If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation
is placed by divine order as the last and final word to God's
church and as a warning to this present evil world. It's not
called the book of Revelations. I often hear people refer to
this book as the book of revelations. It's not the book of revelations,
it's the book of the revelation, singular. And as such, it contains all
knowledge and wisdom as do all the other scriptures. In this book, under the inspiration
of the Holy Ghost, John sets before us seven visions. Now, if you just read this book,
if you just pick it up and read it like a novel, you're going
to be so lost in three or four pages that you're not going to
know which end is up. This book is not a book that
the natural man can pick up and understand any more than he can
the others. But in the others, there's some
plain instruction and things, and they're not dealing with
visions, and they're not dealing with figures and pictures. But
under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, John sets before
us seven visions. And in these visions, these visions
declare the work of Christ throughout the whole of the gospel age. That is, from the time of His
appearing on this earth until His coming again. Each one of
these visions, they all vary, but each one of these visions
starts at the coming of Christ and goes all the way through
the gospel age to His second coming. Each vision declares the work
which our Lord has done for His church, which He's doing in His
church, and which He shall yet do through His church. And as I said before, it spans
the whole of this gospel age. Each vision begins and ends with
Christ. Isn't that what the gospel does?
It begins and ends with Christ. And this book is the revelation
of Jesus Christ. And as such, it begins and ends
with Christ. He tells John right off the base
that I'm the beginning and the end. I'm Alpha and Omega. The purpose of the book of Revelation
is to assure His people who yet are alive in this world, you
and I. You and I. Ever how long God's patience
will last, ever how long His purpose will continue, it will
give that same assurance to them who are yet to come after us.
And it's to assure His people yet in this world of their ultimate
victory through the Son of God over sin, Satan, the world, and
false religion. Now that's what it deals with
throughout this book. And this assurance is given to
us by revealing to us through His Word and through the preaching
of the Gospel the glorious person and work of Jesus Christ. All
of these different things that it sets before us, it deals with
each one of these things and then takes us back to Christ
who is our victory. By way of this revelation, we're
then called upon to trust Him. And that's the way it is throughout
the Word of God. We're given the revelation of
Christ. We're given those things to assure us to trust in Him
as sinners, to trust in Him. He's the Savior. He's the sinner's
substitute. And it calls on us to trust Him
and rest in the knowledge that we're more than conquerors through
Him that loved us. Now, I remember one of the first
books that Pastor Don Fortner wrote. I've known Don for many,
many years, 35, 40 years. And I remember one of the first
books that he wrote, and it wasn't even a book at the time. He was
actually preaching, going through Revelations. And then later on,
he wrote the book. But he laid out seven visions
in their order. And I believe he has the correct
interpretation of these things and until otherwise proved, that's
what I'm going to believe concerning these things. The first vision is Christ in
the midst of his churches. Christ is in the midst of his
churches throughout this gospel age. He's in the midst of his
churches and the seven golden candlesticks which he pictures
them by in this world. The second vision that we'll
deal with is Christ opening and fulfilling the seven-sealed book. I've heard men interpret that
every which way. But what that book is, is God's
eternal purpose of grace in Christ, all God's eternal decrees in
Christ. And throughout this gospel age,
he's going to open those things and show to us those things which
God has decreed from the beginning. Thirdly, the third vision, Christ
answering the prayers of his people, Christ protecting them
from their enemies, vindicating them by executing the seven trumpets
of judgment and his providential rule over all things. You know,
lots of folks don't believe that there's any judgment going on
whatsoever in this world. Yeah, we see it every day. We
see it. I see God's judgment when men come in here and hear
the preaching of the gospel and shake their head and stomp and
walk out. That's God's judgment. I see that judgment and sometimes
just an indifference. I care less what you've got to
say. I care less about what you read to them in the Word of God.
That's God's judgment. And all throughout this gospel
age, God's going to execute His judgment. Now, does He execute
judgment concerning men's general immorality? Yes, He does. I think
if you go down to New Orleans and talk to the folks down there
after that big hurricane, I think some of them would agree to that.
God's judgment. And God performs this judgment
many ways all over the world. The fourth vision is Christ and
His church being persecuted by Satan, persecuted by world government,
and persecuted by false religion. The fifth vision is about Christ
sending His angels to pour out the seven vials of wrath upon
the earth. And then the sixth vision sets
before us Christ's conquest over Babylon. Babylon is false religion. sets forth Christ's conquest
over Babylon, over the beast and the false prophet. And then
the seventh vision is Christ's dominion over and destruction
of Satan and ushering in and establishing the new Jerusalem.
All things coming to an end except for those in Christ. All right, let's begin at the
beginning. This is generally what this book
is about, and this is why it was written. Now, let's begin
at the beginning, and we'll look at these things verse by verse.
I'm not going to get any farther than Revelation 1, chapter 1,
this morning. He tells us in Revelation 1,
1, he says, the revelation, not revelations, the revelation of
Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants
the things which must shortly come to pass, and he sent by
his angel unto his servant John." Now, this is what it is. It's
the revelation of Jesus Christ, which he gave to his son. He
gave it to him. And then he sent it to John and
Paul and all of these men, all of his servants. He sent it to
them by his angel. Now, I believe you could have
fixed this first line to every book in the Bible. The revelation
of Jesus Christ. I think you could put that back
in the book of Genesis. I think you could put it in the
book of Exodus and Leviticus. You could move on over. You could
put it there. and all the words that Joshua had to say, or Moses
had to say, or on down, Jeremiah, Isaiah, you could put it before
any book in the Bible, this is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Paul tells us over in Acts chapter 10 verse 43, it says to him,
that is to Christ, give all the prophets witness. They all gave
witness to him. that through His name, whosoever
believeth in Him shall receive remission of sin. This thing
has been declared from the book of Genesis all the way through
Malachi, all the way through the four Gospels, all the way
through the Epistles, all the way through the Acts of the Apostles,
and now here in the book of Revelation. The revelation of Jesus Christ.
And it's through His name. What is His name? His name is
the revelation of His person. It's the revelation of His character,
the revelation of His purpose. Our Lord said to the Pharisees,
He said, search the Scriptures. And if you want to go to a little
bit more modern version so you're not distracted by that, He said,
you search the Scriptures. For in them you think you have
eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. But you
will not come unto me that you might have life." The revelation of Christ is the
theme of God's Word. It's the theme of every book
in it. And then secondly, the revelation of Christ is how God
calls His elect out of darkness into His marvelous light. Paul
prayed over in the book of Ephesians that the Father of glory would
give to the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Isn't that what he prayed? That you give unto them the spirit
of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Christ that
the eyes of their understanding being enlightened that they might
know what is the hope of His calling. That's how God calls
His elect out of darkness. It's through the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Peter said, the old prophet spoke
with the Spirit of Christ for us. Now he said, gird up the
loins of your mind and be sober and hope to the end for the grace
to be brought unto you. Now listen, at the revelation
of Jesus Christ. How does it come? It comes through
Him. It comes through Him. And then
Paul said this, if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that
are lost, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds
of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Well, how does this revelation
come? Is a man in his closet? Is he out in the field? Is he
out on the lake fishing one day and all of a sudden this little
bubble appears beside him like it does in a cartoon and he looks
up there and sees it and says, oh, this is it. I got it now. No. No, that's not how it comes. But there's a horde of men in
this world that will swear that it did. But according to the
Word of God, it don't come that way. It comes through the preaching
of the Gospel. That's how this revelation comes.
It comes through the preaching of
the gospel. Paul said to the saints at Rome, I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Now listen, to every one that
believeth. For therein, in this gospel, That is, to the Jew first and
also to the Greek. Now watch this. For therein is
the righteousness of God revealed. What is the righteousness of
God? Well, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone who believes it. Christ is that revelation of
righteousness. He hath made Him to be for us
wisdom. righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. And thirdly, the revelation of
Jesus Christ is a lamp under our feet that we may walk in
Him by faith, and in so doing, please our Heavenly Father. If we walk in the light as He
is the light, and now how that scripture reads, we have fellowship
one with another, And the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth
us from all sin. Jesus Christ has been given preeminence
in creation, preeminence in providence, preeminence in salvation. He
has preeminence throughout the Word of God and the preaching
of the gospel. All right? That's just the very
first statement out of one verse, the revelation of Jesus Christ. This is what's coming. This is
what's being given to John. John's caught up in the Spirit
on the Lord's Day, and he's out on the Isle of Patmos, and God
begins to reveal things to him. What's He going to reveal to
him? His Son. His Son. All right, let's look
at the second statement John makes in Revelation 1.1, which
God gave unto him. to show unto his servant things
which must shortly come to pass." The hymn in this sentence is
not in reference to John, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. To
know God is eternal life, but the scripture says, no man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal
it. For to know Christ is to know
God. In 1 John 5, verse 20, he said,
We know that the Son of God hath come, and hath given to us an
understanding that we may know Him that is true, that we are
in Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is
the true God and eternal life. So it is to know Christ. He is
the chief cornerstone of God's A spiritual temple, He's the
sure foundation stone of His church. You know, our Lord walked
with His disciples. It's good to go back and read
these things as you study through these things and see how these
things are applied and take these things at different angles. But
our Lord said to His disciples one day, He said, whom do men
say that I the Son of Man am? What are men saying about me?
What are they saying about me? What are these Pharisees saying
about me? What are these people that are
gathered out here, what are they saying about me? And they said,
well, some say John the Baptist. Some say that's what you are.
You're John the Baptist. You're that one, that messenger,
that forerunner that is to come. Some say Elias. Others, Jeremiah,
are one of the prophets. a great man, man chosen of God,
a prophet, a messenger of God, a minister of God. And some say
you're like this one and you're like that one. And at certain
times, you've got that spirit and attitude of Elijah. And at
certain times, you've got that spirit and attitude of the weeping
prophet Jeremiah. And certain times, you have a
different. But you like them. You like them.
And you're a great man. And you're a minister. And you're
God's messenger. All right, he said, whom do you
say that I am? That's what this world hears.
That's what they think. What do you think? And Simon
Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God. He said, that's what I believe.
Now listen to this. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
is not revealed unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee that thou
art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church. He's
not talking about building his church on Peter, although we
are built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles.
That's what he tells us in Ephesians 2. But Jesus Christ is the chief
cornerstone, and He is the stone upon which He'll build His church.
And He said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Now, I'm telling you this, Jesus Christ is all in the revelation
of God. And He has this preeminence because
it pleased the Father. It says in Colossians 1, it pleased
the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. All right? Let's look at this
for a minute. Why is this revelation sent?
It's to show unto His servant things which must shortly come
to pass. I'm going to say something here,
and I hope you'll give it some consideration and listen to what
I'm about to say. The book of Revelations is not
a book about various dispensations or some kind of prophetic history
future world events. That's not what it's about. Each
vision, as I told you before, is a revelation by picture of
the glorious person and work of Christ in this gospel age. And if you want to believe in
all these dispensations and you want to believe in the pre-tribulation
rapture or the post-tribulation rapture or whatever, that's your
business. But I'm telling you, that's not
what this book teaches. That's not what it's about. This
is not about things which may come to pass. It's about things
which must come to pass shortly. Shortly. What is it that our
Lord revealed to John that must shortly come to pass? Well, let
me give you several things to think about. The first thing
that came to pass after the resurrection of Christ is that God's church,
God's ministers, God's gospel and the Holy Ghost was established
in this earth. That's the very first thing that
He told us. He's going to set in the midst of this earth seven
golden candlesticks. He's got His churches here and
He's going to dwell with them and dwell in their presence and
He's going to use them. as the distribution of His light
in this world. Now, this came to pass. On the
day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God was poured out on His
churches. And all through that book of
Acts, He tells us about this church being established and
that church being established. And then when He gets over into
the epistles, these are letters that He's writing back to those
established churches. and dealing with them about certain
things. But this came to pass. It's coming
to pass right now. I told you about the little work
up here in Missouri, about how they're now meeting together.
They now have a place to assemble. They're assembling there. They're
worshiping God. And God's sending first this
pastor and then that pastor there to preach for them. It came to pass in the
beginning. It's coming to pass right now,
and it's going to continue to come to pass until God wraps
this thing up. God has His assemblies. He establishes
them where He will, and He gives to these assemblies pastor-teachers
and accompanies their ministry with the presence and power of
the Holy Spirit. As natural Israel stood alone
in this world and lived as the children of God, even so these
local assemblies stand alone. One here, one there. He might
have a bunch of them over here in one little area and then have
a huge area out here where there's nothing. And they stand apart from this
world and they are, by his own word, the pillar and ground of
the truth. The second thing that has and
ever shall come to pass in this gospel age is that the mystery
of the Gentiles is going to be made known. Now you say, well,
he made that known way back yonder in his letter to the Ephesians. He sure did. But I didn't know
anything about it until about 25 or 30 years ago. I wasn't raised understanding
that. I didn't even know there was a difference between Jews
and Gentiles. I didn't know anything about
that. Gentiles are heathens. They didn't have any Bible. They
didn't have any prophets. They didn't have any covenants.
They didn't have any anything. They were heathens. Most of the
time, when Israel came in and conquered that land that God
gave to them that was being held by these Gentiles, He ordered
that they all be slain. They had no promise of mercy.
They didn't have a promise of anything. And I'll never forget
the first time God made me to understand that. I saw, all of
a sudden I saw, I don't have any ties to the things of God. I don't have anything. All these
people are being told, oh yeah, yeah, you've got a tie to this.
You have a right to this. You don't have a right to anything
unless He gives it to you. One man said, God's only obligated
to call you one time. He's not obligated to call you
at all. Only God can obligate God. And He's obligated Himself in
that He chose to save a people through His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And for them, he appointed Christ,
and he appointed all the means. He wrote this book. He sends
out his preachers. He establishes churches. And
he's going to call out all of his elect. Now that's what's
going on there in this Gospel. The great mystery of the Gentiles
is going to be made known. Paul said that God, now listen
to this, by revelation, made known unto him the mystery, which
in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is
now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that
the Gentiles should be fellow heirs," now listen to this, "'and
of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the
gospel.'" Nobody knew it. I didn't know it, but I sure
glad to find it out. I was like those folks over at
Antioch. When they found out, Paul said, well, he said, seeing
you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, he said,
I'll just turn from you to the Gentiles. And he quoted an Old
Testament scripture that spoke in favor of the Gentiles. And
it said, when they heard this, they was glad. I was too. Oh, I was glad. Nationally, there are Jews and
Gentiles. But spiritually, both Jew and
Gentile believers make up spiritual Israel. He tells us in Galatians
3.27, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have
put on Christ. And if you be in Christ, there's
neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither bond nor free.
There's neither male nor female. You're all one in Christ Jesus.
And if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs
according to the promise. I read this passage to a young
man one evening over in Romans chapter
9. And Paul said, he's talking about
these Jews, and he said, neither because they're all the seed
of Abraham are they all children. just because they're born of
Abraham, just because they have ties to Abraham, that doesn't
make them God's children. But in Isaac shall thy seed be
caught. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise are counted for the seed. These are not, did you hear what
I said? These are not the children of
God. But the children of the promise
are counted for the seed. And after I read it, he said,
well, just in case that's not true, I think I'm going to keep
on looking at them as the children of God. Well, there's no reason to doubt the Word of
God, he said. What do you mean, just in case
that's not true? Now, either this whole book is
true, or we're in trouble. But I say let God be true in
every man a liar. Worldly religion has this whole
world convinced that these Christ-despising men are the children of God because
of their physical roots, their physical ties back to Abraham. And then thirdly, and I'm running
out of time, I'll just state these for time's sake. Christ shall
manifest His righteous rule over all things and execute a righteous
judgment of men throughout this gospel age. I don't know. I tell our folks
in here all the time, you don't hear in a vacuum. Don't you think
you're going to come in here and hear and then you just sit
there in that little vacuum until you make up your mind. You're
not in a vacuum. You're commanded to repent and
believe the gospel. You don't hear in a vacuum. Man's
sins don't go unnoticed, but what this world is totally blind
to is the spiritual judgment of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness. Indifference. Indifference to
this message may be God's judgment upon you. Could be. Procrastination
might be the beginning of your perdition. Could be. And your unwillingness to submit
to the commandment of Christ to believe may be the beginning
of the wrath to come. He that believeth not Christ,
the wrath of God abideth on him. Isn't that what it says? God's
righteous rule and judgment of all men should be manifest. All
right? Fourthly, Christ and his church shall suffer persecution
by Satan, this world, and false religion. Anybody that's been
in this any length of time ought to know that. Fifthly, Christ's
ultimate conquest over Babylon, the beast, and the false prophet
is going to come to pass. It's going to come to pass. And
Christ's dominion over all His enemies, the destruction of Satan,
and the glory of this new Jerusalem is going to come to pass. It's
going to come to pass. in this gospel. Now these are
the visions, and this is what's going on. And he said he revealed
these things to John. These things are going to come
to pass, and they're going to come to pass shortly. Might not
be shortly to you, but it's shortly to God.