The Revelation of Christ Revelation 1

In the Bible quite like the book of Revelation. I remember as a child reading Revelation and being alarmed by the images that are described in it. Revelation, along with the Old Testament book Daniel, are the most dramatic, alarming, and glorious books in all of Scripture.

It tells of glories that are hard for us to fathom as we go through our often mundane lives. The book of Revelation tells us the truth about this world. It tells us that this world is living on borrowed time.

What we learn in Revelation is that there is a King who is coming, and this King is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a King who must finally and forever defeat his foes before he takes his throne.

What we learn in Revelation is that evil has one strong final push to defeat the true King of the world. And that effort, of course, comes from Satan. Satan has been planning his final effort to take his throne from Jesus for thousands of years.

Ever since he was banished from heaven, his aim has been to take the throne for himself. Down through history, he has made many efforts to take the world's throne. But the time has not yet come. Satan does not like to admit this, but he knows that the timing of when he takes reign over the world is not up to him.

It's up to the Creator, the Lord. The Lord has Satan on a leash, and God allows Satan to do only what will bring the most glory to him in the end. God is writing the grand story, and he will win. Satan likes to forget about this, but deep down, he knows it is true.

But he lies to himself, believing that he truly will be the one who wins and reigns over the world forever. He believes that. It's irrational, but he believes that. And he is longing for the day when he gets the worship that he thinks he deserves.

Everything he does is out of a deep hatred for God and out of a desire for him to be worshipped by everyone. A time is coming when God will decide it is time for Satan to take his throne for a short period.

The book of Revelation describes his final reign over the earth. He will reign through a man, and this man is known in Scripture by many names. The beast, the little horn, which is, by the way, his least favorite title, the prince who is to come, the man of lawlessness, and he is most well known by the name the Antichrist.

But even though this human ruler leads, make no mistake about it, Satan is the one who will be ruling the world. His reign is described from Revelation 6 to Revelation 18, and Scripture tells us how long his reign will be.

Satan will reign through this man for a short time, only seven years. Evil will advance unlike anything this world has ever seen. He will get what he wants. The world, largely speaking, will worship him.

But his reign will be short-lived as Christ descends from heaven to defeat him at the final battle of Armageddon as Revelation 19 describes, as I read this morning. Then what we read in Revelation 20 is that Christ comes to the earth to reign with his people from Jerusalem for 1 ,000 years.

After the 1 ,000 years, Satan will make one last effort, one last effort to dethrone God, but he will fail. And if you go to the end of your Bible, there's a heading that says, The Defeat of Satan. He will be defeated and he will be thrown into the lake of fire where he will be forever defeated as he is tormented day and night.

When this happens, evil will be forever banished. All evil will be in the lake of fire while God and his people will be on the new earth where Christ will reign with his people forever and ever. That's the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation describes this in much more than what I even described. But over the coming weeks, we are not going to look at this portion of Revelation. We are going to look at the first chapters, the opening.

And in the meat of these chapters, Jesus addresses seven churches. These are seven churches that existed at the time when the Apostle John wrote Revelation. Jesus had an urgent message for each of these churches.

As we go through this over the next couple of months, we need to put ourselves in their shoes as if he is addressing modern churches because in these letters, he very much is. Everything in the Bible speaks to us in the present.

Jesus will be speaking to us through these words. And we need to ask ourselves, what would Jesus say to our church? And what would he say to each of us individually? To some churches, he is very pleased, while to others, he gives a strong rebuke.

As we go through these, my prayer for our church is that we would aim to be among the healthiest churches in our world. This has been our goal as a church and may we continue to grow in this direction.

Before we start looking at the individual churches, we are going to look at what leads us up to Jesus' conversation with them. So this morning, we are going to look at Revelation 1. So this time, I encourage you to turn there with me.

This morning, we set the stage for the seven weeks that will follow. And this sermon is titled, The Revelation of Christ. Chapter 1 gives the setting of the entire book of Revelation. In the first chapter, there are five sections.

What I am going to do is read each section and then explain what we need to hear. And here's our big idea. Prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for His church. Prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for His church.

And in these five sections in Revelation 1, there are five ways how to prepare. And the first way how is through understanding that the one who takes to heart Christ's revelation is blessed. And we'll see this in verses 1 -3.

And we have those outlines in the bulletins. So verses 1 -3, The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. What we first learn is from whom the revelation comes.

The word revelation means something that is being revealed. What the first verse explains is that what is being revealed comes from the God-Man Himself, Jesus. I mentioned one week ago that the Apostle John wrote Revelation and he details what happens in this chapter.

What John writes is that Jesus sent Him an angel. An angel literally means messenger. The angel's responsibility was to communicate the word that came from Jesus. Then verse 3 comes where John writes that the one who reads, understands, and lives out what is written in this book is called blessed.

To be blessed is to have God's favor upon you. I mentioned this one week ago. The book of Revelation contains a promise of blessing in it. If we study this book and we get out of it what we are supposed to get out of it, we will be blessed.

Understanding the book of Revelation is very important. Frankly, this book is often avoided. I've heard it described as like coming to the edge of the marsh and just not going in. It's too intimidating.

And it's avoided by those typically who devalue the details of prophecy. Reformer John Calvin wrote a commentary on every book of the New Testament. The one he did not write it on was Revelation. Many have followed in Calvin's steps and not given much attention to the end of the story of Scripture.

Churches will talk about many topics in the Bible, but when it comes to the details of the end, many do not get there. Before I went to seminary, I knew very little about the end times because the people I listened to rarely covered it.

Thankfully, at seminary, they did and the end of the story certainly is an emphasis of this church. 27 of the Bible talks about the end of the story. So it should be an emphasis of every church. So why is it that many avoid Revelation?

They look at the book of Revelation like it is impossible to interpret, but it is not. If you understand the plain reading of the text, it is understandable. It only becomes confusing when people take a figurative approach to places that are meant to be taken literally.

What people are doing is muddying the clear waters. They're thinking outside of the box when the answers are inside the box. For example, as I said one week ago, some take the Millennium as being figurative.

But if we read Revelation like we read any other book of the Bible, the meaning becomes clear. This is how communication works. If my wife tells me, Seth, go to the store. Purchase these items. And if I come back and I say, you know what?

I took some liberty here. That must have been figurative when you said just buy one carton of eggs or whatever. That's not how communication works. Communication is this is what I said. Listen to what I said.

So why should we treat this book any differently than that? It's that simple. So we should give it careful attention, the book of Revelation, because the one who listens carefully and lives accordingly is considered blessed by God.

Prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for his church. And the first way how to prepare is through understanding that the one who understands the revelation of Jesus Christ is blessed. And when we say the word blessed, by the way, it's God's favor is upon you, but there's also a joy that you have as well.

Scripture describes the word blessing in both ways. So we want to experience that. Prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for his church. And the second way how is through understanding that Christ is the faithful witness.

And we'll see this in verses 4 -7. John to the seven churches that are in Asia graced to you in peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before His throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings on earth.

To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priest to His God and Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.

And all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so, Amen. What we read is that John is writing to the seven churches in Asia. In our next section, we will learn the seven specific churches that received this revelation.

What John says is what the Apostle Paul often said in his letters to the churches that he wrote to. What John says is grace to you and peace. What he is saying is that this grace and peace comes from God the Father and is experienced by His followers.

Frequently after the service on Sundays, I remind each of you of the blessing you have in Christ through what is known as the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers 6. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord turn His face towards you and give you peace. That is the blessing. So when Paul says grace and peace to you, he has Numbers 6 in mind. When John says grace and peace to you, he has Numbers 6 in mind.

This is a tradition of faith that if you belong to the Lord, this is your experience. You get grace from the Lord. You have peace from the Lord. As John writes this, he describes that this grace comes from the three persons of the Trinity.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He describes each person in verses 4 and 5. The Father is the one who is and who was and who is to come. Then he mentions that this grace and peace comes from the Spirit.

The Spirit is described in the second half of verse 4 as the seven Spirits. Now there is, of course, only one Spirit, but the seven describes the fullness of the Spirit since the number seven in Scripture symbolizes completeness.

Then lastly in verse 5, this grace and peace comes from Jesus, the one who is giving this revelation. In this verse, he is described as the great witness from God, as risen from the dead, and King over all kings.

He is not only King, but John tells his readers at the end of verse 5 that Jesus is the one who delivered them from the bondage of sin through his blood, which, of course, is the cross. As he's talking to the churches, he's saying this is what makes you unique from the rest of the world.

You have been delivered from your sins through my blood. That's what makes us unique. Think about this. There's clubs everywhere. There's lots of clubs that people can be a part of. You've heard of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and the Yacht Club or whatever club you might be a part of.

But think about the uniqueness of the church from any other place on earth. You belong to Jesus. You belong to the God-man who died for your sins and brought you to the Father through his blood. And my prayer here is that everyone in this room would have that relationship with Jesus.

And if you do not, believe in the Lord Jesus this day. Verse 6 says that he prepared a kingdom for his people and they also have full access to God as priests. Now that word kind of scares us right there.

We're priests? What does that mean? The priesthood of believers means that we do not have to go to another person to go to God. We go to God through Jesus Christ. He is the faithful high priest. That's what it means.

The priesthood of believers. That was something that the Reformation recaptured when the Roman Catholic Church believed that we had to go through a man to get to Jesus. Then in verse 7, John describes his coming where all the earth will see Jesus as he comes to the earth to take his throne.

John explains in verse 7 that there will be mourning as he comes. This is the mourning of repentance. This describes those who turn from their sins during the final seven-year tribulation. When he returns, they will mourn that they once rejected him, but that mourning will not last as they have now received Jesus and will reign with him.

We know this because Zechariah says that the Jewish nation will look on the one whom they have pierced. They delivered Jesus to the Romans to be crucified and they will mourn. They will be full of repentance as he comes and they will belong to him when they repent.

Then in verse 8, we hear from the man himself. We hear from Jesus. We will also see him speak with John in a little bit. What Jesus says in verse 8 is that he is the Alpha and the Omega. These two letters are the first and last of the Greek alphabet.

The language that the New Testament was written in. When Jesus says that he is the first and the last, what he is communicating is that all knowledge is contained in him. Colossians describes this. In Christ, the treasures of wisdom are contained.

I've been thinking about this this week. Think about all the people in the world who see corruption, who see problems, who see this world coming unraveled. They're on to something. They see truth. But where does truth end?

It ends in Jesus. If people continue on the path of truth, eventually the road ends in meeting Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. We should pray for those people, that they would find that all knowledge, all knowledge correctly understood, has him as the center of it.

And when we think about the Alpha and the Omega, why is he saying this at the beginning of the book of Revelation? The book of Revelation is about the end of history. It's about the story. It's about the end of this great grand story that God is writing.

One author said this about Jesus calling himself the Alpha and the Omega. Christ is the supreme sovereign alphabet. There is nothing outside his knowledge. So as there are no unknown factors that can sabotage his second coming.

Satan needs to read this. Satan tries to thwart God's plan. He can't. All knowledge is contained in him. All power is contained in him. He's going to bring it to pass exactly how he wants it to. God decides the timing of everything in the world, including the end.

The one who gives us the clear revelation of the end is the God-man. As verse 5 once again says, he is the faithful witness. So prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for his church. And the second way how is through understanding that Jesus Christ is the faithful witness.

Prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for his church. And the third way how is through understanding that John calls his fellow believers to patiently endure. And we are going to see this in verses 9 through 11.

I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

What we read here is that John is telling his readers that he is enduring tribulation alongside them as he writes this letter from the island of Patmos in the Mediterranean. And more specifically the island of Patmos is located in the Aegean Sea which is a little sea connected to the Mediterranean.

As John writes this as he's talking about patient endurance with the churches we need to understand what he and all the saints in the first century have gone through. They have gone through horrible, horrible trials.

The third century church historian Eusebius recorded that 11 of the 12 disciples died a martyr's death. And the only one not to die was John. And you might say, well he got off scot-free. No he didn't.

He got exiled by the Roman Emperor. He did not die. Why did John not die? Well the Lord Jesus had a plan for him. And that plan was for him to write about how the world was going to end. What an enormous responsibility he had.

As John once again writes in verse 9, he was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. God placed him there for this task. He had the enormous responsibility to pass along this message to the world.

Remarkably, John wrote the book of Revelation about 60 years after Jesus left the earth. That's a long time. Sixty years. You can think of the memories he had of Jesus. The vivid memories that he had.

Sixty years had passed. And now it was his task to receive this revelation from Him. As he writes this, he is writing to church members who are suffering. And what he is telling them is that they are suffering alongside each other in hope.

I was talking to Linda about the word hope this morning. Every person alive right now has hope in something. You can't live without hope. You need it. Now the problem is, a lot of people, their hope is in the wrong place.

Their hope is in some dream or some goal they have or some idol. Our hope needs to be in Jesus Christ because that's the only hope that will last. That's the only hope where your hope will actually be delivered on the great desires that you have.

I love the sign we have going down to the stairs. Psalm 1611. Barb asked me when I first came here, what verse should we put up there? That's the verse I picked. Because you know what that verse is about?

In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. What does every person on planet earth want? They want to be fully happy and they don't want it ever to end. Where is the only place that's delivered?

This book. This is the book that will lead you to that. It comes through Jesus Christ alone. So he's writing this patient endurance in hope. He's connecting with these saints who are suffering. And he's reminding them, knowing the outcome of all things.

The saints would read what he writes in this book and even though they would see the darkness that would come on the world, they would see the glorious ending of the story. That God establishes his kingdom forever and ever.

Now what John writes in verse 10 is that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. When's the Lord's day? Right now. Sunday. The first day of the week. Why do we meet on Sundays? You might run into a Seventh-day Adventist.

Why are you meeting on Saturday? Nobody in the last 2 ,000 years met on Saturday. We meet on Sunday because every Sunday is a memorial remembering that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. It's not that complicated.

End of debate. Right there. No day during the week is as special as this day. Sunday. It's sad when people treat it. We have sports events on Sunday. Why? There shouldn't be sports events on Sunday. Now, does that mean I'm going to boycott watching the Vikings?

I don't know. That's another story. But frankly, they should never. In fact, there was a movie out on concussions in the NFL. I can't remember the name of the movie. But there was a line in there. God used to have Sundays.

Now the NFL has it. What a tragedy that is. Sundays is about Christ. It's different from every day of the week. We have one day of the week every week that's a holiday. Don't work. Meet with your church family.

Meet with your biological family. Meet with your friends. Enjoy the day. Rest. That's what Sunday is supposed to be. Now, what John is describing in verse 10 is something that none of us have ever experienced.

Verse 10 he says here, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write what you see in a book. Okay, so he's experiencing this. This is not a dream.

This is not a vision. As John was on the island of Patmos, he was actually taken out of the material world to heaven to see glorious things. And it was the Spirit of God who enabled him to see these things.

The Apostle Paul had a similar experience in 2 Corinthians 12 verses 2 -4 where Paul wrote, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know.

God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. This was Paul's experience.

And John had a similar experience to Paul. The Lord made it so that he would see extraordinary things. Think of all the dramatic images in Revelation. He would see all these things as the Spirit brought him to heaven to see them.

Daniel had a similar experience. Think of the images that he saw. He actually received visions, but it's said that he was sick for days after he saw these visions. Sometimes you might have a bad dream and it's just dramatic and you're just shaken the whole day.

Think of his experience as he went through this. As John is in this place, as the end of verse 10 says, he heard a loud voice. This voice sounds like a trumpet and the voice says to him in verse 11 once again, write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches.

More on the seven churches in a bit. So these are the seven churches that would receive what is contained in the 22 chapters of Revelation. Of course, the Lord not only wanted the seven churches to receive this prophetic word, he wants all churches to receive it.

It is remarkable that in 2023, we have a copy. Isn't that amazing? We have it. We can look at it. We can benefit from it. Once again, the message to the seven churches is a message that all believers need.

We need it because it helps us endure in this dark world. In our world, it looks like evil is going to win. We're in the minority. It looks like evil cannot be stopped, but we are told the story ahead of time and this should comfort us.

It's like watching an intense sporting event where you know that your team wins. I spent the first 30 years of my life in Minnesota and I'm a Minnesota sports fan, which is really not a good thing by the way, but Eric can tell you that.

The biggest moment in Minnesota sports was probably Game 7 of the 91 World Series where the Twins played the Atlanta Braves. I apologize to Keith and Julie because they were rooting for the Braves. I'm sorry.

He's from Georgia. The score was 0 -0 going into the bottom of the 10th where the Twins finally scored and won by a score of 1 -0. If you ever watched the footage of that game, it was an intense game.

It was actually an intense series. My father attended that game and as an almost 5-year-old, I begged my father to go, but he said no, so I had to watch it from home. There were so many twists and turns, but in the end, the Twins won.

Occasionally, I watch that game and I don't stress out about it. I don't despair in moments when things don't look good. The Braves actually at one moment, it was 0 -0. They had runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out.

The only reason that happened is because Greg Gagne, who by the way is a strong Christian, he decoyed the guy running around the bases and he stopped. He should have scored, but he only made it to 3rd base and he ended up not getting home, which is really fascinating.

But when things don't look good when I watch it years later, I don't stress because I know the end result. I know that my team won. As John writes this, he's writing the end of the story. The people of God see the darkness, but they know how the story is going to end, and so it encourages them to press on in the midst of the trials.

Believers are not to despair in the midst of the many twists and turns of the story that is playing out before our eyes. So prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for His church and the third way how is through understanding that John calls his fellow believers to patiently endure.

You endure knowing the end of the story. You endure in hope. The fourth way how you are to prepare yourself for the message that Jesus has for His church is through understanding that John stood in the presence of Christ in all His glory.

We'll see this in verses 12 -16. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.

The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. So in the previous section, we saw John hear the voice that sounded like a trumpet.

In verse 10, verse 12 tells us that he turned to see the voice. When he turned, what he saw was incredible. Verse 12 says that he saw seven golden lampstands, and in the middle of these lampstands was one like a son of man.

Anytime there's a description of Jesus, that's the image you get. One like a son of man. And he calls himself the son of man. He's always referencing these passages that describe him in that way. Then he gives us the description of what he looked like.

The first thing that John noticed is that this man was clothed with a long robe with a golden sash around his chest. As the gold blazed before John's eyes, he noticed the man's hair. The hair on his head was white.

This was a blazing white, like when the sun shines on the snow, a fresh snow that dazzles before our eyes. Then John looks in his eyes, and his eyes had a flame of fire. Then he looked at his feet and noticed a bronze that also carried an otherworldly brightness.

Then he explains what his voice was like. Earlier in verse 10, we learned that his voice was like a trumpet. Here we learn that his voice is like the roar of many waters. Right now, because of the heavy snow that we had this past winter, we see the St. Croix River roaring.

It's actually getting less and less every day, but a week or two ago, it was unbelievably fast and roaring. If you went down to the river, in the six plus years I've lived here, I have not seen it roar like we see it this past spring.

When there's lots of water in the river, and it is fast, it roars. And the sound that comes from the rush of water is how John describes the voice of this man who stands before him. Then John notices what is in his hand.

In his right hand, he holds seven stars, which we will learn what that is in a little bit. Out of this man's mouth, he notices a two-edged sword. This sword is frightening, but the sword is not frightening for those who belong to him because the sword is intended to crush his enemies.

The last feature of this man that John observes is that his face was like the sun shining in full strength. What we read is that all around him there is this brightness that shines from him. This is the glorious man.

This can only be one man. It is the God-man, Jesus Christ. The description that John gives here is the description that John gives him in Revelation 19 as we read this morning when Jesus returns to the earth to defeat his enemies and to establish his kingdom.

It's this glorious event that he is coming. Remember, John has been taken out of this world as he's seeing these visions, and as he writes, he's been taken out of this world to heaven to see these images.