The Revelation of Jesus Christ
The Christian’s Ultimate Victory
± Revelation of Jesus Christ: Comes from the Greek word apokalypsis and means “an uncovering,” “an unveiling,” or “a disclosure.”
± Letters from Jesus to Christians at 7 churches in Asia Minor (Modern day Turkey)
± Written simplistically by a first century Jewish fisherman
± The Jewish mindset: God says what He means and means what He says
± In order to understand the book of Revelation you need to understand the Old Testament. Of the 404 verses in Revelation, 275 refer to the Old Testament
± It’s the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to those who read it
± It’s a book of wrath, judgement, hope, grace, justice, victory, a wedding, happily ever after
± It’s a book of severe warnings
± John was commissioned to write down what he saw and distribute to the 7 churches listed in chapter 1
± Apocalypse: Catastrophic End crisis of the present age and spectacular reappearance of the King of Kings, King Jesus to reign forevermore
± Revelation is a “Book of “SEVENS”
± Revelation presents the climax of God’s plan for man
± Apocalypse: Catastrophic End crisis of the present age and spectacular reappearance of the King of Kings, King Jesus to reign forevermore
± Revelation is a “Book of “SEVENS”
± Revelation presents the climax of God’s plan for man
Presuppositions
v God means what He says and He says what He means – Literal interpretation of scripture unless it’s a metaphor or figure of speech
v The Bible is an integrated whole. Every detail is there by design. Matt 5:17, 18
v Nothing in the text is trivial. Rom 15:4-For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
Author John the Apostle
v Exiled by the Romans to the small, barren island of Patmos
v Received a series of visions that laid out the future history of the world
v Revelation’s primary contribution is to eschatology, that is, the doctrine of last things
v The futuristic approach insists that the events of chapter 6-22 are yet future and that those chapters literally and symbolically depict actual people and events yet to appear on the world scene. It describes the events surrounding the second coming of Jesus Christ (Chs. 6-19), the Millennium and final judgement (ch. 20) and the eternal state (cha 21 and 22). Only this view does justice to Revelation’s claim to be prophesy and interprets the book by the same grammatical-historical method as chapters 1-3 and the rest of scripture
± Statistics on prophesy in the Bible - Many in Revelation
° 8,362 prediction verses
° 1,817 predictions
° 737 separate matters
THE ULTIMATE ISSUE
± We are in possession of a message of extraterrestrial origin
± It portrays us as objects of an unseen warfare
± Our eternal destiny depends upon our relationship with the ultimate victor in this cosmic conflict
± Where do you stand with respect to this?
How to study!
± Set aside quality time
± tart with prayer
± Read the book of Revelation through this week
± Read the chapter to be studied
