Revelation 1:3 — Harry Ironside

The Blessing and Importance of Revelation

The book of the Revelation, the last book of the Bible, contains a great deal of very important instruction for us today, because undoubtedly we are living in the closing days of the present wonderful dispensation of the grace of God.

And this book unto Christ's service which must shortly come to pass. It is pronounced that what is recorded here, we'll read in the third verse of chapter one, blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.

And again when we return to the last chapter of the book, we hear the Lord saying, behold I come quickly, blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. Now God wouldn't have pronounced the double blessing in that way upon those who read or hear and keep what's written in the book of the Revelation if it were of as little importance as some people imagine it to be.

The Unveiling of Jesus Christ and His Return

A great many Christians pay little or no attention to it at all, and yet in a wonderful way this book moves the hearts of those who read it reverently and in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, because it's the book of the unveiling of Jesus Christ, setting forth the glories that are to be manifested when he returns to set up his kingdom here on the earth.

In the seventh verse of this first chapter, the Apostle explains, behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even spirits of the earth shall wail because of him, might be translated, all shall mourn because of him.

This links with what we're told in the book of Zechariah in the Old Testament, that when at last the Lord's earthly people, Israel, shall behold their Messiah at his second coming, they shall look upon him whom they fear, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and as one that's in bitterness for his firstborn.

It will be a gracious day for them, then brought to repentance they will recognize in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah for whom they have waited so long. And this book tells us a great deal about the event connected with his coming again, and also about the long period which has now extended to nearly two thousand years between his first and second coming.

The Three Divisions of the Book

The divisions of the book are very clearly indicated in verse 19 of chapter one, where the seer was told, write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which are. Now when John wrote these words, the old division of chapter one, the son of man in the midst of the candlesticks, representing the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of the division one, then the things which are immediately follow.

The Seven Churches and the Course of Church History

In chapters two, where under the similitude of seven letters addressed the seven actual churches in the Roman pre-consular province of Asia in the last decade of the first century of the Christian era, the Spirit of God has given us in a very remarkable way an outline of seven periods of church history, showing us the moral and spiritual principles that would prevail during those periods.

Look at it this way, we see that the letter Epithet to Epithet answers Apostolic Church, and then the letter to Smyrna to the persecuted church from the close of the first century until about 313 A .D. when the last of the persecuting Roman emperors died.

That would be followed by the letter to Pergamon, which sets forth the conditions prevailing during the days of Constantine and his successors when the church and the world were so infamously linked together, and this in turn is followed by the great apostasy of the Middle Ages as set forth in the letter to the church in Thyatira.

Then, in chapter three, the letter to the church in Sardis gives us an outline of the conditions prevalent in the great state churches of the Reformation, many having a name truly dead. The whole mass of the population baptized and outwardly made members of the church, and yet many of them never born again at all.

The letter to Philadelphia, on the other hand, gives us what we might call the Counter-Reformation, the great awakening movements of the last 200 years when in so many different lands God has been stirring people by his spirit to bring them back to the word of God and to allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Laodicea and Christ at the Door

And then this part of the book closes with a letter to the church of the Laodiceans, and this letter clearly pictures the latitudinarian conditions prevalent in so many places today. Then, though people bear the name of Christian, they're utterly indifferent to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's addressing this church that the Lord says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me. Strictly speaking, a picture here is the Lord standing at the closed door of the church. Everything is going on inside as though all were well, and yet the Lord, the head of the church, is outside knocking at the door.

The church as a whole will never admit him, but individuals will and may, may and will. And if they receive him, then he says he will enter in and sup with them, and they with him. That is, he will establish blessed and holy fellowship with those who heed his voice and admit him to their hearts.

Heavenly Events After the Church Age

Now, the third division of the book begins with chapter four, verse one. We'll read in our authorized version, After this I look, and behold a door was opened in heaven. We may, instead of after this, we might read after these things, and you remember that the third division was write the things which shall be after these things.

So, after this outline history of the church on earth, John was wrapped as it were in spirit into heaven, and during all the rest of the book he portrays for us events that will take place both in heaven and on earth following the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to take his church home to be forever with himself.

That church is pictured in this division as twenty-four elders, that is, the twenty-four heads of the priesthood representing the entire priestly family to which Old Testament saints in the church of this dispensation belong, for all such will have their part with Christ in the heavenly and will be priestly worshippers.

This division goes right on to the consummation, the glorious return of the Lord Jesus to set up his kingdom. The kingdom itself going on for a thousand wonderful years, and then at the close the judgment of the great white throne, when the wicked will be judged according to their works.

And this is followed by a glorious vision of the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, the eternal home of the saints. There shall not enter into it anything that defile us. Sin will never be allowed to come into that second paradise, to ruin it as it came into the first, to bring disorder and distress during all the centuries of this world.

The book of the Revelation gives us a marvelous picture of the last things, and surely no lover of the Lord Jesus Christ can afford to neglect it. Rather, should each Christian read it carefully, independent from the Holy Spirit of God, seeking for the blessing that's pronounced upon all those who keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book.