Study in Revelation, part 1

Hi everyone!

This is going to be a lengthy study stretched out over several months, or maybe over a year since it’s a verse by verse study.

I urge you to search the scriptures carefully to see if what I have to say can be found there. It’s so important to seek these things out for ourselves!

Throughout this study, I’m using the NIV for the most part, but I reference other versions, especially the ESV, RSV, KJV and NASB. You can check out BibleGateway.com for quick references too!

Before I begin, let’s look at some crucial words of Jesus concerning the time of the end (and all emphasis is mine):

Matthew 24:42-44 ~Therefore keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.  Understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.

Revelation 1:1 ~ The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

The paradigm for the whole book is explained up front: it’s all about Jesus! It reveals Jesus, and is also a revelation from Jesus.

It was given by God, made known by the sending of an angel and revealed to John.

So before we go further, let’s investigate the person this revelation was revealed to.

Who is this John? He’s the author of as many as five books of the New Testament: The Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, 2 John and Revelation.

In the Gospel, he refers to himself as “the disciple who Jesus loves” (see John 13:23-25). This is a title we can take for ourselves as well. You are the disciple who Jesus loves.
With his brother, James, John was a fisherman. These two brothers were dubbed by Jesus as “Sons of Thunder” or “Boanerges“. By the end of his life he was known as the Apostle of Love.
From the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) we learn that John was one of the three disciples Jesus took with him, along with Peter and James, to the Mount of Transfiguration, into Jairus’s house when the little girl was raised from the dead, and to sit near Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.
He was known to the high priest in Jerusalem (John 18:15-16).
He witnessed the crucifixion (John 19:25-27).
He cared for the mother of Jesus (John 19:25-27).
All four Gospels note that he was a witness of the resurrection of Jesus (John 20:1-10).
He witnessed his brother James’s martyrdom (Acts 12:2).
According to the early church fathers, he lived in Ephesus before his exile.
He suffered persecution. In Acts 4:3 and 5:17-41, he was whipped and imprisoned. Revelation 1:9 tells us that he was exiled on the island of Patmos, and the early church fathers tell us that he was boiled in oil but did not die.

Let’s look at another part of this first verse of Revelation: “…to show His servants…”

Jesus does not want us to be in the dark about what His activities will look like at the end of the age, since this time will be unlike any time in history (see Matt 24:21), and it will never be like that again. We need, as His servants, to understand why these times of distress will come. We’ll need to know why the judgments are so severe, why Satan is loosed, why the locusts and devouring beasts come upon the earth, why the anti-christ rises and must be defeated, and why the harlot is as terrible as she is. Through the book of Revelation, we see what is important to God, and what merits His wrath.

Verse one also says, “…what must soon take place…”

Soon, to the Lord, can be a few minutes or a few millennia (see 1 Peter 3:8-9, James 5:7-11).

A majority of believers in the first century believed this second coming was immanent.  That is not the case throughout the rest of church history. Only in the last thirty years or so has there been a growing conviction throughout the body of Christ that we are living in the generation of the Lord’s return.

Here are a few signs of the times that significantly point to this being the generation of the Lord’s return:

The book being opened (Dan. 12:4,9). A majority of born again Christians read their bibles, or have the bible read to them.
The re-establishment of Israel with Jerusalem as its capitol, 1948 and 1967 respectively. (See Luke 21:24.)
The Gospel is being preached to all people, tribes, tongues and nations (see Matthew 24:14). The conservative estimate is that all people groups (people, tribes, tongues, and nations) will be reached with the Gospel by 2020. For more information on this estimate, visit the websites for YWAM, Every Home for Christ and Wycliffe Bible Translators (to name a few).
The rise of persecution. There have been more martyrs for the name of Christ since the beginning of the 20th century until now than in all of church history combined. (See Luke 21:12-19.)
Rise of the prayer movement in the last two decades (see Luke 18:7-8). There is IHOPKC, 24/7 Prayer Boiler Rooms, and 24/7 Prayer in Jerusalem since 2004, to name a few. There have been prayer meetings in Africa with as many as 7,000,000 attending from 9pm-6am.

This is an exciting time to be alive and to share about the Lord. It’s also a time to be fixing our gaze on Him. We need to know what He’s doing so we can partner with Him.

Studies in Revelation 1:2 coming soon!