Title: Revelation 1
By: Dan Pancake
Turn your Bible to the first chapter of the book of Revelation. We are going to give an introduction to the book tonight and just talk about that a little bit this evening.
Revelation 1:1-11
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
Why am I doing this? Well, I am going to preaching a huge sermon from this book in the next few weeks. I don’t know how many. I said that about the gospel of John, and it was a year and a half; I think somewhere along in there. I am going to be preaching a few sermons through this book on Sunday evenings and Wednesday nights here for a little bit. Looking into the book of Revelation some highlights; I am not going to preach every word or talk about every word that is in it. Although, it is a great study. It’s a tremendous study. We are going to look at some of them in the weeks to come.
The book of Revelation is in its rightful place. It is at the end of all the books. It is the 66th book in your Bible. It is the book of endings or completion. When you look at the book of Genesis, it is the book of beginnings. The book of Revelation is the book of completion. In this book we have all kinds of things that are just unique in the New Testament. This book is primarily prophetical. It is just about all future, almost all of it. I will give you an outline in just a few moments. Almost all of the book is prophetical. It’s ahead. It is still ahead of us still today. We have not seen the things of Revelation come to pass yet. However, we will. We definitely will.
Revelation describes some things for us. It shows us the final victory who overcome through the faith and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It also shows what happens to those who are rebellious and disobedient and refuse to accept Christ as their personal Savior. It describes the end of our old nemesis, satan. Aren’t we going to be glad to get rid of him and the eventual punishment of all of those that follow him in the lake of fire. It is also the unveiling of the New Heaven, and the New Earth where we are going to live forever. We get a good picture of it here in the book of Revelation.
Thirty years before this book was written, emperor Nero had engaged in his first organized imperial persecution of the Christians. Nero laughed at the screams and burning of Christians. They burned them at the stake all the time. Christians were fed to wild animals. Some were crucified. Some were just killed for sport. Increasingly, in creative ways, he found ways to slaughter men and women for their simple faith.
I saw this morning, since 2009, 52,000 Christians have died in Nigeria. Someone said that 35 Christians per day, every day. Thirty-five Christians die for their faith. We live in complete luxury and ease. I will tell you there are still people who are martyrs for the cause. There are more martyrs in the last 100 years, in the church of Jesus Christ, than there has ever been at any other time in the history of the church--more, many more, thousands more.
Nero met his fate somewhere along the way, and a fellow by the name of Domitian took over the reign of the rule of Rome. He was a ruthless ruler. John wrote his book during the 90’s. John was the oldest and the last of the living Apostles. He wrote his book in the 90’s. He wrote this book at a time when there was a lot of slaughters still going on. Domitian claimed that he was god, and he commanded that every subject in his kingdom worshipped him. This caused him a lot of trouble. It caused John and all the other Christians a lot of trouble because they would not worship him. When Christians refused to worship him, especially Apostle John.
John was tremendously famous because he was the last living apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and people knew that. He did his best to try to kill John. He did torture and kill thousands upon thousands of Christians. He tried to murder John by bullying him in a cauldron of oil. However, John would not burn. So, they banished him to this desolate, rocky, Island called Patmos; where John alone with his difficulties, and alone with his worship, and alone with his thoughts was given the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ to give to all of us. Amazing thing, Isn’t it?
It was there of course, that he wrote this book. How he did it; I have no idea. I tell you how to put into words some of things that he did. I don’t know how he did it. He had to use ideas, thoughts, things he saw, and relate them to things that were available to him to kind of speak of in that day, such as, locusts with fire coming from their tails. Of course, that might be a helicopter; we don’t have any idea what it is. However, he was seeing things trying to describe that to us and he did the best that he possibly could.
The Domitian’s reign came to an end in AD 96 and in that year, he was assassinated by some of his own court officials. The Romans Senate condemned the memory of Domitian forever. They did not want his name ever mentioned again. I am glad of that. He was wicked and evil.
There were all kinds of people that suffered by the hands of Domitian and Peter and Paul were two of those—or by the hands of Nero, Peter and Paul were two of those. I got ahead of myself a little bit. Peter and Paul were tortured, put in prison, and killed by Nero. Paul of course, lost his head on the chopping block. Do you remember the story about Peter? He was crucified upside down because he said he wasn’t worthy to die as his Lord.
We think about the book of Revelation, of course, it is a prophetical book. It is a futuristic book. I’m an old-fashioned guy, and I don’t think too much futuristically but I believe the Word of God. You and I believe the Word of God, whether you believe like I do or not…there are some people. Do you remember when Star Wars and all that stuff was on TV? I had no desire to watch all of that. That has no appeal to me. Some people loved it. Our older brother John, JD’s dad; he loved that thing. He watched it all the time. I couldn’t stand that lousy show. That’s too far out in the future for me to think about. This book is futuristic. It is out there. It is way out there in the future. Now it is not out there as far as, knowing things and showing us things that we need to know. However, it was out there. It is still in the future. It has been nearly 2,000 years ago since this book was written. It is still futuristic at the time we are talking tonight. There are three different views about looking at the book of Revelation and trying to interpret it. There are different views about the millennial reign of Jesus Christ that makes a difference in the way people interpret the things that are inside the book.
There are three views here:
Post-Millennial View
That means that some people believe—and some of the people that believe this is the church of Christ. This is part of their doctrine. They believe we are living in the millennium right now. Now I don’t know how they believe that, but they believe we are living in the millennium right now. Of course, in their belief, in their idea about the millennium; the last thousand years of the church age, they think it is going to be a time of propriety and peace and then Christ will come and there will be a general resurrection and everybody that is ready to go to heaven will go to be with Him. That is the post-millennial view.
Amillennial View
Then there is the view called the amillennial view. They don’t believe that there is a millennium at all. They believe we are just going to live. There is going to be a horrible time on earth, just like we read in the book of Revelation; and then there will be a general resurrection and we will all go to heaven to be with the Lord forever. In all of these views, we are going to go to heaven. Amen!
Premillennial View
The one that I think we all adhere to the most because that is the one we have been taught and the one that we kind of look to with a little more sincerity is the premillennial view. We believe we are leaving before the millennium comes. You say, “Why is that important?” Because of the way you are going to interpret the things that are going to come up in this book about the future. Your view of the millennium is really important. Is it before us? Is it behind us? Or, is it never going to happen? Premillennial view says that the rapture of the church is going to occur. It could occur at any minute. It has been that way since the Lord has left the earth; Amen. It could occur at any minute. We believe it still can occur at any minute. There is nothing that has to be fulfilled before the rapture of the church takes place. It has already been done. The premillennial view believes that there is a rapture of the church then a few years later; what we call the second coming of Christ is going to happen. In Revelation 19, when you get into Revelation 19, you begin to read down through that. You will see this is really a picture of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ back to this earth, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that do not know God. He is talking about in chapter 19, coming with the armies of heaven.
Revelation 19:16
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
He is coming back! We see that picture of Him coming back in great and tremendous power and all the armies of heaven will be with Him to come back to this earth. Where is He coming back to? We know from other studies; He is going to come and appear over there in the land of Israel. Isn’t He? He is going to come into the Valley of Megiddo. There is going to be a great war going on. The antichrist and the false prophet are going to be destroyed immediately. They are going into the lake of fire. We call that the second coming of Christ. You say, “Why is that important?” Because of the way we interpret the scriptures. That is what it means. That is what we think is going to happen when the Lord returns. The premillennial view, that is what we all believe. Then after the Lord returns and the judgement of the nations takes place, some are going to live with the Lord, for a thousand years in a world that’s going to be a heavenly place to be.
Others will not live again until the thousand years are finished. They are going to go to a place called hell. You and I know it as hell today. they are going to go there for a thousand years. What is going to happen at the end of that thousand years? Well, satan is going to get loose again. Isn’t that an amazing thing? Why is the Lord letting him loose at the end of a thousand years? J. Vernon Mcgree summed it up better than anybody I know. If you tell me why God let him loose to begin with; I will tell you why He let him lose the second time. I like that. That is pretty good. I don’t know but he is going to get loose on the earth and there is going to be corruption and sin and there is going to be another attempt by satan to take over the throne of God and he will be cast into the lake of fire forever. All of those who follow him, are going with him to the lake of fire. Then death and hell are going to give up all the dead that are in them. They are all going to the lake of fire, forever. Those of us that know Christ are going to heaven for eternity. So, why is that view important? Because we believe that is the one that follows the details of the scriptures. That is what we think.
Outline
Let me give you a brief outline of the book.
I don’t know how far I will get. It doesn’t really matter to me how far I will get tonight. I will just make a little headway, as much as I can. This book is a wonderful book, as I said before. He is supposed to talk about things which are, things which have been, and the things which will be hereafter. Most of the book is about the hereafter. The things that were in the past is a view of the slain Lord Jesus Christ. That is in the past. His slaying is involved in this—the things of the past. What is in the past? When He looks back to the past, the Lord Jesus came to the earth to die for the sins of the world. He doesn’t expound it, but He tells us in verse five:
Revelation 1:5
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
The idea is the past, the shedding of blood of Jesus Christ. What are the things which are? What are the things which were on the earth at that present time? The message itself goes to the seven churches of Asia minor, which is really modern-day Turkey. All those areas; that area is still there of course. The churches no longer exist. They were overrun by Muslims and they have not existed for many, many years. Can you imagine the cradle of Christianity being overrun by Muslims? It has been for many years. One day the Lord will come and take it all back. Amen! He will get it all back.
Outline:
Revelation 1-3
The first three chapters deal with the things which have been and the things which are. The things are those churches. He talks about those churches in chapters 2 and 3.
Revelation 4-18
In chapter 4 to chapter 18 is going to talk about the final judgements of the Lord upon the earth. Some of them get really gruesome. A lot of things are going to happen. There are going to be trumpets, vials, and all kinds of things are going to happen. All kinds of judgements are going to come. The seals are going to begin it all. Then all different types of very dark judgements; slaying people all over the place.
The End of the Book of Revelation
When you get to the end of the book of Revelation, if you study it correctly; I think you will find out that about 2/3rds of the population of the earth are going to die. If there is somewhere around seven billion people on the earth right now, somewhere around five billion people are going to die during that time. It is going to be a bloody time. It is going to be a horrible time. That is all futuristic.
Revelation 19
Now when we come to chapter 19, that is the second coming of Jesus Christ. That is a wonderful chapter. We get to see Him and I already talked about that.
Revelation 20
Chapter 20 is when the judgement of satan takes place. He is thrown into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. I wished he was thrown there forever. Don’t you? That is going to be the millennial reign of the Lord on the earth.
Revelation 21-22
Chapters 21 and 22; that’s our home. That tells us about our home. The New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven in chapter 21 and followed by the description of the city; the beauty of the colors of the city, the foundations of the city, the peace of the city. There will be no night there, he says. Amen. Aren’t’ you glad of that? The gates of it will not be shut by day for there is no night there. Praise the Lord! I hate night time. Then chapter 22 is a vision of heaven forever. Alright? So, you have the outline of the book.
Now to get started a little bit here tonight. There is a new blessing pronounced here in this book that is not anywhere else that I know of in the whole Bible. However, you can say the same thing about the entire Word of God.
Notice what He says here in verse 3.
Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
He is talking about the individual to whom the book is given to read to the churches here. However, it is also talking about those of us who have the ability to hold a Bible in our hands and read the Word of God for ourselves.
Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Now somebody had to read this out loud to the churches in that ancient day. Somebody had to read it aloud. Many people probably back then couldn’t even read. Somebody probably read it to them. Blessed is he with the responsibility of reading the Word of God.
Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Blessed is those that hear. I had a guy that came to Ironton, when I pastored over there, years ago. I can’t recall his name now, but he had memorized the entire book of Revelation. He knew every word in it. I have to be honest, when I first started listening, I was all excited about it. However, I have to be honest, by the time he got done talking about it that night; I was tired of listening. That is a lot of words in the book of Revelation. He just went word for word right on through it. I thought, “My goodness! Is this ever going to end?”
I don’t know what the people when they were given this book and somebody had to stand and read it. Perhaps they had more patience and more listening ability than Dan Pancake. That wouldn’t take a lot.
Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
It is a wonderful thing to hear the Word of God anytime. I looked back to the Old Testament; I remember the time when Ezra the prophet had a pulpit made of wood. The nation of Israel gathered in the terrible condition of the city of Jerusalem—how it was all torn all to pieces. Just bringing it back together under the leadership of Nehemiah and he was given the Word of God and he read it from morning until noon. Then later he read it some more. Can you imagine people standing on their feet for that length of time. As he opened the book, everybody stood up. We ought to have a great respect for the Word of God. I know a lot of us preachers have taken away from the respect that the Word of God deserves. I tell you the Word of God is His Word. It is not man’s word, it is not from man, it is not by man; it is the Word of Almighty God. When you read something from this book, you are reading from the lips of the Living God. He spoke it into existence and sent it to His prophets to write. So, they did.
Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
So, a three-fold blessing; reading, hearing and keeping. Now that third one is a difficult one. It is okay to read. It is wonderful to hear, but can you keep what it has to say. That means obey. Can you obey what it has to say. That’s tuff. Isn’t it? There is a lot of stuff in here that is pretty tough. There is some stuff that you read in here and see in this book and you are going to say, “Man that’s really bad. That’s really dark.”
But we don’t have to go through all of that. Did you know that. All you and I have to do is just believe the Lord and trust Him. Do you know what is going to happen before all of this happens on this earth. The Lord is going to take us home to be with Him. I believe that to be true. Yes, I do. Now who is this book to? Who is He writing the book to? I have already kind of given this away. John in verse 4, it says to the seven churches. This is given to them. Every church, according to what I have read in commentaries. Every church didn’t just get their little epistle to them. They got the message of all the other messages to the seven churches. They got it. Chapters 2 and 3 of this book; that’s what they got. When it was sent to them, they knew what was going on in the other churches, the things that were missing and the things that were wrong. Every church, except for a couple; the Lord found fault. Those faults were pretty rough. …In the very first one, in Ephesus, when he started talking to the church; he says, here is what I have against you. You lost your first love. You have a lot of zeal, but you lost your first love. Do you remember that? That’s terrible! Can we do that? Can God’s people lose their first love, lose the joy of loving the Lord Jesus Christ. They go through the motions of serving Him but not have it in their heart. It has to be heart-felt. Doesn’t it? It has to be real.
Mable getting up and shouting like she does sometimes. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I don’t know what it does to you. If there is somebody that doesn’t want to hear that, then they are in the wrong place. Amen! They can just go somewhere else. You run off a few. I run off a whole bunch. Don’t worry about that. Amen!
So, in chapter 1:4, he talks about who the writing is to. He sends it to them. Then of course, it goes to everybody. You and I have this in our hands today because somebody wrote these things down—the Apostle John—it was distributed to the churches and they kept it and rewrote it, just like the Old Testament scribes. The Old Testament scribes and the scribes in Jesus’ day; do you know what their job was? They were human copy machines. They knew if they didn’t keep copying the Word of God and distributing it; it was going to disappear. So, they kept copying it. That is what happened in those early days. There are no original manuscripts that go back to the time of the writing of this book. However, there are very good manuscripts that goes back to the second and third centuries, and those are very good. Why? Because they wrote them. They wrote them word for word, period for period, coma for coma. They wrote it as the Spirit of God had given it to John to begin with.
Moving on here. In this passage that we have before us. We have who it is written to. Then as we come down through this; we have some wonderful praise to the Lord. It begins at the bottom of verse 5. Verse 6 says, He’s made us kings and priests unto our God.
Revelation 1:6
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
That is an amazing thing. Do you know when the Lord comes into your heart, He lifts you, He raises you from what you were, to something brand new and much better. Are you much better than you used to be? Awe, you don’t have to tell me. I know you are. Amen! When He lifts you up, in the 40th Psalm he says, I waited patiently
Psalm 40:1
1 (To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.) I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
Who is the rock? That is Jesus Christ.
Psalm 40:3
3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
He did all of these things. The Lord lifts up His people when they come. He says:
Revelation 1:6 & 7
6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
This is talking about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you remember that time? I was telling you in Revelation 19. You can go over and read about it, if you want to. Read about it and you will see He is coming back with great power. A demonstration of power that the whole world. He says, every eye will see Him—who else? —those also, which pierced Him. Those people who were gathered around, consenting to the death of the Lord Jesus. Those Roman soldiers that drove the nails in His hands and feet. How are they going to do that? God is going to let them see from wherever they are in the world of eternity, and He is going to let them see what they did to Jesus and that He is returning with great power. Is He going to raise those people from the dead? Not at that particular time, but they are going to see Him. I believe it. I believe they are. That is what he said, and I believe it.
Then to finish this up; he says in the later part of that, “all the nations of the earth shall wail because of Him.” Let me just give you a couple of thoughts and then we will quit.
First, what is the tribulation period and all of this punishment all about? Is it because God doesn’t like some people, and He gave them all this opportunity to be saved and they just wouldn’t be saved. So, now He is going to judge them. No. That’s not all there is to it. No. God gave them an opportunity to be saved. Jesus Christ came to this earth so that anybody who just wants to go to heaven, all they have to do is say Lord, forgive me of my sins. It is a wonderful plan. Isn’t it? No. No. No. That is not all there is. These people are actively trying to displace, to do away with Almighty God, the same as satan himself is; they are motivated to do away with God. When you come along today and you start talking to somebody about God; “I don’t believe in that stuff. I am an atheist.” Do you know what an atheist is? It is somebody who really does not know if there is a God or not. They are saying to themselves, “I am just not going to believe in that. I will face eternity. I will get through. I will convince myself there is no God. If there is no God, I have no responsibility to a god that does not exist.” That is why they do it. Right? The problem is, He does. He’s there. They are going to meet Him face to face.
Revelation 1: 7
7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
Listen to this. A statement of power.
Revelation 1:8
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
I was here when it all started. I will be here when it is all said and done.
Come and Pray