Mesa Hills Bible Church

Pastor Tim Dane: In the foyer, and we are in Revelation chapter 22, verses 17 to 21. Our last two messages in Revelation dealt with the imminent return of Jesus Christ, which means that he can return at any time, suddenly and without warning. And that means that we need to be ready for the return of Christ. Is this picking up on the volume okay over here? All right.

So when we think about the implications of the second coming of Christ, the promises that God has made to fix this broken world, we can't fix this broken world. We can do things to try to put bandaids on it. We put bandaids by doing things like having surgeries or treatments. We do bandaids by trying to fight wars when we have to fight wars, but we're not going to fix this broken world. It's not going to get fixed until Jesus Christ returns.

But God's promise is this: when Christ comes, he will judge evil and purge every trace of it. And he's going to make a perfect fix by establishing his kingdom. I'll tell you what, that's something that you need to hold on to. Never stop following the Lord. He's going to fix this broken world. Never lose hope. Never stop following the Lord.

Here in verses 17 to 21, we come to four final reminders about the imminent return of Christ. And these are four reminders that he's coming quickly, and he's going to deal with this mess. Don't lose hope. Let's read this together. Revelation 22:17 says, "And the spirit and the bride say come, and let the one who hears say come, and let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost."

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.

Father, thank you for your word that you've spoken by your Son. You've shown us that Christ is going to return. He's going to judge evil. Lord, we know that we have a responsibility to take care of affairs as best as we can in this world. We have things like policemen and armies to deal with evil. And sometimes we can stop evil, but it's never going to go away, and it's never going to be the perfect fix.

But when Christ returns, there is going to be a perfect fix. You're going to permanently purge sin and curse and death from this world. You're going to establish a kingdom of righteousness and peace. Lord, even this morning as we look at the news, we see that Russia sent several hundred missiles and drone attacks on Ukraine. There's maybe going to be an end to this war. We don't know how this is going to unfold.

But I do pray that you would bring an end to this war. But more than that, we pray that your kingdom would come and your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what Jesus said. This is how we should pray: "Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done." We thank you for the peace and blessing that we do have in our country.

Lord, maybe we're living on a lot of borrowed time here in this country that has been so hostile to Jesus Christ. We do thank you for the blessings. I pray that you'd help us to be responsible as Christians living in a free country, that you'd help us to be responsible in sharing Christ with the world around us. Thank you for those opportunities. We pray that you would use this message this morning to encourage us. And we ask it in Christ's name, amen.

In verse 17, we come to the first of these four final reminders about being ready, and it's a series of invitations. The Bible has a lot of invitations. Matter of fact, you could look at an invitation sometimes in the form of a warning. God told Adam and Eve in the beginning, "Don't eat from the tree of knowledge." That's a warning, but so to speak, that's an invitation to not do the wrong thing.

We can look at God speaking to Cain in Genesis chapter 4: "Cain, sin is wanting to dominate you. Watch out. Don't let it happen." That was a warning. It was an invitation to listen to God's truth. If you look at Deuteronomy chapter 30, there is a lengthy warning that God gives to the people of Israel about their need to listen to God's truth.

In Deuteronomy 30:19, it says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants." I'm telling you, God says there's two paths here: one leads to life and blessing, the other one leads to death and curse. So choose wisely what you're going to do.

Here in Revelation 22, we come to the final invitations of the Bible. There's really a series of two sets of invitations that come right here. The first set of them is to Christ himself in verse 17, where it says, "The spirit and the bride say come." What you have right here is us here in this world looking to heaven and saying, "Lord, come right now. Come quickly and deal with this fallen world."

And of course, this is a big theme in the book of Revelation, that Christ is coming quickly. If you go back to chapter 22 and verse 6, Jesus said, "These are things that must shortly take place." And in verse 7, he said, "I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book." So right here as you come to verse 17, the Spirit of God itself is calling to the Son and saying, "Lord, come."

It's very interesting that the Spirit of God who is God, the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Spirit who dwells within each Christian, the Spirit who indwells the body of Christ—the Spirit himself is saying, "Lord, come now and bring an end to this thing." So if you feel like you're the only one who's having to deal with a fallen world and saying, "I can't wait till this is over," no, the Spirit himself is also calling on Christ to come.

The spirit and the bride—so here's the church, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ calling out for the Lord to come and bring an end to this mess and to bring his kingdom. Now, here's how this is going to work. The next thing on God's clock is this: it's called the rapture of the church. Keep your place right here. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and let's see what the Bible says.

Some people that don't believe in futuristic premillennialism mock the idea of the rapture of the church. A few people do that. They shouldn't do that because it's a very biblical doctrine. I don't know why people are resistant to what God clearly teaches in the scripture. But in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, notice what Paul says in verses 13 to 18. He's encouraging this young church. They're only about six months old. Paul was there a few months earlier.

And there have been some people that died and they have written Paul a letter and they said, "Paul, we're really concerned because my grandma passed away and she trusted in Christ, but she's passed away. She's going to miss out on the blessings of Christ's return." Paul says, "Oh no, your grandma's not going to miss out on these blessings." Look at 4:13. "We don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as the rest who have no hope."

Unsaved world, there's no hope. You're dead, lights out, that's it. No hope. We don't want you to grieve like the unsaved world, because, verse 14, "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again—and we do—even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." Notice that he speaks here about those that have died with faith in Jesus Christ. They fell asleep in Jesus.

There is going to be a resurrection for all of the believers in the Old Testament as well, but their resurrection is not going to come until the end of the seven-year tribulation period, at the time when the kingdom is being established. The church, the body of Christ, is going to be raptured before that seven-year tribulation period. These are the believers that have fallen asleep in Jesus.

Paul goes on to confirm this in verse 15. "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep." In other words, we're not going to get to see the blessings of Christ's return before the people that died, because, verse 16, "the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first."

"Then we who are living and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord. So comfort one another with these words." God's message about end times is supposed to give us hope and comfort. He says, "Comfort one another with this truth." You and I are not looking ahead and saying, "Gee, I wonder who the Antichrist is going to be."

We're not going to know who the Antichrist is. We're going to be out of here before that guy comes on the scene. Now, he may be living right now. We don't know what's happening in terms of world events, and we don't know how all these things fit together. When we look at what's going on in Israel or Russia, Ukraine, China—we don't know how all these things fit together.

I can tell you this though: everything does fit together as part of how things are going to unfold at the end. But we don't have to get upset and anxious about what's going on in the world. We may not like what we see, and we may be able to do something a little bit about the things that are happening, but most of this stuff is out of our control, isn't it?

So why get anxious about it? A long time ago in LA, my kids got me this present: it was the talking fish. You touch it and it says, "Don't worry, be happy." There's a point to that. That should be a Bible verse: "Don't worry, be happy." So what Paul says right here is Christ is going to return. And the first thing that's going to happen with the second coming is this: the first aspect of the second coming is going to be the resurrection that Christ brings to the body of Christ.

That's the rapture. That is very, very clearly taught right here in verses 13 to 18. Now, what's going to happen immediately after that is that the Antichrist is going to make a false peace treaty involving Israel—a covenant. And he's going to promise protection to the people of Israel, and Israel is going to embrace this promise that the Antichrist makes.

We're not going to be here. We're going to be taken out in the rapture before the Antichrist makes this peace covenant, immediately before that. But when are all these things going to happen? When are all these things going to come upon the world? Paul says in chapter 5, verse 1, "And now as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you don't need me to write anything to you because you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night."

The day of the Lord is that seven-year tribulation period that comes crashing down upon the world after that covenant gets put in place. Basically, Revelation chapter 6 and the opening of the seal judgments on that scroll start happening immediately after the rapture. And so you have the day of the Lord starting to unfold. Revelation 6 has the seven seals that begin opening, and then that turns into seven trumpet blasts of judgment, and then it culminates with seven bowls of judgment in Revelation chapter 16.

That's the day of the Lord. Paul says, "When is this going to come to the world? When is it going to happen?" He goes, "You guys don't need me to write anything to you because you know that it's going to come like a thief in the night." You don't expect it, right? You wake up in the morning and you find out somebody stole my car last night. You don't expect it. This is what's going to happen when Christ returns.

Now, he goes on to say in verse 3, "While they—" and he doesn't say who the "they" is right here. "But while they are saying peace, safety, destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs on a woman with child, and they will not escape." Who is it that is going to be putting confidence in a false peace? It's the nation of Israel putting their confidence in the Antichrist with this promise of peace and protection.

That passage in Daniel chapter 9, verse 27, is extremely clear. It says that the Antichrist is going to make this promise of false peace. Daniel chapter 9, verse 27, a seven-year peace agreement. Israel is going to put their confidence and trust in the Antichrist. And Paul says while they—meaning the unsaved nation of Israel—is looking at this peace promise and this protection, while they're saying "peace, safety," Paul says, "No, the day of the Lord is going to fall upon them."

But then in verse 4, he says, "But you, brethren, you Christians, you are not in the darkness so that the day of the Lord would overtake you like a thief. You're sons of light, sons of day. We're not of the night. We're not of the dark." But notice what happens when you get down here in verse 9. He says, "God has not destined us for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."

If it were God's plan that the church, the body of Christ, go through the day of the Lord, then that's what his plan would have been. And that could have been what his plan would have been, but the Bible is clear that God has not appointed that the church is going to go through that day of the Lord. And we see this very clearly in 1 Thessalonians.

He's going to rapture the church, resurrect the church before the day of the Lord comes. We're not going to be caught in the day of the Lord. We're going to be resurrected before it, chapter 4 says, because we have not been appointed to that time of wrath that is coming upon the world. Look back at chapter 1. Look at verses 9 and 10.

Paul says they themselves report about us, what kind of a reception we had with you in Thessalonica and how you Thessalonians turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath. He doesn't take us through the wrath. He doesn't take us out of the wrath. It says that he delivers us from the coming wrath.

This is really clear and explicit. God has not appointed the church, the body of Christ, to go through the seven-year tribulation period. I think it's something clearly enough taught that we should hold it and not be shaken up about those things. Now, is the pre-tribulation rapture the only doctrine of the Bible? No, it certainly is not. But it is taught in the Bible, and I believe that we should embrace that.

So when we're looking ahead at this day of the Lord that's going to come upon the world, we should not be worrying about what's going to fall upon the world. We should be worrying right now, "Am I obeying the gospel right now? Am I living with hope in Jesus Christ? Am I letting the peace of God give me joy and peace right now? And am I preaching Christ to the world around me?"

You know, that's something you can do right now, is that you can be telling people about Jesus Christ. And that's something that we should be doing right now, telling people about Jesus Christ. So right here, what you do see in Revelation 22 though, is you see the spirit and the bride looking to heaven and saying, "Lord, come quickly. Come right now." And then look at who else is here.

There's another one here. Notice what else happens. Revelation 22, verse 17. The spirit and the bride say come, and then he adds this, "And let the one who hears say come." So anybody that's hearing the truth of this message, which is all of us, should be looking to heaven and saying, "Lord, come quickly. Come now."

But then what happens is this: the invitation switches gears, so to speak, and there are invitations that are addressed not to Christ, but to the unsaved world. Look at verse 17. "Let the one who is thirsty come, and let the one who wishes take from the water of life without cost." There's a shift of focus because those first three invitations are directed to Christ, saying, "Lord, come back now," but then it becomes a horizontal gospel emphasis where it says, "Let the one who is thirsty come."

You know, we know what it's like to have a parched throat, especially if you've been in a desert situation and you're thirsty and you have no water and you need some water. Having grown up in Las Vegas, we know what that's like. And so for God to make this comment here and say, "Let the one who is thirsty come," this is a gospel invitation to an unsaved world. This is a gospel invitation saying, "Are you parched in your mouth because you need some grace from God?"

Jesus did say, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they'll be satisfied." This is an invitation to come and receive the free grace of God. In John chapter 4, Jesus spoke to the woman in Samaria and he says, "Whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never thirst, but the water that I give him will become a well of water springing up to eternal life." She says, "Give me some of that water."

Jesus was kind of like when you're fishing and you see that fish in there and you're just kind of playing with it a little bit to get that fish interested with your bait or with your lure. This is what Jesus is doing with this girl because he knows he's going to save her. And she says, "Well, when the Messiah comes, he'll explain everything to us." And he says, "Yep, that's me." She drops her bucket of water and runs back into the village and tells the whole village, "I met the Messiah."

Jesus in John chapter 6 said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger. He who believes in me will never thirst." That's the promise of grace. John chapter 7, verse 37. Jesus stood out and cried and he says, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." God offers salvation freely to any and all.

Now, this passage right here when it makes this statement here and it says, "Let him take from this water of life without cost," it actually comes out of the Old Testament. I'm going to read to you Isaiah chapter 55, where you see this offer of free grace there in the Old Testament. Isaiah 55, verse 1, says, "Listen, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. You who have no money, come, buy, eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money, without cost."

You see, you can't buy grace. You can't buy free grace. You just have to take it. And when you're sharing the gospel with people, we use this word "repent," which is used in the Old Testament and New Testament. The idea of repent is the idea of turning from sin to turn to Christ. But turning from sin to turn to faith in Christ is not a human work. It's not doing some good deed. It's basically it's just the human attitude of turning away from sin to Christ.

And repentance is a big part of the gospel message. But going along with that idea of repentance is that essential idea of trusting the truth, believing the gospel, having faith in the message. So repentance and faith are really just two sides of that same beautiful message. Our salvation doesn't come because we have earned it.

If we could somehow cleanse ourselves from our sin by being good, then the cross of Christ is completely superfluous and meaningless. But we can't cleanse ourselves from our sin, can we? We're already guilty. We can't clean up the stain that is already there. And even if we said, "Okay, I'm going to change, I'm going to clean myself up," well, tomorrow you're going to turn around and sin again. Before you leave the door, you're going to turn around and sin again.

So salvation is never because we have cleaned up our act. God does call his people to follow and to follow the Lord and to allow Christ to have lordship in our heart. But the gospel is this: come and take. And so in Isaiah 55, he says, "You don't have any money? Come on, come buy. It's all free. Come buy wine and milk without money, without cost. Why do you spend—"

Isaiah says to the people, "Why do you spend your money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?" In other words, why are you chasing dead religion with the idea that you're going to become acceptable to God by being a good Jew who follows the law? You're not going to accomplish that.

Here's the implication of verse 17: be ready. He's coming. He's coming quickly. Trust the gospel, follow Christ. Amen. Look at verse 18 and 19. We come to a second reminder about being ready for Christ. This one here is a warning about tampering with God's message. Here's the issue: when God gives his truth to mankind, he wants it to be read, he wants it to be believed, and he doesn't want us changing his message.

He gets very angry. In Deuteronomy chapter 4, Moses wrote, "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take away from it." Again in Deuteronomy 12:32, "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. Don't add to it, don't take away." And here in Revelation 22, we find the same warning. Verse 18 is one of two warnings about not tampering with God's truth. Don't change it, don't tamper with it.

Look at verse 18. "I testify," says Christ, "to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book." Don't change it, don't take away, don't add to it. What'll happen if somebody does try to change God's word? It says that God's going to add to him the plagues written in this book. That's serious stuff.

Now, that raises a question. Would this mean that people who try to deny what it says, maybe they teach something and they just deny what it says? Now listen, there are things in the book of Revelation that are hard to understand. Without question, there's things in other parts of the Bible that are hard to understand. But I don't think this is really beyond us.

I mean, here's what it says. God's going to bring a horrific judgment on this world, Revelation chapter 6 through 19. Christ is going to return at the end of that seven-year tribulation period and smash evil. It says that in 19:11-21. It says in chapter 20 that he's going to bind Satan in the bottomless pit for a thousand years. It says that. And it says that there's going to be a resurrection to all of the believers that came from the Old Testament, those that got saved during the tribulation period.

It says that in Revelation chapter 20, verse 4. And it says that all of these believers are going to rule with Christ for—for how long? For a thousand years. It uses the word "thousand years" six times in six consecutive verses. Now, some people say, "Well, that's just too hard to understand. What does that mean?" It's like, what do you mean? This is not that complicated. It really does say this.

But they don't want to believe what it says. So here's the thing that I'm saying: when you get people that will not believe what God says in Revelation and they teach other ideas, I just have to wonder if God's anger is against them for willfully not believing what he says he's going to do. That's in God's court, okay? But I can tell you this, there is a serious warning here about adding to this message here and changing this message.

Robert Thomas, who was my Greek professor that has a two-volume commentary on Revelation—the best commentary in the history of the church—Thomas says here, "The contextual flow of these comments in verses 18 and 19 requires that this warning concern itself with the substance of the book and not allowing that substance to be altered in any way. They must be a prophetic protest against the spurious revelations that began to circulate through false teachers in the end of the first century."

"The commands here terminate any further prophecies that might arise through any other claims of prophetic revelation. The relation of the warning in verses 18 to 19 to the entire canonization formula that we find in Deuteronomy chapter 4 is another good reason for concluding that John is forbidding any further use of the gift of prophecy."

"The comprehensive scope of Revelation's coverage of the encouragement and commandments that you see in chapters 2 and 3, and the predictive elements in chapters 4 through 22, and the extensive timespan that goes from the first century all the way into the eternal state, like you have in Revelation 21 and 22. In other words, Revelation covers into eternity future. From John's day all the way into eternity future. In view of this, it anticipates no more prophecy."

"The predictive portions projected from John's lifetime all the way into the eternal state. Any type of prophetic utterance that would intrude into the domain of this coverage and constitute either an addition or subtraction from Revelation's content." So the final book of the Bible, which is Revelation, is also the concluding product of the New Testament gift of prophecy. It also marks the close of the New Testament canon, since the prophetic gift was divinely chosen for communicating the inspired books of the canon.

So the bottom line is this, and I would agree with everything Thomas said on this: don't make any claim of prophecy beyond the book of Revelation, and don't deny what it does say. If you have a difficulty in interpreting something, there's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm not quite sure what this consists of." And there are things in there that you say, "I don't know, that's a tough one." But the basic message is clear enough.

John Walvoord, who was the president, chancellor of Dallas Seminary, Walvoord says in his commentary, "Those who deny his promises of blessing and subtract from his truths will receive his judgment and have no part in the tree of life or access to the holy city." Remember when Walvoord spoke at Las Vegas Bible Church in 1986? There was a conference and Walvoord was one of the speakers and this guy is such a giant scholar of the 20th century.

I remember Walvoord standing up there: "I don't know why people won't believe what it says right here. It really says what it says." Look at verse 19. The parallel commandment warning is this: "If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book."

Bottom line: don't mess with it. Read it, believe it. And in the case of passing it on—well, for the first 1,500 years of church history, that included copying. Now we have printing presses that can make the words printed identically, but back then, you had to copy manuscripts. Irenaeus was the Bishop of Lyon, France. Irenaeus lived in the middle of the second century.

He was trained and mentored by Polycarp, who was one of John's disciples. Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle, and Irenaeus was his student. Here's what Irenaeus said about the book of Revelation: "Whoever you are that are making a copy of this book, I adjure you by our Lord Jesus Christ and by his glorious advent, when he comes to judge the living and the dead, that you compare your copy and correct it carefully by this original manuscript."

Irenaeus had one of the original seven copies because when they made the book of Revelation, there were seven copies that were made, seven originals. Irenaeus had one of the original copies. He says, "So if you're going to make a copy of this for passing it on to others, I adjure you to correct it carefully by this original manuscript and likewise transcribe this adjuration and set it on your copy." Here's what he's saying: you better not mess around with this.

Be careful because this is God's word and God does not want his word to be tampered with at all. By the way, that's why I take the teaching of the Bible seriously. I spend a lot of time in everything I teach. I try to never, ever not be prepared when I come and I teach the Bible. And it takes a lot of time to make sure that you're doing things well.

If you were going to have brain surgery, you want someone that has really studied up on this topic, right? Well, how much more important is your soul? I think we should take the teaching of God's word very seriously. So, verse 17 we have this reminder with spiritual invitations; verses 18 to 19, this reminder of being ready by not tampering with God's word.

Verse 20 we see a third reminder about being ready. This one here is a final promise from Christ. Verse 20: "He who testifies to these things—" and Jesus is the one testifying. So what we're reading here is the testimony that Jesus Christ has brought to the world. This is the testimony of Christ. It's not speaking about Christ, but it's the testimony that Christ himself has brought to the world. "He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly.'"

So we go back to verse 17, this is where we see the invitations. The Spirit says, "Come, Lord." The bride says, "Come, Lord." The one who is hearing says, "Come, Lord." Jesus responds right here in verse 20 and says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:22 used an Aramaic expression, "Maranatha." Maranatha means "Come, Lord Jesus."

And that was a common expression that was used in the early church. They had meals together. They would share meals together after they worshipped together. And in these meals, it tells us in a book called the Didache, which is a late first-century book—it's basically a church manual. The Didache tells us that during their meals they would say, "Come, Lord Jesus." They said that because he did not come back yet.

Again, some people out there have these ideas that they teach and they say, "Well, Jesus already came back. He came back in the first century." You've heard that before, right? I just can't fathom why people would embrace that kind of an idea. Jesus Christ did not return in the first century. That doctrine is called preterism and it's oftentimes kind of connected with what's called post-millennialism.

But these people will say, "Well, yeah, Christ came in the first century. That's when he destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the second temple. That was the second coming of Christ." And when I look at that and I say that is not at all what the Bible says about Christ's second coming, it's like, why will you believe that when the Bible doesn't say that? It says something very radically different.

So when you look at the Didache and the Didache says when Christians meet together and they have fellowship and they celebrate the Lord's Supper, part of what they would always say is, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus." It's because they didn't believe that he had already come. Now, why is John so ready for Christ to return? Well, you've got to think about it. The guy's like 90 years old.

All right, now we know we've got some people right up there in Mesa up there, right? Just imagine though, if you're 90 years old and you have been beaten for the gospel, you have suffered starvation because of the gospel, you were boiled in oil. They tried to kill you. Domitian tried to kill the Apostle John by dropping him into a giant bowl of boiling oil and he survived it.

So your body has to have all sorts of terrible, painful kinds of scars from that. And then when you didn't die, he sent you off onto this little island where there was a colony, a prison colony where they would break rocks. And that was called Patmos. So you're 90-some years old, you've gone through all this stuff. You're ready for it, you know? Let's get this over. Lord, come right now. I'm ready.

By the way, that's the same kind of feeling that you and I should have. You may not have been boiled in oil, but you are dealing with a fallen world. All of us are dealing with a fallen world. So there's a message right here for all of us: as long as we are here in this world, we should be longing for Christ to come. Now, is it wrong to enjoy the good things of life? Not at all.

Last night, had the blessing of going to a wedding up in Denver. Dan and Betsy Ziegler's daughter got married. Catherine got married last night up in Denver. Beautiful wedding. You're young, you're starting life, you've got the blessing of marriage. You're young, you're studying, you're going to start off in your career and you're excited about your career and your family and your kids.

And you're excited about things like skiing or hiking, fishing. It's not wrong to enjoy those blessings. God says, "Enjoy them. That's my goodness to you." But even those good things—all those good things must not keep us from passionately wanting Christ to return. And here's the danger of living in a prosperous place like you and I live right now.

The danger is that we fall in love with the gifts more than the Giver. And that's why when you look at brothers and sisters that live with very, very hard lives and hard situations, their passion is very, very intensely focused on Christ and his return. So, however we do it, just make sure as you enjoy the gifts of life, which are not bad, don't stop longing for Christ to come.

Revelation closes in verse 21 with a final reminder and it says here, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen." In his word, God gives you and me everything that we need. He tells us that he's the Creator, he's the Sustainer, he's the Redeemer. He's also the coming Judge. And he tells us who we are: we're fallen sinners.

Adam's sin made us all sinners. And God tells us that he judges sin. But he also tells us in his word that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. John 4:42. He is the Savior of the world. And the Bible tells us that when Christ died on the cross 2,000 years ago, God took the punishment that you and I deserve and he laid it on his sinless Son.

You and I have a hard time making it out of bed in the morning without committing a sin. Jesus went from beginning to end never committing sin. He followed the Lord. He walked in his path. He never sinned. And that's why he could be our Savior. And so what God tells us in his word is this: believe in my Son, live for my Son, and keep your hope and joy in my Son because he's coming back. So don't stop following the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Thank you, O God, for this book, this wonderful book of prophecy that you have given to us, Lord Jesus, about the things that must shortly take place. We thank you for allowing us to study it over these past two years. Please forgive us for not following it like we always should. Help us, O God, by your grace, to turn from our sin and temptations.

Help us to trust you, to not become angry and bitter. Help us to let your grace shape our hearts and help us, Lord, to be faithful in bringing this message of redemption to the world around us. I pray that you would continue to multiply the love of Jesus Christ here at Mesa Hills Bible Church, that we would be known for our love.

We want to make sure that we stay faithful in teaching your word, but I pray that you'd multiply the love of Christ in my heart, in the hearts of our people, so that we would care for one another and love one another and encourage one another the way that we should and that the gospel message would be seen in the way that your people love. Thank you for all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.