Introduction

Revelation 22:8-17 ESV  I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me,  (9)  but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”  (10)  And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.  (11)  Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”  (12)  “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.  (13)  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  (14)  Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.  (15)  Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.  (16)  “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”  (17)  The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

• So here we are at the penultimate sermon in our series on Revelation.
  • This is now our 54^th sermon from Revelation, and our next sermon will be the last before we move on to the next book God has for us.
  • If you are new to CLC, this is what we do here, we preach through books of the Bible, line by line, verse by verse… whatever the Scripture preaches, we preach.
    • And if you are here today I believe that this message is for YOU, God brought you here to hear this message from the very end of the Bible, I don’t think it was on accident that God has you here this morning.
• So let’s take a look at what we just read in Revelation. For context, John has gone through this vivid vision of the end of the world as we know it… Now he is out of the vision, back on the island of Patmos, concluding his letter.

Revelation 22:8-17 ESV  I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me,

• First of all, remember that the vision of Revelation are the things that John saw and heard, this book is NOT John’s interpretation of the things that will happen, but simply his record of the things he saw and heard during this vision.
  • I said this when we first started the book of Revelation, 54 sermons ago…
  • If Revelation was a Holywood film… what would Johns role be?
    • He would not be the Writer, the Director, or the Producer.
    • He wouldn’t even be an actor, though he may have a cameo or two.
    • No, John would be the CAMERA. His only job was to observe, to record what he saw and what he heard.
• But as we know John had a guide, an angle… and John here falls down and worships the angel, but the angel says “BRO! I AM JUST A MESSANGER! WORSHIP GOD!”
  • If I were to preach a sermon on this, which I already did when John made this mistake the first time in Revelation 19:10, I would talk about how we should only worship God…
  • Certainly don’t worship me, or this church, or any other spiritual leader… the truth we share, the gifts we have… it is all from God, worship God!
• So the angel says don’t worship me, but then he says this:

Revelation 22:10 ESV  And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

• Now this is an important command, and it is in direct contrast to what happened in the book of Daniel.
  • Daniel was an old Testament Prophet who was shown much of what John was shown about the end times… the books of Daniel and Revelation are parallel texts in many ways… but look how the prophecy of Daniel is concluded…

Daniel 12:4 ESV  But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

Daniel 12:9 ESV  He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.

• So let me just read one more time Revelation 22:10

Revelation 22:10 ESV  And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

• Do you see the difference?
  • Daniel is told “Seal up this prophecy until the end of time”
  • But John is told “Do not seal up this prophecy for the end of time is near”.
    • So what has changed between Daniel and Revelation? THE TIME IS NOW NEAR.
• And Jesus even reemphasizes this in the following verses in Revelation:

Revelation 22:12-13 ESV  “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.  (13)  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

• Jesus is the first and the Last! He is the God of Genesis, He is the God of Daniel, and He is the God of Revelation.
  • He is the begging and the end.
  • He is the First and the Last.
  • He was, and He is, and He is to come!
    • He closes Daniel by saying “I will come, but not now… there is much learning that needs to happen first”.
    • But He closes Revelation with “I am the first and the last… and the last is near… I am the Alpha and the Omega, and the Omega is near, I am the Beginning and the End, and the end is near. I was, and I am, and I am to come… AND I AM COMING SOON!

Revelation 22:17  The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

• What we have here is the LAST written command in the Bible. The final bit of instruction tell us as believers, to tell us who are born again, to tell us who are saved what to do…
  • We are to say “COME!”
    • We are to cry out “MARINATHA”
      • We are to plead with God “LORD COME QUICKLY!”
      • “We want to see you! We want to be with you! We want this world to be made perfect again! We want to be with you in New Jerusalem FOREVER!”
      • COME LORD JESUS! LORD COME QUICKLY!
        • And if you are not saved, well there is instructions for you too! GET SAVED! Jesus is coming soon! GET SAVED! DRINK FROM THE WATER OF LIFE! BE BORN AGAIN!
        • If you are not born again, but you thirst for God, you want to be right with God… I have good news… at the end of service we want to pray with you and we believe God will save you if you would confess Him as Lord.
• But before then, I want to talk to you church about a couple of these verses in the middle of what we just read…

Revelation 22:11 ESV  Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”

Revelation 22:14-15 ESV  Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.  (15)  Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

• These two verses are what I want to talk about today, and what is interesting about these verses is that they too have a parallel verse in Daniel…

Daniel 12:10 ESV  Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand.

• You see guys, when God says something in the Bible more than once, it must be SUPER IMPORTANT.
  • It’s why the Gospel is in there FOUR TIMES! But man, the prophecy of the end times is repeated nearly as much as the Gospels…
  • What does this tell me? The Gospel is the most important part of scripture… but second to that is the End Times prophecy.
    • This stuff is clearly important to God, y’all! So it should be important to us too.
• So let’s just take a moment and compare and contrast Daniel 12 and Revelation 22…

Show Slide “Dan 12 vs Rev 22” already in proclaim

• So the difference between Daniel’s end time prophecy and John’s end time prophecy is two fold…
  • First is the timing, for Daniel this was not going to happen for a long while…
    • But for John, he is told this will happen soon.
  • Second is the sealing. Daniel is told to seal the prophecy, not to share all of it, that it was to be a mystery until the end came near.
  • Now that the end is near, John is told this prophecy is no longer a mystery, make it known, make it clear, because Jesus is coming soon.
• The similarities between the conclusions of these two books is striking too, though…
  • Both books tell us that the righteous are to be left to do right, and the wicked are to be left to do wicked… both books tell us to purify ourselves and was our robes.
  • It seems as though both books say “Yo, leave people alone and let them do what they are going to do, but as for you, purify yourselves”.
    • So that is what we are going to talk about today, what does that mean and why would God close Scripture with these kinds of instructions?

Point One – Jesus is coming soon, understand what that means.

Revelation 22:7 ESV  “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Revelation 22:12 ESV  “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.

• In fact the very last recorded words of Jesus in Scripture are from verse 20 of Revelation 22…

Revelation 22:20 ESV  He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

• Y’all Jesus is coming soon… BUT DON’T PANIC.
  • For nearly two thousand years, people have missed this point.
  • They have missed this line of instruction.
  • They have misunderstood what “soon” means…
  • And some have gone as far as to panic.
• Yes Jesus is coming soon… but please y’all, don’t panic.
• You need to understand that soon, maybe, doesn’t mean what you think it means…
• When Jesus says “soon”, that is relative… the word soon means different things depending on the context.

• For example if you say “I will be home soon” the word soon means “15 minutes or so” but if you say something like “I will be graduating college soon” that soon could mean 1 month to a year later.
  • Because your trip out was a short trip, so being home soon is relative to your short trip out…
  • But college takes 4 years or more, so graduating from college soon is relative to those 4 years.
    • And we instinctively understand this, we know this is how language works.
      • If you went to go get milk and you told your wife you would be home soon, and you show up 8 months later… your wife would be angry.
      • Right…
    • And on the flip side, if I called you and asked “When do you graduate from college” and you were going to graduate in 15 minutes, you would not say “Oh, I graduate from college soon” instead you would say “Actually, I graduate today! In 15 minutes”….
    • Because we all understand how the word soon works…
• But for some reason, when reading the Bible, peoples BRAINS fall out when it comes to defining words in the Bible.
• The word soon is a relative word… it all depends on context, it doesn’t mean what you want it to mean just because you want it to mean that… words have meaning!
  • So what is the context of the word soon here in revelation?
    • It is “the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega”.
    • The context, literally, from Jesus’ own mouth, is ALL OF ETERNITY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME.

Revelation 22:12-13 ESV  “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.  (13)  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

• The context is EVERYTHING. So, the context could be hundreds of millions of years, as some believe that is how old the earth is… or it could be at its shortest, about 6,000-8,000 years as young earth creationists believe the earth is.
  • So let’s take that smallest number, 6,000-8,000 years, which is probably the most Biblically accurate number, and ask “What does soon mean in that context”.
  • It could probably means somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 years, give or take.
  • If the earth is older, then soon could mean MUCH longer. Because soon is a relative term.
  • The Bible even talks about this relativity…

2 Peter 3:8 ESV  But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

• This is a statement about time realitivity… it does not mean that every time you see the word “day” in the Bible that you can translate it as 1000 years… that’s nonsense… if that where true then Noah was in the Ark for 40,000 years, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three thousand years, and Jesus was in the grave for 3 thousand years…
  • Obviously that is not what this means, nor is it what it says. It says a day is AS a thousand years…
  • Meaning, to God who has existed forever and will exist forever, relatively speaking, there is not much difference between a day and a thousand years.
  • When I was in college 4 years seemed like an ETERNITY… “Man you want me to spend four years doing this garbage?! UGH!”
    • Now I look back and I think “I couldn’t have keep my act together for just four short years”.
    • But for Ezra, 4 years is half his life.
    • For Hannah 4 years is the vast majority of her life…
    • But now as an adult 4 years is nothing, it goes by quick… I can’t believe we have already been in Iowa for almost 9 years, I can’t believe Amanda and I have been married for over 11 years… it seems like yesterday…
      • BECAUSE TIME IS REALITIVE.
• And it is important you guys understand this because so much of the church has missed it.
  • I was talking to Bishop Will Jackson, possibly the smartest Biblical Scholar I know, and he was telling me about how the early church misunderstood the word soon.
  • They thought Jesus was coming back any day…
    • So they did not get married, or have babies… they left their jobs and spent all their finances.
    • They only studied the apocalyptic texts in scripture…
    • Because they thought SOON meant a few years, a couple decades at most…
    • THEY, in a sense, PANICED.
    • Then after nearly 40 years, they were like “Oh, I guess we better study the rest of scripture to see what it says about having jobs, and getting married, and having kids and stuff…”
  • And it is funny to think about… but guys, every generation since Jesus ascended into heaven, has thought Jesus was coming back in their lifetime….
    • There are scholars from every generation who earnestly believed Jesus would come back before they died…
    • Why? Because they wanted the word “soon” to mean “in my lifetime” but that is not how soon works.
  • When Jesus said “I am coming back soon” He meant “withing the next few thousand years” at the least.
• And yes, it has been 2000 years almost since Jesus said He was coming back soon, and if the earth is 7,000 years old, then soon would mean right around now… but the earth could be older than that… we do know exactly when soon is…

Matthew 24:36 ESV  “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

• So what are we supposed to do with this information. Jesus is coming soon, but maybe not in our lifetime…
  • What are we supposed to do with that…
  • Well I will tell you what we are not supposed to do… panic!
  • That’s my final point this morning… Jesus is coming soon, don’t panic.

Point Two – Jesus is coming soon, don’t panic.

Revelation 22:10-11 ESV  And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.  (11)  Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”

Daniel 12:10 ESV  Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand.

• Let me make these verses as clear as possible for you.
• Jesus is coming soon. But soon may or may not be in our lifetime.
  • In the meantime, we who are holy should continue living life, holy and unto the Lord.
  • We should not bother ourselves with what the wicked people are doing… let the wicked people be wicked and the filthy people be filthy.
  • But for us, Christians, we continue to live holy lives, as unto the Lord, and we let Jesus decide when He is coming back.
• This sentiment can even be found in that passage from Matthew… this is another thing Bishop Jackson pointed out to me… check this out…

Matthew 24:36-39 ESV  “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.  (37)  For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  (38)  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,  (39)  and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

• Now those verses about “In the days of Noah people were eating and drinking and marrying”… that’s not rebuke.
  • Jesus is not making the point “Look how dumb those people were” that point doesn’t need to be made, they are all dead now…
  • No, Jesus is speaking about how life was lived relative to the flood.
    • People just lived life… they did not know the flood was coming… they just lived life.
  • So it is in the end, Jesus said… YOU WON’T KNOW IT’S COMING. JUST LIVE LIFE.
  • Eat, Drink, Get married, give your kids away in marriage… live life.
    • The difference is, make sure that you are living HOLY as you live life. Make sure you are ready for the coming of the Son of God, as Noah was ready for the flood.
    • But as you do so, don’t panic, live life.

Revelation 22:11 ESV  Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”

• Don’t panic!
  • You don’t need to read books about the four blood moons.
  • You don’t need to watch YouTube conspiracy theorist Christians talk about how they know they year Jesus is coming back.
  • You don’t need to listen to podcasts about how the UN is the Antichrist because of some statue they put up, or how Putin’s war on Ukraine is likely Mog and Magog coming in from the North in fulfilment of prophecy…
    • Y’all, people have been trying to force world events into end time prophecy since about the year 33AD.
    • Stop it with this nonsense… you have Revelation, read it, understand it, and move on with life.
    • Don’t panic, live holy.
• I have seen people throw away relationships, reputations, and fortunes chasing after this stuff… panicking because they think Jesus is coming back…
  • I have also seen people get burnt out and leave the faith… the parable of the 10 virgins is all about that.
  • Guys, yes Jesus is coming back. Our instructions are as follows: Keep living holy lives. If you are not saved, get saved, and don’t worry about what the wicked people are doing.
• It is not your job to worry about who is gay or who is not.
  • Who is sleeping around or who is not.
  • Who is stealing from others or who is not.
  • Who is doing drugs or who is not.
  • It’s not your job to worry about how much alcohol your neighbor drinks.
  • Or to care what TV shows your coworkers enjoy watching.
    • YOU JUST KEEP BEING HOLY AND LET THE WICKED KEEP BEING WICKED.
• What is your Job, however, is to preach the Gospel to them.
• Once they get saved, things are different.
  • Once they are saved, now we care that you are sexually pure, that you are not a drunkard or a thief… no we care, because you are saved… you should be Holy!
  • And the Holy Spirit will help you, and the church will help you…
• But our job is very simple as Christians… we live holy and pure lives, we lead other people to Jesus… and let us not forget DON’T PANIC!

Conclusion

Now, speaking of the Gospel, the most important thing you can do before Jesus comes back is get saved… get born again…

• Gospel Call