We're going to do several things.
We're going to do a survey of the book. We're going to look
at the book from a survey perspective. That means we're going to look
at it, see how it's laid out, see how it's written, see the
major themes, see the confusing interpretations that have been
going on historically, all of them. We're going to look at
all of them. And not only are we going to do that, we're going
to learn about John. We're going to learn about apocalyptic
literature. We're going to learn about a
proper hermeneutic or an interpretation of the Bible. We're going to
learn how to read this letter. so that we, as we continue in
our Christian faith, will actually be able to begin to not only
read this letter and interpret it correctly and apply it, but
also read other aspects of Scripture that are a little bit convoluted
and a little bit hard to comprehend. And so, as we get started, I
just want to challenge you, do not get discouraged. Do not get
discouraged. Do not give up. Don't come for
the first two or three weeks and say, okay, I'm going to give
up because it gets better as it goes along. Do not fall into
the trap of thinking, okay, I've got my position,
and my position is what I'm sticking with, and so until pastor preaches
on my position, I'm not coming, or I'm just not going to pay
attention. Don't fall into that trap, because we've all got positions.
You might say, what position are you talking about? Your end
time position. your apocalyptic ideas, your revelation interpretation. And what I hope to show us as
we go through this letter in 16 to 20 weeks, that we will
realize that a lot of what we believe is true about this letter
is actually not taught in this letter, but it's speculation
and assumption. It's a lot of inference that people have pulled
out of things over the last 75 to 100 years, and we'll all be
better off for it. Now, along with that, when we
start to realize that some of the things that we believe are
not necessarily accurate, or maybe not necessarily thorough,
we have a tendency sometimes to get upset with ourselves.
Well, how can we be so dumb? Because that's what we are. We're
just dumb people trying to figure it all out. So thank God we have
each other, and we have the church, and we have the Bible, and we
have opportunity to help our dumbness not continue to control
us. And I'm not calling you dumb.
I said we, remember? All right. But that's what we
are. We just follow. Somebody stands up and says,
here, this is a cup, and we just believe it's a cup. Somebody
in a position of authority comes up and says, this means this,
we just accept it. Like some of the homeschool kids
today, me and another senior were talking, and one of the
younger students came up and said, what was all this? And
I said one thing, and the other student said another. And somebody
said, well, somebody's lying. And I said, well, who do you
think it is? And he pointed to the younger guy. He said, he's lying. I said,
why? He goes, because you have a beard.
bearded people don't tell lies. Yes, we do. We tell lies. Because
that's what happens. And sometimes we tell lies and
we don't even know we're telling lies. We're just regurgitating truth.
When I teach critical thinking, what is that? That's where we
learn to take what we think and criticize it, discern, discriminate,
so that we can come to conclusions that are actually well-reasoned
with authority rather than circular reasoned through autonomous thinking. What does that mean? I came up
with this all by myself. Well, coming up stuff with all
by ourselves is how most of the world gets in trouble. It's how
most of the cults have been created, and how most of the world religions
have come to be birthed with such vitality. And so as we get
started in this study, I want you just to sort of look at Revelation
for a minute. What does your Bible say that
is there when you look? It should say something like,
to John, or the revelation of Jesus Christ to John, and it's
only one revelation. So, lesson number one, it's not
revelations. Isn't that great? There's only
one thing to learn here. There's only one focus. There's
only one vision. There's only one opportunity
for us to see. Now, you might know people who
have studied this, but wait a minute, there's more than one vision.
There's seven. There's seven parts of the same vision. And
as we get started, I want you just to remember that revelation,
the Greek word apocalypse, means things revealed. Revelation. It's revealed. So John had full
understanding of what Jesus was showing him. John had full understanding
of those things that he perceived. John had full understanding of
all that he witnessed. And so we're going to pick that
apart and look at it, and I would love to, as I said before, preach
through this letter. I preached through just chapters
2 and 3. 17 years ago, and it took very,
very, very long time. It took a long time. I think
it was 17, 18 weeks of preaching just through those two chapters.
So when I told you it was a hundred and something, it'd take four
or five years or longer to literally go through exposition of this
text. And that's what happens. People who preach through Romans,
most of the time take six to seven years to preach it. And
we're finishing up this week, 1 Thessalonians, a very small
book. This will be the 30th sermon in 1 Thessalonians. Can you believe
that? 30 sermons. You might think, well, we could
do it quicker than that, but would you want to? Would you want to
miss that which the text has already told you? And so because
we're not going to exposit this text, it's going to be on you,
the reader, the learner, the Christian, the church, to read
this and to get into a system of study. And I would highly
recommend you start with the Gospel of John and then move
to the Epistles, then move to the Apocalypse in your personal
study. So let's talk about that for a minute. But before I do,
let me say these things. The Bible teaches us that God
opposes the proud. I want you to hear this. God opposes the proud. What's that mean? He stands against
the proud. He stands against the proud, and when God stands
against something, it's not a very good thing. It's not a standing
against you shoulder to shoulder as we charge through brother
to brother. Standing against means he's in
opposition to, and in much sense, condemnation of that which he
stands against. Humbleness, humility, is the
mark of true spirituality. If we look at Jesus Christ and
His life and we see Paul's teaching to the church of Philippi, we
see Him saying, have this mind among you which is yours in Christ
Jesus. That though He was what? Equal with God, did not take
equality with God, something to be grasped, but made Himself
a nothing, obedient unto death, a slave, obedient unto death,
even on a cross. Therefore God exalted Him. Now
consider the fact that we as Christians who have been purchased
and redeemed by the blood of Jesus, have the mind of Jesus,
have the Spirit of God that fills us with all the fullness of God.
So therefore as believers, one of the primary marks of our lives
is humility. The scripture also teaches that
wisdom puffs up. It puffs up. And puffed up is
meaning proud. It gives us an esteem. We feel
like we're higher than others. Let me give you a little glimpse
into my late teens and early twenties of just how awfully
sinful and wicked your pastor has been. And if it were not
for the grace of God, would still be. No, I'm not going to confess
crazy things and debauchery. I'm going to confess to you that
by the age of 15 I was already preaching. I was known as the
thumper because I carried a Bible to school. People would come
to me and pick fun at me one day, and the next day come and
say, can you pray for me privately? I mean, so my sins weren't sins
that you might think. My sins were the sin of arrogance. My sin was the sin of pride.
My sin was the sin of superiority. My sin was the sin of absolute
academic ability. I never looked at a book. I never
listened to anything. If you said something to me,
and still to this day I have a pretty good auditory memory.
If we talk, I remember pretty much how many breaths you took
in that talk. But the Lord has given me that ability and I'm
thankful for it, but it is not something to be esteemed. When
I would get into debates with people, especially older folks
that were my teachers or parents, talk to my mom about it. She'll
tell you when she'd go nuts with the fly flap. Why? because I
would take opportunity when I could not get people to hear me, or
understand me, or to continue on a debate with me, that I would
just change my vernacular. I would go into all those years
of reading encyclopedias, and all those years of reading not
just English, but Old English, and French, and Spanish, and
other language dictionaries. Did you do this too? See, and
I would just do that. I would learn words. I had it
in the high school. I would learn two new words a
day. that were not ever even heard of, and I would incorporate
them into my work in school so that my teachers would go, I
don't know this word, and I would go, ha, stupid. I mean, you know,
it made me feel powerful. And so when someone would sort
of get an edge on me, I would come out of this normal English
Southern hick talk and I would turn into this incredible thesaurus. And I would begin to speak and
construct sentences and the syntax of my speech would get to such
a high brow that people would get angry because they could
not comprehend what I was speaking of. And then I would feel like,
gotcha, ya dummy. I mean, that's the heart that
I had. It's a wicked place. And friends,
don't think that it's not going to happen to you if you gain
knowledge. Because if the Spirit of God
does not give us humility, we will become arrogant. And that
will bleed over into everything we do in our relationships. It'll
bleed over. Don't believe me. When I began
to read the scriptures in a thorough way and the doctrines of grace
came to life for me, I did not know that's what they were called.
I did not know anything about Reformation. I did not know anything
about the history therein. But I began to share these things.
And I began to become very pompous with these things. When I started
to understand, even in the sense of this apocalypse, when I started
to learn to read Scripture, and I started to learn how to use
tools and use concordances and use things that could help me
with the Greek language, I would find opportunity to go find somebody
who used to debate with me on these things just so that I could
get in their face. Evil. Sinful. But God in His mercy, instead
of cutting off my head and rolling me into a fire, He gave me grace
and let me make a fool of myself and then gave me a year and a
half to fix all that stuff and to bring restoration with a lot
of people that I had hurt just because of being just sharp with
them and not kind and tender. It's totally unqualified to be
a pastor, but yet God continued to put me in the pulpit every
weekend and week out. because it was all about arrogance.
It was all about pride. I want us to guard ourselves
from that. How do we do that? Recognize
that no matter what you're able to see as we study the Bible,
whether it be this, or the letter of Jude that we've already preached
through, or Titus, or 1st and 2nd Timothy, or whatever it might
be that you're going through in your Bible study, or something
you may watch, whether it be John Piper, or John Owen, or
John Edwards, or any other John, because they're all holy people.
It's very easy to start feeling prideful. And it's very easy
to start thinking, well, man, I know some stuff that most people
don't get. I can get things that most people don't know. I am
superior. And we would never look in the
mirror and say, I am superior than they. We wouldn't do that. It's not that obvious where we
go, wow, look at that sin. No, it's deceit. It's deceitful.
We're deceived. It's a very deceptive arrogance. And how do we know it's there?
Because when we learn the Word of God, when we learn theology,
when we learn things that are related to that which we love,
Jesus Christ and His church, we begin to all of a sudden have
opportunity to share this stuff. It happens. Some of us have probably
never even considered having a conversation about end times
with anybody. The minute, I bet you by week
five, some of you are going to come back and say, you know what,
I had a co-worker today ask me about end times. You know, I
had a woman this morning literally tell me that we need to be watching
the news more as a church. I went, why? Because if we saw
exactly what was going on, we'd realize we need to change what
we're doing because Jesus is about to come. And I said, that's
awesome. What news are you watching? I
watch them all. She said. I know, some of you know what
I'm talking about. But, I mean, this is, okay, great. What do
you mean? Well, you know, this means that,
and that means this, and that means, now, 20 years ago, I would
have answered that a lot differently than I did today. 20 years ago,
I would have said, where did you get that stupid idea? Or,
trying to be nice, can you show me that in the Bible? Neither
one of those are really false, but it's not the way we handle
it. So what did I do? I said, you know, I don't really
want to watch the news. I believe the Bible has taught
us that The imminent return of Christ has been on the precipice
of time ever since He ascended into heaven, and that God has
transcended from time. He's apart from it. He created
it. It's an object that He made for His purposes. So therefore,
there's no clock ticking for God. There's no clock ticking
for Jesus Christ. And though these things may be
interesting and they may be pressing, something that I think the Bible
prescribes for us to watch. As a matter of fact, I think
the Bible teaches us that we should not worry about when,
but be ready whenever, and not worry about whether we're setting
up an end time moment, but rather do that which God has called
us to do, to preach the gospel, to live as a holy people, to
love each other, and to continue doing it, and that when Jesus
Christ comes, we're caught doing exactly that same thing that
He's called us to do this day. Wow, I never thought of it like
that. I said, because what the devil does when we think tomorrow's
the day is we sit on our hands and we go, okay, let's get our
bullets, let's get our grain, let's get our water bins, let's
stack it all up, let's preach horror. Guess what? The gospel
of Jesus Christ is not the horror of judgment. It's the freedom
from it. The end time is when Jesus Christ
comes to judge the earth. Not the land, not the plants,
not the animals, but the people. All people. When we see in John's
Gospel where Jesus says to the Pharisees, there will come a
day when the Son of Man will speak and all human beings will
hear the Son of Man and they will come out of the graves,
some unto eternal life, some unto eternal condemnation. And what will the church be doing?
We'll be ready. We're being sanctified every
moment because our righteousness is not our own. And as we learn
these things, we must pray that God would not puff us up, but
God would humble us in reminding us that if it were not for His
grace, and if it were not for the grace of God through the
sending of the Word, and sending someone to preach the Word, and
share the Gospel to us, we would be just like everybody else in
the world. We would live in fear. We would
live in hate. We would live in arrogance. We
would live in rejection. we would live in condemnation,
in the shadow of the justice of God's righteousness. But God
has given us grace, so that when we engage, even those who hate
us, much like what you experienced Saturday, those of you who went,
that people hate the gospel. If you were standing out there
and you had a shirt on that says, Jesus loves you, or even if you
had a shirt on that says, repent, believe the gospel, but you were
handing out water bottles, hey man, I know it's hot out here,
you want some water? People would love you all day long. But when
you actually stand the way Jesus did, who stood there at the Feast
of Booths and said, behold, I am the living water, All who are
thirsty, come, and you will never thirst again. All who are hungry,
feast, and you shall never be hungry again." And they mocked
Him and they laughed at Him. When we share truth, people hate
us. Let's not add arrogance to the
reason why. Friends, that's a hard thing
to understand because it's so deceitful. And most of the time
it's not because we are kind. Most of the time it's really
not interpersonal, it's internal. Most of the time the arrogance,
it's not like me, I like to feel like I was in control of a conversation.
I was just young and stupid. Had no supervision, had no pastor
to really authoritatively groan me and groan me in church discipline
and learn that if I did this again, I'm going to be kicked
out. But for most of us, it's internal.
We sit and we think, wow, we've got it. Let's just realize that
we don't have it. He has us. So let's talk about
Revelation. Let's look at verse 1 of chapter
1. And, well, we'll just read the first three verses. We're
not going to really fall into these verses from exposition
this evening, but I want us to hear it, the introduction to
this letter. the revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave Him to show His servants the things that must
soon take place. He made it known by sending His
angel to the servant John, who bore witness to the word of God
and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
And 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. Now here's this prologue. Here's
this open introduction to this letter. And the very next line
says, to the seven churches that are in Asia. This is present-day
Turkey, Middle East, these areas here. And if we think about this,
what do we see here in this context? The revelation of Jesus Christ,
God gave Him to show His servants the thing that must soon take
place. Sending His angel to the servant John. Look at verse 2. Who bore witness to the word
of God, and who bore witness to the testimony of Jesus Christ,
even to all that he saw. And so one of the ways of interpreting
anything you read, I carry a small little handwritten note in my
wallet that was written in 1995 by my wife-to-be, some seven
months before our wedding. And I was going out of town on
a trip and she slipped it in my Bible And I found that after
I got on the airplane, she was just saying how much she loved
me, and how she longed to see me again when I came home, and
that one day she was looking forward to being my wife. She
didn't really understand what that was going to entail when
she wrote that, you know. 20 plus years later, she's like,
well, I could have done better, but you'll do. I mean, you know,
by the Lord's grace, we've managed to continue in the covenant that
we made. But that letter, if it dropped
on the floor, and you found it, you'd see the name James at the
top, and you'd see a signature that you could not read. It says
Robin, first name Robin. It looks like R, whoopie-doop,
N. And that's what it looks like.
And you would read that, and you'd think, oh, isn't that sweet?
And at the heading of that, it would say, From the Desk of Ogden
to Remus. And for those of you who are
from Canada County, you know Ogden Doremus served as state
court judge for 7,349 years. And he was 900 years old when
my wife worked for him as his secretary. And so at work that
day, that's where she wrote that. But if you didn't know her, the
author, and you didn't know where she lived, you'd think, has Ogden
written to someone named James? Because we can't read the letter,
the signature. Ogden was gonna marry James?
Wow! See, we have to know who wrote
what we're reading, and we have to know to whom it was written,
and we have to know the circumstances around it. You might say, well,
how does that work? We don't have the history of
John. We do too. I mean we know some historical
things about this point in time just by looking at the Acts of
the Apostles. Just by looking at John's Gospel. No, I know
more about John and his culture because there are historians
that I've read. But that would be really a big
mistake for me to say in order for you to interpret John's revelation.
that you'd have to know all the details of his life. That's not
what I'm talking about. But you do need to know that
he wrote it. And you do need to know who John is. Well, it
tells us there in the beginning that John was a witness to the
glory of the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ. Now, as someone who absolutely,
if I cut my arm, John would come out. I'm being funny. You're like, what is he taking?
I love the Yohannan literature. I love John's writings. And I can't get over it. I love
everything else about Scripture too. 2 Corinthians 4 is an amazing
text. Jude is awesome. Everything I think, everything
I do, everywhere I am, every sermon that I read, write, prepare,
or preach, John's words are there. Most of you have been around
for a while, you know it's the joke. Everything's coming back to John
3 or 6. Everything's coming to John 11 or 12. Everything's going
to John 17. It is the go-to. Why? Because as I started to read
John, Jesus Christ came alive to me in a way that He's never
been alive ever, ever, ever through the Scripture. John's Gospel
takes Jesus not like the synoptics that we see a story unfold, but
John's Gospel takes Jesus as if He were with us, talking to
us. Because John's Gospel is different than the synoptics
in that way, is that in the first three Gospels, the synoptics,
they go together. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see
the narrative of Jesus' life and ministry. Really only, I
don't know, three and a half years in quick succession. But in John's writing, especially
in John's Gospel, we see Jesus not talking to the masses and
teaching. We don't see His big... Discourses like we do in the
other Gospels, we see the truth of the whole. For example, like
at the end of John 2, many people believed in the name of Jesus
because of the great signs that He did. But Jesus Himself did
not entrust Himself to them. I know it seems redundant, but
that's what the Greek sort of implies. And then it says, for
no one had to teach Him about man. Jesus knew what was in the
heart of man. And in verse 1 of chapter 3 it
says, now there was a man. And so we see the overarching
effect of what's going on in the life and the ministry of
Jesus, and then we see a one-on-one conversation. Then we see the
woman of Sychar after Jesus is kicked out of the temple. Then
He goes to the Samaritans of Sychar and to a fallen woman
who has had more lovers than any woman of the night. How do
I say this in proper company? And then she is saved when the
very Jews that held the oracle of His coming rejected Him. We
see it over and over and over again where Jesus is personally
dialoguing with people. And friends, when I read John's
writing, I see Jesus and I hear Him speak to me. And that's why
it's always been a common evangelical practice when someone believes
on Christ and is born again, we tell them what? Three things
you need to do. You need to get into a Bible-believing
church. You need to be baptized in obedience to the Scripture.
And you need to read the Gospel of John. We say it all the time.
You need to read the Gospel of John. Why? Because Jesus is portrayed
that way. John's writing gives Jesus so much intimacy with Him, so
much intimacy with us, the reader, because John had such intimacy
with Jesus. And I want you to understand
this. Now it's debated. Higher criticism? Ah, who cares
about higher criticism? I really don't. I know Brother
Trey mentioned it about three Tuesday nights ago, and it's
a good conversation. It's something that's interesting,
but I'm not really interested and worried about what scholars
think about the criticism that they put upon the scripture,
and the original text, and the fragments, and the papyri, and
all of these things, and so many people would say, well John probably
didn't write his gospel. He probably didn't write his
gospel, because that's probably, Jesse you mentioned this to me
I think a couple of weeks back, or something about, you know,
no it wasn't you. You know, he's not the disciple
that Jesus loved. Was you? The Jewish guy, right? And so we're looking back, does
it matter really? It matters to me, but does it
really matter? Because whoever wrote that gospel, wrote those
letters, and they wrote that apocalypse. It's attributed to
John, and historically we know as we see his protege, his contemporary,
Polycarp, we see the context in which John wrote, and we see
this man write letters and commentaries and things that relate this to
John, and we see the early church, I attribute them to John. John
wrote this apocalypse in exile between 93 and 96 A.D. That's
debated by many scholars. People say, well, it couldn't
have been that late because we think it means the destruction
of the temple, which happened in what year? 70. The destruction
of the temple in Jerusalem. So surely this great tribulation
was the destruction of the temple. this great thing. If it were
really written that late, and if it were really written by
such a Jewish writer like John, then he would have mentioned
that. Why would he? Is this not what Jesus showed
him and told him to write? Who's to say what should or should
not have been written according to human reason? God has written
the Word of God. He has written His words. He
has told these apostles what and when and how to write. And
this Word is true. John has witnessed the glory
of God face to face. I want you to consider the first
epistle of John, just the first few verses. That which was from
what? The beginning. That which we
have heard and we have seen with our eyes, and we have looked
upon, and we've touched with our hands concerning the word
of life. The life was made manifest, and
we have seen it, and we testify to it, and we proclaim it to
you. the eternal life, which was with
the Father, and which was made manifest to us, that which we
have seen, and that which we have heard, we proclaim also
to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed
our fellowship is with the Father, and our fellowship is with the
Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things,
here it is, so that our joy may be complete. Now this is John. He was the only disciple at the
cross. Now think about this for a minute.
Everybody else ran. John ran. And then John goes
back. John watches the Savior die in the flesh. John watches
the mockery. John watches the blood spill
out. John hears him. Elo, elo, elam astabachthani.
He hears Jesus cry out the words of the prophecy. My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me? He hears Jesus cry out, I thirst. He sees him die. He hears him
tell the thief on one side, today, this day, you will be with me
in paradise. He saw the glory of God. John
chapter 1, if you go there, you see this continuation. which
was the beginning. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. He was in
the beginning with God. All things were made through
Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
He was life, in Him was life, and the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it or comprehended it. There
was a man sent from God named John the Baptist. He came as
a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe
through him. He was not the light, but he
bore witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens
everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and
the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But
to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave
the right to become the children of God. Not, why? Who were born, not of blood,
nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. And we have
seen His glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, from
the Father, full of grace and truth. And this is what John
said when he bore witness about Him and cried out, This was He
whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because He
was before me. And from His fullness we have
all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever
seen God. He who is at His side, at the
side of the Father, makes Him known." I mean, you see these
words. Do you see the beauty of the intimacy that John had
with Jesus on this earth? I'm willing to say these things
and it is a great assumption based on the principle of the
evidence of John's writing that there has never been a human
being, there has never been a man or woman or child that has lived
this life on earth that has had the intimacy that John the disciple
has had with Jesus. We see the inner three, James,
John, and Peter. And we see Jesus saying that
the disciple whom He loved was John. Something that you'll realize
too about John's writing is that he never names himself there.
Never. Why? Because we assume the intimacy
he had with Jesus was very well known. In so much that if John
were to write his name on a napkin, people would want it because
in their minds it would be the next best thing to Jesus. So
in humility, John does not even put his autograph on the very
letters that he wrote. It's like someone having the
answer to all the world's cancer and writing it in book form and
never signing as the author. Let the world see this great,
glorious gift without looking at me. After all, did not John
record the words of the baptizer, John, the crazy, wild man? He must increase and I must decrease. When his own disciples barked
complaints that all of our disciples are going to Jesus, And John
says, why should they not? The bridegroom gets the bride.
Beloved, just as John's Gospel brings the bridegroom to us,
so does John's letter, so does John's apocalypse. And I want
you to know that the Gospel of John and since would actually
teach us the person of Jesus Christ. And these things are
written that you may believe, and thus believing you may have
eternal life. That's the purpose of John's Gospel. That you may
believe on the Son of God, that you may believe on Jesus the
Christ, and in believing, you have eternal life. The purpose
of John's epistles are to give instructions to his readers about
the sufficiency of the grace of God found in Jesus Christ
to transform a people for the sake of His glory and for the
sake of His name. And that there is light and nothing
but light to be given. through Jesus Christ. Jesus even
tells us that in John 3 as He's speaking to Nicodemus, that this
is the judgment. The light has come into the world,
but people love the darkness rather than the light because
their works are evil. They do not come to the light
lest their works be exposed. But all who come to the light
do so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been
carried out in Theos, in God. Not for God, not for the glory
of God, but in God. God has carried out the works
of light and righteousness in His people. And friends, the
epistles teach us that. 1 John teaches us to know the
message of the glory of God is the light of His righteousness
and holiness. It teaches us that our walking
in darkness cannot be if we are indeed in the fellowship with
God and in fellowship with the Son and in fellowship with the
light. It teaches us that we ought to be discerning, that
we ought to know the old commandment that you had from the beginning,
which is no new commandment. Though I have a new commandment,
it is to love your brother. For anyone who says he has fellowship
with Christ, but does not love his brother, lies and lives in
darkness, and does not practice the truth, but practices lawlessness,
and all sin is lawlessness. We learn that we ought to test
the spirits because God's Spirit dwells within us, because the
light of the Gospel shines in our hearts to give us the light
of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ, so that when
we see the beauty of Christ, because God, through the hearing
of the Word, has taken the scales from our eyes, we actually now
are able to embrace freely, with all the fullness of our new heart,
the beauty of God through Jesus Christ. so that we love Him with
an affection that is supernatural and inexplicable. We follow Him
with things that are not of our flesh, but are of God. And we
move in such a way to test the spirits that fight against that
truth. And in doing so, we are able
to stand victorious. For who is it that is victorious
but Jesus Christ who has been raised from the dead? As John
would write, greater is He that is in you than he who is in the
world. Who is it that is in the world? You've heard that Antichrist
was coming and yet is in the world and not one but many that
are already in the world. And this is the spirit of the
Antichrist. Anyone who would deny that Jesus has come from
God in the flesh is the spirit of the Antichrist. Beloved, know
these things. Know these things, John would
say, for the Father, for the Spirit, the water, the blood, they testify to Jesus
Christ. The Word testifies to Jesus Christ
as we see in John 5. And we go continually into the
writing of John. And as we see it, we begin to
understand the nuances in which he wrote. We begin to understand
the affection that he had for Christ. We begin to see actual
phraseology in a vernacular that no other apostle, no other writer
in the New Testament or the Old carries with them. We begin to
see a language of intimacy that only John had. And when we get
to the Apocalypse, We see Jesus and are saved because of what
God wrote through John's gospel. We walk in the light of salvation
and hope and victory because of what John wrote in his epistles.
And we walk with the hope of the overcoming power of our King
when we look at John's apocalypse. They go together. They cannot
be separated. They are one song and sound letter
to the church of Jesus. The synergy with John's writing,
believe me, I see it. But you cannot believe me until
you see it. But the synergy of John's writing,
I believe, is the heartbeat of the New Testament. Now that's
a tall thing to say, and it is a personal opinion based on my
study of John. Can anyone be that excited about
Mark? Yes. How about Luke? Absolutely. Though Luke's Greek
is troublesome. It's hard. Matthew? You betcha. Don't want to preach
those first 19 verses though, remember? Baguette, baguette, baguette,
baguette, baguette. But when it comes to the apocalypse, friends,
there's been a lot of problems. There's been a lot of problems
because people fail to understand the key. The key to understanding
the imagery, the metaphors, the narrative, the prophecy, and
the apocalyptic coding, or the apocalyptic writing. It's not
even hidden codes. In John's writing of Revelation,
the key to understanding them is to read his letters and to
read his Gospel, because the language starts there, and we
understand clearly what is to be said. And what we've done
with this, as we've brought such problems to our learning, such
presuppositions, that none of us can even go to Revelation
and enjoy it. We can't enjoy it. Nobody reads
it. If it's not a study Bible, we
don't even try. What's that mean? What's that mean? What's that
mean? You can't read a letter like that. We can't even enjoy it. Nobody
preaches it. They pick it apart. The Jehovah's Witnesses took
it and said there's only 144,000 people in heaven. And that made
good sense in the 40s. Did it? Made really good sense in the
60s. Makes even more sense now. No, no, no, it's not 144,000
people only. It's 144,000 people that will
rule with Jesus, and everybody else will be on paradise and
earth while Jesus sits on high with 144,000. How do we know
who they are? Well, they take communion. Me and a buddy in
Cali thought one day we'd go to a kingdom hall and bust in
there and just eat that communion bread. Because in asking a Jehovah's
Witness apologist one day at my home, it was the seventh week
in a row we'd met for Greek studies, How do you know who's an elder?
Whoever takes the Lord's table. I said, and how do those people
get selected? He said, God tells them in their
heart. How long have you been a Jehovah's Witness? You know,
23 years. How many people have ever taken the table? None. So
we thought, let's go. I could take the table. We didn't.
I mean, it would have been a great story though. Put a body cam
on and try it. We're not going to try it. There's
one in Metter. I'd rather not put any more fire behind me. So we take these pieces and we
just come up with what we want to come up with. We like to look
at the apocalypse and we want to say, okay, well I know this.
I know this is the Word of God and John Hagee says, you know
who John Hagee is? John Hagee is the king of charts.
John Hagee, don't go look him up and watch him. I can give
you 43,000 reasons, and that's hyperbole, it's only 42,000,
that John Hagee is not a sound teacher. Many, many things. But he is the king of charts.
And I remember the first time I saw Hagee teach out of Revelation.
Dude had a chart the size of the width of his auditorium. Homeboy, that chart, he would
walk for like six minutes to get down here to this end of
the chart and walk for another six minutes to get down here
to this. And I was like, man, I got to have a chart like that. So I
bought one. It wasn't as big because I didn't
have a $400 million sanctuary to put it in, but I put it on
the wall of my office. I'm like, man, I'm on no revelation
back to forward. And it's a pretty neat chart.
It talks about this and that, and it shows people being cast.
I mean, it's not just a chart. I mean, it's illustrated. It's
got Jesus chucking people in the lake of fire. I mean, it's
a beautiful piece of art. It does have that, but it's not
beautiful. It's sort of weird. But John Hagee would say, oh,
this is going to happen, and this is Russia, and this is Palestine,
and this is going to happen in 1986, and this is going to happen
in 1948, and this is going to happen in 2011. Oh, I meant 2012.
Oh, I meant 2013. His last prediction was 2015
was the second coming of Jesus Christ because of the moons. Remember, he made 400 some odd
million dollars on the royalties of those books about the blood
moons. Is there significance? Absolutely. God has beautifully
and intricately made the universe. And lunar eclipses are also common. They're recorded in history all
the time. Well, it's about the, I was coming
down to Israel and it's coming here for these people. I got
sort of sound like Nixon. I mean, you know, and he just
made money. But he made a false prophecy.
Not once, not twice, not three, four times. And it's about money. And that's not the purpose of
Revelation. We're not supposed to be figuring out exactly when,
what, and how. And when we get to these visions,
when we get to these seven parts of this vision, the recapitulation
of what John writes, we start to see, wow, that doesn't make
sense to us anyway. Even if it were true, it's forbidden. For no one knows the time and
the hour. No one knows the time except the Father. Even as much as saying that the
Son of Man, Jesus in His humanity, does not know the time when He
will return. You see that? He knows it. But we saw that in that the divine
nature of Jesus never even informed His humanity. After the ascension,
of course. But understand, no, not even
the God-man had that knowledge on earth. Yes? Oh, I thought
you had your hand up. Anyway, so the purpose of the
book then, what is it? And we'll close with this in
the next five or six minutes. The purpose of Revelation is
to prepare Christians of this day for the real struggle against
the Roman imperialistic cult. The Roman imperialism that hated
hated Christianity. And John, in some sense, is writing
from a pastoral perspective to shepherd the flock of Jesus Christ
to the situation of martyrdom and persecution. That is the
primary occasion for which John wrote this letter. It's what
Jesus was showing. It's a blessing to those who
read it. It's these things that will soon take place. This real
and potential persecution, this martyrdom that they did experience,
they wanted, God wanted, Jesus wanted them to have a clear understanding
of what the outcome would be. And what's interesting is there's
nothing in Revelation that any born-again believer should ever
fear, but rather we should pray, bring it, bring it, bring it!
If it is future. If this even in sense, and it
does, it talks about the day of judgment. If we're worried
about the day of judgment, John says perfect love cast out all
fear, we don't stand in condemnation. Paul would say to the Romans,
therefore now there is no condemnation. Matter of fact, when He appears
we'll be like Him. It's what we're looking for,
not death and first heaven. That's not the end. That's like,
okay, now when? And we even see that in the writing
of Revelation. The martyrs are under the throne. When, God?
When? The day of judgment is a day of joy for the church. Not fear. Don't pray that it
would stop. Bring it, Lord Jesus. Bring it. Another purpose of the writing
of this. is not only to deal with this pastorally about martyrdom
and persecution by the Romans, but also to give Christians assurance.
Give Christians assurance. Because as I talked about my
ability to humiliate people when I was a teenager, because I would
just talk over their heads, people who were over these Christians,
they had the power to humiliate them. But when Christ returned,
they would be with Him. The King of kings, the Lord of
lords, the Alpha and Omega. When our King stands and ends
all time, we are glorified with Him. And everyone who put us
to the blade, to the fire, to the animals, and to death, stands
in awe that we are vindicated. Vengeance is mine. Revelation
assures us that God and His triumphant victory will be celebrated in
history. The oppressors will not prevail. The church wins. A third thing, according to the
purpose of this letter, is that Christians should stand firm.
Do not fall away. Do not fail. Do not think it
crazy that this great trial and persecution come upon you. Sound
familiar? Do not think it odd. It's coming. Anyone who desires to live a
godly life will be persecuted, Paul tells Timothy, as bad people
go from bad to worse. Stealing, killing, destroying,
murdering, lying, envying, coveting, lying, gossiping. It's going
to get worse and worse and worse and worse. And God one day will
come and set it all straight. Ephesians 1.10, all things will
be subject to the feet of Jesus Christ as the conqueror. All
things. So we are going to persevere,
no matter how hard it may be. And finally, in closing, the
final purpose of this letter for us as the church is that
it's a reminder that victory always comes through suffering. There is no such thing as victory
without suffering. It cannot happen. The easy way
is the way of destruction. The best life now is all you'll
ever have. But suffering, Hardships, pain,
death, martyrdom, hated, people being hated, the stress of children,
the stress of marriage, the stress of job, the stress of money or
the lack thereof, the sins of our hearts, greed, pride, depression,
pity. All these things are costly.
And the victory over them is because Jesus stepped out of
heaven, was born through the womb that He created, and He
grew as a human being, and then He began a ministry, bringing
glory to the Father, and suffered as a criminal when He wasn't
guilty of any of it. God has exalted Him. We are,
as Jesus is the Lamb of God, we are also led to the slaughter.
Friends, there is no legislation that will protect you from martyrdom. None. No governments. If you want to look at the news,
one of the things that should frighten you the most about the
liberties that we have is not Islam. It is not the laws supporting
or not supporting Christianity. It's not birth control rights.
It's the fact that a corporation, the NCAA, can hold hostage an
entire city government because they will not make their bathrooms
transgender. An entire state government, North
Carolina. If a corporation can do that
to a sovereign state, to the most powerful man or woman in
the confines of the boundaries of that incorporated place? What do you think they can do
to the church? What do you think they can do to the church? They'll
do whatever the Lord allows them to do in the day of the Lord. We have no fear of that. Christ
is victorious over it all, and nothing, nothing, nothing will
separate us from the love of our God. Let's read that in closing. You know that text? Romans 8,
38 and 39. Now look at 37. Oh, heck. Go up to 31. Let's just read the whole eight
chapters. What shall we say to these things? What things? brought us to salvation, and
we have a glory looking forward that we can hope in, even though
we suffer, even though even the creation suffers for restoration. We are heirs with Christ, so
we are living then by Christ in the Spirit, not the flesh
or this world. Therefore, what shall we say
to these things? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare His own
Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him
graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who
is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.
More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,
who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day
long. We are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing
in creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And brothers and sisters,
John saw it, heard it, touched it with his hands. And He wrote
it down for us, and Christ has given us the hope of victory
in the writing of the Revelation. It is not horror. It is hallelujah. Let's pray. Father, this preachy lecture,
the Lord does not do justice to introducing this text. Nor would if we had 700 weeks,
40 hours a week, do justice to the
truth that is contained in that. So therefore, we as your people,
we as your church, are to daily study and pray and involve our
lives into your Word. Lord, bring that discipline to
us. and beyond any understanding or outline or expression of knowledge,
Lord, that we would fall on our face with tears of joy, flipping
out backwardly in our spiritual gymnastics, that we are so elated
and so delighted in the glorious beauty of Your grace and its
sufficiency through Jesus Christ. and that even when the pain of
this world and the suffering because of our faith makes our
joy inexpressible on the outside, Lord, we are at peace internally
because You are with us. And Father, as this outline unfolds,
as we learn more details, as we learn more truth, help us
to be stewards of that which You've given us, that we might
pray more effectively, more diligently, Father, that we would witness
more passionately, and that we would rejoice and be satisfied
sufficiently in the Gospel, in the person of Jesus. And it's
in His name that we pray. Amen and Amen. Amen.