Introduction

Revelation 1:1-3 ESV  The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,  (2)  who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.  (3)  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

• This morning we start our journey through the book of Revelation…
  • And if you have been a Christian for a while, you may have some… well… you may have some thoughts about the book of revelation.
    • Some of us, no doubt, are excited to dive into the Apocalyptic text of the apostle John… John called by Jesus a “Son of Thunder” and that thunder certainly booms throughout this book.
    • Some of us however may be apprehensive or even shy, when it comes to Revelation… maybe you feel like the events within are frightening, or that the language is to hard and metaphorical to understand.
  • But I bet that all of us, old Christians and new alike can agree on this: I WANT TO BE BLESSED.
    • You want to be blessed church?!
      • Amen?!
    • I want to LEAD a blessed church! I want to pastor a blessed church! I want to thrive in a blessed church!
      • And for that reason alone I am ECSTATICLY excited to be going through the book of revelation!

• Be blessed! BE BLESSED! BE BLESSED!
  • You should be excited that we are going through the book of revelation because what it means for you is BLESSINGS!
    • What it means for your family is blessings!
    • What it means for this church is blessings!
  • AND I SAY THAT WITH PROPHETIC AUTHORITY!
    • I promise you in the MIGHTY NAME OF JESUS that if you stick with us through the upcoming years as we go through the book of Revelation that YOU WILL BE BLESSED.
• How can I say that with such confidence? Because I know that my God does not change nor does He lie and HE SAYS YOU WILL BE BLESSED FOR GOING THROUGH THIS BOOK.

Revelation 1:3 ESV  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

• Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words and blessed are the ones who hear!
  • We will literally be reading aloud every single word of this Prophecy!
    • Make sure you are here to hear them! Be blessed church! Let’s pray.

• We have two points this morning, very simply:
  • You are meant to read Scripture.
  • And, You are meant to Understand Scripture.
  • And Scripture is meant to be relevant.
    • And this is a theme you are going to see unfold throughout the book of Revelation as we read it…

Point One – You Are Meant to Read Scripture

• Point one this morning is that you are meant to read Scripture.
  • You are meant to read scripture!

Revelation 1:3 ESV  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

• Again, point one this morning: You are meant to read scripture!
  • And what I mean by this is that you are meant to consume scripture… you need to be getting scripture inside of you!
  • So you need to be reading it or listening to it.
    • And when I say listening to it, I don’t mean sermons alone… I mean get the Bible app and listen to the Bible read aloud.
    • Get the Bible on CD or on Tape if you are old… and listen to the Words of scripture read aloud.
  • Read or listen to the Bible every single day! Or do both, as I often do! I read in the morning, then sometimes throughout the day I listen… and then on top of that I watch sermons!
    • YOU ARE MEANT TO READ SCRIPTURE.
• Now revelation 1:3 says that those who read or listen to the words of quote “This prophecy” will be blessed.
  • I take that both literally and figuratively… and I think what you are going to find as we read through Revelation is that there is a literal and figurative meaning to pretty much everything written here…
  • So yes, literally, you will be blessed by simply listening to the words of revelation being read aloud.
  • But also, figuratively, you will be blessed by consuming any and all scripture…
    • And I say that because revelation is a CAPSTONE book of the bible.
    • It sums the whole thing up.
      • It doesn’t stand alone as its own little thing…
      • It’s not the odd man out, the strange addition at the end that no one really should read because its scary.
      • No, it is in fact a summary as much as it is a prophecy.
      • It summarizes everything in scripture that has happened thus far…
        • It literally quotes or references the Old Testament more than 500 times.
          • (I don’t know what your college experience was like, but I hated it when I had to have 5 sources in my research papers… REVELATION HAS MORE THAT 500!)
      • That tells me that the whole of Scripture is important to God! And blessed is the one who reads or hears it!

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Romans 15:4 ESV  For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Romans 10:17 ESV  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Isaiah 55:10-11 ESV  “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,  (11)  so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Matthew 24:35 ESV  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

• I don’t know how to put it any other way: YOU NEED SCRIPTURE.
  • Listen, you wouldn’t go a week without food, would you?
    • You didn’t forget to eat yesterday did you?
    • Because the Word of God is food for you soul.

Matthew 4:4 ESV  But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

• Man will not live on bread alone! The Bible is food for your soul…
  • Yet so many Christians are walking around looking famished!
    • They are literally starving to death!
  • I don’t want to serve a church where everyone looks like they are one breath away from their last… I don’t want to be able to count your ribs because you are so skinny.
    • I want to serve a blessed, a fit, a full church! Where everyone is spiritually walking around with big guns and a six pack!
  • Because they feast on the Word of God daily, and when they are done feasting they go out and live it.
    • Don’t just feast and do nothing now, that’s how you get fat, but feast, then go out and DO!
      • Open your bible, read it, and do what it says, amen?!

Revelation 1:3 ESV  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

• You are meant to be blessed, amen?!
  • You are meant to read scripture! That’s our first point.
• Now our second point this morning is this: You are meant to UNDERSTAND Scripture.
  • Don’t just read it, but understand it!

Point Two – You Are Meant to Understand Scripture

Revelation 1:1 ESV  The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

• What is the point of the book of revelation?
  • Well we don’t have to speculate that… we don’t have to guess what the point of the book of Revelation is…
    • Because we are told in the very first verse: Here is the point:
      • The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave John… why? Why did God give this revelation to John?
        • To show God’s servants (that’s us yall)… to show God’s servants the things that must take place.
• The whole point of the book of revelation is a showing!
  • To show us what must soon take place.
    • When God says He wants to show you something, it’s not because He want’s you to see something that looks cool… it means He want’s to reveal to you it’s innerworkings…
      • He wants to show you how it is going to happen and why.
      • He wants to communicate with you its importance.
      • He wants you to understand it!
    • It’s almost like He wants to REVEAL something to you… like this is some kind of Revelation.
• Can I ask you this saints?
  • Is this how you have looked at the book of revelation before?
    • As something meant to bring you understanding…
    • Or have you felt like Revelation is too confusing or scary?
      • That is a lie from the enemy! Revelation is not to confusing and it is definitely not scary for the believer!
        • WE ARE ON THE WINNING TEAM YALL!
• Listen, all of scripture was meant to be understood, God wrote it for YOU!
  • And God knows exactly what you need to hear when you need to hear it…

Hebrews 4:12 ESV  For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

• The Word of God is alive! Every time you read it God is going to bring you understanding…
  • And you don’t need to worry about what the Greek says, or what this or that theologian says, it is God who will open understanding of the scriptures to you!
  • We talked about this last week didn’t we?

Luke 24:45 ESV  Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

• God open’s our minds to understand the scriptures.
  • And He sends us the Holy Spirit to Help us!

John 16:13-14 ESV  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  (14)  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 14:26 ESV  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

• That is why we are not going to be studying the book of revelation…
  • I bought a few commentaries to help me through this, and the biggest one that was suggest by all the scholars… I sent it back…
    • Because it was all Greek to me… literally, it was so much Greek… and this word might mean that, and this other word might mean this… and according to this theology… blah blah blah.
    • Man studying has it’s place, we must study to show ourselves approved…
      • But for this series, we will be allowing God to simply show us…
        • there will be some study for sure, but for the must part we are going allow God to sow us… to simply reveal to us the things that are yet to come.
• Now that brings me to the final point… Scripture is meant to be relevant.

Point Three – Scripture is Meant to be Relevant

• Scripture is meant to be relevant… it is for Today, 2021… it is relevant to our lives…

Revelation 1:1 ESV  The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

• Somebody say SOON!
  • The things that must SOON take place.
• You know the book of Daniel was written about the things that are to take place in the end times… it has the same subject as the book of Revelation.
  • We are going to be looking at the book of Daniel probably a lot as we go through Revelation because there are so many parallels.
  • But I want you to compare the purpose of revelation to the purpose of the book of Daniel…

Daniel 2:28 ESV  but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:

• Daniel says “these things are going to happen in the latter days”… this are things that are going to happen a long time from now…
• Then a couple hundred years pass and John comes along and writes about the same events… but it is no longer things that will happen in the latter days…
  • No, now it is the things that will some come to pass!
  • We have gone from latter to soon… and that was some 2000 years ago, I think it is safe to say we have gone from soon to now!
• All that to say, revelation is relevant to the here and now, God want’s you to know and understand the things that will take place.
• So as we preach through this, as with any scripture, they will have relevance to what is going on here and now…
  • In our families, in our church, in our private life…
  • But also in the world, in the news, in politics…
    • If you are confused about what is going on in the world you have no one to blame but yourself FOR NOT CONSUME SCRIPTURE… because scripture is relevant!

Conclusion

• I want to conclude with this…
  • This is just our introduction to the book of revelation… but I want you to leave pumped up about two things…
  • First I hope you are pumped up about this new series! God is going to SHOW us some things, we will read it, understand it, and it will be relevant to us! Amen!
    • And through that we will be blessed.
  • But bigger picture I hope you are pumped up about Scripture as a whole!
    • Read it! It is food for your soul!
    • Study it yes, but more so CONSUME IT. Understand it! Apply it! Open your Bible, Read it, and do what it says!
      • OPEN YOUR BIBLE, READ IT, AND DO WHAT IT SAYS!
• And listen, if CLC is not your church, you need to find yourself a church that preaches Scripture!
  • Topical sermons are fine, but they better be ripped straight from the Bible, in context, and applied in a way that you understand and is relevant to you.
    • Already in our short History at CLC we have gone through 70 sermons on the book of 1 Corinthians. And then we went through about 150 sermons through the book of Luke.
    • I have no idea how long we are going to be in the book of revelation, but this I know:
      • With God’s help we are going to read it.
      • With God’s help we are going to understand it.
      • And with God’s help we are going to apply it to our lives in a relevant way.
        • And through it all we will be blessed!

Revelation 1:3 ESV  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

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