Good morning.
So we have concluded the book of 1 Timothy and I've been asked by a number of people to begin a study of the book of Revelation.
So we're going to take our Sunday morning class and we're going to do that uh at this time and we'll begin introducing it today.
We're not gonna go too terribly far into
the introduction of it uh by way of a lot of details.
I want us to spend some time this morning with the descriptions of Jesus that we find in the first three chapters of the book of Revelation and we'll continue our study of the
book of Revelation as we uh have opportunity through the weeks leading up to the end of the year.
But let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
Gracious Father in heaven, we bow before your throne, grateful for the day that you blessed us with, for the life that we have, for the opportunity that we have to serve you.
We pray that you will be with us in our time of study.
May the things that we say and the things that we read be those things which we can uh bring our hearts and our minds closer to your word and closer to your will.
that we might grow in faith and knowledge and in understanding.
Lord, we pray that you will be with us, that we might have uh a heart ready to serve others, willing to forgive when others do us wrong, that we might show mercy and that we
might receive mercy in return.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, amen.
Revelation one opens with the revelation of Jesus Christ.
uh Now, the first thing to note is that as John, the apostle, the one who is the penman of this book, opens this letter to the churches, because this is a letter, it's kind of
funny.
The way we teach things at times, we teach things in a certain way because there's important details in it.
But if you were to think back to your days of teaching the children about the books of the New Testament, you would say, all right, well, the first four are what?
The gospels.
And the book of Acts is what?
History, or the beginning of the church.
uh
and then the the next 13 or what?
Letters to the churches.
Except that, let's see, Timothy, that's two letters, Titus, that's another letter, Philemon, that's a fourth letter, those are all letters to individuals.
But then what's the last division?
Say what?
Prophecy.
All right.
except that when you notice that the book of Luke is uh the first part of a letter to Theophilus, and the book of Acts is the second part of a letter to Theophilus, and
furthermore that the other records of Matthew, Mark, and John are all written to be sent to the churches.
They're all letters.
And then you consider that the book of Revelation is a letter to seven churches.
The answer is there's 27 letters.
They're all epistles.
They're all letters.
They're all being sent either to a church, to an individual, or to the church collectively, for instance, the book of Hebrews, or the book of James, what they are
written to be sent out.
They're all letters.
And especially the book of Revelation is a letter.
It happens to be a letter to who?
All right, to seven churches in Asia Minor.
So the letter of, or the epistle as we call it, of Galatians is a letter to the churches of Galatia, because Galatia is not a city, it's a region.
Well, here you have one of the cities that is a recipient of one of these letters, that is the book of Revelation, is Ephesus.
That's one of the cities that Paul went to, one of the cities where Paul began the work and the church through his uh missionary journeys.
And so these aren't even cities that haven't had other letters written to them.
This is a letter.
This is a letter from Jesus Christ to seven churches.
But then consider that the word begins revelation.
uh
What does the word revelation mean?
All right, unveiling.
It is to reveal, look at the base word of it.
All right, that which is made open.
In the Greek, the word is apocalypsis.
Have you ever heard of the uh English term apocalypse?
Aren't there a bunch of people who are all worried that one day there's going to be a coming apocalypse?
You want to know where they got that idea?
Because they just exchanged the Greek letters of the word apocalypsis, meaning to reveal, of a Greek word and said, look, all this stuff, all this talk about end times, that's all
apocalyptic language.
But the word, apocalypsis, that is the title as we have in the record, or in the text, of the name of the book, just simply means to reveal.
This is the making aware.
This is the revelation.
This is the revealing that belongs to Jesus Christ.
which God gave him to show his servants, things which must shortly take place.
And he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John.
Before you get out of the very first verse of Revelation, there is a time marker.
before you make it into any uh figurative language, before you make it into any long discussion about visions.
you have a time marker on the book.
What is the time marker that God and Jesus and John hand us in verse one?
these things that are being written, these things that are being shown, revealed to the church, this message which was from God through Christ to the church was of things that
would shortly take place.
Jesus came.
And when he arrived on this earth...
there was a recognition as he was brought and presented in the temple.
It's recorded in the book of Luke and there's this recognition by this old man who had been waiting because they had been prophesied of him that he would be alive to see the
Messiah come.
And as he's there in the temple and the child is brought to pay all the things that the Old Testament law said a poor family had to pay with the first birth of their firstborn.
He proclaims that he has seen the Savior, the salvation of Israel.
You move forward from that time and as the cousin of Jesus, John, John the Baptist as we refer to him, begins to preach in the wilderness around Judea, he starts preaching a
message of repentance for the remission of sins.
He starts teaching all Israel because all Israel came out to hear John.
that they needed to repent and be baptized for the remission of their sins.
But what was the other part of his message?
He was telling them time after time after time, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Well then Jesus comes along.
and after John in his ministry points out, behold the Lamb of God, and he points to Jesus, we have record of that in John chapter 1, John chapter 2, Jesus begins to preach.
and Jesus will preach the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And when the disciples are sent out, the disciples will preach the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
and the message that was conveyed to the people in Israel was the Kingdom of Heaven is due to arrive in the next few millennia.
Right?
No.
Matter of fact, I think it would be safe to say that there was not a single Israelite who came away from John's preaching thinking, it's definitely not coming in my lifetime, or
came away from Jesus' preaching going, there's no way it's going to get here before I'm dead, unless they were really old.
or came away from the disciples' teaching saying, it's a long way off, many generations of the future, the kingdom will arrive.
They didn't walk away with that interpretation because the message was clear.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
In Mark chapter 9, Jesus will even make it more clear.
In Mark chapter 9 verse 1, he will say to some of his disciples and those who are around, he said, some of you
who are standing here will not taste death until you see the kingdom of God come or present with power.
Now, some of them would die before it arrived.
Of his disciples, which one would die before the kingdom arrived?
Judas because he would go out and hang himself.
But all throughout those four gospels that we think of as very literal records of what was said and what occurred that are not highly figurative, though they certainly have
figurative language in them at times.
We read the words at hand and we go, it was about to arrive.
And we read the words, you will not taste death till you see this happen.
And we think they were going to be alive when it occurred.
and yet individuals will come to the book of Revelation.
trying to hold on to a number of different theories, one of which is premillennialism, in which they claim that the kingdom has still not come, two thousand years later, making
John a liar, Jesus a liar, the apostles liars, and I'm not sure quite why we're believing the Bible if we're gonna call John, Jesus, and the apostles liars.
Not to mention all the prophets.
but they will come to the book of Revelation and say this book is all about the end of time.
the very first verse.
of the very beginning of the book says, I'm going to show you things which will shortly come to pass.
but further it says, and he sent and signified it by his angel.
One of the things that you find in this book is that you have this book given not primarily in normal prose.
It is not given in didactic teaching.
It is given in signs and symbols and pictures.
We all understand how this works, by the way.
When you're driving down the road and you see a yellow triangle, or no, a yellow uh diamond, I guess, technically, and it has a deer leaping.
Do you immediately assume that the sign is the danger?
No.
Do you immediately perceive that if there had only been a long paragraph of descriptive text, you could have understood what it meant?
No?
Okay, then tell me what the sign means.
But where?
Deer crossed this part of the road.
Why do you think the sign's there?
Is it because there's always deer?
No, it's because there could be deer!
There's prevalently deer here.
And for the most part, especially people who have grown up in America, especially this part of America, by the way, those signs are not very prevalent in a lot of places in our
country except the eastern part of the country.
A lot of other places I go, I have no idea what this is warning me about.
But it doesn't look good.
But instead of having to have a big long paragraph of text placed on a great big giant sign that you can read from a mile away, we just put a picture.
And the picture is, as they say, worth a thousand words.
When you open the book of Revelation, you are opening a picture book.
Now it's given in words, true.
It's not given in paintings.
It's given in words, but it's a picture book.
It's, you're supposed to look at the sign, you're supposed to look at the picture and ask, what does the picture mean?
Now we've gone through this before.
We did it in the book of Daniel.
and we asked repeatedly, and as we will here in the book of Revelation, when we look at the text, are we supposed to look at the text and go, that's what it says, therefore
that's what it means, or are we supposed to look at the text and say, that's what it says, now what does it mean?
The latter.
Because when you're dealing with pictures, just like the sign on the road where you see the picture and you interpret the meaning, you're supposed to do the same thing with the
book of Revelation.
You're supposed to see the picture and not assume that it's actually going to be fully black, two-dimensional, stick-figured deer jumping out on the road.
that rather these might be a little bit more dangerous to your vehicle than those deer that are just pictures.
You're supposed to interpret the actual meaning.
But we don't do that randomly.
As a matter of fact, the Old Testament is your guide to interpreting the book.
And that's where a lot of people struggle.
is they don't know their Old Testament very well.
They're not familiar with the prophets of the Old Testament, therefore the pictures are a struggle.
So as we go through the text and as we look at the things that are in this book, we're going to have to spend some time in the Old Testament looking at the pictures there and
what they meant and going, look, John's using the picture from Daniel, from Ezekiel.
from Isaiah, from others, and he's using it over here, and when Isaiah or Daniel or Ezekiel tells us what it means, we're able to see clearly what the picture in Revelation
means, okay?
Furthermore, it's important to notice that this book is not intended
to hide truth.
It is intended to reveal truth.
Now that's not to say there's not individuals.
who will come along and because they will not actually read the book, interpret the book by what it says, they will not confuse the truth, but the point of the book was not to
hide truth, it was to reveal it.
It was to open it up where anyone could understand it if they would simply pay attention to what's written.
Go to the end of the book of Revelation.
Revelation chapter 22 and in verse 18, we read, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the
plagues that are written in this book.
And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life.
from the Holy City and from the things which are written in this book.
When God gives the declaration of what is in the book of Revelation, God warns those who open the book not to manipulate what's in the book, not to add to what's in the book,
rather to leave it exactly as it is
and understand it.
Now even that statement is borrowed from the Old Testament.
almost everything in the book of Revelation is borrowed from the Old Testament.
It's borrowed from there because that's your that's your glossary, that's your index to go back to to understand the pictures.
Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4.
Deuteronomy chapter 4 in verse 1, in the last year of Moses' life as they are about to go into the promised land, the time of Moses, the time of the prophet who was Moses, the time
of the lawgiver was over.
And the people were, while they were going to have Joshua and then the judges, they were going to move into a new period of time where
Those who they had always relied upon for the last forty years were gone.
And the whole first generation that came out of Egypt, gone.
They were all dead.
Or about to be dead.
Save Joshua and Caleb.
They were moving into a brand new phase of their existence as they went into the land.
And they were going in without all those who had experienced everything that had come before it.
And so Moses, as he begins to instruct the people in the very last year of his life, says in chapter 4 verse 1, Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I
teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord your God, sorry, the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.
And then notice the warning, you shall not add to the word which I command you.
nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." This isn't the only time in the book of Deuteronomy where God through Moses
is going to tell this second generation, do not change my words.
Do not add to my words.
Do not take away from my words.
I'm giving you what you need to have.
Your job is to do it, to obey it, to keep it.
So in Revelation, as the message concludes and as the message goes forth to the church,
John warns the church like Moses had warned Israel.
Don't change the words.
Don't change the message.
Don't change the commandments of God.
And John further says, if you do, then all the things which this book has told you are shortly to come to pass are going to come upon you.
Back in chapter one.
we read this is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place and he sent and signified it by his angel to his
servant John who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ to all things that he saw.
Notice it's a picture book
and John bore witness of the things which he saw.
Furthermore, John already had been a faithful witness in what he had seen.
Turn to 1 John chapter 1.
1 John chapter 1 and in verse 1, that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled
concerning the word of life.
The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard we
declare to you.
that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
If you go back to John chapter 1, you read concerning the Word which was with God and was God, the Word that took on flesh and we beheld His glory.
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
John says, I'm going to tell you what I saw.
That's the book of John.
John says, I'm going to tell you what I heard and saw.
That's 1 John.
Revelation opens with John who's been faithful to tell you what he heard and saw before is now going to tell you what he has been shown.
The book of Revelation was faithfully given, it was not manipulated, it was not altered, and you have before you the words which Christ intended to give to the church.
But furthermore, we read, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the
words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near."
as the opening words are given, just like the way we read the closing words, where there's a warning and a curse to those who do not keep the words, who do not keep the message, who
are not faithful to what they have been given.
God says all the curses you find in the book, coming on you.
The book opens with the opposite message.
You read this.
You understand this and you will be blessed in so doing.
John?
is going to be one of the apostles and one of the writers of the records of the life of Jesus that does not include the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew includes it, Mark includes it, Luke includes it, in some form or fashion, they don't all include the exact same event or the exact same giving of all of the things
there.
But John doesn't include, for instance, the Beatitudes in the book of John.
except you have, in essence, a set of beatitudes in the book of Revelation.
You have a number of occasions throughout the book where John says, blessed are those, blessed are those, blessed are those, and those blessings are found here within this book.
But the very first one of those beatitudes, as they've been called, is blessed is he who reads,
and those who hear, and those who keep the things that are written.
If the book cannot be understood, is there a blessing in hearing it?
Nope.
If the book cannot be understood, is there a blessing in reading it?
I think there may be a few people who along the way have concluded there's not any blessing in reading it.
As a matter of fact, there's no point in me reading it.
I won't understand anything that's in it.
And yet the book opens telling you the exact opposite.
But he also says there's a blessing for those who keep it.
And Jesus is about to write through John to a group of churches that are about to start struggling in a very substantial way.
and Jesus is going to write to them making sure they understand that though they're headed into hardship, though they're headed into persecution, though they're headed into
tribulation and trials, though some of them will even lose their life for their faith, they need to know before it ever begins.
He's already won.
that they are already victorious.
That this thing which is...
wait a minute, what did he say here right at the end of verse 3?
This thing for which the time is near.
and they were gonna live through it.
was something that they would go through and some of them would die as a result.
but if they were faithful.
they'd receive a crown of life.
That ultimately the one who's writing them the book, Christ,
had already conquered those who were going to persecute them.
much like the Old Testament prophets.
for instance, Habakkuk.
Habakkuk's going to be told Babylon is coming, the Chaldeans are coming, and they are going to bring judgment on Israel.
And in that short book that Habakkuk writes, he writes concerning the fact that the Chaldeans were going to come and they were going to overthrow Jerusalem, they were going
to overthrow Israel, and he is confused as to how God could use a wicked people
to judge God's people.
but he's firmly convinced God knows what he's doing and he'll wait to be instructed as to what God is doing and why it's right.
and there in chapter two God will tell Habakkuk.
that though this judgment is coming on the nation and though these things are going to be brought upon God's people who are really no longer God's people because they've turned
away from God that rather God knows who belongs to him and Habakkuk is told that just shall live by faith.
Habakkuk is told that those who belong to God, God fully knows who they are.
That God knows how to protect the righteous while delivering the unrighteous to judgment.
And as Habakkuk is told concerning those things, God makes clear that the same people who He's using to judge Israel, He will in turn judge.
here in this book, here in this epistle to seven churches, God is going to tell them these things are going to shortly take place and the time is near and He's going to convey that
message twice and we're not even out of verse three.
Then you have John's opening.
Revelation chapter 1 verse 4, John to the seven churches which are in Asia.
grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before His throne and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness the firstborn
from the dead and the ruler over the kings of the earth
to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.
John, as he opens the letter to these churches, identifies seven churches.
Now, are there only seven churches in all of Asia Minor?
Probably not.
So why are there seven that are addressed?
Was this letter supposed to go to those seven and no more?
Probably not, because we still got it.
Rather, you're going to begin to see in the book at the very outset with the individuals and the churches that it's addressed to that numbers are going to play a large part in
this book, that numbers are going to have meaning.
And so you're going to read about seven churches.
But you're not just going to read about seven churches here in these first few verses.
You're going to read about seven spirits.
Now, before we get too far.
as we start looking at the pictures, are we supposed to look at the picture and say, that's what it says, therefore that's what it means?
No.
So when you read concerning the one who is on the throne,
That is God the Father.
And when you read about Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth, the one who loved us and washed us in His blood,
that's Jesus Christ.
And when you read about the seven spirits that are before the throne of God, are you supposed to assume that there's not one Holy Spirit?
There's actually seven.
Why should you not assume that there are now seven Holy Spirits and not one?
That's exactly the answer I was looking for.
Because the rest of the text in Scripture has already told us there's one.
John is not writing this book to contradict all the rest of Scripture.
He's writing this book because they know the rest of Scripture.
And now he's giving them pictures and numbers and signs and symbols.
to mean something and to communicate to them about what they're reading.
So how many churches were there?
Seven.
and in each of those churches in the first century.
Were there those most likely in that assembly where the Holy Spirit had been given to them as part of the handing off of the miraculous gifts and the uh works of the miraculous
gifts so that they might have knowledge and revelation and faith and these ability to perform miracles by the laying on of the Apostles hands?
Yeah.
Most likely in every single one of those churches there was.
We know there was an Ephesus.
and we know that Paul was the one who primarily went throughout this region and that others came after him and Paul had the ability to hand off the ability to perform miracles
and have these miraculous gifts.
So was the Spirit represented in all the churches?
As a matter of fact, when you read each of the letters, beginning in chapter 2, every one of them will close with a reference to the Spirit.
the picture.
is that there's God the Father on the throne, and there's Christ who came and died and washed us in His blood, and there before the throne is their representative of every
single church in the presence of God.
that God is not dealing with the church and with these people who are about to go through these persecutions and these troubles and these trials.
He's not dealing with them as though they're some far-off community.
He's not dealing with them as though they're some forsaken group.
He's not dealing with them as though they're some group of people who He has no real association with, no.
from the very beginning of the picture, John says, your representation is right there before the throne.
that your representative of what is going on in your church is right at the very foot of the throne of the Father.
You're not going through this alone.
You're not going through this with a God who's unaware.
Rather, you are going through this with a God who is on the throne in contrast to the other God that will be talked about in the book.
and you're going through this with the Christ who has already come, who has already died, and who has already purchased your redemption.
And He paid for it with His own blood.
And you're going through this thing which is going to shortly take place and the time of which is near
and your representative in the form of the Holy Spirit is there before the throne of God on your behalf.
this book.
not written to hide things.
This book is not written to conceal things.
This book is written so that you can look at the picture.
and get the message that Christ is victorious, that the church, though it will be persecuted, will be victorious and will come through that persecution not battered,
bruised, not failing and miserable, not in tatters, but glorious and victorious.
and conquering.
and that God is with those Christians every step of the way.
All right, thank you for your attention.
We'll pick up uh there in chapter one next Sunday.