The Isle of Paradise | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson by Chad Erickson First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN) Kind: sermon Scripture: Revelation 1:9-11, John 13:23, Mark 5:37, Matthew 17:1-2, Habakkuk 3:17-19, Revelation 21:1-3, Revelation 21:21-23, Revelation 22:20-21 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/chad-erickson--the-isle-of-paradise Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ stand to your feet with me and i second uh pastor carpenter that that choir song was absolutely amazing and uh looking forward to next sunday resurrection sunday looking forward to singing that and it's believing i believe it's going to change lives people are going to come up out of that grave don't you believe that hallelujah turn with me in the book of revelation chapter 1 in verse 9 and pastor carpenter preached such a amazing word this morning and it's something about whenever i preach on a sunday night that he's preaching a sunday morning i kind of sit there and cringe the whole time because i'm like oh oh my i'm gonna have to start all over again and any any of you preachers know what that feels like when when you know your verses start getting read and your your bible character starts to get preached on and you're like oh oh lord but maybe that'll just mean that the the sermon is a little shorter tonight uh because i'm i'm gonna preach on the apostle john tonight and uh he began to tell and i thought well he's given some good background that i'm not gonna have to cover tonight so i'm so thankful for our our pastor and our first lady and what they mean to this church don't we love the carpenter family amen don't we just love our senior pastor love you all more importantly my father-in-law and mother-in-law and family there's nothing like family both blood and spiritual family and when they're together that makes it even better amen love my wife i appreciate her support everything she is to me she keeps me humble and she keeps me straight and when i say that this is what i mean sometimes i'm just like everybody else i've i have bad days days when i've got i feel like i've got legitimate complaints gripes and she's awesome because she she goes with me just long enough to where they were on the same side and then she says but you know you're not right and i don't like it but then brother steph i hear you out there hour goes by and i'm like yeah she's right matter of fact i'm gonna preach on a subject tonight where there was a good excuse to have a bad day but john decided to have a good day let me get started revelation chapter one verse nine love you family i john who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of jesus christ was in the isle that is called patnas for the word of god and for the testimony of jesus christ verse 10 says i was in the spirit on the lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying i am alpha and omega the first and the last and what thou seest write in a book and sent it under the seven churches which are in asia i'm going to stop right there i love how he says this i was in the spirit on the lord's day that right there will preach all night long you know i believe i'm a firm believer obviously that it is it's if we're gonna make it to heaven we gotta have the god's spirit inside of us right we're gonna have a spirit within us it's a plan of salvation but i like how john talks because you know sometimes we can sell ourselves short by having the holy ghost in us but now not walking in the spirit not living in the spirit amen so i just just for a few minutes i want to preach in your hearing tonight the isle of paradise the isle of paradise it might not make sense for just a few moments but put your bibles down let's pray to the father right now lord we love you lord your father our creator god you have created everything for a purpose oh my god i love you i feel your holy ghost in this place right now everything that happens in life every trial every tribulation lord got every temptation that comes across us in life lord god there's a reason there's a purpose there's a test of god and lord i want to be found lord god i want to be found in your sight to be holy righteous and lord god when it all passes lord when i can say that it came to pass lord god that you can look down at me and say you've passed the test oh lord god that's my greatest desire is that one day you'll say well done thou good and faithful servant come on aboard come on if you feel that way clap your hands us the lord if you want god to say that to you one day good and faithful hallelujah you may be seated in the house in the house tonight the church fathers identified john as john the evangelist john the elder john the beloved john the apostle john the revelator john listen john of patmos now this one right here got me because i got to thinking that john only spent 18 months on the isle of patmos but somehow is known for all time as john of patmos and i began to think about that because a lot of times if we're not careful we can let other people define who we are think about this uh if you think about doubting thomas right if you think about rahab the harlot or even blind bartimaeus not a one of them ended up like they began but somehow they carried on the reputation in the name but john of patmos let me tell you something i i love and i can stop and preach right here because i never want people to be allowed to define me when they've never walked in my shoes john was 94 years old when he finally died yet somehow some people recognized 18 months of his life he wasn't born on patents he didn't die on patmos he just spent just a very short period of time there but somehow people define him as being john a patent but i like how how pastor said it this morning because that's not how john himself he said i'll tell you how to find myself the whole book his whole gospel he wrote and he defined himself as a disciple that jesus loved don't you like that it was it wasn't the disciple that loved jesus although that would have been fitting too he said it was a disciple that jesus loved i want that kind of relationship with my god to where i can say i don't care what you call me i don't care how you define me i don't care how you categorize me i am the disciple that jesus loves somebody clap your hands if you want that kind of relationship that pastor carpenter preached about this morning he loves us oh how he loves us the stories we read in the bible about this apostle john uh this this this relational john you know if if i was to do a real colors assessment on john and listen i'm looking forward to spending time with our trendsetters tomorrow night we're going to do my wife and i are going to do a real colors training we're i'm excited about that i'm looking forward just to see it because some of you i want to know i want to know what color you are i want to know i want to know what color you are and i if i had time and if i had the opportunity i would have loved and i'm actually doing a study on this but even in in real life i would have loved to known peter james and john i i would just like to know what real color they really are what is their personality really all about and i i think it's pretty obvious that peter jesus called him the rock yeah jesus called him he he was a rock and and i just got to believe that he had a real gold personality and when i say gold personality i believe when when jesus was given his very last will and testament before he rose up into heaven when he was given the great commission i just believed probably that peter was taking notes that peter was making a list of everything that jesus was saying and he was writing down okay okay all the world beginning in jerusalem we're to wait on the promise before before we depart before we minister we're going to wait on the promise of the father oh okay and and i believe his gold personality is what made him have the personality to be the very first preacher on the day of pentecost the very first pastor of the early church i believe it was that goal that was inside of him that he could rise up with the other eleven and he could preach the salvation message to the people in jerusalem i believe that's i know he had some orange in him too he had some orange because you know he did things sometimes before he really thought about it he didn't really think logistically how this is going to turn out like the servant of the high priest you know he lops off his ear i don't think he really thought too far you know i don't know what he's planning on doing after that thank god thank god that jesus was able to put that ear back on and heal him but but you know there wasn't a lot of thought process to that and and i don't know a whole lot about james but john i'll tell you about john john is as blue as they come he is affectionate he's a hugger he loves any blues in the house let me see a lot of y'all taking come on oh look at all my blues he just i'm telling you he was probably easily offended let's just be honest he was blue he he was just he was that one a matter of fact even even even pastor read about this morning it was john who who who got up real close to jesus and just kind of laid his head upon jesus's chest when when any time things were happening anything anytime that jesus was in the house he just wanted to be as close to jesus as he could he just wanted to get up close and personal he he was just the type it was that blue that was uh there was just uh just seeping out of him of of just wanting to know that jesus loved him all right it was that blue that was inside of him there was just one to say ah whatever jesus whatever comes out of his mouth whether it's a whisper whatever comes out of his mouth i i want to know i want to hear john 13 23 it says now there was a leaning on jesus jesus's bosom one of his disciples whom jesus loved there he is talking about himself and i don't know exactly what that looked like and in our day and time i know that might look kind of awkward and and there probably was some people at the end of the table that didn't care what jesus was saying that probably had a little problem with john being a little too close to jesus probably some jealousy within the disciples if you will and i hate to bring that out but you know they were people they were flesh just like you and i are flesh and i just got to believe that that seeing john up close to jesus there had to be some that were were kind of scratching their head going well well i guess john he got here early to get the good seed didn't he and i just wonder i just wonder if john you know the the one that jesus loved and and the one he kind of reminds me sometimes of people that they want to get to church early to get the front seats and i'm not throwing off on the back seat because we don't have enough front seats i promise you but there's just there's just something i kind of watched across the front the front row sometimes and and it's it's hard it's hard not to concentrate on jesus when you got nothing else distracting you you know it's hard to be on instagram and scrolling through instagram when you're on the front row and i just believe that john put himself in a place next to jesus so the other things wouldn't distract him brother thompson people wouldn't be talking to his ears people wouldn't be whispering around him when jesus was speaking he wanted to hear everything that was coming out of his mouth and i sometimes wonder because it seems interesting to me that when john was close to jesus that peter had to beckon him and say to him ask jesus who it is that's going to betray you now peter could have asked jesus but there's something about people that get close to jesus that other people go to try to find them and say listen i i've got a request i i'm in need of prayer and i don't know about you but i've been at work before and i've worked secular jobs before where people came up to me and said i know what church you go to and i know that your church touches god and i've got something i need you to pray about you ever had people do that to you oh yeah all over the house people come up to you they see you at work or they see you at the store or they they may watch they may watch you sing in the choir and so when they see you in the community they say i know you go to that church and you all dress differently and you all look and it's obvious that you're a little more consecrated than the average christian and so therefore i i've got some needs i need you to bring to the lord and i love that and that's that's one of the beautiful things about being apostolic is we're not just on the inward holiness we believe in external holiness and it's for a purpose it's it's for a good purpose because people ought to know what we believe by just looking at us i believe i believe that because a lot of times you know the church world is trying to look so much like the world that when they're out in the community you can't tell them apart from the world and so here we are as the apostolic church and we're kind of like john because we want to be as close to jesus it doesn't make us better we don't it's not that we have any more of the word of god than anybody else has we we all read and and study out of the same word of god but there's something about being close to jesus that allows you into the inner circle where peter james and john were and everywhere we read in our bible jesus was always pulling them aside to give them some extra special experiences they had a position that none of the other apostles or at the time the disciples had jesus pulled them close and so i just want to hit just a few of those just so we can kind of see the relationship that john had with the master a relationship such as a relationship found in mark chapter 5 in verse 37 when we know of jarius and uh jarius comes to jesus isn't it interesting to you because it's interesting to me that jarius found jesus at the exact moment that the woman in the issue of blood found jesus man in fact jarius had already kind of started a conversation with jesus when that woman touched the hem of jesus garment and jesus said hold on some of this happened i felt virtue leave my body and right there we have jarius as he overhears a miracle in the making as the woman with the issue of blood as she is confronted by jesus and and jesus said who touched me and his disciples said well what do you mean who touched me there's a throng of people touching you but jesus said oh no somebody touched me that needed something because there's a difference between a touch of somebody that's passing by and just bumping into the lord and somebody that says i i've been waiting for 12 years for a healing in my body i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and i'm about to touch something that can change my life and heal me and jarius oversaw the whole miracle that took place with that woman because i don't know if he would have had enough faith to take jesus home with him if he had not seen the miracle take place for the woman with the issue of blood but here we have a little servant girl and here jerry is saying please my daughter is sick nigh unto death uh jesus i just need you to come home with me i've heard of the miracles i i maybe he even experienced seeing some of the miracles that jesus had performed in previous days in previous weeks he said if you'll just come home with me and jesus said okay i'm following you jerius take me to your house and at the very same moment a servant of jerusalem walked up and said oh father not the master any longer don't don't bring him all the way to your home for your daughter is already dead and so jesus thinks to himself i got i've got a good this is a good education point for peter james and john for the trio i want my trio of evangelists i i need you to come follow me because i want to show you something because what the world feels and what the world views as death he said i just view as sleeping it's just a moment it's a pause it's just it's just a moment of time and i'm gonna prove i'm going to prove not only to this father and to the mother and obviously to the daughter that there's resurrection power in my hand but i want to prove it to peter james and john because they're going to need to see this so they can believe for future miracles so here we have the three as they follow jesus in jairus to jerius's home and as they reach jerry's home oh their people are crying the people are weeping matter of fact they have hired professional mourners they have come out just in order to make the family feel better because let me tell you something there's nothing worse than losing someone and nobody around you being sad so in that day they would hire professional mourners and their job was simply to come out and just wail no surely no no and it just felt good to have people feel sorry for you and feel sorry for your situation and jesus comes walking up and and jesus is like i don't know what you're paying these people to be here but i've come to work a miracle and jesus just simply said she's not dead she's merely asleep and those professional mourners began the bible says they began to laugh and begin to mock jesus they probably thought to themselves man i'm i'm here by the hour listen i listen i got another five hours before i get my minimum quota i lea what do you mean she's just asleep i'm making some money here get get out of get out of here we're working here and jesus said cast them all out get them all out of here he said come on mom and dad peter james and john come on let's walk in here and i'm going to show you i'm going to speak one i'm just going to speak one phrase i'm just going to say to lissa kumai which simply be an interpreter means damsel i say unto thee arise and the bible says that that girl not only sat up but she began to walk around which simply was more than just a miracle because this baby girl had been sick this 12 year old child had been so sick she hadn't been walking around for days if not weeks but jesus was simply showing them i can not only raise her back to life i'll put her back on her feet again and he was trying to show peter and james and john there is miraculous power in my hands mind-blowing mind-blowing accounts of of jesus bringing them to experience things that nobody else had ever experienced matter of fact in matthew chapter 17 verse 1 it says after six days jesus taketh peter james and john his brother and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart he said come on come on with me we're gonna leave everybody else we're gonna leave the other disciples and i'm gonna take you somewhere and show you something that's going to blow your mind and the bible says in verse 2 that he was transfigured before them and his face did shine as the sun in his raiment was white as the light and behold this is pretty cool right here there appeared under them moses uh and elias talking with him now come on somebody i don't know about you but that would have done something to me standing there i can just see their mouths a gap in their eyes wide open thinking not only is something crazy happening to jesus but i'm are these prophets i'm looking at right here these are men of old these are these are men of ancient of days and i see them elias and moses and they're talking to jesus the transfiguration come on peter james and john saw stuff that andrew and bartholomew would never believe if they came back and told them andrew bartholomew even like yeah okay jesus what began face was shining moses you saw who surely surely you don't expect us to believe this but jesus was forming a relationship with peter james and john because there was coming a day when all three of them were going to have to understand the power that was in christ jesus so what about the mother of john what about the mother of john will let's talk about the mother of john because the mother of john just so happens to be the sister of jesus is mother mary am i right a lot of people don't realize that so so that jesus is cousins with these guys and uh here we have here we have the mother of john and she gets this bright idea she says you know jesus i i know you're about to come into your kingdom and you're going to be sitting on a throne and when you're sitting on that throne i would just like to see my boys one on the left side of you and one seated on the right side of you and brother author i i don't know her motive was probably not good okay i i understand that that her motive was simply it might have been like a family thing like hey jesus come on come on help your cousins out help your cousins out a little bit you know give them some power too if you're gonna have power why don't you give your cousin some power too why don't you help them out because after all they've been following you around they've been they had a job in about three years you used to be fishermen with daddy man they haven't caught a fish in a long time they've been following you around from from city to city from town to town and surely surely you can do something for them but here and this is i don't i don't want to question her motive but this is what i think about when i think about the mother of john at least she wanted her children in the right place and god helped me as a father and god helped the fathers in this house and the mother's in this house listen i i don't know about you but i want to make sure that my three girls are as close to jesus as possible and i believe my wife and i listen we'll do anything it takes to get them in the presence of jesus we'll put them in a good church we'll put them in a good youth group we'll put them in a good school we'll put them in a school that has apostolic teachers pentecostal holiness teachers that will speak into their lives every day of the week you say but what about christian school tuition let me tell you something there's not too much to pay when it means my daughter's being on the right and on the left of jesus what about music lessons what about the fees you gotta pay monthly for three girls and sometimes they're taking more than one instrument oh it's costly yes it is but if it means i'm getting on the right and on the left of jesus i'll do anything i have to do i'll pay for youth camp strong tower i'll send them to national youth convention i'll do anything i have to do oh there's not too great of a cost to put my girls in the presence of jesus he wanted us so close john wanted to be so close to jesus in the good times eating a meal at the table or at the bad times when he was with jesus in the garden of gethsemane when there was agonizing prayer when sweat began to fall as great drops of blood and as jesus groaned and here was john as he as he was observing jesus in the worst of the worst he was the only disciple that actually never left jesus and followed him on his road in calvary all the other disciples they ran they hid it was even peter who lied and said i don't even know who jesus is it was john though that he was found at the foot of the cross it was john who jesus said he said mother behold your son he said to john john behold your mother he put the care of his own mother not into the care of his brothers but into the care of john you know why because john was there in the good and john was there in the bad when things were going right john was there and john just found himself always at jesus's side no matter if he was hanging on a cross or he was breaking bread at a table because jesus loved john and john loved jesus so let me move quickly on what i've really come to preach because history goes on to tell us that in the persecution under demacian john is taken to rome and there by his boldness though not by death he gains the crown of martyrdom right because he was the only listen every single every single one of the disciples of jesus were martyred every every single one of them including john or they tried but he didn't die matter of fact history tells us that they put him in a cauldron of boiling oil now i don't know how you live through that i don't know how you don't walk out of there with scars and burns and lose the very layers of skin around your body i don't know how you do it and all i got to say is simply this if the devil had the right to make a decision when you would die we would all be dead already but obviously jesus had something in store for john that he could not allow him to die and so jesus caused that boiling oil i don't understand it i can't explain it but we cannot deny the fact that he lived through it and the history even tells us he had no ailment from the boiling oil which tells me simply this that john was about to do something and if you've ever read your bible you better read the gospel of john pastor talked about it this morning first and second and third john and you better read the book of revelation because jesus kept him alive when he should have been dead listen there's a purpose why god keeps us alive there's a purpose why every single one of some of you been in car accidents you should have been dead and gone some of you had cancer some of you had heart attacks some of you listen you've been on life support you've been not only oxygen you've been on the vent and somehow you're here tonight and there's got to be a reason why you're here if the devil could have had you he would have been dead by now but obviously jesus has a plan he oh you're about to do something great you're about to be like the gospel you're about to be like the apostle john who wrote all the books history tells us that he wrote every book on the isle of patmos think about that so what did they do well since they couldn't they couldn't boil him alive they said you know what we're going to exile him we're going to put them on this isle of patmos we're going to banish them to this horrible desolate island not the tropical island of the swiss family robinson nor the uninhabited tropical island that tom hanks was stranded on in the movie castaway we got to get those islands out of our mind because let me tell you something i promise you john would have loved to be on an uninhabited island because he was there with a bunch of crazy people i mean you know tom had a volleyball that volleyball didn't come up and and do anything to him at night when he was trying to sleep i'm talking murderers thieves backbiters robbers people that don't pay their tithe lighten up horrible people people that were there for heinous acts and crimes people that maybe they were there because they thought you know what it would be too easy to put you to death that sentence wouldn't be enough we're gonna send you to patmos to work in the minds we're gonna put some ancient tools in your hands and and you're gonna work the mines until your fingers bleed and until listen they weren't out there feeding those people they had to find their own food it was it was it was a horrible place it was it was a desolate dry place when they were banished to patmos nobody cared if they lived or died they would work you as long as you were alive and when you died you died and so we have here john the great john the evangelist the elder the beloved the apostle john deserved an island on the bahamas he should have been the bishop of the church i want you to think about this by the time he went to patmos every other disciple who had become apostle every single one of them had already been martyred they were all dead he was the bishop of the church nobody else nobody else that had walked with jesus was still alive they were all dead and gone and here he is and and let me tell you something we are living in a generation of entitlement god don't you know what i deserve the price i've paid what i've done don't you remember all those days that i walked with you and i helped you when i served you and i went and found food and i i followed you to every place where you did miracles and i even followed you to the cross and i was there watching you as you bled and died i was the one i was the one the emotional one weepina i was the one that was shuttering i was crying i couldn't even i lost my voice i couldn't even crying no more at the cross i was the one who cared about you and this is what i get for a retirement oh but that's not with john that was not the spirit of john he didn't have the entitled spirit he wasn't somebody who said i deserve oh no in revelation 1 9 he just said hi john who also am your brother and companion in tribulation you see to him to be living a life of tribulation it meant a lot to him he looked and saw all his brothers he saw all his comrades all his fellow apostles as they had been killed and burnt at the stake and crucified upside down and been beheaded and he thought to himself the least i can do is live out the rest of my life on this aisle called patmos he said i'm a companion in tribulation he was in this aisle called patmos for the word of god what this simply means it simply means i'm here because i was not ashamed to preach the gospel of jesus christ he said i'm here oh i'm here for the word of god and for the testimony of jesus christ and he says i was in the spirit on the lord's day let me tell you something situational circumstances do not have to determine your state of mind i'm going to say it again you've got to get out of where you are in the problems you're facing today and allow that to be what you think about and allow those voices to enter into your head you gotta get out of situational circumstances and say i will live for god no matter what come what may i'm gonna give god everything whether i'm in a desert place if i'm on an island of desolation or if i'm here in the house of god on a sunday night let me tell you something if john can get in the spirit on the isle of patmos uh dear god in heaven we ought to find it easy to get in the spirit on the lord's day when we're amongst our 600 other worshippers and 600 other appraisers when we've got a choir of 150 that leads us in worship my god if we can't get in the spirit on the lord's day when we have leaders of worship and people that are helping us work oh my god help us tonight he said i was in the spirit i was in the spirit you maybe see that it reminds me of a passage i read the other day in habakkuk habakkuk chapter 3 verse 17 we don't read a lot out of habakkuk it's even hard to say and god bless this person's mother he says although the fig tree shall not blossom talking about a dormant season of life neither shall fruit be in the vines he got nothing sweet nothing sweets happened in your life the labor of the olives shall fail we're talking about no olive oil we're talking about no anointing there's times in life when you can't feel god you can't feel anything you're just doing what you're doing because you know that's what you're supposed to be doing and you've been taught it and because you've been taught it you're just living it and because you're living it you're just walking through in the fields shall yield no meat i'm talking about no food on the table the flock shall be cut off from the fold you've lost your income and there shall be no herd in the stalls unemployed yet will i rejoice in the lord i will joy in the god of my salvation the lord god is my strength and he will make my feet like hein's feet and he will make me to walk up in the high places oh my god high speeds they're simply the legs on the hind are longer in the back than the front because it helps them get out of the valley and it helps them get to the mountain top somebody needs a read somebody needs to read the psalm a little closer because it says yay though i walk through the valley i want you to think about this right here too many people pitch their tent in the valley like lot did and god never meant for lot to be in the valley he never meant for he meant for him to be upon the hilltop on the mountaintop with uncle abraham but there's people who miss the concept that valleys are places to walk through they're not places to live in god never meant for any one of us to be in the valley of the shadow of death or in the valley of a time of dormancy or the time where there's no food where there's no sheep where there's no oxen where there's no grape on the vine he simply said i will give you hindsita to get up out of the valley listen the choice is totally up to you you can either give up and give in when you land on patmos look at this place it's a desolate place it's a hot place the sun is shining it's 110 degrees on an average day in patmos it's an ugly place it's like where are you gonna sleep what rocks are you gonna sleep on it's an ugly desolate dormant place where nothing is alive nothing is living but somewhere there was this man named john there was this evangelist named john the one who jesus loved and instead of looking around at rocks instead of looking around the valley he decided i'm going to get my eye on something else he said in verse 1 of chapter 21 john said i saw a new heaven and a new earth oh i can't wait to preach this for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea and i john saw the holy city new jerusalem coming out coming down from god out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and i heard a great voice out of heaven saying behold the tabernacle of god is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and god himself shall be with them and be their god skip down to verse 21 because when everybody else was seeing a dry place in verse 21 he said and the twelve gates were twelve pearls every single gate was one pearl and the street of the city was pure gold as it were transparent glass and i saw no temple therein for the lord god almighty was the lamb in the temple of it and the city had no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of god enlightenment in the lamb is the light thereof i just want you to understand something when you get in the spirit you see things that nobody else sees when everybody else isn't depressed and oppressed and everybody else is saying how can i make ends meet you're sitting there going out but i was in the spirit on the lord's day and i saw gates of pearl walls of jasper i saw streets of gold they were so brilliant it was as if they were transparent he was in the spirit i said he was in the spirit what are you gonna do here you are i don't know there might be people in this place who are going through trials that you've never gone through before you've been put in situations like john where it's not your fault you're there oh it's not your fault you're there when you married him he was an apostolic on fire child of god and he had been to church for 10 years it's not your fault you're living where you're living when you married her she said forever i'll be true to you it's not your fault you're living where you're living however you've got to be able to be in the spirit long enough to see things differently than everybody else sees them because the world says you ought to give up on your marriage the world says if you don't want the baby you want to get rid of the baby the world says it the world says give up give him everything is dry everything's desolate you might as well just give up but when you're in the spirit on the lord's day just like john you can have your eyes wide open and you can see things that nobody else is seeing in your life it's all about your state of mind your relationship with jesus it's all about your state of mind i told you about john's life because i want us to realize that there's a reason why jesus was able to put john on patmos and he knew that he wouldn't give up on the isle of patmos i just pray this prayer god i hope you have enough faith in me that when you need something big to happen you can look down and say you know what erickson can do it because erickson's already proven himself to me eric said i know he loves me i know he won't forsake me i won't i know he won't deny me i know i know he's in he's in the game and if i can just get erickson do it everything's gonna be all right and i just believe that's how god felt about john but i've got to move quickly i've got to move quickly revelations 22 and 20. i want to read the last two verses in the book of revelation here john is he's saying he which testify these things saith surely i come quickly amen even so come lord jesus the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you all amen and he closed the book and he put the pen down and he looked up and on the horizon came a ship and not just any ship not a ship filled with prisoners coming to work the mines but it was a ship that was sent all from ephesus they said i don't know why john is on patmos but i want you to go get him i want you to go rescue him i want you to go bring him back and it's a beautiful story that john ends his life ends as a ripe old age of 94 and he dies of old age but today the isle of patmos now listen to me listen oh my god listen god is not gonna give up on you he's brought us too far to give up on us now sean gets to writing and listen i i don't know if he had any doubt in his mind he sure didn't show i believe i believe what he said i believe he was there and he was like i'm happy to be here because i get to suffer for his namesake i believe he was just he was fine and maybe we got to take that on tribulation for his namesake we maybe we gotta realize that there's more than people male young people making fun of you because you wear skirts and pants and volleyball games and and basketball games maybe that's not the tribulation that he's talking about maybe john right here is saying i'm in a desolate place i'm in a dormant place i'm in a hot place i'm in a place that has it has no life here i am but i am willing oh john just simply said oh persecution bring it on because it's for the name of jesus and i'll take on persecution for the name of jesus because that's just who i am that's just what i do i've always been taken on persecution from the name of jesus why would i stop now but this state of mind that john was in was so beautiful because it changed the life of every person that's ever read his gospel his epistles and his revelation you see today today the isle of patmos this is hard to believe but i'm gonna prove it to you is one of the greatest vacation spots on the coast of greece that right there ugly hot desolated prison island see because here's the deal one person's patmos is another person's paradise i got on a verbo or something y'all call vrbo i was like i'm gonna look up patmos but there's nothing going to be there right because this is ridiculous i mean you s wait a minute show these pictures i want to show you some pictures i found sophia villa patmos with pool for 544 us dollars a night oh wow that that's that's kind of pretty right there wow that's kind of a nice view right there grape juice i didn't see that in the small picture that picture's a lot bigger up there i don't know if i sent it to him but there's a there's a picture that has like three cruise ships that are docked at patmos i thought this is this is incredible this was a prison island a desolate place but somehow the only reason there it is the only reason why patmos is a place of vacation today they they say i read it is because christians want to go to the island where john wrote the book of revelation and i got to thinking to myself my god one person's patmos is another person's paradise and it's all just the way you think it's the way you view your life two people listen i've told you this i've preached this so many times i i travel to africa i travel to papua new guinea i've traveled to the philippines i've been a south america i've seen the most of the third world nations i've been to i've been to lebanon and seen syrian refugees and got to walk into their houses and go into the the apartments they live in where there's just there's there's electrical wires that the kids can just grab hold of they're just going all throughout the inner city of of lebanon and beirut it's a crazy thing but i've never met people that are happier than these third world people because just like john they can totally see something else out of life than what's before them and so if i could preach to you today get off your isle of patmos and get onto your isle of paradise get off the desolate get off the place where you're feeling sorry for yourself and you run through day after day of depression and you got your blinds closed and you stay in bed all get up out of that and realize that god has something for you there's a ship coming over the horizon you're going to do something you're going to make a decision tonight that's going to change the future of your grandchildren it's going to change the future of your great grandchildren because you're going to rise above patmos you're going to rise again above people doing you're wrong and you're simply going to say god if this is where you want me right now this is where i'm going to be and i'm going to be content lord help me to be content where i am today and not think to myself that i'm entitled to something oh i pray tonight that every young person would throw up their hands and just say god i don't know what my future holds but lord i'm gonna do everything i can to stay in this thing with everything that i am all the middle east come on some of you like me moms and dads that are raising children we gotta stand up and stand strong and realize that the next generation is following after us and then to our trendsetters come on john was a trendsetter he was probably in his mid to late 80s when he was on patents look what he did in the late years of his life look what he accomplished he changed he not only changed everybody in this place tonight through the words that he wrote town he even changed the island that he was on i told him just staying with me i told phil and i said listen this sounds crazy i said you're not going to believe this i was telling this one i said yeah i can believe it we got our we got a big anniversary coming up we're we're coming up in the next year and a half or two years we're coming up on our 20th anniversary i said let's go to patmos and she laughed but then i got on verbo i was like well check this out check this out ain't got none of this in in miami beach man i started something some of you all right now are hunkered down on your phones looking at verbo right now i believe there's a spear somebody online right now is searching your computer but we got to realize that unless we get in the spirit and view things the way god wants us to view things listen i'm so glad i said it already i'm so glad the holy ghost is inside of me but god i want to live in your spirit i wonder if there's anybody that'll just come down here and and if you begin to pray in the spirit if you've got the holy ghost you want to be able to just come down and say god i i'm in the spirit i've got the spirit inside of me i'm going to begin to pray in the spirit you're going to start you're going to start praying things you ain't never prayed before there's gonna be a language that comes up out of your belly that flows out of your belly like like a river of living water there's gonna be something begins to happen come on if you're going through something right now i don't know you might be going through an ugly divorce you might be going through an ugly bankruptcy you might be losing your kids i don't know what you're going through but i believe you can come up in this place and you can get in the spirit i believe you could have cancer in your body i believe you could have heart conditions and you can get in the spirit right now and you can begin to see things that are totally different outlook i was in the spirit on the lord's day i was in the spirit on the lord's day i was in the spirit on the lord's day come on begin to lift up your voices uh begin to say god i'm gonna put out everything in my mind that has to do with problems i'm gonna put it out of my mind all the situations that work i'm gonna put them out of my mind i want you to begin to focus right now on god i want you to be able to focus right now come on john said i was in the spirit and i began to be in a trance and i began to see things as though they were i just believe somebody today could have enough faith to see something in your mind and say god if you show it to me god i have i just believe it's gonna come to pass i just have enough faith in you i know you love me enough i know you care about me enough come on get in the spirits get in the spirits i hear you begin to pray in the spirit if there's anybody here if you don't have the holy ghost if you've never spoken in another tongue tonight is your night because you can't get in the spirits until the spirit is in you you can't pray in the spirit until the spirit is in you you can't live in the spirit until the spirit is in you you can't walk in the spirits until the spirit is in you i say tonight lift up your hands and allow the spirit of god to enter into your body the bible says peter priests on the day of pentecost he said repent of your sins you got to repent you got to change your lifestyle you got to change everything about yourself the way you think your aspect you look your paradigm has got to shift and then you've got to begin to lift up your voice and say god i want your spirit to reside inside of me lord i want to be baptized in your name for the remission of my sins come on do it right now receive ye the holy ghost receive ye the holy ghost i was in the spirit i was in the spirit i want to say this i want you to lean over next to somebody and put your arm around them if it's appropriate and i want you to begin to pray for them i want you to love on your brother to brother sister sister i want you to love on one another as jesus loved uncharted and john loved jesus and i want you to say we can do this we can make it we can make it i know the race is hard i know the road is hot but i believe in a god who's able he's able to bring us through this we can make it the spirit of god is with us the spirit of god is with us the spirit is with us let the healing begin come on right now let the healing begin in bodies oh i was in the spirit on a sunday night april the 10th i was in the spirit of the lord's day and i got my healing i got my healing i got my deliverance i was set free of drugs and alcohol i got it i was in the spirits no more addiction no more chains no more bondage no more badness come on somebody there's an isle of paradise but you've got to see it for what it is you've got to see it for what it is come on that's right that's right pray for one another we need one another we need one another oh yes yes yes is he's a promise keeper he's a promise the power of your love hallelujah come on church it's already done oh my god what is mine today you are with us is is oh is hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah it's already hallelujah hallelujah it's already come on i want you just to lift up your hands as high as you can now i believe we prayed like that is saying i believe it's already done whatever you prayed for i believe it's already taken place if it's a healing i believe it's already began oh my god come on let's just thank god let's leave this place with a heart of thanksgiving this says god i thank you lord you've never leave you've never forsaken me lord god you wouldn't give up on me oh i thank you jesus you're protecting me you're my healer you're my savior you're my deliverer you're the promised keeper of my life and lord i'm just rejoicing lord god that whatever it is oh god you're doing lord it's already begun and it's already done in my life in jesus name come on shout thanksgiving of the lord i want you to shout thanksgiving unto the lord in your own words just out of thanksgiving unto him you're so go so so good you're so so so so so so good oh hallelujah hallelujah i give you thanks for all you've done i am so blessed come on get that mindset soul has found a rest oh lord i give you thanks we're gonna sing this again but there's some people in this room you're gonna have to force yourself to sing this song because you don't feel it and it might be some time before you do feel it the holy ghost right here somebody in this room you you are gonna sing this song because you're gonna sing it by faith you don't feel blessed but you're gonna sing it by faith that a blessing is on the way you don't feel like you got a spirit of thanksgiving but you're gonna sing it because you just know sometimes you gotta thank god before the blessing comes before the miracle comes there's gotta be a spirit of thanksgiving so whether you feel it or not sing thanks thanks i give you thanks for all you've done and i am so blessed my soul has found i'm to keep on singing until i believe it i give you thanks oh god sing it again sing it again come on a little bit louder sing thanks sing it so you can hear yourself singing i'm in the spirit i'm in the spirit oh my soul has fell right yes come on john get in the spirit come on john get in the spirit foreign i'm blessed i'm blessed i'm in rest i'm at risk one more time oh i feel it in this place holy ghost is doing a work in this place my god now without music without singers and microphones i want to hear you sing it and i it's not about me hearing you i want the devil to hear you singin listen up devil ah you're a liar come on just one more time one more time i am now come on give him the loudest praise you've given him all night this sounds like the sound of victory this is the sound of victory this is the sound of victory yes yes yes yes go home this week and have the best week you've ever had i pray the spirit of god upon each one of you god help us to live in your spirit to walk in your spirit to do mighty works in your spirit everybody said in jesus name we got one to be baptized come on let's pray right now father i thank you lord god hey the dead's about to be come back to life right here newness of life right now in jesus name god bless future right here in jesus name do great and mighty works of god thanks for hope upon the profession of your faith and in obedience to the holy word of god i now baptize you in the name of the lord jesus christ for the remission of all your sins and thank god you just received the gift of the holy ghost in jesus name thank you bless you dismissed in jesus name have a great week god bless you god bless your families remember invite people to resurrection sunday next week get them here get them in the house their lives will be forever changed god bless you love you