jim Westheim Revelation PT 2: Welcome to the Faith Live Sermon Podcast. This is a replay of a past sermon from Faith Alive Church. Whether you missed it, want to hear it again, or share it with someone you know, we're glad you're here. This sermon is by our Kingdom Builders pastor, Jim Westheim. Now, let me just say this. I know Pastor Jordan is here and his head will not explode if I say this, okay? All right, because he's a very humble man. But if you miss Sunday, you missed a powerful Entrance to the new series on Revelation. How many were here Sunday? my goodness. I have I've been in Pentecost all my life. I've grown up in the church, and I can honestly say, and this is not puff anything up in any way, but I can honestly say I have not heard a beginning of a series on the book of Revelation that was more powerful than that and more anointed than that. That was absolutely God. And what I appreciate so much about it is the understanding that we want to be in God's Word and we want to be taking it verse by verse as we're going through Revelation. You're gonna love walking through the churches of Revelation and seeing it. You're gonna see bits and pieces of that everywhere and all around you. You're gonna see each of those churches represented in our culture today. And it's it's a beautiful way to go through the book of Revelation. So I encourage you if you didn't hear Sunday, please go back and listen to that. Now, our focus on Wednesday night. Sunday mornings is exegetical, which means it is verse by verse, diving through scripture. I'm excited to be able to do that. That's a different format for Sunday morning. I love doing that kind of preaching. But tonight is meant to be more of a practical application of that truth. Now, Sunday ended the service with practical application. Okay. It was absolutely without a doubt that way. But I want to encourage you tonight is meant for you to take a note and go back and evaluate. Where you are related to this content. So if you miss Sunday, we're gonna do a little recap of it and we're gonna pull one specific portion of what Pastor Jordan shared Sunday. We're gonna dive into it a little bit deeper tonight and see what God has for us. Now, I gotta introduce you to my grandma. Now she's long, long gone, long gone. She died in 86 or 96, but she was five foot nothing and 85 pounds. She had osteoporosis, she was bent over like this. Most of her life she spent looking up like this to see forward. But she was a spitfire and she loved the Lord and she loved people. She loved people. And if you were to, they lived in a house out on a peninsula out there in Travers City. And if you went on the peninsula and you happened to know the Gores, which they were known by a lot of people because they were the largest cherry farmers at one time on all the peninsula in Travis City. You knew the gores, you knew that Dora, my grandmother, loved to have visitors just drop by the house. She just loved people calling, as she would say. And she would sit in the living room on her chair, and my grandfather and on her chair, on his chair, and they would see somebody driving. They had this big sweeping driveway. And my grandmother, back when she was a little bit younger, knew every car that everybody drove. And she could tell somebody driving down the peninsula, there goes Eunice, there goes Marty and Joe. And there she would point at cars driving by. But when they pulled in the driveway, she lit up. She'd say, Hank, look who's coming to visit. And they would drive up the driveway, and she would, as quickly as she could, hobble across the living room. She was already over to the coffee maker. She was already at the door. My grandfather would follow her out there, traipsing behind her. Kid, who is that? Who is it? What's coming? She was just kind of oblivious to it all. But They would show up on the landing pad, as she called it, out behind the house, and they would, she would open the door and she would greet people that were her friends. And there were always cookies made, there was always hot coffee brewed, there was always the opportunity because look who came to visit. And she treated you like royalty, even though they were as poor as church mice. Look who's coming, Hank. Look who's coming. I got to thinking about that phrase as I was sitting over here Sunday, and I got to thinking about the whole understanding of what we as a church look to and anticipate as to the coming of the Lord. And there was a statement that Pastor Jordan made Sunday that I want to return to, and then we're going to dive deep into what that means for us. He said this: those who fear what is to come will be comforted by who is to come. Those who Who fear what is to come will be comforted by who is to come. Now, when the future frightens us, our hope is not in knowing everything that's about to happen. Why do we want to know all that? Why do we hunger for this? I need to know what's going to be taking place. Why do we want to know the chronological order of things? Why is that? Because we want to control the outcome. That's why. We want to know what's happening so we can prepare ourselves. So, ladies, your hair will look the way it's supposed to, okay? And guys, the car is clean, the the bills are paid. You want everything to be just the way it needs to be for whatever it is that's coming. But when it comes to the Lord, he's not given us every single detail. It wasn't necessary because that wasn't the point of revelation. It wasn't the point of Luke 21, it wasn't the point of Matthew 24, and it wasn't the point of Mark 13. And 1 Thessalonians 4. All of these chapters, the Old Testament, Daniel, Ezekiel, all of these chapters that talk about the coming of the Lord were not there so you and I could say, okay, no, that one ties to that one. And let me get it all in chronological order so that I know exactly what's happening, so that I can live at peace. That's not what it was there for. It was there so that you and I can have an understanding that there are calamities coming, there is chaos coming in the world, there are darkness. Times ahead. Boy, isn't this a fun message? You came to church to hear this, right? But the most important fact is, God has not left us abandoned. God has not left us abandoned. And the promise of the hope of Jesus walking through this with us is going to be a beautiful picture that we can hold on to. Our hope is not in knowing everything that is coming, but in knowing the one who is coming. Now, I grew up in a wonderful church in Minneapolis, a huge church that Had a rich, rich history for many, many decades, still does to this day. And when I grew up, that church on a regular basis, I will, it happened almost in every service. There was some song, some statement that was made: Jesus Christ is coming back soon, and you need to be ready. I grew up with that understanding. It was constantly there. They would bring in some of the best speakers all across the nation to that church to preach. For a whole, whole week-long series. You come every night. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine your kids trying to get them out of the house for that many times? But we did. Okay, we went every single night of the week for a whole week. Sometimes it was through Wednesday. But we go for this whole week-long thing of the speaker being there. Maybe it was CM Ward. Maybe it was maybe it was Rex Humbard who would come in oftentimes. But I remember this is before projectors. What was a projector? That was a slide thing. You put things in and you put slides and you look at the pictures of your kids. There was no video. So these great speakers would come and they'd have these massive charts. I'm not exaggerating. They'd be 25 feet across the stage. And it had the chronological order of what the Bible says is supposed to happen. We are living right now in what was called the church age. It was the time between Christ's ascension into heaven and the time that we are about to have happen. The chronological date, the prophetic event that we're waiting for as believers is the rapture of the church. That word isn't found in the New Testament anywhere. It is an understanding of being caught up into the presence of God, changed in a twinkling of an eye. It's not the second coming of Christ that you're waiting for. Hello? That's not it. It's the rapture of the church. The second coming comes a little bit later on. And so in that picture, you saw this big timeline from Christ's death. All way, all the different stages of the church. And then you saw this moment in time where the rapture of the church took place. And it was a big moment. Everybody would stare at that because we want to be part of that moment. And then the next seven years was divided in half. And in that time, there were all kinds of chaos on the world. And we're looking at all this stuff in this big section of this map right here. Can you see it? It's right here. In this big section of the map, and that map would have pictures of all the things that were happening down here on earth. The judgments of God, the trumpet judgments, the seal judgment, the bold judgments, and the rise of the Antichrist. But it had a big dividing line in the middle of it. And that picture was that at that halfway point, the Antichrist has risen to power and he's brought peace with Israel. And Israel's worshiping in a temple, and it's a beautiful thing to go. Well, that's great for them, good for them. But the reality of it was he was setting the stage for what happened at that halfway mark. When he put himself on the throne in the temple. And called himself God. At that moment in time, all hell breaks loose on this earth. All kinds of things are taking place down here. But we're up here in heaven. We're up here in heaven. But everybody in the audience looking at that chart is looking at what's happening here on earth. Okay? We're not thinking about because the Bible doesn't talk about it. It talks about the marriage supper of the Lamb. and the giving of rewards and awards for our faithfulness to God. Yeah. That doesn't compare to what's going down here on earth. In the written sense. Okay? We're looking at all the tribulation that's going on during that seven year span of time. And we're wondering, God, what's gonna happen? Are we gonna be a part of that? And I remember as a little kid looking at that segment and going, my goodness, I was seven, eight years old. Just wide-eyed, listening to a fiery preacher talk about what was about to happen and all the things that were gonna take place. It was all about the timeline, it was all about the timeline. And I made a decision in my heart that I wanted to know that timeline. I studied it. I read it. I bought the books that the person had. My mom bought them for me. I still have them today. I read everything I could I could read about it. I talked to them. My mom even set up an opportunity for me to sit down and have lunch with CM Ward, one of the great revival preachers, long gone, long gone. But I remember sitting and asking him, Tell me about all of these things that are to happen. And I remember. As a little kid being terrified at night. Just terrified at night. Wondering, am I gonna miss this? What if I don't know about that? What if and I knew it all, I could tell it all to you. But I wondered what was gonna be happening. And I I lay terrified at night thinking I was gonna miss something, or I'd I'd not have something in the right order and I'd I'd mess it up until one day, my pastor, who just went home to be with the Lord this last summer. He said something from the platform that made it all clear to me. And if you have your Bible, you can look at it. It's Revelation chapter 3, verse 10. But this verse makes it really understandable. If you're fearful that you're gonna go through the tribulation, I'm a I don't wanna be here, and I don't believe the Bible supports that. Okay? But these verses in John chapter 10. This verse, John chapter three chapter three, verse ten, says this, Since you have been ke Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming, that it is going to come on the whole world and test the inhabitants of the earth. That cross-reference, cross-references to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, 13 through 18. The references are here for you to write them down. 1 Thessalonians 5, 9 and John 14, 1 through 3. These verses all help you to understand that you and I will not see. The Great Tribulation. Can I caveat that? But we don't know how difficult it will be right before He takes us away to His presence. We don't know that. But that doesn't mean we're leaving in fear because God has said, I will be with you during all of these things. And when I had my pastor share that verse with me, he says, he says, you can sleep well at night. You don't have to worry about that. It's a reminder to you of that. So as a teenager, I was intrigued. I began having a Bible study at my school on how to how to live for God and make the rapture. That's the Bible study. We we poured through scriptures together, hungry for it. It was a crazy Bible study. Crazy Bible study. Wanted my friends to know that Jesus needed to be Lord of their life and that he had a perfect plan for their lives. I was constantly asking, what if this happens? What if that happens? I imagine some of you are doing the same thing. Because you know where we get it from? We get it from our phone. We do this. And it's meant to make you ask questions. It's meant to cause doubt. It's meant to cause you to question things. It's meant to cause you to wonder: does God really even know I'm here? And the more we do this, the more we struggle with the understanding of what is truth in Scripture. And the more we do this, the more we begin to doubt God. And it's important that we realize that God's word is meant to bring us comfort. and direction and clarity. Social media is driving us in the direction of d letting the headlines determine what we think about the Bible rather than the reverse. If you're looking at the headlines or some commentator or some individual who has some conspiracy, if you're letting that dictate what the Bible says, you're going to be always in fear, always wondering, always worrying, always anxious. But when you take God's word and let it be the centerpiece, and then you let it judge everything that's being said, you can look at all of this and say, yeah, well, God's still got all this in control. He's still got it all in control. I may not understand it. And I got news for you. They don't either. They don't either. but you don't know about this person. You don't know about what they know. I don't, but I know a God who knows a whole lot more than they do. And my faith resides in him, not in what I'm seeing in the news. Now, does that mean we shouldn't know what's going on? No, the Bible's pretty clear about it. We're to look and and watch the signs of his coming, but we're not to be picking days. We're to look for the seasons of his coming. Boy, I tell you, it is the season of fall, and it is also the season of his return. The signs point to it everywhere, but that's not the point. The point is that you and I are to be ready and working busily about the task God has for us to do right up until he comes. That's what he wants us doing. Jesus tells his disciples, keep watch because you do not know the day of his coming. The day of his coming. But you can spot the seasons all around it. I don't know when the first day of fall is. Have we hit the first day of fall? Yeah, first day of fall. I don't know when it was. I guess it's the same every year, but I didn't pay attention to it. I just know it gets cold and the leaves fall. It's fall. So I don't know that I know it's a physical date on the calendar, but I also know that it doesn't matter, it's gonna happen anyway, whether I like it or not. Whether I'm looking for it or not. But God wants us to be looking for his return, to be anticipating those things. And we don't have time to go into that whole chart, the rest of that massive chart across the stage, because that's not really what matters. If you love to study it, dive into it. But understand, your peace isn't going to be found in knowing everything in chronological order. You and I, our peace is found in knowing who holds it, not all the details about it. Does that mean we're to live in darkness on it? We're live in confusion, go, I'm just like a blind sheep walking forward into something? No. Be studied on it, learn it, read it. Discover it. But that's not where your peace is coming from. Your peace is coming from the one who knows all of it and is putting it together for you and I to walk in. We should recognize his coming, recognize his seasons to live expectantly of his return. We should understand the times that we are living in. The important distinction between watching and worrying are two very different things. They're not the same thing. We don't read the word through the lens of the world, we read the world through the Through the lens of the word. That's the picture. And if you'll do that, you can listen to whatever you're listening to. But you're gonna discover that God's word is always gonna be a precedent in front of it, saying, but I've got this. Don't worry. Don't do anything about that. Don't worry about it. I've got it under control. Social media is designed to bring us into questions. It's designed to help us to watch more, to speculate more, to listen more, to discover more conspiracy theories, to listen to people's prediction, to try to connect the dots. The result is more information that we consume and less peace. Jesus tells us this in Matthew 24, verse 6. Jesus tells the disciples that they will hear about wars and threats and rumors of wars. And then he gives them this striking command: do not panic. Do ever do how many of you are news freaks? Do we have any? I shouldn't say freaks. How many of you like to watch the news all day long? Okay, anybody? Okay. You have it, you have it feeding to you regularly. You're constantly looking at the notifications coming up. You have it set to pop up if Fox News or somebody has some statement being made. If you have that, you're never gonna live in peace, okay? Because it's not meant to be that way. It's meant to draw you in, to keep you anxious, asking for more. We keep asking what is coming, but Revelation invites us to ask a much more important question. Who is it that's coming? So Revelation chapter one is what was dove into on Sunday. So let's look at it. Before John saw what was coming, he saw who was coming. The biblical prophecy was not about the telling of what was the future events. God intended his followers, Jesus intended his followers to be faithful to him in the present. So here's the first point I want to grab for you tonight is this. It's the simple word read, R-E-A-D. What God has actually said. Revelation chapter 1, verse 3. We looked at it on Sunday. God blesses the one who reads his words and this prophecy in the church and blesses all who listen to the message and obey what it says. Notice the scripture doesn't say, blessed are those who successfully predict. Every event in its crop proper timeline, or who construct the perfect timeline that have it exactly the way it's supposed to be. And theologians have vetted it and said, Boy, that is exactly what scripture says. It doesn't say that. It says, Blessed are those who read it, hear it, and obey it. That challenges our posture towards the book of prophecy. Book of Revelation. It challenges our process. It doesn't mean we're going to go look for headlines in the Bible as we're reading. We're reading it to understand that God has a bigger picture that's going to unfold, that He's given us a snapshot of through the prophet, through the Revelator John, giving us an opportunity to look at it, but reminding us that we're not to be fearful. These things are to happen, but God has a picture that we're going to walk in during it. We have commentators and podcasts. Videos we watch on YouTube and other places, social media, news networks, algorithms that you can know how you looked at what you looked at yesterday will start popping up in your feed today. What you look at today will start popping up in your feed tomorrow. It's created to do that. So if you're worrying about this today, guess what's gonna be on your radar tomorrow morning when you open up your phone? The same thing, just worse. Just worse. And if you read that and you you worry and fret about it, guess what? You are being pulled in by the enemy who has design on your soul to get your eyes off of him and onto what's going on around you. That's not what God wants for us. Here's a key point: don't let the news interpret the Bible. Let the Bible interpret the news. Let it be your guide, let it be your source of peace. Look at the situation and say, Wow, is that a mess? I'm sure glad God's got it in control. Wow, is that a problem? How is that gonna happen? Look at the crazies out there with their fingers on the nuke buttons. my goodness. God's got it in control. but Pastor Jim, God's got it in control. but Pastor Jim, what if somebody does something stupid and sets off one of those things and we start shooting at each other? What happens? God's still got it. In control. but what if it gets really bad? What if the economy tanks and we have no money and we have no food? Do you really think, as a follower of God, that He's gonna leave you forsaken? Do you really think that? My take on it is this: I want to be prepared for difficult times. I want to be prepared so my family has some things for themselves, but it ain't for them. It's for the people who don't know him that I can go and give into their life and be a light of Jesus to them when all hell is breaking loose around, if it ever gets to that point. Because my peace is not in what I owned, it's not in what I stockpiled, it's not in 50 gallons of gas you got sitting stuck away, it's not in the gold you bought. I don't have those things, but It's not in those things. Those things will fade away. It's in who And the residency of his word in our hearts. That's what allows us to face anything, no matter how difficult it is. There's difference between speculation and revelation. Speculation says, could this be what's going on? And revelation says, this is what God says about what's going on. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. If those who are you listening to is give are only giving their wisdom on things and never returning back to God and saying, But His Word says this. These are gonna be difficult times, but His Word says this. If they don't say that, you don't wanna be listening to them. Because they're not gonna point you to the ultimate source in the end. They're gonna point you to your strength and your preparedness and your whatever. That's not what this is about. So we need to read God's word and let it sink deep into our souls. To build the confidence in the revelation of God and what he has to say about it. We need to read it. We need to know it. Here's the second word: it's the word look. Look at what John sees. He sees Jesus. Look at these beautiful verses. I love how these were shared Sunday. First Revelation chapter 12, 1, verse 12 through 16 says this: And when I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands representing the seven churches. And standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. This is Jesus standing among them. He was wearing a robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were as white as wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like flames of fire, and his feet were polished bronze, refined in the furnace. He held the seven stars in his hand, and a two-edged sword came from his mouth, the word of God. And his face was like the sun. In all of its brilliance. It's a picture of something that you need to grab a hold of here tonight. This is the risen, glorified, sovereign Christ. And it's the first thing that God says brings to John's attention is his presence, not the prophetic picture. He wants him to know that it is him standing. Notice where he's standing, he's standing among the churches. His presence is with the church. History hasn't slipped out of his control. God has not abandoned the church. Revelation 3:10, He's not abandoned you. Jesus isn't nervously sitting on the sidelines wondering what some crazy crackpot and some government's gonna do. He's not worried about anything. He is simply watching his church and caring for them. He's Lord over it all. The picture is John needed to see before anything else was that Jesus was before it all and in it all and will be at the end of it all. And maybe that's the picture you and I need too. When everything seems uncertain around us, when chaos is brewing in our own personal lives or globally, whatever goes on, our first response shouldn't be, what does this mean? An unsettled spirit sinks into our heart. What does it mean? Our first response needs to be: okay, God, what are you doing here? Where are you right now? And we close our eyes and we let God's peace flood into our hearts. We get our mind off of what we're seeing with our physical eyes, onto who is over it all and in control of it all. That's what he wanted John to know. And that's how you and I need to respond to the days that are in front of us this very day and every day forward. When our picture for the future becomes bigger than our picture of Christ, fear will always be there. It will always be there. Here's a key point. Fear looks at what is coming, and faith looks at who is coming. Fear looks at what is coming, faith looks at who is coming. John was told to look at the one. You and I need to look at that one. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. No matter what's going on in your bank account, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. No matter what's going on outside in the world around us. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. No matter what's going on in your marriage, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. He will bring you peace, he will bring you clarity, and he'll draw you back to his word to bring you the truth, to bring direction for your heart. Every single time. Every single time. But not only would you look, we need to, three, is to listen. What does Jesus say? Look at verse 17 and 18 of Revelation 1. When I, John, saw him, I fell to his feet as though dead. It's a pretty good response. Okay? It's a pretty good response. Sometimes we just need to let our fear take us to our knees, in fact, take us flat out and be still in the presence of God. On our workaway a couple weeks back, we we had a unique time. Wasn't planned. Pastor Jordan was leading the staff at a prayer time, second night. He says, Let's let's just be still in the presence of God. I've done this before. I love sitting in the presence of God. Letting my quiet thoughts just my mind just slow down and listen to what God wants to say. But if you have ADHD, Or your person who can't shut it off, it takes a long time. And this went on exceedingly long. I remember Pastor, I remember Trent saying, I just couldn't stop moving. I'm looking around the room, just kind of peeking to see how people are doing. Of course, thinking about God, just checking things out. How are people doing? You know. Trent's over there tapping his legs. But it wasn't very long until everybody got quiet. And nobody dare spoke because we were to be quiet in the presence of God. And a wonderful peace began to settle over that. A wonderful sense of God's presence, a clarity of the moment, a clarity of what we were doing. And I can tell you, in all of the workaways I've been on, 40 years of ministry, I have never been on a workaway like this one. It was beautiful. God's presence was there. The night before it was cheering and shouting and calling down heaven and just celebrating and worshiping God. But this time it was quiet. And it allowed God to bring a sense of connection, a bonding together of the team, a purposeful dynamic that took place. Friend. Let me just be gentle with this. We need to shut up in the presence of God. Come on. Okay? John fell to the ground as though he were dead. That's pretty quiet. Okay? That's pretty quiet. You and I need to turn off our mouths, stop telling God what we need him to do for us. Stop telling him all of our worries and just be still in his presence and let him speak the way he wants to. Get a word in edgewise around us. Give him a space to do that. When we do that, wonderful things happen. Look what happened to John. Then he, God, Christ, placed his hand on me and said, Don't be afraid. Don't you want to know that? You got anxiety, you got stressors in your life? Let God put his hand on your shoulder. Well, I've never felt that. Get still in his presence, and your spirit will know when he touches you. It is absolutely, without a doubt, clear. You'll just know it. It'll be a peace that overwhelms you. The situation may not change, but your perspective says, do not be afraid, for I'm the first and the last. I am the living one. I was dead, and now look, I'm alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death, hell, and Hades. What is John looking at? He's about to see some pretty creepy stuff. About to see some pretty dramatic things. And in his ability to articulate that, As it's written in Revelation, if we were looking at it, we may be saying a whole lot of different things because we're seeing things from our perspective, what our understanding. John doesn't know what a planet on fire looks like, but we can say, yeah, that probably is a nuke. That's probably something else. It's probably this. That plague is probably because of that. We can look at a whole lot of things to it. But John is just, he's looking at it going, I don't understand all this, but I'm gonna give it my best. And that's what's written before of us. He falls at his feet as though he's dead. Something beautiful happens to him. He's understands he doesn't have to be afraid. Think about that. John is about to receive revelation, extraordinary things, conflict, judgment from God himself. He's overwhelmed by what he's about to see. Before he says anything though to him, he tells him, Do not be afraid. Tells him, Don't fear. You see, Jesus doesn't tell John that there's nothing to fear. He says, Don't fear. There's a big difference. I wouldn't tell you, there's no pastor on earth that'll tell you that you are gonna go through the days ahead without bumps and bruises. I'm confident there's gonna be a lot of bumps and bruises. We're already feeling it. We in America we don't feel it nearly as much as it is on other countries. There are people tonight that are hiding, trying to have church in Cuba, fearful of the communists coming in and arresting them. They live in a potential for that all the time. There are people that can literally lose their life for gathering together. But you and I gotta understand that things may get very difficult, but. We don't need to fear. You may see fearful things, but you do not need to fear. Jesus was there before, he's there now, and he'll be there in the end. He says, I am the living one. Our hope isn't built upon an idea that some man said that's going to get us through. Our hope is built on a living Savior. He died, he says, Look, I'm alive forever. He defeated death. That means you and I, because we know him as Lord and Savior. No matter what happens, appointed man wants to die. Yes, it may happen. But you and I got some better picture written beyond that. He holds the key of death, hell, and grave. Not a government, not armies, not economies, not disasters, not technology, not political leaders, not an antichrist, not Satan himself can change the picture of God's hopeful end to this calamity that's taking place around us. He's got a beautiful picture there. The promise isn't that. Something frightening won't happen. The promise is that nothing frightening will ever remove Jesus from his throne and his place of peace in our lives if we will allow that. Key point is this for our last point. Here it is. Those who fear what is coming should be comforted by who is coming. Doesn't matter what's written, what matters is that your faith is in the one who is to come. Last point is this: it's the word endure. How do we live until he comes? Matthew 24, verse 13 says this: But the one who endures to the end will be saved. The emphasis isn't The one who has it all figured out. The emphasis is the one who stays faithful. Faithful to the end. Endurance means keep trusting, keep following him, keep serving him, keep loving him, keep praying, keep sharing Jesus with the world around you. Keep living faithfully. None of these things are to earn God's approval. But this is why you and I were left here. It's to be this way to the world around us. Keep living faithfully, even when the world becomes increasingly uncertain. We don't have to understand everything that's happening, but we can trust the one who holds it all in his hand. So close tonight, I give you this. Our response to biblical prophecy is never panic. It isn't obsession to get all the things chronologically ordered in front of us so that we feel comfortable about our knowledge. It isn't about speculation. Who's saying this and who sounds more accurate than the other one? Who's got the right algorithms of information coming at them so that we can really trust what they have to say? The faithfulness is this, the picture is this. Look who's coming. It's Jesus. That's where our eyes are. That's where our fixation is on. That's what keeps us going. Where do you look? Where are you looking? Where are you reading? Where are you watching? What voices are you listening to? What is shaping your understanding of what's going on in the world around you? If your life is full of fear and anxiety and worry, chances are you're consumering consuming enormous amounts of information with very little revelation. If there's more time spent out there on doing this in social media than there is in hearing God speaking into your heart right from his word, you're gonna live that way. You're gonna live in fear. You're gonna live in uncertainty. I see those kinds of levels of anxiety among people. Never in the history of our nation have there been more people taking anxiety medication than there is today. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Sometimes there are chemical imbalances, sometimes there are things that are broken that need that. But can we first analyze what's coming into our lives before we just pop a pill and say, this is what I need? Because I got news for you. Been there, done that, doesn't work well. The input has to change before the output will. The input of God's word coming into your life will change the output. Now, again, if there's something broke, I get it. But make sure your relationship with God is on the top shelf of everything before you just start taking all this stuff in and hoping it's going to bring peace into your life. We can know what a commentator said, we can know what a video said, we can know what somebody posted. We can understand the latest prediction. We can be following somebody's great conspiracy and think it's the greatest thing. But the real question is, do we know what Jesus said? Do we know what he said about it? Maybe the issue isn't that we're paying too much attention to what's in the world. Because Jesus said we're supposed to be aware of what's going on. But maybe it's we're paying too little attention to what Jesus said. What's our application night? It's this. When fear begins to rise in our hearts with things that are going on, read. Let's go back to what God's word actually said. And let's understand his first words were don't panic. Don't be afraid. I got this. but you don't know how bad it's gonna get. Or it's really bad. Don't panic. No matter how bad it gets, he's got it under control. Then he says, look, get your eyes back on Jesus. Pastor Jen, what if we wake up tomorrow? What if we wake up tomorrow and World War III has started in Europe and it's it's just Russia's gone crazy and they've taken over Germany and they've invaded Poland. What if World War III happens? What if it all breaks up? What, what, what, what, what? Yeah. It hasn't changed who Jesus is. It hasn't changed who what his promises are. And it hasn't changed his command to us. Do not be afraid. Do not panic. If you're panicking, your eyes are in the wrong spot. If I'm panicking, my eyes are in the wrong spot. God wants us to get our eyes fixated on him and his word and let that be our centerpiece. Look. To Jesus. Listen to hear him say again, don't panic and endure. Keep faithfully being just. I want if, like I said, I don't know how difficult it's gonna be before he snatches us away and calls us into heaven. I don't know how difficult it's gonna be before that. So I want to be busy about doing things that he has asked me to do, what he's called me to do. I want to be busy about his work, not for a ward. But I want to be doing what he wants done as opposed to sitting around worrying or burying my head in the sand or getting trapped in fear to the point where I'm locked in my house, trembling at what I see going on around me. That's not who we're meant to be. In the midst of total chaos, God's people should be going over this way. Let me introduce you to somebody who can fix that fear. my goodness, it is bad. my goodness, we should go hide over here. But while we're hiding, you don't need to be fearful. God still got this. I don't know what it's gonna look like. None of us do, but Jesus does. And he knows how to guide our hearts and protect us in those kinds of things. Endure faithfully. Our assignment isn't to predict or know every detail of the future. Our assignment is to be faithful until Jesus returns. Don't let what is coming be bigger than who is coming. Look, Jesus is about to come. That's exciting. That's exciting. Be ready for it. Never in the history of mankind has all of the things that are taking place pointed to his imminent return. but Pastor Jim, people have been saying that for decades. Even the Bible says in the last days, people will say, Look. His return. It was predicted so long ago and yet it hasn't happened. But friends, one major marker point, one major marker point happened in 1948 when Israel became a nation. Scripture tells us that that generation will see the return of the Lord. Hello. Israel is surrounded by its enemies on every single newscast out there. But it's a nation that God has blessed. And it is a nation again. And when that happened, Scripture says it was a marker point for the return of the Lord. Be watching those things, not predicting a day, but just know his coming is soon. His coming is soon. And if you and I only live for 70, 80 years in the breadth of eternity, that is not even a speck on the map. It's not even tick of time. So Christ is coming and we wanna be ready. Would you stand with me tonight? Father, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for the promises that are given to us tonight. Thank you for the picture that you gave to us as you spoke to John for that very first time. You reminded him of what he needed to do before he did anything. Thank you that we can read your word and we can know the truth. We can stand upon it. We can say we don't have all the answers, but we know that you do. We thank you tonight, God, that. We can always look to you. We can close our eyes and fixate on who you are and what your word says. We can find that abiding peace in the midst of chaos, right now or in the future. And God, I thank you that your word is bold and it speaks loudly to us. We can listen to the truth of it. And your spirit can speak boldly, prompting our hearts to not be afraid, to not panic. No matter what's going on in our lives, we thank you that your word is so clear that way. I thank you tonight that our purposes are not to be like every other person during these days before your return. Our purposes are to be a light of you to our sphere of influence, our world around us. God help us to endure, not hiding in a cave, not hiding in our basement, not hiding in our attic, not hiding inside the walls of our house, but living you clear and plain and boldly before the world around us. Pointing to you as our source of peace, pointing to you as our savior, and ushering in people to your presence, helping them discover who you are as their savior and Lord, and the peace that can reside in their hearts that resides in ours. Lord, if we're not living in that peace tonight because we've let the world flood into our hearts, if social media has got our eyes off of you, if what our what's feeding us, God has got our eyes off, just speak to us about that. Lord, help us to get that in control. Not to be blind to it, but to have it in control so that you're speaking louder than all of the other voices around us. Help us to make those kinds of priorities tonight. Speak to us about our position where we are right now in relationship to your return. May we realign ourselves in ways that only you can do in a tailored way tonight. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hey everybody, look this way. Look who's coming. He's coming soon. And that soon could be tonight, it could be tomorrow. Let's be living for him with all of our heart as he wants us to. Not in fear, not in panic, but because he's got our peace and he is the answer to all of it. God bless you. Have a wonderful night. 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