"Blessed is the One Who Reads" Sermon: Revelation 1:1-3 (video)

 "Blessed is the One Who Reads" Sermon: Revelation 1:1-3 (video) - YouTube

"Blessed is the One Who Reads" Sermon: Revelation 1:1-3 (manuscript)

 

“Blessed is the One Who Reads”

[Revelation 1:1-3]

September 3, 2023 YouTube

          The book of Revelation.  More specifically, the letter of Revelation. It’s likely that if you have heard any sermons from the book of Revelation, they have been on the seven churches or on the coming of the New Jerusalem.

          There tends to be a fear of the book of Revelation among many Christians because of the imagery – the symbols – that are used in the book – and not knowing how to interpret them.  Even ministers have looked at the book of Revelation and said it is not something they would preach.  Many of the commentators I am reading to help me with this series note the common quip among ministers, “If John Calvin didn’t write a commentary on the book of Revelation, who am I to tackle it?”

          For a number of years, I have thought about preaching through Revelation, but for fear of misinterpreting it – along with colleagues being very negative about such a thing, I did not.  Sometime during the past year, preaching through Revelation became urgent to me.  I can’t say why I have such an urgency, but with the help of God, I will go forward.

          Still, some may wonder why preach through Revelation at all.  That answer is quite simple:  as Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17, ESV).

          All sixty-six books of the Bible – including Revelation – are God-breathed – inspired, inerrant, and infallible, and God gave them to us – through the human authors – that we would become the people God has called us to be.  It is not only the book of Revelation that is a revelation – an apocalypse – an unveiling – but all of Scripture teaching us everything we need to know for salvation and life.

          As we look at the book of Revelation, we need to understand that it is a book of comfort and hope for the Christians of the first century who were suffering persecution – and it is a book of comfort and hope for all Christians throughout time and space until the final day when Jesus returns.

          That being the case, we need to understand how the original readers – or listeners – many people were illiterate – would have understood what is being conveyed in this text.  Theologian, Derek Thomas, says that the book of Revelation is a picture book, like the ones children read – and that is how we are to read it as well. It is apocalyptic literature which means it is (usually) a message delivered by an angel in symbols and numbers that have to be interpreted.

          All serious biblical scholars believe that Revelation was written by John, the brother of James Zebedee, the author of the Gospel of John and the three letters of John.  It was written while John was in exile on the island of Patmos.  What we don’t know is when it was written.  There are two major strands of thought:  it was written prior to 70 A.D. during the reign of Nero, which would explain why the destruction of the Temple is not mentioned. Or it was written around 96 A.D. when Domitian reigned and instituted emperor worship and savagely persecuted Christians, which would make sense given what is said in the book of Revelation. We are not going to solve this issue.

          I hope this lengthy introduction will be helpful as we hear God’s Word.

          Let us turn to our text – the prologue to the book:

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.”

The text before us is the “revelation of Jesus Christ” – it is the unveiling of Jesus Christ.  This text makes clear to us the Gospel in some way.  We understand Jesus in a way – in a format – in pictures – that we have not seen before.

This revelation of Jesus Christ, God the Father gave to Jesus Christ. And we might say, “Wait a minute, why would God the Father tell Jesus what the revelation of Jesus is?  Wouldn’t He already know?”

We need to remember that Jesus Christ is 100% God and 100% human in One Person.  Somehow, although He is One Person, there were times that Jesus’ Divinity did not allow His humanity to know something.  We will remember, Jesus’ answer to the disciples: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36, ESV).  Jesus, in His humanity, honestly did not know and could not tell the disciples because His Divinity kept that knowledge from Him.  Jesus is still 100% God and 100% human as He reigns at the Right Hand of God, and there are things He does not know in His humanity.

God the Father gave Jesus this “pulling back of the curtain” about Jesus to show His servants – then and now – all those who will ever believe throughout time and space – “things that must soon take place.”

Notice, the things recorded in the book of Revelation must take place – there are not ifs, ands, or buts.  They will absolutely take place.  And they will take place “soon.”

Well, what does “soon” mean?  There are three possibilities:  it means that it will take place in the time of the original audience, in which case, much of it would have nothing to do with Christians throughout history.  Or it actually means “later” – at the end of time – in which case it has nothing to do with the original audience.  Or it can be both for the original audience and for all Christians throughout time and space.  We have seen in the past that prophecy is often like a mountain range when you look at it with one mountain behind the other.  Initially, it looks like the mountains are close together, but as you turn to look from another angle, you can see the mountains are actually spread far apart.  So it is with prophecy. So, “soon” likely means for the Christians then and for all Christians until Jesus returns.

The revelation that God gave to Jesus about the unveiling of Jesus – His Gospel – He gave to an angel who was sent to John. 

John “bore witness to the word of God” – the book of Revelation is the Word of God – it was given to us to read and to understand.  We will see, it is given to comfort believes and give us hope.

John “bore witness … to the testimony of Jesus Christ” – to the evidence – to the proof – of Jesus Christ – that He is God, the Only Savior, the Only One through Whom a person may come to the Father.

The testimony – the evidence – the proof – that we find in the book of Revelation is everything John saw about Jesus Christ.

So, we find the book of Revelation is God’s Word to Jesus about Jesus and His Gospel through an angel to John who here conveys the revealing of what God showed him to all believers.

That seems like reason enough for us to read the book of Revelation and hear it preached.

Then we read:

 “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.”

John says you will be blessed.  What does that mean?  “Blessedness is a spiritual state of …a deep, joy-filled contentment that cannot be shaken by poverty, grief, famine, persecution, war, or any other trial or tragedy we face in life” [https://www.gotquestions.org/mean-to-be-blessed.html].

John says if we read the book of Revelation, we will find ourselves in “a spiritual state of …a deep, joy-filled contentment that cannot be shaken by poverty, grief, famine, persecution, war, or any other trial or tragedy we face in life.”

If we read this book and meditate on it and let it flow like blood through our veins, we will have joy, contentment, and hope.  Why?  Because the message of Revelation is that God is governing His people and redeeming them through the Victory of Jesus Christ through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension!

John says we will be blessed if we listen to the book of Revelation, read and preached.  If we have ears to hear what John has seen and written down for us, we will hear it and it will become part of us and lead us in comfort and joy and hope.

John says we will be blessed if we keep the things that are in it – if we are obedient to the things God has said in Revelation. Obedience to the Word of God leads to blessing from God in the form of comfort, joy, and hope.

James writes, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:22-25, ESV).

John says the one who reads, the one who hears, the one who obeys the Word of God – what is found in the book of Revelation – is blessed – “for the time is near.”

If you read the book of Revelation and hear the book of Revelation and obey the book of Revelation you will be blessed having joy, contentment, and hope because the time that the things written of in the book of Revelation – first century Christians – are near – they are coming soon.  And like looking at a mountain behind a mountain behind a mountain and then seeing there is a real distance between them, these things are always near for believers until the last day.

Do you want to have that joy, contentment and hope that enables us to say with Paul, “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 anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39, ESV).

As we flip the pages of this picture book, we will see how of this all plays out.  So read, listen, and obey the book of Revelation.  Be blessed.

          Let us pray:

          Almighty God, we have sinned in being afraid of Your Word because some people have interpreted Revelation in a way that makes it a horror story.  We have also stayed away from it because it is written in symbols that we find hard to understand. Send the Holy Spirit to convict us that Revelation is Your Word – just like the other books of the Bible, so we are to read, hear, and obey it.  Guide us and help us to understand it that we would be blessed, and You would receive all the glory for unveiling this about Jesus and His Gospel.  In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.