The Revelation of Jesus Christ

The Mixed Emotions of Revelation

Well, I wonder if I was to take a poll of you all about the book of Revelation. It would be fascinating to see the different responses I would get.

As to the excitement level of getting into a study on the book of Revelation, some of you are probably super pumped right now. You’re like: yes, I’ve been waiting for Revelation like my whole life. This is my final moment.

Others of you are like groan, locusts and dragons. I just don’t even know anything about this book and it just… why do we bother when we can read Romans?

And others of you are like: yes, we can find out if Logan believes that the locusts are actually tanks, and it’s about World War III.

And there’s going to be a variety of different opinion from all of you.

And yet we have to recognize that we’ve been given this book for a purpose, haven’t we?

Sadly, throughout much of Christendom, the book of Revelation is an incredibly divisive book. It’s a hard book to understand, and yet it’s a book given to us by our Father through His Son, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for our good.

And what I hope for us to do is not spend the next months delving into every rabbit warren and every point of dispute, but to see the delight that’s contained within this book. It is an encouraging book. It is a book filled with joy, excitement.

I don’t know about you, but I love reading Revelation. For the longest time I had no idea what it was about, but the stories are great. And I hope that, Lord willing, by the end of our study, you too can delight to read the book of Revelation and see the wonderful hope that’s contained within it.

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A Foundation for Reading Revelation

These 4 verses provide us with an introduction to the book, but also helpfully provide us with sort of like a foundation for how we’re meant to receive this book.

See, often you get— the preacher does this right— you get the first book in the series and then you get the little bit of a boring sermon that starts it. Let’s be honest, as he details all the different things about the book. You know it’s going to tell you about the date and about who the people were, and have some very interesting piece of information about Philippi or something like that. And it’s all very interesting information. Not particularly helpful, very relevant for the preacher as he interprets the text, but most of us, if we’re honest, find it a little bit boring.

However, apart from the birds, however, the first 4 verses here helpfully lay forth for us how we should read the book of Revelation, because, unlike the letters and the gospels, Revelation’s a bit different, isn’t it? And so if we read it wrong, then we will end up in some weird places, like some people get to.

And so we do want to lay a foundation. And I wanna show you that here, right up front, we’re told 3 very, very important things about the book of Revelation, because of course it’s always in 3, isn’t it? 3 very important things about Revelation.

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1. This Book Is a Revelation of God — of Jesus Christ

Firstly, this book is— I know this is a big shock, but this book is a revelation of God. It’s a revelation, hence the name. The word is literally apocalypse. If you read in Greek, it just starts with apocalypse. You’re like whoa.

But apocalypse doesn’t mean what we think of when we think of apocalypse, which is like— you know, zombies, nuclear missiles and these sorts of things. It actually means to disclose something. It means to reveal something. It’s the revealing or the disclosing of something like a mystery. So when Paul talks about the mystery of the ages being revealed, that’s the type of thing he’s talking about. It is an apocalypse, a revelation.

So this is a revelation from, firstly, God. If you have a look in the text, it says the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him. So God, the Father it’s talking about here, gave a revelation to his son, Jesus Christ.

And this is important because it means that Revelation is just as much the inspired word of God as Romans, Matthew and Genesis. And so when Paul says to Timothy, all of the word is breathed out by God, inspired by God, God-breathed and useful for you to make you complete—that includes this book, even the parts about locusts and 4-headed creatures and horsemen. It’s for you to feed you and prepare you for glory.

So it’s a revelation from God, which comes with all of the authority of God.

But it’s also, as we just saw, a revelation of Jesus Christ. Now here’s the problem. In Greek, this could mean one or 2 things. It could mean a revelation of Christ in the sense of possession like he owns it. But it could also mean it’s a revelation of Christ in the sense of it’s about Christ.

So it’s a revelation from God which is revealing Jesus Christ himself. So then you have to ask yourself the question: well, which is it? And of course, grammarians argue back and forth and commentators argue back and forth about which it is. But the reality is: what’s the correct answer? Yes, it’s both.

This is Christ’s revelation to his church, but it’s also Christ’s revelation of himself to his church.

Thirdly, we see that it’s a revelation that comes from God, from Christ, through messengers, and so we’re told about this angel. He made it known by sending his angel, and we might refer to this angel throughout the book of Revelation, like a heavenly tour guide all the way through the book of Revelation. This angel is just going to pop up again and he’s going to— oh, by the way, John, John, have a look over here and don’t miss that at this out. And, John, do you know what this is? And John’s going: I’ve got no idea. I’m from earth. What do I do with this? And the angel? Oh, that’s this. And he’s like a tour guide through the book of Revelation for us.

And so God, in his mercy, through Christ, sends this angel to John, and John, the apostle, inspired by God having the vision and the dream, then brings the word to us. And it’s important that it’s John, because John is the one who witnessed what? Witnessed Christ himself.

There’s been big debates about which John it is. Is it John? Is it this John? Is it that John? There’s a lot of Johns right. Could be multiple Johns. But this is definitely John the Apostle. And this is confirmed in verse 2, where it says: who bore witness to the word of God? Remember that passage we looked at this morning. The word was with God and the word was God. He bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

So, John, he says: I’m the one who walked with Jesus, I’m the one who saw Jesus transfigured on the mount. So I have seen the splendid glory of Jesus upon the mountain, and now I’m seeing it again, and I’m detailing it for you.

But then, lastly, it’s a revelation concerned with fulfillment. And so you notice he says, if you have a look with me, it says in verse 3, for the time is near. And at the end of verse one, to show the things that must soon take place.

Now, some of you are probably asking yourself: well, can you define soon for me? And can you define near, please? Because this was written a long time ago and I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot of things that haven’t happened yet. Why has the judgment not come if near and soon is sitting here in the text?

Now, the thing is, you have to understand that the language he is using here is very, very precise language that hearkens all the way back to Daniel 2 when he’s speaking about soon, and Mark 1 when he’s speaking about near.

So in Daniel 2 there’s an almost identical phrase that takes place where Daniel says that he is showing the things that will take place in the future. So Daniel is setting his time. You remember he sees the big statue with the head— that’s gold— and the chest, and then the legs and then the feet, and the angel says: these are the things that will take place in the future. And it was a prophecy, a vision of the coming of Christ, wasn’t it?

So now John takes that exact same phraseology, but he changes the word on the end. So now he says: I’m now going to tell you about the things that are about to take place, and what he’s saying is the prophecy of Daniel is fulfilled, Christ has come, and now the kingdom that Christ inaugurated, that was prophesied, is right before us. It’s here, it’s near, it’s soon, it’s fulfillment language.

So it’s a little bit like when Jesus comes, as I said Mark 1, and he says: repent and believe why? Because the kingdom of God is near, the kingdom of God has come, it’s here. It’s the same phraseology. Now we’re told the time is near. In other words, the plan of God being worked out is being fulfilled in our midst.

And so John, in this, is telling us that this revelation exists because the plan of God is being worked out in the person and work of Jesus Christ from the day of his coming all the way through the ages. John doesn’t know how long that’s going to be. He’s not told how long that’s going to be, but this he knows: God’s purposes in Jesus Christ and in Christ’s kingdom will be worked out.

And so it’s a disclosure of Christ for Christ’s church, highlighting Christ’s work in Christ’s kingdom. And what that encourages us to do is to look for Christ in Revelation.

So one of the big problems people run into is they will be tempted to read this and they’ll read it from the sense of sort of like: where am I? And so you look through the passages and you find you read something and you go: oh, that sounds a whole lot like what’s happening right now in New Zealand. Or if you’re in China, you might go: wow, this sounds a lot like what we’re experiencing.

And so if you’re in a very comfortable environment where you’re not suffering persecution, you read through it and you go: oh, that’s where we are. But if you’re in Nigeria, giving up your life, you’re eating it going: we’re in the great tribulation.

And the problem is what you’re doing is you’re seeking to see myself in the passage when the passage is there so that you would say: where is Christ in this? What is Christ showing me? What am I seeing about Christ? Because the book is there to reveal Jesus Christ to us.

Now I know preachers delight to say that about every passage, and it’s true, but particularly in graphic detail, Revelation is given to paint us a picture about Christ and his kingdom in an earth filled with turmoil, because often we can lose sight, can’t we? Often. And we can start looking around us and wondering if the kingdom really prevails, because it feels like we’re always losing.

So it’s a revelation given to disclose to us our Savior and his kingdom.

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2. This Is a Prophecy — With a Blessing

So this is the second thing you need to know about this book. We’re told in verse 3 that this prophecy— that’s what he calls it.

Now, when you hear the word prophecy, I wonder what you think. When you hear the word prophecy, do you think of telling the future? It’s probably the most common understanding of prophetic work, you know. If someone says: oh, I’m going to go see a prophet, what are you expecting the prophet’s going to do? You know, speak some special word over you and tell you that you’re going to have your best life now, or something like that.

No, the interesting thing is that, by and large, in the majority of the Old and New Testament, prophets do not tell the future. They do— there are prophecies that predict the future, but by and large, the prophecies of the Old and New Testament are about what we might call forth-telling.

You’ve got foretelling telling you the future, and you’ve got forth-telling speaking forth God’s word. The majority of the ministry of prophets is: brothers and sisters, do you see all this stuff going on around us? This is what God has to say on the matter.

It’s very similar to what we do in preaching: We take the word of God and we say: look, I know this is what’s happening in your life. I know these are all of the problems. I know this is what society looks like, but this is what God says about it. And Revelation is that category.

The purpose of Revelation is not, thank you, First Light TV is not there for you to sit down and work out an equation of when everything’s going to happen. But I’m sure you’ve heard these people right. It wasn’t that long ago that some pastor in America realized that Jesus was coming back in two thousand and twenty something. Oh, but then his calculations were wrong. And it was the next year. And then the next year came around and he tried to vanish. No idea what happened to him after that point.

That’s not why Revelation is given to us. It’s a prophecy of forth-telling, speaking God’s word into our lives so that we would know what God would require of us.

And this is why this prophecy comes with a blessing. You see, most of the time a telling of the future doesn’t do a whole lot for you, because you can’t change the future. Like if God just came and told us everything that was going to happen in the next week, what are you going to do about it? Well, not a lot, right? Because it’s all going to happen anyway. It doesn’t help you.

But God telling you Christ and Christ’s kingdom for now impacts every moment of your life. And so this wonderful prophecy comes with a blessing.

And we’re told, aren’t we? Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy.

Now, if you’re wondering if that’s sort of like a hint that you should be reading your Bible out loud at home rather than in quiet, it’s not, but it doesn’t hurt to do that. It’s not but it doesn’t hurt to do that but that’s not the point. You’ve got to put yourself back to a context where you couldn’t buy ESV Bibles from Bible shops for like 5 dollars. Most people didn’t have a copy of the Bible. You went to church and the person that had the scrolls or the manuscripts would bring them out and they would read them to the church, right? That was how you got God’s word. And then someone would preach on it.

And this book, the book of Revelation, John’s going to finish it. He’s going to seal it. And then it’s going to go to churches and it’s going to be read. And the guy who stands at the front, the book says, he gets blessed because he reads it.

I find it a great encouragement for myself. Maybe it’s selfish because I’m the guy who stands up here and reads it. But it’s a wonderful encouragement to know that God blesses the service of his people, right? God’s people serve him and God blesses them.

And isn’t it so often the way when you teach others, when you serve others, you go and do it and you come back and you say to yourself, man, I was so blessed doing that. I’ll go visit old people in old homes. Old homes, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Retirement villages, politically correct. Retirement villages. And so often I walk away more blessed than I’m sure I bless them. God delights to bless those who serve him.

It’s also a blessing for the hearer, isn’t it? Blessed is the one who reads. Blessed are those who hear. Just the simple listening to God’s Word being read is a rich blessing. Don’t neglect paying attention to the public reading of God’s Word.

It’s really easy, eh? Just to tune out halfway through a reading. Do you know how I know this is easy? Because I can tune out while reading it to you. I bet you didn’t realize that. I can often get halfway through a public reading of God’s word and all of a sudden realize I’m thinking about something else. But the words are still flowing out of my mouth and my eyes are still following the page. So if I can do that while reading, I’m pretty confident, unless you guys are the perfect congregation, I’m pretty confident you guys can tune out while I read the scriptures. Try not to. Heed the listening, hearken to the Word of God as it’s publicly read, and it will be a blessing to you.

I think it’s also a wonderful reminder for us to take up the Word and read it ourselves as well. Read it with our families, read it with our loved ones, read it to the unconverted. I mean, if it’s a blessing to read the Word and hear the Word, what’s the most loving thing you could do for your work colleague? And yourself. Just read the Word of God to them.

You know, people go, oh, what evangelism book do I need? What technique do you use? I’ve got a really great strategy. Read the book. And I’m not joking.

Some of you will know or remember the South Korean family at Covenant. Her husband is a missionary over in Israel and they converted a young Vietnamese man, I think he was, I can’t remember, a young lad. Do you know how he got converted? Every night they would just spend hours reading the Bible together as a family. That’s all they did. They never talked about it. They never discussed it. They just read the word of God over and over and over again. And every night he would come around. I’ll just read more Bible with you guys. This sounds like a cool thing to do. He wanted to learn English. He wanted to know more about the word. So he sat there and listened to them read it. And he got saved. Why? Because the word of God. It’s a sharp two-edged sword, right? Piercing between soul and spirit, dividing between bone and marrow. And so we can believe it will have effect.

However, there’s a third blessing. Blessed is the one who reads. Blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written.

One of the dangers of preaching and listening and reading is that we are experts at growing in understanding, which puffs up and really bad at doing. We can very quickly become like the man in James who looks in the mirror and immediately forgets his face. We can be hearers, but not doers.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about the fact that the book of Revelation is given for your practical application, for your life to be lived differently. It is an instructive book. Otherwise, John wouldn’t say it’s given to you so that you would keep it. But it’s just got weird pictures of dragons and stuff. And all of those pictures are given to provide you with a prophecy that changes how you live your life.

Because that’s what God’s Word always does, right? God, by His grace and mercy, is going to speak to us in His Word, in the book of Revelation, in such a way that we would go out from here changed, different, doing God’s word, keeping his commandments, keeping the law of God, keeping the word of Christ, being encouraged so that by the time we’ve finished the book of Revelation we should be different. We shouldn’t be the same because the book’s given to us for us to keep and do.

It is a practical book of prophecy addressing our present situations, our present lives, and bringing a revelation of Christ so that we would walk in his ways, so that we would advance the kingdom of God and see the darkness of this world pushed back.

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3. This Is a Letter — To Seven Churches in Asia

Thirdly, by the way if it gets too loud and you need me to talk louder at the back just raise your hand up and I’ll start shouting.

Thirdly, it’s a revelation, it’s a prophecy, but it’s also a letter. And so John writes in verse 4: John to the 7 churches that are in Asia. Grace to you and peace.

I wonder if that reminds you of anything. Does it remind you of all the other letters in the Bible? So how many of them? Paul’s just like, Grace, peace. Hey, it’s me, Paul. Grace and peace. Hey, it’s me, Paul. Grace and peace.

And do you remember how they so often end? Well, have a look at chapter 22. Chapter 22, verse 21. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen. Have you heard that and read that in any books before? Maybe like all of Paul’s letters, almost.

You see, this is a letter.

Now, this is important to recognize because letters require careful reading. Let me illustrate this.

If I send you a letter as your pastor which I used to do this a lot I used to write handwritten letters for people, if I write you a letter and you open it up and assume it’s from your fiancé you’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. Or, flip reverse, if the love of your life writes you a letter and you open it up and you think it’s from your grandmother, you’re going to read it all wrong, aren’t you?

You see, the information that surrounds a letter heavily impacts the way you read it. I mean, you’ve seen lovebirds, right? They open up the letter and maybe it’s had some perfume sprayed on it because someone’s romantic. And so they smell the letter and they keep it and they put it in the pocket of their jacket and they read it every day and they pour over it. It’s just all so gross. No one does that with a letter from their grandmother. They read it and it tells them, don’t forget to change your socks and do this and do that. And they go, thanks, grandma. And they put the letter away and store it maybe.

Now, this letter is a particular type of letter with a particular and specific context and information. And you might say interpretive rules that have to be followed. Otherwise, you’ll go off track.

So, for example, this letter has a specific historical context. John the Apostle, we’re told later on was on an island, Patmos, which was in the mid-nineties, which places it after the destruction of the temple. So he’s writing after the destruction of the temple and he’s writing to a church under Domitian and under Domitian they’re facing persecution. And a pastor has been removed and sent away to an island. And he, out of his love, is writing a letter to them, to 7 specific congregations who need encouragement. Why? Because Asia is suffering.

And the temptation is to think that the light of the gospel and the kingdom of darkness, sorry, the kingdom of light will be squashed by the kingdom of darkness. And the fear is that Rome wins and we lose. And John is writing to encourage the people of God that the kingdom of God will not fail. He’s writing to them with a specific message.

Sinclair Ferguson puts it really beautifully. He says, the entirety of the New Testament is a commentary on Jesus’s promise in Matthew: I will build my church and Hades will never overcome it. Okay so the entirety of the New Testament is a commentary on that promise. The book of Revelation is like the movie version. Or it’s one of those pop-up picture books. Remember those ones kids used to get? I don’t know if they still do them. You open up the page and this thing pops up. It’s 3-dimensional and you see all the different parts. It’s exciting and there’s things flashing and lights changing.

You see, this book is telling us a story of a King who will never forsake his people. A King who will always stand by and defend his kingdom and who will ensure that his church is never overthrown. And so it’s got a particular message to it that we have to pay attention for and that message is going to run all the way through. The enemies will rage but Christ will conquer. The kingdoms will make war but Christ’s will win.

And then it has a specific genre. It’s apocalyptic. Now, if you don’t know what apocalyptic genre means, just read the book of Revelation and some of the parts of Daniel, Zechariah, then you’ll start getting an idea. There’s animals that talk. If you don’t like talking animals in books, you might be in trouble. It’s got animals that talk. It’s got 4-headed beasts. It’s got dragons. It’s like a fantasy book.

I mean I love fantasy books, Lord of the Rings, I just love them, I could read them all day. This is like the best fantasy book on the face of the planet because it’s a fantasy book entirely true. You see it uses pictures and word imagery in order to tell something that is more real so that you would read the book of Revelation, you would enter into fantasy, for lack of better terminology, apocalyptic genre, and then you would come back out into the real world and see it and know it more clearly.

It’s interesting that this is what C.S. Lewis said about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He said the reason I’m writing this book is not for you to read it and say oh that equals that, that equals that. I’m writing it so that you would come and read it and then go back to your real world and understand the things of reality better. And that’s what Revelation is seeking to do for us as a letter.

However that means we have an interpretive read right and so one interpretive rule for reading the book of Revelation is everything is not to be taken literally unless there’s very good reason to do so. So you don’t get to the dragon and go, oh, at some point we’re going to have a dragon flying around and an earth beast and a sea beast and a woman with stars on her head giving birth and a dragon trying to eat her. No, they’re pictures, right?

The children find this very easy. Children read Revelation, they have no idea what it means, but they clear, it’s a picture, right? Tell them something, don’t know what, but it’s great. As adults, we struggle with this a little bit because we sort of leave the fantasy behind as we get older. So we have to re-enter into pictures and stories and metaphors unless the word expressly tells us.

For example chapters two and three it’s very clear these are words written from Christ to the church you take them literally. It’s very clear why just and to the angel of X church write these words. It’s a letter for you. But in verse 4, chapter 4, John looks and he sees a door and then he sees it’s open. And then someone tells him to come up here and he enters in. Now, if you take that literally, you’ve got a bunch of problems. Because last I checked, heaven doesn’t have a random door that you walk through. And how does he come up into it? So you need to honor the rules of interpretation that guide the book of Revelation.

Now, one more interpretive rule, and that is that the book of Revelation is written with Old Testament ink. The book of Revelation is written with Old Testament ink. What I mean by that is, 70 percent of the book of Revelation is either a quote, a reference, or an allusion to an Old Testament passage. 70 percent. That’s a lot, right? 70 percent of the book is Old Testament.

And the reason is that John’s interpretive lens is the Old Testament Bible. And so he’s seeing things he can’t understand in heaven. And the only way he can interpret that is with Old Testament. And then he records it for us in Old Testament language. And so it’s important that we don’t run away with pictures. When we see locusts, they have an Old Testament backdrop that helps us interpret them. They’re not tanks in Cold War Russia which was a legitimate thought at 1 point the locusts are the tanks and the end is nigh. But when we put things in their proper Old Testament context it enables us to properly understand the book.

And so we see that this is a revelation. This is a prophecy and this is a letter.

The letter means we must be careful with how we read. We read it according to the rules. We preach it according to the rules. We hear it according to the rules.

It’s a prophecy given to us to be a blessing that we might take it and read and apply it to our lives.

And it’s a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ so that as we enter into it, ultimately, the final outcome would be that we know more of our Saviour.

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One Very Important Application

Now I have one very important application that comes from this. You know, whenever you talk about the book of Revelation with anyone who’s obsessed with it, they will immediately ask you something like, oh, what’s your view on the millennium or on the tribulation or on the rapture or on X? And so then you meet people and they say I am a pre-trib rapture uh literal thousand millennia year uh life and you’re just like I don’t know what these labels mean.

Just honestly one of the best things you can do when you get to the book of Revelation is leave your frameworks and your views and positions at the door and be a student of God’s word. Humbly come to the book of Revelation and say, God, teach me today what you would have me know, that I might be blessed by hearing and keeping your word.

Brothers and sisters, I know it’s been a long blessed day of sweet fellowship. And this is a lot of just important information to take on at the afternoon stint while lunch is grumbling in our stomach. But it’s really important because otherwise we will misapply God’s word to our lives.

And so let me encourage you to do something. Let me encourage you to go away and as we work through Revelation, spend time reading and meditating upon it. Make it part of your weekly diet to read and be blessed by hearing the book of Revelation.

Because if you can do this one simple thing, see Christ, our glorious King, in the 22 chapters of Revelation. You will have got it.

So that when people come to you and they say to you, I really like the book of Revelation, but I’ve got no idea what it means, you can say to them the simple childlike answer, I know what it means. It’s telling us that Jesus wins and that everything’s going to be okay and that we can trust him.

Because at the end of the day, although that’s the message of pretty much every book, it’s especially the message of the book of Revelation to an embattled church in a difficult time when the winds of rain of providence are beating down upon the people of God.

So take it up and read. And join me in being blessed with some of the most elegant literary expertise by the apostle John.