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What Is The World Coming To? |
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The devil hates every book of the Bible, but there are two books that he especially hates—the Book of Genesis and the Book of Revelation. He hates Genesis because it tells how every thing commenced. He hates Revelation because it tells how every concludes. Someone has pointed out that Satan is not found in the first two chapters of Genesis or the last two chapters of Revelation. In Genesis we see the doom of the devil is announced and in Revelation his doom is accomplished. Genesis says that he will be defeated and Revelation shows that he will be defeated. It is no wonder that the first and last book of the Bible have often been the objects of his scorn.
Louis Talbot said, “The devil has turned thousands of people away from this portion of God’s Word. He does not want anyone to read a book that tells of his being cast from heaven … Nor is he anxious for us to read of the ultimate triumph of his number one enemy, Jesus Christ. The more you study the Book of Revelation, the more you understand why Satan fights so hard to keep God’s people from it.”1 Since the devil hates this book so much and wants to keep people from reading and studying it, I think we ought to study it! It will be to our delight and his dismay!
The Book of Revelation is more than the final book of the Bible. It is the fulfillment book of the Bible. It tells us what this world is coming to! It tells us what to expect in the future, as well as, what will be experienced in the future. Through the Book of Revelation the future is unveiled, unfolded, and understood. The book gives us our own time machine to travel into the future and get a glimpse of what this world is coming to!
Leon Tucker in his book Studies in Revelation tells about a pastor of a large Church that was asked by some of his people to teach on the Book of Revelation. He gave them the following three points:
There are many who view the Book of Revelation as a difficult book to understand. Some would even suggest that you can’t understand the book. I submit unto you that the book can be understood, and furthermore, it needs to be understood. Again, the book tells us what this world is coming to. It declares, describes, and defines the future of both the saved and the lost.
Saying that, let’s began our study of the book by considering the first three verses of the book. Verses 1-3 lay the foundation of the book and provide the key that unlocks the door to all we will see in the book. If the door of understanding is to be opened, we need the key that unlocks the door. That key is found in the first three verses.
Let’s began by first noticing:
1. THE PERSON THAT IS REVEALED IN THE BOOK
In most Bibles the title given to the book is The Revelation of St. John. The book is not the revelation of John. Verse 1 tells us that the real title of the book is, “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” It is important to understand at the very beginning that the Book of Revelation is not primarily about beasts, numbers, horses and horsemen, wars, trumpets, and plagues. It is a Him-book! It is first and foremost a book about Jesus Christ! You will never fully understand the book until you realize it is about Him. The proper way to read the Book of Revelation is to look for Jesus! The word “revelation” comes from the Greek word apokalypsis from which we get our English word “apocalypse.” The word means an “unveiling” or “uncovering.” It is more than the future that is unveiled in the book. It is the unveiling of Jesus Christ.
Martin Luther, the great reformer, had problems with the Book of Revelation. He once said, “My spirit cannot adapt itself to the book, and a sufficient reason why I do not esteem it highly is that Christ is neither taught nor recognized in it.”3 No one has had greater influence on the Church and Christianity than Martin Luther, but when it came to the Book of Revelation he had it all wrong. Christ is the heart and soul of the book. He is the theme of the book. He is the pre-eminent feature of the book. The book is a revelation of Him!
Christ is revealed in many ways through-out the book. I appreciate Sam Gordon’s outline of the book:
Let's condense all that is revealed about Jesus Christ into two divisions. First, in Revelation we see:
A) The Return of Jesus Christ
Jesus told His disciples just hours before His death, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3). Immediately after He left this earth to go back the Father, an angel said, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
Jesus promised that He would come again. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with promises of the Second Coming of Christ. It has been stated that there are 1,845 references to Christ's second coming in the Old Testament, and a total of seventeen Old Testament books give it prominence. Of the 260 chapters in the entire New Testament, there are 318 references to the Second Coming, or one out of 30 verses. Twenty-three of the 27 New Testament books refer to this great event. The four missing books include three which are single-chapter letters written to individual persons on a particular subject, and the fourth is Galatians. For every prophecy on the First Coming of Christ, there are 8 on Christ’s Second Coming. As the old-timers would put it, you can put this in your pipe and smoke it. Jesus will come again! When you come to the finale of the Bible—the Book of Revelation—we see Jesus coming again.
We see Him coming for His people. It is my personal conviction that we get a glimpse of that glorious day in Rev. 4:1 where we read, “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.” There will come a day, as Paul said in 1 Thessalonians chapter four, Jesus will “descend from heaven with a shout” (1 Thess. 4:16). I personally believe He will shout, “Come up hither!” At that moment, earth’s gravitational hold on the believer will be broken, and every believer, dead and living, will be “caught up” to “meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17). I once preached for a pastor in Florida who said, “I’m not going to take an airplane ride, but a plain air ride.” Jesus is coming again and He will return for all who have been saved.
In Revelation we not only see Jesus returning for His children, but we also see Him returning with His children. In Revelation 19 we see Jesus returning to this earth and we read, “And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean” (Rev. 19:14). Who are these armies clothed in fine linen, clean and white? Praise God, I’m one of them. He will come in the air for His children. He will come to the earth with His children.
A woman was once talking to a preacher about the assurance of her safety in the Savior and said, “I have taken a single ticket to Glory, and do not intend to come back.” Whereupon the man of God replied: “You are going to miss a lot. I have taken a return ticket, for I am not only going to meet Christ in Glory, but I am coming back with him in power and great glory to the earth.”
Jesus will come again! The Book of Revelation is the unveiling of His return. It is also the unveiling or revelation of:
B) The Reign of Jesus Christ
We read in Rev. 20:6, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” There is going to come a day when Jesus Christ will not only return to this earth, but He will also reign upon the earth.
As James Merritt described it, “When Jesus came the first time, He came to a cradle. When He comes the second time He will come with the clouds. When He came the first time He came to a tree. When He comes the second time He will come to a throne. When He came the first time He came to a crucifixion. When He comes the next time He will come to a coronation. When He came the first time, He died in shame. When He comes the second time He will reign in splendor. When He came the first time He was laid in a cradle. When He comes the next time He will be given a crown. When He came the first time He stood before Pilate. When He comes the next time, Pilate will stand before Him. When He came the first time the Jews rejected Him as a criminal. But when He comes the next time the Jews will receive Him as the Christ.”5
Yes, one glorious day, Jesus will rule and reign over the earth. John Foster Dulles, former U.S. Secretary of State once remarked: “Peace is often identified with the imposition by strong nations of their benevolent rule upon the weaker. Most of these efforts collapsed in war. The best known effort of this kind was the Pax Romana. And a Pax Britannica for a century kept relative peace and a world order which promoted worldwide economic development. But the world of today is very different from the world of past centuries. It cannot be ruled.”
I would say, “Mr. Secretary, you are wrong. It can be ruled, and one day, IT WILL BE RULED. Jesus will come and rule and reign upon the earth. If you have any doubts about, then read the Book of Revelation. It is the unveiling of not only a returning Lord, but also a reigning Lord!
The Book of Revelation is about a person—the Lord Jesus Christ! It is not primarily a book about what will happen, but who will come again. Leon Tucker says that the Book of Revelation opens with a salutation and closes with a supplication. In the salutation John says, “Behold He cometh” (1:7). In the supplication John says, “Even so, come Lord Jesus” (22:20).
Secondly, not only notice the person that is revealed in the book, but also:
2. THE PROPHECY THAT IS REPORTED IN THE BOOK
In verse 1 we see that this revelation that God gave of Jesus Christ is given “to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass…” John was taken on a tour of the future for the purpose of reporting what he had seen. We read in verse 2, “Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.” The words “bare record” means, “to testify.” What John saw, he testified to and gave a report as we find in the Book of Revelation.
The purpose of the Book of Revelation is two-fold. First, it is to unveil the person of Jesus Christ. Secondly, it is to unveil the prophecies of Jesus Christ. It is a book that tells what will happen in the future.
Notice:
A) The Message of These Prophecies
The prophecies of the Book of Revelation show us “things which must shortly come to pass” (Vs.2). We get our word “tachometer” from the word “shortly.” A tachometer is an instrument that measures speed or velocity. The word speaks of a “fixed position in space, time, or state.” There is a time set on God’s calendar when the events described in Revelation will began.
Only God knows the hour when these things will began. Jesus said in Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” People have often attempted to guess when these things will commence, and have even set dates. However, Jesus said that the Father only knows the hour that is set for these things to commence.
The message of these prophecies is that there will come a day when that which is a mystery will become a reality. Every event in Revelation will happen just as the Bible describes. Do not let the passage of years and centuries cause you to doubt the validity of the prophecies of Revelation. They like every other promise in the Bible are true. They will happen!
I read about a London bookmaker that lowered the odds against a visit from outer space from a 100-1 to 33-to-1 because of a rash of bets from all over the United States. The firm said it now stands to lose nearly $500,000 if somebody does drop in. Well, they better get ready for a payout, because somebody is going drop in!
Also notice:
B) The Method of These Prophecies
We read in verse 1 that prophecies were “sent” and “signified” by an angel. Someone has said that the best well to understand the word “signified” is by saying “SIGN-I-FIED.” The prophecies of the Revelation are often given in signs and symbols. As you read the Book of Revelation you have horsemen riding on different colored horses. You have seals that are being broken and vials that are being poured out. You have beats and various creatures. Numbers play a big part in Revelation. You see seven churches, seven spirits, seven candlesticks, seven stars, seven lamps, seven seals, seven horns, seven eyes, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven heads, and seven crowns. There is the number 666 that is so familiar.
Again, much of the prophecies of the Book of Revelation are “SIGN-I-FIED.” The prophecies are given in symbolic form.
Thirdly, think with me of:
3. THE PROMISE THAT IS RECEIVED IN THE BOOK
There are many books that are a blessing to read. However, the Book of Revelation is the only book I know of that guarantees a blessing to the reader and student. We read in verse 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.”
The Book of Revelation begins with a promise to bless the reader and it ends with such a promise: “Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book” (Rev. 22:7).
The word “Blessed” means to be “supremely blest.” If you want a blessing, the Book of Revelation is a source. Now notice that this blessing is conditioned on 2 things. First, it is promised to:
A) Those That Hear the Words of the Book
Verse 3 says, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy.” The word “readeth” means more than just sitting down and reading through the Book. The word means, “to know.” A person is blessed when they understand the book. How does one understand the book? They “hear” the book.
The word “hear” speaks of one hearing in an audience. This would seem to imply a public reading and teaching of the book. This implies to me that if a pastor will teach his people the book, both he and the people will be blessed by doing so. That is one of the reasons I am looking forward to our study of the book. The Bible is telling me that we are going to be blessed!
Secondly, this blessing is promised to:
B) Those That Heed the Words of the Book
It is not enough to learn the book. We must let its truth impact our life and deepen our relationship with Christ. We are not only to hear the words of this prophecy, but we are also to “keep those things which are written therein.” The word, “keep” means, “to guard from loss or injury.” We are to see to it that we do not take lightly what the book is telling us. We are to keep the truths before us continually. We are to walk and live in the truth of the Book of Revelation.
John concludes verse 3 by saying “for the time is at hand.” He concludes the book with the same warning: “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 22:10). What the Book of Revelation describes, John says, is drawing near.
Paul said in Philippians 4:5, “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” Peter said in 1 Peter 4:7, “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.”
Jesus is coming and that time is drawing near. The fact is, it may be nearer than we think. For that reason we should live each day in light of that day! If we do so, we are promised a blessing.
One of the blessings in heeding the Book of Revelation is a reward for loving the Lord’s appearing. Paul said, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8).
WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO? We are about to find out and we are going to have a blessed time doing so!
1) The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Eerdmans, page 15 2) Studies in Revelation – An Expositional Commentary, Kregal Publications, page 11 3) Quoted by W. Graham Scroggie in The Great Unveiling, Zondervan, page 43 4) Worthy is the Lamb, Ambassador, page 17 5) From the sermon The Beginning of the End |
