Revelations 1 September 7, 2003
Introduction to Revelations Series
John & Revelation
Why Revelation? Why now? – Verse 3, 17,
Today begins a series in the book of Revelation – it is the last book of the Bible and is in many ways an exciting book and a frightening book all the same – it is full of monsters and beasts, cosmic battles between good and evil, and although many parts are simple to read and understand, there are others that just give us a strange look on our faces. There are Christians who stay away from it because it appears hard to understand, and there are Christians who are into it with their charts and numbers and measuring sticks ready to tell you exactly what everything means and how it is all going to turn out in the end – watch out for those ones!
I encouraged you to read the whole book in one of back pages a few weeks ago, and one of you came to me and confessed that she had read it and didn’t like it. It was hard to understand – there were parts that were obvious, and others that made very little sense, much of it seemed to apply to the Jewish people, but not to 21st century Christians. This is why some people shy away from it, but I think that there are a few things in the first chapter that draw us to it – first it is written as a letter to 7 churches in what is now Turkey – these were not mainly Jewish Christians, but Gentiles like most of us, second is verse 3 that says, “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.”
Another way to translate this verse is “God blesses the one who reads this prophecy out loud to the church, and he blesses all who listen to it and obey what it says. For the time is near when these things will happen.”
One great reason to preach a series on Revelation is to receive this blessing from God!
Another encouragement for us to delve in deeper is Verse 17 which says “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.”
John – Apostle imprisoned on Patmos
When ever we start to read a book from the Bible it is always good to remember that we are reading someone else’s mail – It applies today – The word of God is living and breathing sharper than a two edged sword, but it had an original human author inspired by the Holy Spirit to write out of their own context. And it had original recipients who would have read it first and it applied to the things that they were going through. This doesn’t limit scripture and how God uses it in our lives, but it helps us to understand what God is saying to us today if we understand what he was saying to the original writers and readers.
I think that this is most important when it comes to Revelation. There is a great temptation to go from the page and apply the images to our own time right now, so that the great Babylon becomes whatever enemy our nation is fighting against, that the tribulation becomes a far off event that happens to other people since our lives a pretty good right now. We need to understand how the first hearers understood what John saw and wrote down for us.
John the Apostle is the original writer, He is an old man now in his eighties and he is imprisoned on the Island of Patmos, as he says in Verse 9 “for preaching the word of God and speaking about Jesus.”
He writes to a church that is suffering greatly under persecution and fear of death and imprisonment. We’ll discover more about these churches as we get into Chapters 2 & 3
John is a Poet – Apocalypsist John tells us that this is an Apocalypse in the first verse – it is the Greek word that is translated “Revelation.” Apocalypse was a genre of writing that you find in the Old Testament and in non-Biblical texts from the time before Christ – it is usually poetic and wild in it’s language. It gives us an idea of the future and even the present and the past, but one is not meant to get stuck on the details. For example Peter Quotes Joel’s prophesy in Acts 2 to describe what was happening on Pentecost.
When he stands up and says: 16Now, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17" ’In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
On the day of Pentecost, the sun did not actually turn to darkness, nor the moon to blood, but these were poetic pictures of the cosmic event and change that was happening in the relationship that God has with humanity.
I heard of a tribe in some remote place, that if you ask them a certain question, they do not tell you the answer, they dance it. It is though John asked Jesus to show him the spiritual reality of the past present and future, and instead of telling him, he danced it!
Michael Wilcock - “ What (Jesus) has in store for his last unveiling is a word of a different sort: an acted word, a word dramatized, painted, set to music – a word you can see and feel and taste. In fact, it is a sacrament.
It is no use reading Revelation as though it were a Paul-type theological treatise in a slightly different idiom, or a Luke-style history projected into the future. You might as well analyze the rainbow – or the wine of communion or the water of baptism. Logical analysis is not what they are for. They are meant to be used and enjoyed.” (Page 24)
Poetry is much more organic than cold theology – I’ve said before that you can rip apart a frog to see how it works, but the frog dies. This is true of scripture as well, and particularly poetic scripture – we need to treat it like an organism that is wholly interconnected, not like a phone book that we take information out of as we need it.
– Dead poet’s society?
John is a Pastor – the seven churches.
Revelation is a Letter. Although John may be exiled, he lives in an awareness of the community of faith around him. The first thing that he sees in his vision are the seven Lampstands that are the seven churches of Asia Minor
We seldom see Revelation as a pastoral book, but it is – it gives these churches a wider view of the suffering that they are going through, it gives them great hope for the future and it challenges them to see Jesus in a new light and it calls them to serve him with their whole being. Eugene Peterson writes how before Jesus came, the messiah was painted in apocalyptic colours by Daniel and Malachi in the Bible and Enos in the extra-Biblical materials, so that the people rejected the humble man who came and fed the poor, healed the sick, accepted outsiders and was tortured and died. But now the main image that the church had of the messiah was of the humble teacher/healer/sacrifice that we find in the gospels. Now Jesus reminds them through John that he is the King of the cosmos, the creator and redeemer of all that is, and that these two images of triumphant king and humble healer are both needed as a complete picture of Christ.
Prophet – truth speaker
John introduces his writing as a prophesy, and as a Revelation of Jesus Christ, he is Called St. John the divine, which is a transliteration that would be translated St. John the theologian. In his prophesy he is constantly calling our attention to who God is and who Jesus Christ is. It is of prime importance to him that through reading Revelation that we know God more and more.
Knowing a little of who the author is and who his first audience is, we begin to read…
Eugene Peterson – “A good place to begin is to be courteous to St. John himself by honoring the fundamental concerns that we discern in his life and that come to expression in Revelation: that is his subject is God (not cryptographic esoterica), and that his context is pastoral (not alarmist entertainment)
Revelation of Jesus Christ
John begins his account with an amazing picture of who Jesus is. Before he sees him, he hears him. “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. I turned round to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash round his chest.”
Robe – priest
The first thing that John describes about this figure is his robe – it is a robe like that of Aaron the high priest, which lets you know that the earthly priests were wearing only a type of what the great high priest is wearing in heaven.
As a priest, Jesus is a bridge between God and Humanity – a bridge that does not hinder us, but allows access for us to come to God at any time.
Hebrews 4:14-16 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
1 Tim 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
But this high priest is different than Aaron and all who follow him – those priests used to offer sacrifices daily to God so that the people’s prayers would be heard and so that they could have access to God, Jesus, on the other hand , it says in verse 6 offered himself as a sacrifice that would pay for the things that we have done wrong so that we might have a direct access to God at all times
If the clothes present a role, the head and the eyes declare character.
As the writer to the Hebrews says he was tempted in everyway, but remained sinless, and his hair and his face show the purity of the glorified Christ.
Hair – he is pure – face like the sun in all its brilliance
You remember Isaiah’s promise: “your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” (Is. 1:18) You remember the psalmist’s prayer: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Ps 51:7) Jesus face and hair show us that he his already they, clean, pure, sinless, dazzling.
Eyes – he is purifying
Out of this face shoots laser eyes, eyes like a flame of fire!
Peterson writes “fire penetrates and transforms. Holiness gets inside us and when it gets inside us it changes us. Christ’s gaze penetrates and purifies. He doesn’t look at us, he looks into us. We are not a spectacle to Christ, we are invaded by him.”
George Macdonald writes “He is a consuming fire, that only that which cannot be consumed may stand forth eternal. It is the nature of God, so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure as fire… He will have purity. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship (in purity); but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus; yea, will go on burning within us after all that is foreign to it has yielded its force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God.”
Where the fear of God lies, I think, is in the eyes – the laser eyes that see past all the fronts that we put forward, they rip through our masks like Superman’s x-ray vision. In front of these eyes we can no long put forward the person that we would like to be – we are seen for who we really are, and if we give up the hiding game, he takes us and as our priest makes all that is impure within us pure once again so that we can stand in his presence.
Paul writes: 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Corinthians 11-15)
Jesus sees through our constructions of wood, hay or straw and calls us to build with only that which will last.
Feet – Strong and lasting
The piece of the picture lets us know that who Jesus is, and what he builds will last.In the book of Daniel there is a story of how Nebuchadnezer had a dream that troubled him greatly, but he couldn’t remember what it was – he threatened to have all his wise men, magicians and astrologers killed if they could not tell him the dream and the interpretation. Before they were all killed, God told Daniel the dream and the interpretation. This is what it says: 2:31 "You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue-an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
The dream was of future kingdoms to come – the difficulty was not in the structure, but that te feet – the foundation – was shaky – it was made of a mixture of clay and iron – Iron gave it strength, but the clay made it brittle so that when it was struck, the whole structure came tumbling down. John, on the other hand, sees that Christ’s feet are like bronze glowing in a furnace
Bronze is a combination of iron and copper. Iron is strong but it rusts. Copper won’t rust but it bends. When you combine the two you get bronze with the strength of iron and the endurance of copper. The kingdom that Jesus is building is set on a foundation that is strong, enduring and tested by the fire.
Voice – commanding power - mouth is a double edged sword
His voice is like the sound of Niagara falls, out of his mouth comes a double edged sword. Jesus is the WORD and the word is strong and powerful.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Hands – controlling power
John writes that in his right hand are seven stars. The new Christians of these pagan cities that John writes to would have immediately thought of the planets, sun and moon, the stuff that astrology is made of. People in their cities would have barely made a decision without consulting the seven stars. John sees Jesus with the seven stars in his right hand. The message is simple – the planets do not control us, Christ controls the planets! As we sing, everything is in his hands. What a message of hope for a church that feels like it could be wiped out at any second on a whim of the government – the stars are not in control, the Government is not in control, Christ is in control of both – he holds the stars in his hand, he is the ruler of the of kings of the earth!
It is only later that the first blush interpretation of the seven stars is changed in verse 20 so that we understand the seven stars to be the seven angels of the seven churches that John is writing to. This new revelation or addition to the earlier statement would just blow you away as a first century Christian – not only are the seven stars on the palm of Christ’s hand, they are deeply connect to the churches that are feeling bashed about by the forces of the cosmos.
Christ is in control.
John’s response is what most of ours would be to this image of one who is like the Son of Man – he falls down as if dead.
But John is the disciple that Jesus loved, and in that tender love that John experienced while Jesus walked the earth, Jesus touches him with his right hand and says “do not be afraid”
“I am the Jesus that you know – the one who discipled you years ago – the Word made flesh.”
I am the First and the Last.
18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
Many people talk about Revelation as being the “last word.” It is in this last word that we discover that the Last word is Jesus. In the beginning of John’s Gosple we discover that he is the First Word. John writes :In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of all people.
Genesis teaches us that God created the universe through his word, and that Word was “Jesus.”
The first Word and the last Word that are spoken in Scriptures is Jesus – he is the A and the Z. The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and end – we have nothing to fear, he controls all things, he is the beginning and end of all things, he even has the keys to death and the afterlife, and when we put our trust in him, we are united with him, we are “In Christ.” Once we are in Christ, do you think that anything could pull us from him? He has all the power, and he uses it to keep us in his love.
The seven churches needed to hear this message. The Jesus they serve is not just the Martyred Humble Man of God, he is the very Son of God who sits on the throne of Heaven.
We need to hear this – the Jesus we serve is not just a historic figure, he is the beginning and the end, he will carry us through all that we go through, and he will see us out the other side. He is the one who is who was and who is to come.
Invite a response – salvation and worship
