here. Let's turn then to 1 Kings 7. Here now is where Solomon builds the temple. And like everything Solomon did, he went overboard. And here, there's not just one lampstand, but if you look at 1 Kings 7 verse 49, here near the end of the chapter, verse 49, the lampstands of pure gold, five on the right side and five on the left in front of the inner sanctuary with the flowers of lamps, the wick trimmers of gold, and so on and so forth. So there's not just one lampstand, there are 10 of them. Five on each side and presumably they all had seven lights. So we've got 70 lights not just seven here now in the temple. Let's turn next then to Zechariah chapter 4. And of course we have made reference to this passage a few times now already in our study of Revelation. And in Zechariah 4 You remember that the angel shows Zechariah these things. No, verse two. He said to me, what do you see? So I said, I'm looking and there's a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it. And on the stand, seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other is left, and so on. So you have these olive trees pouring in the oil, so it's burning continually. But note, there's one lampstand. Okay, seven lights with the one lampstand. And you remember the context here is that the Spirit is going to strengthen Zerubbabel to finish the building of the temple after the exile. So you have one lampstand in the tabernacle, one lampstand here in the temple after the exile. There are ten lampstands in the Temple of Solomon, and now seven lampstands here in Revelation 1. So, Remember what I was saying before? It seems like the spirit took John somewhere here in this vision. It doesn't specifically say, but presumably he is taken to the heavenly temple, similar to chapter four and chapter 21. So, the lampstand then is our emphasis, and it gives light, and if I can give a bit of a spoiler here, Okay, to finish our time this morning, the explanation of what this is is given to us in verse 20. But let me give us some understanding here now so that we can kind of round out what's going on here. The lampstand, of course, represents the church. It represents individual believers. It represents the church as a whole. It represents the place of worship. And so here is Jesus in the midst of the churches, this place of worship. Jesus is the light of the world, but the emphasis here is we are the light of the world. You remember the teaching of Jesus in Matthew chapter five that specifically says that, right? You don't light a lamp and cover it. It's like a city on the hill and so forth, right? Remember those words. And so here we have this image of the church. As the spirit strengthens Zerubbabel to rebuild the church, the temple at the time, in the midst of their opposition, so the same spirit, remember the seven spirits, are going to strengthen us to shine the light of truth even in the midst of our hardships. And so here's John on an island, at the very least exiled if not imprisoned. And yet the spirit comes to him and he gives him these visions. So in the same way, whatever hardships we face, it's not going to hinder the work of God through the church to spread the light of the truth. We have one of the greatest books in all the Bible in the midst of someone who is suffering and exiled. And so notice part of what's the message is here, here in this way. And let me give you one last thought then. Remember Jesus, of course, died and rose and ascended around 30 AD. Here now is John receiving this vision around 95 AD, so 65 years later. Now we might not think this was all that big a deal, but But Jesus said he's going to come back soon and they've been waiting for 65 years and he hasn't come yet. What's going on? Why hasn't he come yet? Did we misunderstand him? Did something happen? Are we doing something wrongly? You know, these kinds of things they're asking themselves. Do you see what the message is going to tell us? Again, a bit of a spoiler here, but do you see what the message is? In the midst of our suffering, the Church of God is still standing, and Jesus is still with us. We may not see him, and of course, from our perspective, it's now 2,000 years since he left, but he's with us. And so do you see how this is leading to these words of comfort? We are the lampstand, the church of Jesus Christ. We are to shine the light. And this is going to lead to opposition. It's going to lead to suffering. But Jesus is with us. He is the first and the last. He is the one who was, who is, who is to come. He is with us. And as we'll see next time, we'll see this description of who he is. And all that is to bring us comfort. Because Jesus is not being waylaid because, you know, Satan has the upper hand or something. No, he's with us and he will return at the right time. And so as we are waiting, let us shine the light of the truth, remembering that Christ is with us in our midst. So since we have to subdivide this to get at all the different words and ideas, I'm giving you a little bit of a foretaste of what the final message is here in this opening vision. So we'll stop here today and we'll pick up with this with the image of Christ in verses 13 and following here next time. Let's pray together. Our Father in God, we thank you for your word and how you've preserved things here for us. We thank you for that command you gave to John to write and to send, and that we now have this message. We thank you, Lord, that we see in it the message of comfort and encouragement. We thank you, Lord, that you have made us lampstands and you have given us the responsibility to shine light Help us as we face our hardships, and remember that you are always with us, right in our midst, even as we may wait another 2,000 years for your return. And so, Lord, we pray that as we meet here on this Lord's Day, that your name is lifted up. And we thank you, Lord, that your presence is here with us by your spirit, that seven spirits, And we praise you, Lord, that we have the same message and promises that you gave to John for those early Christians. And may this then guide us as we seek to live for you here today. And so we pray all these things then in Jesus' name. Amen.