JUL 3 2022 | Seven: A Study of the Book of Revelation S1E5 | 144,000

Sea Change Church · JUL 3 2022 | 144,000
Revelation 7:1-8
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Whether you want to find out about becoming a Christian, or get baptized, or people come up and ask, where's the bathroom? That might be their next step. So anyway, the scripture today is Revelation 7, verses 1 through 8. After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land, or on the sea, or on any tree.

Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea. Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. Then I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

From the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed. From the tribe of Reuben, 12,000. From the tribe of Gad, 12,000. From the tribe of Asher, 12,000. From the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000. From the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000. From the tribe of Simeon, 12,000. From the tribe of Levi, 12,000. From the tribe of Isakar, 12,000. From the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000. From the tribe of Joseph, 12,000.

From the tribe of Benjamin, 12,000. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. Seven series looking at the book of Revelation. And we have two more weeks of this. And one thing I want to start with is to let you know that this is probably closer to Bible teaching than it is to Bible preaching. It's just, it's so technical, the book of Revelation.

And what I'm trying to really do is simplify it. I'm trying to make it as simple as possible to talk about two things. One, structures. That's super important. What is the structure? I think the structure of Revelation is not difficult to understand. There's a structure to it. We'll show that in just a second on a slide. The second thing is, what does it mean to you?

How do you practically live? And so I think what I see that the book of Revelation is revealing is not so much about the different rabbit trails that you can go down. And I want to say, with 144,000, there is a rabbit warren that you can go down and get lost. I mean, my notes kept getting bigger and bigger. I'd like hack it back. I had like a machete.

And I was like, you know, Indiana Jones with my, I love saying it that way, machete. And I was hacking back these notes, trying to make them practical. And we can look at all these different things. And a lot of things we're not going to know. But there are some things we can know. We can know the structure. And we can also know what it means to you.

Now, what is really, really interesting with 144,000 that you've read about is not so much who they are. I think the Bible is very clear who they are. There's people who try to start making connections and try to create some other, I would say, answers to who it is. But the Bible is very clear. It's 144,000 Jews that are chosen or saved during the tribulation that go out and witness.

That's why they're called the 144,000 witnesses. They go out and witness. And a bunch of people come to know Jesus. And that becomes a great multitude. But what I think is really, really interesting is when we look at the 144,000, is to understand that they're really no different than us. There are so many similarities between the 144,000, what they are called to do, who they are chosen to be, how they are anointed for ministry, that really is no different than any believer who's lived since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, granted, not all of you are going to be Jews. We'll talk about that. Not all of you are going to be, you know, will be part of that 144,000. Now, if you are Jewish and you come from one of the tribes and you're here today and we're in the end times and Jesus chooses the 144,000, then you could possibly be one of them. We're going to talk, though, more about the structure.

Get right to that in just a second. But then also, what can we learn? How do we live like the 144,000? Because the 144,000 are a prototype of an on-fire believer. Somebody who is passionate about Jesus, who's passionate about sharing about Jesus, who's passionate about the blessing that comes with knowing Jesus, that is sealed for redemption. These are all things that are characteristic of them.

Lord Jesus, we pray that you would open this scripture now to us. As we go forward and we dive in to the book of Revelation, God, and we can glean from it the two things that are revealed, who Jesus is, Lord God, and who you have called us to be. We bless you. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Amen. In chapter 7, as you'll see in your notes of Revelation, we see a pause of the breaking of the seals and the choosing of 144,000 witnesses.

Now, show the slide on the screen, if you would. So, you're going to see on this slide, it's going to have the structure of Revelation. And so, the first thing you're going to see when it pops up is going to be, there it is. So, the first thing you see is the first seal. The first seal, once again, we're going to go through the seals. Now, remember, there's seven trumpets after the seals.

Let me just quickly go back before, you can leave that up there. We start with John being visited. John is taken to heaven in chapter 2. From chapter 2, we go to chapter 3, where God begins to speak to the churches and share with the churches. Then, after he shares with the churches, we go in heaven that we have these seals that begin to be broken that are on a scroll.

And the Lamb of God reads the scroll. Seal number 1, a white horse. Important, because we read about the 144,000 in this chapter. It mentions that there's four angels. Did you remember that there was four angels that were holding back the winds in this passage? Well, they are very closely represented to these four horsemen that are also, you'll see, in the Old Testament prophetic literature.

I'll explain that in just a second. But it is important. So, you have the white horse with the first seal. That's the Antichrist. He comes. He says he's for peace. He's not. Then, we have the red horse. The red horse is looking to bring war. He brings war upon the earth. When people begin to kill one another, he takes peace from the earth. The black horse is famine.

That's the third seal. God brings famine. Excuse me. God allows the horse rider to bring famine. So, he's using demonic influences to tribulate the earth. So, these first four seals are the demonic presence that are tribulating the earth. God is using them. He hasn't started doing the tribulating himself. That happens in the sixth seal or the beginning, as some would say, is the day of the Lord.

The fourth seal is the pale horse. That's death. Hades is riding behind him. But the scripture says that when he talks to Peter, Jesus talks to Peter, and he says, on this rock, that's the truth of Jesus. We don't believe as Protestants that that means Peter. We believe that what he had confessed, that Jesus Christ is Lord, is the rock that the truth was built on.

And it says, and the church will overcome Satan, and death, and what? Hades will not overcome them. So, even though the pale horse comes, the church will overcome the pale horse because they can overcome death and Hades. Then, in the fifth seal, we have a pause, right? We have a pause, and the throne of heaven, excuse me, the altar of heaven opens up, and there's all these people that were killed, that were Christians, that were killed during the first four seals.

They start crying out. We don't like that we were killed. We need out. We want help. When are you going to judge the world? And then, after, they cry out to God. And then, we have the sixth seal, which is an opening where God takes the reins and begins to tribulate the earth. And then, we have, sorry, the fifth seal, and then the sixth seal, when God was tribulating the earth.

And then, we have this here, in between, before we get to the seventh seal, is where the 144 are. So, we have a break. We have a pause in the seals right now. Between the sixth and the seventh seal, we have a pause, and this is where we have this 144,000 witnesses. Some people say that this is the millennium of Jesus. There's a lot of different rabbit trails, but during this pause, how long is the pause?

Does Christ reign on earth? There's all these questions. We're not going to get into that. We're going to get into the pause, and what he does during the pause, who he chooses, the 144, and what that means to you. Well, let's look at the characters in Revelation 7. You can take that down. First of all, I'll go to verse 1. We're going to just roll through these characters quickly.

Verse 1 says, there's four destroying angels. After this, I saw, this is John, four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, and they're holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land, the sea, or the tree. So, why four? Why do we have four angels? What do these angels mean? Why are they on the four corners of the earth?

You see that in the scripture multiple times, the four corners of the earth. The Bible talks about the four winds of the earth. What this means is that the totality of the earth is being subjected to what is happening and what is going to happen when these angels release God's wrath upon the earth. Remember now, the enemy is no longer being used to tribulate the earth, as we saw in the first four seals.

God has taken it over himself and is beginning to orchestrate the tribulation. And he does that because of grace. One, because sin needs to be judged, and we want sin judged. But two, because it allows people to come to know Jesus. Remember when we get to chapter 12, there's going to be a great multitude of people that, because of this tribulation, made a decision to follow Jesus.

This tribulation is one of the best times to share Christ. So, in verse 1, it says, after this, I saw the four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth. Those are represented, the four corners of the earth are represented as the North Pole, the South Pole. We don't really have an East or a West Pole, but imagine if you took the earth and you moved on its axis and flipped it at a 90-degree angle.

So, in the North, South, East, and West. Which means that these angels are covering the totality of the world. That the entire world will be subjected to what is about to happen. Now, what is also interesting is, you might ask, who are these four angels? These four angels are actually brought up in the book of Zechariah. In Zechariah 6.5, you'll see in your notes, Zechariah is speaking to the Lord.

He asks who four angels are. Now, notice in Zechariah, they got some horses with them. Those horses look very familiar to me, okay? But it doesn't mean that they are the same four horses that were at least, that were the demonic influence. These could be angels with the same color horses, but it does not mean that these are the same four horsemen.

Some people try to make that connection, it is never said in Scripture that is true. But there is really interesting, so see if you see this connection. This is the thing about the book of Revelation. It is so full of connections, it will blow your mind. So, let's go to Zechariah. Zechariah looks up, he's in heaven right now, just so, Revelation 2, John's in heaven.

He's in the same place John was a couple thousand years earlier. He says, so I inquired of the angel who was speaking with me. What are these, my Lord? And the angel told me, these are the four spirits of heaven. So, there's four spirits of heaven. You can do some research on that. You got a rabbit warren, you got about 36 days to go check that out?

Go down that Google internet hole. These are the four spirits of heaven going forth from their station before the Lord of all the earth. Now, one of the things we know is that if they're before the Lord, then as you see, they're worshiping before the Lord. And so, we can assume through that that these are angelic, heavenly beings, not the four riders of the apocalypse that were released that are perhaps demonic.

The first horse, maybe the white horse represents perhaps a human being. I understand that you probably need to listen to this message about nine times before you'll get it. And it can be totally confusing. I want to encourage you, we're on Vimeo, we're on YouTube, we're on Podmatic, we're now on Spotify. We're going to be on Spotify as of this week, so let's go.

Go back and you can study this yourself. The angel told me, that's Zechariah, these are the four spirits of heaven going back and forth from their station before the Lord of all the earth. The one with the black horses, from the station before the Lord over all of the earth. Now, there's that symbolism of all the earth. This is where you get that understanding.

I just told you that the four horses represent the entirety of the earth because it also goes back to Zechariah. And it says the one of the black horse is going to the north, the one with the white horse going to the west, and the one with the dappled horse is going to the south. Now, remember, dappled and pale. I couldn't find if that means the same thing.

I looked it up. I kind of ran out of time in my studying. But they don't call it a pale horse. So it's very clear, although there is some symbolism there. At least you have, for sure, three of the same colored horses. And so you see Zechariah is connected to the same thing we have in Revelation. So who are those? Those are those angels. What we know is you have four angels that are over the totality of the world, and they are going to be releasing God's judgments.

That's all we pretty much need to know. Verse 2, we have a commanding angel. We have this hierarchy of angels. In verse 2, it says, Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. I love that. The seal of the living God. And he called out a loud voice to the four angels who would be given power to harm the sea and the land.

And he says this, Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the forehead of the servants of God. Important. We'll be at that in a moment. So an angel who is telling the other angels, Don't move forward. We are going to seal the foreheads of the 144,000. As we'll see in a moment, these are 144,000 Jews that are saved from the tribes of Israel, modern day tribes of Israel, and they will go forth as witnesses.

Next thing is we have the tribes of Israel. Now, one thing that's interesting, if you know your tribes, in this list, there's a tribe called the tribe of Dan. If you look at this scripture, you will notice that Dan is not listed in the list. Why is Dan not listed? It has actually been replaced by the tribe of Joseph. Now, Joseph was, remember he went to Egypt, you know, a coat of many colors, that Joseph, okay?

He replaces and becomes the tribe, okay? He becomes and takes the place of Dan. People ask, now once again, if you have 42 days to go down the internet, and go look why the tribe of Dan isn't there, you're gonna find a lot of questions. Here's some things that I thought were the most relevant. One, I've been to Dan, I've been to the northern part of Israel, and it was a demonic cesspool.

They were the first to completely go after the worship of Baal. They had, you know, all this demonic influence, and they gave up everything that the Lord had given them in order to go worship the Baals. And so one, they had followed false gods. Number two, some people believe that the Antichrist, who is believed will be Jewish, because they will set him up if you go to Israel.

And if you've gone to Israel, they've actually prepared, they have a golden menorah. I don't know if you know that. It's in the center, in the old city in the center square. They have all this stuff, like in warehouses, ready to start temple sacrifice and worship again. I don't know if you know that. They got a giant golden menorah that sits there, it's in a glass box, and as soon as they get the, there's a whole bunch of them.

There's a bunch of like very conservative Orthodox Jews that are like, as soon as we get rid of the Muslims, we're going to set up temple worship, we're going to start sacrificing again. I don't know if you know that, but that is a plan, and that is happening, and they have everything they need, and the priest, and they're ready to go slaughter. You actually, every year at Passover, some guy, you know, if you read the headlines, tries to run up and sacrifice a goat or a lamb at the temple that is there, the Ark, the Dome of the Rock, which is where, you know, Islam currently holds that position.

They've actually, if you don't know, it's really cool. If you go underneath, there's a spot you can put your hands on. It's 10 feet from where the Holy of Holies actually was, and they have built a synagogue, it's gorgeous, this underneath the ground, almost directly underneath it. They can't go directly underneath it because the Islamic world owns, the Muslims own the top, but they've built all these tunnels around there, and so the, a lot of people believe that the Antichrist will be from the tribe of Dan, and that's why he's not represented.

The Bible doesn't say that, but those are just some of the unique things. Now, what is interesting is if you didn't know that the Jews, that the conservative Jews and Orthodox Jews are like, they're ready to rock and roll. Like, as soon as the Muslims are gone or they can get the Muslims out of the temple area right there, they're gonna set up the altar again.

Like, it's actually, I was over there. I saw the menorah. They're ready to rock and roll, which is really interesting. A lot of people don't know that. So we have the tribes there, and so one is replaced. Then we have the 44 witnesses. Now, this is what matters to you. Now, these 44 witnesses, as I said, are Jews, 144,000 Jews from the tribes of Israel. The tribe of Joseph, remember Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

When they use the term, the tribe of Joseph, it means Ephraim. So Ephraim and Joseph has supplanted Dan. They were, now, the tribe of Joseph was, is considered part of Judah. Remember the kingdom split? You got 10 kingdoms that go to the north, and then you have the kingdoms of the south where David is, and you have Israel and Judah, you have Judah that is there.

And so it is, Ephraim is represented by the name Joseph. So when you see Joseph, it means his son, the half tribe of Manasseh and Ephraim. It means his son. So Dan has been supplanted by Joseph. I hope that makes sense. I understand if you want to understand this, you're going to need to study it. You're going to actually have to be interested in studying it because, man, it is incredibly fascinating and can be incredibly confusing.

Okay, who are these 144? What does it matter to you? And then we'll come in for a landing. Verse 3, it says that they were chosen. Go to verse 3. Do not harm the land until we put a seal on the forehead. They are chosen and God goes and puts a seal. Now this seal is opposite of the mark of the beast. Now, is it a literal seal? I don't know. I mean, good. Are people getting chips put in themselves right now?

Is there all that stuff? You want to go on the internet right now and go check all that? You can go down a million rabbit holes and conspiracy theories about all of that. I don't know if it's a real symbol. I don't know if it's a barcode. I don't, all I know is that there is a decision that is made to either follow God or follow Satan or follow the world, so to speak.

And so the ones who do not accept that, the calling of the world are the ones who will be saved. But they are chosen here in this passage. They are given a seal. Will they have a seal on their forehead? I tend not to think so. I tend to think this is a metaphoric seal. But they are sealed in Christ. Now this is interesting because as I said, that they are, this 144 are a prototype of the kind of Christian you should be.

Why? Well in Ephesians it says that you're sealed. So the 144 are sealed. Are they metaphorically sealed? Is there a seal on their forehead? I gotta tell you, I just don't know. I know it's a good thing in that they follow God. I know that. But I know that we are sealed and what are we sealed with that I can guarantee you? The scripture says that you are sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Let's go with Ephesians. Ephesians 1.11. In him we are also what? Chosen. In him we are also chosen. They were chosen, the 144. If you have made a decision to follow Jesus and make him Lord in your life, then you are chosen as well. Having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in the purpose of conformity of his will. If you continue, if you did a Google search on sealed with the Holy Spirit, you will see multiple lists that say things like 24 verses about being sealed with the Holy Spirit.

When you receive the Holy Spirit, the scripture says that you have a seal on your body, in your heart, that you are sealed with the Holy Spirit for your day of redemption. And so the mark of God has been put upon you. So the first of all, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit. The next thing is that they're sealed for protection. These believers are sealed with the name of the Father on their foreheads rather than the mark of the beast and they have rejected and they've rejected the things of the world.

Now why is that important? Are we rejecting the things of the world? Or are you friendly with the things of the world? I would say there's a lot of believers in the world that are backslidden and they don't know it. They're totally backslidden. They're following their own flesh. They're following their own desires. They go to church. They're reading the Bible.

They're totally backslidden and they don't even know they're backslidden. They have walked away from the faith. Now, what's the extent of God's grace? I mean, I'm not going to test it. I believe it's strong. I believe that once you're in Christ, that Christ has you held and nothing can separate you from the love of God like the scripture says. But for some reason, the Bible's full of warnings.

Why is that? Like why does he warn Christians so much? As a matter of fact, in Revelation, in the churches, he starts out with this whole warning and he says to the church, if you don't get your act together, what am I going to do? I'm going to remove your lampstand. I don't think that's good. I'm not saying that that's, you know, I just don't think that's good.

And so what do I know? I know nothing can separate me from the love of God. But, and I want to lean on that. I want to lean on that I'm chosen and predestined and called on him. There's a bunch of warnings in the scripture saying. And so I'm looking at these warnings and I know that they are warning and God has protected them but God has also called them and chosen them for something greater than just Sunday Christianity.

He's called them to worship him. They're sealed with a protection and we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. In Revelations 9, it says, if you were to go ahead a little bit when talking about these 144,000, let me tell you how they're sealed for protection. It says, these 144,000, the angels were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree but only those people who did not have what?

The seal of God on their foreheads. Now here's what, I think, a few points and then we'll finish. They're servants of the living God. Verse 2, do not harm them. It says that until we put a seal on the foreheads of whom? Just a bunch of randos? No. Not a bunch of rando people who watch YouTube videos about church or listen to, you know, Joel Osteen or come to this church and go to Joe with missions.

There's a characteristic of them. They're servants of God. Absolute servants of God. Now once again, what can we learn from Revelation? This is why we're in Revelation. The question is, are you a servant of God? It says not only servant but slaves to righteousness the scripture speaks about. We know a lot about slaves these days, right? We've been talking about for a few years.

Big. Not something we like, right? Slavery. Don't like it. Don't like it. Don't like human trafficking. Slavery. Don't like the slave trade in the East Indies. The Dutch company, you know, West Indies company. All of it that happened. But we are called to be slaves. Slaves of what? Slaves to righteousness. Imagine all the things that a slave was called to do.

Imagine all of the sacrifices a slave had to make. We are called to be that. He says put a seal on these 144. He says put a seal on their foreheads. He says of what? The servants of the living God. I want to say the people who weren't servants of God didn't get a seal. I know that. I know the scripture says that. Do I believe I'm saved? Yes. Do I believe that nothing can separate me from the love of God?

Do I believe he has grace for me when I sin? Yes. Do I believe the Bible is full of warnings to the church? Yes. Do I feel, do I believe that people, that these 144 get a seal if they're not servants of God? The answer is no. They don't. And so this is one of the things that Jehovah Witnesses believe. This is why they call the Jehovah Witnesses Jehovah Witnesses because of these 144,000 witnesses.

Jehovah Witnesses believe, and it's not accurate in the Bible, that only 144,000 of them make it to heaven. So why do you think they're working so hard? Why do you think they're at a door so often? Because you've got 144,000 that are actually going to make it, and it says that the rest won't make it. It says these are witnesses who work, and then it says also that these servants become witnesses.

So besides being a servant, the next thing is they're witnesses. These witnesses go out and begin to share the love of God. Are you a witness? This is really, this was really challenging to me. Where am I sharing God? You know, I'm getting more and more bold, especially the more things are tribulated, the more the witnesses speak. The more things are tribulated, the more people, a great multitude, go later in the scripture, come to know Jesus.

Why? Because a bunch of witnesses kept their mouth shut? You're not a witness if you keep your mouth shut. You're not a witness. Believe a witness believes in their heart and confesses with their what? Mouth. Yeah, you can be a witness with your actions. I think we should. And use words like a CC says when necessary. But sometimes that's a cop-out. Right?

We want to share the hope that we have with people. Hey, do you have a relationship with God? Be surprised in a one-on-one situation with people, you're just talking to them, how many people have you said, hey, do you have a relationship with God? We'll have a conversation with you. I have found like 90%. Hardly anybody, I don't even remember the last time somebody says, I don't want to talk about that stuff.

Everyone wants to talk about it. Everybody wants to talk about God and thoughts and what's going on in society. These are witnesses. Once again, what can we learn from the 144 witnesses? They were servants. They were witnesses. They were sealed with the Holy Spirit. And then finally, here as we come in for the landing for the third time, what is so interesting is that these servants end up standing on Mount Zion with God.

I'm going to show you why that matters to you. If you were to go to Revelation 14.1, which is in your notes, it says, Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb. That's cool, right? Remember Mount Zion? Well, there's a new Mount Zion in heaven. A hundred and forty-four thousand stood on Mount Zion with the Lamb. And with him were who? A hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name, Jesus, and his Father's name written on their foreheads.

That's cool, right? At the end of it all, they end up, it's 144,000, with Jesus and on Mount Zion. You might be thinking to yourself, I want a piece of that action. I want some of that. I wish I was a Jew. I was in Morocco one time. A guy pulled a knife on me on a train. And he said, you know, give me your wallet. I said, I'm not giving you anything. It was like a pocket knife like this big.

And my friend had it recorded. He has it on a recording action, a little recording thing. And the guy's like, F you, and I scream, and I'm like, give me your wallet. And I'm like, I'm not giving you my wallet. And he goes, what are you, a Jew? And I was like, I wish I was a Jew. And he goes, ahhh! He did. He was, ahhh! Ahhh! The train police came and threw him off the train while it was moving.

I'm serious. Ah! Boom! That's how it roll. They rock and roll in Morocco. You go to Casablanca, dude. It ain't like Lakeside, you know, or, you know, La Mesa. All right. You want a piece of that action? Let me just tell you why you are just like the 144,000. We've already learned that you can be a witness. Already learned that you can be sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Already learned that you might be a servant. Maybe you are. Maybe you ain't. But we know you also can get a piece of that Mount Zion action because if you read Hebrews, what does Hebrews say? Hebrews 12, 2. But you, this is you. Paul speaking, the writer of Hebrews is speaking to Christians. But you have come to Mount Zion to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

That's right, Mount Zion, different Mount Zion than one heaven. He's speaking to you. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly to the church of the firstborn. Whose names are written in heaven. That's you. You have come to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Let's say there's not much difference between the 144,000 and you if you want to accept it. If you want to ask Jesus to save you from your sins so that you might be sealed with the Holy Spirit, you will have the seal of God upon you. You will end up on Mount Zion with the 144,000 with the Lamb. You can be a witness so that to be part that brings the great multitude in the end times.

You can be that person. I want to say when I talk about warnings, I was thinking this week. I got a picture. I was getting out of my car yesterday. I got ready to get out and a car came by at 55 miles an hour and ripped the door off my car. There it is right there. That far from me. All week, the Lord said, you know what? It can end like that. All week. I was praying with Kai on the way to drive out.

The reason I said Lakeside, I was going out to Lakeside. So I'm in Lake, man, they drive fast to Lakeside. And I'm there and Kai said, I just want to pray that the angel of the Lord over the Church of La Jolla would bless and protect us. I got to tell you, it happened so fast. I can't even tell you how fast it happened. I mean, like if it would have just hit my hand, it would have broke my arm.

Yeah, you leave it up there. I like that. Let me put that picture back up. I got a teary-eyed. Do you still have that picture? There it is. I got teary-eyed. I love that car. I love that. It's coming back. I want you to know that car is coming back. I got to tell you something that happened. I literally felt the angel of the Lord between me and the car. It was that quick.

I felt it. And for the next 12 to 15 hours, the left side of my body just tingled. Nothing hit me. I just know. I know that the angel of the Lord protected me. I've been dead. Like literally, I would have stepped out eight inches, it would have hit my head. Dude, it was nuts. I got to tell you, 55 miles an hour, wham! That's quick. You don't even see it coming.

You're dead. You don't even see it coming. And you know what? The Lord's been speaking to me about, dude, he's been telling me all week, get your stuff together. I was talking to my mom on the way out the lakeside. My mom's like, I'm just going to pray for your safety. I was thinking to myself, why are you praying for my safety? I'm going to Lakeside, man.

I kind of grew up out there, right? Alcohol on Lakeside, wash out. I'm going to read this. I'm going to finish this because we need to repent. Not so we can repent and follow Jesus. No, so you can know the love of God. Let me read this. This is so, in Hebrews 12. This is after the thing I just read you about Mount Zion. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and be holy.

Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Full stop. Without holiness, you will not see the Lord. Bible's clear. I am saved in my salvation. God loves me. His grace is sufficient. Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Warnings, and it says, if you're not holy, you won't see the Lord. Full stop. You do with it what you want. I'm not going to roll the dice, personally.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God. Ouch. And no bitter root grows up to cause any trouble and defile many. The Lord told me to tell you this. If you're bitter about some politician or something, that's a bitter root. You cannot add anything to God's anger. So you don't need to be angry at politicians. You don't need to be angry at your next door neighbor.

You can't add anything to God's anger. He already is angry over sin. You need to pray. Don't let a bitter root grow up in you towards your wife, your family. It says here in verse 16, see that no one is sexually immoral or is godless like Esau. For a single meal he sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterwards, you know when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected.

Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what had been done. That's up to you how you want to receive that scripture. I know how I wanted to receive it. I thought I don't want any sin in my life. I want to follow God. I want to stand on Mount Zion. I want to witness the people. I walked by a girl at the fair yesterday. 400 cuts on her arm.

It's all cut up. All dressed in black. Funky hair. Piercings everywhere like 14 years old. Dude, I want to share with those people. I want to see them come to Jesus. I want to see them know hope. You're just sitting there with a razor blade freaking cutting yourself. We got to wake up. We got to wake up as a church. Kai had a dream this week that the roof of the church was just blown off.

We want to blow the roof of the church off. We want to go for Jesus. The world needs your message. The world needs you. It needs you to not give away your blessing for a bowl of soup. And then in the end cry with tears because you lost it. You can't do anything to get it back. Is that a hard word? I totally know that's a hard word. I got to tell you the Lord told me to tell you.

And I'm not going to stand before the Lord and say I didn't tell you. But there's also this other thing. You can stand on Mount Zion. You can be with Jesus. He loves you so much. He wants to be with you. He wants to party with you. He wants to run in the fields with you. He wants to go to the beach with you. He wants to do everything with you. He loves you so much.

That's it. Let's go. All right? Stand up. I want to bless you. If you need prayer today, come forward for prayer. If you have your communion right now, you're going to take that communion out. Before I bless you, I went a little bit long. Let's just take that communion and just hold that real quick. Let's just hold that communion. Let's hold that communion.

If you're a believer, you know Jesus, you can ask forgiveness for your sins right now. Let's hold that. It said, When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table and he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.

After taking the cup, he gave thanks. He said, Take this divided amongst yourself. For I tell you, I will not drink again the fruit of the vine until the kingdom comes. He took the bread. Let's break it. Gave thanks and he broke it. Just right now, in your own heart, say, Jesus, thank you for your body being broken for me. Let's take the bread. The Holy Spirit convicted you today.

He convicted me this week. Six inches from probably death. It's all good though. We've got the angel. This is the blood of Jesus. You can ask forgiveness for your sins. He said he took the cup. He said, This cup is the covenant of the blood of my covenant. It's shed for the remission of your sins. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's take that. Now, if you've asked forgiveness for your sin, you don't need to go wallow in a bunch of shame and go beat yourself with guilt, you can walk out in freedom.

Boom. If you need prayer today, we're going to have a prayer team up here. We want to pray for you. We want to anoint you. We want to see God move in your life. If you want to know about accepting Jesus, getting baptized about our church, go to the next steps table. Like I always say, if you want fellowship and a coffee, go meet our coffee team. Extend your hands.

I'm going to bless you. Lord Jesus, we want to bless this group of people, Lord Jesus. We want you. We want more of you, Jesus. More of you. No turning back. No half measures will do. We want to stand on Zion. If you want to stand on Zion, just in your own heart, say, God, I want to stand on Zion. God, I want you, Jesus. More of your blood. I turn away, God, from all the things that are just a bull of stew, God.

I've traded them for your blessing. I want your blessing. I want your word. I want you, Jesus. I want your righteousness. We bless you now. We send you out on the Fourth of July holiday to make a difference, to be a witness like the 144. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Get out of here. Go have fun.