REVELATION Beginning Thoughts
REVELATION
Thoughts as We Begin
The Jews had studied the scriptures carefully for hundreds of years. They knew that the Messiah would come. They knew the promise of freedom was to be fulfilled by the Messiah. They knew that He would be born in the line of David. They knew that He would come from Bethlehem in Judea. They knew a lot of things, but when He came, they failed to recognize Him.
We read in John 1:11 that “He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him.” (NASB 2020)
Acts 1:6–11 recounts events immediately preceding the ascension of Jesus to heaven after His resurrection. It reads, “So, when they had come together, they began asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?’ But He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth.’ And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were watching, and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, then behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them, and they said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.’” (NASB 2020)
The Disciples had been with Jesus and listened to all His teaching for three years. They were witnesses to both His crucifixion and His resurrection. Even so, as we see here in Acts, when He ascended back to heaven, the Disciples still did not understand what the Lord Jesus came to do.
I bring this up because we have embarked on the study of The Revelation. As we have seen, this book, perhaps more than any other, has been interpreted in many different ways. Sincere students of the Bible have spent countless hour pouring over it. They have employed every principle of good hermeneutics, and some extremely poor ones as well. Nevertheless, they have come to very different conclusions about how this book is to be understood.
As we launch into an overview of The Revelation, gaining a birds-eye view of its outline, we must keep that in mind.
We will note that The Revelation is a letter to seven real churches. We will note that it speaks of things which are soon to take place. We will note that the primary purpose of this book is to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ is all His majesty, magnificence, and glory. We will note that He is the Beginning and the End, the One Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come, and that this revelation of Him would be lacking if it failed to reflect that in the things that it portrays. Consequently, we can expect The Revelation to include previews of things that have not yet occurred in the temporal realm.
We will examine the parts of The Revelation seeking to understand how they are grouped and divided. In this, I will provide my views. Yours may differ and that is completely acceptable. We must take a lesson from the Hebrew people and approach this book with humility and grace. We may well get it wrong as the Jews did, yet God’s wonderful plan to have the deepest loving relationship with us will not be thwarted, marred, or changed in the least degree. Only He can see the future. Only He knows the time of the consummation of His plan for us.
Fasten your seatbelts. We are about to see our Husband, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Lord, Our God, our Brother, our Friend. We are about to see the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. He is All in All. He IS!
He is holy, holy, holy, t Lord God Almighty. He is the Omniscient, Majestic King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. It is He who rides forth with flaming eyes, a golden sash, and a gleaming sword. It is He who walks among the churches and dwells among His people.
He is the slain Lamb who overcomes evil and at whose name, every knee will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
He is our life and in Him our lives are hidden in God. What happens to Him happens to us. Therefore, we overcome. It is with Him that we share the wedding supper as His unblemished and spotless bride and a gleaming city on a hill.
