This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our beginning of the study of the Book of Revelation together. I want
to welcome you to a study about hope and about God and about the future and
about you and about Jesus Christ. And as I welcome you, I want to welcome you
with two very strong statements about the Book of Revelation.

Number one, God wants you to understand this book. Number two, God wants you to
understand this book in order to give you hope. God wants you to understand this
book.

Number one, I know many of us when we read through the Book of Revelation, we
think what in the world is going on here, especially the first time. I just want
to remind you that God would not have put this book in his word except that he
meant for us to understand it. Now as we talk through this first week, we're
going to see it may take some work for us to understand it, but that does not
mean that we cannot understand it.

In fact, God intends for you to understand this book. But the second truth, the
second truth you got to hang on to, God wants you to understand this book in
order to give you hope. That's the purpose of the Book of Revelation, to infuse
and inject hope into your heart and into your life.

It's all about the hope of God's plan. I know that for some as they read through
or have seen movies about or heard pictures of the Book of Revelation, they
think it's a very scary place. If that's what you see in this book, you've
missed the point.

This earth is a scary place, no doubt about it. There is evil on this planet,
but this Book of Revelation, God's revelation that he gives us is all about
hope. It's all about the fact that God in the end will prevail.

So with that in mind, God wants you to understand this book. He wants you to
understand it in order to give you hope. Let me read for you the first two
verses about the Book of Revelation.

This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him concerning the events
that will happen soon. An angel was sent to God's servant John so that John
could share the revelation with God's other servants. John faithfully reported
the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything he saw.

That's what this is all about. We have it laid out from the very beginning,
events in the first verse that will happen soon. Now a lot of people think,
"Well, that gets me confused in the first verse of the book.

Two thousand years ago this book was written. These events haven't happened yet.
This earth hasn't ended.

There isn't a new heaven and earth as yet. " So what is this talking about?
Well, just remember this, that the moment that Jesus Christ left this earth the
first time, it has always been soon that he might come again.

We don't know exactly the time. We don't know exactly the date. So it is someday
soon.

We live in this perpetual attitude of at any moment, at any time. I don't know
when he's going to return. I don't know when these events are going to unfold.

But in the plan and the history of God it is soon, obviously. And in my heart it
has to be soon. I have to realize this could happen at any moment.

You open up the book of Revelation and you're opening up a book about God's
eternal plan. You open the first book of the Bible, Genesis. It's a book of
beginnings and endings, of creation and then a fall.

And you open up this last book in the Bible. It's a book of endings and then
beginnings, of destruction but then a new creation. The Bible starts with
creation and it ends with a new creation.

It's all about the new things that God wants to do in our lives. But as we talk
about this book of Revelation I want you to know all throughout this study it is
a book not only about the future, it is a book about your future. Every one of
us is mentioned in this book.

Because in the end I'm either going to be standing at the sea of glass
worshiping Jesus Christ for eternity or I'm going to be at the great white
throne being judged by him for all eternity. It's a book about you. It's a book
about me.

And as you and I read through this book the conviction I'm going to have all the
way through is that God wrote it to help you and I to understand the future, not
to keep us from understanding the future. But even in saying that conviction as
I started with or I'm saying it now you might be thinking you can say that but
when I read this book of Revelation I've tried and I get a little dizzy when I'm
reading it. I want to say I understand that feeling.

Reading the book of Revelation for some of us it's like being dropped into a
different world. It's different than the rest of the New Testament. You read the
Gospels in the New Testament and Jesus heals the blind.

That's miraculous but I can understand that. You read the letters of the New
Testament and Paul encourages the churches. I can understand that.

But then you take a look at the book of Revelation and all of a sudden you're in
the midst of a beast with seven heads and ten horns rising out of the sea. And I
don't understand that. We obviously need to orient ourselves to this world of
the book of Revelation.

And that's what we're going to take a few minutes to do today as we begin this
study and what we'll continually do as we go throughout this study. If I'm going
to understand the book of Revelation I have to understand the background. I have
to understand that it was recorded by John the Apostle.

Now we're going to say a little bit more about John in a couple of days. But
here I want to focus on the fact that it was recorded by John because it was
written by God. This is a revelation from God.

It's not a dream that John had. This is a message that was brought to John by an
angel. A revelation, a revealing by God.

How was this revelation given? God gave it to Jesus. Jesus said one time, "Only
my Father knows the time that I'm going to come again.

" That God the Father revealed to Jesus the Son through this revelation what was
going to unfold at the end of times. God gave this revelation to Jesus. Jesus
sent an angel with a message and that angel delivered it to John.

This is a book that God has given to us so we can understand God's plan. If you
want to understand the book of Revelation you have to understand that it is
prophetic in message and it's apocalyptic in form. Now what does that mean?

Well we know the word prophecy. It means the message is about the future, God's
future and what he has planned. You can always depend on God's plans for the
future.

We try to come up with prophetic ideas and we're often wrong. You ever read one
of those books that tries to prophesy what's going to happen in business or with
the next new gadget electronically in the next five years? Almost always wrong.

We buy the book because we're interested but they're almost always wrong because
we don't know the future. But God does. He can see it all in an instant.

And so he tells us this is what's unfolding, this is where things are headed and
he tells us in a particular way. That's what often confuses us as we read the
book of Revelation the first time. It's apocalyptic in form and that means it's
a kind of writing, a kind of literature especially that was in the day of Jesus
that was used to, well the word apocalypse literally means to unveil or to
reveal.

It used picture language to unveil or reveal a truth. The closest thing I can
think of today to an apocalyptic kind of writing would be a political cartoon.
If you look at a political cartoon and you see a donkey and an elephant, many of
you know that means the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

How do you know that? You've just always known that. So when you see that you
know that's what it means.

That kind of thing was going on in the day of Jesus. This kind of writing was
going on. In the book of Revelation there are over 300 symbols, pictures.

And those symbols sometimes can lead to bad interpretation if we just make up in
our minds what they mean. Let me just let you know as we walk through the book
of Revelation we're going to practice the law of common sense. When the plain
sense of scripture makes common sense you seek no other sense.

You don't make up ideas of what these mean. And as you walk through, as we walk
through the symbols in the book of Revelation you're going to find out that some
are explained. In chapter 12 verse 9 we're told that the dragon is Satan.

We don't have to wonder what that means. It's explained to us. We're going to
find that many of the pictures in the book of Revelation are understood from the
Old Testament.

There are over 300 references to the Old Testament in the book of Revelation.
And one of the reasons that we sometimes don't understand this book is we don't
understand the pictures from the Old Testament. That's where the work is in
understanding the book of Revelation.

I always tell people the book of Revelation is the last book in the Bible for a
reason. You should read it last. You need to read the rest of the Bible, Old and
New Testament, in order to understand what's going on in the book of Revelation.

And one of the reasons I, you, don't often understand the book of Revelation is
we don't understand the Old Testament. And we're going to go through the
understanding of that as we study this together. Some are explained.

Many are understood from the Old Testament, many of the symbols. Some are not
explained, like the white stone in chapter 2 verse 17. They are to be understood
from context.

That's how you understand these pictures in the book of Revelation. But in
understanding those pictures, you have to realize the pictures are there not to
confuse you, but to give you confidence. Not to make you wonder, but to lead you
to worship.

Why does God write in this way? Why does he use these pictures, these symbols?
Well, for one reason, they hid the truth from enemies.

There were many enemies of Christianity in this day. The emperor of Domitian was
persecuting the church in the very time this book was being written. This kind
of writing, this apocalyptic literature was used so that those who were enemies
of the church would not destroy all the copies of this book, would not try to
destroy the message.

And so God used that message to get the word out in the first century. But the
other reason these pictures are used is that they have a timeless nature. The
truth is a beast is scary to all generations.

There's just a timelessness to these pictures in the book of Revelation that
help us to see the amazing things that God is going to do at the end of time. I
believe God also used symbols because they have tremendous emotional power. They
just hit us at the soul level, at the feeling level.

And what's going on here should hit us there, not just in a negative way, but in
the positive way of a new confidence, a new hope in our lives. Now it's very
difficult to outline the book of Revelation quickly, but I'm going to take just
a couple of minutes before we end this first day of our look at the book of
Revelation to just walk through what's in this book. Many people have said, and
I agree with them, that the outline of Revelation is best seen in Revelation
chapter 1 verse 19, which talks about those things which you have seen, those
things which are are, and those things which shall be.

That's an outline of this book in one sense. Chapter 1 are those things which
you have seen. Chapter 1 is all about Jesus we're going to find this week, who
he is.

And Jesus is the one that John had seen. Jesus is the one that we have seen as
we come to know him in faith. It's about the things that you've seen.

Chapters 2 and 3 are about the things which are. Those two chapters are written
to the seven churches in that day. And there are messages to those churches that
help you and I learn how to do church today, how to be church, God's
representatives in the world, the body of Christ.

How we're to do that are in chapters 2 and 3. And then in chapters 4 to 22 are
the things which shall be. And these are the chapters that are all about things
that you and I wonder about sometimes.

Let me just walk through these quickly. I don't have time, obviously, to go into
the details of these chapters, but I want to just look at them like we're flying
over the Rocky Mountains or the Himalayas. Just sort of to see the grandeur of
what's there.

A little bit to get our bearings to see where we are, but like flying over the
Rockies, you won't see all the details. And there may be some questions that you
have. Hopefully you'll think, I'd like to learn some more about that.

I'd like to see that more closely. I'd like to stop and take a closer look at
that. That's the goal as we walk through this.

As you look at chapter 4 through 22, here's a quick outline. In chapter 4, the
throne of God is described. And God says, come up here.

So this whole revelation begins with a worship experience. Don't forget that.
And then in chapter 5 through the beginning of chapter 8, we see the final
conflict.

The seven seals are opened. And we see the conflict that's going to happen in
this world already is happening. There's going to be a final conflict.

In chapter 8 verse 6 through chapter 11 verse 19, we see a final destruction
where a third of the earth is destroyed. You see sickness and you see
destruction and you see earthquakes. There's this rampant destruction throughout
the earth.

Things are falling apart. Obviously, this world is not the end of all things. It
is not what we want to hold on to.

And God's going to make that clear at the end of times. And then in chapter 11
verse 15 to 19, we have a new sense of worship. The temple is open.

And again, John is brought back to this place of worship. And in that place of
worship, he receives historic visions of what God is doing in chapters 12 and 13
and 14. He sees the dragon, who we know as Satan, and the church.

He sees the beasts, the sea and the earth, the lamb, who we know as Jesus, and
the witnesses. The visions of what God is up to and what God is doing. In
chapters 15 and 16, we move to final wrath.

So we've had final conflict, final destruction, historic visions, now final
wrath. And then in chapter 17 to 20, you have final judgment where God judges.
God will judge us all in the end.

And I know I'm going to stand before him one day. The book of Revelation reminds
me that I want to stand before him, bathed in the love of Knowing I'm standing
on what Jesus Christ has done for me. I certainly don't want to stand on my own
before him.

17 to 20 is final judgment. And then in chapters 21 and 22, you have the final
and eternal celebration. You have the new heaven and the new earth.

And Revelation begins with this incredible picture of Jesus Christ. And it ends
in chapter 22 with an invitation and a promise from Jesus Christ. He says, "I am
coming soon.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus, as our prayer. " That's a very quick look through this
incredible book that we're going to be looking at the next several weeks
together. Now, as we end this first day, let me just ask you, what should our
response to all of this be?

How should I feel? What should be happening in my heart as I study the book of
Revelation? John, the writer of this book, the one who recorded it, is
encouraged again and again throughout the book to respond with a single
attitude, the attitude of worship.

Look at chapter 1, look at chapter 19, look at chapter 22, Revelation 22 verse
9. "I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I'd heard them
and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who'd been
showing them all to me.

But he said this to me, 'Do not do it. I'm a fellow servant with you and with
your brothers and the prophets and all those who keep the words of this book. '"
And here's what the angel said, these two words, "Worship God.

" That's God's invitation to me and to you as we walk through the book of
Revelation. Worship God. As I approach the book of Revelation with an attitude
of worship, then what will happen in my heart is the hope that only God can
bring.

Hope that's above your circumstances, that's above your failures, that's above
the temptations in your life, that's above the trials in your life, that's above
anything that can happen in this world, eternal hope. That's what happens as we
worship God. So let's do that right now.

Our Father, as we begin this study together of the book of Revelation, we want
to study it in an attitude of worship. There will be things that we understand
in this book that we've never understood before. If we understand those, help us
to worship you.

There will be things that are curious to us that make us scratch our heads and
make us wonder exactly what you're saying, exactly what you mean, as we read
those things, help us to worship you. And then, Lord, there will be times, many,
many times as you read this book, when you will make clear to us that the future
is all about you, that it's not about us, it's not about this world, it's not
about anything that humankind has built, it's about you, what you're building
for all eternity. And in knowing that, I pray that we would worship you.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Join us tomorrow as we look at verses 3 to 8.
We're going to see that God welcomes us to a reading of this book.