7 Blessings in the Book of Revelation

In the scripture, the number seven represents completion and perfection. We see the number seven appear numerous times. Do a study sometime on how much the number seven appears in the Bible. Of course, the first thing we think of is the Seventh-Day Sabbath. Ancient Israel had a seventh-year land Sabbath.

The Feast of Tabernacles lasted seven days. The days of the 11 bread lasted seven days. There's an eighth day in both of those. One is the Passover and one is the eighth day, the last great day. But there are seven days in specific reason for those seven days in those two festivals. The Book of Revelation contains an amazing number of sevens and patterns of sevens. There are seven spirits, seven lamps stand, seven churches, seven stars, seven torches, seven seals, a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, seven angels with seven trumpets, seven thunders, a dragon with seven crowns on his seventh head, seven hills, seven kings, and seven last plagues.

So the number seven is very important in the Book of Revelation. What I want to cover today are seven statements that are made in the Book of Revelation that you've probably never thought of.

There are seven blessings in the Book of Revelation.

Seven blessings from God. He actually says these are blessings. Seven blessings from God that are in the Book of Revelation. That's what we're going to cover today.

Go through each one of these blessings and look at its application. If God's, I think we all want blessings from God. In the Book of Revelation, there are seven statements that these are blessings from God. Seven of them.

We need to look at those and see are we receiving those blessings. Are you and I receiving those blessings? Are those blessings happening in our lives?

Let's start with the first one. Let's go to Revelation chapter 1. Start at the very beginning of the book.

Revelation chapter 1. We think of Revelation and we think of all the negative aspects, if you will, of all the terrible things that it talks about, the tribulation, the day of the Lord, the four horsemen, the apocalypse.

We miss sometimes the seven blessings. But many of these blessings also have attached to it instructions.

So they're blessings with instructions. If we want to receive these blessings, we have to do certain things.

So let's start in verse 1.

Some people say, well, we can't read the book of Revelation. It's too complex. Even in the church, people say, well, prophecy is sort of boring. We need lots of Christian living. And we do need lots of Christian living. But you know what? It says right here, we're blessed if we do this.

So there's a blessing that comes from God when we study this prophecy.

Revelation is an interesting word in Greek. It literally means simply to uncover. In other words, something is hidden. You can't see it. You can't see it, and then it's uncovered. And now you can see it.

You'll see the word used a number of times in the scripture. Let's go, we'll come back here in a minute, but let's go to Luke 2. This is one of my favorite places where the word revelation is used. Because of the person involved here.

I wish we knew more about this man because God gives him a very special blessing. God gives this man a very special blessing, and he receives that blessing in this. He gives him a promise. He spends his whole time of his entire life waiting for that promise. And then he receives it. And this is what happens when he receives it. Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel. In other words, he was waiting for the Messiah. His name was waiting for it. He wanted the Messiah to come. He wanted to see the Messiah. And the Holy Spirit was applauded. So here was a man who had God's Spirit.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So this man waited and waited and waited for this blessing. He said, you're going to die, but before you die, you're going to get to see the Messiah.

So he came by the Spirit into the temple. This is verse 27.

And when the parents brought up the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace.

He said, okay, I can die now. It's okay. Because I know what's next. And we're going to get into that in the book of Revelation 2. He says, I can die in peace. It's okay. I know what happens next. Because I've waited all my life for this simple blessing that you told me I would get to see the Messiah. And he picks up Jesus, probably to the shock of Joseph from Mary, and says, this is him. This is him, everybody. This is the Messiah.

For my eyes have seen your salvation, but you have prepared me for the face of all peoples to a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles. He says, this is the light to the world. This is for everybody. And the glory of your people, Israel. He says, this is the purpose for Israel. It's for the Messiah to come. So this will be glory to the people of Israel because the Messiah came through them, and this is the light to the Gentiles.

Remarkable prophecy. Remarkable statements by a man who said, it's uncovered. I've waited all my life. And there it is! This is the baby. I find that just a fascinating use of that word. And his experience.

The blessing that he received from God. In Revelation, we're told that there is a blessing. With this uncovering of this book, there's a blessing. And this blessing comes if we read it and if we keep it. In other words, we have to hold on to it. We have to do what we're told to do in that book. And there are instructions in this book of what the people of God are supposed to do. We do these things. We read this. We hear it as it says. It says, read or hear. And we hold on to it.

We keep it. And we observe it. Now I do have a handout that I want you to go through here quickly. And so I have a couple helpers here who are going to hand this handout. Please, one for family. I don't know if I did enough for everybody. But if one for family... Because this is the overview of the blessing that comes when we read this book. And when we do, we heed it. We hold on to it. It's not just read it and forget it.

We hold on to this that one has told us in this book. So this prophecy is very important. But I want to look at the blessings that come from this prophecy. What we have here are the sort of the mega themes in this book. I'm going to go through these rather quickly. One is God's sovereignty. What the book of Revelation tells us, this is part of the blessing of the book, is remember, no matter what's happening in the world around you, God is God.

And God is going to fix all this. God is going to fix all this. I keep thinking of Simeon. I know the kingdom is not here yet, but the Messiah is. I can go sleep and know. I can go die because the kingdom will come. The Messiah has come. The kingdom will come. I can die in peace. What a remarkable viewpoint of life! It was a blessing. God's sovereignty. In the explanation part of this, we have the discussion of God's sovereignty and what God is doing in our lives.

But look at the importance. Those Satan's power may be temporary, and it may increase temporarily. According to the book of Revelation, the closer we get to the end time, the more Satan's power is going to increase. The more evil the world is going to become. And he said, well, that scares me. Yes. But we can't bury our head in a sand and say, oh, it's not happening in my lifetime. We have to look at it and say, yes.

At some point in the future, very bad things are going to happen. And Satan's power is going to increase, and the world is going to become more evil. But there's promises made to us by God that he is going to prepare us and take care of us for the return of life. Christ's return. The book of Revelation is all about Christ's return right at the moment, and if he doesn't come, humanity is going to destroy itself, as Jesus said in all of it, prophecy. This is all about the hope of Christ's return. It's Simeon saying, I've waited for this blessing.

Here's the child. We're waiting for a blessing, and the blessing comes when Christ returns. And we have to believe in that blessing. We live our lives waiting for that blessing, working towards that blessing. And that's what this book does. It gives us a glimpse into this great blessing that we receive them. And it gives us the ability to adore, as it says in the importance here. You can read these paragraphs yourself. God's faithful people. A lot of what the book of Revelation is, suggests the judgment of the world, or how the world tears itself apart under Satan's rulership as the god of this world.

It's about how God's people adore, survive. The book tells us that some people don't survive in this physical sense. They die. But we're going to look at that in a minute, and how God looks at that. And so we grab hold of God, be thankful that we have been called now for this blessing. The blessings we receive now are hope, encouragement, purpose. There are blessings in your life because of the book of Revelation.

But these blessings also are in the future. Judgment. We know that God's judgment is going to be upon this earth. And the importance is, it reminds us, evil will not go on forever. It's so easy for us to look at all that's happening in the world, look at the news, study what's happening, and feel overwhelmed by the evil of it. Just overwhelmed by it. Overwhelmed by the evil in the world. Well, when we study the book of Revelation, it reminds us, there's an end to this. God says there's an end to the evil in the world, and He's going to stop it. You and I live during that period now where there's evil in the world.

This is every human being that's ever lived, except for the short time that Adam and Eve lived before they sinned. That's it! Except for that little time we've all lived with evil in the world. All of us. Every human being. And I tell you what, as hard as it is now, our lives are easy. All you have to do is compare to some Christians in other time periods. Read the Middle Ages. I am so glad I'm happy, or I'm so happy and glad that I live now. The Middle Ages is a terrible time to live. And it's been hard for Christians, or the true followers of God, no matter what, and then hope.

Sometimes people avoid reading the book of Revelation because there's so much bad in it. Well, there's so much hope in it for those who understand it. And that's why we have right here at the very beginning, and let's go back to Revelation chapter 1, we have the first of the blessings. Blessed. Or if I was a Baptist, I could say blessed.

I wonder, is it blessed or blessed? I've heard it both ways. It's blessed. Is it blessed? Okay. You're saved blessed. That's true. Thank you. You've solved that problem for me. But I've always wanted to say blessed. Okay. Blessed. Blessed is he who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep those signature written in it, for the time is near. Blessed. So this is the first of the great blessings that we can look through here, see what God's doing, see God's sovereignty, see that evil doesn't last forever, see that Christ is coming back, and we've been called to be part of that and have hope in that.

First blessing. But you've got to read it first to receive the blessing. You've got to hear it first, and you've got to keep it, or you won't receive the blessing. Second blessing is in Revelation 14. We're just going to go through the book of Revelation and look at each of these statements of blessings. Revelation 14, verse 12. This one is a little tough at first to see as a blessing. Here's the patience of the saints. It's talking about all the things that are happening.

This is the middle of the tribulation, and the wrath of God is about to happen, and the saints are being persecuted, and actually the people of God, some are dying. They're being killed for their faith, for their strength, for their courage. They're actually dying. And so I have this statement that here's the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of the faith of God, or faith of Christ. So here we have two qualities of these saints. They're keeping the commandments. They're obeying God, and they have the faith of Christ.

They know and they understand the work that God is doing through Jesus Christ. And they're holding on to that. That's why I hold on to the Holy Days. The Holy Days teach us the work God is doing through Jesus Christ. That's what it teaches us at. It zeroes us in on that work. So the saints are holding on to the commandments of God, faith in Jesus Christ, the understanding of salvation and what is coming through Him, and this hope of the future.

But they're being persecuted. And then he makes this remarkable statement. Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Right, so John writes this, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. What? Blessed are those who die at this point? But notice the rest of the verse. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them. We forget sometimes that God does not see death the way we do. What follows after this time period here where he makes his statement is that the wrath of God is going to be poured out on the world.

And what he says, there are people, His people, people God loves, people whose God is working in their lives, who has His Spirit. And these people keep the commandments of God. They have the faith of Jesus Christ. It is better for them to die than go through what happens next. Because what happens next is God pours His wrath out on the world.

Up to this point, what's happening is basically Satan and humanity doing it to each other. But there reaches a point where God says, I am going to intervene, and for some of my people, it's better they go to sleep and they won't have to go through this. It's a different viewpoint. Let's go back to Isaiah. Isaiah 57. Isaiah 57. I've read this at funerals from time to time. Especially when you look at an older person who is sick and worn out and asked this, and I've been asked this numerous times. Would you ask God that if He's done with me and I'm prepared, can I just go to sleep and wake up?

I've actually had people ask me that. Now, the younger you are, the harder it is to understand it. I know I'm not ready to ask that yet, but then I'm not worn out. I'm not in pain all the time. I've not watched everybody I know die. There are some people that reached that point, and they've been faithful to God, and they look at this Scripture as a blessing. And what it says in Revelation, for some people, the blessing is going to be, go to sleep.

And you'll miss all this. Isaiah 5-7, verse 1, The righteous perishes, and no man takes at the heart. Merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from the evil. There's a point where God says, it's enough. I do not want you to suffer anymore. And there's a point in the tribulation, before God pours out His wrath, that there's going to be people, not all the church by any stretch of the imagination, but there are going to be people who are going to receive a blessing that says, I don't want you to suffer anymore. Those people will be glad for that blessing, because they're not going to give up.

They're not going. They're strong with God. God's Spirit is working in them, and their faith is. They're not going to give up. All they're going to do is suffer more and more and more. And God's going to say, no, I'm not going to let you suffer anymore. For righteous' sake, you're going to die. You're going to go to sleep.

Different viewpoint, isn't it? I like the first blessing. Blessed are those who read this, who hear it, and do what's in it. Oh, good. I get a blessing from God. The second blessing is a little tough. Because then I think, if I'm in prison, in the tribulation, and starving and getting beat up all the time, for preaching and teaching God's way, I don't know. Going to sleep might not be such a bad idea.

There might be a point where some of us are going to say, God, would you bless me? I'm asking for the blessing you told us about in the book of Revelation. There may be people asking for that. But see, it's a different viewpoint. So those who receive this blessing, by the way, will not see it as a negative thing. They will see it as a blessing. They will see it as a blessing. Now, we're not that to that place. Sometimes somebody is every once in a while. And I'm always amazed when they ask. And they die in peace. They die in peace. Because, just like Simeon, who was an old man, said, God, bless me! Here he is. Here's the Messiah. So I'm going to go to sleep and I'll see you all in the kingdom. And he was at peace, it said. He was at peace. So this is a blessing. We are blessed when we see and we have the faith and peace to anticipate the resurrection. That's what this blessing is. This blessing is the faith and peace to anticipate the resurrection. When you have the faith and peace to anticipate that, the resurrection, that the fear and anxiety goes down. We truly believe in the resurrection. We believe it. And there's a blessing in that. That's what these people will have. They will have the blessing of the faith and peace that they know the resurrection is coming. In fact, for them, it won't be very long. It won't be very long. The third blessing, Revelation 16. Revelation 16. Verse 15. These are the words of Jesus here. And if you have a red letter edition, this will be in red. He says, Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shape. Now, blessed here has something you must do. Remember, the first blessing is you have to read, you have to hear, and you have to heed. You have to hold on to and do what this book says. Here is a blessing for those who watch and keep their garments. You will see garments used throughout this book in a very specific way. The garments are used as a symbol of the righteousness of people who are following God. And, we'll see in a little bit, used as a symbol for what the bride of Christ is wearing. Christ is coming back to marry the church.

And, the beautiful wedding gown, absolutely spotless, absolutely beautiful. This beautiful wedding gown is used to describe the righteousness of the saints. So, he says here, you have to watch so that you have the beautiful wedding gown on. Sometimes it's hard for us guys to grasp, but we're all going to be brides, okay?

And, this beautiful wedding gown, he says, or if you're not watching, you may not receive the blessing of having the beautiful wedding gown on. You may be absolutely without clothes. There's a common dream people have that they're going to something important. And, you know, some meeting... I've actually had people say they had this dream before their wedding. Or, you're at school. Kids will have this dream at school. And, suddenly, it's like, I don't have any clothes on! Everybody sees me! I won't ask how many people had that dream, but I talk to people who have it. My nightmare is always, I'm at the Feast of Tabernacles, and they announce me to give the sermon, and I'd forgotten it was my turn to give the sermon, and I don't have any.

Not even my Bible, you know. And, a lot of times, I'm not even dressed for it. I'm sitting there in Bermuda shorts, and it's like, I don't know, it's a weird dream. But, it's the same concept, right? The concept is, I'm not prepared, and everybody's going to see me as I really am. And, what he says here, if we're not watching, we may not have the white wedding dress on. In which case, we will be naked, spiritually naked, before God. So, blessed are those who watch. This means that you and I must be vigilant in our Christian lives.

We must watch to make sure we're vigilant in our lives. Our problem is today, sometimes Christianity is too easy for us. None of us are starving because of our Christianity.

None of us are living on the street, or in the catacombs, because of our Christianity. None of us are suffering because one of our loved ones was just killed because of their Christianity. None of us are in prison because of our Christianity. This is all really, really, really easy compared to what many people have lived through throughout the last two thousand years. This is the easiest, probably, it's ever been. Give me a question. And so, we lose our vigilance.

We lose it. I was reading some the other day, I was reading writings from the second century and the third century from Christians. And what's amazing is, so many of them were being persecuted, and so many of them were dying. That all the writings for that 200 years contained things like, Give up your houses, give up everything, be prepared to meet God in the resurrection, and live according to God's laws, because you're going to die anyways. There was this enormous belief that you're going to be killed.

In fact, what it became is, you wanted to die. And there's writings from people in the second or third century that said, I'm just waiting. One writer wrote, I can't wait till they throw me in there and I'll yell to the lions, Come rip my arms off, tear my guts out, it's gruesome, because I will die for God and it'll be over.

That's a different viewpoint, right? But that's what they were living through. For 200 years, that's what they were living through. Different viewpoint. You and I live in this time where being vigilant is difficult because it's so easy. We think it's so hard. We thought this is easy compared to what most people live through. And so he says, blessed are those who watch, who have this vigilance to watch our spiritual nature and make sure we're not just sort of living in the world.

We live sort of halfway in the world in our behavior, in our motivations. Luke 12. I've always thought Luke 12 is one of the most fascinating parables of Jesus. Because it is not to the world, it is to the church. And it has a prophetic meaning, but this can be read at any time throughout church history. For the last 2,000 years, any Christians that pick up Luke can read this, and it has a very, very important meaning for us.

Verse 42 of Luke 12. And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise servant, whom a master will make ruler over his household to give them their portion of food in due season? So, who are the true servants of God? Now from here on, he's talking about servants.

He's not talking about the world. From here on, he's talking about the church. Us. He says, Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. So this ties into what we just read in Revelation. Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments clean. Blessed are those who are doing what God wants them to do, but keeping the commandments and everything of the faith of Jesus Christ. Blessed are those who are doing that. Truly say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has. So here we have this first servant.

This first servant is watching, he's careful, he's doing what God wants him to do. He's just living his life the way God wants him to. And he says this servant receives a real blessing. This is a blessed servant. And we receive blessings in this life, too. But the focus here is the blessings we receive when Christ returns.

So the focus here is really what the book of Revelation is about. Now notice the next type of servant, verse 45. But if that servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, he begins to beat the male or female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk. So let's stop here. Here's another kind of servant. This servant loses the vision of the book of Revelation. Now they didn't have the book of Revelation yet when he wrote this, when Jesus said this, or when Luke wrote it. But it's still zeroing in on when his master comes. He says he's lost the vision of his master coming. Now a lot of the vision we have of our master coming is from prophecies in the Old Testament.

It's the Olivet prophecy. There are certain things that Peter and Paul talk about, and it's the book of Revelation. These things all come together and they give us our vision. Obviously this servant is not receiving the blessing of reading, listening, and doing, heeding the book of Revelation, if we put it into modern times. And so what is this servant doing? Since the return of Jesus Christ isn't real, it's not something that person thinks about much. It's not a goal of this life that that person mistreats other Christians. Always in conflict, always marriage problems, always hating each other. They're just always problems with other sermons.

And two, they're living lifestyles, sinful lifestyles. They've got one foot in the world. You know, they drink too much, but not that often. Oh yeah, I drink too much. Once in a while, not that often. No. Oh, sure. I...and just fill in the blank. Sure, I know. I... I... I party on Friday nights, but not that often. Not that often. I work on the Sabbath, but only when it's an emergency. And that only happens maybe five times a year. Just start filling in the blank.

What do we do? How do we act? And so what we have here is a person, a servant. Okay, so this is the servants of God. This servant is constantly abusing other...other servants. And this person has one foot planted firmly in the world. They think like the world. They act like the world. This next statement he makes about this servant should frighten us. Because remember, these are servants.

This isn't the world. He says, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him. And at an hour when he is not aware. And he will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. Wow! He will be judged horribly. This seems to be an eternal judgment. In other words, it's totally different than the other judgments that are given in this passage.

This one is thrown into the same category as people who deny God. So you have one blessed servant who is, when his master comes, finds him doing. When Revelation 20 happens, he's doing. Or he has died doing between then and... You know, between the time he gives this and that time. Then there will be other servants who will say, no, you don't come into the kingdom. You don't come into the kingdom. Then notice the next. Verse 47, And that servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

Here's another kind of servant. Here's a servant who, well, you know, did the minimal, didn't steal, didn't kill anybody, never worshiped an idol, did the minimal standards, you know, kept holy days. Do you know what God expected of that person? But they weren't prepared. There wasn't a deep personal relationship with God. They weren't prepared for the things that would come. As we go through this, we just read one of the, you know, what we're dealing with right now is the blessing that says, watch!

He wasn't prepared. She wasn't prepared. Life just sort of went on. And the result is that they weren't truly doing what God wanted in their lives. Just on the surface. Now, this person doesn't receive eternal judgment. This person receives many stripes. This person receives punishment from God in this life.

They may be doing it in appearance, but it's not in their heart in the way it should be. And the only way that that gets remedied is through punishment that causes them to now do it what God wants, to seek God's will. So it's interesting. It's not that they go to the lake of fire.

They receive punishment, many stripes. Then the last one. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. Now that's very interesting. He says there are people that God calls that may be, for a number of reasons, they just don't have the opportunities. They don't have the talents. You know, I've seen people called by God. I know have God's spirit, and yet have very low IQs.

And they obey God, but don't understand certain things. I've seen people like that. And God says, okay, they get a few stripes. The people that don't have the opportunities, the people that God calls that never have a congregation to go to, they never learn certain things in this life the way we do, who have been privileged. He says, they'll get a few stripes to straighten them out. But, you know, God understands He doesn't judge you for what He doesn't give you. Because notice the next statement, and this is very important in receiving the blessing that we just read about in the book of Revelation.

He says, the last part of this verse, verse 48, For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required, and to him much who has been committed, of him they will ask them more. You and I have received more than probably anybody else in history. Well, the Apostle Paul received a lot. That's true. He never received the last, you know, first, second, third John in Revelation. He was dead before they were written. He didn't receive that. You and I received that. The people of the first century didn't walk around with, you know, I have like 30 of these in my office of all these different translations and copies in Greek and Hebrew.

Paul would have had one in Greek. He would have had one in English, though. You and I meet in this blessing we have that no one is persecuting us. All except the skunk, or whatever that was that smelled bad when we came in here. I always changed my sermon to title our sins are a stench in the nostrils of God, but I didn't.

We've been given all this, and you know what God says? He requires more of us. When I think of someone, once again, in the Middle Ages, when I think of someone in the Middle Ages that lived in Gaul, that learned a few things and joined a few group of people and met in someone's house and didn't even have a complete Bible, in fact, they actually had their children memorize the Bible, children memorized entire passages of the Bible and entire books of the Bible, because that was your job, to recite that when they met on the Sabbath. When you think of what those people went through, living in fear, because they lived in a time, if you lived in, well, it would be France at that time, if you lived in France, in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had all power, complete power, and you could be killed. And what those people had to do, and the limited amount of knowledge they would have had about certain things, the limited amount of knowledge and how God judges them, because of what they had to go through to obey the limited amount of knowledge they had. But you and I, you and I have been privileged like nobody, except maybe those who knew Jesus. That's a greater privilege than knew Him personally when He was on the earth. Outside of that, where the most privileged Christians ever lived, and what is expected of us by God is a lot, and we have to be very careful about that.

This blessing is based upon watching that our garments are clean.

So let's go to the next blessing, blessing number four, Revelation 19.

Revelation 19. See, these blessings have attached to them statements of what we do as we receive these blessings.

Revelation 19. Verse 1, John writes, After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Alleluia, salvation of glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot, of course this is the great religious system at the end time, that's working with the beast power to carry out and actually bring about the tribulation, who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and He has avenged on her the blood of His servant, shed by her. Again, He said, Alleluia, her smoke rides up for an ever and ever. So what we have here is when God actually judges the religious power of that, that Satan uses to persecute his people and destroys it, it gets destroyed, just like the beast power gets destroyed. Just like every human government, every human religion gets destroyed when Jesus traces back.

And He starts new.

So let's get down to verse 6.

He says, And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, as the sound of mighty thunder, he sang, Alleluia, for the Lord God, a nippetant reigns. Let us be glad and rejoiced, and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come. Now we've already talked about how it's a great privilege to have these white garments to be prepared for this marriage. And His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. So this is our righteousness. Not the righteousness you and I make up. It's God's righteousness in us. It's us responding to God. It's Christ living His life in us.

And if we're not allowing Christ to live in us, well, we have already received His Spirit. And now we are subject to Him, and we are being prepared to be His bride.

Then we won't receive this blessing. This blessing is us submitting to what God is doing.

Verse 9. Then He says to me, says to John, Right, blessed are those who are called to the married supper of the Lamb.

It is a blessing to be called now. I understand, you know, I remember when I was a young person, and that's probably some of you think, how can you have memories back that far? But I can remember being a teenager in the church, and it's easy to say, and I can remember a friend saying to me, why did God call me now?

I want to be called by God, but after I have my fun, after something, you know, I have all these good things. That I'll give up all the good things. Not understanding that what God is telling us is, those things aren't so good. The price you pay for those things is horrible. I know what good things are, and I will give you good things. It's hard to understand when you're young. It's very difficult to understand.

But blessed are those who are called now.

Now, if you're at a certain age, you probably understand that. What we have to do is help young people understand. You are blessed by God to be called now. It is a blessing. He's not giving other people. He calls people when he calls them. And you are having the opportunity to be called. It is a blessing from God.

And if you say no, you're telling God, I don't want your blessing. At that point, you're on your own.

The blessings and curses in your life will come from yourself, or from Satan's world.

But we want God's blessing. And, guys, blessed are those who are called now to be part of the bride of Christ.

Because you have a purpose beyond this life.

God's purpose is to prepare you to serve Jesus Christ in changing the world. There's an idealism here that's lost.

We want to change the world. Yes!

But you know how... I grew up in the hippie generation. We were going to change the world. We didn't.

We didn't change the world. We didn't make it any better.

We were going to change the world.

And then they lost their idealism.

Because they had this idealistic viewpoint. So many young people at that time.

We want to change the world. And there's only one person who can change this world.

That's God. And he's going to send Jesus Christ to do it.

And what he says is, I want idealists. I want people who are prepared to change the world.

And that's why you're called now. Not because we're any better than anybody else.

It's so that we can be prepared that when Jesus Christ returns to change the world.

There's an idealism that's lost in the church.

It's lost. Blessed are those who say, I want to change the world.

Blessed are those who say, only Christ can do that. So prepare me so that I can be there with you.

That idealism we have to go back to. We have to stop looking at the little narrow part of our lives and think of a time when you can be part of making sure a child never starves again.

Everything about that? I can't save starvation today.

Thousands of children die every day in this world through starvation. Thousands.

But there won't come a time we can keep that from happening.

You have to believe that. You have to actually believe that.

That you can change the world. Well, Christ can. And you can be there helping Him.

And whatever little weight each of us gets to help.

Without that idealism, it's very difficult to stay on this path.

Blessed are those who are prepared for this. For this married supper. Who are called now. You're called now.

Buy into the ideal. Be an idealist of what God's going to do in the future.

Revelation 20. We get to number 5 here.

And this sort of ties in to some of the other blessings we've already talked about. Revelation 20. And let's go to verse 4. This is after Christ returns.

And He's setting up His kingdom on this earth. And of course, He resurrects the saints.

He resurrects those who He's worked with and prepared. He's worked with and prepared to serve Him.

By the way, there's not only going to be... It's very interesting.

When Christ comes back, there'll be saints, those with His Spirit, that are prepared to be changed.

It says there's a change in the twinkling of an eye. There'll be those who died in Christ that will be resurrected.

And they'll all spiritually meet Him in the air.

You know, there's another group of people we don't think about.

What about the people God's working with who He hasn't received His Holy Spirit yet?

This will always come up.

Okay, I'm 19 years old, and what if Christ comes back and, you know, I'm 25 and I haven't been baptized yet.

What happens to me? Because I don't get changed. No.

But you know what? God plans all this out. He's going to have a whole group of physical people prepared to work on this earth.

There'll be resurrected saints, and there'll be physical people.

There's a great multitude that comes out of the tribulation. Some of them will be resurrected or changed.

Some of them will not, because some of them have not been prepared yet.

That's what the whole Great White Throne Judgment is, is a thousand years God preparing for the rest of humanity.

A thousand years of preparing for the rest of humanity.

You think He's doing anything by chance here?

He's just sort of, eh, I'm going to go to sleep today. I'm going to go on vacation.

So every one of us in our calling now, if we follow the calling, has a purpose in these events, and we're blessed.

Now here he talks specifically about the resurrection.

Verse 4, And I saw so thrones, and they who sat on them, and judgment was committed to them.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus, for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, had not received his mark, and their foreheads are in their hands.

And they lived and reign with Christ for a thousand years.

But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished.

This is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy is he who was part in the first resurrection.

Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him for a thousand years.

It is a special blessing from God to be in the first resurrection.

It is a blessing!

Because you get, I get to help Jesus Christ prepare the world for the salvation of humanity.

Oh, I really look forward to that because I get my five cities that I get to beat people with a stick.

Good luck with that one!

It is to help Jesus Christ.

But for now, there's going to be correction on people.

That's what I'm talking about.

I say the understanding of what our purpose is. And what each one of us is going to do is specifically designed by God for us to do.

I've had people say, but I don't want to rule over ten cities.

Well, then you probably are not going to.

I don't even know what that means.

You're going to be, you're going to do what God has designed you to do.

It's like I've had a couple conversations with people who have been alcoholics for years and years and years.

And they said, you know, in each of this case, it's very interesting.

I think now, after I haven't had a drink for 20 years, and I see what God's doing, He's going to actually do something good out of my sin because He's, I'm probably going to be dealing with alcoholics in the resurrection.

And you know what? Probably yes. Because there's going to be plenty of them.

God's preparing each of us to serve Christ in doing what we have to do.

It'd be a great job because it's custom made. You're not going to have to go apply for a job.

You know, oh no, I really wanted, I really wanted to be the king of Florida and somebody else got that.

Because I was hoping to just lay out on the beach.

You are being prepared and blessed in this resurrection for the purpose that God has for us.

What an incredible blessing! We miss it! Bless, bless, bless, bless it!

We miss it!

The first resurrection.

When you and I grasp the blessing of the first resurrection, it becomes a whole lot easier to make our decisions now.

Because we see a greater purpose in our lives.

Revelation 22.7, now, the sixth of these blessings.

Once again, Jesus Christ. Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

We're back to the concept. This is similar to the first one.

The first one is you have to read and hear and heed. Here it says heed. You know why? It's at the end of the book.

If you're here, you've read it.

So he brings out a blessing. He says, I'll give you read this. Now do it.

Keep your garments clean.

Hold on to it.

And this is where we're back to. It's so easy sometimes to look at the book of Revelation.

I've heard people say, that prophecy, all this prophecy doesn't mean anything to me. I don't care about prophecy.

Well, I mean, if all we hear is prophecy, we won't be prepared for these events.

These events are supposed to do something.

They're supposed to motivate us. This prophecy motivates us to do something.

It motivates us to be prepared. It motivates us to have hope.

It motivates us to hate evil and evil in ourselves too.

It motivates us to draw close to God because we need His power and His love and His guidance.

And you and I can't do this on our own.

It motivates us to realize how small we are and how little impact we have on the daily activities of the world.

But how great God is.

It motivates us to have this idealism that says, I want to be there because I want and love God and I love Jesus Christ.

And I want to serve humanity. I want to help them. I want to help them come to God the way I've come to God.

In a way that we can't even do today. We all are supposed to preach the gospel, but any of us, whatever we do, it's just a little tiny, isn't it?

I just produced another television program. It'll reach maybe half a million people.

It's a drop in the bucket, isn't it? Seven billion people. It's a drop in the bucket.

Now, half a million people, that's more than Paul reached in his whole life.

But understand, it's a drop in the bucket.

We all, no matter what you're doing, so I only reach one person. One person is what God wants, then he'll use you to reach the one person.

Do we heed these prophecies, and in doing so, they become motivations for us?

Then the last one is in Revelation 22.

Revelation 22, wrapping up at the very end of the book of Revelation.

It says in verse 12, Behold, Jesus says, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to everyone according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, and the beginning and the last, first, beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates of the city. The city here is New Jerusalem.

New Jerusalem is coming down to earth because the Father is going to make his throne here on earth.

And it's coming down to earth, and here Christ says, blessed are those who have kept these commandments, who have done what God said, who obeyed God, who submitted to God, who repented, who received his Spirit, because they will be able to go into the gates of the city.

Now, he also makes a statement that shows us there is no universal salvation.

Verse 15, But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.

So those people will not go enter in. They go to the lake of fire.

Blessed are those who enter into that, who understand that God is bringing his throne to this earth, the New Jerusalem, and now enter into an eternal existence, that he says, you can't even understand it.

You have a spirit body. You'll see God as he is. You'll interact with God and Christ. You'll see the angels, and we will no longer have a sinful nature. It'll be God. We will not be capable of sin.

It says even our emotions will be changed, because there will never be any more crying. Everything about us is going to be changed into what God wants us to be.

He says blessed are those who are there, and we should want to be there.

As we think about this marriage supper, there's one last scripture I want to go to. Matthew 22. Matthew 22. Because here we have an incredible, once again, a parable by Jesus, who tells this in verse 1, And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables, and said, The kingdom of heaven is like a certain man who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding. And they were not willing to come. And he tells of his servants going out and saying, God's calling you, God's calling you, come, come to the wedding. Be part of the bride.

And they refuse. People, person after person, refuses to come. In fact, some of them take his servants and beat them and kill them for this message. God is calling you to come to this wedding.

And they refuse. And so what he says in verse 9, he says, okay, let's go to verse 8 so we can get the context here. Then he says to his servants, the wedding is ready, but those who were invited are not worthy. Therefore go to the highways and as men as you find invite them into the wedding. So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. The church will be filled with those who are bad and good. This God calls people in to the church. For when the king came to see his guest, verse 11, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. He did not have on the fine linen, which is the righteous actions of the saints. This man wasn't keeping the commandments. This man didn't have the faith of Jesus Christ.

He just came to church. He was just there. And now he thinks I'm getting to go in to the great wedding. So he said to him, Fred, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Well, I didn't eat pork. Well, that's good, but did you love your neighbor? Did you... the list of things. No, but I didn't eat pork.

Then the king said to the servants, by hand and foot, take him away, and look, cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In other words, like fire, throw him into eternal judgment. That's a strong statement. That's a strong statement. Throw him into eternal judgment. For many are called, a few are chosen. Many are called. In the end, it's always just a few that are chosen. All these blessings... but I think we need to always remember this parable and these blessings, too. We can be there thinking we're going to reap the blessing and we don't have a relationship with God. We're not where God wants us to be. We need to watch ourselves. Revelation, the book of Revelation, tells about terrible times. The tribulation, the great wrath of God, the day of the Lord. But for us, it's the book of hope. For us, it is a book of blessings. It reminds us of these blessings that God is going to give us. We're blessed people right now. We're incredibly blessed. He says, I'm going to give you more and more. There's some hard times, but in those hard times, remember the blessings that are coming. The blessings are coming and we have to have faith in that. We have to believe in that. Therefore, we are to study the book of Revelation so that we will take on the fine linen clothing of pleasing God and be prepared and be motivated and have the vision that we are now being prepared to actually marry Jesus Christ in His second coming and help Him as He saves humanity.