Who is Writing Revelation?

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

Well, children, you might not be aware of this, but there was a time when we used to get lots of mail, and I’m not talking about junk mail. You know, like, you still get plenty of junk mail. The letter, there are, like, magazines and all the stuff that you basically just take out of the mailbox and throw in the bin. But no, I mean letters. Every day, you’d go to the mailbox and there’d be letters in there, and I used to love as a child going and getting the mail and picking it up and trying to guess what was inside of it. Of course, you weren’t allowed to open it, ’cause it was always mum and dad’s mail. But I’d look it up, you’d look at it and you’d, okay, who’s, who’s on it? What information is there on the back? Is there someone’s name, like sent by so-and-so? Whose handwriting is it? Or, you know, is it a bank letter? Is it a bill? You know, no one wants those ones, but there was, there was this game where it was like, okay, who are these letters from? And who it was from drastically impacted what was inside of right? If there was a letter and it said on the back, “From Mum,” you knew, oh, it’s coming from mum. It must be me being told off. Or it’s some lovely note from her. Probably the first. But if you got something from, like, a debt collector, it’s like, “Uh-oh, I owe someone money and they’re coming after me.” That’s a bit grim.

Well, you know, Revelation, as we begin the proper part of the vision, it begins with almost, like, the back of a letter. You know on the back of our envelopes, we write who it’s from? “This is the sender.” Well, that’s what we get right at the very beginning. It was very normal actually, in Greek writing, when—And you’ll notice it in a lot of the letters like Paul’s writing. He begins by saying what? “I, the Apostle Paul,” or, “I, the servant Paul.” Begins with the person’s name up front, and that’s because they didn’t have envelopes. And it would be really awkward if you wrote and r- read an extremely long letter and had to wait to get to the very end to figure out who wrote it, right? And so it was very normal, the author’s name would be right up front.

And it’s tempting for us to do what? Jump over the top and get to the next verse, ’cause it’s like, “Oh, okay. It’s John. Well, we all know John wrote it, okay, jump across.” But you may notice that, that every epistle says certain things in the introduction, and every letter, and every book, and all of them are for a very specific purpose, inspired by the spirit of God for our edification, to build us up. And, and John, we remember, don’t we, John is writing to a church that’s facing difficulties, that’s facing persecution, and he’s gonna be writing to them to tell them the vision, the purpose of which is to spur them on in their testimony, and to encourage them as they tire, as they grow weary in doing the work of the Lord. And, and one of the temptations for the people, uh, of the 7 churches would have been to think, “Well, that’s fine for you, John. You’re not in Asia anymore. You’re not going through what we’re going through.” And this, this way that John introduces himself brings an element of comfort and encouragement to heed and listen to what John is gonna say.

And he tells us 3 things. He, he says, “I, John, your brother,” firstly. “I, John, your brother.” Now, pop quiz, you don’t need to answer. Pop quiz. How many in- letters in the New Testament begin with, “I, Paul,” or, “I, Peter,” or, “I, John, your brother.” I wonder if you can guess. The answer is just one. Just the Book of Revelation. The Apostle Paul will frequently say, “I, the apostle,” “I, the slave.” He will speak of someone else, like “Timothy, your brother,” but he never says, “I, your brother.” It’s not because Paul doesn’t think he’s a brother. He’s just writing with a different sort of idea. Peter, again, he will talk about being an apostle, but he won’t say, “I, Peter, your brother.” He’ll say, “I, Peter, your fellow elder.” It’s only in the Book of Revelation, right here, as the elderly Apostle John writes and says, “I, your brother.”

Why? Why doesn’t he use apostle? I mean, he has every right to. He could’ve written in his authoritative capacity as an apostle, declaring with all solemnity and authority God’s word, but instead, though it doesn’t lack any authority, he writes to them as a fellow brother. He, he takes the position of, of humility. He lowers himself down and puts himself on a equal level with them, and says to them, “I- I’m not writing to you as your apostle. I’m not writing to you as your leader, as the one who’s pastored you, uh, in your very midst. I’m writing to you as a fellow brother.”

Why? Well, because he wants the people to know that, that he understands, and he sympathizes with them in the midst of their sorrow. That’s one thing. See, John knows, we’ll see this next week, he’s on Patmos, right? Tradition tells us he’s been boiled alive in oil, and he’s in exile on the island of Patmos. He knows what it’s like to suffer. He’s been beaten in Acts, and arrested, and imprisoned for his faith.

He also takes the position of humility because he knows ultimately before God there’s no difference between them, right? And he wants them to know that it’s not his apostolic authority that makes him able to comfort them, but ultimately it’s the reality of belonging to a Father. It’s the reality of having one elder brother on our side. It’s the reality of sharing in the same spirit in our midst that would bring us comfort and solace.

And this is a good reminder for us, isn’t it? Because w- we can fall on, 0 off a horse multiple ways. One of the ways we fall off the horse in this area is we begin to, to view other men and women in sort of like a spiritual elite category that is higher than us, which either excuses behavior like, “Oh, John, John’s an apostle. He’s elite, of course he can do these things. But I’m just a plebe. Uh, I’m just a nobody. I’m, I’m small. I’m insignificant. I can’t do these things.” So that’s one way we fall off the horse.

The other way we fall off the horse is by considering other people to be nothing, and looking down on them, and therefore expecting them to do everything while we lord it over them. And what John is doing, even though he’s still an apostle, even though he was still a disciple of Christ, he’s lowering all of themselves to the same level and saying, “Before God, as we stand here, we are just brothers. I’m a fellow brother with you.”

He’s also, he’s rooting love in this, isn’t he? It is a tenderness to this. It is a big difference if I write to you and s- and I say to you, you know, “Hi, it’s Pastor Logan here speaking to you,” and I’m talking to you in my official capacity as a minister, versus sitting down with you and saying to you, “I’m, I’m your brother, and I’m here ’cause I love you.” That’s what John’s doing. He’s saying, “I’m, I’m writing to you because you’re family. And family, family care for one another, family love one another.”

It’s encouragement for us not to exalt ourselves. Even as we appoint elders and deacons, and a pastor, Lord willing, next week, though those men are given a special function and a special office, yet they are not to lord it over other people, are they? They are to use it to what? To serve and to love. And so let us, brothers and sisters, be, be a people that honor authority structures, recognizing that God gives heads of families heads of churches, heads of states, but at the same time recognizing that in Christ, before God, there is no difference between you, between me, between a deacon, between an elder, between an apostle. Why? Because each and every one of us are saved by God’s grace. Each and every one of us has been set into the family of God by nothing that we have done. And so John wants to remind them of his sincere love for them as a brother.

He also wants to remind them of the fact that they are fellow sharers in the reality of the people of God. So he says to them in ch- verse 9, “I, John, your brother and partner.” That word partner is quite hard to translate, uh, or, or at least to capture in English in one word. It’s, it’s this idea of sharing in something. So a little bit like in Romans 11 when it talks about—Do you remember the, the picture of the olive tree, and branches are cut off and then grafted into it? And it says that when a branch is grafted into the olive tree, it shares in the olive tree. What does it mean to share in the olive tree? It means it, it has everything of the olive tree, right? The sap, the vitality, the life is shared into it. And, and, and it—So i- he’s capturing that idea of, of sharing in something.

He’s also communicating this idea of partaking in something. A, a little bit like the way we partake in the Lord’s supper. We come together Elise and simultaneously take, eat. And even though each one of us is individually doing something, we also understand we’re doing something together, right? There is this shared reality that’s being lived out and experienced in that. Paul expresses it a little bit different. He says that, that we share in the gospel—as we stand firm in it and confirm it. That’s in the Book of Philippians. So, Paul would say, “In the gospel, as we live out the gospel, we’re defending it by apology, and we are confirming it in our testimony.” And even though we do it here and someone does it in Turkey, we’re all doing it simultaneously because we share in this reality together as God’s people.

And, and John is saying, as he writes to a burdened church in Asia, and as the Spirit of God now speaks to us, John says that there are 3 things that we share in, that we partake in together, that we are partners in together. And those 3 things, he says, are the tribulation, the kingdom, and the patient endurance.

Now, I wonder what you think when you hear the word “tribulation”. Maybe you think, “Oh, that’s that great tribulation thing that people talk about that happens just before the rapture, when you get sucked up into the clouds and all the bad people get left behind.” Maybe it’s, it’s something different. Maybe you think, “Oh, tribulation. That’s like trials and afflictions, right?” And the New Testament uses the word primarily in the sense of affliction. The word “tribulation” is used a lot. It, it’s a word that expresses the experience of affliction, persecution, and suffering. But not, not just the type of persecution that comes for your faith, but all afflictions of life.

Now, Jesus expressly talks about the Great Tribulation in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 when He speaks about what happens just before His return, but that’s not what John’s talking about. John is talking about the difficulties and afflictions of life that we endure between the leaving and the returning of Christ. And at different times, the pressure of that tribulation has different intensity, right? I’ve, I’ve often reflected on this ’cause people, people in the West will say, “Well, it’s clearly not the Great Tribulation, ’cause life’s not that bad.” And biblically, the idea of the Great Tribulation is this time of turmoil and persecution that is so severe that even the elect would give up if it was not for God. And so people go, “Ah, well clearly it’s not the Great Tribulation.” And yet if you flew to Nigeria and went to a tribe where all of the men have just been massacred and the women have been abducted, what would they say? They’d be going, “Feels a whole lot like the Great Tribulation.” There is an intensity of pressure upon us to deny Christ that we’ve never experienced before. And, and that, that reality of intensity fluctuating and flowing in different parts of the world is exactly what John is referring to. It’s a, it’s a reality that will play out until Christ returns and rules over all of His foes.

And, and John is saying, “Church of Asia, I get it. I too share in this intensity of burden that tempts me to give up the fight.” And though we don’t face physical persecution, that same temptation and doubt can come to us in the West as well, can’t it? When life’s just hard, when you see the success of the wicked, when life’s just busy, when sickness overwhelms you, when the temptation of the devil comes and he says, “See? I always told you God isn’t good, God isn’t loving. Because if He was, this never would have happened. You’d never be experiencing this.” And so we’re tempted to give up on Christ, and so we share in this tribulation, every believer, every church. The, the things that we have been through and that we go through are not new, and that’s an encouragement for us. It was an encouragement for the Church of Asia, for this book and this letter, and this Word of God comes to us from one who knows. But not just John, right? Because it comes from Christ, who knew tribulation far better than us, who was made perfect through suffering, who was tried in every way and yet stood firm, and so is able to sympathize with us as our high priest.

And we also share in a kingdom, don’t we? It’s a theme that runs through the Book of Revelation, 2 kingdoms at war: kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God. And, and this question comes as you read through the book: Which kingdom will win? It’s the story of the Bible, really, isn’t it? Will the Kingdom of Christ win or the kingdom of this world? And what John wants us to know is that we share in a kingdom that will never fail. Remember those words of, of the writer to the Hebrews where he says in Chapter 12 that, “You have a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” The kingdoms rise and fall. Houses get shaken by earthquakes. Churches come and go. But the Kingdom of God, it can never be shaken because it is held by Christ Himself.

And so you do not need to fear, though the kingdom of the Emperor Domitian, who was persecuting the church, looks so severe and has the power to snuff out life, and is, is burning Christians alive and throwing them to the animals, and harassing them here, there, and everywhere, the believers sharing this one common thing. Though they can even take my life away or cast me into exile on Patmos, they can never take away the kingdom that I belong to. Because our kingdom is not of this world. Our kingdom is Christ’s kingdom, a kingdom that lasts forever.

And that should encourage us to press on, shouldn’t it? Not to grow weary and not to labor for the trivial things of this world. I mean, one day you’re gonna die. I know you young people tend to think that you’ve got another 100 years, but one day you’ll die too and everything you’ve worked for will rot in the ground. That’s a sobering thought, isn’t it? All of your money will be taken by another. All of your wisdom will be forgotten. Your body will decay in the earth, and you will disappear. And yet you will live on in glory in the Kingdom of Christ, and so we labor for a kingdom that does not perish.

Do you think Voddie Baucham this week regretted the work he did for the kingdom? As his heart failed and he opened up his eyes and beheld the King in His glory, do you think he said, “I really wish I had spent more time on the trinkets of this world?” Nay, surely he would’ve said, “Oh, what a kingdom I share in. If I had only known, if I had only known how splendorous it was, I would have given far more.” So may it be with us.

And yet the reality of, of living in a kingdom which is harassed and faces tribulation constantly, it requires something. And so John says we also share in what the patient endurance, the patient endurance. It’s actually just one word in the Greek. Just one word. And so often in any type of translation, it’s hard to capture ideas. John’s, John’s sharing something like enduring blows. There’s, there’s a, uh, an old Greek war book which talks about a, a general who had never lost a fight, and one of the ways it describes him is using this word, this endurance word, and it says that he, he endured many blows on the shoulders without ever giving way. quite a helpful little word picture, isn’t it? He endured many blows on the shoulders.

It’s a little bit like when we were kids, we used to give one another dead arms. I don’t know if your families did this. I was the youngest, which means I had the most dead arms. A- and, and you learned to endure dead arms. And, and you’d just be standing there doing something and one of your brothers would sneak around the corner and thump you on the arm really hard and you’d just be like, “Ah, my arm. I can’t feel it anymore.” But you learnt to endure blow after blow after blow, and what did it do? It made you stronger. as you endured longer. And the more blows you endured, the stronger you got.

And this is the type of picture being set before us, that as we endure through tribulation patiently, tribulation after tribulation, affliction after affliction, we grow in strength, but not in strength of outward frame, right? But strength of faith and trust in Jesus Christ, recognizing that like him, suffering is part of making us perfect. Remember I said earlier that he was made perfect through suffering? That’s Hebrews 2. He was made perfect through suffering. And so too for us.

So you think of James, what do we do when trials come? We count it joy. Why? Because suffering brings what? Hope and endurance. And so we know that this affliction, this tribulation is working something better in us. And so we lay aside the reality of the suffering and we look to the joy of the other side. It’s like Hebrews 12, when it tells us that Jesus endured the shame and the suffering of the cross. Why? For the joy that was set before him. And so we endure patiently, and we do this together.

This is a reminder for us. As the writer of Lamentations, Jeremiah says, “It is, it is good for a man to bear the yoke of his youth.” We don’t murmur and complain. We cry out to the Lord, but we don’t chaff him. We don’t murmur, but we entrust ourselves to God.

You know, brothers and sisters, I hope you understand that we’re not the first group of people to do something like this, to say goodbye, to resign, to walk away, to set their face towards something different and new. This is not original, and neither is the pain. Neither is the suffering. Neither is the joy. Neither is the privilege. But all of it is endured together with the saints as we seek to labor for Christ. And so we ought to take this vision to heart, recognizing that this, this vision that we’re going to consider, this letter that was given from John to 7 struggling churches in Asia was also given to us, right? Because we too are partakers with John in these things.

But there’s one more thing that John wants us to know, and that is that he is our brother, and that he partakes or shares or partners with us in these things, but that all of those things are in Jesus. He says, I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation, and the kingdom, and the patient endurance that are in Jesus.

0 on Wednesday night, I told, uh, some of you the story of the hymn that we’re gonna sing later, Blest Be the Tie That Binds. So, a pastor is called to another church because the congregation can’t support him, so he takes another call. And as he packs all his things on the cart, the whole congregation turns up. And with weeping and tears, they plead with him not to leave, because they love him. And he is so moved by this display of affection, by this love that they had for him, that he hops off his cart, unloads his stuff, and says, “I’m not leaving.” Why? Because they were bound together by Christian love as a shepherd and a sheep, and we know this, don’t we? The sense of a binding tie between us as we’ve walked through enduring, and suffering, and tribulation.

And yet the binding tie that truly sticks us together is not the love of a shepherd and a sheep, but the love, and the work, and the person of the great shepherd of the sheep. It is Jesus himself that binds all of these realities together. Why are we brothers and sisters? It’s not because we’ve signed adoption papers. It’s because Christ died for us. Why do we share in tribulation? Because we suffer with Christ. Why do we share in a kingdom? Because we have a king. Why do we share in enduring? Because we recognize our king is worthy of everything.

You see the only reason that any of this takes place and that we give ourselves to any of this, is because of the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ, in his person and in his work. And as we are united in his death and resurrection, all of this comes into reality. You see, without the union of Christ, none of this matters, none of it’s true. Just pack up and go home. But in Christ, everything’s different. You see, Christ didn’t just die out there somewhere and then send you a package of forgiveness. Paul says that when Christ died, what? We died with him, right? We share in his death, and we share in his resurrection, and we share in his ascension, and we share in his session, which means he’s sitting on the throne, his rule. That’s why Paul says in Ephesians 2 that you are raised into heavenly places, right? You’re not physically in heaven. I hope you realize that. I know it’s obvious. Life’s not very heavenly. But I hope you also know you are in heaven, because in union with Christ, you are seated in heavenly places.

And this is the thing, brothers and sisters, this is why this is so important, because I’m united to Christ, and you are united to Christ, and every other believer is united in Christ. This is what makes it so appalling when brothers and sisters turn on one another. So, while they’re in Christ, they turn and devour and slander one another. Could you think of anything more preposterous, anything more appalling? I mean, imagine, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but imagine the scene of a Siamese twin having a fight. It’s comical, I grant you. But imagine it. They’re joined, let’s say, at the hip. M- maybe you’ve seen these ones before. They’ve got 2 arms, 2 legs, they’re joined primarily at the chest, they share every moment of their life together. They can never separate because they don’t have enough organs for it to work. And then one day, they get upset at one another and they start fighting. They’re punching each other, and they’re punching one another in, in the kidney, which they both feel. A- a- and one of them puts the hand on the fire, knowing that it will burn and hurt the other one. It would be outrageous, right? But isn’t this exactly what we do? We’re, we’re so interconnected in Christ, in union, that, that when, when we attack and backbite and slander and revile another believer, we are so slandering and reviling ourselves in Christ, because whatever we do to a believer, we do to Christ.

And so, in our union together in Christ, we seek to share all of these things. And in our union in Christ, all of these things serve to transform us more and more into the image of Christ, even our tribulation, because that’s exactly what they did to Christ. And so the Apostle Paul says that we are transformed from glory to glory as we behold the glory in the face of Jesus Christ. And that’s why, in the next chapter, he can say that though these outer frames are fading away, we do not lose heart. We take courage and we press on, that though the gospel is held in jars of clay and this immeasurable tr- treasure of union with Christ is held in jars of clay, yet we live out these jar of clay lives with courage, with all the masculinity and femininity we can muster to the glory of Christ, ’cause that’s the calling that he’s placed upon us.

But it is striking, isn’t it, how often I’ve just said the name or the title Christ? You notice John doesn’t say Christ? He says Jesus. Now, y- you may not find that very striking, but when the Apostle Paul talks about union, he almost always uses the title Christ, the Messiah, but John doesn’t. John, who lived in the flesh with Jesus, who saw him glorified on Transfiguration Mountain, who saw him in the Garden of Tears, who saw him afflicted, despised, and 0 hated, who saw his dead body in the tomb, who saw him raised and glorified, says it is in Jesus. And he highlights, I think, the reality of the humanity of our savior. Why? Because we face all of these things in our humanity, don’t we? We share in tribulation and a kingdom and endurance, and we share in Jesus in our flesh. It is our earthiness in which we are bound to Christ in his earthiness as well, and we still have a glorified human savior, and one day we will see that glorified human savior, and we will look upon a man in the flesh and worship him for all of eternity.

One day, the tribulation will end. One day, the books will be closed. One day, the reality of the need of Revelation will no longer be present. You’ll never read Revelation again. Why? Because you’ll never need to. Because you’ll dwell with Jesus forever. Your personal, intimate savior.

And I guess as, as John reminds us of Jesus, not, not so much the king of verse four and five and six, not so much as the judge of verse 7, not so much as the almighty as of verse 8, but as he reminds us of the humanity of our savior, I guess it does beg the question for every one of us, doesn’t it: Is he my Jesus? Is this the one whom I love? Or is he just one that I love to hear about? I’m happy to hear others sing his name. I’m happy to hear others pray to him. I’m happy to hear his name preached. But is he mine? Is he yours? Because if he is, then you can truly face tomorrow because he lives.

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