[laughs]

I just plugged it, unplugged it, and plugged it in again, so it is not really that significant, is it? So Revelation twenty.

Now, again, you will have some strong views perhaps about this passage, but just look at the language.

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven." Now, Revelation, right at the beginning of Revelation, chapter three, we're told that Revelation describes what is...

Oh, it's gone again.

What is and what is to come.

What is and what is to come.

Yes.

Well, good morning everybody.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for coming.

There's that slightly damp smell this morning that comes with the rain, um, but you're here in the dry.

Well done for making it, and thank you for coming back.

If you weren't here yesterday, can I try and give you a quick summary of where we've got to? We're thinking about spiritual warfare.

Yeah, I'm sure it's it.

Yeah.

[laughs]

... and it's a woman in trousers on the left.

So, um, God dwells.

He gives us His Holy Spirit.

What does that mean for the spiritual battle now? And actually, what we're gonna see is that you can't understand this section, God dwells, without understanding these other three sections.

So a bit like any other Bible overview you've ever seen, the effect is cumulative.

It builds on itself.

Jesus.

I felt it.

[laughs] You felt it.

And that's true, isn't it? From time to time, you do feel like that.

There are moments when it feels like that.

But it doesn't feel like that all the time.

Perhaps you, um, perhaps you look at the television pictures, you see the soldiers fighting in Ukraine, and you hear about them being on the front line for six months, for eight months with no letup, and you think, "Oh, that'd be terrible." And, and actually, when you think about your own life, th-there are moments like that, one or two moments But for most people, it doesn't feel like that all the time.

Now, there are some things that do feel like a battle, don't they? He- here are some of them.

He leaves when he's commanded.

But if it's genuinely of God, he certainly is able to.

I mean, people are anti-change for different reasons.

And I think we want to try and interrogate some of those.

Not interrogate, that's not the right word.

Understand some of those.

Yeah.

So somebody might have an objection to a change.

Let's get further along in the conversation that we're having.

Yeah.

And I sometimes wonder if our struggle with loss, and I've struggled with this a bit because I've lost my hearing from COVID.

And it was a terrible blow and really grieved that.

It's affected music and all sorts of things I love.

And reflecting on that, I'm thinking, well, actually, this is the heart of the gospel, is that you're giving up things in order to gain something.

So I think in some ways I should be better at dealing with loss.

Why am I so rubbish at it? And I think it is because we like the comfort of things that we know.

And sometimes a long time.