CHRISTIAN LIFE TRAINING DATE: January 21, 2015 TITLE: “BENEDICTION” PT. 1 MAIN SCRIPTURE: Revelation 22:6-13, 20a NKJV “Then he said to me, ‘These words are faithful and true.’ And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place. ‘Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’ Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.’ And he said to me, ‘Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.’ ‘And behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work. I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.’ He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ As a child, I remember the word “benediction” included in the order of service in the bulletin. Sometimes it was the very last word, sometimes it was next to the last word and followed by the word “postlude,” which I figured out later referred to the music played when the service was over. But in any case, when I followed the order down to the word benediction, it meant that the service was ending. We are now in the “benediction” passage of Revelation and of the Bible. From worship to warfare, from chaos to peace, from the old sin-cursed earth to a magificent new heavenly city reflecting the glory of God, the peaks and valleys of Revelation are the most extreme anyone will ever know! As we read the passage above, we note the phrase, “I am coming quickly” twice. Critics of Revelation and the Bible in general love to scoff at this, saying that these words were written over 2,000 years ago, and Jesus has not come yet. We need to remember that not only does God have a different idea of time than we do, the word “quickly” in this verse does not indicate the speed of the coming, but the imminence of it. We can count on Jesus’ coming. It is going to happen. Over and over the Scriptures promise this, and we know as we read God’s Word that He keeps His promises. Jesus told a parable in Matthew 25:1-13 of ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom’s coming. Five of the young virgins were wise and prepared themselves by bringing oil for their lamps. The other five, however, were foolish and brought no extra oil. When the bridegroom did arrive at the midnight hour, the maidens who were prepared were ready to meet the bridegroom and join the celebration. The girls who brought no oil were excluded. Jesus told this parable to warn that His coming would happen without warning and all need to be prepared. Though many over the centuries have tried to guess at the day and hour of Christ’s return, they labor in vain because Jesus said that no one knows, only the Father. Why doesn’t He give us a definite time, some may wonder. The reason is that God wants us to love Him for Who He is and not for what we are trying to escape. We are natural procrastinators. If we knew the exact time that Jesus was returning, we would kick back and enjoy ourselves until the final hours and then rush to make everything look good when He returned. We have the promise of His return and that should be enough to make us be about our Father’s business! Revelation 1:3 contains the statement, “Blessed is he who reads the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it: for the time is near.” Its final chapter echoes the phrase “Blessed is he who keeps…” In other words, blessed is he who obeys. The angel who is speaking in verse 7 is the same angel who showed John the New Jerusalem. His acclamation of the words as faithful and true are followed by an affirmation that the same God Who showed His prophets what the future held in ages past is the same God Who will bring these events in Revelation to pass. Consider this. There are over 2,500 prophecies in the Bible and over 2,000 of these have already been fulfilled exactly as they were foretold. This is mind-boggling! Mathematicians say that the chance of 2,000 prophecies in the Bible being fulfilled in this way is 1 in 10 to the 138th power. The fact that they state that the chance of a race car engine blowing up and then turning into a solid block of ice is 1 in 10 to the 80th power demonstrates how impossible they believe the fulfillment of those prophecies to be. And with man, they are indeed impossible, but as the Scripture tells us, with God NOTHING is impossible! “Remember the former days of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man who executes My counsel from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.’” Isaiah 46:9-11 NKJV Though in other studies the word “blessed” has meant happy, the word “blessed” in tonight’s passage means “fortunate.” That is, fortunate to have the grace and favor of God. Today’s Christians often live with a sense of entitlement. They believe they deserve God’s favor and constant blessings on their lives, and are shocked and angry when trials and tribulations happen, demanding to know what they did to deserve this. We’ve all been there. How easily we forget that God’s blessings and favor upon us are given by grace. He does reward obedience, but we truly deserve only His wrath and judgment for our sin. In His mercy, He provided a way through Calvary to avoid that judgment, and in His grace, He blesses us with His riches which our own righteousness, seen as filthy rags to Him, could never merit. So how does one respond to the book of Revelation? First, we are called to obey its contents. Jesus told His disciples in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” But, we might protest, it’s not a set of instructions for life like the Ten Commandments or like Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount or even like Paul’s epistles. It’s a prophecy of future events—many of them scary future events that, if we are believers, we will be relieved to escape when the rapture happens. How do we “keep” it? The answer is simple: by telling others. Many Christians (myself included) fall into the habit of saying “I can’t” of things we are commanded to do as followers of Christ, such as witnessing, going on mission trips, tithing, etc. We can come up with all sorts of reasons and justifications. Mark 9:14-29 tells the story of a man bringing his demon-possessed son to Jesus’ disciples, hoping for a cure. The nine disciples (three were with Jesus on the mountain) tried to cast out the demon but couldn’t. A crowd gathered and a hot debate was going on when Jesus arrived on the scene. The father explained that the disciples had been unable to help his son. He tearfully pleaded for Jesus’ help. Jesus replied, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” The father then made a powerful statement—a statement that attested to the struggle between faith and doubt that we all experience. “Lord I believe; help my unbelief!” After Jesus had healed the boy, the disappointed disciples asked Jesus privately why they had not been able to cast out the demon. Jesus answered, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” The disciples had been relying on their own strength and not God’s, and often we do that too. We forget that it is His strength that will go with us to do His work and His will. If the success of our lives was measured by the strength of our prayer lives, how successful would we be? We are all too inclined to act—or react—now and pray later. And fasting? No one even wants to talk about that. Self-denial is a thing unheard of, and we’re not just talking about food. What if we all committed to putting our computers, our Internet and our social media away for a time in order to draw closer to God and seek His will? The very idea would scare some people to death because we are so dependent on our technology but how often do we recognize our dependence on God through prayer? We can keep the words of this book if we keep close to Him. John was so overwhelmed and awed by the glory that was around him that he fell down before the angel to worship him. The desire to worship was right, but John’s direction of the worship was wrong. We are not to worship leaders, pastors, and speakers no matter how charismatic and inspiring they may be. We are to worship God alone. This is a great failing in the church in recent years. The angel quickly stopped John’s adoration and redirected it to God. He gave John three reasons for this: 1-I’m only a fellow servant, 2-I’m of your brethren the prophets and 3- I take direction from God. The word “worship” literally means to adore, revere, to lick the hand as a dog. Now this may seem a little strange, undignified and perhaps even offensive to some, but the understanding is this—a dog licks as a sign of submission, trust, and obedience. And David certainly did not mind being thought undignified in his worship of God, nor should we. Though we worship in many different ways, our worship should wholeheartedly be directed to the Lord and not to any person or thing, no matter what anyone else is doing, no matter what anyone else says of us. Worship God, which is our second response to Revelation. The third response is to share this book. Don’t ignore, overlook, or abuse it. The contents of Revelation are meant for every person, for it explains the eternal fate and destination of both those who accept Christ and those who reject Him. Yet this book is probably read or taught less than any of the others. For years, I avoided reading or studying this book because what I did know of it scared me to death. Even knowing that I was saved and not going to participate in the horror of the Tribulation did not lessen the fear of this book. This is the only book of the Bible that actually contains a command to study it and it’s the one we seem to work hardest to avoid. Its words are not only life-changing but eternal changing. We could argue that some will not listen. They will scoff. They will debate. They will bring out lots of books written by men to try to refute what is in this book. Or they just will simply walk away and not listen. Remember that we can’t change people by sharing the gospel and the warnings of Revelation with them. God and His Word have to do the changing. If they refuse to listen to the gospel and accept Christ, then they choose hell and the lake of fire as their final destination. Critics always ask why a loving God would send people to hell and the answer is, He doesn’t. He is a loving God, and He provided a way for us, but He is a holy God and must punish sin. If we do not accept Jesus’ payment, then the payment for our sin is eternal death. On the other hand, if we accept Jesus as our Savior and His blood covers our sins, then we have a reward coming. The true reward is not the streets of gold or the pearly gates of heaven. It isn’t even the promise of no more sickness, death or pain. The real reward is living in the glorious presence of God for all eternity. “Behold, I am coming soon.” Be ready! “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.” Matthew 25:13 NKJV
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 03:16:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015