The Epilogue and the End
The Conquering Lamb • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Many of the world’s most famous books and poems have prologues and epilogues.
Books like The Canterbury Tales, The Divine Comedy and The Scarlet Letter
Books like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The prologue frames the story. The epilogue concludes the story.
They are like two pieces of bread holding the sandwich together.
Sandwiches are not defined by their bread, but by what is in between the bread.
You might eat a BLT or a Turkey and Cheese or a Roast Beef.
And you might eat it on white, wheat or rye.
But the name of the sandwich is dictated by what is between the bread.
And yet—you have to have the bread to make a sandwich.
The prologue and the epilogue of Revelation are bread of the Apocalyptic sandwich.
The prologue of Revelation is found in Revelation 1:1-8
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
John to the seven churches that 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 of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
As I read our passage for tonight in just a few moments, you will notice the parallels and the similarities.
In the prologue and the epilogue, we find the themes that we have seen throughout the book in the 7 cycles of Revelation.
And those themes are the following:
1. Jesus is coming soon to His hearers.
2. Jesus is warning His hearers.
3. Jesus is inviting His hearers.
These themes are established in prologue.
They are repeated in the epilogue.
And they encapsulate the message of the Bible’s final book.
TWO VOICES, ONE MESSAGE
TWO VOICES, ONE MESSAGE
The end of Revelation is actually one of the easier bits to study. It doesn’t have nearly the sticky interpretative points of chapter 11 or chapters 19-21.
However, there is one thing I want to point out before I read.
In these verses, we have an angel talking to John—the same angel who has been showing John the Bride-city of the New Jerusalem.
You see this clearly in v. 6 (“And he said to me...”)
And yet, Jesus will speak in the first person multiple times in this passage (v. 16— “I, Jesus…)
And there seems to be no distinguishing between when the angel stops talking and Jesus starts talking and vice versa.
Why is this?
The answer comes in the fact that their messages are one.
There are two voices, but there is one glorious message—a message so glorious, that John cannot separate the voices.
The power and splendor of the message is so great that John, unable to tell where the angel’s voice ends and Jesus’ begins, simply relays their unified message.
Let’s read it...
And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”
“And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
COMING SOON TO HIS HEARERS
COMING SOON TO HIS HEARERS
We start with the first apocalyptic theme of Revelation that we see in this epilogue:
1. Jesus is coming soon to His hearers.
1. Jesus is coming soon to His hearers.
If Revelation is about anything, it is about Jesus coming again.
Whether you are a dispensationalist or a historic premillenialist or an amillenialist or a postmillenialist, you believe Jesus is returning, just as He says in His epilogue on three different occasions.
He says it in v. 7.
He says it in v. 12.
He says it in v. 20.
There are two elements to His promise to return that we should highlight here.
PRESENTLY COMING
PRESENTLY COMING
First of all, He speaks in the present tense.
I am coming...
Not, “I will come...”
This shows us that Christ is on His way.
Have you ever texted someone that you were meeting up with and you want to know where they are and they respond and say, “I am on my way.”
That lets you know that they are in the process of coming as you speak.
If they said, “I will be on my way soon,” that would give you the idea that they haven’t even started making their way to you.
Jesus says that He is coming. He is on His way.
He is currently at work, moving the events of history along that will culminate in His return.
There a couple of places where Jesus speaks of this:
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
And even more clearly He tells us what work is being done in the meantime in Matthew 24:14
And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
He is gathering up His people from the nations through the preaching of the Gospel.
Once the Gospel reaches every shore and every people group, He will come again.
You might think, “Doesn’t everyone already know?”
No. The Joshua Project says there are 17, 446 people groups in the world.
7, 391 of them are unreached.
Jesus is still working.
He is coming—He is making preparations. He is building His Kingdom. Present tense.
SOON
SOON
Secondly, we have to take a moment with the word “soon,” in v. 7, v. 12, v. 20.
Is this this true? Is Jesus really coming SOON?
Didn’t He say this 2,000 years ago?
Yes, He did. And there are some people who believe that what they consider God’s slowness to fulfill His promise is God’s slackness.
But the Bible tells us that there will be people who mock God over this.
knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
What they do not realize is that a thousand years are as a day to the Lord.
And what they do not realize is that these are the last days.
This Gospel age in between the first and second coming of Christ is the final leg of history’s race.
Revelation has been telling us things that must soon take place.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
Some of these things have already come to pass. Some are happening right now. Some will happen in the future.
But the Ancient of Days is unfolding His plan according His purpose—not on the timetable of man.
Christ’s foot is on the stairs of your personal life, as well as of all history. He is coming.
Joel Beeke
And since these are the last days and His 2nd coming is soon, we must heed Paul’s words to the Romans:
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
I once heard Steve Lawson tell a story about a man who had an old grandfather clock in his bedroom and he and his wife would wake up each day and check the time.
One day it broke and the man was not able to fix it. His wife said, “How will we know what time it is when we wake up?”
He told her, “Honey—it’s always later than it has ever been!”
Jesus is coming back soon. And His returning is closer now than it has ever been.
DO NOT SEAL (v. 10)
DO NOT SEAL (v. 10)
This is why the angel tells John not to seal up the words of the prophecy of the book in verse 10. It is because the time is near.
Compare that with what Daniel is told in Daniel 8:26
The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.”
Daniel’s apocalyptic vision would not come to pass for some time. The Messiah had not even come yet.
But now, the Messiah has come. The work of His life, death, resurrection and ascension has been accomplished.
The prophecy is to remain unsealed because the Lord is coming soon.
REWARD AND RECOMPENSE (v. 11-12)
REWARD AND RECOMPENSE (v. 11-12)
And what will Jesus do when He returns? We have our answer in verses 11-12.
Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.
Verse 11 appears to be fatalistic to us, but it speaks to the life to come—not this life.
The Scripture is speaking to the finality of the judgment to come when Christ returns.
Right now, there is hope for the soul.
We will talk about the invitation in this passage in a moment, but here, we see that there will come a time when the invitation is withdrawn and Final Judgment will take place and there will be no more opportunities for repentance.
It is reminiscent of Jesus’ parable of the Ten Virgins.
In the story, there is a wedding celebration and there are ten virgins waiting for the Bridegroom to arrive.
The bridegroom represents Jesus and the virgins represent believers waiting on Him to come back.
Five of them bring extra olive oil to keep their lamps burning—meaning they are ready.
The other five are foolish and do not.
At midnight, the bridegroom arrives and the wise virgins light their lamps, but the foolish ones are unprepared.
The marriage promise was shut to them:
Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’
When the Lord returns, it will be too late to repent. If you die before then and stand before His bar—it will be too late to repent.
Those who do not light their lamps will keep them unlit forever.
They will hate the Lord forever in Hell. They won’t be laughing together, as an old Billy Joel song suggested.
They will be judged for their wickedness as they rage against the Lord in their hearts for eternity.
They will be kept out with the unrepentant dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers and idolaters—everyone who loves and practices falsehood (v. 15).
On the other hand, those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb will receive the reward of eating from the tree of life as it produces its fruits (v. 14).
They will enter the gates of pearl and be a part of God’s people forever under the loving care and protection of King Jesus—the Bridegroom.
This is the inheritance of those who come out of the tribulation of this age.
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
LONGING FOR THIS (v. 17, 20)
LONGING FOR THIS (v. 17, 20)
As believers, we are longing for this.
You see the Spirit leading the Bride to ask for Jesus’ return in v. 17.
“Come.”
And whoever hears the words of Christ should say, “Come.”
In verse 20, John responds to Jesus’ promise that He is coming soon by saying, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
This should be the heart-cry of every single believer.
It has been the predominant theme of the entire book from the prologue to epilogue:
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
We long for this because we long to be free from the suffering of this present age and to be with Him and like Him, when He appears. We long to see Him as He is:
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
TRUSTWORTHY AND TRUE (v. 6, 20)
TRUSTWORTHY AND TRUE (v. 6, 20)
But how do we know these things are true?
Well, we know because of the One making these promises to us.
And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”
Who has promised these things?
The same Lord who is the God over the souls of the prophets who were carried along by the Holy Spirit to preach His message throughout the ages.
Just as His words to Moses and Elijah are true...
Just as His words to Isaiah and Jeremiah are true...
Just as His words to Daniel and Ezekiel are true...
The words of Christ are true.
They can be trusted.
He is the God behind every prophecy.
He is the Truth.
Every word from His mouth is true.
And all that He says will come to pass.
We do not base our hope in the 2nd Coming on a feeling or on sentiment or on tea leaves.
We base our understanding on the very word of God.
We are not a people who are informed primarily by experience or reason or what we can measure in a lab.
We are a revelational people and we base our hope on that which God has revealed to us.
Furthermore, He has not just said this once with His trustworthy and true words. Here in His epilogue, He has said it three times.
When something is repeated three times in the Hebrew world, it conveys permanence.
This is a fixed promise from Christ.
Jesus says He is coming soon. Coming soon. Coming soon.
He will. And We should say—Amen—even so, come.
WARNING HIS HEARERS
WARNING HIS HEARERS
Let’s move to our second theme for the night:
2. Jesus is warning His hearers.
2. Jesus is warning His hearers.
Just as we had a three-fold promise to come soon, we have a three-fold warning to the hearers of Jesus’ apocalyptic revelation.
The first is in verses 7-9—a warning to keep the words of the book.
The second is in verses 10-11—a warning not to seal up the words of the book.
The third is in verses 18-19—a warning not to alter the words of the book.
Let’s deal with each one briefly.
KEEP THE WORDS
KEEP THE WORDS
First of all, we have the 6th beatitude of Revelation.
We’ve had seven cycles, featuring seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls.
And along the way, there have been 7 beatitudes.
The first was in the prologue:
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
Then there was one in 14:13, 16:15, 19:9, 20:6.
And there are two in the epilogue. Verse 7 and the one we already looked at in verse 14.
“And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
This beatitude serves as a promise of blessing, but inversely, it is a warning of a curse.
If you keep the words of the prophecy of the book, you will be blessed.
If you wash your robes in the blood of the Lamb and stay faithful to Him through tribulation, you will have the favor of God upon you as a gift of His grace.
But if you do not keep the words, you will be cursed.
You will find yourself outside with the dogs and the immoral.
In verses 8-9, John does the same thing he did after seeing Babylon the Harlot.
He bows down to the angel and attempts to worship him and the angel does the same thing he did before—he tells John that he must not do that.
Instead, he must do what what everyone else who keeps the words of Revelation must do—worship God.
Many people want to take Revelation and turn it into a book of secret codes, when in reality it is a book of sanctification.
It is a book that is pushing us away ourselves. Away from Satan. Away from the beasts. Away from the world.
It is pushing us to the throne of God in worship.
It is pushing us to forsake the world and follow the Lamb who is slain, but standing—whatever the cost.
Those who are the Bride of Christ must keep the words of the Bridegroom.
DON’T SEAL UP THE WORD (v. 10-11)
DON’T SEAL UP THE WORD (v. 10-11)
We’ve already seen the how unlike Daniel, John is told not to seal up the words of the prophecy of the book.
This is a warning to the hearers of Christ that these are not words to be placed under a bowl or to be hidden.
These are not words to be ashamed of or bashful about.
These are words that must be proclaimed. These are words that must be preached. These are words that must be propagated throughout the whole earth.
I think this is another clue to us that we should stray away from interpretations of Revelation that could never be understood by first-century believers.
We should not be interpreting the book with newspapers and current events, but with our Old Testament open, knowing that what is in this book was to be proclaimed by John and the first generation of the church and every generation after.
DON’T TINKER WITH THE WORD (v. 17-19)
DON’T TINKER WITH THE WORD (v. 17-19)
And as we proclaim the book, we are not to tinker with it.
We do not add to it or take away from it.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
John is speaking specifically about Revelation here, but there is no problem with safely applying these words to the rest of the 65 books of the Bible.
If you look at verse 17, you that there is a Gospel offer to the world.
Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
This is an offer to eternal life for anyone who will believe.
But in order for them to believe, they must hear the Word of God preached.
And when the Word is preached, they must hear the full counsel of the Gospel.
What is the full counsel of the Gospel?
It is everything we are seeing in this passage.
Sin and the warning of judgment.
Grace and the offer of life.
Salvation by the blood of Jesus.
The impending return of the King who died and was resurrected and ascended.
Sometimes people want to take away from this message that runs throughout the course of Scripture.
They want to domesticate and make less of sin and judgment.
They don’t like language like we see in v. 15 that holds out a warning to those who live according to the ethics of Babylon.
They want to tame Jesus and not talk so much about His Kingdom and more about His “teaching and morals and way of life.”
But He isn’t just a moral teacher. He is the Root and Descendant of David—the rightful heir to Israel’s throne.
He is not just some sort of spiritual sage. He is the bright and morning star that has risen out of Jacob with a scepter in hand to crush and break His enemies, as prophesied about in Numbers 24:17
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near:
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab
and break down all the sons of Sheth.
But there are others who want to add to the Word of God. People who want to say that it is Jesus + SOMETHING that equals salvation.
It is Jesus + some sort of good work.
It is Jesus + some sort of theology you must learn.
It is Jesus + some sort of bad thing, not explicitly forbidden in Scripture, we shouldn’t do if we are REAL Christians
It is Jesus + you have to homeschool (I can say that---we homeschool!)
This is legalism.
This is adding to the Word.
Sometimes theological conservatives are quick to point out that the liberals have tampered with God’s Word and tried to take away from it because they believe it had error or that it can fail us.
But as theological conservatives, we have to be careful that we do not add to the Word, thus showing we do not trust in its sufficiency.
Taking away from the Word will create a different Gospel.
And those trusting in that different Gospel will not taste the tree of life or share in the New Jerusalem.
But if you add to it the Word, you will also create a different Gospel.
And those trusting in that different Gospel will have the plagues of Revelation added to them—thus missing out on the blessings of eternal life.
Only the Gospel of Christ will save.
Or as AW Tozer said:
Only the whole Bible will make a whole Christian.
AW Tozer
We must follow the example of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:2
But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
INVITING HIS HEARERS
INVITING HIS HEARERS
And now, we have our final theme:
3. Jesus is inviting His hearers.
3. Jesus is inviting His hearers.
Much like there are three promises to come soon and three warnings in the passage, there are also three invitations.
However, two of them are the church or John asking Jesus to come:
v. 17: The Spirit and the Bride are asking Jesus to “Come,” and anyone else who hears should join in
v. 20: “Come, Lord Jesus!”
But the invitation I want to focus on for our final theme is the one we touched on briefly in v. 17.
Back in the beginning of chapter 22, we saw the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Just as He has throughout Revelation and throughout the Scriptures—He is inviting the listener to come and drink from this river of life, while there is still time.
We see God speaking this way through the OT prophets:
“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
We see Christ speaking this way to the woman at the well:
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
And He has spoken this way in Revelation:
And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
In verse 13, Jesus repeats those words from Revelation 21:6 when He says that He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
If you told me that you got an invitation to stay at the White House and I asked who you got it from and you said, “A janitor,” I would be like, “Ummm…I don’t think you are staying at the White House.”
But if you got an invitation and I asked who it came from and you said, “The President of the United States,” I would say, “That’s amazing!”
And I would be absolutely sure you are going to the White House.
In one of my favorite movies, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Charlie’s family thinks his Golden Ticket is a fake until they look at it and see that it is signed by none other than, “Mr. Willy Wonka.”
Well this invitation to drink the water of life is not coming from a servant in the Kingdom or even an angel.
It is coming from the King Himself—The Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end.
And if that is the case, you can be sure that the invitation is good as the holy blood it is signed in.
The God of all creation is saying, “Come have life eternal. Come be satisfied in Me forever.”
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
As we close up tonight and we close up Revelation in general, it can all feel a bit daunting.
Even looking at these big picture themes can feel overwhelming.
He is coming again soon.
He is warning His hearers to listen.
He is inviting His hearers to live forever.
And you look at the state of the world and wonder—how can we stay faithful in the midst of this tribulation-filled, false gospel-ridden, Harlot of a world?
You might look over at brothers and sisters suffering under beastly governments and secretly wonder, “Would my faith hold up in that?”
Satan might whisper to you, “No way—you’ll wilt.”
But let me encourage you with the final two sentences in the final verse of the Bible.
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
A benediction for believers.
We are not alone. The grace of the Lord Jesus—the Lion of Judah—the Coming King, is with us!
We are not on our own—the undeserved love of the Bridegroom is upon His Bride.
Remember that Revelation was meant to encourage.
It was written to believers suffering under the monstrous Roman Empire. They had seen their brothers and sisters killed.
Their churches were faltering and filled with flaws.
Where is their hope?
Revelation is a call to look to the horizon. A call to get our eyes up off of this world and consider the One to come and to hold fast.
To consider the promised reward and be joyful in affliction.
God in the great day will declare to men and angels how often His people have been pouring out their souls before Him in such and such corners and secret places, and accordingly He will reward them. And Christians, did you really believe and seriously dwell on this , you would: Walk more thankfully; Work more cheerfully; Suffer more patiently; Fight against the world, the flesh and the devil more courageously; Lay out yourselves for God, His interest and glory, more freely; Live with what providence hath cut out for your portion more quietly and contentedly; and you would be in private prayer more frequently and abundantly.
Thomas Brooks
Jesus is coming soon. It is both a warning against unbelief and an invitation to believe.
Look to the clouds where He will come in glory.
Walk in thanks.
Work cheerfully.
Suffer patiently.
Fight sin and the devil.
Go all in for the Lord and His glory.
Be content with what He has given you.
And stay praying—early, often and always.
Amen.