So the first thing that we want to look at is the first couple of words from our passage from Revelation 1, 1 through 3, and it is the idea of the revelation. The word revelation that's used there is the Greek word that gives us the term apocalypse. This is one of the reasons why. It's it's called this kind of literature. This is one of the reasons why it's called apocalyptic literature is because that that Greek word that we translate to be the word revelation is actually the word if you Transliterate it if you just take it kind of letter for letter over it into English is the word apocalypse now this word is difficult to define and this is one of the reasons why the book of Revelation is actually a so difficult to interpret. Because normally in books like this, the first few lines, the first few words kind of give you a sense of what's going on, what kind of literature it's going to be, what's going to be happening in it. And so in the Old Testament if you had someone and say the vision that was given to Isaiah or to Ezekiel or whatever, you know that that's a prophetic book. Or if you have someone who's saying now this is the history of so-and-so or these are the names of such-and-such, you know that they're walking through some sort of historical narrative and it needs to be treated that way. Or in the New Testament, say a letter from so and so to such and such, you know that you're dealing with an epistle and that there's a certain way that you need to interpret that. The problem with revelation is that this is not so easily defined as a letter or a gospel or a historical narrative like we've done with other books in the Scripture. First, if we take it to be apocalypse or apocalyptic, which I do think that it is, We need to understand that the definition of that is that it's a kind of literature using significant amounts of symbolism to portray extreme and intense prophetic events. So that's what an apocalypse is. Revelation at its time was not the only apocalyptic literature going around. There are lots of other apocalyptic things that were being written around the same time, slightly before and slightly after. There's actually a... I'd encourage you to read it sometime. It's not very long. There's actually a writing called The Shepherd of Hermas that was almost included in the New Testament. It was written about the same time. And it's kind of the same sort of vibe that you get from reading the book of Revelation. A lot of prophetic events, a lot of strange imagery and those kinds of things. Written probably in the late 90s or early 100s as well from a Christian perspective. And so there's lots of literature that was kind of buzzing around the late B.C., early A.D. time periods that was considered apocalyptic. And it normally used lots and lots of symbolism to discuss extreme and intense prophetic events. The end of the book of Isaiah could be considered apocalyptic, the last 20 chapters or so. And when we went through Isaiah, we talked about these cycling visions that seemed to get more and more intense the closer it gets to the end. The end of the book of Ezekiel is a similar way. Almost all of the book of Daniel could be considered not just prophetic but apocalyptic prophecy. And so this is the kind of thing that we work through. The problem with that, though, is that the word itself strictly means, and this is the reason why it's translated in most of our English Bibles as the revelation, the word itself strictly means to reveal, to disclose, to make fully known, which is our word for revelation. Whenever we talk about how did we receive the Bible, we say we received the Bible through revelation, that God has revealed truth to us that we otherwise would not have been able to discover on our own. That's the idea of what we, talk about when we say that's how we receive the New Testament, and the Old Testament for that matter. And so, this word carries two very full, rich, distinct meanings. It can either be a type of literature that is using symbolic language to describe intense prophetic events, or it could be what the word actually just means in itself to disclose, to unveil, to reveal something that was once hidden. It can mean either one of those. or it could mean both. And that's not uncommon in the Scripture where somebody takes a particular word or phrase that has two different meanings and intentionally uses that word or phrase because they want it to mean both things. And so here I really do think that though this is a kind of apocalyptic prophecy, I do believe that that's the sort of literature that this mostly is, especially once we get to chapter 4 and on. It should also be understood as the unveiled message of Jesus Christ. John is unveiling for us further and deeper and in a richer way the beautiful, wonderful gospel message of Jesus Christ through what he's writing here. He's exposing to us the splendor and grandeur of who Jesus actually is. And so I think both of those things are happening. He's giving us symbolic, prophetic, declarations, and coupling those with, here's more that you need to know about Jesus that you didn't know before. I think both of those things are happening. Now, we need to make note that this revelation is of Jesus Christ. One of the great issues that I've always had, and it doesn't really matter which End Times view it is, one of the great issues that I've always had with discussions on the book of Revelation, discussions on End Times prophecy, is that most of the time, most people focus on everything but Jesus. You know, when's this event going to happen, and is it followed by this event, and is that literal, or is that figurative, and are they sequential, or are they cyclical, visionary cycles? And there's all this dialogue about, you know, what are the different parts, and what do they look like, and how do they fit together? And the book itself tells us, in the first five words in the English translation, that this is a revelation, an apocalyptic declaration, an unveiling of Jesus Christ. And so if we spend a lot of time talking about the revelation and very little time talking about Jesus, we've actually missed the point of what the book's about. And so this is a revelation of Jesus Christ. This is the unveiled message. This unveiled message is about Jesus Christ. That's one way you can understand the of there. It's the revelation of or about Jesus Christ. It's about Him. This is what it's supposed to be about. And if you ever actually just take a moment to read through Revelation, not slowly, that's what we usually run into. We run into the problems of reading through Revelation slowly, because we want to try to figure everything out in one pass. If you'll just take a quick read through Revelation, like they would have heard it when this letter was being read to them, just a quick breeze through, you'll see that this is about Jesus Christ. Every page has something to say about Him and His work and what He's doing. But it's not only about Jesus Christ. This unveiled message belongs to Jesus Christ. It's His possession. He has ownership of it. If you note as we continue to go through verse 1, it says the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him, it belongs to Him. It's not just about Him, but it's also His possession. It belongs to Him. God has given this message, this unveiling to Jesus to do with what He will. And we're going to see what He did with it in just a moment. And so there's a significance of Jesus as both the content and the owner of the message. And here it is. He is the present fulfillment of all the covenantal promises made by God to His people. Because that's the message of the Scripture. God is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. And He has made some covenantal promises to His people. And in Jesus, all of God's promises are yes. That's what we see. We see in the New Testament Jesus regularly pointing back to the Old Testament in His earthly ministry saying, remember when God said this? That's me. Remember when God said this? That's me. Remember when God did this? I'm doing that now. Remember when God said that this is going to happen? You're watching that unfold in front of you right now. The Kingdom of God is at hand right now. This is what's happening. You go and you read many of the New Testament letters, particularly the book of Hebrews, that's exactly how they understood it. They said, listen, Jesus has come, and He's better than Moses, and He's better than David, and He's better than the law, and He's better than the angels, and He's a new and better Melchizedek. And He just starts walking through all this stuff and He's saying, Jesus is better than, Jesus is greater than, He's fulfilling all this. We don't have to make sacrifices anymore because He's made the once-for-all sacrifice. We don't have to do this anymore because He's done that. We don't have to have the priesthood anymore because He is our High Priest. And He just walks through and says Jesus is better than. And so we have this picture here in Revelation of Jesus being both the content and the owner of the message. And one significance of that is that He's the fulfillment of all of the message up to this point. Second, it also means that He is the focal point of the historical redemptive narrative. God has been telling us a real life story of how He's drawing and redeeming and reconciling the world back to Himself. That's what this is. God is telling us a remarkable story of man's rebellion and sin and what God has done and is doing to undo all of the negative effects of man's cosmic treason and rebellion against Him, drawing and redeeming all of creation back to Himself. And the focal point of that where it gets honed in in a microscope, laser kind of way, is Jesus. Jesus is the focal point. Man wants to be redeemed. Man wants to be reconciled. So there's the tabernacle, and there's the law, the temple, and there's the prophets, and there's all of these things, the Old Testament Scripture that's given. We have all of these things that are being supplied along the way. And time after time and again, there's still a struggle, and there's still the failure, and it doesn't seem like true redemption and reconciliation are really happening. And it's only happening in an isolated group of people, and it's not global. And it just doesn't seem to be, quote-unquote, successful, if you will. And then God sends Jesus into the world. And shortly after His ascension, His resurrection and His ascension, thousands upon thousands of people from all different kinds of people groups, all different kinds of nation states, it crosses language, it crosses culture, it crosses global divides, it crosses everything. And suddenly, like a massive wave flowing out of a tsunami, it begins to cover the earth. And the beautiful thing, yes, there's still a lot of work left to do. I agree. I agree with NAM. I agree with IMB. I agree with other missional organizations. There's still a lot of work to do. There's still a lot of people who need to hear about Jesus. But when you really look at the global scene, when you see a global map representing the places that have been touched by Christianity, whether there's a large pocket of Christians or the gospel has been preached there, there's not many places left on the map that aren't lit up. Why? Because Jesus is the focal point of the redemptive historical narrative. And not long after he came and did what he was going to do on the earth, and he ascended to the right hand of the Father, waiting to come again and finally bring all things to their culmination, which the end of Revelation is about. In the meantime, he's been declared as the focal point of the historical narrative over and over and over and over. And entire nations have been changed and reshaped because of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. And so he is the owner and the content of this message. He's the sovereign king. Jesus Himself is the sovereign king of the outworking of this historical narrative, of this history. There's an end of it. There's a reason why God is doing what He's doing with this historical narrative. To the end of which is glorious reconciliation of all things to Himself. That's the end goal. The end goal is all things being made new. And so what we see when we look out at the world is we go, okay, I see things starting to be made new. I see things beginning to be the way that they ought to be, but they're not there yet. So we live in this weird tension of, I see the work of Jesus starting to do what it ought to do with a lot of people and a lot of places and a lot of things. But it hasn't quite gotten there yet. And I really don't even have to look out at the world to know that that's true. I just have to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. Because I see my life, and I go, wow, I see Jesus doing stuff in me, and He's making things new in me. He's changing things in me. I'm not the same person that I used to be. But I'm certainly not the person I need to be yet. So I'm living in it, but it's not done. And then when I start looking around, I say, what do you know? The whole world's like that. Every other Christian that I meet is that way. Every nation-state that I look at is that way. The news stories that I hear are that way. And so we see that there's this focal point. He's the content and the owner of the message. So, it is the revelation. It is the apocalyptic decoration of prophecy and the unveiling and the making known of the person of Jesus Christ as the focal point of redemptive historical history. Now, having said that, Let's take a look at the next thing though. He says that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave Him to show to His bondservants. And we'll talk about that in just a moment. The things which must soon take place. Now, this must soon take place has caused a lot of people a lot of problems from the book of Revelation. I've already told you last time when we got together, and if you haven't seen the definitions, they're online. You can look them up. But this is one of the things, this must soon take place, is one of the things that the Preterist people have going for them. Because the Preterist people all said everything in the book of Revelation is past, and it happened a long time ago. And you say, how is that even possible? Because most of the stuff that I read about here is very clearly not occurred yet. So how do you say that? They say, because at the very beginning of the book it said it has to soon take place. And if you tie that back to what Jesus said in His Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and 25, He said, it'll happen before this generation passes away. He said, so in order for that to be true, all this stuff had to take place, you know, around 70 A.D. or before. You know, textually, that's actually a pretty good argument. They've got that going for them. This must soon take place, and the time being near have been very difficult for people to understand what's going on in this book for a very long period of time. Because I'm going to be as honest with you as I can be. When I read Revelation 20, 21, and 22, that hasn't happened yet. And when it was told to people, that wasn't near. Nor was that time quick. Because it's been almost 2,000 years since this story was told, and this stuff hasn't happened yet. And so that creates a weird tension. So what's going on here? How do we understand this must soon take place? Well, the first thing that we'll want to note, and I'd encourage you to go back and read it for yourself in Daniel chapter 2, this language is borrowed from Daniel chapter 2 and a handful of other Old Testament apocalyptic writings. Some of this is borrowed from Daniel chapter 2. Some of it's borrowed from Daniel chapter 7. Starting in about chapter 34 of Ezekiel running through the end of the book, you have similar kinds of language used. The thing that we need to note when we see how it's used in the Old Testament, in the Old Testament context of things being near, things being close at hand, things getting ready to happen soon as the English translation renders it, this does not necessarily require an immediate event conclusion cycle. It doesn't necessarily say, OK, these things have to happen soon, so here's the event and this is the conclusion it's going to bring, and you need to put it on the clock because it's going to all happen really fast. That's not necessarily what this is referencing. This is likely not a reference to proximity of time as it relates to events. If you go back and you read the text in Daniel, if you read the text in Daniel 2 and 7, the last part of Ezekiel, some of the things in Isaiah that use this similar kind of language, you'll see that this is likely a reference to the swiftness and or the ongoing sustainability of whatever the event is going to be. In this case, the inaugurated kingdom, not the consummated one. In other words, how quickly is this thing going to start going, not necessarily how quickly is this thing going to end once it gets started. And so if we have John here writing to the churches, and he's writing to them about this message, and if he's writing to them about this message being spread, and if he's talking to them about a new, fresh, full unveiling of Jesus Christ that's about to take place, and he's going to encourage persecuted churches to continue to overcome as they try to live in this message, which is what we're going to see going forward, we see that this is more likely than not, not a reference to how are things going to end, but a reference to how are things going to move as they're sustained toward that end. And the reality is, friends, is that the gospel has always spread very quickly. Always. Let's just walk back through this. The gospel of Acts. Holy Spirit falls on them. They go outside. They start preaching. And it says how many people got saved that day? 3,000 people got saved that day. And we know that in the ancient world's way of counting, that was only the men. So it likely was somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people that probably got saved that day because they probably had some wives that got saved, probably had some single ladies that got saved, probably had some older children that were converted. There's a lot of people that probably weren't counted in the 3,000 because that's just not how they did counting at that time. just like when it said they fed 5,000, it's probably closer to 20 or 25,000 people that they fed that day because they wouldn't have counted the women or the kids. That's just not what they would have done. And so you have this sense in which there's this wrath, pow, they go and they preach the gospel and thousands of people are converted. And then they start doing church things, and they start planning, they start moving around, people start going out, persecution breaks out. And everywhere you go, you see them talking to people on Jesus. And everywhere you go, you see people getting saved and new churches being started. And it's like a wildfire, almost unstoppable. The Roman church put in probably the severest form of persecution that we've ever even really heard about on the planet earth in the earliest part of the church, even with some of the new modern things that have gone on. It was just ridiculous systematic persecution of the church early on, and yet it still continued to thrive and it still continued to grow, even to the point of eventually reaching empirical status under Constantine. where he basically woke up one day and said, we're all just going to be Christians now. Now, I'm not saying that's the best way to do evangelism. In fact, I would say that's probably the worst way to do evangelism. But it's what happened. There was a declaration globally, at least in that empire, of Christianity. And then you begin to see it flying out. Even in China, one of the hardest, worst places for somebody to try to be a Christian, they guesstimate tens of millions, if not possibly hundreds of millions of underground Christian believers. in one of the worst places for a person to try to be a Christian. We have even the testimonies in our own church of our friends who go to an island near here where people, until very recently, haven't been able to go to share that. I'm being very vague because this is online. And so there's people that are going and they're sharing and they're doing the gospel. And there's piles of believers at this place. And they suffer and they struggle and they try to do what they can do, but they believe in Jesus and they love Him. It's remarkable. There's no holding back the swiftness and the aggressiveness with which this kingdom is born into this world. More likely than not, especially if you really take into account the context of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 and other passages, this is probably dealing more with the swiftness of things and the rapid movement of things rather than how quickly the proximity of the end of things is going to come. In other words, another good translation, and some Bibles actually do this, is these things which must happen quickly or swiftly rather than these things which must come on us, soon take place. That soon takes place kind of gives a sense of moving toward an end rather than things which must happen swiftly or quickly. This emergence of the rapidness of what's going on. So having said that, what is the message then? So we have this unveiling, we have this message, this revelation of Jesus Christ, and God has given it to Him. He's the owner and the content of that message. And this explosiveness of this message must happen swiftly and happen aggressively in the world. So what is it? What is this current message and the blessings? Well, that's the focus of Revelation. The current message and its blessings are the focus. Notice if you walk through this passage in these few verses. The message has come from God the Father, and so it says the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave Him. So God the Father gives to God the Son this message. And He gave it to Him to show to His bondservants the things which must soon take place. And he sent it and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant John, which we'll see throughout Revelation that that's kind of how that goes. John's having these conversations with these angelic beings as he receives these visions that he's going to have. who then testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Christ, even to all that he saw. Well, who did he testify it to? Well, you back up, and that's the bondservants. He testified to the bondservants, because that's ultimately who Jesus was going to give it to. And so you have this message from God the Father to God the Son, Jesus Christ, by way then of an angelic being that Jesus gives it to, to John himself, who then relays it to Jesus' bondservants. And then here, very clearly, this context, the bondservants represents the people of the church, and so He gives it to His church. And so what is the message? What is this important message that God the Father gives to God the Son, who gives to an angel, who gives to John, who He then gives to the churches? For the churches to be encouraged by and to be blessed by. Well, this is the message that He gives. And it's remarkable. The message is the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. So Philip, that doesn't really answer the question. That doesn't tell me what the message is. Yes, it does. Basically, God is giving John a vision and instruction, visionary and verbal, to unpack the entire Word of God as the testimony of Jesus Christ. That's what He's doing. Now that's not all that he's doing. But from these three verses, he's saying, OK, I have a revelation of Jesus. God the Father is going to give it to God the Son, who's going to give it to an angel, who's going to give it to John, and John's going to give it to the churches. And what is it? What is he testifying? He's testifying to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. In other words, how does this entire revelation of God so far teach us about the glory of Jesus? That's what John is about to do with the greater part of what the book of Revelation is about. He's going to unfold for us the splendor and the glory and the beauty of the person of Jesus Christ. That's what he's going to do. Which is why I say that when we look on this, every single page of this book, we should see Jesus, because that's what John is doing. He is showing us Jesus. Because here in a few weeks when we really start walking through some of the meat of this, He's going to be giving a lot of exhortations and a lot of encouragement and a lot of warnings and a lot of, hey, for the one who overcomes, hey, who has ears to hear, hey, this, hey, that. And every single one of them is going to be pointing to something that you would have only experience with if you're focusing on Jesus. The ability to overcome. You have to focus on Jesus. The ability to hear has to be done through the Spirit because you have encountered Jesus. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Every single section to every single one of the churches starts with a glorified representation of who Jesus is. And then He directly speaks to them about their lives and how their lives need to be properly transformed if they're going to reflect His glory to the world. And the purpose of them reflecting His glory to the world is that they might overcome and might have ears to hear so that the world might be changed. by the message that they are taking to them from the message that they have received. Every page. Every page. It's important also that the Apostle John continues to fulfill the role of a first-hand witness. What's happening in this book, because it's both revelatory and apocalyptic prophetic, what's happening in this book is unlike anything else that's happening in any other book in the Scripture. And we need an apostolic witness to the truthfulness of it. We need someone who is walking with Jesus, hand in hand, knew the ministry, knew the work. who's had that trustworthiness of being a first-generation apostle, to then look at the rest of the churches and say, churches, listen, this is how things are going to be as we move toward the final consummation of this swift, rapid-moving kingdom development of the gospel. And so we have John here as being the one who, all throughout the Revelation, look and see, behold, here's a vision, and he's constantly engaging it himself. And then finally, as we move toward the end of this section, it gives a blessing. It says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy. Now, I want to pause there. I think a lot of times when we study the book of Revelation, we get to that and we stop. We go, blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy. See, it's blessed if you read it. And, heed the things which are written in it. This is a not read-and-study-just-to-know-stuff book. This is a call-to-action book. This book is calling for the transformation of our lives. And so if we study it, no matter what view we hold, if we study it and all that we have done is gained knowledge from it, Look, I've got some information. I've got some charts, and I've got some graphs, and I have a cool timeline, and I've made some good connections to the Old Testament, and I've done some great word studies, and I've understood some symbolism. Look at all the stuff that I know about what this book is saying now. And it doesn't lead to life transformation. We've missed the book. We've missed the point of what's going on. Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy and heed the things that are written in it. And so there has to be a move toward life transformation when we engage this book. Now, I want to spend a couple of minutes with this last phrase though in this section. For the time is near. Actually a slightly different phrase from must soon take place that was up above. And I want to show because I know that there's going to be some concerns with with the presentation of this as a kingdom view kind of book. The present already abiding kingdom swiftly developing itself to the place where it will become the consummated kingdom. This phrase, the time is near, can also be translated, the occasion is at hand or the season is upon us. This is the language used most frequently by Jesus to speak about the kingdom in His gospel messages about being near or at hand. This phrase, or a version of this phrase, a restructuring of these words, are the ones most frequently used by Jesus when He talks about the proximity of the kingdom to this earthly realm. He comes in and He says, you must repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. This at hand is the same language. The time is near. It is upon us. The occasion is here. The season is here. We are on the precipice of it. We are actually walking into the beginning front edges of it. It is actually starting is what's happened. And friends, what we need to understand is that the consummation of the Kingdom, This is very important for Christians just overall to understand. The consummation of the kingdom in God's economy is never far away from the inauguration of the kingdom. Because in God's perspective, the fullness of the kingdom is found in the person of Jesus Christ. Who is the Alpha and the Omega? The first and the last. The beginning and the end. The One who is and the One who was and the One who is to come. From God's everlasting perspective, the victory is already Jesus's. It belongs to Him already. He's already the conquering King. He's already seated at the right hand. He's already made a public spectacle of the powers and the principalities of the heir. He's already declared His people to be not guilty. He has already overthrown the power and destructive sway of sin and death on the lives of those that it has had a death grip on. He has already done what He has needed to do on the cross in His resurrection from the dead to win the great victory. He is the victorious King already. There just happens to be, from a human perspective, a significant time gap between the event of that inauguration and the second coming of the consummation. But nothing is really going to change about who Jesus is between there and then. He's still the same great resurrected King. And so from God's perspective, the inauguration of the kingdom and the consummation of the kingdom are never far apart because they're all found in one isolated spot, the person of Jesus. For us, it seems distant and it seems long-stretched. But friends, just as the kingdom was at hand in Jesus' day, friends, the kingdom is still at hand in our day. John is focusing then, I would say, on the current, blessed, life-giving unveiling of Jesus as King and as Savior, that those who have heard and will heed will receive the blessing of life in His name. And friends, this is an encouraging message. I told you last time, and I will continue to tell you through all the weeks that we spend in Revelation. Revelation is a message of incredible encouragement. Because these churches that he's about to write this letter to were suffering severely for being Christians. Now, let's note that. They were suffering severely for being Christians. They weren't suffering severely like a lot of Christians in our day do for being Christians who were jerks. They were suffering severely for being Christians. There's a difference. When you get a guy who gets on TV, and he's the Christian guy, and he completely disrespects everybody, and he mouths off to everybody, and he's rude, and he cuts people off, and he isn't gracious to anybody, and then people badmouth him, he's not being persecuted because he was a Christian. He's being persecuted because he was a jerk. These people are being persecuted for believing in Jesus. That's why they're being persecuted. And John's writing to them saying, listen, I know you want some relief. I know you want to reprieve. I know it feels like God's far off. I know it feels like those promises are lagging. I know it feels like God is being inconsistent. I know that it feels like God might be far away. I know that you were promised this kingdom and this priesthood and all of these sorts of things, and it doesn't seem like that's what's happening. I know that you were promised this life and life abundantly. I even wrote that to you and told you that Jesus said that. I know that this is not exactly how you thought it was going to be, but I want you to be encouraged. Because what I'm about to share with you is about the current, blessed, life-giving unveiling of Jesus as King and Savior over all those who have heard this and will heed to its message. And friend, I don't know where everybody is in the room today. But I know that for a lot of you, you're at sorrowful, suffering types of places. Some of it is because of your religious faith. Some of it's just because the world is still under the sway of sin. Your sin. Somebody else's sin. The general darkness of the sway of the power of sin on this earth. The fact that all of creation is still groaning. And you are having to suffer through the negative side effects of living in a world that hasn't been fully redeemed and reconciled yet. And you just need some encouragement. You just need to hear that God is going to be true to His promises to His people. That's what this whole book is actually about. That God is going to be true to His Word. And that in Jesus all things will reach their ultimate reconciled conclusion. And that there is a great reward to be had for the one who overcomes in Jesus. Friends, that is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And that's where we're going to be going for the next several weeks together. Let's pray. Father God, thank You. Thank you that in this book we have the encouragement that, God, You will be true to Your Word, that You're a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God, and that all of Your promises are yes in Jesus. And Father, as we begin to move together toward the rest of this study, let us not forget the things that we've heard today, that this is an unveiling of Your Son walking through the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus found in there. That it's a gracious gift from You to the Son, to Your angel, to John, to us. And that the time is upon us. It's near at hand. The occasion is here. That we are living in the swift, emerging, continued reality of the spreading of the Kingdom of God throughout this dark world. That we are active, transformed participants in the life of Jesus in this realm right now. And so, Father, whatever we're facing, whatever we're dealing with, whatever struggles we're having, whatever sorrows may have come our way, whatever true, genuine persecutions we may be facing, whatever side effects of our own sin or the sins of others that are weighing down on our lives, that are causing us to experience pain, we know, we believe, we are coming to understand that You love us. You have given Your Son for us. And that He will indeed return one day to finish what He has started. That He truly will make all things new. And so we pray with John, come quickly, Lord Jesus. And we ask it in His name. Amen.