The Unveiling Of Jesus Christ

1:17 Fell at His feet as dead Other OT prophets had similar responses. Remember this was one of Jesus’s closest friends.

1:18 Jesus Christ totally controls life and death. Life is one of His primary attributes. He became dead at one point because we needed Him to do so. Now His work on the cross is complete and life is His to give. He holds the key to death itself and can release us from its power.

1:19 Some see this as something of an outline for the book, much as Acts 1:8 gives us an outline for that book. As in Acts, there is a bit of overlap. No biblical outline is perfect, but I tend to agree.

1:20 The stars and lampstands are here explained. This will be clarified in the next two chapters.

Conclusions:

• Incentive to read, hear and keep the words of this prophecy. Learn to love this book and you will learn to love the whole Bible.

• As a church we need a well-informed, balanced view of prophecy. So, a few points on that:

o Never fall for speculative date-setting. Church history is littered with books, pamphlets and large movements that have claimed with great authority that Christ was returning at such and such a time. They all seem to have three things in common:

 They set a date that would fall within the lifetimes of the hearers.

 They worked a bunch of people up into a last-days frenzy which made them say and do all kinds of stupid things.

 They were all wrong. We’re still here waiting for Jesus.

o Don’t cause that to make you disbelieve the prophecies. Peter dealt with this problem:

2 Peter 3:3-4, 9 3knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” … 9The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

o Always be ready for Christ’s return. The time will always be unknown and the time will always be near. Christians can always say, “We might be the last generation – the generation that sees Christ return.” We should never say, “We are the last generation.”

• The reality of the love of Christ (v.5). In a world where true love is hard to find and harder to hold onto, remember that Christ’s love is never-changing and never-ending.

• Consider John – a close friend of Christ during His ministry – being overwhelmed by Jesus now (v.17). How does that compare to our attitudes toward Christ?