Priscilla Shirer - Worthy Are You Lord

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Going to read to you Revelation chapter four. Ha oh yeah,
y'all already. Well, I figured if we were gonna do it,
we might as well.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Go ahead and do it.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Revelation chapter four. After these things, I looked, and behold
there was a door that was standing open in the heavens.
And the first voice that I had heard before, like
the sound of a.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Trumpet speaking with me, said come.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Up here, and I will show you what will take
place after these things verse two. And immediately I was
in the spirit, and behold there was a throne that
was standing in the heavens, and one that was sitting
on it. He looked like a jasper stone and a
sardius in appearance. There was a rainbow all around the throne.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
And it was like an emerald in appearance verse four.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Around the throne there were twenty four smaller thrones, and
upon those thrones I saw.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Twenty four elders.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
They were clothed in white, they had golden crowns on
their head. And from the throne proceeded flashes of lightning
and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven
lamps burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits
of God. And before the throne there was, as it were,
a sea of glass, like a sea of glass, yes

(01:29):
like crystal. And in the center and around the throne
four living creatures full of eyes in front and behind.
And the first creature was like a lion, the second
creature like a calf. The third creature had the face
like a man, the fourth creature like a flying eagle.
And the four living creatures, each of them having six wings,

(01:50):
all full of eyes around.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
And within day and night.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
They do not cease to say, Holy, Holy, Holy is
the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is
to come. And when the living creatures give glory and
honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne,
to him who lives forever and ever, the twenty and

(02:16):
four Elders they fall down before him who sits on
the throne. They worship him who lives forever and ever.
They cast their crowns at his feet, and they say,
worthy are you, Lord, our God, to receive glory and.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Honor and power.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
For you did iss create all things, and because of
your will they existed and were created.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Lord Jesus, in advance of your word.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
We say, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty,
because you remain the solid rock.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thank you Father, that we can build our lives on you.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
In Jesus' name, we pray Amen, Amen, you may take
your seats. It was probably thirty years ago. I might
not have even yet been twenty. As a matter of fact,
if I was, I was in my early twenties.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I was at a little retreat.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
There were about forty women that were gathered at this retreat.
I don't remember much about it because it was so
long ago, except one thing. There was a woman that
spoke at the retreat that day. She was in her
sixties at the time. Her name was Dorry van Stone.
Dorry shared her testimony at the retreat. I remember being riveted,

(03:44):
as were all forty or fifty of us that were
sitting in that room. We were riveted, sadly, because her
story was very traumatic. She told us about her upbringing,
that she was born and raised her and her little
sister in Oakland, California, to a mother that did not
want them, and she would tell them that she wishes
she had never had them. Most of their experience with

(04:07):
her was her being frustrated, angry, and upset that they
even existed. She tried to stay away from home as
much as possible because she didn't want to be or
take care of the two girls. So Mom would leave
for hours that would often turn into days, and little
Dorry and her younger sister Marie were talking four and

(04:28):
three years old, five and four years old. They'd be
left alone for days on end, hungry, trying to figure
out what to eat, afraid at night when they would
hear noises that they didn't know what to do with noises.
During the day, they were neglected and unattended. If Mom
ever did show any affection, it was always to Marie,
never to Dorry. Dorry constantly felt overlooked, unloved, unaffirmed. She

(04:54):
wondered if anybody would ever love her. She remembers at
her mother's most angry moments, Mom would take both girls
and lock them in.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
A closet for hours that would sometimes turn into days.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
She shared the testimony of one time her mother coming
home and saying to her and her little sister, come on,
were taking a drive.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
They got in the car, took a drive down a
long winding road.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
It was a long drive and when they got down
this one windy path that ended up at an enormous
building with gargantuan stairs that went up to the front door.
They knocked on the door and before anybody even answered.
Dorry remembers turning around seeing her mother walking back down
the stairs, getting in the car, and driving off. That
was the day they were dropped off at an orphanage.

(05:40):
They soon discovered the orphanage director of the sixty or
so girls that were there. The orphanage director was more
cruel and abusive than the mother had ever been. She
would beat the girls if they cried even one tear
because they were lonely or out of sadness. So Dorry
learned how to hide, how to cover herself up and

(06:01):
cry tears that nobody would hear.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
She would get dressed up on.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Adoption day because couples would come to try to see
if there was a child they wanted to foster or adopt.
She'd put on her one dress, she'd paste on a smile.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
She would walk.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Around in hopes that someone would finally love her, that
they'd finally choose her.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
She was never adopted.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
She aged out of the system was sent to a
foster home. Now separated from her sister, sent to a
foster home and to make a long story short, that
transition started a devastating turn of events where she went
from one foster home to halfway houses to foster homes.
More abuse, more neglect, more being overlooked and unloved.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
That was the story of her life.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Along the way, some college students had come to visit
the orphanage had introduced Jesus to the kids. She had
accepted Christ, and that began.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
To shift the trajectory of her life, but it was
still hard.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
I remember after she shared her testimony, I went out
to the lobby, we got our box lunches. I grabbed
her book. She had a copy. She had a book
that was there. I don't even know if it's in
print anymore. It was called Dory, the Girl Nobody Loved.
I took the box lunch and the book. I remember
going into a little corner where I could try to
read some more of her story. And I was reading

(07:16):
the details in the book that she had not been
able to explain during the thirty or forty five minutes
she was speaking to us.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
She hadn't been able to go into the detail.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
But the book did the kind of neglect this young
girl's suffered, the kind of abuse.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
This young girl.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Suffered not only from the hand of her mother's but
the other her mother, but the other people who were
supposed to be taking.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Care of her and looking after her.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
I couldn't even comprehend My body language must have told
what I was feeling as I read that book in
the corner that day, because I felt a shadow come
over me, and when I looked up, Dorry van Stone
was standing right in front of me.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
I'll never forget it. She saw me reading her.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Book, saw the way it was impacted me. She walked
over to me and she put her hand on my
shoulder and she said, sweet girl, She said, sweet girl,
don't you cry for me.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
She said, I want you to know he was with
me the whole time.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
She said, I couldn't quite explain it when I was little,
but in those dark hours, when I was at some
of my worst moments, when I was alone and not
knowing exactly what I was gonna do next, there was
a presence, an awareness of God's peace.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
There was an awareness of God's presence.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
She said, I didn't know what it was then, but
now in my sixties, I'm looking back on it, and
I realized that God himself seemed to be opening up
something of a window for me, so that even in
the pitch black of that closet, I could see that
there was a God who loved me, that he cared
for me, that he had fingerprints on my life, that
he was taking me somewhere, she said, knowing he was

(08:56):
with me, that made all the difference in the world.
John the Apostle is the writer of the Book of Revelation.
You and I have the privilege of being a part
of Bible believing and teaching churches, so we know that
this John is the exact same John that wrote the Gospel.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
John is one of the twelve that walked.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
With Jesus and talked with Jesus. Was in the most
intimate relationship with Jesus possible, not only because he was
one of the twelve, but he was one of the three,
one of the three most close companions of Jesus Christ
during his earthly ministry, which means he was an eye
witness himself to seeing what it was like to be
in close physical proximity with Jesus the Christ.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
He was there to see that brother walk on water.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
He was there to see when Jesus turned water into wine.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
He was there when that woman pressed her way through
the crowd so.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
That she could be one of the ones who maybe
got close enough that she could reach out and touch
the hem of his garment. And when she did, power
left him and went to her and changed the course
of her life. John was there and saw it for himself.
He saw lame folks get up and walk. He saw
blind ears start hearing, and blind people start seeing, and

(10:14):
the dead even be raised. He saw it for himself.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
And not only did he see what Jesus did, he
heard what Jesus said.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Those disciples they had heard teaching and preaching before from
the Sadducees and the scribes and the Pharisees and.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
The religious leaders of the day.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
But they ain't never heard nothing like this, because when
Jesus opened up his mouth, his words were dripping with
an authority they had never ever heard before. Think about
how you'd feel if Jesus were your pastor. They were
with him and experienced what it was like to be

(10:51):
in close proximity.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
With Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
But when we meet John all the way in the
Book of Revelation, his circumstances have come completely changed because
Jesus has now been crucified, he has already been resurrected,
he has already ascended to Heaven.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
So John is.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
No longer in the physical presence of Jesus. And not
only has his relationship with Jesus in that sense changed,
but so have his actual circumstances, because now he has
been exiled to the island of Patmos.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's an island that had.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Been situated by the Roman government to basically become a
prison for anybody that they've considered to be a criminal
or an enemy of the state. They would send them
to Patmus. Patmos was like a rock quarry. They were
sentenced to hard labor, no shade, no covering. The Mediterranean
sun beating down on them would bake their skin, and

(11:47):
the light refracting off of those rocks would blind their
eyes so that their eyes were scarred. Their lungs would
begin to deteriorate as the dust flew off the rocks,
and they inhaled it every single day for the en
tirety of their sentence. There was no way off the
island and no way for someone to come rescue them
from the island.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
They were stuck.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Think Nelson Mandela on Robin Islands. Their entire lives were
completely decinerating, and the rock quarries all around them were
representative of their circumstances.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Everywhere they looked.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Everywhere John looked, all he saw were hard things everywhere
on every.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Side of his life.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
And it occurs to me that in a group this size,
there are some of you that know exactly how that feels,
because it's not just one hard thing. It's like you
just dealt with that hard thing, and you turn over
here it's another one waiting on you. And then you
turn on this side of your life and that side
of your life, and you're surrounded by hard things. John
knows exactly how you feel. But on one day, in

(12:52):
the middle of the difficulty of Earth, the difficulty of pactness,
John says verse one, I looked up, and when I
looked up, I realized there was something of a door
that was standing open in the heavens, giving me opportunity
to see the presence of God, to experience the peace
of God, to know that the power of God was

(13:13):
still on my side, even though I was standing flat
footed on Patnos. John says, there's a door access to
the presence and power and peace of God that remains
open to us no matter the difficulty of the circumstances
that we face, if only.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
We look up. John says, I looked, and I saw
the door was open.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
When we're in the midst of the of hard things.
I don't know about you, I'll tell on myself. When
I'm in the midst of hard things, I often feel
like the door of Heaven has been closed.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
I don't feel his presence.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
I don't sometimes since his fingerprints in my life, and
so I feel like the door of Heaven is closed.
But John says, no, it's not Heaven that's closed. It's
your spiritualizes that are closed. Because if you'll just look,
you'll see access to God always remains available for those
of us who are in.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Relationship with Him.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
The reason why this matters so much and it's so important, y'all,
is because just a few verses earlier, in the bottom
of Revelation chapter three, Jesus had been describing his relationship
with the Church of Laodicea, the church the lukewarm believers
at Laodicea. Here's how Jesus described his posture with the church.

(14:35):
I stand at the door and knock Revelation three twenty.
I wish somebody would open up this door, he says,
because I'm standing on the outside of the door and
I'm knocking, And if they'd open the door, I would
come in, and I would dine with.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Them, in fellowship with them.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
That verses often used an evangelistic efforts. But y'all, when
Jesus said, and he wasn't talking about evangelism. He was
talking about his relationship.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
With his own people. He said, I'm outside of the
door of.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
My own church, which means it's possible for us to
be in here and him to be out there.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's possible for us to.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Be in here consumed with personalities and platitudes and programs
and completely missed the presence of God. So if the
church's door was closed, that means they closed it just
like we do. We close it through our indifference. We

(15:39):
close it through our frustration, we close it through our rebellion,
we close it through our stubbornness, our hardness of heart.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
But I'm so grateful that He does not.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Treat us the way we treat him, so that even.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
When our door is closed, John says, look.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
The door of hope heaven remains open to you, that
He has given you access to His presence at all times.
John says, not only was the door open, but then
I heard a voice. It was loud and clear, like
a trumpet, and the voice gave me the invitation of
a lifetime. The voice said, come up here in the

(16:17):
middle of having your feet firmly planted in the.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Realities the problems.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Of earth, there is always a standing invitation for basically
us as believers, to live in two places at the
exact same time, our feet planted on earth, but our
eyes fixed on the.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Realities of Heaven. Y'all.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Every day we're supposed to be living in two places
at the same time, working and living, and raising our kids,
and building the business, and working in the ministry, and
doing what God has assigned for us to do on earth,
but our mind fixed on Jesus, on the realities of Heaven.
The apostle Paul put it this way in Colossians chapter three.

(17:00):
If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep
seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the
right hand of the Father. Set your mind on things above,
not on things that are on the earth. For you
have died, and your life is now hidden in Christ
with God.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
The door is open, the invitation is open. John accepts both.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
He's standing at the open door of heaven, and he says,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, tonight, come here,
real quick, Concord, let me escort you to this door,
because if you'll grab hold of my hand for just
a few minutes and let me take you to this door,
you go see some stuff on the other side of
this door that's.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Gonna change the course of your life.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
The entire way you relate to Patmus to Earth will
be completely transformed if you just get a little glimpse of.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
What's behind this door. He says verse two.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Immediately I was in the spirit and behold. Can we
just pause right there for just one second. You need
to know, y'all that in the New Testament, whenever you
see the word behold, just know English can't do it
the full job of translating what the original writer was
trying to imply. Every time you see behold, you need
to know what the writer meant was exclamation point. Sit

(18:28):
on the edge of your seat, put your chin in
your hands, lean all the way in, and pay full
attention because you're not gonna want to miss what's on
the other side of this door, Sean says. Immediately I
was in the spirit, and behold, the very first thing
he saw was a throne. He said, I looked on
the other side of this throat, this door, and the

(18:51):
very first thing that caught my attention is that even
though the realities of Earth seem out of my control
and overwhelming, and like there's nothing I can do to
change my circumstances, I feel like nobody's presiding, nobody's governing,
nobody's looking over me and watching out for me. John says,
I looked up and realized there is a throne that

(19:13):
has not been moved. It has not been changed. It
is set and situated in the heavens. The realities of
Earth have not affected the throne.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
He said. I saw a set throne. It is unmovable.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
It is unchangeable, It is untouchable, It is unbothered, it
is unaffected. There is no coup that is powerful enough
to overthrow it.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
There is no person influential enough.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
To you, Surpent, There is no dictator that is forceful
enough to seize it. John says, Look, behold, there is
a throne, and it is set in the heavens. The
Book of Revelation, y'all is overwhelming. It's difficult to understand
so many symbols and images that we can't quite wrap
our mind around. But John says, if you don't walk

(20:01):
away with nothing else, would you please remember there's a throne.
Over forty times in the Book of Revelation. This phrase
comes up, a throne, a throne thirteen times in this
one chapter.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
He says, there's a throne.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
There's a throne, which means the central feature not only
in the things to come for the church, but.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
The central feature in our lives right now as believers
in Jesus Christ, as a part of the Body of Christ.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
The central feature is supposed to be that there is
a throne around which we govern every aspect of our lives.
That we remember, we are not out here like loose cannons,
doing our own thing without the presiding sovereign ruler who
is in the heavens.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
He is watching you, he sees you.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
He's aware of the details of your life and of mine.
John says, there is a throne.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
The reason why this would have mattered to.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
The first century believers to whom he was writing this
letter is because at the time, y'all, the throne of
Rome was so powerful that it was influencing the entire
culture and shifting the course of the world as.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
They knew it. The emperor was so powerful.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
That he decided you had to legally worship him as God.
He didn't mind if you still serve y'r way, but
you had to bring him up to the same par
as y'all weigh, and bend the need to him as.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
The creator and Lord. The entire reason why.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
John was exiled is because John had decided, I don't
know what everybody else is doing, but as for me and.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
My house, I will not bend the knee.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
I will not compromise my faith, pay my taxes to Caesar, yes,
respect the office of Caesar, yes, But what I'm not
gonna do is pledge my full allegiance to you.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
John says, I've walked.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
With Jesus, I've talked with Jesus, I watched him be
crucified and resurrected, and as sind, there ain't no way
I'm finna pledge my allegiance to anyone except Christ, to
Christ alone. That's why he's been exiled. What I'm trying
to tell you. Is the entire system into which these
first century believers had situated, this Church and this Christ

(22:16):
to whom they were pledging their allegiance. The whole system
around them was Antichrist. The whole system around us is Antichrist.

(22:36):
For any of us that are deciding, as for me
and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord, We're not
gonna compromise our faith. For those of us who are
deciding that the church will be built on solid rock,
that we're going to make sure to teach the uncompromising
truths of Scripture in the house of the Living God.
For those of us who have decided we're gonna try

(22:58):
to raise our children in a way that they have
some kind of reverence for the things of God.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
In a culture where there is steady moral.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Decline and a rising injustice and a low standard of
holiness and an intolerance. For those of us who are
pledging our allegiance to the Christ, we live in an
anti christ culture, just like they did. John says to
them the exact same thing he says to us, tonight,
don't get it twisted.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
They're not in charge.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
He is.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
There remains a throne, and.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
The throne is above every other throne, above all earthly thrones,
above all powers, above all human authorities, above all seats
of influence, above all presidents, above all administrations, above.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
All monarchs, above all kings.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Above all governmental systems, above all institutions, above all establishments.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
There is a throne.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
It has not been replaced, it has not been moved,
It has not diminished in power, and it is also
not unoccupied. Because John said, not only did I see
a throne, but I saw somebody seated on the throne.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
And John said, I recognized him.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
He was the Exalted Jesus Christ, and he was positioned
in a seated position.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
On that throne.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
He reigns forever and evermore. Sean says, he was sitting
down on the throne.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
In the ancient Near East, kings didn't sit when there
was a battle. When there was a war.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
That was raging, A king stand up so that he
can have oversight of the battle, so that he could
give clarity for the strategy in bringing home the victory
from the battle. The only time a king sat down
is once the battle had already been won.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
John said, I saw him. He wasn't standing by the throne.
He wasn't pacing in front of the throne.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
John says, I saw Jesus sitting down on the throne
to remind you that the battle has already been won.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Amen. Amen.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
That means we're not fighting for victory.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
We're fighting from a victory.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
The victory has already been secured by the King of.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Kings and the Lord of lords.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
He is the sovereign sitting king. This knowledge is not
designed to give you goosebumps. It's not designed to just
make you emotional. John says, if you really get a
glimpse of what's going on behind this door, if you'll
really see it tonight and absorb it into the fabric

(26:18):
of your soul and your life, that kind of knowledge.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Right there will settle you. It'll calm you.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
It'll give you a piece that passes all understanding. Getting
a good glimpse of the sovereign ruler sitting on the throne,
it will allow you to do what Psalm forty six
ten says, be still and know that he is God's
When your child has left home and has broken your heart,

(26:50):
when your marriage is slowly dissolving, when the financial downturn
has brought your business or your family down to its knees,
when the doctor's diagnosis shocked you and shifted the trajectory
of your life. When the death has changed what you
thought your future would be able to look like, when
the unmet dreams and unfulfilled aspirations have left you with

(27:12):
a low grade simmering sadness or frustration.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
John says, see your savior sitting on the throne.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
He is orchestrating, he's a lining, he's watching, he's presiding,
he's governing.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
He is your sovereign ruler.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
But John says, that's not all I saw. In verse three,
he says, I saw him sitting on the throne like
a jasper stone, which is like an uncut diamond, a sardius.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Which is like a ruby, red in appearance.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
And there was a rainbow over the throne. Says, I
don't want you to just know what was on the throne.
I want you to know what was above the throne.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
He said, I saw a rainbow.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
It was hanging over the throne. Okay, I have three sons.
They are big jokers.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Now.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of them when they
were young to now when they're older, is that when
they were little, my boys loved to hug me like
it was it blessed them to hug me.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
It was their jam. They just wanted to cuddle up
with me. They wanted to hug me.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
They wanted to jump in the bed between me and
their dad and get all snuggled up to watch a
show or something. They wanted to be close to me.
They wanted me to wrap my arms around them, and
I did. I would hug their little selves, And when
I hugged them, I was communicating to them, I love
you and I got your back. Now they're twenty something, eighteen, twenty,
twenty two years old, you know they he'll hug me,

(29:00):
but they give me these little raggedy pats on my back.
You know, they like, let's just hug her real quick
so she can move on with her day. You know,
it's not their thing as much anymore. Even the other day,
a couple of weeks ago, right before Mother's Day, my
youngest son, who's sixteen, he walked in the bedroom.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
I said, Jude, come jump in the bed.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
He said, maybe maybe tomorrow for Mother's Day. But you
know what, even though they're not necessarily in the stage
where they're as eager to hug me, I still hug
them with my whole full strength, because I'm still I
don't care if you hug me back. I'm still communicating

(29:42):
to you the same thing. I love you and I've
got your back.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Twenty six hundred years before the writing of Revelation, God
gave humanity a hug.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
There had been forty days and forty nights of explosive
rains that had caused the rise in floods that had
wiped out anybody and anything that.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Wasn't on Noah's ark.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
The rebellion and the judgment had been so prolific that
the wrath of God had rained down consumed everything except
those that were on that arc.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
But after forty days and forty nights.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
The earth the sky shut up, and as the earth
began to regain its composure, God gave humanity a hug.
A rainbow painted itself across the sky. And the rainbow
wasn't just about water. The rainbow was God hugging humanity
and saying, I don't care if you hug me back.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Mercy will always triumph over judgment.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
That the way I relate to humanity from this point
forward will always be different.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm making a covenant. I'm making a promise that I
will always.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Be merciful, that I will be slow to anger. Is
anybody grateful that I will be great and love it kindness?

Speaker 2 (31:00):
That my grace will be sufficient for you?

Speaker 1 (31:04):
John says twenty six hundred years later, I looked up
and I saw not only what was on the throne,
but there was a rainbow over the throne, Which means
he is not just a sovereign ruler. He is also
a promise keeper.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
It means that he's still keeping.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
His promises all these millennia later. He is still a
god of mercy, a god of grace, a god who
hugs us, Thank you, Lord, even when we're not hugging
him back, even when we've turned away from him in
our rebellion and in our sin, and when we have
turned our gaze downward instead of fixing our eyes upward.

(31:43):
John says, Look, there's a promise for you, because.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
The rainbow remains in the heavens to remind you that
he keeps his word even when you don't.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
John says, I saw a rainbow, and in a day
and age, when the rainbow has been hijacked, when the
rainbow has been co opted to symbolize and be utilized
for things that are totally out of alignment with the
truth of God.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
John says, would you look again.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
And remember that the same one who gave it to
us in the beginning is the same one.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
To whom it still belongs. That he is a promise.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Keeper, and his covenant endures forever and ever.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Mercy triumphs over a judgment. Y'all, you know what this means.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
It means it doesn't matter what you've done.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
It doesn't matter how far you've strayed.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
It doesn't matter the choices that you made, not just
the ones from twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
I'm talking about the ones last night. It doesn't matter
the path you've walked.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Down, the relationship you've been in, the destruction you've endured,
the negative.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Choices that you've made. It doesn't matter what your history is.
It doesn't matter what your past is. It doesn't matter
who you are, or what you've done, or where you've been.
It doesn't matter if the pit.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
You are currently in is a pit you don't.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
For your own self.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
The mercy of God is so extensive, so grand, so boundless,
so vast, that.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
He reaches down in the pits we made for our
own selves.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
And he pulls us up out of them.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
His grace is sufficient for you.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
And the great thing about promise keeping like that is
that his mercy is not just good for one generation.
His mercy extends to one thousand generations. What I'm saying
to you is that your kids are covered. I'm saying
your kids kids are covered. I'm saying that your children's
children's children are underneath the rainbow of the promise keeping God.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
His mercy endures forever.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
John says, if you take a good look, you're gonna
see behind this door that he's trying to tell you
he's not only a sovereign ruler, he is also a
promise keeper.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
John says, do you have time for just one more
thing behind the door?

Speaker 1 (34:32):
In verse six, he says, I want you not to
just know what was on the throne, and not just
what was over the throne.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
I want you to know what was in front of
the throne. He says in verse.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Six, before the throne, there was a sea of glass
like crystal, still completely unmoved, no ripples, no stirring, a sea.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Of glass like crystal. If you have ever been on
a cruise, you know that.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Well, if I'm going on a cruise, I like my
waters like a sea of glass crystal.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
I mean, I appreciate not.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Really knowing I'm on the boat, you know what I'm saying, Like,
I don't want to feel it that much.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
And you know that if you've been on.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
A cruise, that is possible. It's like North Park Mall.
Being on the water.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
It's enormous. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Actually, there are restaurants everywhere, there are stores everywhere. There's
unless you're standing by a window. In most cases, you
don't even know you're on the water.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
It's enormous.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
When I was a teenager, the four of us were
on a cruise with mom and dad. They were doing
one of their ministry cruises, and we were all there
together and there was a storm of a lifetime while
we were on this boat.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
It was outrageous.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
They had to make announcements for everybody to go to
their cabins. We were in the dining room for a
little while. Chairs were flying across the word. There were
dishes that were coming down, crashing down. We were told
later the waves had gotten up to forty feet high.
We could feel the front of the boat coming off
of the water and then smacking back down as it

(36:13):
surged forward through the ocean. The four of us went
up to our parents' room to ride out the storm.
They were on maybe the seventh or eighth floor of
this boat. The waves were coming were so high they
were smashing over the balcony and against their doors of
their cabin seven or eight feet high or floors high

(36:34):
on this boat.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
It was a massive storm. Okay.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
When John writes this book, y'all still with me? Okay,
John is writing with symbols and images. He's doing it
for two reasons. He is being heavily guarded on Patnas.
That's the first reason, there are guards everywhere. He wants
these letters to get to the church. He knows if
he rot some stuff in plain language, they will read

(37:02):
the letters, rip them up.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
And not send them through.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
So he's trying to write in cryptic language that he
knows the church will understand that.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
The guards won't.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
The other reason why he's writing in such cryptic language
that sometimes overwhelms us as we look at these creatures
and these beings that we can't wrap our mind around.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
The other reason why he writes like that is.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Because some of this stuff he can't find the words
to describe. He's looking at it and trying to figure
out what word in my language helps me to communicate that.
And the best he can do is find stuff out
of the culture that he knows the.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
First century believers will be able to relate to.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
In the ancient times, the sea was a picture of
demonic activity for them. When the sea was stirred up
by a storm, or even just to change in tides,
they attributed that to supernatural activity. They were terrified of
the sea, y'all people who live back then, they were
terrified of the sea because they believed it was a

(38:02):
sign that one of the gods had been upset if
the sea was stirred. That is why In the Old Testament,
do you remember, Jonah is told by God go to Nineveh,
and Jonah says, I'm not going, And.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
He gets on a boat to run from God. And
while he's on.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
The boat, a storm kicks up, and the captain looks
at the other sailors and says, can y'all please call
on y'all gods because we have offended.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
One of the gods.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
In a polytheistic culture, they figured.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
One of them had been offended. Y'all figure out who
offended the gods and whoever did it.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
You're getting thrown overboard because this sea is gonna swallow
us hold. They believed it was supernatural activity that was
creating that. It's the same reason why in John chapter
four when Jesus says to the disciples, let us go
over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.
And they are on that boat and a storm kicks
up on the Sea of Galilee, and they wake Jesus

(38:58):
up and say, do you.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Not see this? The seas will swallow us whole.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
And Jesus stands up, all calm and collected, and he
speaks to the winds and the waves, and he says,
peace be still.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
And the winds and the waves obey him. Jesus was
not only showing his mastery.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Of creation what's on the earth, he was also demonstrating
his authority over what's under the earth. That everything in
the heavens, everything on the earth, everything under the earth
bows the knee in the presence of the sitting King.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
John says, you need to know.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
That if evil has been stirred up in your life
by demonic activity, like you can see the devil, on
the division, on the dissension, on the discouragement, on the heart,
you felt the harm that has been caused, the trouble
that's been stirred up in your family. John says, take
a look at this throne. You will not only see

(39:58):
that he's seated.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
On the throat. You will not only see there's a
rainbow over.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
The throne, but you will see that in front of
the throne, even the devil bends the knee, that all
of demonic authority bows in the presence of the almighty King.
He is not just a sovereign ruler, and he is

(40:24):
not just a promise keeper.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
He is a peace giver. He's a peace speaker.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
He's an evil crusher, He's a storm calmer, he is
a chaos tamer. He still speaks to the winds and
the waves.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
He still says, peace.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Be still, and the winds and the waves, y'all, they
still obem at the.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Name of Jesus. In the presence of the sitting sovereign.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Ruling King, everything bends the knee. Every thing on the
earth bends the knee. Everything under the earth bends the knee.
Because he brings supernatural peace.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
John says, luck. He's a sovereign ruler.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
He says, he is a promise keeper. You're not powerful
enough to work yourself out of this promise.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
And he says he is a peace giver. There is nothing.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Happening in your life and or mine that is outside
of the reach of the peace giving Christ. He still
speaks to the winds and the waves, and the winds
and the waves they still obey him. And John, the
one who cannot explain everything that he's seeing, who can't verbalize,
who can't write down in actual words, everything that he

(41:55):
is contesting, and that he's able to get a glimpse
of behind this door, these creatures, the likes of which
he has never seen before. He can't fully explain them,
He can't fully describe him.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
But this one thing he knows.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
All day and all that long, every single one of
the indescribable creatures bow before the throne of the sovereign King, and.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
He knows what he heard.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
They said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come. And then
he saw the twenty and four elders, twelve representing the
patriarchs in the Old Testament, and.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Twelve representing the apostles in the.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
New Testament, basically all of the Body of Christ for
all time, which includes a fifty year old Concord Church.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
He says, all of them took off any crown they
may have had, and.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
They laid it down up the feet off the sitting
sovereign King, and said, worthy are you Lord, to receive
glory and honor, and power and authority, both now and forevermore,
in Jesus' name.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
In Jesus' name, Amen,