(Through the Bible) Revelation - Part 1 — Zac Poonen

Revelation as the Unveiling of Christ, His Church, and His Kingdom

We'll now turn to the last book of the Bible, Revelation, Revelation chapter 1. The word revelation means an unveiling. We have sometimes seen pictures of some dignitary, a cabinet minister or someone unveiling a statue.

There's a curtain over the statue and he pulls the curtain and you can see the statue. Of some great man. Revelation is like that. God pulled the curtain and showed John three things. He showed him the glory of Jesus Christ in chapter 1.

He showed him the inner real condition of the churches in that area at that time in chapters 2 and 3. And then the third thing he showed him was the future after towards the end of time, how it's going to be in chapters 4 to 22.

So we could say the first chapter deals with an unveiling of Christ himself. The second is an unveiling of Christ and his church. And the third section verses chapters 4 to 22 is an unveiling of Christ and his kingdom.

That's how revelation is divided. You find that division in verse 19 of chapter 1. The things which you have seen, chapter 1. The things which are at present, chapters 2 and 3. And the things which will take place in the future, chapters 4 to 22.

Now, this revelation was given not only for John, but for all his bond servants, chapter 1 verse 1. That's important to remember that there are bond servants are slaves. God has his slaves and God has his servants.

What is the difference between a servant and a slave? A servant and a bond servant. The difference is this. We don't have slaves today, so we don't know it so much. But in those days, people clearly understood the difference between a servant and a slave.

A servant could get a salary. You have a servant in your house, you pay a salary. And if you don't pay the salary, they won't come to work next month. A slave never gets a salary. His life long he has to serve.

A servant has got certain rights. He can go to the government if you ill treat him. A slave has got no rights. He cannot appeal to anybody if he is ill treated. God has servants who will serve him if he takes care of them and gives them money and gives them food and clothing.

If one day he doesn't give them something, they have complaints and they will stop serving him. And they have certain rights. They say, Lord, I did this for you. You got to do something for me. A slave has given up all his rights.

If his master gives him food, he's happy. If his master gives him some pocket money, he's happy. If he doesn't give him, he still has to be a slave. The difference is those slaves in those days worked out of compulsion.

We choose to work out of love. Like in Exodus 21, I love my master, I will not go out free. The book of Revelation can really be understood only if you're a slave. If you've given yourself to God so completely that you don't want anything from him, you belong to him completely.

You have no complaints about anything he does. You say, Lord, I'm your slave. I love you. I never want to live for anything other than you. I don't love serve you for money or any reward I'm going to get in earth or in heaven.

If you come to the book of Revelation with that attitude, you will understand. If you don't have that attitude in your heart, you can use your clever brain and get all types of interpretations from Revelation and there are plenty of them in the world.

They can't get past verse one. It was God gave it to Jesus Christ. Remember, it's a revelation of Jesus Christ. God gave it to Jesus Christ to show to his bond servants. Are you one of his bond servants?

Then he'll show it to you. If you're not one of his bond servants, you can study it for a hundred years and get all types of bright ideas. You can read all the books on Revelation in the world and you'll get some ideas, but it won't be the truth.

It won't change your life. You'll be living in a world of delusion. So we should don't get stuck in verse one. If you don't get past verse one, I say, forget it. And John was one of those bond servants.

So John saw it today. There are bond servants. They see many other people have got theories on it. Okay. Verse three, this is given to know before that verse one in the last part, it says he sent and margin says signified it.

That's another word. I want to point out signified. It says communicated or margin signified means he showed it by signs that teaches us the whole book is full of signs. Some of them, we may not be able to understand very accurately, but the more a bond servant you are, the more accurately you'll understand it.

And the lesser bond servant you are, the less you will understand the book of Revelation. However clever you may be, however many degrees you get studying this book and however many books you read on it, you got to be a bond servant.

If you want to understand it correctly, there are so many views on revelation. I'm not surprised because there are very few bond servants. All the servants are giving their opinions and their opinions are fit for the trash can.

Verse three, blessed is the man who reads this book. Now I believe it's every book in the Bible is blessed if you read it, but there's a special blessing promised on those who read this book. Now you understand why the devil doesn't get most Christians to read this book because there's a special blessing promised on those who read this book and not those who understand it.

He doesn't say blessed are those who understand that is not mentioned there, but those who obey it, those who keep it. The blessing is on those who read and hear and obey. It doesn't matter if you don't understand everything.

I don't understand many things here, but there are certain things here which I have to obey. The book of Revelation has not given us to make charts about the future. I remember seeing and hearing people who make big charts on the book of Revelation and tell you when the rapture is going to take place and how the churches are all pictures of different periods in the church age and Ephesus was the end of the first century church and Philadelphia is the church before the last one and that Laodicea is the church of the 20th century and all this type of stuff.

I've seen umpteen charts in my life and I've seen people who study these charts. They fight and quarrel with each other. They don't have victory over sin. They are defeated. All these charts are again fit for the trash can.

What you need to know is brother is not all these details of prophecy. It does not say there's a blessing on those who understand it. It's a blessing on those who keep it. The book of Revelation is not given us to make charts.

The book of Revelation is given us for obedience just like every other book in the bible. That means there are things here you've got to obey. Find that and that's enough. The other things you don't understand just leave it aside.

It's like when you eat fish you keep the bones aside and you eat the fleshy part. The time is near. John writes to the seven churches from Jesus Christ the faithful witness first born of the dead and immediately he talks about his coming.

This book is related to his coming. Verse seven. He is coming with the clouds. Listen and when he comes he will not come secretly. Verse seven. When he comes in the clouds for the rapture every eye will see him.

There is no secret rapture. Every eye in the world will see him and they will see us being taken up to heaven. There is only one coming of Christ and all those who pierced him will also see him and they will mourn and he goes on to say in verse nine.

John’s Tribulation and the Vision of the Glorified Christ

I John your brother. He wasn't a bishop. He wasn't a pastor. He wasn't a pope. He was a brother. Good example. 90 year old godly John is still an ordinary brother. He wasn't a reverend. He wasn't a reverend doctor.

He was just a brother. Can you follow his example or you want something else and a fellow partaker in the tribulation. The book of revelation is about tribulation. How can you preach about tribulation if you haven't gone through tribulation yourself?

So John had to go through tribulation. He was exiled to the Isle of Patmos and there in suffering tribulation. He gets a vision of how the church will go through tribulation and if you had gone to John in the Isle of Patmos and told him brother, do you know the church is not going through the tribulation?

He does that brother. I'm already going through tribulation here. What are you talking? Do you think any tribulation is going to be worse than what Christians have suffered in communist countries in the last hundred years?

You think any tribulation is going to be worse than that people who think that the God loves these last did last century worldly Christians so much that he's going to take them out of tribulation and these godly Christians who suffered in China and Russia and Albania.

He never cared for them. I don't believe that doctor and he says I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. It's only a man who is in the spirit who can see and understand what God is trying to reveal and he heard as the voice of a trumpet when God speaks and you're in the spirit you the voice will be as loud as a trumpet.

Otherwise, you won't hear a thing. You know, there are voices in this room. There's rock music in this room. If I get a radio, I can tune it and show it to you. There's God's word is being preached in this room in the voices through radio.

Why can't we hear it? We're not tuned to it when we are tuned to the spirit. We hear God very clearly loud as a trumpet. That's how John heard it and the Lord told him to write down what he saw and send it to the seven churches.

John was on the island of Patmos was about if you look at a map, it's about a hundred kilometers southwest of Ephesus, which is on the mainland. He this is an island a rocky island in the Aegean Sea and from Ephesus.

He was asked to send a message to Ephesus north of Ephesus about a hundred kilometers was Smyrna and then about a little north northeast northwest about 40 kilometers was Pergamum and then about a hundred kilometers east southeast was Pergamum, sorry, Thyatira and then about 30 -40 kilometers south was Sardis another 30 -40 kilometers was southeast was Philadelphia and southeast to that was Laodicea, which is finally about again a hundred so kilometers from Ephesus.

So all these churches were in a circle of about a hundred kilometers radius and yet they did not belong to one denomination. They all were independent churches. They did not have one bishop ruling all over all of them.

Each had their own elders. That's how the churches were in the first century so close to each other. They were all independent churches. So the corruption in one church did not go to the other church.

If the one church was corrupted just became corrupt the church 40 kilometers away was pure. But if they were all in one denomination one became corrupt everybody would have become corrupt. The bishop loses his salvation.

Everybody would lose their salvation. That is God's wisdom. The New Testament pattern is each church being independent not one big denomination. So we see here to the churches not to the church in Asia Minor each church.

There's no such thing as the church in India. There are churches. There may be a church here and a church there and a church in another place. And when he turned around he did not see one golden lampstand with seven branches like Old Testament.

The Old Testament was one golden lampstand with seven branches. The New Testament is seven separate gold lampstands. Seven separate churches not one denomination with seven branches. And in the middle of the lampstands is Jesus who is the head of each of these seven churches.

And it describes Jesus in poetic language. These are all symbols of his purity and his power and the word of God. Verse 16 going out of his mouth. And this man who once upon a time had leaned upon Jesus breast at the Last Supper.

Now when he sees Jesus he falls at his face as a dead man. He sees Jesus in his glory. The holiest man on earth falls on his face with his mouth in the dust. Whenever you see the glory of the Lord that's what will happen to you.

When you don't see the glory of the Lord your head will be lifted up. But when you see the glory of the Lord your mouth will be in the dust even if you are the holiest man that walks on the earth. And the same word that Jesus always spoke to his apostles when he was on earth.

He speaks to John who suffered persecution for so many years. Don't be afraid. Verse 17 that is the word that rings through the book of Revelation. Don't be afraid. And that's the word that comes to us as we face tribulation in the future.

Don't be afraid. Put your mouth in the dust and see the glory of the Lord. Forget all these persecutors. Don't be afraid. I am the first. I am the last. John don't be afraid. Don't worry about the king up there in in Rome.

Don't worry about these people who persecuted you. I am the first and I am the last. I am the living one. I was dead. I am alive and I have the keys of death. You cannot go through that door John till I open it.

Don't worry. And tradition tells us that John was not killed. He died a natural death as far as we know because Jesus decided that. And Jesus is the one who decides for you and me whether we are going to be martyred in India for the cause of the gospel or whether we are going to die a natural death.

No religious fundamentalist is going to determine that for me. Jesus has already determined it. It's already written in his book. And if I live faithfully he's got the keys of death. I'm not afraid. And you don't have to be afraid either.

I tell you it's impossible to serve God in days of tribulation if you don't first see this vision. You have to see Jesus first before you see everything else. You have to see Jesus first before you even see the condition of the churches.

Otherwise you'll get discouraged when you read about the condition of the churches in chapter 2 and 3. I sometimes get discouraged when I see the condition of some church and I say Lord I want to see your glory first.

Then I won't get discouraged. And then he says the seven stars which you saw, verse 20, are the messengers, angels. Remember angel? In Indian languages, messenger. Messengers of the churches. Among the elders in each church, usually one was a messenger.

That means one usually had the gift of the word. If there were three elders, one would be the messenger. If there were two elders, one would be the messenger. Every church, it's the same even today. A church may have two or three elders, but one will have the gift of the word there.

The messenger of the church. And write to the messenger of the churches and give them these messages for them and for the churches. Okay. And the lampstands are seven separate churches, each of whom are directly under me.

They're not under each other. There's no bishop in charge of the seven churches. If there were a bishop, Jesus would have sent the letter to the bishop and say circulate it to the others. No, he had to send it to each elder because each elder was in charge of his own church.

Don't ever try to be a bishop. Let each church have its own elders. You can be like a spiritual father if they want you, want help from you, they consult you. But each church must be independent under the headship of the Lord if you want to follow the New Testament pattern.

Christ’s Message to the Seven Churches

Chapter two and chapter three, we read about seven churches. Two of them are good. Five of them are bad. Five are terribly backslidden. Two are absolutely pure. First, the church in Ephesus, we could call it the loveless church, the church without love.

They had many good things. Verse two, they had deeds, toil, perseverance. They could not endure evil men means they judged sin. They could not endure false apostles means they judged false doctrine. They not only judged sin, they judged false doctrine.

They had perseverance. Verse three, they endured suffering for Jesus name. They did not get weary. You'd think that's a wonderful church. Purity in life, purity in doctrine, enduring suffering, holding up the name of Jesus, laboring.

But the Lord says, all this is worth zero because you don't love me like you love me at first. Do you understand how important it is to love the Lord that all your work for the Lord is worth zero? He says, it's so bad.

You've lost your first love. You have fallen. Can you believe that a man who's laboring, who fights for purity, fights for purity of doctrine, laboring, working hard for the Lord, enduring is a backslider.

How many people will think such a person is a backslider? He is a backslider because he's lost his love for the Lord, which he had when he started serving the Lord. The Lord says, you're falling. You were up there first.

How is he up there? Because he loved the Lord and did the same things. Now you've fallen. Repent. See, the relationship Jesus wants to have with us is like a marriage, husband and wife. You see a newly married couple who really love one another.

And the wife is so happy to do everything in the house. She's so eager the first week after she's married to cook the food and wash the clothes and keep the house tidy and waiting for the husband to come from the office.

And as soon as the bell rings, rushing to the door, dressed up nicely to greet her husband. She's a little Western minded with a kiss, perhaps. Okay, whichever way it is expressing her love for him, you go and the dinner is ready and they sit and they enjoy themselves.

Now you go to the same house 20 years later and she's not thinking of her husband. She's got other things to think about and she's pretty. She does all the job. She still cooks. She washes. She keeps the home and the husband comes and rings the bell.

Nobody is the door. He's got the keys, got to open it himself and come inside and says, where's the dinner? Oh, it's there on the table. You can go and eat it. Did she cook the food? Yes. Did she keep the house tidy?

Yes. Did she wash the clothes? Yes. Just like in the first year of marriage. But there's a difference. The love has gone. The fire has gone. How many marriages there are like that? This is exactly what happened to Ephesus.

And that's exactly what can happen to you or me. If we don't preserve our love for Jesus Christ, you must say, Lord, I love you. My ministry is not my God. I want to love you like I loved you at first and even more than I loved you at first.

That is a true marriage. What do I want from my wife? I don't want her to. I don't care if she doesn't cook the food or wash the clothes. We love one another much more today than when we were first married.

That's true marriage. That's how it must be with Jesus. Many times I've laid down on my bed and I said, Lord, you can take away my ministry. You can take away my voice. You can take away my health. If you paralyze me and I can't speak anymore and I lie down in this bed, I will not be discouraged.

I will lie down here in this bed and love you. That's all I live for. My ministry is not my God. You can take it away any day you like. I never write another book, never speak another tape, never travel anymore for a meeting.

But my love for the Lord will just increase more and more lying down on that bed. I hope it's like that with you. Then your joy for the Lord, then your love for the Lord, then your service for the Lord rather will be full of joy and victory.

Then we go to the next church. There are many other things you can look at it yourself. The church in Smyrna, which is a suffering church. And here is a church that is poor. Verse nine, it faces tribulation.

This church also would not have believed if you had taught them that the church will escape the tribulation. They go through tribulation and this church that's going through tribulation is the one that the Lord is happy with.

The other one that's not going through tribulation, God is not happy with. Do you know that God loves people and he allows them to go through tribulation? Even in the future, it will be like that. But you are spiritually rich.

There are people who say they are Jews, but they are the synagogue of Satan. There are people today who say they are Christians and they persecute the truly godly people. They are the synagogue of Satan.

Even today, the church of Satan, who call themselves Christians. Again, what is his word to this church? Verse 10. Don't be afraid of what you're going to suffer. What is the Lord's word to us today? Don't be afraid of what you're going to suffer.

The devil is going to put some of you into prison. Can the devil put God's servants in prison? Certainly. All the apostles face that. Why can't we face it? The devil can take you to court through religious people.

The devil can put you in prison. Jesus was taken to court. Jesus was crucified. And if you follow the Lord, you will follow in his footsteps. You'll go wherever he went. And why will you be put into prison?

Is it without God's permission? That is impossible. The first book of the Bible, Job, first book written, teaches us that God has to give permission before anything happens to his servants. That's written in the first page of the first book of inspired scripture.

So don't worry about that. Cannot be without God's permission. And so it's with God's permission. He allows you to be put in prison. And why? For us to be tested. We have to be tested. That's our examination.

Don't you want to go to the examination? Sure. What happens after examination? What happens for any child after examination? Promotion. So what will happen after you're examined? You'll be promoted. Don't miss the examination.

Don't run away from the examination. I want a promotion. And so I'm going to go through the examination. And if the examination is conducted in the prison, will you go and write the examination there?

Sure. I'll go anywhere to write the examination because I want to be promoted. I don't want to sit in the same class forever and ever. So it says you'll be tested. And please remember that I have determined already the period of this tribulation.

It's going to be for 10 days. That's it. On the 11th day, you'll be free. God determined how long Job should suffer. God determined how long Peter should be in prison. God determined how long these people should be in prison.

God determines how long you should suffer. Some suffering you go through. Please remember you're in the middle of it, but God has already seen the end of it. And he has said on such and such a date and such and such a month, such and such a year.

It's over. Isn't it good for us to know that a suffering church? Remember that be faithful till you till the end, be faithful and I will give you the crown of life. In each of these churches, the Lord speaks to the overcomers to the first church.

He says in verse 7, if you overcome, I'll give you to eat of the tree of life, which Adam missed. In verse 11, he says, if you overcome the second death, hell won't touch you. It's not for everybody. It's for those who overcome.

Pergamum and the Danger of Worldly Compromise

Chapter 2, verse 12 is the third church. We could call this the worldly church, Pergamon. And the Lord says, you are living where Satan's throne is. That means Satan has got a special interest in your city.

He doesn't have his throne everywhere. He has thrown in one place and the demons have got their junior thrown somewhere else. But Satan had his throne in those days in Pergamon because he had a special interest in the believers in that city.

And I think part of the reason was because in that city, there was a very faithful servant of God called Antipas, verse 13. And when Satan saw this fellow Antipas, he said, I better make my headquarters where this fellow is and give him some problems.

And so there was this Antipas who did not deny the faith. He was probably an elder in that church, a faithful witness who kept the church pure, preached prophetically, preached purity, preached faithfulness.

The Lord calls him my witness, my faithful one. And Satan got him killed. But who opened the door of death for Antipas? Jesus. Who opened it for Stephen? Jesus. Who opened it for all the other 11 apostles who had died before John?

Jesus. Who opened it for Antipas? Jesus. So we see that Antipas goes through the gate and he's dead. And then what happened? The usual thing that happens when a godly leader dies in a church. Downwards decline.

That's what happens. It's what happened in Pergamon. It's what's happened in many, many other churches. God's church depends on sometimes one godly leader. And now what has happened? Antipas is gone and the other leaders all were compromisers, just like in Ephesus after Paul went, it was all compromised.

And we see what happened to the church in Ephesus here because of those ungodly leaders. Same thing happened in Pergamon. And he says, now you're following the teaching of Balaam, more interested in money, and you're interested in all compromise, and there's immorality in your midst, and you've got some other teaching of the Nicolaitans.

We don't know what the teaching of the Nicolaitans is, but some type of teaching which God hated. And he says, repent, otherwise I'll come to you and I'll judge you. Verse 16, again, if you overcome, I will give you some secret revelations, hidden manna, which will not be given to other people.

Do you want secret revelations from God? Understanding of scripture which is not revealed to anybody else? Hidden manna. I'll give it to you, if you overcome. I'll give you a stone, like a wedding ring, the diamond on it.

You'll be my bride with a new name written on it, my name written on it, a new name which people don't know. The Lord says, I'll have some secrets with you. I'll treat you like my wife. Husbands and wives have secrets which other people don't know.

The Lord says, if you're an overcomer, I'll treat you like that. You won't be like all the other daughters of Jerusalem, the other believers. The next church is Thyatira, the adulterous church. And there, he says, I know your deeds, verse 19, your love, your faith, your service, perseverance, and all that.

But you've got spiritual adultery in your midst. You've got this woman called Jezebel. And the word for woman could be translated as your wife. Could be woman or wife. You elder, you got a wife who's controlling your life.

You take those decisions in the elders' meetings, and you come back, and your wife tells you all types of things. You arrange another elders' meeting to tell the elders what your wife said. This is what happens in so many churches.

The elders' wife controls the church. There are Jezebels in churches. Women who want to control the prophets, control the elders. Jezebel could control her husband Ahab. Ahab was a spineless type of chap controlled by this woman.

And there are some elders like that who got no backbone. Their wife controls them. What did, who was Jezebel scared of? It says in those days, there were 7 ,000 people who did not bow the knee to Beal in Jezebel's time.

Jezebel was not scared of any of those 7 ,000 believers. She was scared of one man, Elijah. That's all. And she even frightened Elijah for a while. What a powerful woman. There are some powerful women like this in the church, and they need some Elijahs in that church to put them in their proper place.

And if you're not going to be like an Elijah to put these strong women in their proper place, I tell you, your church will be another adulterous church like Thyatira. You can have your choice. And the Lord says, I gave her time to repent, and she did not repent.

She brought all types of worldliness into the church. And all those people who listened to her advice, her children, I'm going to kill them. And to the rest of you, verse 24, who have somehow escaped her teaching, I'd say, don't listen to that.

All these deep truths they talk about, it's all deep truths of Satan, verse 24. Hold fast what I've given you till I come. If you overcome, I'll give you authority, like I gave Elijah authority. And you will rule the nations one day with a rod of iron.

Sardis, Philadelphia, and the Call to Repentance

Number five, the church in Sardis, chapter three. This is the hypocritical church, the one that has a name that it's alive, but it's dead. The leaders were like that. The leader had a name. He was alive.

He was a great preacher, and he had a great reputation because his doctrines were all evangelical. But he didn't have a life to back up his teaching. He was a compromiser. He lived on his name and reputation.

But he says, in your church, verse four, there are a few, maybe a few young brothers in that church who are zealous. They are pure. They have not corrupted their garments. They were more spiritual than the elder.

And he says, those who overcome will be clothed in white garments. To all these churches where there is sin, he has got only one word, repent. Verse three, repent. You know the Lord's last message to the churches?

Repent. He started out preaching repentance to unbelievers. In Matthew, chapter four, he said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He ends the Bible with revelation with the same message of repentance, not to unbelievers now, but to the churches.

Churches, repent. Elders, repent. That's the message to elders. Overcome, overcome, overcome. This is the message of the book of Revelation. Repent and overcome, repent and overcome. If you've understood that, you've understood what it means to obey the message of the book of Revelation.

Don't worry about the charts, prophetic charts and all that. Just repent and you'll be an overcomer. A lot of people who study prophetic charts don't overcome. The important thing is to obey. Be like those few people who kept their garments clean.

The next church is the church in Philadelphia, the faithful church. Verse seven, the leader has been faithful and so the church is faithful. And the Lord says, I know your deeds. Verse eight, I have set before you an open door and nobody can shut it.

Wonderful. Do you know when the Lord opens a door for us, nobody can shut it. I have the keys. I open and no man can shut. That's what he says here. And you got a little power and you've kept my word and you have not denied my name.

That's wonderful. He's the one, when he opens, nobody can shut. I praise God. I don't have to go banging at doors. He opens them. Are you looking for a door of ministry for yourself? Who's going to give you that open door of ministry?

Are you trying to bang it and open a door for yourself? Are you trying to covet the ministry? Somebody else has, God has opened a door for somebody else. You want that ministry, brother, be faithful. God will open the right doors for you and you won't waste your time going through wrong doors.

Let him lead you and he will lead you to the right place. I remember once when I was traveling to a certain country, the Lord said, you are not to write to anybody, you know, in that country that you are coming there, just go.

And I went and I came back and then the Lord tested me the first time. Then I went, I found the Lord opened so many doors of people I never knew and they were the places the Lord wanted me to go to. And I saw that God in his sovereignty opens the right doors.

If you try to open doors yourself, create a ministry for yourself, you will miss the will of God for your life. Wait on God and let him open the door and you go there. Don't try to push yourself. I want to have a ministry.

I want to go here. I want to be like that brother. I want to be like that brother. You'll destroy yourself. God hasn't given you the ministries given somebody else. I open and no man can shut. I've set before you an open door.

The people who hate you, the synagogue of Satan, I will make them one day acknowledge that I have loved you. Then he says, I'm coming quickly. Verse 11, hold fast what you have that nobody takes your crown.