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🔐 Christ Holds the Keys — Sovereign Over Your Journey
In Revelation 1:18, Jesus asserts His authority over death and Hades, emphasizing a judicial rather than symbolic significance. For believers, this means that Christ alone governs the measured release of divine judgment in their lives.
He holds the scroll entrusted to Him, guiding the disciplines (Proverbs 16:7) that lead to the purification of His followers (Revelation 5:5).
✨ Summary: Revelation as a Personal Journey of Refinement
Christ, holding the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:18), sovereignly governs every trial, judgment, and release in the believer’s life.
The seals are not distant events but divine instruments Jesus uses to awaken and refine His people, Rev 5:9.
🔐 Revelation: A Personal Journey of Refinement
Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:18)—He alone governs the believer’s journey.
The seals of Revelation are not distant events but divine tools used to awaken, discipline, and restore.
When God’s people commit willful sin (The abomination leading to desolation, Matt 24:15), God allows the believer to fall away, using the Devil to influence them to believe a lie (2 Thess 2:8,11), as Job did in his self-righteousness (Job 32:1 and Job 42:6).
This delusion is not abandonment—it is purification, Heb 13:5.
The fire descends (Matt 25:41), melting the earthly carnal behavior within (2 Pet 3:10).
The obedient flee to the mountain (Matt 24:16), separating themselves from judgment and interceding for the fallen.
As Ezekiel 36:37 affirms, God will be “inquired of” to restore His people.
We must pray for backslidden believers to be increased “like a flock, Jn 17:9 and 1 Jn 5:19.”
Only after correction can we again fellowship with the formerly disobedient “meeting them in the air” (1 Thess 4:15–17).
The concept of the “Day of the Lord” is concealed in parables and woven throughout Scripture. It reveals how God uses the adversary to teach His people to deny ungodliness (Joel 1:15 and Titus 2:11–12).
The outcome is guaranteed: grace will finish what it began.
📊 The Day of the Lord: A Cycle of Restoration
🔍 The Great Gulf: A Present-Tense Judgment
This isn’t a story about the workings of the afterlife, but a wake-up call. The judgment, like the separation of sheep and goats, takes place here in this life.
1. Permission Granted God allows the Willfully sinful believer to fall or believe a lie (This is the “Day” Coming as a thief)→ 2 Thess 2:8,11; Job 42:6 → To expose hidden pride or self-righteousness
2. Judgment Initiated Fire descends (Mt 24:51; the carnal earthly behavior melts → 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 6–8 → To purify the believer through tribulation, Jn 16:33
3. Separation of the Obedient Faithful flee to the mountain → Matt 24:16; Ezek 9 → To avoid delusion and intercede for others
4. Intercession & Enquiry The faithful pray for restoration → Ezek 36:37; Luke 22:32 → To fulfill God’s promise to increase His flock
5. Revelation & Awakening The fallen believer is restored Matt 5:26 and Luke 12:59 → Rev 3:18–20; → To return in humility and renewed faith
6. Reunion in the Air Fellowship is restored after correction → 1 Thess 4 15–17 → To rejoin the purified body of Christ
7. Grace Sustains The believer walks in power to deny ungodliness → Titus 2 11–12 → James 4:6 -To glorify God through transformed obedience
The Lazarus account conceals a present-tense spiritual reality.
Abraham’s calling Lazarus “son” tells us that Lazarus was a believer.
Lazarus was a believer who was alive.
The Bible teaches that being born again is not merely “starting over”—it is a death and resurrection event. The “death” is specifically a death to:
- the old self
- the world’s values
- the flesh
- the former way of life
And the “birth” is the Spirit’s creation of a new person.
Jesus was referring to this type of death in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
The great gulf is spiritual, exists between obedient faith and hellfire, Obadiah 1:15.
Biblical warnings against seeking messages from the dead suggest that both Lazarus and the rich man were physically alive.
The rich man, however, was not partaking of the Kingdom of God at the time Rom 14:17 and Joel 1:16.
He was in the torment of fire, which Jesus delivers willfully sinful believers into in Matt 25:41.
This is the battle in the Valley of Decision (Joel 3:14), it is the Battle of Armageddon (Rev 16:16).
Like the sheep and goats, the judgment unfolds now during this present lifetime.
This is another example of the hidden concept of the “Day of the Lord” being used as a symbol of restoration.
Eze 39:8 ¶ Behold, it is coming and it will be brought about, says the Lord GOD. That is the day of which I have spoken.