Postcards from Patmos: Prologue (Part 1)

Transcript

JRS 1
6/26/2022
Postcards from Patmos: Prologue (Part 1)
Revelation 1:1-3
Jesse Randolph

Well, again it's good to be with you this morning. It's kind of a momentous day in a number of ways. A couple of days ago, I think I was just coming back from this platform, having received two pies to my face, one from my left-handed son and one from my right, that I walked back to my office and looked at my phone and saw the news that Roe v. Wade had been overturned. Now I am not one, as you will find very soon, to preach politics up here, to preach social issues. This is not a bully pulpit for my preferences or political allegiances in any sense, but there are times that happen, things that happen in the surroundings of the people of God that we simply can't ignore. For something like Roe v. Wade, a decision that was decided 49 years ago which created a federal right for a woman to… let's just say it, slaughter an innocent life in her womb; the fact that that decision toppled in our lifetime, is a significant event and it deserves attention from the pulpit. So I'm going to say a few things about a Christian's response to the news from two days ago, June 24, 2022, before we get into our message for this morning. I recorded this on video a couple days ago but I realize not everybody watches video, not everybody is on social media, so I figured this would be a good chance to say some things from up front this morning.

#1, I believe the Christian's response to the overruling of Roe v. Wade, number 1, is to rejoice. The fact that that ruling will have the result of innocent lives, lives that have been created, little boys, little girls, created in the image of God, that those lives will be spared is absolute reason to rejoice, to thank God for His kindness, shining His face on this time, giving us a little ray of light and hope in an otherwise darkening time and reminding us that He is there, He is good, He is looking out for His people, He looks out for the lives of the innocents and He is worthy to be praised.

#2, we of course have to alliterate, I'm a preacher. We realize, we have to realize that though these are praiseworthy events, and this is praiseworthy news, this is not the ultimate battle. It was an evil thing, that decision, and all the evil that came out of it, but it's not the end game. America is not suddenly a Christian nation because Roe v. Wade is overturned. You get what I'm saying? This is not a Christianized nation now and it's not a Christianizing nation. No. 2 Timothy 3:13 says that things will and are going from bad to worse and that is still the truth. We do have this glimmer of light in these dark days with this overruling of Roe, but things still will proceed from bad to worse.

Which leads to the third point, which is repent. Repent, meaning we are still to be people who are upfront and out there with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, showcasing what He has done for sinners like us through His bloody cross. Calling on sinners, whatever their sin, to repent and believe in His Gospel. To be shown His grace to have their sins of whatever type washed away, be washed white as snow. The solution to a better Nebraska, the solution to a better America, the solution to a better world is not that abortion is now eradicated in some 20-something states, the solution is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's not take our eye off that main thing that we are called to proclaim, that main message that we are called to proclaim, even in light of this great news. So rejoice, realize, repent. Meaning: calling on sinners to repent and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen? All right.

Let's actually open God's Word to Revelation 1 as we start a new series this morning. Now I imagine however you spend your days you can get overwhelmed, as I do, with the number of e-mails that you receive from digital marketers, e-mails that are oddly, eerily tailored to your specific needs and your specific interests. If you are a car guy you might be getting e-mails from dealerships or parts suppliers. If you are a young mom you might be getting e-mails from stroller manufacturers or e-mails about mommy play dates that are coming up. If you are a fan of a certain sports team you are getting e-mails notifying you of the latest news related to your team. It's no different in my world as a pastor. I get e-mails all the time from ministries I follow and upcoming conferences and new books that are coming out. That last category, those are the e-mails I really like to receive, the new books that are coming out.

But the e-mails I have less love for, frankly, are the e-mails I receive from church consultants. See, every once in a while I'll get an e-mail from a church consultant who will tell me that for a rather substantial fee he or she will provide us, our church, with a ministry health assessment or help us to establish a vision or to help us become a Great Commission organization, to which I would say if we are not already a Great Commission then we are actually not a church. Anyway, to make sure I am not unfairly caricaturing these church consultancy firms, I went online this week to visit some of their websites to see how they market themselves. And sadly, the results were sad and the results were troubling because despite their catchy names and their clever branding that were emblazoned all across their websites, completely missing from their websites was the name above all names, that of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let that sink in for a second. As these church consultancy firms seek to market themselves, and frankly to turn a profit, these church consultancy firms that claim to be all about the church and for the church and want to help the church, they've left the Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, completely out of the equation. I'm bringing this up because it highlights a real concern I have for not only the Church Universal but the Church Local to gauge, to measure, our ministry success, our ministry health by what voices on the outside are telling us. Experts and consultants who are pushing best business practices. Rather than encouraging us to hear directly from the Lord Jesus Christ who as 1 Corinthians 1:24 says is “the wisdom of God.” And that Lord, our Lord, has given us a timeless assessment of churches of every generation in every location in His timeless and perfect and sufficient Word.

As I've mentioned already a few times this morning, I'm brand new, and as your new senior pastor, your teaching pastor, I do get a lot of questions. About what is to come, where are we going, what is the future direction of the church, what's going to be different, what are we going to change. But I would submit to you that a more important question to ask, a more on-the-button question, a more pertinent question is this, “how are we doing today? How are we doing now?” That's the question that's on the table here this morning. How are we doing? And as we come to that question I want to make it absolutely clear that the answer does not ultimately lie with me. The answer does not ultimately lie with you. The answer certainly does not lie with any so-called wisdom from outside. Rather the answer to the question, “how are we doing now,” rests with the Lord of the church, the One who rules and governs the church, the One who directs and disciplines the church, the One who died for the people in the church. I'm talking of course about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today we're going to be kicking off this new 10-week preaching series through Revelation 1-3 and prayerfully what this series will do will help us answer that question, “what is the Lord Jesus Christ's evaluation of our church today? How does the Lord view Indian Hills Community Church now?” It's a direct question, at times it can be a painful question to work through, but it's an important question to ask and to answer as we seek to honor and please the Lord in all that we do. The series that we are embarking on this morning is called “Postcards from Patmos” and we get the title from these seven short letters, or what I call postcards, which Jesus after His resurrection, after His ascension, directed the Apostle John to send to these ancient churches in Asia Minor, modern day western Turkey. These postcards are found in Revelation 2-3 and as we're going to see, these postcards represent the Lord Jesus giving His candid evaluation of these seven specific churches in a specific region at a specific period of time. But these postcards are not dated artifacts. Rather, in them we see that the Lord of the church, giving His evaluation of churches globally and across the centuries in churches today. Meaning, these postcards, all seven of them, are directed to us.

Now before we get into each of these postcards, which I will preach individually in the weeks ahead, we do need to engage with the text that precedes them. So while we will get to the postcards or Revelation 2-3, we need to spend, first some time on the front porch of this book in Revelation 1.

With the world's longest introduction now out of the way, and if you are not there already, I'd like you to turn to Revelation 1. Revelation is the revealing, the unveiling, the disclosure of Jesus Christ. His plans, His person, His purposes. We're going to look at the first three verses here this morning. God's Word reads as follows, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant 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.”

Now we'll be focusing on just these three verses here today, which feed not only into the entire book of Revelation, but which feed immediately into Christ's assessment of these seven churches there in Asia Minor. And by extension to the Lord's assessment of churches all across the globe today, including this church in Lincoln, Nebraska. Now verses 1-3 are widely accepted as the prologue of the book of Revelation. They have also been called the preface to the book or the superscription to the book. Now when we think of a prologue to any other book we may dismiss it as not being all that important. Since prologue is by definition “a prior word.” That's the meaning of the term prologue, “the word before.” So we might be tempted to sort of pass over it until we get to the real content of the book. Well, unlike a non-biblical book, we cannot dismiss or gloss over the prologue to the book of Revelation. And we cannot do so, first because the prologue is holy Scripture, it is direct revelation from God, it is the very word of God. Which is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. Not only that, this brief prologue to the book of Revelation, as we are going to see, is laden with truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. The same Lord Jesus Christ who will be giving His assessment of these seven churches and our church in Revelation 2-3.

With that note the first few words again of verse 1, “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” What we have here are introductory words which tell us how and for what purpose this revelation, what would later become known to us as the book of Revelation, is being given. Now many trees have been felled and cut down over the years as arguments between theologians and Greek grammarians have raged about the meaning of the word “of” here, where it says the revelation of Jesus Christ. Many have asked what does “of” mean? Is the text telling us that Christ is the revealer? Meaning this is a revelation from Jesus Christ. That would be called in Greek a subjective genitive. Or is He the revealed One? Meaning He is the One about whom Revelation is being given. That would be called an objective genitive. For a number of reasons too lengthy to get into here, I go with the former option. I'll give you a couple reasons but I can't give the full list syntactically of why I take this to be a subjective genitive, meaning that the 66th book of the Bible is a revelation from Jesus Christ. I'll just give you a few reasons why I get to that conclusion.

First is the plain statement of the Lord that is being made to John here in verse 1, which says, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His bond-servants.” That means just what it sounds like, God gave Jesus Christ a revelation to give to us. God revealed something to the Son and the Son in turn now reveals that same something to us. We see similar language in the Gospel of John where we encounter Jesus saying multiple times in that gospel that the Son only speaks what He has heard from the Father. You could jot down John 8:26-29, John 12:49-50, John 14:10 where Jesus is saying He only speaks what He has been given by the Father. But back in Revelation 1, in a similar way, the ascended and risen Christ reveals to His followers what the Father has made known to Him.

The second reason I take this view about Jesus Christ being the revealer is the unmistakable reality that Christ is, if you just look at the text, functioning as revealer throughout the book of Revelation. He is directly addressing the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, revealing things He wants them to know and heed. He opens the book with the seven seals in Revelation 5, He then discloses the same content of that book in Revelation 6. Those are just a couple of examples of the role as revealer that Christ has in the book of Revelation.

Third, there are many other places in the Scriptures where the words “revelation of Jesus Christ” appear in this same sense. Where He is the One doing the revealing. You could jot down 1 Corinthians 1:7 where we are “awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;” Galatians 1:12, “For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it,” says Paul, “through a revelation of Jesus Christ;” 2 Thessalonians 1:7 speaks to when the “Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire;” 1 Peter 1:7 says, “so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

So for each of these reasons I do believe that the best way to take the word “of” here in verse 1 when the text speaks “of the revelation of Jesus Christ,” is to take it as a revelation from Jesus Christ. That's my exegetical conclusion. Exegetically this is a subjective genitive, meaning it is a revelation of Jesus Christ, it's revelation from Jesus Christ.

But here is the thing. While I take this exegetically to be a book from Jesus Christ, theologically there is no question that this book is about Jesus Christ, meaning Revelation is in a very true sense a revelation not only of Christ, but a revelation about Christ. I'm going to go through these rapid fire, I'm not even going to mention the references or else Jake’s fingers will fall off as he tries to put these all on the screen. He is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, the alpha and the omega, the One who is and who was and is to come, the Almighty, the first and the last, the living One, the holder of the keys of death and Hades, the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, the One who has the sharp two-edged sword, the Son of God, the One who has eyes like a flame of fire and His feet are like burnished bronze, the One who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, the One who is holy, who is true, the holder of the key of David who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, the lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, the lamb of God, the Lord holy and true, the One who is called faithful and true, the Word of God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Christ, the Messiah who will rule on earth with His glorified saints, Jesus the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star.

You could very well say without exaggeration, without hyperbole, that the very theme of the book of Revelation is the Lord Jesus Christ. As we're going to see this morning the first three verses of the first chapter of the book of Revelation are very much in keeping with that theme. In fact as we are going to see in these first three verses, they are rich in instruction about key truths concerning the person, the nature, and the character of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So this morning we're going to work through this prologue not so much from the standpoint of setting up an exposition of the book of Revelation, which I hope to get to very soon, but rather from the standpoint of gaining a clearer picture of the risen, ascended, glorified Christ as we prepare to hear what He has to say to these churches in Revelation 2-3 but also to our church in 2022. So I've picked out five truths about the Lord Jesus Christ that we see coming off the page here in this prologue, here in verses 1-3. I'm sure there are many more, I'm sure there is much more that can be said. He is unsearchable in His ways, but I've picked out five.

Here is the first truth about Christ that we see in this passage, we'll call this Christological Truth #1. He reveals Himself, He reveals Himself. Another way of saying that would be He is communicative. Though He would be no less good and no less loving and no less just and no less righteous had He chosen not to reveal Himself, had He chosen not to be communicative. The fact is our Lord has revealed Himself and He has done so in several ways. First He has revealed Himself in creation, through creation. He has revealed Himself through His creation of the world and the cosmos. John 1:3, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Colossians 1:16, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things have been created through and for Him.” That's speaking about our Lord, the second person of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has also revealed Himself not only in creating, but in upholding all things that He has created. That's Hebrews 1:3, “He… upholds all things by the word of His power.” So Christ reveals Himself through creation.

Not only that, He has revealed Himself in His pre-incarnate appearance, meaning before the cross, before He put on flesh. It's widely recognized that the Angel of Yahweh, that we see referenced all throughout the Old Testament, is in many cases in fact the pre-incarnate Son of God. As John Walvoord put it in his work “Jesus Christ Our Lord,” “the testimony of Scripture has been so complete on this point that in general scholars who accept the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture are agreed that the Angel of Jehovah or Yahweh is the Christ of the Old Testament.” See, Walvoord isn't overreaching here. See, the pre-incarnate Christ was there to minister to the disheartened Hagar after her rejection by Abraham in Genesis 16. He was there to stay the hand of Abraham as Abraham prepared to slay his son in Genesis 22. Therefore Jesus was speaking truthfully to the Pharisees in John 8:58 when He said, “Before Abraham was born I am.” He was there to appear to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus 3. He was there in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire to lead Israel to the Promised Land as we see in Exodus 14. Paul certifies that in 1 Corinthians 10:4 when he says that the “spiritual rock which followed them… was Christ.” He was there to warn Balaam in Numbers 22. He was there to warn Israel in the time of the judges in Judges 2. Later in Israel's history He was involved in the slaying of 185,000 Assyrians in 2 Kings 19. He ministered to Elijah. I could go on and on and on and on.

Christ has revealed Himself through His creation, Christ has revealed Himself through His pre-incarnate appearances, now here is the next one—He revealed Himself through His incarnation, in His incarnation and through His earthly ministry. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:18 says, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He,” meaning Christ, “has explained,” exegeted, “Him,” meaning God the Father. Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways,” it says, “in these last days has spoken to us in His Son.” Christ revealed Himself in His incarnation.

He also revealed Himself following His resurrection. He revealed Himself to Mary Magdalene and doubting Thomas in John 20. He revealed Himself to His disciples at the Sea of Tiberius in John 21. He revealed Himself on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. He revealed Himself to Saul, later Paul, as he was charging his way to Damascus, breathing threats and murder in Acts 9. Paul by the way would confirm all that in 1 Corinthians 15:8 when he said “And last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”

And of course our Lord has revealed Himself most clearly in our day through His Word. There is no better place to see that than in 2 Peter, in fact turn with me to 2 Peter if you would, 2 Peter 1, where we are going to see the Lord's revealing Himself through His Word. Peter here in 2 Peter 1, as you are turning there, is of course a witness to the Lord's transfiguration in His earthly ministry and he says something. Now this is older Peter writing later after the resurrection, after the ascension, and he says, “For we…” this is 2 Peter 1:16, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty,” speaking of the transfiguration. And if you jump down to verse 19 he then says, “So,” or some translations say “but,” “we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you would do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” Peter witnessed the transfiguration and now he is saying we have a prophetic word, meaning the Word of God, that is more sure than the revelation he received of Christ back during Christ's earthly ministry.

And then as we go back to Revelation 1:1 we see yet another way that Christ reveals Himself as He reveals God's future, yet-to-be-fulfilled plans for what is coming next. As He prepares the earth and its wicked, unrepentant inhabitants for destruction. As He prepares His saints, His redeemed ones for glory. All this to say the Lord Jesus Christ reveals Himself. That's our Christological Truth #1.

Here's the second one. He relates to the other members of the Trinity, the Lord relates to the other members of the Trinity. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He is the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. And in Revelation 1:1 we do see this brief glimpse into the intra-trinitarian relations between God the Father, the first member of the Godhead, and God the Son. We see these two members of the Trinity of the Godhead interacting with each other with the words here in verse 1, “which God gave Him.” And what is it that God gave Him? Well, there are some who believe that this statement builds on the words of our Lord in Mark 13:32 concerning His Second Coming where it says, “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” And according to that view, in the humiliation of His incarnation when He “emptied Himself,” Philippians 2:7, “taking the form of a bond-servant” Jesus somehow restricted His independent use of His divine attribute. So that according to this view, what we see in Revelation 1 is God the Father providing God the Son with information He lacked during His incarnation, during His humiliation. I don't think that's the best answer and I don't believe that's the best answer for at least a few reasons.

First of all the book of Revelation nowhere gives us the day or the hour of the Lord's return. Meaning it does not contain the very information that the Father here is supposedly now giving to the Son. Second, the glorified, ascended Christ would have resumed full use of His divine attributes some 50-odd years prior to what is happening here in Revelation because what happened more than 50 years prior to this was His ascension. As He returned to that glorified state that preceded His incarnation. Meaning by the time the book of Revelation was written, the Lord Jesus Christ had no need for anyone to give Him any information about anything. Third is this: there is a better answer. Which is that the revelation which God gave, it says here, to Him, to the Lord Jesus Christ, which is now captured in this book, I believe is actually the culmination of what we see laid out in Philippians 2:5-11. There Paul says that the Son of God would come to earth, “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant… in the likeness of men… He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” and as a reward, Philippians 2:9 says, “God highly exalt Him.” I believe that is exactly what is being described here in the book of Revelation. Jesus, meek and mild, is now returning and reigning as Christ victorious, the One who emptied Himself in the humiliation of His incarnation is now presented as the Exalted One. I love this quote from W. A. Criswell in his “Expository Sermons on Revelation.” He really builds up this distinction between Christ as the humble servant in His first coming and Christ as He is portrayed here in the book of Revelation. Listen to what Criswell says.

He says, “The first time our Lord came into this world, He came in the veil of our flesh. His deity was covered over with His manhood. His Godhead was hidden by His humanity. Just once in a while did His deity shine through, as on the Mount of Transfiguration, or as in His miraculous works. But most of the time the glory, the majesty, the deity, the wonder and the marvel of the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, were veiled. These attributes were covered over in flesh, in our humanity. He was born in a stable. He grew up in poverty. He knew what it was to hunger and thirst. He was buffeted and beaten and bruised. He was crucified and raised up as a felon before the scoffing gaze of the whole earth. The last time that this world saw Jesus was when it saw Him hanging in shame, misery, and anguish upon the cross. He later appeared to a few of His believing disciples, but the last time that this unbelieving world ever saw Jesus was when it saw Him die as a malefactor, as a criminal, crucified on a Roman cross. That was a part of the plan of God, a part of the immeasurable, illimitable grace and love of our Lord. ‘By His stripes we are healed.’

“But then is that all the world is ever to see of our Savior—dying in shame on a cross? No! It is also a part of the plan of God that some day this unbelieving, this blaspheming, this godless world shall see the Son of God in His full character, in glory, in majesty, in the full-orbed wonder and marvel of His Godhead. Then all men shall look upon Him as He really is. They shall see Him holding in His hands the title-deed to the Universe, holding in His hands the authority of all creation in the universe above us, the universe around us, and in the universe beneath us; holding this world and its destiny in His pierced and loving hands.”

Wow! I want to take a breath, I almost want to take a drink right now. We truly do see Christ's exaltation as the ruling, reigning, victorious King of Kings and Lord of Lords described throughout the book of Revelation. And the point here is, take this home with you, is that we cannot detach His exaltation from His eternally trinitarian relationship with God the Father.

Here is the third truth about our Lord that we can pick up from this passage. Christological Truth #3, He is God. There is only One who knows and declares the future -- God. In fact, turn with me, if you would, back to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 44 where we are going to see that truth highlighted. I'm not the one making this statement. We ultimately see God making this statement and in His words. Look at Isaiah 44:7, these are the words of Yahweh, “Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; yes, let him recount it to me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation, and let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place.” Then flip over to Isaiah 46:9-10, “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’ ”

Going back to our text, Revelation 1. This means that only God can know the things which must take place. And the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, knows these things is one of many evidences that the Scriptures give to His deity. It's one of many proofs that the Bible gives that the Lord truly is God. And what are these things that He speaks of here in verse 1? He says, “to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place.” Well, those things are described throughout the remainder of this book. We know once the church has been raptured out of the world, a seven-year period of tribulation will be ushered in. A period for the unbeliever that will be a period of unspeakable grief and pain and terror and anguish. And then following that Tribulation will be the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory with His saints. And that will then usher in a 1000-year, earthly reign of Christ on the earth. A time that is marked largely by peace and prosperity. But will be capped by a final Satanic uprising, leading to Satan being tossed in the lake of fire. Then after the Great White Throne judgment comes the eternal state. Which will be the new heavens and the new earth for believers and eternity of torment for unbelievers. These are “the things which must soon take place,” to use the words of verse 1. As one commentator notes, “History is not a haphazard sequence of unrelated events, but a divinely decreed ordering of that which must take place.”

But also note that the text also says here that they “must soon take place.” These things not only must take place but they must take place, it says, soon. “Soon” here in Greek is “en tachei.” And the word we see in different translations can be rendered “quickly” or “briefly.” But actually don't take that word “soon” here to reference speed or quickness. I don't necessarily look at it as being a brief timespan or haste, rather I take this to mean imminence, imminence. I agree with Robert Thomas who wrote that the purpose of “en tachei” is to teach the imminence of the events foretold, not to set a time limit in which they must occur. “Soon” then does not so much refer to the time of His coming as it refers to the nearness of His coming and our corresponding anticipation of His coming.

And that's the sense of “en tachei,” imminence, that we see in other places in Revelation as well. In Revelation 2:16 when Christ is addressing the church at Pergamum, “I am coming to you” en tachei, “quickly.” It's in Christ's letter to the church at Philadelphia, Revelation 3:11, “I am coming,” en tachei, “quickly.” We see it in between the woes in Revelation 11:14 where it says, “The second woe is past, behold, the third woe is coming,” en tachei, “quickly.” We see it in Revelation 22:6 where the angel tells John that “the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show His bond-servants the things which must soon,” en tachei, “take place.”

See, this idea of imminence is not to glamorize date setting, in fact, date setting is prohibited by Scripture where Acts 1:7 says we won't know the times by which “the Father has fixed on His own authority.” This idea of imminence is not designed to puff anyone up about nailing the exact timeline on which Christ will come for His people. Rather what this idea of imminence is designed to do is to put us in a state of readiness and alertness. Matthew 24:42, in the context of the Second Coming there, says, “Be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.” Here in Revelation 1 in light of the imminence of the events of the things which are soon to take place, the takeaway point is this: we are to have our rugs swept, we are to have our houses in order. As Luke 12:35 says, we are to, “Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.” We are to keep our hearts right. We are called to keep our minds inclined and our affections directed toward Him who will one day come to get us.

Because the reality is once the events of the end, the “eschaton,” start taking place, they will start happening and in rapid fire sequence. You know the Rapture will take place immediately. “In the twinkling of an eye,” it says in 1 Corinthians 15:52. And then the Judgments that will sweep the earth during the tribulation period will happen with remarkable force and speed with seven years of wrath being poured out on the entire, wicked and rebellious world. Even the thousand-year earthly reign of Christ on earth during the Millennium will be brief by God's standards. It is a literal 1,000 years but 2 Peter 3:8 says “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” And importantly, what this concept of imminence ought to do for us, as 1 Thessalonians 4:8 puts it, is it ought to comfort us to know that we may meet the Lord in the air at any time. Could be today, could be tonight, could be before the next election cycle, could be before the next season of Husker football. We don't know. Could come at any time. And what that should do is spur us on and motivate us to live holy and obedient and godly lives. 2 Peter 3:14 says it this way, “Since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.” And it should spur us on to persevere in faithfulness as we prepare. We wait for the clouds to break. For the Lord to split the sky as He takes us out of this world.

So we've seen that the Lord Jesus Christ reveals Himself, Truth #1. We've seen that He relates to the other members of the trinity, Truth #2. We've now seen that He is God, Truth #3. Here's the fourth truth about the Lord Jesus Christ that we can extract from this passage, He is Master over all, He is Master over all.

First we see that He is Master over the angelic realm. I'm still in verse 1 by the way. We see from our text that the Lord Jesus Christ is master over, look at the words at the end of verse 1, “His angel.” This angel apparently was the one who communicated this book by way of Christ to its human author, John, to us. The angel did not communicate this book on his own. The angel did not go rogue. The angel is not equal in authority to Jesus. No, Jesus communicated the context of this book through His angel. We see a similar statement, I've already referenced it, in Revelation 22:16 where it says, “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches.” And what that signifies is that the Lord Jesus Christ is Master over the angelic realm. He is above the angels. He is, as the author of Hebrews put it in Hebrews 1:4, “much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.” Who is this angel? We don't know. Some have surmised that this is referring to the Archangel Michael who is referenced in Jude 9. I don't think we have enough exegetical evidence to make that call, but all we know is that this is the angel of Christ. Christ's directed messenger. Part of the heavenly host. Who has been given the charge to deliver this specific message to John. So Christ is Master over the angelic realm.

Christ is also Master over the apostles. We see that also in verse 1. He is Master over, look at the last few words of verse 1, “His bond-servant John.” John by the way, I should have said this earlier, is the Apostle John, the former fisherman, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, the former Son of Thunder who wrote this book of Revelation while in exile on the island of Patmos. God the Father gave this revelation, as we've seen, to God the Son, as we've seen, who communicated it to His angel, who in turn communicated it to Christ's bond-servant John. In other words, John has been charged with writing down what has been revealed to him by Christ's angel and then communicated what he has received to the churches at large. And that's in fact exactly what we see John doing in the book of Revelation. We see John faithfully carrying out his duties as Christ's bond-servant.

Look at verse 2, this is referring to John right here, “who testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.” John is responding to His master, he is viewing himself properly here. He is addressing others properly and he is even introducing himself properly. He could have called himself the Apostle John here, he could have called himself the Right and Reverend John. But he doesn't. He sees himself properly as not being anyone who is worth anything. But rather a “doulos,” a bond-servant, a slave. And specifically a slave of a good and gracious Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ is not only Master over the angelic realm though, and not only Master over the apostles, He's Master over the church. I'm just going to give you a few verses now for that. “He is also head of the body,” Colossians 1:18 says, “the church.” Ephesians 1:22 says, “God gave Him,” that's Christ, “as head over all things to the church.” Ephesians 2:19-20 says we are “of God's household,” meaning the church, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.”

So Christ is Master of the angelic realm, Christ is Master of the apostles, Christ is Master of the church. Christ also is Master over the world and everything in it. Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” One of my favorite old hymns is “Fairest Lord Jesus.” The first stanza says,
“Fairest Lord Jesus! Ruler of all nature!
Oh thou of God and man the Son!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul's glory, joy and crown.”
He is ruler of all nature, ruler of the world.

And last but not least He is Master, the Lord Jesus is, over you and me. He is our Master, we are His “douloi,” His bond-servants, which literally means His slaves. And of course in our post-reconstruction, post-slavery American existence, we think of slavery in those terms by default if we're not careful, if we don't look through the Bible first. This is not talking about the abomination that was American slavery, this is talking about a special type of master/slave relationship where the slave served his master out of love and devotion to him, who truly cared and protected him. You can jot down Exodus 21 for a cross reference on that.

But note now, it is only for those who are truly Christ's slaves that the book of Revelation and for that matter any book of the Bible is comprehensible. Those who are not Christ's slaves, who don't have the Spirit living in them are going to have difficulty with this book. They'll dismiss this book, they'll attempt to allegorize this book, they'll torture this book, they'll see it as foolishness (that's 1 Corinthians 2:14), and that's because it is veiled to them. But for the true follower of Christ, for the slave of Christ, for Christ's “doulos,” His slave, they will cherish this book. They will cling to the hope of this book. They will study this book. And they will look forward with joy and anticipation to all the events that this book foretells.

As John MacArthur notes, “Unbelievers couldn't grasp what Jesus meant when He was teaching about present spiritual realities,” meaning during His earthly ministry. “Neither can they grasp the future realities. Divine truth is hidden from the world wise.” That's true, isn't it, when we think about Jesus speaking in parables during His first advent. “The unbelieving skeptic,” says MacArthur, “finds in the book of Revelation nothing but chaos and confusion. But to the loving, willing bond-servants of Jesus Christ this book is the understandable unveiling of prophetic truth about the future of the world.” Christ is Master over all.

Here is the fifth truth about our Lord that we can pick up from this passage, Revelation 1:1-3. Christological Truth #5 is that He expects and blesses obedience, He expects and blesses obedience. Look at verse 3, “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.” This actually is one of seven beatitudes that are given in the book of Revelation. In parallel, in a way, to Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount. And really similar in a way to the words of Psalm 1 which speak to the benefit and the blessing of living obedient lives. The book of Revelation is scattered with promises of blessing to those who heed and obey the words it contains. We have it here in Revelation 1:3. We have it also in Revelation 22:7 which says, “Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.” But there are also five other places of blessing that the book of Revelation contains. Revelation 14:13, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” Revelation 16:15, “Blessed is the one who stays awake.” Revelation 19:9, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Revelation 20:6, “Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection.” Revelation 22:14, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.”

But let's focus on the blessing given here in verse 3 in our passage where it says, “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.” There are three participles woven into that verse. Read, hear and heed. Read, hear and heed. And each one of those participles is given to us in the present tense, which means that our reading and our hearing and out heeding are to be continual ways of life for the true follower of Christ. Now in the immediate context we know that the words of this prologue are speaking about reading and hearing and heeding the book of Revelation specifically. But we know from other places in the Bible that the same idea, the same concept, applies to all of God's Word. To all of Christ's commands, not just what we see in the book of Revelation. You can jot down Luke 11:28, “blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Or Luke 6:46ff says, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me,” this is our Lord speaking, “and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and it immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

In other words the words of Scripture are not given to us merely to be informative. And getting more specific with the book of Revelation, this final book in the canon is not given to us merely to be predictive. Rather all books of the Bible are given to us to be morally instructive. That's what one commentator on Revelation noted. He said, “Though Revelation is not a collection of laws, its message provides us demands no less serious.” Christ expects obedience to His Word. All of it. And He does so in light of what we see at the end of verse 3 here, those last few words, “for the time is near.” This is a companion statement to what we saw in verse 1 about “the things that must soon take place.”

The word here in verse 3 is not “chronos,” which would refer to time on a clock or on a calendar. It is rather “kairos,” which means “a season or an era.” What is being said here is that the next phase of God's plan, the ushering in of the final events of the “eschaton,” is near. It's imminent. It's on the horizon. We're closer to it today than we were yesterday. And this idea of the nearness of what comes next is laced not only through the book of Revelation, but all over the New Testament. Just jot down these references if you would. Romans 13:12, “The night is almost gone, and the day is near.” Hebrews 10:25, he is encouraging the early church to encourage one another “and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Or Peter in 1 Peter 4:7 says, “The end of all things is near.” Or James in James 5:9, “Behold the judge is standing right at the door.” And even this author, the Apostle John, elsewhere in 1 John 2:18 says, “Children, it is the last hour.” And the imminence of what waits on the eschatological time line ought to spur us on to faithful, holy, Christ-honoring living as we heed, hear and read. Not only the book of Revelation but all of Scripture. As we allow all of “the word of Christ,” Colossians 3:16, “richly dwell within us.”

So when we crack open this first chapter of Revelation, especially for those of us who have been Christians for a while, who have been walking with the Lord for a while, who have some sense of grasp on God's Word, we can get caught up in thinking about this book through the lens of horns and trumpets and beasts and harlots. We can get caught up in putting together the puzzle pieces to map out the timing of the Tribulation, what to make of Babylon and the identity of the Antichrist. But if we do that and only that, my contention would be that we can lose sight of who the book of Revelation is all about. As I've attempted to show you here this morning, the book of Revelation is fundamentally a book about Jesus Christ. It's not the only book in the Bible that's about Jesus Christ. Obviously the gospels are about Jesus Christ as they present Him in His First Coming. The epistles are about Jesus Christ as they remind us of various Gospel truths and how we are to live as His followers. But the book of Revelation is fundamentally about Jesus Christ as well.

Having covered just these three verses this morning, we've only scratched the surface on just these few Christological observations about our Lord. We've seen that He is One who reveals Himself, He relates to the other members of the Trinity, He is God, He is Master over all, and He expects and blesses obedience. Over the next two Sunday morning messages we're going to continue to flesh out what this first chapter of Revelation tells us about the person and nature and character of the ascended and glorified Christ. And there we are going to see the King of glory in all His beauty, in His transcendent holiness, in His infinite majesty.

And it is this Jesus who has dispatched John to send his postcards from Patmos to the seven churches of His day. It is this Jesus who we will stand before one day to give an account for all we stewarded and all that He entrusted us with here in His church. It is this Jesus who is not only preeminent in the church, but in the world. As Colossians 1:18 says, He gets “first place in everything.” Let's give that Jesus praise as we close our time in prayer.

God, we thank You for this morning and we thank You for the time in Your Word. We thank You that You have sent Your Son, the Lord Jesus. The Jesus that we see now unveiled in His glory in the book of Revelation. You sent Him meek and mild into this world to seek and save sinners like us. We're grateful. We're grateful that we have been reconciled, for we who trust in Christ, to You, God our Father. That we now have the Spirit living in us. And we have in the example set before us in Christ. And we have the ability to pursue holiness and righteousness which we did not have before. We have the hope of heaven, the hope of eternal life. We have the truth of Your Word which guides us and leads us. We have the family of believers here that we can have fellowship with. We can pray to You, cry out to You, sing to You, worship You in every way. And for that we say thank You. Lord Jesus, we simply praise You for who You are in Your ascended glory. I pray that everybody here this morning would come away encouraged and motivated to worship You faithfully. To view You as You are today. And to look forward with anticipation to when You come to get us, to rescue us from this earth, to deliver us from the wrath to come. We give You thanks and praise for this time in Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.