Sermon Tone Analysis

STUDY ONE:  THE GREAT REVELATION BEGINS

REVELATION 1:1-20

 

I.

The Purpose of the Revelation

 

/1         //The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place.

And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John,/

/2         //who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, and to all things that/

/       he saw./

We are now entering the most dangerous time in all of history.

The faith of Christians will be thoroughly tested by earthquakes, wars, famines, tyrannies, economic crises and supernatural demonstrations of demonic origin.

It will also be a time of great apostasy as many fall into the error of believing that Goddoes not exist, or that He does not care about what happens on earth.

The apostasy will be the worst of all the tragedies.

As people lose their faith in God they will be deceived by the ridiculous pretensions of the Antichrist and will lose their part in the new day about to dawn upon the world.

To avoid this tragedy, God the Father gave the prophecies of Revelation to Jesus Christ our Savior, who in turn gave them to the Apostle John to /show His servants the things which must shortly take place// /(v.

1).

If we study carefully the prophecies of this Book, our faith will be fortified so that we can facethe future.

These coming events, prophesied in detail and order 1900 years ago, will come to a victorious end.

Men in the Armed Forces are given special training for survival.

Along with that training, they receive a survival manual instructing them how to survive in a variety of emergencies.

The Book of Revelation is the Christian’s survival manual.

It gives assurance that God is interested in what happens on earthand that He has everything under absolute control.

This was given to hold us firm in our faith so that we might share in the triumph that is going to be Jesus’ when He comes in power and great glory.

Jesus Christ is the central Figure of Revelation.

He bought our salvation with His shed blood.

He arose from the dead.

He gives pardon for sin.

He is coming again.

Jesus Christ is the great, and only, hope for the world.

II.

The Special Blessing

 

/3         //Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it;  for the time is near./

Notice that while there is a blessing in reading any portion of the Word of God -- any part of the sixty-six books -- this is the only Book that begins and ends with a specific blessing for the person who reads and hears and takes to heart the things written therein.

Thus it is sad to see the attitude of many Christians to the Book of Revelation.

Some of  them have stated that they were afraid of the Book of Revelation.

Others have become angry when hearing it taught.

In one church where I pastored, a man who had been both a personal friend and faithful attendee became so upset over the teaching of Revelation that he got up in the middle of a service and walked out, taking his wife and two grown daughters with him.

It is this kind of negative attitude toward the Book of Revelation that causes people to lose the very blessing which it promises.

I first taught through the Book of Revelation in 1971.

When I started teaching it, I had the sensation that I was wading into a deep river with no assurance of being able to come out the other side.

But since that time I have taught and written about Revelation for over 28 years, and have observed time and time again that those who have heard it and kept its truths have experienced special blessing.

Lives have been transformed, sicknesses healed, and marital problems resolved.

Likewise I have experienced God’s “Revelation Blessings” upon my own family and in my own life.

As you begin these studies, why not offer up a silent prayer to the Lord such as the one that follows:  “Heavenly Father, help me to receive the light that You have for me in Revelation.

Enable me to understand the teachings You have placed there.

Give me the strength to put what I learn into practice in my own life.

May I truly be a doer of Your Word.

Amen.”

If this is the desire of your heart, the study of Revelation will bring a great blessing to your life and to your home.

III.

The Time Is Near

 

Please notice that verse 3 also says /the// time// is// near/.

It is thought that the Apostle John received these prophecies somewhere around the year 90 A.D. when he was an old man of some 80 years of age.

The question is then, how could he say, “the time is near,” when at least 19 centuries would pass before the prophecies of Revelation would have their fulfillment?

A principle we are going to use in these studies is:  the Bible explains itself.

To demonstrate how this principle works, turn to II Peter, chapter 2, verses 3-9:

/. . .

knowing this first:  that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and 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.”

For this they willfully forget:  that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.

But the heavens and the earth which now exist are kept in store by the same word,// reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The 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//./

According to Peter, the Lord has held back His judgments because He is patient and He wants to give to all opportunity to repent.

God is not in a hurry.

He has existed from out of eternity past and will live throughout eternity to come.

He has all the time that He needs to carry out His purposes.

We read in this Scripture that one day is as a thousand years with Him, and a thousand years as one day.

That means that these almost two thousand years which have passed since John received this revelation are of no more importance to God, time-wise, than the last 48 hours that have passed for us.

If John could say, nineteen hundred years ago, “the time is near”—with even greater reason it can be said today, “The time is near.”

The time is very near!

IV.

The Meaning of “Church”

 

4a:/  John, to the seven churches which are in Asia:/

 

Later in these studies, we will consider the relationship between the seven churches of Asia and modern day Christians.

But for now, let us consider the true meaning of the word “church”.

Usually when we say “church” we have a mental image of a building or an ecclesiastical organization.

But the real meaning of “church” is something else entirely.

In the Greek, the word that is translated “church” is “ecclesia”.

“Ecclesia” was originally a political term.

Several centuries before Christ, the Greek city-states had a form of democracy in which the free men in each state (slaves and women were excluded) would gather together and make decisions concerning their city and pass the laws by which the city was to be governed.

This assembly of free men was called the “ecclesia” which meant “the called out ones.”

 

Sometime about the third century before Christ, seventy Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, translated the Old Testament Scriptures from their Hebrew into the Greek language -- what we call the Septuagint version.

When they were translating the account of the children of Israel being taken out of slavery in Egypt and being gathered together at Mount Sinai in assembly, these Jewish scholars used the term “ecclesia” for that gathering.

Thus in the Septuagint Old Testament, when the whole congregation of the children of Israel is mentioned, the term that is used is “ecclesia”.

The Israelites were called out of their bondage in Egypt.

Centuries rolled by and Jesus Christ, when He was here on earth at His first coming, referred to His followers as His “ecclesia’’—His called out ones.

Later, as the Holy Spirit guided the writers of the New Testament, He led them to refer to the followers of Jesus Christ, of all times and in all places, as His “ecclesia”—His church.

Those who place their faith in Jesus Christ are called out from a life of sin and into the Kingdom of God.

Finally, when Jesus Christ returns for His church, His people in a very literal sense are going to be the called out ones because He will call His “ecclesia” out of this world!

Thus, it is not really accurate to say “I go to church on Sunday” or, “I go to church in the mid-week.”

We the Christians, the followers of Christ, are the church.

We, the church, gather in a particular building where we conduct our services.

Every true believer in Jesus Christ is a part of his church.

The church is not an edifice.

It is not an organization of men.

One could have their name written on the list of a local congregation without belonging to the true Church of Jesus Christ.

From time to time some group arises saying that it is the true church.

At one time in the United States, where were thirteen different denominations, each calling itself the Church of God and insisting that it was the only Church of  God.

In many places one can see signs in front of buildings belonging to the Church of Christ which proclaim, “the Church of Christ meets here.”

The implication is that if you don’t worship there, your are not a part of the Church of Christ.

There is another group which calls itself “the Local Church.”

A dear brother in the faith left a congregation I pastored to join “the Local Church” movement.