Recognizing Jesus in Heaven

Okay, well, welcome first of all, thank you for coming, it's good to have everyone here. And I want to start with a question. Who is that? It's Jesus, right? How do you know? Have you ever seen him in person? I haven't.

But we recognize him. His face, yeah. Yes, his hands, okay.

We've never seen him face to face, directly. We've seen pictures, but we've never seen him, at least I haven't. Has anybody seen him? Okay.

So where did the pictures come from? How can we be sure that we really know him? Because when he comes, we want to be able to recognize him, right? So I titled this talk today, Recognizing Jesus in Heaven, and you'll see why. Now, last week we talked about the heavenly language. Remember, we talked about symbols, how they represent things like words.

We have words and sentences. But in the heavenly language, we have symbols and signs. The signs are a group of symbols that make a sentence.

All right. And what are the symbols that God uses? Do you remember? In Genesis, chapter 1, and verse 14, here is the Spanish, and I have up here, one moment, German. Maybe you want this one.

Okay. God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. So what are for signs? What are they? The sun, the lights in the heaven.

The sun is for the day, the moon for the night, and the stars also. Those are the symbols. They represent different things in the heavenly language.

All right. So that will help us when we want to see Jesus. Because it's important, when Jesus resurrected from the dead, often his disciples didn't recognize him.

For example, in the book of John, chapter 20, and verse 15, this is after Jesus was raised from the dead, and the first person who actually saw him was one of his disciples, a woman named Mary. And Jesus saw her there, near his tomb. And he said to her, woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? Because she went to the tomb, and he wasn't there.

She wanted to prepare the body. And she, supposing him to be the gardener. So she saw him, but she didn't know who he was.

If she had a lot of experience with him, she would have recognized his face. But he looked different than she expected. And so she thought he was just the gardener.

She said, sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him. And then Jesus said to her, Mary. He said her name.

And then the way that he said that, apparently, she looked at him. She turned herself and said to him, Rabboni, which is to say, master. So then she recognized who he was.

So it was in his voice that she recognized him. Now, when Jesus came the first time, he didn't come with a sign saying, I am Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah. He didn't have that.

So people had to say, hey, is this the one that we've been waiting for? Many people at that time were waiting for the Messiah. They were expecting him to come. It's a lot like now.

Many people are expecting Jesus to come back a second time. But even though many were expecting him, they didn't necessarily know how they would see him, what he would look like. And that was challenging for them, because they needed to be able to recognize who he was.

And they had a different picture in mind. It was like they were looking at one picture, but maybe they had a different picture in mind. For example, we saw this.

Now let me read you a description of Jesus from the Bible. And this is in Revelation. Thank you, verse 14.

Okay. So Jesus shows himself to John in the vision. And then John looks at him.

And then he describes him. He saw where he was. And then he saw the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot.

This is Revelation chapter 1, verse 13. And he went about the paps with a golden girdle. And then in verse 14 it says, His head and hairs were white like wool, as white as snow.

And his eyes were like a flame of fire. Does it match the picture? Okay. So that just illustrates the point.

We don't necessarily know what Jesus will look like when he comes. Right? Okay. So in order to know what we should expect, we should listen to what he says about himself.

We need to know his voice. Because he will communicate a message to us. Okay.

In the book of John, chapter 10, and verse 27, Jesus was speaking. And here he uses a symbol that we talked about last week. And he says, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

So who are Jesus' sheep? Exactly. We are. Right? His people, the church.

The people in the church are his sheep. And he is the shepherd. And when Jesus is coming back, he comes as the shepherd looking for his sheep.

Right? Another illustration for that, that is more of a human perspective, comes from Ephesians, chapter 5 and verse 25. And here we have another symbol. And you'll understand when we read this verse.

It says, Husbands, love your wives. So this is about husband and wife relationship. Husbands, love your wives, even, that is like, like Jesus, like Christ, also loved the church.

So he's making a comparison between a husband and wife, in that close relationship, and he's comparing that with Christ and the church. So Christ and the church is like, Christ is the husband, and the church is the wife. And this is also reflected in the book of Revelation, where it talks about Jesus coming for his wife.

Now, if you're a single man, and you're looking for a woman, you want to find somebody. Are you looking just for anybody? Usually you want to be a little bit selective. You want somebody who is going to like you.

Right? You're looking for someone who will pay attention to you. If you go to, you know, this happens in school a lot, you know, wherever you go for social gatherings, and you're looking around as a single guy, and you're looking, you want to see, is there somebody, you want to like them, and you want them to like you. Right? And you want them to pay attention to you.

So, think about that. Jesus is coming back, and he wants to get his bride, his wife. Now, that's the church.

So, if the church isn't really paying attention to him, they're just doing their own thing. They're going to work every day, you know, going to school, whatever the case might be, doing their job. But if they're not paying attention to Jesus, then he doesn't have that kind of a relationship with you.

Now, there's another kind of attention. If somebody comes, and he's a young man looking for a woman, and he's very wealthy, like a prince, do you think he will get more attention? Sure. Many people may want to, many women may want to get to know him, you know.

Everyone wants to be wealthy. They want something from him. But if he's smart, he will hide the fact that he is rich.

He looks just like an ordinary person. And then what happens? If the women aren't interested in him, then that shows him, you know, he wants somebody that loves him for who he is. Right? Not for his money, for example.

So, that's what Jesus does. He hides the fact that, in a sense, he hides his nature. He presents himself in a way that we might not expect.

And this is what happened when he came the first time. The people were expecting, they were expecting him to come, but they were expecting him to be somebody that was princely, that was going to deliver them from the Romans. But he had a different plan.

God had a different plan for him. And therefore they had a hard time recognizing him, because he was humble. He was just an ordinary person.

you know, he says he didn't even have a place to lay down. If he was invited to somebody's house, then he would stay with them. But otherwise, he would be outside at night and sleep outside.

And that was not what most of the people were expecting for a deliverer, for someone who would save them from their bondage. And today, in this world, you know, there's a lot of crazy things going on in the world. And in a real way, we want to be delivered from that.

We want Jesus to come as our deliverer. And we want to be able to recognize him. Now, Jesus' disciples knew that there would be a sign that would come when Jesus would come again.

There would be a sign that they would know this is Jesus. And we talked about that a little bit last week in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 3. Jesus was talking with the disciples , and they wanted to know when the end would be. Because he was telling them about the bad things that would be happening.

And so they asked him. The disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? These events that he was talking about that sounded to them like the end of the world. And what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? So they were expecting a sign.

So Jesus was explaining to them, and later on in the same chapter, in verse 29, he starts talking about some of the things that would be happening at the end, or near the end. But he never said how long it would take to get to that point. And this has always been the case that God's people, and I think God wants it that way, that we're always anxious for him to come.

We don't want to wait. And so we expect him always very near, very near, very near. He always said, I come quickly.

I come soon. He wants us to be expecting him, to be waiting for him, to be excited about him coming back. And in the process, those of us who live at a later time, we understand things in a different way.

Because it's been 2,000 years, almost, since Jesus was saying these things. And he said, immediately after the tribulation of those days, so first there's some hard times, and then he says, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. He mentions four things.

And in comparison to 2,000 years. If we look at these things, there are many people who have looked in history, in the latter part of the 2,000 years, say within the last 250 years or so, and they've recognized some things that could fit there. So, for example, the sun being darkened, this is a picture that illustrates what happened one time in the year 1780.

There were some people in the United States, in a large area of the northeast, they were going about their lives, this picture shows them on the farm, in the morning, and suddenly, still morning, it just gets dark. And they didn't know why, they didn't smell any smoke, it wasn't clouds, but it just got dark. And that darkness lasted for hours, all the way until evening.

And then at night, the moon, even though it wasn't an eclipse, it wasn't a blood moon, but it turned red, like that. And so many people, because this was a very strange event, they thought, oh, this is the judgment of God, this is the end of the world. Then, of course, the next day, it cleared up, and then they realized it wasn't, they went on with their lives, but looking back, we could see that as the fulfillment, or a fulfillment, of the sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood.

Then later, many years later, in 1833, there was a huge meteor storm, the biggest one in many decades. There hasn't been a bigger one since then, either. And here's a picture of it, showing how many meteors there were, just everywhere, and they are lighting up the sky at night, so that people could even read a paper, just in the light of those stars.

So that sounds a lot like the stars falling from heaven. So people have seen those things, and like, wow, these are big, big things. The sun was darkened in a strange way, not an eclipse.

It just went dark. Many years later, people began to understand what actually happened. There was a fire, a big, big forest fire in Canada, and then all that smoke went way high in the atmosphere and blotted out the sun, but it wasn't low, so that they couldn't smell the smoke, but it still darkened the sun.

And in each of these examples, everybody thought, or many people thought that it was the judgment of God. It was the end of the world. And so they wanted to apply those things to these signs that Jesus was pointing about.

And I think that's a reasonable thing to say. But there's one more. It says, the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

What does that mean? First of all, what are the powers of heaven? The powers of heaven, it's interesting. If you look at this word, powers, in the Greek, it actually means, it can mean, it's the same word that is used for wonders, like signs, signs and wonders. The powers of the heavens are those heavenly bodies that make the signs, the same ones we talked about before, like the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Those are the powers of the heavens, because they're used in the heavenly signs. So what does it mean that they are shaken? We haven't seen this. Nobody has seen anything shaking in the heavens.

The moon has always stayed there, goes slowly by. It's not shaking. There's no shaking.

So what does it mean? To find out, let's look first at the book of Daniel. Daniel was an Old Testament prophet. And in his book, in the last chapter, chapter 12, he recorded a vision that he had.

So looking at verse 2, starting with verse 2, or verse 1 even, to get the context. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time.

So that's like that tribulation that Jesus mentioned, right? The time of trouble. And then he says, at that time thy people shall be delivered. So now we know that we're talking about the very end.

Everyone that shall be written in the book. And continuing on, in verse 2, and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. That's, what do we call that? It's a resurrection, exactly.

Some will raise to everlasting life. And some to shame and everlasting contempt. So there's two different resurrections.

But those that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament. And they that turn many to righteousness as what? As the stars. They shine as the stars forever and ever.

So where is he directing our attention to? To the heavens. To see the brightness of the firmament, that's the sun, that's in the daytime. And the stars at night.

So the sun and the stars are accounted there. He's saying, look up. And then, he talks to Daniel directly.

Now Daniel lived like 400 years or something, 600, no, 400 years before Jesus. Somewhere around there. A long time ago.

And he says, But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even until when? The time of the end. Until the time of the end when many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased. Now that is an interesting expression.

Running to and fro. What does that bring to your mind? Keeping busy, right? Now, there's actually different ways that we can understand that. The simplest way, perhaps, is just, is like, we think, okay, going back and forth.

Like you go from your house to your work, or to your school, or wherever, and you come back. That kind of thing. Traveling is something that has greatly expanded in the last hundred, hundred years or so.

Right? Before, if you wanted to go to another country, or, you know, across the ocean, you had to sail on a ship. That would take months. You couldn't get there just in some hours on a flight.

So, travel has greatly increased. And this is part of what it's talking about. Shall run to and fro.

Not only, you know, first they came out with trains that helped them go back and forth. And then, cars, and pretty soon everybody was traveling back and forth. Airplanes.

And now, they're even doing space tourism for the super rich. All about running to and fro. And at the same time, knowledge being increased.

Because you need more knowledge in order to have those new ways of traveling. All right. But there's another way to understand the going to and fro.

Because in the Bible times, sorry, they didn't have books like we do. They had scrolls. And this expression, especially in the original language, it gives the idea of rolling back this way and rolling back that way.

And in that way, what kind of knowledge is it that would be increasing? If you have the Bible in a scroll, and you roll it this way and that way, you're learning about the things of the Bible. So it's talking about spiritual things, biblical things, knowledge increasing because of understanding the Bible better. But there's another way to understand that expression.

But first, let me look a little bit more at this at verse five. Because then he sees Daniel, back to his vision, he sees a picture. Then I, Daniel, I looked, he had a vision.

And in his vision he saw, and there stood other two, the one on this side of the river, of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river. So, he's at the riverside, and he sees a person over there and a person on this side of the river. Okay, and then in verse six, and one said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river.

So here's a third person standing on the waters of the river. And then he asked him a question, how long shall it be to the end of these wonders? So he wants to know, how long is it until the end? When is the end of time? Just like the disciples asked. So this is a very similar thing to what Jesus was answering the disciples.

We have Daniel seeing this picture and he's asking the same question. And it's about the end of the world. We already saw that.

When there would be the resurrection and Jesus would deliver his people. So here's more or less what he saw. Okay.

One person on this side of the river, the other person on that side, and Jesus in the middle. Now that looks a lot like something else that we'll look at in just a second. But first, let's go back to what Jesus was saying to his disciples.

So we're looking at Daniel and comparing that with what Jesus was answering. They both wanted to know, what about the end? And Jesus said immediately after the tribulation, the sun would be darkened, the moon would not give her light, the stars would fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens would be shaken. Now I want to show you something.

All right. This is looking at the heavens. Okay.

Now, in the heavens, the whole sky is divided up into many, many, many different constellations. Okay. Each one of these pictures is a different constellation.

And many of them are very old, ancient constellations that have been known forever because the people would look out at night and they would say, oh, this looks like the Virgin. And God actually taught those things originally, and we have many lessons that we can learn from those things. All right.

So here are some of the powers of the heavens. The planets, Mercury, Mars, the sun, Venus, those are some of the planets, some of the powers of the heavens. They make the signs because each one represents something else.

The sun, for example, the Bible says it's like the bridegroom. It's like Jesus coming for his bride. So the sun is a very important one.

Now, you notice in this program that I'm using, I can look wherever I want to in the sky. I can move it around. It doesn't matter if it's day or night.

I can see what stars are there. And I can also move the time. It can go faster, slower.

I can turn it around and go backwards. All right. So I have a lot of control over the powers of the heavens.

I can shake them around. All right. Now, maybe you're thinking, okay, yeah, I don't really buy that.

We should see some big thing going on in heaven, right? Look back at Daniel. Because Daniel says something. This last verse that we read, verse 6. One said to the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? So he's asking about time.

And remember last week we talked about how the signs show the time. Okay. Now, so we have this picture in mind.

And now look at this picture. Do you see anything? You've seen this one last week, if you were here. This is looking at a particular part of the heavens.

And do you remember what makes these lines? Why did I draw those lines there? They're not a planet, but they are a comet. Okay. Those are also different powers of the heavens.

And, but this picture, there's a river, and then we have two things, two clocks. Okay, you've seen this kind of clock before. Right? An hourglass, it's on its side, but the sand in the top drains down into the bottom and measures the time.

And this one we're very familiar with. Two clocks for measuring the time. Now the clock, a clock is what? It gives a witness.

It says, here's what time it is. Okay? It witnesses the time. And this is exactly what we see here.

One man on one side has a witness. They're just standing there. He's just looking at this one in the middle, and the other guy is on the other side, looking at him in the middle.

They're just witnessing. And that's what the clocks are doing. They're just saying about the time, and that's what the question was.

So in this verse, we see the witnesses to the time. It's a picture of what we see here. Okay.

Alright. And what I wanted to point out, especially, was that about the shaking of the powers. This running to and fro is running to and fro in the heavenly book.

You understand? Just like the scroll in the Bible times, they had the scroll, and they would roll it back one way, read a part there, and they would roll it forward and read a part. They went back and forth in the Bible. And this shaking of the powers is another way to say you're looking at the heavens.

Okay? And the key point is that many shall run to and fro. These are people. It's people who are running to and fro in the heavens.

Many people looking back and forth. What is happening in the heavens? And that is the shaking of the powers of the heavens. It doesn't say in Matthew 24, verse 29, it just says the powers will be shaken.

It doesn't say who does the shaking. It doesn't say that it's necessarily some miraculous thing seen in the heavens. And what's the next thing that Jesus says? When you start shaking the heavens, what's going to happen? You're going to see something.

You're going to see a sign. When you start studying the heavens, looking back and forth, watching for Jesus, looking, when is this going to come? You have that question in your mind. When shall these things be? That's what Daniel was asking.

What shall be the end of these things? Looking to the end. When Jesus said to look up. And then we're looking at the heavens and when we shake the powers of the heavens, when we look back and forth in the heavens, then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.

You will see it when you put the effort in and you start to study the heavens. Otherwise, guess what happens? We go to work. We come back.

We sleep. We go to work. We come back.

We never see it. If we don't look in the heavens, we'll miss it. We'll miss the sign because Jesus said he will come as a thief.

But when we shake the powers of the heavens, then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then more things go on. The tribes of the earth shall mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds.

In the clouds of heaven. What are the clouds? Not the clouds of the sky. Not these clouds.

What are clouds in the heavens? Those are the comets. I think I even have one there. This is a picture of a comet that showed up in the sky back in 1843, which was a very interesting time.

There was a big movement of people that were looking for Jesus to come right at that time. And here's this huge comet that came in the sky. And a comet is a lot like a cloud.

It has a bright spot and then like a cloud of dust or something behind it. Okay. But today, it's different than that.

Remember, Jesus comes as a thief. We don't have to see every one of these details. For example, when we look at these powers, here's the sun.

Okay. When you look at the sun, if you actually went to look, you want to see the sign literally outside, you won't see it. You won't see what's happening around the sun.

It's too bright. You have to look at it in a program like this that lets you. Otherwise, that's all you see.

Not even that. Then that's all you see. You don't see it when you look outside.

All right. So we live in a different time. And that's how Jesus, how it comes to pass that Jesus, what he said, that there would be no sign for some, but for others they see a sign.

Remember that? He said, I don't have the verse, but he said, it's an evil and adulterous generation that looks for the sign that won't believe unless they see a sign, a literal sign in the heavens or a literal big thing happening. If that were to happen, if that were the level of the sign, everyone would see it. But not everybody sees it.

Only those who are looking, who are watching. All right. Okay.

Now, because Jesus comes as a thief to some. Remember that verse that we looked at last week? Revelation chapter three, verse three. Jesus is saying to the church, to his sheep, remember how you have received and heard, hold fast and repent.

If therefore you shall not watch, if you won't look up and watch, look for the time, then what happens? Then I will come on you as a thief. You have to watch so that he doesn't come as a thief. And also, if you don't watch, you will not know the time.

You won't know the hour that he will come. Not the season. Many people say, oh, nobody knows the day or the hour.

We can know the season. This doesn't say that. Jesus says, if you don't watch, you won't know the hour.

The hour is very precise. He wants us to know the hour. If you do watch, it doesn't make sense to read that and say, oh, okay, but if you do watch, you still won't know the hour.

That doesn't make sense. Jesus is saying, if you do watch, I won't come on you as a thief, and you will know the hour. Not the season, but the hour, even the hour.

Look also at Acts 1, and verse 8, starting with verse 7. And Jesus spoke, this is Jesus' last words. He was with his disciples, ready to go up into heaven. And he said to them, it's not for you to know the times, or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power.

Who was he talking to? He was talking to his disciples that watched him go up. But then notice the next words. But you shall receive power.

So at that time, they would not know. But they would receive power. When the Holy Spirit would come upon you, and you shall be witnesses, speaking of those things, in Jerusalem and around the world.

Notice that he connected the times and the season. So they wouldn't even know the season. He said it's not for you to know the season.

He wasn't talking about us today. He was talking about his disciples in that time. See, many people misunderstand.

They think that because Jesus said, no one knows the day or the hour, they understand that to mean, no one will ever know the day or the hour. But it's not true. That's not what he said.

He said, now you don't, but you will receive power from the Holy Spirit, and he, through the heavens, will reveal the time. Okay. So the question is, do we know his voice? Do we recognize what he is saying from heaven? How does a thief come? A thief, would be very quiet, right? A thief wouldn't be a good thief if he said, hey, I'm coming.

Here I am. Give me all your stuff. No, that's not a thief.

The thief, he doesn't want to be seen. That's a thief, right? He comes surprisingly. Nobody will expect him, unless you're watching for him.

So it's very important to watch and to know how to watch, because it's not just about, it's not just a poetic expression, oh yeah, we watch for Jesus every day. And really we don't. We don't do anything different.

But Jesus said, look up. And he means, look into the heavens. See the comets.

And again, if there's a big, huge comet and everybody sees it, that's one thing. But today, because we have more technology, remember what it said in Daniel. Men shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

That increase of knowledge is what is necessary to have this program of Stellarium, for example. We couldn't do this 20 years ago. It wasn't possible.

There was no program. There was no, maybe a few people had one, I don't know. But it's a recent development that we have the ability to do this, to shake the heavens, to look back and forth to and fro in God's heavenly word.

Because this is where his voice comes from. Like the scripture reading this morning from Hebrews. See that he refuse not him that speaketh.

For if they escape not who refuse him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. God speaks from heaven and we need to listen to him. Even because he comes quietly.

You know, let me show you our comet. Any one of these. Here is a comet.

You can't even see it until you look way into the stars. And there's the comet with the cloud around the comet. We can't see that except with a telescope.

That's how we find out about these comets. And then we look at it, we compare it with the scripture to understand what God is saying. Where is this comet going? What is it doing? And that tells us what Jesus is saying through that.

Because he's the creator and he created all of these things. And for me that's really the amazing thing. Because this all being in heaven, no man has ever touched it.

And yet it tells us about God's knowledge of what's happening on the earth. Because they are signs for things that are happening on the earth. And only God can do that.

So that's my invitation to you is to pay attention to what Jesus is saying from heaven. And especially in the sign of the Son of Man. We talked more about that last week.

But it talks about the time. And by the way here's the man in the river. Just like in Daniel's vision.

A man in the river and two witnesses on either side. And they're witnessing to the time. Okay.

Let's have a prayer. Alright. Why don't we stand for the prayer? Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, the written word, and also your heavenly word.

You have many things that you have written in the heavens that we can discover as we compare them with your written word. And we love you and we want to understand your word, what you're saying to us when you speak to us from heaven. And so we are looking up.

We're going to and fro, shaking the powers of the heavens, to understand how these symbols fit into your written word so that we can understand the time of your return. How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? That is our question also. We seek your deliverance from the wickedness of this world.

And we are grateful for the revelation, the last book of the Bible that gives us a knowledge, especially from that book, that gives us a knowledge of the time when Jesus Christ would be revealed to us. So we praise you for these wonders that you have done, and we ask for your guidance as we study them day by day to learn more about you. And we ask that you go with us and we pray for all of your people, all of your sheep around the world, that they may be gathered into your fold.

And we pray this in the name of Jesus, the wounded one, who is wounded for our transgressions. Amen.