KV6: The Imminence of the Future

6:  And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

6:  Future History Is Certain in Christ

7:  Christ Himself Guarantees Our Future

8:  Overcome with Worship of the King

9:  Worshipping our Lord is a Good Thing

This set of verses begins what some theologians have listed as the epilogue of the book of Revelation, just as chapter 1:1-3 serve as the book's prologue.  As the prologue begins a book by stating the purpose and agenda of the book, the epilogue sums it all up.  We won't be examining the whole text in this study, we will break it into several weeks yet, because, as we have discovered, there is a lot of meaning in the text, and we do not want to miss any of it. 

We have been taken from the seven letters to the seven churches that our Lord Jesus chose to represent all of church history for us (and this is not my idea) through terrible seal judgments, through even more terrifying trumpet judgments, and through the final and completely devastating bowl judgements into the long-awaited return of our Lord Christ to Earth, through His 1000-year reign on Earth, through the final judgment and destruction of all sin and those who will not turn away from it.  Then we saw the briefest of glimpses at our eternal state, and perhaps a glimpse of what the Lord has for us in eternity, in terms of what we will be like, what kind of service we will render, how we will never be separated from our King again, and how eternity will all be blessing, service, and worship.

This de facto epilogue focuses us on the manner of people we should be as a result of these things that our Lord has promised us through His servants and His word will come to pass.  The more I read this book, the more I realize that I frankly do not measure up.  This is a mercy of God upon me, and those who see their own reality as approximating my own.  We have been given a blessed opportunity to change course, that is, repent and turn to Christ.  Maybe it isn't a turning from sin, but rather a course correction toward our Lord and His promised and inviting safe harbor.  Whatever the case, right at the start, I will say that it is incumbent upon those of us who will follow Him to make the required changes in our walks with Him to arrive safe on that shore.  I am not the only person who has seen that.  Several of YOU have seen that and walk like it.  Dr. John MacArthur saw and said it, as did Dr. R. C. Sproul.  Charles Spurgeon saw it.  Johnathan Edwards saw it.  George Whitfield saw it.  The Wesleys saw it.  John Owen saw it.  John Bunyan, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, John Flavel, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingle, and Martin Luther saw it.  Time would fail me if I talked in detail about Athanasius, Augustine, Irenaeus, and Polycarp.  Every single one of them knew it and lived like it mattered to them.  Their lifestyle and their words call out to us through time to follow and be faithful, heeding what we read and guard the trust Jesus gave us all, which trust He guaranteed with the Holy Spirit, the third person of the triune God.  What do you say, Beloved?  Shall we walk on together?  Our Lord has clearly shown and defined that way for us.  Shall we take it?  Boldly, I say, I will follow, not knowing or understanding what may wait for us.  That said, let's look at the text.

I broke our text into thought units as follows:

KV6:  The Imminence of the Future

6:  And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

6:  Future History Is Certain in Christ

7:  Christ Himself Guarantees Our Future

8:  Overcome with Worship of the King

9:  Worshipping our Lord is a Good Thing

I think it no mistake that the Bible ends this way, with the personal word of guarantee of the future from the King Himself.  He created it all at the beginning, and He creates it all anew here at the end.  The things He has declared are as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow, although (regardless of the moronic date-setters we seem to be plagued with) we do not know when it will occur.  It will happen when He is good and ready for it to happen, and not one second earlier. 

This is beyond politics, beyond economics, beyond technology, and beyond spirituality in the human sense.  Whatever happens in any of these realms, these things will happen because He said they would, and he had John write it down so we would know and it would bolster our courage.

It needs be said that God did not tell us what was going to happen so that we could keep this to ourselves and laugh at the morons acting like, well, morons!  It is easy to take that attitude, but Almighty God and our Lord Jesus, whose servants we are, told us rather to share the good news of Jesus Christ with everyone in the world.  We gain nothing for ourselves or the kingdom if we just use our head knowledge to belittle people and talk down to them like idiots.  If that's your goal, you do not understand the Spirit you are of, and you should repent.

Rather, this should embolden us and press upon us a real sense of urgency to preach Christ to the ends of the Earth, because, as I say quite frequently, we do not know how much time we have.  I have no idea if this is my last night on the planet.  I hope to continue after today, but if my Lord calls me home, then it is time to leave.  I think it a mercy I do not know the details!  So as we see our time slipping away and toward the final seven years of trouble on Earth, let us be those who tell people about our Lord Jesus Christ, who died in our place on a cross so that we could be saved!  That He took our sins away, and then He rose from the dead, and we rose with Him, figuratively speaking.  With that in mind, let us look at the text.

KV6:  The Imminence of the Future

6:  And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

I will define Imminence.  It is the state or fact of being about to happen.  I have touched on this a very little in our trip through Revelation so far in an attempt to present a balanced view of the text.  This little section of text does more for the doctrine of imminency than anything I could have said in, say, the seal judgments.  I can say a lot more, so let's just get into the verses and look at it in context.

6:  Future History Is Certain in Christ

Because we are believers in and adherents to sola scriptura, we take the Bible and its contents as the final authority for life and morality in practice, we can take it as we can take cash that these things WILL come to pass.  However, it will only take place exactly when Christ decrees it, and not one microsecond earlier.  Some do not think it matters, but Scripture is replete with references that things do not happen on Earth without the foreknowledge and approval of God.  I could cite the lives of the Patriarchs from Adam on down as examples.  Abraham.  Isaac.  Jacob, who became Israel.  His 12 sons (and Manasseh and Ephraim).  David.  Solomon.  Hezekiah.  Joash.  Josiah.  Jeconiah.  Zedekiah.  Zedekiah's sons executed by Nebuchadnezzar before his own eyes, just before Nebuchadnezzar put out Zedekiah's eyes.  And that's just pre-Babylonian captivity, and only in Israel.  Nebuchadnezzar the Gentile king himself became a believer, and he was won in Daniel's day.  Daniel.  Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael (their Hebrew names).  I could go on, but the point is that NOTHING happened to ANY of them of them without God's foreknowledge and approval of God.  We read this in the first chapter of Job.  We won't go into that here, but we have before, and we can if we need to.  With that as context, let's get into the text.

6:  And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.

The angel who had shown John the New Jerusalem turns to him at the end of the tour and says, "These words are faithful and true."  These words occur 4 times in the book of Revelation, and twice they are a TITLE of our Lord Jesus.  The first time we see it is in the letter to the church at Laodicea.  In Rev. 3:14 ("To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:"), He is the coming judge of the church at Laodicea, who were slumbering, blind and comfortable, and the Lord Jesus, the head of the Body of Christ, is OUTSIDE the church. He is coming as the one who, by way of contrast, is faithful and true, not like the church at Laodicea.

The second time the title is applied to our Lord is in Rev. 19:11 ("And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war."), He is the coming King of kings and Lord of lords in all of His glory, backed up by all the riders of His mighty army to come and once and for all take back the Earth from evil.

Twice more in the text of the book, the same phrase occurs, and I have an idea of what that may mean. Psalm 138:2 reads, “I will bow down toward Your holy temple and thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.” The phrase is John’s way of telling us that the words that he has recorded for us are as certain as the person and character of the One they represent, and that is the Lord Jesus (cf. John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.").  The remaining two occurrences are: (a.) In Rev. 21:5 ("And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' And He *said, 'Write, for these words are faithful and true.'"), the Alpha and Omega, our Lord Jesus Himself tells John, as John is shown a glimpse of our eternal state, that these words, written by John about all of this future history, are like the one who revealed them, faithful and true, and (b.) in this verse, the angel who is John’s tour guide reiterates that these words are faithful and true.

Beloved, we must remember that our Lord Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit as a kind of guarantee to live inside us as a commitment that He will come back to rescue us and we will be with Him ever after that.  It is about to happen, that is to say, it is imminent.  Remember, these events will occur, and they will occur imminently, that is, at any time. They are as certain to occur as our Lord Jesus said them. Maranatha (O Lord, come in Aramaic).

He is showing his servants what will soon take place.  "Soon" is not so much the speed at which this will occur, but the certainty and rapidity once the events begin, based on the angel's character and that of his Master, but we'll say more about Him in a little bit.

The one who inspired John to write these things down is the same individual that has inspired all those who served Him from the very beginning.  We should understand from this that the message has not ever changed.  The same God in the Old Testament is the very same God in the New Testament.

7:  Christ Himself Guarantees Our Future

This isn't anything you do not understand or anything I haven't said before, so let's just get into the text.

7:  And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.

The Greek καὶ marks a change in speaker. It is no longer the angel that speaks, but our Lord Jesus Himself. He gives the sixth of seven beatitudes as well, but more on that momentarily.  And what does He say?  "I am coming without delay."  I know we are impatient, so it always seems too long for our liking, but He is not slow.  He will arrive exactly when He means to, and in the way He intends, and not one second sooner or later.  He's just that powerful and that skilled.

The beatitude is a blessing on all those who heed (obey) the words of the prophecy of this book.  The word "beatitude" means "supreme blessedness," particularly in a religious expression.  I think this fits the definition.  "This book" has on occasion been expanded to include all of Scripture, but that in itself is unnecessary.  If you are truly His, you will do that anyway.  We prefer the stricter interpretation of the book of Revelation. Most of the commands for believers in the Church are in Chapters 2 and 3, and we went over them in detail, the videos are there if you want to watch them.  Our emphasis is on faithfulness in following what He has laid out in the Scriptures for us to follow.  It is our opinion that we should read those Scriptures and study them daily to learn what is so. 'Nuff said.

Our Lord says he is coming quickly. The Greek phrase ἔρχομαι ταχύ says just that. It is perhaps also a nod at the concept of imminence.  Ταχύ is the neuter of ταχύς, and that's typical of when it is used as an adverb it seems.  It still means He is coming without delay.  The problem we have is that we are always trying to define "delay."  He gets to set the schedule, the order of events, the trigger events, and all of what surrounds His return as a whole.  The trigger event He is worried about is the same trigger a Galilean groom was waiting for:  His Father to tell Him to go get His bride.  His Father will only tell Him to do that when the Father is ready.  He loves both Him and us, and will not make this longer than it needs to be.  Practice patience.  Practice faithfulness.  Practice holiness.  Do those things, and you will arrive there safely with the rest of us.  Moving on.

8:  Overcome with Worship of the King

Again, let's just look at the text.

8:  I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things.

As in the previous verse 7, the Greek καὶ marks a change in speaker. This time it is the unexpressed Κἀγὼ from kai [and] and ego [I], and it is John who speaks this time. John is standing on what must be familiar ground for himself, that of eyewitness.  1 John 1:1-3 says, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."  John, from his youth in the days that He walked in the company of our Lord Jesus, some have suggested between 13 and 18, has gained the status of being there to see it all.  Now, more than 60 years later for him, he is STILL the eyewitness.  He looked, he saw, he recorded.  Now he says that of himself once again.

John is MOVED with worship. And he is so lost in his need to worship, he once again falls to his knees in front of the angel, who says something like, “Uh, don’t do that,” in the next verse.  I am not of the opinion that John needed to be told not to worship anyone but God.  I think he was overcome in the moment.  If we are honest with ourselves, we have all had moments like that, where we forget ourselves and do something we shouldn't.  We don't need to go into details for each other because love covers a multitude of sins.  With all that John had just seen and communicated to his audience, how could he not fall down and worship?  The response to his situation was correct, just a little out of context.  What was the correct context?  Next paragraph.

9:  Worshipping our Lord is a Good Thing

This is one of those things I take on faith.  I don't think that John was out trying to worship angels; as an Apostle of Jesus Christ, he would have known he was only supposed to worship God.  I further think our Lord and God understood he was maybe facing the wrong way or just overcome in the moment.  Our Lord Jesus knows how He made us.  He is still one of us, and knows how frail we are.  I also think John knew the moment called for worship because it does.  Everything in us should want to praise the Lord for everything we have seen and now know about the coming Christ and His kingdom, and what He has shown His servants about their eternal destiny.  Let's look at the text.

9:  But he *said to me, “Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God.”

I however, do think that there is an excellent explanation of why we shouldn't worship the angels (any of them) here.  I think this is related to Paul's exclamation in 1 Cor. 6:3a, which says, "Do you not know that we will judge angels?"  The angel here seems to view John as at least an equal.  "I am a fellow servant," the angel says.  He identifies John as the one of whom he is a fellow servant.  In normal English usage, that means he serves alongside John.  It is as if he is saying, "I am a servant with you."  However, and this has the ability to introduce controversy, it is possible that the angel meant to say I serve you, John.  It depends on whether you emphasize "fellow servant" or "servant of yours."  Personally, I can see either, and I will go with whatever my Lord tells me about that when it becomes important for me. 

Compare this to a very different angel that said something else to our Lord Jesus in his impertinence.  Speaking to our Lord Jesus in Matthew 4:9, Lucifer said, "…and he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.'"  That angel would have our worship misdirected to himself.  Considering it used to be his job to gather and direct all the worship of all creation to God, I suppose it doesn't surprise me.  Personally speaking, it gives it all the more gravitas that we will replace him as the ones who gather and direct all the worship to Him who truly deserves it all, instead of selfishly toward ourselves as if that means we have power of some kind.  Remember the gemstones that decorated the foundation stones of the great city of New Jerusalem, each bearing the name of one of Christ's Apostles.  Those same gemstones, it tells us in Eze. 28:13, were placed on Lucifer on the day he was made, and were the trappings of his office and position in creation as the very first of all angels.  It doesn't matter if you're talking about rank, order, or both.  That those gems now cover the New Jerusalem may indicate our future job as Lucifer's replacement.

The angel knew and reiterated that his order in creation was that of servant, like John.  Not just John, but all of John's brethren the prophets, like John the Baptist, or Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, as well as all the others, even if we do not know their names.  The angel even extends that statement to those who obey the words of this book, that being the book of Revelation, remember.  The point is that we are all created by the same holy God and are all His servants.

Some unnamed religious organizations make the point of all this to be collected power and not the freedom and ability to serve the saviour.  They are some of the wealthiest organizations on the planet, and even claim to follow Christ, though a simple honest inspection of their doctrines will show how they deny Scripture, where all good doctrine is founded. 

I believe this was Lucifer's error.  He confused the freedom to serve with power.  Allow me to settle this now.  I have no power but what our heavenly Father gives me.  The Lord said the same thing to Pilate, who had the power (authority) to deliver Him from crucifixion.  John 19:11 says, "Jesus answered, 'You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.'"  Beloved, we have no power or authority of our own.  Lucifer had only what God gave him, and he somehow made it out to be everything.  He had to have it.  So he seized it and began this whole mess we are in now!

What Lucifer, and I think we at times, fail to understand is that the wisdom to hold real power is that we know when it should NOT be used.  The one to whom God will give all authority became the servant of all.  Can you imagine if He had used His power to come off of that cross and deal with humanity as we have shown time and again that we truly deserve?  None of us would be here now.  But Jesus knew when not to use His power.  And in humility, He took the way to the lowest place of all, and earned the right to become the most exalted human of all time.  And He will be, and we can participate in that already, though His kingdom is not yet established.  It is why the angel's direction here is doubly true - Worship God the Father.  Worship Christ.  Worship in the Holy Spirit.  God is the only one that is worthy of receiving any worship at all, and it is He who truly holds all power, authority, majesty, and dominion, and yes, I know what all of those words mean, by His grace.  He is the only being worthy to receive it, and I will direct all of the worship I can toward Him because of that.  I will start with my own.  You should do the same.

That's what I saw in the text this time through it.  Next time, we will look at 22:10-15.