The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, as you know, I don't have
to tell you this, but for the purposes of our study, it's good
to be reminded that, as you know, there's probably no other book
in the Bible over which there's more controversy and division,
different varied opinions of men than the book of Revelation.
There's so much written about it, said about it. If you go
into religious bookstores today, you'll find so many books. Some
of them, I believe, make a real authentic and decent stab at
understanding it. Others, I believe, are sort of
like nothing more than the imaginations of men, and they kind of read
like a science fiction book. You might be familiar with the
current best-selling series called the Left Behind series. All that is, it's a fiction novel. Those are fiction novels. That's
all they are. And based on the opinions of
men. Trying to portray this book as some kind of a Hollywood movie
or something like that. But there are keys to understanding
this book. Now today, I'm just going to
go with the introduction, which is the first three verses. And
it starts off the revelation of Jesus Christ. And right there
is the golden key to understanding all of scripture, not only the
book of Revelation. This book, like all books of
the Bible, is a book of Jesus Christ. It's a book of the gospel. How God saves sinners is just
as prominent here. And just as relevant here in
Revelation as it is in the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
it sets forth the grand truth of how God justifies sinners
through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It talks
about the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as his bride clothed
in white raiment That's later on in the book, but that's implied
throughout the book. And that white raiment is his
righteousness imputed, which we freely receive by God's grace,
God-given faith. And that's the ground of salvation.
That's our defense against the accusations of Satan. Satan attacking
the church is one of the main issues of this book. So this
is a book of Jesus Christ. Some translations say the revelation
from Jesus Christ. Well, I believe this translation
is the best, the revelation of Jesus Christ. Speaking of, it
speaks of him and what we are as believers, as a church, what
we have, what we possess, and what's promised and assured to
us through Jesus Christ, and again, what he accomplished on
Calvary's cross. But it too is a revelation from
Jesus Christ, and we'll look at that. What we have here in
the book of Revelation, I believe, is the setting forth, and we
call it prophecy. You know the word revelation,
apocalypse, it means an uncovering. It's the uncovering of the mysteries
of God, what God has purposed and planned throughout the whole
church age, the new covenant age. You know, any time when
you see in the Bible, for example, in the book of John and the letters
of John and sometimes the Apostle Paul, and they refer to the last
days, the final days, it's talking about the time of the new covenant
which began uh... actually you could say it began
with the death of christ on the cross when he cried out it's
finished and he gave up the ghost and you know what happened you
had those visible physical signs of the closing out of the old
covenant and the beginning of the new covenant. And the first
one was, you remember, the veil in the temple, that big curtain
in the temple that separated the holy of holies from the holy
place was torn in two from top to bottom. Showing that Jesus
Christ, by his death on the cross, provided a free and accomplished
way for sinners to approach God based on his righteousness alone.
That's what that was all about. And you remember even there was
a resurrection of the dead in Jerusalem. Some of the dead in
Christ were raised from the dead. And what that means, they were
raised like Lazarus was raised. You remember in John 11 when
Lazarus was raised? That wasn't the final resurrection
under glory that we'll all experience together. The book of Revelation
talks about that later on. But they were raised like Lazarus.
Lazarus was raised, and they, like Lazarus, died again. And
those who are in Christ, their spirits went to be with the Lord,
just like Lazarus. And they will return with the
Lord when He comes a second time without sin. And the church on
earth will be gathered up with Him. So that's what this book
is about. It's a gospel book, just like
every other book. But it has some details about
what the church in the New Covenant age is going to experience throughout
that time, not just something into the future, just prior to
the second coming of Christ. Now, there are things that are
gonna happen then. But all through this age, in fact, look at verse
one. He says, the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's the person
and work of Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? That's what
this whole book is founded upon. He's God in human flesh. He's
Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh, dwelt among us. And
the title, Christ, means the Anointed One, as you know. That
means the Messiah. Jesus, His name, means salvation. Salvation through the Messiah.
And so what we're talking about here is the gospel of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. and risen. So what we have there
is the beginning of the New Testament age. Jesus Christ died, the Old
Covenant was finished, the New Covenant began. Now the New Covenant
was inaugurated, this is the way I like to say it anyway,
it was inaugurated at Pentecost. When 50 days later, after the
death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, after the Passover,
50 days later, that's when Peter stood in Jerusalem and preached
that message, and the Holy Spirit descended in a powerful way. And what? 3,000 souls were converted. 3,000 lost sheep. were found and brought into the
fold. And that was, you might say, the inauguration of the
New Covenant, the New Testament. And that's what Christ said. His blood is the blood of the
New Testament, the New Covenant. And that's when it began. And
so it began with Jesus Christ, salvation through the Messiah.
And it says, which God gave unto him, in verse one. In other words,
God the Father gave this to the Son. Now, the revelation was
given by the Father to Jesus Christ. And you know, a lot of
times people will see language like that, and you can go to
other passages where you will see Jesus Christ being submissive
to the Father. He submitted himself unto the
Father. And that's why a lot of, there are a lot of people
who claim to be Christian will deny his deity. You remember
in the book of John where he said, I didn't come to do mine
own will, but the will of him that sent me. Now, the father's
will and the son's will is one and the same. But here's what
that's teaching. It's talking about Christ as
God-man, the mediator, the servant of his father, the servant of
the covenant, the servant of his people. Isaiah 53 speaks
of the suffering servant. And what it's showing is not
that he, it's not even indicating that he's not God. He is God
in every attribute of his nature of deities, equal with the Father
and the Son, or equal with the Father and the Spirit in every
attribute of nature. But for the purposes of the redemption
of his people, what did he have to do? He had to be made under
the law. Remember there in Galatians,
what is it, Galatians chapter four? In the fullness of the
time, God sent forth his son, that's his official title and
his office, made of a woman, that's his incarnation, the word
made flesh, made under the law. He, in order to represent his
people, the elect whom God gave him before the foundation of
the world, in order to perform the duties of assurity, whereupon
our debt, our sins were laid upon him, and in order to be
a substitute for his people, he had to become subservient
to the Father. Now the book of Philippians chapter
two describes that beautifully, and I won't read all this to
you, And this proves that his office
as a servant to the father does not mean that he in the nature
of his deity is not equal with the father. Here in Philippians
chapter two and verse five, it says, let this mind be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Now any mere
human being who gives anybody any impression that he's equal
with God in any degree, that's robbery. That's robbing God of
his glory and taking glory for himself that he doesn't have.
But for Jesus Christ, the Messiah, to take upon himself and claim
to be equal with God, it wasn't robbery. Now why? Because he's
God. He's Jesus, he's Jehovah who
saves. And so he says, but he thought
it not robbery to be equal to God, but verse seven of Philippians,
but made himself of no reputation. Now there's where he becomes
subservient. And took upon himself the form
of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. And then he goes on
to say, for that reason God exalted him, to give him a name above
every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow
and every tongue will confess that he's Lord. So when you speak,
you know, when we speak here in Revelation 1, that this is
a revelation that the father gave to him, some commentators
say that this is a fulfillment of something that he himself
said. And you don't have to turn there, I've got this marked in
the lesson. I've got these lessons back here and you can take them
home and study them for yourself too. But the Lord, it's recorded
in Mark chapter 13 and verse 32, when he's teaching the disciples
about his second coming, Now, you know, people today are so
caught up. What is the day of his second coming? There used
to be a fella out in California. He was all over the map with
that, predicting that Christ would come back in September
12th. Now, I may have this date wrong,
but you know, all that. And he predicted it again and
again. I think he ended up having three
different days that he predicted. He was wrong the first time,
so he'd come up with another day, and he was wrong the second
time, come up with another day, and he was wrong that time too. But Christ himself, when he was
teaching his disciples of his second coming, in Mark 13, 32,
he says, but that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not
the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Only the Father knows. That's not saying that he's not
God, but it's saying for the purposes of his mission, he was
subservient in that way, and those things can only be attributed
to his humanity, his sinless humanity. Well, many believe
that the father revealed these things to the son when he ascended
unto glory, and that could be it. But either way, either way,
this is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him.
And look at verse one again, he says, to show unto his servants. Now, anytime you see that word
servants, when it refers to the people of God, true believers,
it's a bond slave, bond servants. And it's the word doula, in the
context, it's a bond servant. And it's talking about one who
serves his master not to pay a legal debt, but one who serves
his master having his debt already paid, and he's serving out of
love and grace and gratitude. That's the motive of the service
of the servants of God. We're not serving in order to
gain or maintain. We're not legalists. We're not
mercenaries. We're bond servants. Christ paid
our debt in full by his blood. We're redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ. Nothing we do, nothing we try
to do, nothing we intend to do or promise to do contributes
to the payment of that debt. Nothing we do contributes to
the righteousness that we have before God. It's all Christ.
So we serve him. We're bought and paid for. Our
debt's paid. So our motive is like a bond
servant. He serves, you can read about
that, I think it's in the book of Exodus. I'd have to find out,
maybe, I think it's Exodus 25. I didn't mark it in your lesson.
But you can look at, you know, where it talks about that when
the servant serves his time, His legal debt's paid, and then
he says, I wanna stay with my master because I love him. That's
the way it is. Christ paid our debt, and we
serve him. So this is to be shown unto his
servants. This is to be shown unto his
people. Now we preach the gospel to anyone
who'll listen, don't we? We're going to all the world
and preach the gospel. But we know only those to whom God reveals
it are gonna see it. But this is what he said. And
he says he's gonna show it unto his servants. John's not gonna
keep these things to himself. These are not just hidden meanings
that only the super spiritual and super intellectual can figure
out. And then he says, in verse one, he says, servants thing,
he's gonna show them things which must, look at it, shortly come
to pass. These are things that are beginning,
you know, John said that. People talk about Antichrist
or the Antichrist. And I've told you this, I believe,
but you know the word Antichrist is not even found in the book
of Revelation. It's found in the letters of John. It's basically
1 John. John didn't speak of the Antichrist
in 1 John 2. He spoke of a spirit of Antichrist. He had a plural on the end of
it. And he said to the church that he was writing to in 1 John,
he said, Antichrist is already here. Now some people say, well,
that doesn't mean that there's not gonna be a future Antichrist
as one person. Well, I'm not gonna argue that
today. And I'm not even gonna talk about
that today. That comes later. We're gonna talk about it. But
I know this, the spirit of Antichrist prevailing over the world throughout
the New Covenant age. Now what is the spirit of Antichrist?
Well, what does anti mean? It means against. It's any, as
one old writer said, it's any government, any philosophy, or
any religion that is opposed to Jesus Christ and the gospel
of Christ. That's what it is. Now, that
kind of spirit's been around ever since the fall of man, but
there's gonna be such a prevailing spirit over the world in the
last days. Well, these things must shortly
come to pass. They're not just things that'll
happen right prior to the second coming. Again, there will be
things that'll happen, but they shortly come. We're living in
this age, folks. That's what I'm saying. This
is today. not next week or next year or
when it's today a lot of these things there are things in revelation
that have not yet come to pass and we'll talk about those obviously
the second coming of christ didn't come yet and that's coming in
the future what day we don't know we live in expectation of
it being any day everyday that's what the scripture tells us to
do what are we to do well i'm going to sit down and and Spend
my blood, sweat, and tears over making charts and calendars and
reading the news. You know how a lot of people
interpret Revelation? They interpret it in light of
current events. That's the wrong way to do it.
You can't interpret the Bible by reading the newspaper or looking
at the newscast. That's not the way to do it.
We interpret Scripture with Scripture. We'll see that later on. These
things must shortly come to pass. Look at it again, verse one.
And he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant
John. The word angel means messenger.
Sometimes it refers to an angelic being, an angel sent of the Lord. You see that during the birth
of Christ. The angel came to the shepherds
and he had a message from God, a message from Christ. Sometimes
it refers to preachers. Not that we're angelic beings,
we're not. We don't have halos, we don't
have wings or anything like that. We're just messengers of God.
A lot of times in the Old Testament when you see the term the angel
of the Lord, that's Christ, the angel of the covenant. The messenger
of the Lord, the messenger of the covenant. So context has
to determine it. What I believe is happening here
is Christ sent an angelic being with a message to give to John.
You know John wrote this as it was given to him. He was on the
Isle of Patmos, you remember. He was exiled. Most people think
that John spent his last days before the exile in the church
at Ephesus. And he wrote the Gospel of John,
wrote 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. Well, they put him out on the
Isle of Patmos in exile, trying to shut him up. And Christ sent
his angel to John, and the angel had a message. Here it is. And
obviously, John was not to keep it to himself. He was to tell
it out. When I look at verse two now,
he says, who bear record, that's what this is. This is a record
for the church. This is a message for you and
me, who are members of the church. It's not a science fiction novel.
It's not just something that if you draw it up and put it
in Technicolor will really impress you. It's not a guide so that
you can figure out the exact time and day of the second coming
of Christ. What this record is, I'll tell
you exactly what it is. It is a record of how things
are going to be in the last days to prepare us for what we're
experiencing as we go into all the world preaching the gospel,
And behind it all is the absolute assurance of the victory of Christ
and his church over the world, over Satan, over every enemy. That's what Revelation is about.
In other words, it's a book that tells us, now look, we're gonna
have some hard times, we're gonna have some persecutions, we're
gonna have some opposition. We've experienced that, haven't
we? Still do. And it may get worse. But rest
assured, Christ has already gained the victory. He's coming again.
Satan will attack the church, but he's not going to win. The
gates of hell will not prevail against the church. Because it's
the church of Christ. It's the church built by the
Lord Jesus Christ. So this is not just a book that
can only be read and understood by an elite few. This is a book
for the church. And it's to help us. It's to
encourage us. in our ministry to the world
of preaching the gospel, seeking his sheep, whatever we suffer,
whatever we go through. You know, Paul, what did he tell
Timothy? He said, I do it for the elect's sake. I know God's
got some people out there. And this is another thing too.
Somebody asked me one time, said, do you have any idea when the
Lord's coming back? I said, I've got a real good
idea. And they asked why. I said, well, when the last one
of his sheep is called into the fold, then he'll be coming back. He won't come back before then.
The last one of his sheep. He laid his life down for the
sheep. He bought and paid for them. They're justified in him. They cannot perish. He said that. And they can't perish for so
many reasons. They can't be charged with sin.
God cannot condemn a person who cannot be charged with sin. Why? Because he charged him to Christ.
Christ took our condemnation. And therefore there's no condemnation
in him. We cannot perish because we have
a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and
justice. It's the righteousness of God, isn't it? What is the
righteousness of God? It's the entire merit of Christ,
obedience unto death. That's my righteousness before
God. It can't be tainted, it can't
be contaminated, and it can never be taken away. God can't condemn
the righteous. We stand in Christ. We cannot
be condemned because the Holy Spirit has given us life and
he indwells us and he won't leave us. All of these things. We cannot be condemned because
Christ said, no one is going to pluck them out of my father's
hand. I am my father in one, he said. He preserves us. And
we could go on and on with that. Well, look at verse three. So
he said, now this is the word of God. This is the testimony
of Jesus Christ in verse two. And it's all these things that
John saw. Now John was given this in a vision. And he wrote
it down in words as the Holy Spirit inspired him to do that.
And that's what we have. And then verse three, he says,
blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this
prophecy. Now understand the word prophecy
It means, it doesn't mean, it's, you know, people, when they hear
prophecy, they think, well, future telling, telling the future.
But the word prophecy means not necessarily foretelling. It could
involve foretelling the future. Many of the prophets of the Old
Testament, they foretold things that would come in the future.
But the real meaning of it is foretelling. In other words,
it's just telling forth something that's been revealed. And so
sometimes it involved just preaching the word, preaching the gospel.
So don't just, when you hear the word prophecy or see it,
don't automatically say, well, that's future. No, it may be
talking about today, now it may be future. And that's what he
said, the words of this prophecy, he said, blessed are those who
read these words, hear these words, and blessed are those
who keep those things which are written therein, for the time
is at hand. The time is soon, that's what
that means. At hand means it's here. And so what he's saying
here is when you read these things, read them prayerfully. You know,
we know that the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, neither can he know. They have to be revealed. So I tell people when you read
Revelation, do it like you do all the books of the Bible. Read
it prayerfully. Try, if you really want to study
the book of Revelation, try to remove all your preconceived
notions about this book other than the person and work of Christ. We know the gospel. That's not
a preconceived notion of ours anyway. That's a revelation from
God, isn't it? You say, well, I'm a premillennialist, or I'm
an amillennialist, or I'm a postmillennialist, or I'm a preterist. And so if
you want to know what all those words mean, talk to me later.
Put that out of your mind. And let's just say, Lord, teach
me what you want me to know from this book. Almost like a clean
slate. And read it prayerfully. Read
it looking for Christ. He said about all scriptures
given by inspiration of God, he said the scriptures concern
him. So read it that way. But here's
what he means by this. Let me just say this and then
I'll close. He's talking about reading it. That's reading the
word of God. He's talking about hearing it.
Blessed are those who hear it. To hear it in the scripture means
to heed what it says, means to listen to it and to believe it. Those who don't hear, remember
Christ talked about those in Matthew 13, and the parent they
don't hear, they don't have life. So hear it, and then he says
keep it. That means take it to heart.
That means cherish it. That means obey it. and to show
us more of Christ, for the time is at hand. Now on the back,
if you've got one of the lessons on the back of it, I've got a
little chart. What you have here, and we'll
start with this next week, but what the book of Revelation is,
it's the revelation of the events of the last days, the church
age, the New Testament age, in seven visions. And basically,
all these visions are the same thing, just from a different
point of view. From a different point of view.
And that makes sense to me because, you know, when you look at things,
how they unfold, world events, or even things that we go through
as a church, we look at them in different ways, don't we?
Things have to be put in perspective for us. And that's what he's
doing here in these seven visions. It's the same thing, but it's
just different points of view. Like one writer said, different
camera angles of the same thing. And I thought about this, it's
like, we'll see this later on when we study into the book. just like the four gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. They're not contradictory. It's
really the same thing. Jesus Christ, but from four different
views. Matthew's Christ the King, the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Jewish gospel, they call it.
Mark is Christ the servant. That's why you don't have a genealogy
in the book of Mark. It's the work of Christ. You
roll up your sleeves, you get big. Here he is. He's the servant
of God. And then Luke, the son of man,
that stresses the humanity of Christ, not to deny his deity,
but to show that he is the son of man without sin. And then
John is the deity of Christ. That's how it starts, in beginning
was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God, the
word made flesh. Just four different views of
the same thing, all consistently working together. to save and
preserve the church.