Are we living in the end times? | Revelation | Full Experience

Hey, what's up everybody? We're so glad that you're here. Welcome to CCV. My name is Jordan, this is Jess, and we're excited to get to worship Jesus with you today. Want to invite you to stand to your feet if you're able. And before we sing anything, we'd love to just give you some time to say hey to some people around you, welcome them into worship today, and then we're gonna have some fun worshiping Jesus together. Come on. ♪♪ When all I see is a battle You see my victory ♪♪ When all I see is a mountain You see a mountain of hope ♪♪ And as I walk through your shadow Your love surrounds me ♪♪ There's nothing to fear now For I am saving you All right, now let's hear you sing it. Tell them. One, two, three. ♪♪ Yeah.

♪♪ Yeah. ♪♪ Nothing can stop you ♪♪ For Jesus is nothing Impossible for you Come on. Hey. When all I see are the ashes You see the beauty Thank you, God. Thank you, God. When all I see is a cross God, you see the empty tomb Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh So when I'm tied up Tied on my knees With my hands lifted high Oh, God, the battle belongs to you Every fear I lay at your feet I see through the night Oh, God, the battle belongs to you ♪♪ And almighty fortress You go before us Nothing can stand against The power of our God You shine in the shadows You win every battle

Nothing can stand against The power of our God Come on, tell them. And almighty fortress You go before us Nothing can stand against The power of our God You shine in the shadows You win every battle Nothing can stand against The power of our God Yes, I believe it. So when I'm tied up Tied on my knees With my hands lifted high Oh, God, the battle belongs to you Every fear I lay at your feet I see through the night Oh, God, the battle belongs to you Oh, God, the battle belongs to you ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ So good ♪♪ Father, you've done What you said you would Carry me through I can do you You have been faithful so so good

I know you've heard every prayer My feet me however you stayed the same You have been faithful so so good You're always good And I provide I defend Sing I know and I know the days I Troubles I want to invite you to lift your hands as we sing. Hallelujah. I lift my hands. Holy surrender to You alone. Hallelujah. I lift my hands. Holy surrender. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. God, I will trust in Your name forever. I proclaim it. I confess it. Here in Your presence, I'm resting assured. You'll be nothing but faithful. Nothing but good. You'll be nothing but faithful. Nothing but good. You'll be nothing but faithful. Nothing but good. Amen. What a privilege it is to be able to gather in a room like this and sing and acknowledge that God is fighting our battles for us. And He said that trials are yet to come, but that same God is here with us and present. This next song we're going to sing comes from Revelation 4, and it paints a beautiful picture about for all of eternity, how we will join with creation and sing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is. is to come. And when we enter into that eternity, there will be no pain and no suffering, no anxiety. We won't need to ask Him for anything.

We just get to express to Him how worthy He is of our attention, of our affection. As we sing this song, and you catch on, will you join in with us as we sing holy, holy, holy? Loving You. Our cry with creation Responding in worship Fresh revelation The rhythm of heaven Holy are You, Lord Holy are You, Lord And I'll spend all my days Finding every way to sing a word Holy are You, Lord Our cry with creation Responding in worship It's a fresh revelation The rhythm of heaven We join, we sing Holy are You, Lord Holy are You, Lord And I'll spend all my days Finding every way to sing a word Holy are You, Lord Worthy are You, Lord Worthy are You, Lord Heaven's throne belongs to You alone Holy are You, Lord There's nobody like You, Lord No one but You, Lord

Our hearts cry out Our hearts cry out We adore You, Lord We adore You, Lord We adore Thee We adore Thee We adore You, Lord And only I feel lost upon it And only I give away I spend all my days Finding every way to see what I'm ♪ Worthy are You, Lord, so worthy ♪ ♪ Worthy are You, Lord, You alone ♪ ♪ Worthy are You, Lord, the heavens below ♪ ♪ Belong to You alone, holy are You, Lord ♪ ♪ Holy are You, Lord, so worthy ♪ CCV, thank you all for worshiping with us. You can go ahead and take your seats. If I haven't met you, my name is James and I serve as one of the pastors here. And last week I made a friend. My wife and I, we went to the wildlife zoo and I was super excited. Now I know cats aren't popular around here, but I wanted to see the cats, right? I wanted to see the lions and the tigers. Me and Ashley, we can hug it out later. But as we were making our way to the lions, it seems like there's a period where you have to go

through all the other animals, right? The herbivores, the petting zoo, the fish. We saw pink flamingos and the monkeys. And then we passed these birds, right? Now we're tunnel vision to the cats. And out of nowhere, my wife and I hear, hello. And we stop and we look at each other. And I look at my wife and she looks at me and I was like, okay, we play pranks, but that clearly wasn't one of us. So this is exactly what I did. I looked to my side and there were two parrots. And one was staring right at me. So I said, okay, no one's ever gonna believe me. So I took out my phone and I started to record. And I said, hello. And it looked back at me and it said, hello. And I thought it was the neatest thing that this thing was able to communicate with me. In fact, I spent more time with this bird. I call him Luke Skywalker now. I named him. I spent more time with this bird than even the cats because this was an animal, it's completely different species, being able to connect with a human. And most of you already know this, but connection changes everything. Connection changes everything. And that's what communion is.

Let me think of God. He's holy, he's eternal, he's righteous. Chose to speak our language. He chose to put on flesh. Maybe some of you are here today because he spoke to you. He sat with us. He sat at tables with all of us and his disciples. And in the book of Matthew, this is what he says. It says, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples saying, take this and eat for this is my body. And he took a cup and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, each of you drink from it for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, his death burial and his resurrection, we have the opportunity to experience some pretty amazing things in a world full of sin. And when we take communion, we pause. Not out of routine, but because we recognize his voice. So maybe for all of us, I don't know, maybe this is an opportunity for us to pause, whether it's for this message that we're about to hear or for this communion and block out all the things trying to get our time and attention and just focus on the one who's saying hello,

the one who's saying our name and to remember the finished work of Jesus. Holy Father, we just thank you so much for sending your son Jesus, making it personal, making it intimate for all of us, building connection. Father, as a church, we lift up that gratitude up to you in Jesus' name, amen. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Well, for the next five weeks, we are going to dive into and study maybe the most mysterious and maybe the most misunderstood book in the entire Bible, the book of Revelation. Anybody else excited to dive into the book of Revelation today? I am too. Hey, just to help you out today, it's not revelations as in plural.

Sometimes people say that. It's actually just the word singular, revelation. And where the book title comes from is actually the first verse in the book. Let's dive in today if you've got your Bibles. Revelation chapter 1 verse 1 says, The revelation from Jesus Christ. In other words, let me pause. John is the disciple writing this book, but he says, Jesus is the one doing the revelation or the revealing, which God gave to him to show his servants, that's us, what must soon take place. John the disciple says, I may have the pen, but Jesus is the one doing the revealing, the revelation. Now, the word revelation actually comes from this Greek word. Here's the Greek word. It's actually the Greek word apoktalipsis or apoktalipsis. Can you guess what English word we get from that? Yeah, it's the word apocalypse. So the word revelation and the word apocalypse, same word, same meaning, and what they mean is the word revelation and the word apocalypse, it means to unveil. It means to reveal. The same word, same meaning, revelation, apocalypse, but don't they have different emotion to them? Like when you hear the word revelation, it's like it has vibes of opening a gift or a gender reveal party. I told you a few weeks ago that my oldest daughter is pregnant now, and we're going to be grandparents. We're like crazy excited about this.

We're really excited. And so what if I told you, hey, do you want to come to my daughter's gender reveal party? You'd be like, that's really exciting. I can't wait. And by the way, she's having a girl named Rory. It's going to be really sweet. But you might be excited to come to her gender reveal party. What if I told you, do you want to come to her gender apocalypse party? Like no one's coming to that party. You'd be like, what is that even about, man? I'm freaked out right now. Because in our culture, the way we use the word apocalypse, like think about we use the word apocalypse in movies, apocalypse now. That's a scary movie. X-Men, apocalypse, end of the world. Or we say things like this. We say nuclear, apocalypse. Zombie, apocalypse. Like you're freaked out. You're scared of the word apocalypse, right? And that may be one of the reasons that whether it's revelation or apocalypse, people get so fearful with the book of Revelation. In fact, some people can read all the books of the New Testament, and you kind of skip revelation. You're like, it's creepy. It's scary. In fact, there was a time in my life I actually stayed away from the book of Revelation. And the reason why is because even stemming back to my childhood, and I don't know if anybody can relate with this,

I grew up in a church where they showed these scary movies about the book of Revelation. Anybody else traumatized by like these scary movies growing up? Anybody else out there? I see a couple of hands. Knight, I think was the name of this movie. And man, it was creepy. There was like guillotines, people getting their heads cut off in this movie. There's an Antichrist, there's a Mark of the Beast. There was like the rapture. And as a kid, I was like, we watched this as a kid. I'm so afraid of the rapture. I'm like, what if I get left behind? In fact, one day I came home from school as a kid and no one was home. And I thought, oh no, I got left behind. And so I just kind of grew up, you know, being afraid. Now, in the coming weeks, we're gonna dive head in into some of the tougher topics that kind of freak people out in Revelation. We'll talk about the Antichrist. We'll talk about the Mark of the Beast. We'll talk about the rapture. But last summer, I took a study break over the summer. Last summer, I dove deep into studying the book of Revelation. And I came away so passionate that we must teach this book in our church. And I'll tell you why. Number one, if you're taking notes,

it's a big point for you to understand today. Revelation was written to prepare us, not scare us. You need to know that the book of Revelation was not written to scare you, but to prepare you. In fact, the disciple John, when he wrote the book of Revelation, he wrote it in about the year 95 AD. In other words, 95 years after Jesus had come. And when he wrote it, almost all the disciples at this point have been killed because of their faith. He hasn't been killed, but he's been exiled to the island of Patmos. So he tells us in the very first chapter that I'm on the island of Patmos. And he gets a vision from Jesus to write this book. And I wanna show you on a map where Patmos is at. Patmos is actually, it's a real place. It's a Greek island. You can still go there today. I've actually been there. It's a beautiful place. I mean, it's so beautiful, this island. But there's a monastery there that's actually built over the cave. They believe John wrote this book. And so I've been in that cave. I've read part of Revelation in that cave. It was really amazing. But this is a real place at a real time. But when John is on the island of Patmos,

likely in this cave, and he gets the vision from Jesus to write down the revelation that he wants us to know for the future. Did you know John got scared? John got really, really afraid. And what Jesus does next is I think what he would wanna do to someone today that Revelation scares you. Here's exactly what happened. In verse 17, it says, "'Then he,' that's Jesus, "'placed his hand,' that's on John, on me, "'and said,' say the words out loud, "'Do not be afraid.'" Revelation is not designed to scare you. It's designed to prepare you. And one of the reasons we know that is because in the third verse of the chapter, after John introduces that to us, did you know he tells us that Revelation is the one book in the New Testament that you are blessed if you read it? And take it to heart. Did you know that? Can I show it to you? Watch verse three. Blessed is anyone who reads aloud the words of the prophecy. That's what I'm doing right now.

As I read these words to you, we're told that we are blessed as we read these words aloud. But then it's even deeper than that. And blessed are those who hear it, which is what you're doing right now, but not just hear it, but take it to heart, what is written in it, because the time is near. When you hear these words, and if you throughout this series would take this to heart, God says there is a blessing. There's a blessing. Now, that being said, I'm gonna address this right up front. There's some of you that Revelation doesn't scare you. You're a Revelation junkie. Like you're in, that's like the only book you're in in the New Testament. You've studied all the end times prophecy. You're so excited about this series. You're like, he's gonna get him, man. And you're just kind of in this. And I just wanna say it's really great to have strong opinions and to really study this book and to have your own opinions about kind of end times theology.

But I wanna remind you what our posture is gonna be as a church throughout this entire series. And this should not surprise you if you've been around CCP for any amount of time. Here's what we say, and this is our posture as a church. We say this. In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love. Let me break that down. In the essentials, in other words, there's some essential beliefs we have as a church that we're gonna unify on. And that would be really things about Jesus. Like, is Jesus God's son? Did he come to the earth and live a perfect life? And did he die on a cross and rise from the grave three days later? And because of his resurrection power and the blood on the cross, that's the way he can be saved. Like, yes, yes, and yes. And then there's in the non-essentials liberty. In other words, there's a lot of non-essential beliefs that we can disagree on

and still go to heaven. You know what I'm saying? And then most importantly, in all things love, that we're gonna have a posture of love even when we disagree. Now, end times theology, what we're gonna really dive into in the book of Revelation, is that, can we disagree on that and still go to heaven? Absolutely. And I want you to tell you, we will not divide. So you can have your opinions, but we're not gonna divide over. In fact, we've studied, our teaching team, we've studied extremely hard for this series. We're gonna present the scripture to you in a really significant way, but please understand as we go through this that end times theology is a non-essential, that we can have liberty on, we can disagree and still have love. Some of you've been a part of a church where they majored in the minors, and the church divided over some non-essential issue. We don't do that. How many of you here are glad you're a part of a church that won't divide over a secondary issue?

Amen? That's who we are, that's what we're gonna do. But number one, revelation was written to prepare us, not to scare us. And you're like, what's it preparing us for? The end times. The end times. So the question I'm gonna answer today is, are we living in the end times? The last days. Let's have some fun today. I'll have you vote if you feel comfortable. How many of you look at the news, you look at what's going on in our world, the violence, the wars, the coming AI-like revolution, how many of you think we gotta be living in the end times? How many of you, just raise your hand, how many of you are like, we gotta be living in the end times? Okay, how many of you would say this? Man, everybody's been saying that forever. My great-grandma said that. Here we are. How many of you think like, we probably still got some time left? We got some time left out there. I can see a few hands there. All right. I'm gonna answer this definitively, and I'm gonna give you an answer. According to Scripture,

yes, we are living in the last days, the end times right now. Now, before you freak out, let me just explain this. According to Scripture, and all throughout the New Testament, scripturally, when Jesus came on this earth and died and rose again and ascended into heaven, that ushered in the last days, the end times, that moment. And for 2,000 years now, we've been living in the end times according to Scripture. Can I show it to you? Watch this, Acts chapter two. In Acts chapter two, Jesus has just risen from the grave, he's ascended into heaven, and God's Spirit is poured out for the first time. Do you remember this, Acts chapter two? Watch what Acts chapter two, verse 17 says. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. So when God's Spirit got poured out right after Jesus rose from the dead, that ushered in the last days, the end times. Hebrews puts it this way. In the past, talking about the Old Testament, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, he's spoken to us by his Son, referring to Jesus. Watch this verse coming up in 1 Peter chapter one, verse 20. God chose him, Jesus, as your ransom long before the world began,

but now, in these last days, he has been revealed for your sake. So according to Scripture, when Jesus died and rose again and ascended into heaven, that started the final chapter of God's redemptive plan, the end times, or the last days. And one day, Jesus will return, and when he returns, there will be a judgment for all of us, every person, of what we've done with Jesus. Did we choose Jesus to follow Jesus? Did we go all in? Were we baptized, or we decide to live our lives our way, and did we reject Jesus? And for over 2,000 years, every generation has been told that we are living in the last days, and we should live with urgency, urgency that Jesus is coming again. So let me answer it very clearly. Number two, are we living in the last days and the end times? What's the answer? Yes. Do we know when Jesus is coming again? Hard no. And this is the tension, this is the tension. Anytime, and people read the book of Revelation, people start to create it as a prediction meter, a calendar, that they can know exactly when Jesus is gonna return. And if anyone ever tells you they know

when Jesus is going to return, you can know they, in fact, do not know when Jesus is going to return. Because Jesus himself said, you do not know, and you will not know. Can I show you the words of Jesus? Matthew chapter 24, Jesus said, but about that day or hour, he's talking about the last days, the end times, he says, no one knows! And then he gets deeper, he says, the angels in heaven don't know, nor the Son. This is him talking, he says, guys, I don't even know, when he was here on earth, I don't even know. Only the Father, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. When he comes back again, it's gonna be like Noah. Remember in Genesis, we just got done studying Genesis? In the days of Noah, Noah's building an ark, but no one knows when the flood's gonna come. And then it came out of the blue, no one knew. And that's exactly what we'll be like. like when Jesus comes back. But what's amazing is even today, even today on social media, TikTok, you get on online, people like claim they know when he's coming back and they don't, but this is not new. It's been happening forever. In fact, in the year 1000,

medieval Christians freaked out because according to Revelation, there'll be this millennial thousand year period. And in the year 1000, medieval Christians freaked out because they thought, well, Jesus, it's like a thousand years since he came, he's coming back and people sold possessions. They freaked out, lost their minds, and here we are. It still goes on. One of my favorites is in 1988, a NASA scientist who was a Christian studied Revelation and end times theology and he wrote this book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. This book sold over 4 million copies and Christians lost their minds, even though Jesus said, you won't know. People still buy into this stuff. And here we are, 88 came and passed. And he's like, then he wrote another book, why it might be in 1989. It's like, you could just keep going, right? The Mayan calendar, people predicted, just a few years back in 2012, said they studied the Mayan calendar and according to the Mayan calendar, December 21st, 2012 will be the end of the world. And here we are. There's a small but reputable group that I think might have the best angle

on when Jesus might come back. And it's a small group that believes that in the year 2030, cats will take over the world and that will be when Jesus comes back. But you see where I'm going? It's like, it's just one thing after another. No one knows. And don't let anyone tell you. In fact, the biggest mistake people make reading through the book of Revelation is thinking it will give you a prediction or a date or an exact timeline of when Jesus is coming again. Are we living in the last days? Yes. Do we know when Jesus is coming back again? Hard no. In fact, if you're taking notes, I wrote it down this way. Don't use Revelation to develop a calendar. Use it to build your character. The book of Revelation is written so that we can develop our character and our urgency to focus on Jesus knowing that he is coming back soon. But the biggest tension, just reading through the book of Revelation and studying it, and every theologian has dealt with this, the biggest tension reading through the book of Revelation is that there are signs given to us

about when the final end will come, right? We're given these signs. The tension is when you're reading the book of Revelation and deciding are those signs written to people in the time when John wrote this book, were they written later, are they written even later to us? Because did you know the book of Revelation was written to a group of seven specific church congregations that existed in John's day? Let me read it for you. In Revelation chapter one, verse 11, John's told, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches. This book was written to seven specific churches in John's day. But then it was also written to us. So the struggle is like when you look at all that's written in Revelation, you're like, theologians struggle, what was written to those churches? What was written to that day or what was gonna happen right after that? What was written for us to this day? Let me show you one verse that's key in Revelation chapter one to seeing this tension. Watch this, verse 19. John's told, write therefore what you have seen. What is now and what will take place later. Do you see it?

Write what's now and then write what's gonna take place later. And so forever, theologians take all these signs and all these things in the book of Revelation and they're trying to debate a lot of times of which one's for now and that time and which one is, no, for later and for our time. And there's all sorts of opinions. And we've studied this hard. We're gonna tell you and show you the different views, give you some opinions, but we hold these humbly and loosely knowing that in my opinion, I have theologians that I believe deeply and that would deeply divide over these things. And we're not gonna divide over them because we know, do you know what the summary of Revelation is? The summary of the whole entire book of Revelation. You want me to give it to you? Jesus wins. That's the summary and you win too if you decide to follow Jesus and give your life to Jesus. But people lose their minds over these signs. It's kind of funny. I've heard people say, the locusts in Revelation chapter nine are Apache helicopters. I was like, really, how do you know that? Well, I just do, man, I've interpreted it.

It's like, okay. I've heard people say that, you know, The mark of the beast is the vaccine. It's listening to us right now. Okay. People always try to predict who the Antichrist is. Do you hear this? Antichrist was Hitler. Well, it wasn't. Well, now it's Vladimir Putin. Now it's the UN. As your pastor, I would just tell you, and this is deep, the word Antichrist written in Greek in Revelation is translated as the symbol AI. I just made that up. I just made that up. Not true at all, but hey, did you see what you just did? Did you see what you just did? This is what people do. Like we see stuff on TikTok and stuff and we're like, that's it, man, that's crazy. And we buy into all this stuff and it's like, hey, if you ever hear someone say, I've interpreted all the signs, I've got it nailed in Revelation, here'd be my opinion, run for the hills. They don't have it figured out, okay? And so we're gonna present ideas and views and you can come up with some of your own ideas, but listen, we hold these humbly,

hold these humbly knowing that the center, the central theme in the book of Revelation is the Lamb of God, Jesus, is coming back again and he will win eventually. And how it happens and everything that happens to get there, listen, we wanna study it and learn it, but we gotta be careful thinking we've got it all figured out. The key for the book of Revelation to me is this, we are told to live with urgency without knowing the deadline. We are told in the book of Revelation to live our lives with crazy urgency, but we don't exactly know when Jesus is coming back again. Let me ask you, do you think most Christians live their lives with a crazy amount of urgency that Jesus may come back even tomorrow, or do you think they live as if they have all the time in the world? I'll personalize it, I don't live my life with the urgency I need that Jesus is coming back soon. If I knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow, I would do so many things today. I mean, I was backstage praying and I thought, am I preaching this message with urgency? Like, this might be the last message I ever preach, but if I knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow, I mean, I would share my faith at a greater degree. I would do so many things at a greater degree. I would love it at a greater degree.

Do I have the urgency I need? I have a friend I told you about that I had to do a memorial for this past week that passed away recently, and it was a tough one. I did the memorial on Friday, and I flew back Friday night to get prepared for this weekend, and while I was there, I just need to tell you something about me, and you probably don't know this, I love funerals. I do, and you might think that's ultra morbid, and you may think that. I wanna tell you why I love funerals so much. Because I don't know another environment that I'm put in that makes me face the facts that I am going to die one day and I don't know when it is. I don't ever think about that in other environments. When I get into a memorial or funeral situation, I sit there, and God just works on my heart, and he says, Ashley, do you understand that there's a day when people are gonna stand on a stage and they're gonna recount your life, and are you living your life urgently enough with the most urgency to know that you don't know when your day's gonna be called? And the book of Revelation's designed to get us urgent. Like, we don't know when he's coming back. Let me ask you, are you living with urgency? And I know the answer for some of you. Some of you are not living with urgency, and you're like, how do you know that about me?

Well, I know it, partly because when I walked through the CCV parking lots, some of you still don't have a CCV sticker on the back of your car. Like, what are you doing, man? You could be sharing Jesus with everybody on the road, and you're like, well, I drive too fast. I'm like, well, I drive fast, too. My wife is like, you got the CCV sticker on the back of your car, and I'm like, I know. I gotta get in front of people so they can see the CCV sticker. That's what I gotta do, you know? So if you don't have a CCV sticker on your car, what are you doing? Are you even safe, man? What are you doing, you know? And by the way, you can pick up a CCV sticker at the Next Step Center today. I mean, in all seriousness, where do you need to live with more urgency, you know what I mean? Because Jesus is coming soon, like soon. Let me read the verses for you, because you may have missed it when we were reading Revelation chapter one. Watch this, Revelation chapter one, verse one. The revelation of Jesus Christ. That what? It's gonna soon take place.

He says it's gonna happen soon. Then verse three, when we read about the blessings, blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take it to heart, what is written in it, because the time is now. Time is near. Some of you are thinking, if Jesus is coming back soon, what's taking him so long? And I'll tell you what's taking him and why he's being patient. I'll tell you exactly at the end of the message. Are you living with urgency and are you expecting and expectant for Jesus to come back soon? This is an embarrassing story, but there was a time in my life I prayed that God would not send Jesus back soon. True story. And here's the background. I was in my early 20s. Jamie and I had been dating for a little while. We got engaged and our wedding was about seven months in the future and we had waited, we had waited, we had waited. And so I was like, God, if you send Jesus back now, I'm gonna be mad, mad. I mean, I was like, my greatest fear is like, Jamie walking down the aisle and the trumpets from heaven start blowing. And it's like the end of time's gone.

I'm like, Jesus, don't you dare. That's a true story. I'm embarrassed, but we have to live with urgency. Like Jesus is coming back. So the most important question I will ask you today is this. If tomorrow, or you stood before Jesus tomorrow, what would you wish you had done today? I want you to sit in that for a second. If you stood before Jesus tomorrow, what would you wish with everything inside of you that you could go back and you could do today? In other words, if I could say it in the most succinct way I could, the question is, are you prepared? I've sat with a lot of people on their deathbed, just being a pastor, and I would tell you this, that I've never sat with someone on their deathbed. I've never had someone break out their trophies to show me. I've never had someone tell me about all their accolades at work. And I've never had someone pull up their bank account and show me their bank account or their retirement amount or how much they have in their net worth. I've never had someone show me how many followers they have on social media, how they built that up. But I'll tell you what I've seen countless people do on their deathbed, I've seen them take urgent action for something that they should have done a long time ago. I've seen them reconcile a relationship. I've seen them say they love, tell someone they love them

that it hadn't told in a long time. I've seen them offer forgiveness to someone that they should have done a long time ago. And most importantly, I've seen people on their deathbed give their lives to Jesus. And I'll tell you the common theme through all those conversations I've had with people on their deathbed is this. They would say this, if I could do it all over again, I would do what I'm doing right now and I would do it so much sooner in life. They would have said, man, if I was gonna meet Jesus tomorrow, they would have had the urgency to do it today. So again, let me ask that question. Are you prepared? Some of you are thinking this, oh man, I'm prepared. I got a bunker set up that I can go to. I got food for days and years. I got ammo and guns. And I'm like, listen, none of that is gonna matter when Jesus comes back. You understand, none of that matters. The only thing that will matter when Jesus returns is are you right with God and have you been right with other people in your life? That's all that's gonna matter. And some of you are thinking, yeah, but I mean, I've got time, right? Like we live as if we have so much time

or some of you are wrestling with this idea that I know you said Jesus is coming back soon, but it's been 2000 years. What's taking him so long? And the answer is you. Did you know that? What's keeping Jesus from coming back and God's patience in that is those of you that are not right with God right now. Did you know that? Can I read it for you? Second Peter 3.9, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. If you are sitting here today and you have truly not given your life to Jesus, like I mean all in, and gotten baptized and said, I wanna believe and put my full faith and trust in Jesus. Do you understand that's the. The only reason Jesus hasn't come back yet. So let me ask today, on a scale of one to 10, one being I'm not sure, or 10 being I'm very sure, if you died tonight, how sure are you on a scale of one to 10 that you would stand in heaven with God, your salvation secure? I want you to pick a number in your head right now.

Just pick a number. If you're not a 10, God has someone here today to say that it is time to give your life to Jesus and be sure, to go all in and be baptized. And if that's you, you can, after the service, you can head straight out to our Next Step Center, you can have a conversation with one of our pastors or volunteers, you can head to the baptistry. Our baptistries are open after every service, every weekend, we're ready for you to give your life to Jesus, and you can't wait another day. And some of you just don't have the urgency to do it because you think you have so much time. I'm just telling you, you don't know. In fact, what Satan loves to do is Satan sometimes won't even convince you there's not a heaven and hell. He'll convince you you don't need any hurry. He'll make you hold back to a point where you miss out. What if today's your last day? See, there's a day coming when Jesus is coming back, the patience of God is done. Watch this, in Acts chapter 17, God overlooked people's ignorance about these things in earlier times. There's times where God's overlooked our ignorance about Him, but now He commands everyone, everywhere, that includes you, to repent of their sins and turn to Him for He has set a day for judging the world. The day of judgment's coming,

and Revelation says it's coming soon, soon, soon. If you ask me, is the final day of judgment, is it gonna be sooner or later? I would tell you my opinion, it's gonna be sooner. Jesus is coming back. We don't know when, but we have to assume it is soon. So we need urgency, and Revelation chapter one teaches us this, it was written to prepare us, not to scare us, to prepare us for what? To prepare us for the end times. Are we living in the end times, the last days? Yes, do we know when Jesus is coming again? That's a hard no, but it's coming soon. And if you stood before Jesus tomorrow, what would you wish with everything in your soul you had done today? And I'm telling you, just do that. I've been praying for you as I was writing this service, and as I was writing this message, I just, these are things that came to mind. I was praying, God, who do you wanna speak to today? I'm just gonna say a few, I'm just gonna say a few things. If this is you, just know this is God speaking to you. There's a dad here today, and the thing you need to do immediately is to grab your kids or make a phone call and say, I love you, and I'm proud of you. And you're thinking, they already know. Listen, they need to hear it from you again and again and again.

You don't know how much time you have. There's a single woman here today, or a single man, and the driving force of your life, your greatest urgency is just to go find the one. And if you are gonna meet Jesus tomorrow, what you would realize today is that who you have in Jesus is enough. And my greatest advice to you would be chase after Jesus as fast as you can, run as hard as you can after Jesus, and then look around and see who's keeping up. And maybe those people would be worthy of your time versus who you're chasing right now. There's a teenager here today. And you're hurting yourself, and you're hurting yourself in secret, and you know it, and nobody knows. And if you knew you were meeting Jesus tomorrow, what you would do today is you'd get help. You'd tell a parent, or a friend, or a family member, or a CCB coach, I wanna call you to something better. Just do it. There's a woman here today that you're not forgiving someone in your life, and I don't know who you are, but you make them pay over and over again as if that's gonna help your pain. And I just want you to know what we talked about last week, that when you hold unforgiveness in your heart,

you won't forgive someone. That's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. So do yourself a favor. If you're gonna meet Jesus tomorrow, you would go forgive that person today. There's a businessman here today, or a businesswoman, and your bank account keeps getting bigger, your business keeps getting bigger. But if you were gonna meet Jesus tomorrow, you would do everything you could to invest more of your resources in God's kingdom, not just your kingdom. Because the only thing you can take with you to heaven is not your bank account, it's people you impacted for Jesus. There's a man. Married couple here today, and you're at each other's throats over like the stupidest things. If you're gonna meet Jesus tomorrow, you'd reconcile today. I don't know. You God brought here today. To tell you, you don't have as much time as you think. And I just want God to speak into your life through the book of Revelation. And I think he's doing it right now. So here's my ask.

Just do whatever God's telling you to do today. If you knew you're gonna meet him tomorrow. And if you don't know Jesus, it's an easy, easy answer for you. You should walk out of here and have a conversation with someone about getting baptized today. Because as the book of Revelation in chapter one, verse 18 says, it says, I am the living one. Jesus says, I was dead. And now look, I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and Hades. And if you feel dead, Jesus is the only one that can make you alive again. He holds the keys to the life you want. Amen. I'm gonna pray. And then afterwards, I want our hosts on all of our campuses to come tell you about just kinda what else is gonna go on this weekend. And man, would you bow your heads? I just wanna pray, God, would you speak to someone? I know you already are, but God, drill into their hearts that they have to take action today. They can't walk out and live without the urgency you need out of their lives.

For the person that needs to give their life to you, help them to take that step today. And for anyone else that knows exactly what you're calling them to, God, help them take a step of obedience. And Father, as we go through the book of Revelation, would you speak powerfully into our church exactly what you want us to know so we are prepared for the end times? We love you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, would you welcome your campus hosts to the stage right now? Well, what a powerful way to kick off this, this brand new series. And maybe this message challenged you. Maybe it birthed some new questions and you would like to have a conversation. We encourage you not to do that alone. Do that with others, which makes this weekend so unique. It's barbecue weekend, and we've set tables out in our courtyard and out in the yard for you to just sit in groups and have a conversation. And we have a barbecue brisket meal for $8 that you can pick up. You'll see the tents outside. You can also do it online and go directly to our website.

You can do it online and go directly and pick that up. And here's our encouragement. Life is not meant to be done alone. So sit in circles, sit with each other, maybe learn someone's story that you don't know and continue to do life together. And also, if you're in need of prayer, we're gonna have our prayer team come to the front and they're gonna be here ready and willing to pray with and for you. We are a church that is anchored in prayer. This is a house of prayer and prayer is action. And if that's you, we'd love for you to come join us after service so that we can pray with you. CCV, if you're joining us for barbecue weekend, we'll see you outside and we'll see you back here next week for week two of Revelation. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.