Text: Revelation 1:4-8
Focus: Worship
Function: To help people focus on The Kingdom of God
Form: Bible Study
Intro:
Can I do a teaching?
I wish I had a month to go over all the theology in the passage we used for Easter.
It teaches about Spiritual warfare, Jesus’ having the prime place in glory, how He defeats the god of the world –the devil, and it teaches about the meaning and purpose of the resurrection.
The meaning of the resurrection is best understood when we consider where we are resurrected to.
During the sermon, we are going to spend the next 3 weeks in Heaven. (SHOW IMAGE)
The Bible tells us a lot about heaven, but at the same time, it leaves most all of the details out. It is always a mystical place for us to ponder and dream about.
So, we are going to get a view of heaven in this three-week study.
The book of Revelation is one of the most controversial books in the bible.
The interpretations of its prophecies vary greatly. When I was a new Christian, understanding Bible prophecy was my first passion in study. I read everything I could about it. I read from the meaning behind the great Hymn: “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations,” a hymn about how the Church will bring God’s kingdom to earth and the whole earth will be better and better because of Christian influence and the second coming of Christ may only be the time when the values of the gospel are obtained.
This view is the primary historic view of the Church from the beginning.
They call that doctrine a post-millennial view since the events of Armageddon don’t take place until after the 1,000 year reign of Christ.
I don’t think so, but I may be wrong. I find the scriptures in Matthew 24 when Jesus talks about the increase in evil, the increase in world calamities or in Revelation 22 where it says, Good people will get better and Evil people will get worse to mean that there will be a big contrast between good and evil.
The Pre-millennial view has the rapture, the 1,000 year reign of Christ, and then the battle of Armageddon after Satan’s release from the bottomless pit. That view is broken down into three basic categories, Pre-Tribulation, Mid-Tribulation, and Post-Tribulation. That means that the rapture will happen either before these terrible events in Revelation take place, or during the middle, when the Antichrist turns up the heat so to speak and the mark of the beast is instituted, and post, that believers will be miraculously supplied during the tribulation and the rapture doesn’t happen until “the last trumpet” sounds.
An then there is the Amillennial view which states that the dark ages were the millennium… …if you try putting it all together, it gets crazy.
We have this need, this desire to know about Bible prophecy and what is going to happen in the end.
We care about it so much because we have loved ones that we want to know are ready to stand before God.
And listen, all of this is exciting. Study and academics were generally pretty easy for me. But I found something out, the more that I studied, the less sure I was about any one position.
I question the theologian who thinks his or her interpretation is the only valid one.
Because, being less sure is Biblical.
In the OT, the book that speaks the most about end times prophecy is Daniel. In 9:24 and 11:4, God tells Daniel that these prophecies will remain a mystery until after they are fulfilled.
Jesus repeats the mystery of these visions, prophecies and revelations right at the end of the book of Revelation by warning people not to add to, or take away from the teaching. (SHOW) Revelation 22:18-19 I give fair warning to all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: If you add to the words of this prophecy, God will add to your life the disasters written in this book; if you subtract from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract your part from the Tree of Life and the Holy City that are written in this book.
So, it’s like, I better not preach about exactly how the prophecies will be fulfilled, because 1). By God’s design, they are a mystery until after they are fulfilled and 2). I don’t want all those plagues added to my own life!
But, every time we read it, we get a special blessing. Every time we read it, just like watching the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” we get something new, a different angle, another word or image that was there all along that strikes us as appropriate for the times we are in.
So, what is it that I believe God wants us to see from this passage?
Given the fact it is wrong to get to precise about the meaning of these things, why is this book such a special blessing to believers?
Well, according to Pastor Gavin at the Evangelical Covenant Church in Albert City, Iowa: (SHOW) “The book of Revelation isn’t as much about laying out the future as it is about worshipping God and Jesus. It is a book about worship.”
Then he goes on to say: “Throughout Revelation people are worshipping all sorts of things, and the true church, the real Christians are the ones who worship God alone. And, I think this is where it becomes most clear, this vision was given to a church who was facing persecution and even death for their faith. If they chose not to follow the worship practices of the world around them, they could die for this. And Revelation offers real and strong hope to them. It tells them that the world will seem to get horrible, but in the end they will join with all of God’s saints in worshipping Jesus at the foot of his throne.”
Verses 5-7 are actually a song, given to us by God, a song that we are to sing until we get to heaven. Hear the words in their poetry:
Glory and strength to Christ, who loves us,
who blood-washed our sins from our lives,
Who made us a Kingdom, Priests for his
Father,
Forever—and yes, he's on his way!
Riding the clouds, he'll be seen by every eye,
those who mocked and killed him will see him,
People from all nations and all times
will tear their clothes in lament.
Oh, Yes.
1st service: We sing a big portion of that in one of my favorite hymns, #336, It is Well With My Soul. That last line about how our faith shall be sight, the trumpet shall sound and God will make sense out of all the pain and suffering we have endured as Christians.
2nd service: We sing directly from this passage of scripture when we sing:
Riding on a cloud!
Shining like the sun!
At the trumpet's call!
Lift your voice!
It's the year of jubilee!
Out of Zion’s hill salvation comes!
This scripture is actually a song given to us to sing until Jesus returns to bring His children home.
Well wait a moment, what about the last verse of that song?
(SHOW) People from all nations and all times
will tear their clothes in lament. Oh, Yes.
1st service: The hand bell choir and their families, and everyone else who stays will get to hear our first song in the worship set from the praise team, Victory Chant. And if you don’t get to hear it and want to, you can log on to my sermon blog and see the link right to the song.
2nd service: We started out with the song, “Victory Chant.”
It is a great song. It is called Victory Chant, but it isn’t a song of how we received a victory over all those who rejected what we believe.
No, it’s a song about Jesus and the victory He accomplished by the cross and the resurrection in order to set us free.
We worship Him for what He has done for us.
So what about this song, this line, “everyone else will wail and lament” and we respond with the satisfaction of the words: “oh yes!”
Is he saying that we are to gloat over the fact that the many people who refused to acknowledge Jesus will suffer when He does return, when He appears in the sky, when the entire world hears that last trumpet blast, it is a day of happiness for us because they are not with us?
I tell you this, I am genuinely excited and hoping for my graduation day when I get to be in heaven with Jesus, the child that we lost, my dad and all the others who have gone before me.
One youth who had particularly bonded with me in a former parish really took it hard when God called me on. I remember my last words to him were: “Brother, you better be in heaven with me. Promise me you will make it.”
We want to go to heaven, and in heaven, there will be joy that we cannot imagine. In heaven God will wipe away our last tears, and then there will be no more crying.
(SHOW) Revelation 21:4 …They're his people, he's their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone."
I can only imagine that those first tears wiped away will be tears for those who are not there.
I can also imagine that God would never get over the grief of anyone who didn’t choose to go.
Both Methodist and Brethren churches were built so that from the pulpit, the pastor could see the cemetery so that he would be reminded of the fate of every person in that room.
If you love somebody, you don’t want them to go to hell.
Brother Paul said that he loved his people so much; he would go to hell on their behalf if he could.
Well Paul can’t save people. I can’t save people. You can’t save people. Only Jesus can.
And that is what Jesus did.
Jesus went to hell for us.
Except hell couldn’t keep Him there.
Romans 10:7, Colossians 2:15 and Ephesians 4:8:
(SHOW) Jesus descended into hell (Romans 10:7), He disarmed Satan (Colossians 2:15), and He lead a host of captives out of hell into heaven, (Ephesians 4:8).
When He rose from the dead, he proved that God’s mercy triumphs over the shame and evil that Satan puts on us.
So, if you love somebody, even your enemy, you do not wish them to go to hell. How can we sing this song and gloat over those who don’t make it?
I cannot picture God gloating over those who don’t make it.
What does this mean, the people will lament?
The bible is really clear about gloating over an enemy’s failure: Proverbs 17:5, and 24:17 are direct commands for us to not rejoice when an enemy stumbles.
About this point, you are probably thinking, “Stop asking us what you think it means and tell us what you think it means!”
You have to understand the context of Revelations. John the apostle is in prison on the island of Patmos, history says that the Roman prison there was a hard labor camp where they busted rocks from dawn to dusk every single day to provide paving stones for Roman highways. It’s Sunday morning, the day they used to gather to worship, but he is alone. He is somewhere praying; the whole island is a prison. And in this place God gives him this Revelation.
Nero is Emperor. He is so Antichrist that he literally uses Christians who are soaked in tar and impaled on poles, lit on fire as lights for his orgies.
Across the Roman Empire Christians are persecuted because they refuse to worship Nero as their god.
The Christians are wondering if God has this in His plan, or if something has gone wrong in heaven. They have gone from tremendous growth and blessing to terrible persecution.
Satan hates grace, and the church is giving grace from God to everyone. It is multiplying as miraculously as the feeding of the 5,000.
So Satan puts this enmity into Nero’s mind.
God, in response, gives this beautiful Revelation to John. It is a letter from God that Nero isn’t going to get away with his extremely wicked torture of Christians.
(SHOW) Revelations is a letter to the oppressed everywhere that God indeed is a fair judge, and He will set everything to right.
He doesn’t gloat over those who refuse Him, who choose evil over good, who serve themselves instead of others, who have 2 coats and refuse to give one to someone who has none. He doesn’t gloat over them, but He tells His children that He knows how to vindicate them. Revelation is a book about God’s love for the oppressed. It comforts us to know that it isn’t all in vain.
Did you know that Nero’s name is 666?
(SHOW)
Don’t worry, I can’t read Hebrew either.
Much of the language in Revelation is symbolic, mysterious, and cryptic.
God gave a divine revelation to John, it is a miraculous vision, it is given to comfort and challenge his people. God did it in such a way as to keep them from getting into further trouble by using this highly symbolic language.
So what is this challenge?
It has a lot to do with the core of our theology.
From this scripture we teach the priesthood of all believers.
Rome justified its enslavement of the world by claiming that the emperor was god, and it was moral and just for them to rule others. They believed that they had a divine mandate. But history has shown us the truth, that “might doesn’t make right” and people are willing to do anything to justify themselves.
So, when across the Kingdom, Christians wouldn’t bow to Caesar, they were labeled as unpatriotic, traitors and heretics.
That is why, right at the beginning of the book, he reminds believers everywhere, who are suffering terrible persecution, that we are members of a greater kingdom, hold on, God’s Kingdom will reign and God will move to protect His own.
(SHOW) We are a kingdom, a spiritual kingdom. We are a kingdom of Priests.
Question, how can every Christian be a priest?
We teach and emphasize the Priesthood of all believers. We teach and preach the concept that all of us have direct access to God and we no longer need a man to intercede for us, then who are we priests for?
Obviously, we are priests for those who have not yet joined God’s family.
(SHOW) We are Priests to unbelievers.
Jesus said to the disciples right before He left them in the book of John: (SHOW) John 20:22-23 Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said. "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"
I had to talk to a detective about something a few months ago and I said to him: “You have the power of law; we have the power of grace.”
In my experience, there are two ways to make a church grow. One is, “rant, rave and yell about how bad all the others are and feed on people’s fear and anger.”
But the other, the Biblical one is this: “Do Justice, Love Mercy and be Humble before God.” When we give mercy, God is pleased and the body of Christ grows.
(SHOW –don’t say) Is Jesus your King?
But there is still one unanswered question here. Yes, Jesus is the Firstborn of the dead, the King of Kings and all that. But is He your King? Have you given your life to Him? He said "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me."(John 14:6)
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