The Introduction Pt 1

All right, well, welcome to Wednesday night service. If you could start finding your way to your seats, and let's praise the Lord together. Let's start off with a prayer. All right, dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for Christmas and sending your son and the time we've got to just spend with our families here. And for the new year and a time of analyzing ourselves and just setting goals and maybe drawing closer to you, Lord.

I pray that tonight we just come together, we open the word, and we learn, and we grow closer to you. I pray this in your heavenly name, amen.

That you created us for a purpose, and you put us here. You desire a relationship with us, Lord. You bless Ryan as he comes forward and opens the door. Good evening. If you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Revelation. Chapter 1.

Revelation chapter 1. Tonight we come to the last book of the Bible. Really, it ties everything together. There's a reason why the creators of the canon put it where they did. And it's because everything in all of the Old and New Testament all come together in this book of Revelation. One of my favorite movie trilogies is the Bourne trilogy. Because it's awesome.

It's awesome. But if I were to go and watch the Bourne ultimatum without first watching the Bourne Identity and the Bourne Supremacy, I would have no idea what was going on. Don't get me wrong. It would still be a great movie. And I would still be like, wow, that guy can shoot better than anybody in the world. But I still would be confused the whole time. Because I wouldn't know any of the characters.

I wouldn't know any of the plot. I wouldn't really understand why there was significance in the things that were taking place. That's kind of the way that it is with the book of Revelation. If you don't know anything else about Scripture, you're still going to find that it's a pretty interesting book. But if you don't know anything else about Scripture, you're still going to find that it's a pretty interesting book.

But a lot of things aren't going to make sense because it ties together everything in Scripture. It ties together everything that we have been studying in the Old and the New Testaments. That's why a whole Bible diet is so important for us. And so as we get into things tonight, the title of the message is An Introduction. Because we're only going to cover the first eight verses tonight.

But a little bit of that's going to be background. Now, as I start off with the background, I want to first start off with what I call disclaimers and purpose. Okay, so these are my disclaimers. The things that I need to tell you about me and about my view of teaching this book as we get started. Number one, I will not have all the answers. As a matter of fact, there will be a significant number of times that I'll say,

I have no idea what he's talking about there and neither does anybody else. We're all at our best guessing based on what we know about Scripture. And if anybody begins to tell you dogmatically on some of those things, no, this is exactly what happens. You can go, Hmm, I bet you don't really know because if that many scholars over that many years have come to a place of going, we don't really know exactly what that means, then we should probably all hold on to that idea.

So I'm not going to have all of the answers when it comes to this, but I'll be honest with you about that. Which brings me to my second disclaimer, one that I think we should all hold on to. We must all always keep an open mind when we study prophetic writings. Because oftentimes in our study of prophetic writings, there is greater understanding that's given based upon our current culture and the current circumstances that are going on.

For instance, a lot of people did not believe that the nation of Israel would at all be a factor in end times prophecy for a long time, because the nation of Israel hadn't even been gathered back together. That's why so many people that wrote before 1948 had no idea that the nation of Israel would come back together. And so they began to allegorize things about the book of Revelation because they're under, it wasn't that they didn't love the Lord, it wasn't that they didn't believe in scripture, but their understanding was so limited by their current situation and knowledge. But those that held on to an open mind, an open mind about scripture and allowed their minds to be changed by the Holy Spirit

and guided by scripture allowed their minds to be guided as they moved along and as the nation of Israel came back together. So we must keep an open mind as we study. Here's my third disclaimer. Our goal, and I stole this from David Guzik. But I thought it was so good. Our goal is biblical prophecy, not prophetic speculation. I think oftentimes we get ourselves in so much trouble when we begin going off on tangents

and we start adding up all of the numbers and all of the days and all of the moons and all of the suns and all of these kinds of things. And all of a sudden we're like, according to my calculations, Jesus is coming back on December 23rd of 2023. I believe that because I have calculated the number of the days. The number of the ages and all of the different people in the Bible up to this point in time.

And they add up to that exact number. That's called prophetic speculation. We don't want to do that. We want to hold on to what Bible prophecy has to say to the best understanding that we can as we compare it with scripture. And then this is my fourth disclaimer. And it will not be the only time I say this in our study of the book of Revelation. Jesus has to remain the focus.

Because John is going to make Jesus the focus. And so if at any point in time, I feel like I'm getting off of the point of Jesus. I will tell you, hey, listen, I got outside of the realm of my main goal here. And that's to point us to Jesus. And I want to apologize for that. Let's get back on track. Because that's our goal as we study through this book of Revelation.

But that brings me to the second part of my disclaimers and purpose. And that's the purpose. Why do we care about studying Bible prophecy? Well, I think there's a handful of reasons why it's important. Why we should care. Why we should care about studying Bible prophecy. Number one, because it reminds us that God is in control. It is such a good reminder right now to know that in all of the things that we're seeing happening in the world,

that God is in control. That in all of the crazy weather that we're seeing happening, I don't know if you all saw that there's some sort of a bomb cyclone. I've never heard the term bomb cyclone until here recently. It was in December when the crazy thing hit the East Coast. I didn't know that was a thing. Kind of like how many of you had to look up what a snow squall was a couple of weeks ago, right?

I Googled it myself. I'm like, snow squall warning? I don't even know what that means. We live in Kansas, right? That doesn't happen. But all the crazy weather stuff that we see happening, all of the crazy murders that we see happening, and all of the craziness in our government that just continues to take place, it can sometimes be mildly overwhelming. It can be scary as we look at our world.

If we do not remember that there is a God who is in control. And our study of Bible prophecy reminds us that none of these things have taken God by surprise. As a matter of fact, he is very much orchestrating the events of history to bring about his plan and his purpose. The second purpose of studying prophecy is that it teaches us about the love of God. Jesus was very specific with his disciples when he said,

I'm going to tell you what I'm doing because I no longer call you my servants, but my friends. You see, a servant. He doesn't know what his master is doing, but I've told you everything because you're my friends. And it reminds us that as we get into something like Bible prophecy, that God told us all of these things because he loves us so much. Because he considers us his friends.

Because as we see that this is going to be addressed to the church, the seven churches, but we'll talk about why that's really just the church in general. We realize that he's talking to us because he loves us, because we're his friends. And he wants us to know what's coming. Number three. Number three, a study in Bible prophecy gives us hope. It gives us hope that this place is not our home, that this is not our end,

that the chaos that we see facing us today is actually moving towards a goal and a purpose, and it gives us hope. And then number four, the final purpose for the study of prophecy is that it has a purifying effect on our lives. You see, as we study, it begins to create in us an understanding of the imminence of the return of Christ. The imminence of the fact that he is coming again.

And as we think about the fact that he is coming again, it's sort of like when you were a teenager and your mom left you a list of chores to do before she got home. And you noticed that the clock was ticking down to the fact that she was going to be home in a half an hour. And so that entire list of chores all of a sudden became tops on your priority list. Why?

Because you knew that her return was imminent. Well, that's what the study of Bible prophecy does for us. It reminds us of the imminence of the return of Christ. And it reminds us that our lives are to be pure because he could be coming at any point in time. So those are my disclaimers and a little bit of our purpose of study. So let's talk a little bit of background.

There's four main views of those that study the book of Revelation. Four main views of the book of Revelation. I'm going to do the best I can, but I'm going to make them incredibly simple because I don't want to major on this. The first view is what's called the preterist view. I don't remember if I had to put those up there or not. The preterist view, which basically says Revelation has been fulfilled in the past.

Everything was done. We talked about this a little bit with Matthew 24 and 25, that the destruction of the temple and all that. That was the completion of the Revelation. And so that's the preterist view. Everything had taken place there in the past. The second view is what's known as the historical view. It pictures the church throughout the ages. This is really the story of the church throughout the ages.

It oftentimes leads to amillennialism, which tells us that there is no millennial kingdom. And it very much, again, has to allegorize much of chapters 4 through 22. The third view is what's known as the idealist view. The idealist view sees the entire book of Revelation as an allegorical battle of a clash between good and evil. So I don't really hold that. I don't hold to that view either.

And then there comes the last view, which is what's known as the futurist view. And the futurist view is that the events, especially of chapters 4 through 22, are literal events that will take place in the future. That this is future prophecy that John is writing down as it's being given to him from an angel. And we are still looking for the fulfillment of many of these things once you get past chapter 3.

And while each of the views has their own merit, I do think that there's history that's involved, obviously, because of the first three chapters. I think that those chapters about the church are not only relevant to the church that existed then, but the church that exists throughout history. I do think that there's an aspect of the fact that we do see the forces of good and evil, obviously God being good, Satan being evil. There's some aspect of some of these things that are true.

But I think the best view that we can hold to and the view that Calvary Chapel holds to is that futurist view, that these are all future events. That we're looking for. That we're looking forward to. So, done with all the boring stuff. Let's get into things here. Okay, a little info about the book. So, it's A.D. 95. John has lived longer than any of the other disciples by this point in time.

And they tried to kill him, but it didn't work. There was a great song by a band called Alice in Chains, and it's called The Rooster. And the story is about this guy's dad who was in the Vietnam War, and they couldn't kill him. And the line goes like this. Yeah, here comes the rooster. You know? He ain't gonna die. And they thought, man, if John lived today, that's the song they would sing about John, right?

Because they tried to kill this guy, and he wouldn't die. They boiled him in oil. The emperor at that point in time was a guy named Domitian. Now, if Nero was bad, Domitian was like, hold my beer, right? Like, I'm gonna make things even worse than Nero did. He was maybe the craziest of all of the emperors that ruled. And his persecution of the church was so intense.

Well, when he couldn't kill John, he exiled him to the Isle of Patmos. And so John, the apostle, while on the Isle of Patmos, was given this vision. Now, some scholars have a hard time attributing the book of Revelation to the apostle John because its writing and its flair is just a little bit different than the gospel of John and the epistles of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. But as many other commentators have pointed out, that's pretty easy to understand why the writing might be a little bit different.

First of all, the apocalyptic nature. Of everything that he's gonna see is gonna screw with you just a little bit, right? And it's gonna make you write just a little bit different than normal. But also, think about everything that John has gone through up to this point in time. And now you're exiled all by yourself on an island while an angel is delivering a message to you.

One could understand why maybe his writing style changed just a touch from his earlier writings. But it's pretty well given by most conservative scholars that, John the apostle is the one who wrote the book of Revelation. As I said before, the book of Revelation ties together everything in the Bible. There are actually over 500 allusions to the Old Testament.

One commentary, I believe it was David Guzik again that said this, that if you took all of the verses in the book of Revelation, over 70% of them have some sort of a reference to the Old Testament, which is why... why I like to spend a lot of time teaching in the Old Testament, because the Old Testament helps us to understand the New Testament. And so it ties everything together. And now we come to chapter one. The first eight verses are literally what I would call

the introduction, and that's what I have titled them. So let's read through those first eight verses, and then we'll begin to discuss them. We come to chapter one, verse one. This is what it says. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his bondservants the things which must soon take place. And he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant,

John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it. For the time is near. John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace 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 of the earth to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood. And he has made us to be a kingdom of priests to his God. And father to him, be the 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 mourn over him. So it is to be. Amen. I am the alpha and the omega says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come the almighty. That's John's introduction for us to this book of revelation. It starts off with a very simple line. It says the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ. That word revelation is the word Apocalypse. It means the revealing or the unveiling. So really you could

say if you were to read this literally the unveiling of Jesus Christ, because that, that is the point. It is the explores of the hall of Jesus Christ. It Glass upon Jesus Christ. And we will be reminded of the judgment of Jesus Christ and we will be reminded of the second coming of Jesus. Jesus Christ, because he is going to reveal Jesus. Ultimately, that's the point of scripture,

is it not? Is to reveal Jesus Christ to us. Jesus, who is that image of God, the image of the unseen God for us. So this is the revelation or the unveiling of Jesus Christ. Jesus is going to be the central message of everything that takes place within this book. But he says in verse one, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his bond servants, the things which

must soon take place. They must soon take place. Now there's a couple of different ideas we have of our understanding of soon, right? First of all, this book was written about 2000 years ago. And so we know that soon is perhaps a relative term, correct? Because I don't know about you, but soon doesn't seem like 2000 years. We do remember though, that with God,

a thousand years ago, we have a book that was written about 2000 years ago. And so we know a thousand years is as a day and a day is as a thousand years. Let's not make that walk on all fours. Let's just understand that God's timetable is different than ours. But there's something else that's very interesting to think about when it comes to this phrase soon. And the idea of this

phrase soon is that the things that will take place will happen in rapid fashion. Once they begin, they will happen in rapid fashion. Once they begin to take place. If you think about it, we're waiting for this last seven years of the 70th week of Daniel, correct? Now, I want you to think about how fast seven years go. If you just look at it from face value,

you go seven years, that's really a long time. But when I think about the fact that my wife and I moved down here almost 13 years ago, I go, whoa, that's fast. And so when he says these things will soon take place, it not only means that we should have this eminent understanding of the coming of Christ, but it means that once these things begin, they will happen in rapid fashion. And so the things that he's going to tell us about are going to happen in a very quick fashion. He says, these things were sent and communicated at the end of verse, uh, uh, one

sent and communicated it by his angel to his bond servant, John. Now that word communicated at the very end of verse one is an important word and one that we should pay attention to for our overall understanding of the book of revelation. Uh, I prefer the new King James translation on this because the new King James, the new King James translation says that they were signified by the angel that was sent by God. That word signified, we could break up into two pieces that says sign the fight because the idea behind the word communicates is that communicated through signs. Now, again, this is important for

our overall understanding of the book of revelation, because John is going to write down to the best of his understanding, everything that he sees. Now, John is limited in some of his language because John has not seen the things that we've seen. Can you imagine somebody from a hundred years ago showing up in today's world and trying to write down all of the things that they see, trying to describe people that walk around with these devices in their hands. He wouldn't even know the word devices. They have this block in their hand that gives them pictures

and gives them words. Can you imagine them explaining a car or explaining the airplanes that we have or explaining the, military weaponry that we have. They would do the best that they could, but they would have to speak in somewhat sign type language in figurative type language to do the best that they can to understand. And so we need to understand that as John is delivering these things, they're somewhat in signs because he has to do the best that he can to communicate things that are very unclear, but he has no language perhaps to try to describe. So he says,

these things have been communicated by his angel to his bondservant. John who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Now, the next thing that we see is what I call the blessing. It says blessed is he who reads those who hear the words and those who heed the things which are written in it for the time is near. If you were with us in our discussion of Matthew chapter

five and the beatitudes, the same exact Greek word is used here blessed or, how happy, how prosperous is the man who reads these things. And he tells us there's three things that we can do to be blessed. Number one, he says to read it. That means that there is a blessing that comes just by reading the book of revelation. Even if you don't understand everything that it

has to say, even if you can't fully grasp everything that it has to say, there's still a blessing in reading it. But not only if you read it, but if you hear it, because remember, this is a, a letter that's going to be sent to the churches. He'll tell us that in just a moment, he's sending this to churches. Therefore, as most letters at that point in time were intended to be, it should be read aloud for everybody to hear it. That means there's a blessing to not only

read it, but to have it read to you. That means that because you showed up tonight, you're going to be blessed. You're welcome, right? So what I'm here for, I'm here to be a blessing. But not only those who read it, not only those who hear it, but there's always that third thing, those who heed it. Now it's kind of hard to think like, what kind of personal application are we

going to get out of the book of revelation? Well, there's all kinds of personal application to get out of the book of revelation. We're, as I mentioned before, we're going to talk about redemption. We're going to talk about repentance as he talks to the seven churches. We're even going to talk about repentance as he gets into the fact that as judgment falls, people will,

will still not repent. Therefore we should not be like that. It's important to understand that there's going to be an exhortation to evangelism and there's going to be an exhortation to be looking for that second coming. He says, it's not only those who hear and those who read, there is a blessing in that, but also for those who take heed to the words that it has to say.

And so there's a distinct blessing in the study of the book of revelation. Now we get into, what I call the to and the from verse four, it says, John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you in peace. Now, as he begins to tell us who it's to, he gives us somewhat of a specific statement. He says, John, that's him. He's the writer to the seven churches that are

in Asia. Now it's kind of interesting because there's actually more than seven churches in Asia. There's actually a great deal more seven church, more than seven churches in Asia. But he addresses this just to the seven churches in Asia. Therefore, we should think, is it just a seven churches in Asia or is there something deeper we should look at here? Well, if we have an understanding of scripture, we know that the word seven carries with it the

idea of completion. Therefore, I believe what he's saying here when he says to the seven churches in Asia is he's actually talking about to the church as a whole, because the word seven speaks of completion. Therefore, he is writing this to the church as a whole. We'll talk about this, word seven again, actually quite a few times throughout the book of Revelation, but at least one more time tonight. And so this is a letter for all of the churches.

He says to the seven churches that are in Asia. And then of course, he gives that familiar greeting that is often given in many epistles. He says, grace and peace. Now that greeting is pretty important, not just because of the way that we apply it. When we say you can't have the peace of God, we can't have the peace of God. We can't have the peace of God. Until, you know, the grace of God, although that's true, but it's also important to point

out that grace was the greeting that the Romans gave. Peace was the greeting that the Jewish people gave. Therefore, we have the understanding that as he's writing this to the churches, this is not just strictly a Jewish book. This is to anyone who reads both Jew and Gentile grace and peace to you. And then he gets down to who it's from. Who is this from? 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 from the dead and the ruler, the kings of the earth. He really tells us that this letter is not only from himself because he's the instrument that's writing it down, but ultimately this letter is from the triune Godhead. Did you take note of that? Did you take note of that? The Bible is so interesting because it never uses the word

Trinity, never uses the word rapture, but it also never uses the word Bible. So we can take some principles that are given to us, but the Bible is so good because it so interweaves some of these concepts throughout scripture. This is one of those places where we see the concept of the Trinity woven into it. First of all, we see that this is from God, the father. Notice what he says

from him who is and who was. And who is to come. That speaks of the eternal nature of God. We know that this one is specific or distinct from God, the son, because he's also going to say that it's from Jesus Christ. So most scholars, myself included, not that I'm a scholar, agree that this is speaking of God, the father, but isn't it cool how he describes him who is because he's the God of today,

who was because he is the God of yesterday. And who is, who is to come because he is the God of the future. See, this is one of those many places where we see all of scripture tied together. Because if you remember when Moses was at the burning bush and God was sending him to go speak to the children of Israel, Moses said, this is great, but they're going to want to know who sent me. Who do I say sent me? He says, tell them I am sent you because I am that I am. It's that phrase

right there speaks of the eternal nature of God. Because he is the always existent one. John is one of the few writers that really gets into the preexistent nature of God. He always goes stretches all the way back to eternity past. He did the same thing in his epistle. Remember when he said in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God stretches all the way back into eternity past with this. And so he says from

him who is and who was and who is to come God, the father, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, there's that word seven, again, a completion or a perfection of the spirit. We know that this speaks of the Holy spirit because it is the complete work of the Holy spirit that sits before his throne. And then of course, from Jesus Christ, notice what it says right here. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the Kings of the earth.

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love how he takes just a little bit more time to describe Jesus. I think it's because of the time that he spent on earth with Jesus, but he says to Jesus Christ and he describes in three ways. Number one is the faithful witness is the faithful witness. Remember that, that word witness that we

talked about on Sunday morning, that word Martis, one who, when he declares what they have seen that faithful witness, but he describes them as a set, a second way. He describes them as the first born from the dead. Now that word firstborn can kind of throw people off. As a matter of fact, there's an entire theology, a false theology, but an entire theology that's been founded upon phrases like this. They're like, see, look, Jesus was a created being. It says he was the

firstborn, but that often comes from a lack of understanding of the language of the time. You see the word, the term firstborn carries with it, the idea of preeminence because the firstborn in a family is the preeminent one. And so when it speaks of Jesus as being the firstborn, it has nothing to do with his physical birth and it has everything to do with his preeminence over humanity and with his preeminence among men, right? He is the first born, but what is he the first born from? He is the first born

from among the dead because he is the one who defeated death. But then it describes him a third way. Did you take note of it? I love the third way. It describes him the ruler of the Kings, of the earth. You know why I love this right now? Because people are trying to decide who's going to rule the world, right? There was a, a song that was going around on a talk radio station I was

listening to. And as they were making the advertisement for all of the election stuff coming and saying, Hey, you should listen to us for all of your election results. They, they played a, a clip of a, of a remake of a song. It says, everybody wants to rule the world, right? And it was a remake. And I love it. That's exactly what's happening right now. Everybody wants to rule the world.

Well, at least everybody that holds some kind of an office, we can't even just got decide who's going to be the speaker of the house, let alone who's going to rule the world, right? But that's what everybody wants. But as much as everybody thinks that they rule the world, you know, who rules them? Jesus. And they may think that they're in charge, just like Caesar Augustus did

when he put out that decree that all the world should be taxed. They may think that they're in charge. What they don't know is that they're in charge of the world. And they're in charge of the world. What they don't know is that they are puppets in the hands of none other than Jesus Christ himself, who is orchestrating all of the events of history. This is one of those places

where we can find that we can rest in God, where we can find a little bit of hope because he ultimately is in control. And so he says, this is who the letters from. And then he breaks into a little bit of spontaneous praise. He said to him who loves us, speaking of Jesus and releases from our sins by his blood. And he has made us to be a kingdom, a kingdom of priests, to his God and father, to him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

John just can't help it. It's like he's thinking about Jesus. He's thinking about everything that Jesus is. And he's like to him who loves us. Oddly enough, there's a little debate on the translation of this word in the new King James and the old King James. It says to him who loved past tense us and in the new American standard. And, and, the new international version, it's present tense. He who loves us. I don't care how you

translate it. It's the same both ways, because if we say it in the past tense, he who loved us, well, what is the one place that we look back at to know that Jesus loved us? God commends his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He loved us enough to die for us. But you know, it's also true that he loves us in the present, right? Thank God that he loves me

in the present. Thank God that he loves me, period, because I'm not that lovable of a human being, but neither are you. And he still loves us anyway, right? And so he says to him who loves us, to him who released us from our sins by his blood. Again, another place where there's a little controversy on the translation of the word. And I love when they do this. It's like, man, if it can be translated

both ways, let's just look at it both ways. New King James translates it to him who washed us. Oh man, what a beautiful, what a beautiful thought, is it not? When I think about who I am apart from Christ, when I think about the sins that I could be identified with, all I can think about is how dingy they are, how dirty they are, how absolutely covered in filth apart from Jesus Christ I would be. And what did he do with his own precious blood? He came in and he washed me, washed me

clean. As it says in Isaiah, though my sins were as scarlet, they will be as white as the sun. They haven't washed me. But, you know, I think about the way that the New American Standard translates it. And I think about the fact that what was I bound by? I was bound with all of the sins of this world. I was bound by the penalty of sin that constantly caused guilt and fear to

rule my life. And what happened when I truly understood that all of my sin was laid upon Jesus and he carried it outside of the camp, never for me to see it again? I was released. I was released from the bondage of sin. I was released from all of that. You know what it makes me think of? It makes me think of the scapegoat who was released into the wilderness

to carry my sin as far away as the east is from the west. To him who loves us and who released us or washed us from our sins, he made us a kingdom of priests. That's what he made us into. Those that at one point in time were going to be the ones that were going to be the ones that were going to separated from the will of God, separated from the good graces of God. And now he has made us a

kingdom of priests. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Now as we come to verse seven, we have what I call the reminder of the return. He says, 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 mourn over him. So it is to be. Amen. I like those first four words right there. Behold, he is coming. I like this reminder of the return.

And I want you to think about what it would have been like living at the time when John wrote this. Because remember what was going on at the time that John wrote this. We'll see it in a couple of the letters to the churches. It was great persecution going on within the church. As a matter of fact, the persecution had become so intense that it was so intense that it was so

intense that Christians were constantly fearing for their lives. And can you imagine what it would have been like to receive a letter like this from John, who the report had already gone out. They tried to boil him in oil and he'd already been exiled to the Isle of Patmos. And you get this letter from John as you're in a church that's facing persecution, as your pastor is scared because he doesn't know what's going to happen because he doesn't know if he's going to be brought up on charges because he won't bow down to the emperor who, by the way, at this point in time had been turned into God. And you don't know what's going to happen to you because,

what happens if they now come for you and what about your family and the fear that these christians were living in to receive a letter that says behold he's coming this isn't it this is not the end because jesus is coming the king is coming he said behold he's coming and what's he coming on the clouds takes me back to the very beginning of the book of acts remember what happened at the very beginning of the book of acts is jesus takes his disciples with him up to the mount of olives and as he's there in the mount of olives and of course they're like hey you're going to set up the kingdom now and he's like ah you're missing the point you go wait for the holy spirit and when you've been empowered by the holy spirit go and be witnesses in jerusalem

judea samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth and as he's talking to them what happens he gets taken up into the remember the verbiage is used there into the clouds and they're all going and finally there's two angels standing there and they're like what are you morons looking at i added the word morons that's not in the book of acts it should be i feel like that's a necessary part of that verse it's not in there what are you morons looking at don't you know that in the same way that he left he's coming again see john alludes to that you can imagine john writing this and him sort of thinking back to that time that now has been about 62 years ago for him and he's thinking man i remember he is coming i remember

what they said with the clouds in the exact same way this is not it this is not the end because he's coming with the clouds and then every eye will see him everyone will look and they will see him come and as they see him come what will they do they will look on him whom they've pierced and they will mourn they will weep knowing that he had been right in front of him that whole time they'd sacrificed their king he says he's coming again with the clouds all will see him all those who pierced him they will mourn all the tribes of the earth this isn't just the nation of israel we're giving the indication this is everyone that will see this happen who will be in shame and they will mourn all those who pierced him they will mourn all those

and what they see and then of course he closes that verse with so it is to be and then basically he repeats it by saying amen so be it but then this last verse is given verse eight and verse eight is a fascinating verse i've just simply titled it the almighty one if you have a red letter bible you'll notice that most of this is in red because the translators believe that jesus spoke this i have no problem believing that too it says this i am the alpha and the omega says the lord god who is and who was and who is to come the almighty he he describes himself in a couple of ways three ways actually as i believe again jesus speaks i don't know if jesus answers from the clouds as john's writing this i don't know how this works but the words

of jesus are given to us here he says i am the alpha and the omega now i don't know a ton of greek actually i don't know very much greek it's a lot of greek but i don't know a ton of greek to me but i know that the alpha and the omega are the first and the last letters of the greek alphabet so so what jesus is saying here is i am the beginning and i am the end let me put that in some really interesting perspective for you in the beginning was the word in the beginning the word already existed as a matter of fact nothing came into being apart from him because we are born into existence he is the beginning but he's not just the beginning he's the ending because

what's the way that we'll close this whole world out before we get a new heaven and a new earth the return of jesus christ because he is the beginning the author and he is the ending the finisher of our faith the blessed one jesus christ amen he says i am the alpha and the omega says the lord god and then he says i am the alpha and the omega says the lord god and then he says i am the he goes on to say who is and who was and who is to come you said wait ryan you said that was god the father it was god the father but it's also jesus because three persons one god same character same nature he is eternal as well who is who was who is to come god's already dealt with our past god's

dealing with our present and our future is in his hands he is the eternal god and then he closes it off with this one thing when he says the almighty now you can just read that word and go awesome he is the almighty god but there's some interesting understanding behind this word this word almighty means omnipotent or all ruling or one who holds sway over all things one commentator put it like this god's hand is on everything remember how i said that one of the things that is so good about prophecy is that it reminds us that god is in control and we are reminded that jesus holds sway over all things so as jesus tells us let not your heart be troubled you believe in god believe also in me

the one who is the beginning and the ending the one who is and who was and who is to come the eternal god and the almighty one the omnipotent god who holds sway over all things that means that nothing that's happening in life is catching him by surprise nothing that's happening in our world nothing that's happening in our nation and nothing that's happening in your life is catching god by surprise because none other than jesus christ himself has his hand on all of the events of the world and all of the events of your life and he holds sway over all things amen brothers and sisters we got a lot of exciting things coming up for us here in the book of revelation but its main point

its main goal is that we would know jesus and we would know him more clearly would you bow with me father we thank you for the time that we've had in your words and night lord it is so good to be reminded of the greatness of who you are father may our hearts be overwhelmed by your power and by your might and lord may we find ourselves encouraged strengthened and blessed knowing that you are in control father continue to lead us and guide us in you we just pray these things father in jesus name amen be blessed