The Conclusion of Revelation

Revelation 22:17b-21

In our last study we made mention of how the Lord was giving final statements to the seven churches. In each of these verses we find very important reminders of how we are to serve and what awaits us when we are faithful to him.

Sadly, not everyone is going to take the path of Christ. And instead will choose a life that gives in to the flesh. This type of lifestyle and behavior is not permitted in the new eternal kingdom and so, Jesus gives a reminder to the people.

We also read how Jesus has provided John and the Angel to serve as a witness of all that is to come. The Lord holds to his word by doing this, because he tells us in 2 Corinthians 13:1 “…In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

So, these individuals serve as a witness, and then there is a invitation that is given, and that is where we left off.

(Read Scripture)

Now this is the Lord commenting here and we find that he is making comment in regards to His Requesting Spirit. Now we have seen how this is an invitation, but notice these two points as well.

· Implore

Now there is an invitation but the invitation is in regards to something, and what we find is that it is imploring individuals to come. And we find this is addressed to two groups.

o Athirst

§ The first group is those who athirst. Those who are depraved. They have a longing to be filled and satisfied.

§ The world is full of people who are thirty. Not for a physical water, but for the living water that gives their life meaning.

§ So many people drive by our homes thirsty, so many are looking in life for something to satisfy their thirst.

§ A person who seeks to quench their spirit with things of the world will soon find that they are thirsty again.

§ But the water of life that Christ gives, will satisfy a person where there will be no more thirst.

o Any

§ The next group is to the “any” what the KJV identifies here as the whosoever.

§ Ultimately, the invitation is for all people all over the world, regardless of their past.

§ You see, Christ wants anyone who desires to come to him, may freely do so.

§ It doesn’t matter the horrific things a person may have done or thought. What wicked acts that they took part in, God wants them to come.

§ God desires for the person who has lived a good life and worked hard, to come to him.

§ God desires for the child to the senior to come to him.

§ The invitation is for any person.

· Indulge

o The final thing we find in this verse, is that the Lord is inviting all these people to come and indulge.

o You see the Lord is fountain that never dries. He is never empty and He wants all to come to him and receive the gift of life.

o To fill their souls in his goodness and mercy. To have their life changed and blessed forever.

o God will not send a person away hungry if they came seeking him. He will provide and freely give them life.

o Now here is the wonderful thing in regards to this, it is completely free to you. All you have to do is accept him for who he is.

o And who is He? He is Jesus, He is Messiah, He is Lord, He is God.

He says, freely, freely I give unto you, freely, freely give. Listen, Jesus wants us to partake of this water, to experience the goodness that he has spoken of in this book, that we may be with him forever and ever.

(Read verses 18-21)

Now we come to the end of the book of Revelation and the end of the Bible. As we read this section we find the Lord making strong comments to the church and for any others who take this book with disregard. Notice how this section is broken down.

The Warning that is Spoken (vs 18-19)

· When it comes to the Bible, this is a very precious book. And what we find is that the Lord takes the highest regards to preserving the message he intended to give to us.

· In these two verses the Lord speaks about two areas when it comes to altering the Word of God and the first is what we find in verse 18.

1. Supplements

· The warning starts out be addressed to all that hear the words of this book.

· Though the book was written to the seven churches, this warning is not just held to them.

· It is held to any person that hears these words.

· Now this particular area is in regards to adding supplements. Many people of this time would be dependent of someone reading the book to them.

· The printing press was no where near in existence, so dedicated individuals would be trusted to write out the words given to them by John, who in return received it from Christ.

· A person who would be responsible for copying the book should copy it word for word, as it was written. But you know man.

· It would be the temptation of man to altar what the Word of God might say, to add to it, perhaps to give it more lavish details, to make it sound more eccentric or mysterious.

· This warning though was not just for those who were writing out the words. But for any person who would be sharing the words to others.

· As was stated, the Word of God was not in print as we have it today. And sadly, not everyone had the privilege of being able to read.

· Many of the common everyday citizens were not able to read, so, they were dependent on others who would read the Bible too them.

· Now you can pick up on this with how the scripture tells this warning to those that hear the words.

· Just as man is tempted to add words to the pages, the temptation to add words when it was being spoken was there as well.

· We can conceive every idea an individual may add to the scripture. But what we learn is that the Lord does not want a person to do that.

· For instance, when the sons of Aaron came and brought strange fire to the altar, God destroyed them.

· When a person adds, they corrupt the message. This message is too important to be tampered with.

· Now it bears saying, that this warning holds true today as well. The Lord does not want any person, regardless of who they are to add to the Bible.

· That is why it is important that we study and know the scripture. That we are not adding to it, words that are not there. Meaning that is not there.

· Jesus tells us, that when a person adds to the book, then he will add the plagues that are written in this book.

· Now remember, when Revelation was completed, it completed the book we call the Bible.

· The Bible is the collection of God’s Inspired work. So, don’t misunderstand when he talks about the plagues of this book just referring to the plagues that we find in Revelation.

· Instead, it is the plagues that is found throughout the entire Bible.

· Now, when we think of plagues, our minds may go back to the book of Exodus. And granted, there are plagues that were placed upon the Egyptians, these are far from the only plagues in the Bible.

· For instance, in Genesis 12:17 God plagued Pharoah’s house because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. We have no clue all that God brought upon them.

o Or, in Leviticus 13:2 we find that the scripture calls leprosy a plague.

o In Numbers 16:49 we find that 14,700 people died from a mysterious plague that God poured out on the Israelites when they were in rebellion.

o In 2 Samuel 24:13 We find God giving David a choice of plague to come upon Israel for his disobedience. The plague of famine, enemies, or pestilence.

· So with just these few examples we find that there are many other plagues that the scripture mentions.

· But with every plague there is pain. There is no pleasure in plagues only pain and suffering.

· Now this is not the first time God gave this warning. In fact, he gave this same warning in the Old Testament as well.

· Deuteronomy 4:2 “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.”

2. Subtractions

· Now in verse 19, we find the other side of the coin. In regards, that just as serious as it might be to add to the Bible, it is just as severe for a person to take away from it.

· So, this second area is the subtractions. Now if I am honest, this punishment in my eyes is the most severe of the two. Notice what this verse tells us.

· Any man that takes away. First, this verse is speaking to any person who would deliberately tamper with the word of God.

· Just as a person may add, there are those in our society today, that would take away what the scripture says.

· For instance, there are those who dislike or despise that God condemns certain behaviors. And the desire is to remove those condemnations to make the Scripture more appealing to them.

· When a person takes away from the word, they are removing the message and meaning that God intended, and instead they are turning the scripture into lies.

· Now today, we see the big push among some groups to remove the reference of blood from the Bible. And there are some Bible translations that even remove entire verses from the text.

· The arguments that these critics of the scripture (and sometimes even other Christians) is that the text that they use didn’t have it in there to begin with.

· What they are finding are documents that haven’t been fully written or have been meshed with other documents.

· Now I know that many don’t like the KJV Bible, because it can be quite difficult to read in areas. But this version holds to the original meaning closer than many of the other major versions.

· But as we look at this verse, this goes to the level of which a person may purposefully remove words, to take away the true meaning.

· This reminds me of the telephone game, where the message would be misconstrued into something else by the time it reached the final person.

· God doesn’t want his message altered of deleted. So, he gives a fierce punishment to the one who commits such a crime.

· And the punishment is that they would not enter into everlasting life, nor would they be able to come into the city of New Jerusalem.

· Now the KJV pulls from Greek Text, which was the original language used to write the New testament, called the Textus Receptus or “Received Text”. And the Textus Receptus is the only manuscript that states Book of Life. Now other manuscripts which are from Byzantine decent or Latin decent, are not exactly the same. While the concepts are there, the wording sometimes were completely different. These texts do not refer to the Book of life but instead the tree of life.

· Now the two ancient words for book and tree are very similar. In fact the work for book is the word “libro” and the word for tree is “ligno”.

· So, if you are using a version of the Bible that pulled from what is called the majority text you will see that it says the tree of life. And most other versions of the Bible use the majority text. However, the KJV and the MEV use the textus receptus and will state the book of life.

· So, which way is right to view it? Well, this is quite difficult to say, but the truth of the matter is that the punishment is the same. They will not receive eternal life.

· Now we could take this to an even deeper level, but I don’t know if we will benefit from it in regards to our main area of study.

· What do we know then, a person who removes the words, removes their life from the presence of God, and from the city in which he will dwell.

· It is quite dangerous to manipulate the scripture. Yet, many are doing such things today.

· They see receive the praise of man, the regards of society, and to us they may seem quite successful. But let the warning still remain, when a person plays with the scripture they are playing with their soul.

· The scripture is not to be tampered with in any regards, and it is wise that we heed that warning.

The Wish that is Sought (vs 20)

· So, we have seen the warning that is spoken, but in the next verse we find the wish that is sought.

· Jesus make a repeated statement, “surely, I come quickly”, now he has repeated this phrase four times in the book of Revelation, and three of those four times has been here in chapter 22.

· We can find these in Revelation 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20

· Now Jesus repeats that to emphasize the importance of what he is saying. This is not something that we should casually read and move along. It is not to be treated like wording in some agreement contract.

· He is making us aware of this fact, and that we should not ignore it.

· Now I believe we all agree that Jesus is coming back, but do you believe he is coming soon? Do you believe he is coming quickly?

· Friend he is, and that is why it is important that we are ready right now.

· Now John makes a statement, and I believe all scripture is inspired just as it says, but I believe too that this is John’s heart that is speaking right here. And my heart agrees with his statement.

· His statement is Even so, come, Lord Jesus. He had an overwhelming desire for Christ to come even at this time of writing.

· John knew that life would be better with Christ returning. Now I know we have seen a lot of pain and problems in our world today. We turn on the news or hear about it from others, the terrible acts that people do.

· When we hear that, we say, Lord come on back. But do we mean it? Do we truly desire for the Lord to come, just as John stated here?

· Let’s be honest, many people say it, but deep down inside they don’t mean it at all. We look at life and we want to see so many things happen.

· We want to experience life like many before us. But are those things more important than the return of the Lord?

· It should be in our heart that we desire the Lord return right now, that regardless of what we haven’t experienced or done, that His return is our desire.

· That was the desire of John, and he prayed it. It is in the word of God, he told the Lord his heart, and friend that should be our prayer as well.

· This world will not get any better until the Lord comes, your life will never be as happy until the Lord comes.

· The day of his return will be a day for us of celebration, a day like none other. And I can’t wait to see it.

· John loved the Lord, and his words echo the Song of Solomon 8:13-14

The Man

13 O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions listen for your voice; let me hear it!

The Woman

14 Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices!

· The first word we hear man address to the Lord in the Bible is the solemn word “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid” (Gen. 3:10). The last word addressed to the Lord by redeemed man is “even so, Come, Lord Jesus.” And between these two utterances in Genesis and Revelation is the story of redemption.

The Welfare that is Shared (vs 21)

· Then John closes with another final remark, and I’m calling this the welfare that is shared.

· What does he extend to us? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

· That is what the Bible is about, the Grace of Jesus. His Words shared with us, his blood that was poured out for us, his kingdom that was given to us. All at his cost..

· How far does the grace of Jesus extend? Well how far is the east to the west? Friend, we can’t comprehend the grace of Christ, but thank goodness he gave it.

· With those words, John concludes the writings to the seven churches, and to us here today.

· For we are those churches, and we have something to look forward too.

· And while we may have come to closing of this book, we have a great hope of what is too come. Because the story is just beginning.