While the children are making their way out, I do want to recognize a couple of very special visitors, folks who are not really visitors to Abbott. They're folks that most of you probably know very well. Reverend and Mrs. Don the Cross and Don's mother Grace are here with us this morning. And we are certainly blessed to have you with us and thankful that you're here. And we welcome you this morning.
I don't want any of the adults trying to sneak out. Dave is our bouncer. He's going to be at the door making sure that no adults try to go who aren't supposed to.
Well as I mentioned last week, I have been wrestling with God for a number of weeks, months now, over doing this series on the Book of Revelation. I mentioned to you that one of the things that really stirred my heart and began to cause me to think on this topic was the study that I went through with Alan. Alan Bauer, that he has done on the Book of Revelation, Alan has written a book entitled The End, A Reader's Guide to the Book of Revelation. And he does a seminar on the Book of Revelation and I hope that we'll have an opportunity for Alan to do that again. One of the things that you'll see over the course of the next several weeks and months is that there is a significant difference between preaching and teaching. And what Alan does is a very in-depth teaching of the material in the Book of Revelation. And I've benefited tremendously from Alan's seminar and I would encourage you the next time you have an opportunity to attend that as well. It will be very different from what we will do on Sunday mornings in our time and worship. But one of the reasons that I had a desire to do the Book of Revelation, even though I had a desire not to do it as well, that I wrestled against, was what the Book of Revelation does for us in pointing us to the majesty and the sovereignty of God. And the fact that God is Lord over history and that He will bring all history to a consummation in the person of the sun, Jesus Christ. The story of message as our Savior over and over again overwhelmed me as I did even a brief and per cursory study of the Book of Revelation. I didn't give it the time that I needed to and I'm working now to go more and more in depth. I was reminded this week as well. I went over to the Christ's pregnancy center one day this week and I walked in and Miss Loretta was quick to jump on me. She likes to do that. She always likes to point out when I'm wrong, so she has often occasion to do that. And she said, Diana told me that you're going to be preaching on the Book of Revelation. And I said, yeah, what's the problem? She said, when you first came to Abbott, I asked you a question about the Book of Revelation and you said, you'll never preach on the Book of Revelation.
I said, I did not. She said, yes, you did. You most certainly did say you'll never preach on the Book of Revelation. I said, well, Loretta, if you've learned anything in the three years I've been your pastor, is that if I ever say I'm never going to do something, you can count back that I probably will. But I am grateful to God that he has brought me full circle. If what Loretta says is really true, I'm still not convinced that I said that. She's back there shaking her head, yes. But if that is the case, I am indeed grateful to God that he has brought me full circle and brought me to this point. I'm going to ask you even now to really be praying for me, because, well, let me get into my sermon here, right? This morning I'm just going to do a brief introduction and I'm going to talk about things that you should not expect in our study of the Book of Revelation and things you should expect in the first thing you should not expect is for your pastor to have all the answers. Let me begin this series with that proclamation. Do not expect your pastor to have all the answers. But as I have studied, I became comfortable in making that my first point, because I realized I was in very good company. I've got a stack of commentaries about this high on my desk on the Book of Revelation, and I'm not even scratching the surface. The Book of Revelation has more commentaries than almost any book in the Bible than all of the Canon of Scripture. And yet, some very wise men like Martin Luther and John Calvin thought it prudent to never write a commentary on the Book of Revelation. Luther said that most people interpret the Book of Revelation according to their own personality and wins. But as I went through the commentaries that I did have, and some of these are commentaries, some of them are study guides, some of them are other things, but the books that I'm using is I went through here, some of the comments that I got, the Reverend Allen Bauer. When I first came to the study of Revelation, it was not with a thought of expounding on it, but with fear and trepidation. Leon Morris, a very well-known scholar, said some of the problems of this book are exceedingly difficult, and I certainly have not the capacity to solve them. Michael Wilcock, the author of the message of Revelation said this, the writer has to confess that he often found himself wondering if he had bitten off more than he can chew, let alone digest. And I appreciated most of all the comment of G.K. Chesterton in speaking of the number of commentaries and the type of commentaries written on the book, when he said this, that though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.
Our confession of faith also speaks to us of the fact that not all scripture is equally easily accessible in understandable. Chapter one in paragraph seven of the Westminster Confession of Faith says this, not all things in scripture are equally plain in themselves or equally clear to all. Yet those things which are necessary to be known believed and observed for salvation are so clearly stated and explained in one place or another in scripture that not only the educated but also the uneducated may gain a sufficient understanding of them by a proper use of the ordinary means.
Our first point your pastor won't have all the answers, but I will have some answers and I believe that the book of Revelation is accessible for us today. Otherwise, I don't think it would be part of our canon of scripture and otherwise I wouldn't be preaching it. We were in staff meeting this week Robin and Julius and I was talking about some of the different schools of interpretation and some of the different problems that have historically been associated with the book of Revelation. Robin asked me a question, I've been trying all week to remember exactly how she asked the question, but something in the effect of, does it matter then how we interpret the book of Revelation? Or can it really be understood? We were talking about some popular treatments of the book of Revelation today and how bad they are. Popularity does not equal good theology. Let me tell you something, some of the most best-selling books ever written on the topic of intimes and the book of Revelation had been some of the worst theology ever written. And I would dare say that the vast majority, well that's not, I'm not going to put it that way, I'm going to be so skeptical. Many of us have had very, very bad theology when it comes to the book of Revelation and many of you probably still have bad theology because you haven't been taught. I haven't been taught. Again, it's amazing to me I went through seminary and just had a very brief treatment of the book of Revelation and that leads quite often to bad theology. It really scares me, not because it's scary in and of itself, but it's scary theology and it's bad theology and I don't want you to become victims of that. But the bottom line is, can we understand the book of Revelation? Can we get at the heart of the meaning? And the answer is an emphatic yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact, the very first thing that we should expect, we talked about what you should not expect, the first thing you should expect, as we go through the book of Revelation, is that God will reveal Himself more and more to you and that you will gain an understanding of this wonderful book. Let's not forget what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, all scripture. The last time I looked, the book of Revelation was included there, all of scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training and righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. The book of Revelation, part of our canon of scripture is there for our benefit and we should expect that God is going to open the eyes of our hearts that we can see and understand. Now, I have to admit, as I've said, I know that I have all the answers and I have to admit as well. I've said a lot about bad theology, but this is not an area where we are going to divide and break fellowship over in most ways. I'm reminded of the quote of George Whitfield, the great reformed evangelist who was a contemporary of John Wesley and Wesley had a Armenian theology that was opposed to Whitfield's Calvinism and one of Whitfield's students came to him one day and said, Brother Whitfield, I have a question for you. When we get to the kingdom of God, will we see Brother Wesley there? And Whitfield said, oh, no, my friend, I doubt that you and I will see him. You and I will be so far back from the throne of grace, we'll be lucky to catch a glimpse of Mr. Wesley up there at the feet of Jesus. Different theologies, certainly, but commitment to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation through him alone, absolutely not. And that's where we are going to take our stand. We're going to take our stand on the Word of God and focus on him and on his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I included an insert in your bullet in this morning. I don't know how I'm going to use that. I may not touch on a lot of it and I'm going to try and over the course of the weeks that we look at the book of Revelation to give you some things that perhaps will be helpful. Perhaps I'm going to open up questions that I don't answer. I would encourage you if you have questions that you're wrestling with to call me and perhaps I'll be able to help you through those and perhaps I'll be able to even deal with them as I preach. But one of the words that I defined there at the very beginning is the word apocalypse. Now in our new international version as we just read Revelation chapter 1, it begins with the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Greek word there is apocolosis, which is the apocalypse. And oftentimes in the King James I believe in it even is translated the apocalypse. And the apocalypse simply means unveiling or revealing or disclosing. And so as we come to the book of Revelation again we should expect that we are going to know and understand the very title that is given to the book is an unveiling. These things will be revealed and disclosed. And so we enter this study with great hope and great expectation that we will grow in our understanding and knowledge of God, of his work in history and what he intends to do and bringing about history to the consummation in his son, Jesus Christ. You'll forgive me. I've had a cold this week and I'm taking medication. I hope it's not so heavy as to distort my mind, but it's making my mouth very dry. So if you'll pardon me as I take a drink. The second thing you should not expect, though, from our study of the book of Revelation, you should not expect that we are going to arrive at the understanding of this book through some secret formula, through charts or graphs or timelines to the end of the world. I can promise you that during this sermon series I'm not going to put up on the overhead projector, a timeline of the end of the world with predictions of dates and times when all these things will come to pass. I'm not going to give you any secret formulas for determining who the antichrist is, although I get one in my email about once a month. It's very interesting. The most recent one I got about three months ago, someone sent me an email with a mathematical formula proving that Joe Lieberman was the antichrist. It went on to expound how it was very clear that Lieberman was the antichrist because Al Gore was going to be elected president and he would be assassinated and then Lieberman would serve for seven years and fulfill the biblical prophecies of Revelation and on and on and on. It failed to take into account that Al Gore didn't win the election. Quite often you will find people who will approach the Revelation from that perspective of looking at a particular passage, particular image in the book and try to interpret it or understand it and they approach the book of Revelation like a puzzle. And they examine an individual piece and then they try and fit it into their scheme of things. They try to force the puzzle piece as it were into what they believe should look like. They begin with what do the bears feet in chapter 13 verse 2 represent. If we can only figure out the bears feet, then we'll know the secret to the book of Revelation or what do the different horns represent and how can we fit that into our scheme of understanding the book. That's not going to be the approach that we take instead of looking at the book of Revelation like a puzzle as we go through we're going to look at it more like a picture book. Looking at the images and the pictures that we see in John's vision of the revelation of Jesus Christ, I want us as we go through the book of Revelation to get caught up in the overall story. To be focusing first of all and primarily on the overarching message of the book of Revelation which as I have mentioned already is God rules history. God rules history and he will bring it to consummation in the person of his son Jesus Christ. So we begin with that broad view that this book is about God, about his dealing with mankind in history and his bringing it all to finish in the person of his son Jesus Christ. We will be much better all. And as we go through the book of Revelation, I want us to look at these pictures and these broad strokes even as John gives them to us and praise God. That is why I decided to preach this because in my own heart I was filled with praise as I considered the glorious message of this book. It caused me to pray Lord. That's my hope and desire for each of you as we go through this book that you would be so captured by the images, by the pictures in this book that it would cause you to praise. Praise God that it would cause you to cheer for the saints, to cheer for one another as we live out our lives of faith, to detest the beast, to hate the ways of the enemy of Satan and his minions, to recognize that he has been defeated. And then to cause us all to long, to anticipate and look forward to with all our hearts the final victory that we are confident of, that we are sure of in the person of Jesus Christ. It leads me to another point you should not expect as we go through the book of Revelation, a line by line point by point exegesis of the text. There is a place for that and it's an important thing to do. I would encourage you all to study in depth the book of Revelation but on Sunday mornings we are not going to be doing a point by point line by line exegesis. I am going to be looking again at the broader pictures that John presents to us in his visions and it will help us, I pray and my desire and my goal is that it will cause us to focus on God, to worship him and to glory in our Savior Jesus Christ. I am sure that there will be many things that I am unable to cover. I won't answer every question but I will do my best to faithfully preach to you the Word of God. That's my promise to you, that's my goal and that's my prayer, that we will look faithfully at God's Word which leads me really to my final point this morning. The thing that we should expect most of all as we get into the book of Revelation is the very promise that we read in our text this morning. We read the entire chapter, let me read for you again the first three verses of Revelation chapter 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John who testifies to everything he saw, that is the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it and take it to heart what is written in it because the time is near. As we get ready to dive into the book of Revelation over the next several weeks and even months we should do so expecting a blessing. It's been promised to us in the text itself, we are promised a blessing as we read and as we hear and as we take it to heart. Revelation is a sensory book and hearing is extremely important. Again as we go through you'll see that it's very different from how we would approach something like the book of Romans. The book of Romans we might expect to spend more time line by line point by point dissecting and examining the theological statements of the book. But Revelation was designed by God himself through his son Jesus Christ and given to us in a series of images that our eyes, that our ears can take in, that our senses can participate in. It's a sensory book and if we're to really begin to understand and enjoy and experience the blessing of the book we've got to approach it that way. We have to look at it from the point of view of the way that it was presented to the vision of John and remember the blessing that comes from hearing. We jump back to Romans chapter 10 and verse 17 where Paul says remember faith comes how faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And we read in our text this morning the word of God is Jesus Christ himself. Now it's interesting to note that in verse 3 when it offers these promises the reader is singular. Again John wrote this down and sent it to the churches and in the church it's better that it's a pastor and elder who would stand and read the letter. So there's a blessing that's promised to me as the reader as your pastor is I present to you God's word and teach you God's word. I'm excited about that that I can bring to you God's word with the expectation and the promise that I'll receive a blessing if I do that faithfully as I read God's word to you. God's word to you but you as well are promised a blessing if you hear if you listen I want to encourage you as you come to worship each week. And I want you to do this every week regardless of what we're studying. You should be coming and focusing on God clearing your minds and praying and asking God to take away the distractions that would keep you from focusing on Him in His word. Prepare your heart be ready to listen and to hear to hear the blessing of God's word to us in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Congregation all of you are blessed when you hear it as it's read the blessing comes through hearing but we have to take it to heart as well. There are numerous passages of Scripture which point us to this as well one of the most beautiful ones is Psalm 119 verse 11 says I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. I think that's one of the things that John is talking about hearing the word and taking it to heart putting it in our hearts so that we can then live out the appropriation of God's word again. The context of the letter here will talk more about later but the context is to a church under suffering and persecution. We know Peter says that all of us who are Godly and Christ Jesus will suffer persecution we may not experience in the same way that others have. We may not experience even the ways that we would imagine but all those who are Godly and Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. The promises come to us in that context and so we have to take them to heart and the word of God gives a promise that only hide God's word in our heart. He will give us strength and enable us not to sin. It also reminds us of the verse that James wrote in his epistle James chapter 1 and verse 22 but the doers of the word and not hearers only appropriate the word of God. Take it to heart and apply it in your life. That's what we are commanded to do as we come to this book. What a great promise and what a great anticipation we can share together as we get into the book of Revelation that God himself is going to bless us through the preaching, through the reading, through hearing his word. I include it on the insert a little bibliography. Now I expect you all to go out and buy every book on that list and have them read by next Sunday. Make my job a lot easier. No. I give that to you just I know oftentimes as we get into a book there are there are some of you who would like to go a little deeper and these are some of the books that I'm using. I would particularly I'm not saying this because Alan is here in order to flatter him but I would particularly come into you Alan's readers guide because that's exactly what it is. It's designed to help you as you go through and read through the book of Revelation. It's a very practical and valuable tool and if you don't have a copy already I would encourage you to get that and take it and as you read through use the tool that is provided there. But one of the things that you'll discover if you do go into Alan's book one of the things that I will be basing my series on is the principle that we interpret scripture by using scripture. And it's especially important to do this as we approach the book of Revelation. You see in the book of Revelation there are 404 verses. 404 verses in the book of Revelation and over 518 times, 518 times in those 404 verses John refers back to earlier portions of the scripture. We've got to look at the whole council, the whole word of God. So it's going to be important for you to spend time in God's word looking at other passages that John refers to, that John uses even the images are borrowed straight from Daniel's prophecy and Ezekiel's prophecy and different pictures that come from the Old Testament. Because we look at the book of Revelation recognizing that in 404 verses 518 times he's referring back to other portions of scripture. We are going to be dependent upon God's word as we come to this book. That's our beginning. You shouldn't expect the pastor who's going to have all the answers. You shouldn't expect a chart, a graph, a timeline or any other schematic or interpreting the book. You should expect to be able to understand. You should expect that God is going to reveal himself to you in new and exciting ways and you should expect a blessing from God as we read and hear his word and take it to heart. I had planned this, where's Julius? Julius, would you come up and let's just finish this morning. I think there's a long session where I have a book inside cover page 3. Open the eyes of my heart. Let's make that our prayer this morning as we close our time together that God would open the eyes of our hearts, that he would give us a passion for his word, that we would read his word here and understand and be blessed.