Welcome to Gateway Church's podcast. Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Alright, we're beginning a new series called The Seven Churches of Revelation. You've been waiting for this series.

You've been wondering, Pastor Robert, when are you ever going to preach on the Seven Churches of Revelation? Well, here it is.

So the first thing I want to do, though, is give you some background on the book of Revelation and on the Apostle John or the disciple John who wrote the book.

I also want to remind you that when I begin a series about, in the first message, about the first one half of the message or two-thirds of the message is laying the foundation for the whole series.

And then we'll actually get to the first church and the Lord kind of zeros this on one major thing about it.

And so we'll get that minute. The reason I say that is for those of you who are like I am, who are time conscious.

And since I won't get to my first point until two-thirds of the way through, I don't want you to pass out.

So we'll, we've got plenty of time for everything. All this background information that you'll love about the book of Revelation.

First of all, you need to know that the book of Revelation is a letter. It's a letter to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, which is Turkey now, but it's the whole book is a letter.

And much of the New Testament are letters. You've read the letter to the church at Ephesus called the Book of Ephesians.

You've read the two letters to the Church of Corinth called First and Sagan Corinthians.

Thessalonica, Thessalonians, Colossians, Galatians, are you following me?

So this is a letter. Matter of fact, people don't realize Peter was written, first Peter and second Peter, to the tribes of Israel that had been dispersed, same with James.

So it's kind of at the very first of the book that we don't even read that part. We just kind of go past that part to whom it was written.

So this is a letter. It was written about 95 AD.

So 95 almost 65 years, a little over 65 years after Jesus was the resurrection of Christ.

And Jesus appears to John on the island of Patmos.

Now it was written probably 96, but I'm rounding dates off because in your mind you could do math easier if we rounded off.

All right. The reason I'm saying this is Jesus appears to John.

He appears to Paul in about 33 to 35 AD.

And this is going to shock you what I'm about to tell you. If you've never heard this, he was resurrected in about 29 AD.

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