Revelation Recap

Friends, would you stand with me as we read scripture. Were back to the first three verses of Revelation Revelation 1:1-3

Revelation 1:1–3 CSB

The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatever he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near.

Pray with me. Go ahead and have a seat.

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Hey - so today we are stepping back in our study of Revelation. With Easter and the Lenten season beginning here in a few weeks, It hit me that we are coming up on a year of being in Revelation! As we are beginning the end of the book (we will perhaps be done in June), and before we pause for our lenten series I felt it would be wise to step back, and look at the whole book again. To Recap what we’ve looked at, and go over the WHY of studying this book.

Cause this book is LONG, and perhaps there are those who are “ready” to move on. I hear you, and in some ways I’m sympathetic, as studying revelation so deeply for the past year and a half is a lot. And yet - as I pray and have prayed - Friends, we need the message of Revelation.

Revelation is a long book. As are a lot of books - but I believe that God’s Spirit uses God’s Word to transform God’s people. And in each section, each little pericope, I believe piece by piece God transforms us through the renewing of our mind and the encouragement of our faith. It’s good to go through large sections of scripture, verse by verse.

That said - evaluation and reflection are key steps in learning, and often are the ones that go missing as we go about our lives and studies. Cause life can be frantic and full! Most of us are just happy to have made time to READ the Bible each day - reflecting on it is much more time intensive.

So that’s what we are doing this morning - we are looking back on the last 15 chapters of study of Revelation, with special emphasis on the WHY of studying this book.

Let’s start there: Why should we study this book? Other than the fact that it is in the Bible. Why study this book?

To be honest, most pastors don’t preach through this book. For it is incredibly divisive! We’ve used the categories of Revo-mania and Revo-phobia before, and that’s helpful.

Some seemingly are obsessed with the book, and particularly with a literal futuristic predictive method of interpretation.

Others have read some of the sections on dragons, and heard the discourse and have decided that they would rather just… not. So they don’t read it at all.

Like a lot of things - people have deep feelings and opinions on this scripture. And it can be tricky as a pastor, to navigate through people’s expectations, hurts, and desires. There is also a lot of confusion, and fear, and pride when it comes to this book. And dealing with prophecy is so dang difficult and tricky.

I’ll quote the late Dr. Michael Heiser here in the context of end times prophecy, he said: “Anyone who tells you that they’ve got this all [biblical and eschatological prophecy] figure out, safely ignore them.”

So this is like a mine field, pastorally. In part because, while I have an oppurtunity to pray and study and preach once a week to you, and I deeply love you, and pray for you, and I do my absolute best in the fear of the Lord to present what I honestly believe and discern is the word of God, I know that for every half an hour I get to teach, there are 10,000 other voices around the world and on the internet who can say things differently! And I know that if and when I say things differently than how some would like me to - It can cause great frustration or consternation!

But We can’t not have clarity in this book. We can’t let satan use his chaotic ways to disunify the Church. We need to study this book well. Because Prophecy doesn’t JUST mean prediction about future events - it’s the Word of God coming into a specific situation. And we NEED to hear the words of Revelation - which is a prophetic pastoral letter, written in the apocalyptic genre.

Revelation is a prophetic, pastoral epistle, written in an apocalyptic genre.

All of these words matter.

IT’s prophetic - meaning God is using these words to speak directly to the people of God and driving them to specific action. It’s pastoral - John, the author knew the original audience, the seven churches in asia minor. He had a purpose. He was writing to tell them the vision he saw - but so that they would follow Christ.

It’s a letter. IT’s an epistle, meaning it was written to people and we need to understand their context to understand the letter.

And it’s in an apocalyptic genre. That’s a genre of literature we don’t even HAVE anymore. But it isn’t a movie genre about zombies and the end of the world. Lexham Bible Dictionary defines it as a system of thought and writing that uses highly symbolic imagery to describe the spiritual world and earthly events. It’s intentionally written to be symbolic! Especially using the symbols that the audience would be familiar with - in our case the images in the Old Testament.

All of this matters, because it gives us context. I think of this quote by Ben Witherington III in his work The Indelible Image:

“A text without context is just a pretext for what we want it to mean.” Ben Witherington III; The Indelible Image

In other words - we have to be REALLY careful with the literary, historical, theological contexts we are reading so that we can properly understand the text.

AND we need to understand our own biases that we are bringing to the text. We All have our own set of interpretive glasses we bring to any text. And it takes great intentionality to be cognizant of that! Pointing out other people’s biases is easy! Finding out our own can be painful and deeply humbling.

That’s part of what makes Revelation tricky. We don’t always realize the waters in which we are swimming!

The predominate, dare I say default, view of revelation in America right now comes from the Dispensational Camp. Dispensationalism is a theology system that was formed by John Nelson Darby in the mid 1800’s, and it has many distinctive thoughts, such as that God has interacted with people in different ways, and ages called dispensations. A clear distinction between the Israel and the Church. They will use what they call the: “Plain and literal meaning” of the Bible - of whatever can be read literally should be. They view the old testament as it’s own thing from the new testament and must be understood only on it’s own foot (meaning they don’t use the new testament to interpret the old testament). There are a lot of distinctives,

But it’s view of the end times is very distinct and popular, but they believe in the pre-tribulational rapture, where Christ will take away the Church from the earth into heaven before a seven year great tribulation begins, then Christ will return for a 1,000 year reign that will be distinctly jewish, before the final resurrection of all things.

So they tend to read revelation in Chapter 1-3 being for the local church, then the rapture is to take place, then the rest of the book till chapter 19 is all the tribulation, then the end.

Which makes it’s hermeneutic (or it’s interpretative method), if I can interact respectfully, but critically, look how bad and scary this all is, so get yourself saved so you don’t have to go through it.

Respectfully, I just don’t agree with that. I think it’s not taking the context of Revelation seriously enough. Remember it is a prophetic, pastoral epistle, written in an apocalyptic genre.

And that system of reading revelation was not around till after the 1800’s. That is NOT how the earliest Christians viewed Revelation and interpreted it. Not that just because the early Christians believed something that must make it true - but it should help us understand the waters we swim in, when the default view a lot of us hold of Revelation, was non-existent largely for 1800 years. That should be part of the equation - how did the earliest Christians read it?

So the challenge becomes then, how can we read Revelation on it’s own legs? How would the original Audience have read it, ones who were familiar with the context, and were used to apocalyptic literature. And therefore what does it mean for us today? I think chapter 1 verse 3 helps with this a lot.

Revelation 1:3 CSB

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near.

There is a blessing for those who read the words of Prophecy - again for they are God’s words. There is ALWAYS benefit to reading and hearing the words of God.

Note again - prophecy doesn’t mean in and of itself that its about the future! Let’s define prophecy really quick.

Prophecy is a divine gift by which a human being is enabled to speak divinely authoritative words.

Divinely inspired words - and we are blessed when we KEEP what is written in it.

KEEP. you could translate this as observe, obey, follow. And the verb tense is continual - so you could translate it, literally

keeping what is written in it. Obeying what is written in it.

We are not called to just read revelation and speculate about it - but within it are commands to obey continually!

Why? because the time is near.

Time here is kairos, not chronos. Chronos is time like it’s 10:30am. Kairos is like - it is time. The time has come for us to move on with our lives. And near literally means at hand, imminent. Upon us.

The age is upon us. So we need to be keeping the commands that are written in it. For Christ is coming back at any moment!

GK Beale has a couple really good quotes on this. he writes

“The message of Revelation, as it unfolds, is not designed to provide fodder for intellectual speculation about the end times but is rather a series of commands addressed to the present-day lives of all who read it.” G.K. Beale; Shorter Commentary on Revelation

Love that. Don’t just be hearers of the word - be doers of the word. Keeping what is written in it. And he writes this later in the same commentary

“The scope of Revelation deals with all of the events of world history commencing with the death and resurrection of Christ and concluding with His final return. The events recorded in it will recur throughout human history and thus remain relevant to readers of all times, though they also point to a final climax at the time of the Lord’s return.” G.K. Beale; Commentary on Revelation

Through it all we are called it, as Beale has said - be faithful to the call to follow the lamb (even if it costs us) and not to compromise.

And that, a call to follow the lamb and not to compromise is a message that we cannot afford to miss!

And the original context really helps us understand what was going on more and more.

This book was originally written to seven churches in asia minor at the end of the first century who were under great pressure to leave the faith of Christ - and to participate in the crooked pagan systems of the Roman empire. And we see so many examples in the letters to the churches in chapters 2-3, there was sexual immorality, false teachings, idoloatry, and so many ways to compromise themselves.

Through it all - we, like them are called to be conquerors, overcomers, and we do that by NOT compromising, and following Christ - even if that means suffering, loss, and death.

How? Because Christ was victorious in and threw death, for he was obedient to the father, and those of us who are in Christ, with Christ, following Christ, can have faith and confidence in our lives as we follow him.

I think Revelation is so important because, in the words of Michael Gorman, it will show up and demonstrate three main goals,

Ultimate Security Cruciform Hope Faithful Discipleship

Ultimate security - we need to find our security in Christ, and our salvation, and the age to come. Not by building the empire here on earth. We will see at the end of the book - how great eternity will be. So we have ultimate security - no matter what happens, we can be held safe in his hands. And that gives me, one who’s mind is prone to depression and darkness and hopelessness, great joy.

Cruciform home - that means cross shaped hope. We need our hope to be first and foremost built upon the salvific work of Christ on the Cross. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.

Feeling insignificant? look at the Cross - The infinite God of the world sent his son to die for you. That’s stupid significant! Feeling Fearful? Christ will absorb all of the wrath on him and lead us into new life. Feeling overwhelmed by the ways of the world? Christ is the king of Nations.

and Faithful discipleship. day in, day out, following JEsus wherever he goes. Give your life to Christ, get baptized, find someone to disciple you, and day in and day out, walk in the reality and presence of the living God.

Through it all - this is what I believe we are getting at in this book.

Okay, let’s ask the question friends:

So What?

Jimmy, why are you taking time to do the recap? For so many reasons.

We got to keep our eyes on the goal - JEsus Christ, and following him. I’m a huge believer that clarity is so important. As we have plowed our way through revelation for months, it can be easy to just get lost in the weeds.

Some of you have joined our church since we started, so you weren’t able to hear all the intro stuff we did last spring. Some of you were, and don’t remember it at all!

Why are we going through one of the more complicated books of Scripture? Because in prayer, as I reflect on our world, on our environment, and hear from God, I really think God wants us to study this book. It was not and IS not something we decided to study flippantly. It is difficult. It’s at times arduous. And yet God has used this book to give me so much hope and confidence.

I think our church, with our mission to increase the spiritual temperature of south eastern south dakota needs this book. We need to remember that we will not conquer our mission by forcing or coercing anyone into following Jesus. We won’t do it by compromising the gospel and our lives in sin. We won’t do it by being cool, or flashy. We will do it by following JEsus, Loving God, Loving our neighbors, and telling them about Jesus.

In our world, us having security, and hope, and purpose - y’all that’s pretty strange and attractive. And in Christ - we have all that and MORE.

Also, I want to make sure that I do my best to communicate as clearly as possible my interpretive framework. If you want the official title: I hold to a historic-premillenial view of Revelation and escatology. feel free to google that if you’d like, and you can always ask me clarifying questions, I have found it to be the most faithful to Scripture, and tends to be the view of most of the early Church fathers and mothers.

And also I want to put things into perspective.

I know that for some of us, we didn’t even know our interpretive lens of reading Revelation. And I know that there are times where, who does not hold to a dispensational view of the end times, I can say things that will conflict perhaps with what you’ve held, or thought. I have done my best, and will do my best, not to besmirch other views of faithful Christians - however I can only and will only preach what I believe in the fear and trembling of God to be the truth.

Some of my favorite believers and heroes of the faith hold to a different view of revelation than I do - perhaps most prominently my father. My dad is dispensational, and he is like a shining example of Christ’s love and faithfulness in my life and the lives of so many other people. It’s okay to disagree about this types of doctrines.

There is a concept called theological triage - it’s where you rank doctrines into different tiers of importance.

First tier, second Tier, and third Tier.

In the first tier: these are like Primary, Gospel Issues, this is what seperates Christians from Non-Christians.

Think of The Trinity, The incarnation, death burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection of the body. Think of the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.

This is the stuff thats worth dying over. But taht all Christian denominations would hold to. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Evangelicals - we call hold these first tier doctrines (on paper anyway).

Then there is secondary Tier: These are issues important enough that Christians would perhaps want to seperate into distinct communities - but perhaps not enough to divide from common causes. This is where denominations put down their lines.

Think about the view of sola scriptura vs the infallability of the papacy. Think about the idea of baptismal regeneration vs an ordinential view of baptism. Ecclesiology would go here, how we structure the church, how we view communion, gender roles in the church, Again, things that separate denominations from each other.

Then the third tier: these are issues that can be deeply held beliefs, but shouldn’t be worth dividing over necessarily, and typically aren’t required by a denominations statement of faith:

this is stuff LIKE view of the millennium, the timing and sequence of Christ’s return, age of the earth, styles of worship, liturgies of worship, understanding the miraculous gifts, matters of conscience.

These are things that we can and should be able to hold different convictions of, and still maintain unity.

It’s NOT to say that they are unimportant, and that it’s not worth hashing out, and studying - all truth is important.

It’s just saying that we must have UNITY in the essentials, and charity in the nonessentials.

The issues can emerge when these tiers get mixed up. If we take a 1st tier doctrine and demote it to a third tier, we get a cult and heresy.

If we take a third tier doctrine, and make it a first tier doctrine - we are being divisive and likely dividing over things that we shouldn’t.

Our denomination is evangelical - and has for the most part been a major on the major and minor on the minor group. We are committed to evangelism. We are complimintarian, meaning elders and senior pastors should be male, but we allow women to serve in all other roles, and even to preach under the authority of the elders. We are open to premillenial views and amillenial views when it comes to our eschatology. We are sold out on the inspiration and inerrency Scripture. We hold an ordinential view of baptism and communion. We affirm traditional marriage views.

You can find our statement of faith on the back table and on our website.

But we also have great freedom. We have many Christians in our denomination who are just sold out young-earth creationists. Praise God. WE have others who are just sold out old-earth creationists. Both adhere to the inspiration of scripture and drive their views from Scripture. We aren’t going to divide over that as a church. You hold to a dispensational view of scirpture - or your a historic premillenial holder, or perhaps your an amillenial holder, welcome to the fold. You are more skeptical of the miraculous gifts, or maybe you are pretty charismatic - hey welcome.

We can have meaningful conversations - but we aren’t going to divide over those issues. We will have order, we will have respect, and we will maintain love. All while partnering with God to increase the spiritual temperature of south eastern south dakota.

I say all that - because we have to keep the main things the main thing. And know that through my teaching of revelation - there is great freedom in our denomination in how to view so many eschatological things.

What I want to get at in this study is that verse 3 stuff.

keeping the words of the prophecy for the time is near.

I want us sold out for our ultimate security, or cross shaped hope, and our faithful discipleship.

And we do that by keeping the first things first. That’s why communion has become more and more regular here in our church. we have to remember Christ- and proclaim his death until he comes

move into communion.