The Power of Speaking God’s Word
Seven Blessings in Revelation
CCCAG 6-2-24
Scripture: Revelation 1:3
Introduction- how this series came to be-
During my daily devotions, I came to the book of Revelation, and in my new study bible the commentary notes pointed out that there are 7 blessings, or Beatitudes found within Revelation.
If you were here a few years ago, you would remember that we went through the well-known beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, where Jesus gives 8 beautiful attitudes a Christian should show the world.
In fact, if you read those 8 blessings in Matthew, you will see the path to salvation in those. For many, these have been the standard for living as a Christian since Jesus ascended to heaven.
But now, things are starting to change. While the original beatitudes are a mirror we can hold up to see if we can see Jesus’ reflection in ourselves, God has set these 7 blessings in Revelation specifically for you and I as we start to enter the end times.
As I studied these, I found that they are our survival guide for what is coming, and they give us our marching orders for this time in history, and how to overcome even if it gets really bad.
Also, these can inform people that did not make the rapture- they can use these to succeed and overcome during the worst time this earth will ever experience.
Over the next several weeks, we will look at these 7 principles.
To put these in a little context-
The book of Revelation was recorded by the Apostle John. John is the last living Apostle appointed by Jesus HIMself on this earth.
The evil Roman Emperor Domitian (doe-mission) was a Christian killer, and he caught John in Ephesus to kill him.
They tried to poison him, but John didn’t even get ill.
The Emperor then had him thrown in boiling oil in the town square as a warning to the other Christians.
The oil didn’t harm John at all, and he preached from the pot and people started getting saved, so they yanked him out of the pot of oil, put him on a boat, and dumped him on a deserted island called Patmos about 30 miles off the coast of modern day Turkey.
There, all alone on this island, Jesus Himself comes to John and reveals HIMSELF in HIS exalted state.
That is why the book of Revelation is called that- it’s the revealing of Jesus Christ as LORD, GOD, and KING over the end times.
Jesus assigns an angel is to explain to John what is to come.
In essence, the prophecy part of Revelation is part two of Matthew 24 where the disciples asked Jesus “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus answered the question in general terms, focusing on world events, but here in Revelation, Jesus pulls back the curtain on the spiritual realm for all of us to see.
There, we see the 7 blessings of the End Times. There is a list of them on the back of your bulletins that we will cover in the coming weeks.
The first one is in Revelation 1:3:
Rev 1:3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near.
Prayer
Maybe it’s my teacher/pastor side coming out, but I find it interesting that the first blessing we see in Revelation is speaking about preaching the Word of God.
What is shows us is that the events in Revelation are the culmination of a spiritual fight that started thousands of year ago.
This entire reality that we are living in and having to experience each day is full of sin, suffering, disease, war, famine, lies and death. It all started because Adam and Eve didn’t believe God’s spoken word to them.
Now in the end, that is exactly the blessing God gives HIS people- to have the privilege to proclaim HIS word to a planet spinning out of control as people continue the slide into sin, and we see the consequences every day in our world.
That’s why I believe that this first blessing was placed where it was- the foundation of who we are to be in these end times, as well as a short mission set for us to follow.
Revelation 1:3 offers a threefold blessing: one for reading, one for hearing, and one for keeping the words of the prophecy. Let's break down each component and see how it applies to us today.
I. The Blessing of Reading Aloud
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy…”
In the early church, literacy was not as widespread as it is today, and copies of the Scriptures were not readily available to everyone. Therefore, public reading of Scripture was a crucial means of communication. Reading aloud was a sacred act that involved proclaiming God's truth.
The most effective evangelism in history all revolved around the preaching of the Word of God. In fact, it’s so important that during the tribulation God sends an angel to loudly proclaim the Gospel to the world, so that the people left alive are without excuse.
Paul emphases this point in Romans
Rom 10:14-15
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
**Illustration: The Power of Public Reading**
I’ve spoken in the past about a missionary to Asia we know, Peter Chun. He tells us that there are whole communities in China and North Korea that have only a few pages of the bible, and the local pastors memorize them, and then proclaim them in the underground church.
They don’t make copies and hand it out as if you are stopped by the police and you have copies of bible pages with you- off to the concentration camp. The Chinese Christians proclaim the Gospel through the spoken word.
There is power in our words.
There is immensely more power in God’s spoken word. In fact, by HIS spoken word, all that was, is, and ever shall be was created.
I’ve alluded to the fact that this whole mess we are in is because of humanity ignoring that spoken word of God.
God spoke the word to Adam, who then spoke it to Eve. Both of them disobeyed that spoken word.
This is why the verbal proclamation of the Gospel is the medium that God first chooses to bring people back to HIMSELF.
It’s the method HE has chosen to distribute truth to the unbeliever and the building up of saints.
I need you to see something else this morning, and it’s crucial for us in these times-
Verbally proclaiming God’s truth is our one offensive weapon in the Armor of God.
Pick up the The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
The Greek word for that phrase “Word of God” is not logos- which is the written word- that’s your bible. It’s Rhema- the spoken, spirit infused powerful Word of the Living God going out and demolishing the lies of the enemy.
That’s how Jesus did it. The Logos word was so a part of Him that when HE spoke it the Rhema word caused the devil to flee.
Both here in Revelation chapter 1 and in Revelation 19 when Jesus returns to this earth HE is depicted as having a sharp sword coming from his mouth that slays His enemies- that sword is the Rhema Word of God.
Rhema is the same power that said “Let there be light”. It’s that kind of power that is being used to lay waste to the lies and evil of the enemy.
This is why we need to take the Logos and speak it so the Rhema Word becomes raw power.
The Bible says there is supernatural power in proclaiming God’s word-
2 Cor 10:4-6
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
NIV
There is a blessing for you
and for anyone bold enough to proclaim the word of God in the midst of the darkness, so that HIS light can come into a situation or a person and bring salvation.
The second part of this blessing-
II. The Blessing of Hearing
*“…and blessed are those who hear…”*
Hearing, in the biblical sense, goes beyond merely perceiving sound. It implies listening with attention and intention, allowing the words to penetrate our hearts and minds. Hearing is the first step towards understanding and, ultimately, obedience.
Has anyone here every been accused of not hearing what a person says to them?
You might be listening.
You could quote their last sentence back to them, but your mind is elsewhere as they talk, or you are already formulating a response in your mind and blocking out what they are actually saying.
This is a common problem with married people, or parents and children. We listen, but we don’t hear.
It’s also a problem in our society, and sometimes even in the church.
There is a huge problem with people not hearing that Rhema Word of God.
In fact, there is a prophecy about the end times that we are seeing today. It comes from way back in the Old Testament-
Amos 8:11-12
11 "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign Lord,"when I will send a famine through the land — not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
Humanity has plugged it’s spiritual ears to the Rhema Word of God, and what we are seeing today is the result of trying to fill spiritual belly’s with fleshly food.
It’s like we are children, say 5 or 6 years old.
You have a table in front of you. On one side of the table is candy, snacks, cupcakes- comfort food.
On the other side of the table is fruits, vegetables, lean meats- food that is actually good for you.
Which side of the table are 99% of the children going to head for?
The sweet side- candy, cupcakes
What will that do long term for them?
Make them unhealthy.
That’s what is wrong with our society today.
We have forgotten that we are first spiritual beings, and instead of feeding our spirits through hearing God’s word, we have fed our flesh with the candy of sin and are now personally and culturally reaping what we have sown.
We have fed our flesh, and wonder why we are spiritually anorexic.
Principle in the Word of God that covers this-
Whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.
This is the issue. We are spiritual beings, that need spiritual food. We need to be connected to God through the Holy Spirit.
But that’s hard, when the world’s way is so easy.
I admit, I’m as guilty of this as anyone- It’s easier to bury our heads into social media, video apps, and shorts- little hits of dopamine, which is the chemical in the brain that makes you feel good.
The problem with that is it’s very short lived, and then you feel even hungrier and go back for more of that distraction instead of putting it down and pulling a chair up to the table of God for some spiritual nourishment-
That is what you are really craving, even if you don’t know it.
Again, sowing and reaping-
If we sow to not hearing God when He is speaking to us- either through a message on a Sunday morning or when the Spirit is speaking to us directly through the Logos found in the bible, or the Rhema when the Holy Spirit is trying to speak to us
You will fulfill your hunger elsewhere, and usually try to fulfill that hunger by feeding our flesh.
I’ve said this repeatedly over the years, and I’ll say it again for us this morning-
You are a Spirit, residing in a body- you have to feed your spirit first, then your body will follow. Discipline yourself to hearing the Word of God first and foremost in your life.
And HE WILL take care of the rest.
That brings us to our next blessing-
III. The Blessing of Keeping
*“…and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.”*
To keep the words of this prophecy means to obey and guard them. This applies specifically to the Revelation, but it’s principle can be applied to the whole of the bible.
Early in my ministry preparation, I noticed something in the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy. Paul ends the first letter by exhorting Timothy to “Guard what has been entrusted to your care”
He begins the second letter saying “Timothy, Guard the deposit with the power of the Holy Spirit”
Why do we guard something?
Because it’s valuable. IN this case, this treasure is the Gospel. It’s the way of salvation for everyone on earth.
It’s the cure for spiritual cancer.
We need to guard it with all of our hearts, minds, soul, and spirit so that we can keep this truth and live it before those who do not know God.
And God even tells us why- because the time is near. We are almost finished with the church age, and the coming age won’t be very pleasant so we need to be proclaiming, hearing, and keeping God’s word until Jesus comes.
I remember hearing this in Children’s Church-
It’s been said that the word “Bible” is an acronym meaning “Basic instructions before leaving earth”
It’s a very true statement.
Before I went into the military, I held a job in a furniture warehouse putting together pieces of furniture like the huge stereo system cabinets or entertainment centers.
My boss had a simple instruction to me- open the box, and read the instructions from cover to cover before you pick up a single tool or screw.
Well, I was young, and I’m male and that means I’ll be a prideful idiot sometimes, and looked at the picture on the box, looked at pieces on the floor in front of me and said, “Yeah, I can do that” and tossed the instruction book in the garbage.
Several hours later, and now attempting to put this thing together for the 5th time, I finally had to go the garbage can and get the instructions, but now I had drilled so many holes, and broken parts of the wood, that the entire $150 entertainment center was ruined.
My boss came and checked on me, took one look at the mess I had made and said, “You didn’t follow my instructions, did you?”
Some day, we will stand before God, and He will ask us the same basic question- did you follow my instructions?
Did you keep what was entrusted to your care?
Maybe it’s a question God is asking you right now? Are you keeping HIS Word?
This is not a condemnation because I’m just as human as any person here. There have been times in my life that I’ve looked back and thought, “What were you thinking? You know better than that”
This is why the bible says we should take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Because the enemy has twisted this world to keep you from doing just that, and therefore steals this blessing
We are constantly be bombarded with thoughts and subliminal messages to get our minds off of God’s truth and bend us toward thinking like the world does.
The other night, my wife and I watched a movie from the 90’s called “The Truman Show”. Does anyone remember that movie?
The premise is a baby boy is adopted by a media company who builds this false world for him in a dome in California. He thinks he lives in a small town on an Island. Everyone in town is either an actor or an extra meant to interact with him. He has no idea he is the subject of a 24/7 TV show about his life, and in order to keep him on the Island and inside this dome they place all kinds signs around him warning about the dangers of going on the water. The even have the actor playing his father drown while in a boat to further reinforce this idea that going out on the water will kill him.
What does the Truman Show have to do with anything this morning?
As we were watching this movie, I realized We are existing in Truman’s world-
Today our world exists as one twisted by the devil to hold us on his island of lies, and keep us from experiencing God’s blessing in all of it’s fullness.
Preaching, Hearing, and Keeping the Word of God, both the LOGOS and the RHEMA is the first blessing God gives us as we move into the time before HIS return.
Altar call
