Introduction to the Apocalypse

This morning I am beginning a new series on the book of Revelation. One of the primary challenges with the Church in America today is that church people are don’t know their bibles. There are probably two reasons why people don’t know the bible today. The first is they are not reading and studying it on their own. (I cant do anything about that) The second reason is preachers are not preaching and teaching the bible like they used to. I can do something about that. The new testament book that people have the most apprehension towards by far is the book of Revelation. Christians are scared of it and think that they will never have any hope of understanding the book. Unfortunately pastors are little better in this regard. Probably 9 out of 10 pastors will choose to ignore the book from the pulpit.

What we are starting this morning is a verse by verse sermon series through the book of am not going to skip anything because I don’t understand it, or it is controversial. I wont be as thorough as I would if this were bible study, but you will come away from this series knowing the book of Revelation better than you have before. I will not be as thorough as I would if this were Wednesday night but still this will be fairly comprehensive.

The Book of Revelation is a prophecy and an Apocalypse. Now when I say apocalypse I do not mean climactic disaster. In the days when the bible was written apocalyptic literature was common among both the Jews and the Greeks. Apocalyptic literature has three major features 1) it deals with hidden things (hence the need for unveiling) 2) it deals with vast upheaval, and 3) it deals with God’s decisive action.

ESV

(1) 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,

(2) who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

(3) 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.

[pray]

[The Apocalypse of Christ] vs 1-3

Verse 1 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,

Verse one gives us the title of the book in Greek. The Greek word for Revelation is Apocalypse. This book is truly titled the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. This is where apocalyptic literature comes from. The word apocalypse however means to unveil or to reveal. Think about the world of art. When an artist paints a picture or sculpts a stature and then is about to show it to the world; they gather all their friends and their patrons and their friends and bring them into the room where the masterpiece is covered up with a tarp or a veil. When the time is right the pull back the curtain or the veil and reveal the work of art. That is an apocalypse. A revealing unveiling.

So what is the book of Revelation revealing? As David Guzik says in his commentary on Revelation:

“From the outset, we are given the most important truth about the Book of Revelation. This book shows us the Antichrist, it shows us God’s judgment, it shows us calamity on the earth, and it shows us Mystery Babylon in vivid detail. Most of all, it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ to us. If we catch everything else, but miss Jesus in the book, we miss the Book of Revelation.”

Jesus Christ is in every chapter of the book of revelation and almost on every page. If you find the book of revelation scary or confusing I would encourage you to read through this book and make a list of what Jesus is doing in every chapter and you will not only become more comfortable with the book but you will also get to know Jesus your Lord more intimately.

That God Gave … His servants

So first off we see that this book is the Revelation of Jesus. Further on in verse one we see this revelation is that: “which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.”

God gave this revelation of Jesus for the purpose of His servants. God gave this revelation so that it may be shown and not hidden. The mystery religions and cults of John’s day kept their servants in the dark only revealing the hidden mysteries to the most elite students. [Pythagoras (where we get the Pythagorean theorem in math) was one such a cult leader. He forced his initiates into a vow of silence for three year. And if they could last all that time he would only then begin to reveal some oh his esoteric secrets. One of these is the PT.] Jesus is no such a cult leader. His desire is for all of his servants to know the divine truths, and that is why He reveals this freely to John to give to us.

That God Gave … Jesus?

Now I want you to look back at verse one very carefully.

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 is the Him? It is clear from both the context and from the Greek that the Him is Jesus Christ. In fact the New King James essentially tells you that by capitalizing Him. So what pastor? This is a revelation not just of Jesus himself, but it is also a revelation of that Jesus himself received from God the Father. The entire book of revelation is information that comes to us directly from the throne of God! This is not information that was hatched in the mind of the Apostle John. This is Divine Revelation!

Some have a problem with this idea (I completely understand) because how can Jesus, the very God of very God learn? Because if this is a revelation to Jesus then that would imply that there is information that he did not know. Now I personally think that this is the wrong way to interpret this. This is indeed revelation from God the Father to show mankind. It was not news to Jesus. It was merely God the Father granting Jesus permission to show this revelation to man. This lets us know that this information very special since the Father is giving Jesus permission to share previously hidden information. The prophet Daniel was told to seal up certain information until the time of the end. It is as Daniel was instructed to write in . . . seal the book, even to the time of the end . . . Contrast what Daniel wrote with John’s writing in , Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. The Revelation was and has been sealed until world events have begun to reveal its veracity. I believe that the book of Revelation is part of what was sealed up in Daniel’s time. In fact, Daniel, as he addressed the end times, says in the rest of , many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Needless to say, people are racing around in cars, trains, and planes. They are running to and fro.

To attempt to unveil the end time events is an awesome task. However, God does not intend for the truth of this book to be sealed to man. He intended the church to study and understand the message of Revelation.

So what is so special that God reveal to man?

Things that must shortly come to pass…

The things that are revealed in the book of Revelation are things that are yet to come to pass. In many ways is a key verse for this book. It says: ( ESV) Write therefore 1)the things that you have seen, 2)those that are and 3)those that are to take place after this.

In a very real sense the book of Revelation tells us that the Apostle John saw in his day, the things that are currently going on and the things that are yet to come.. What a marvelously prophetic book. The absolutely amazing thing is that it doesn’t matter what time period that you are in since its writing, Revelation still tells you those three things. Even if you were in the medieval period or even the cowboy and Indian days, Revelation still tells you what John saw, what is currently going on in the church age, and what is yet to come. This means that the Book of Revelation is a book of predictive prophecy. It speaks of things that will happen in the future – at least future from the time of its writing.

This book contains predictive prophecy both for the church age and for the time of the end.

Not all prophecy is predictive, but this prophetic book clearly is predictive. It describes things that must shortly take place. The time is near for the fulfillment of these things, but the time was not present at the time of writing.

When it says that these things that must “shortly take place,” that is not referring to the sooness of the book’s fulfillment. But rather how rapid it will take place once it gets started. In other words once the things fall into place for it to begin there will be no stopping it.

He Signified the Message

The King James says that he Signified [the message] by his angel to his servant John. Modern translations say that he “communicated” or “made clear the message.” But I like the King James in this case because signified or SIGN-ified. This word is the perfect description for how the book of revelation was delivered to John. Revelation is a book of signs. This is actually why people are so uncomfortable with the book. People don’t understand the signs. But every one of the signs in the book of Revelation can be found elsewhere in the bible. Revelation makes over 500 allusions to old testament scripture, but it rarely outright quotes directly almost 70% of the verses in Revelation make some reference to the Old Testament. A good and very thorough study of revelation will lead you to every other book of the bible. Revelation is a book more than any other that demands to be studied.

However, one very good thing about the signs that Jesus used to communicate the message is that signs are actually more descriptive than just narrative. It is one thing to call someone or something evil or bad, but it is far more vivid to describe the image of a woman drunk with the blood of the saints.

Not to mention some of the things that John was seeing were things that were the inexpressible glories of Heaven and also the strange futuristic world of modernity.

[The Revelation was given to John] verse 2

The Apostle John was given this Revelation directly from Jesus. There are some crazy theories about the Authorship of Revelation. Some have even put forth the idea that most of the book was written by John the Baptist and not the Apostle John. But the earliest church fathers are in agreement that John wrote Revelation after he returned from the Isle of Patmos.

John (the Apostle) was the one who bore witness to to the Word of God. John knew at the time that he was receiving the word that it was Holy Scripture. I have always wondered if the biblical authors knew as they were writing their books they were writing the bible. But in this case John knew what he was receiving was scripture. He knew it was the Holy Scripture because he called it the word of God, as an Old Testament prophet would say. He also called it the testimony of Jesus Christ.

[The Blessings of the Book] verse 3

Verse three gives us a reason why we should all read and study the book of Revelation.

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.

The book of Revelation is the only book of the bible that has the explicit blessing for those who read, those who hear, and those who keep the words of the book. The idea is probably from custom of the early church, where attention was given to the public reading of Scripture, which was often then explained. In our modern way of speaking John might say, “Blessed is the pastor who teaches Revelation, and blessed is the congregation who hears it.” Most of all, pastor or congregation, blessed are those who keep those things which are written in it. If for no other reason this blessing should get us to read the book and get preachers to preach the book. I don’t know about you but I need a blessing so that is why we are doing this.

Revelation was intended to be read publicly just like we are now. Each and every sermon from here out, it is my intention to receive the blessing for reading this book.

This verse is set up very similarly to the Beatitudes in Matthew. It is very interesting that there are 7 such beatitudes spread out throughout the book. Just like in the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount the word blessed here means that we are approved of by God. Today as we begin this Sermon Series on Revelation is very comforting to know that we are right in the groove that Jesus wants us to be in, following his will and desire for the church.

[Close]

I want to encourage everyone of you that as we start this series on revelation get a notebook or a journal and read ahead and when you come across a something that you don’t understand or are troubled by write it down and the date. Then make it a matter of prayer. You will discover that as we go through this series you will learn and gain insights that you never thought possible. And those insights might not even come from my sermons. They may come from something you hear on TV, the Radio or even articles on the internet. You see Jesus wants you to know this book and he will use anything at his disposal to teach you.

The book of Revelation is an apocalypse, in that it unveils hidden information. The book of Revelation is Prophecy in that it forth tells and foretells things that are yet future and gives us insight into our lives right now. And the book of Revelation gives us blessings for even reading, hearing and keeping its words in our hears. Why do we receive a blessing for this information? Because the time is drawing near that these things are about to begin to take place. If we know this we will make sure others know it as well. And we will expand the kingdom in our time.

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