The First Blessing of Revelation

The speaker introduces a new sermon series on the seven blessings in the book of Revelation. These blessings are seen as a survival guide for the end times and provide guidance on how to overcome difficult times. The book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ and reveals who he is as our Lord and King. The first blessing mentioned is the privilege of preaching the Word of God, which is seen as the foundation of who Christians should be in the end times. The speaker emphasizes the power of the spoken Word of God and how it has the ability to bring people back to God. Verbally proclaiming God's truth is seen as the one offensive weapon Christians have in the spiritual battle. Jesus is depicted as having a sharp sword coming out of His mouth, symbolizing the power of the spoken Word of God. Let me have your Bibles with you and turn in your Bibles to the book of Revelation chapter 1. We're going to be beginning a new series today, going through June and possibly a little bit into July, speaking about the seven blessings in Revelation. Now, in addition to my studying for the messages every week, I also have my own daily devotional time. During my daily devotional, I came to the book of Revelation. And in my new study Bible, there's commentary notes that point out that there are seven blessings or beatitudes that are found within the book of Revelation. And if you were here a few years ago, you remember that we went through the well-known beatitudes in the Sermon of the Mount in Matthew, where Jesus gives us seven beautiful attitudes that a Christian should show the world. In fact, if you read those seven blessings in Matthew, you'll see the path to salvation in those. And for many, those have been the standard of living as a Christian since Jesus ascended to heaven. But now, things are starting to change. We have the original beatitudes, which have been, as I said, the standard of Christian living for the last few thousand years since Jesus rose and ascended to heaven. And now, we see that God has set up seven blessings in Revelation specifically for you and I as we start to enter the end time. As I studied these, I found that they can be a survival guide for what is coming. And they give us our marching orders for this time in history and how to overcome, even if it gets really bad. I also believe that these can also inform people they may not make the rapture. They can use these to succeed and overcome during the worst time this earth will ever experience. And over the next several weeks, we're going to look at these seven principles. Now, to put the book of Revelation into context, the book of Revelation was recorded by the apostle John. John was the last living apostle appointed by Jesus himself on the earth at this time. It's between 90 and 100 AD. The evil Roman emperor Domitian was a Christian killer. It was a sport to him almost where he would hunt down Christians and kill them because he just hated the God of Christianity so much. And he finally caught the apostle John in Ephesus. Well, they drug him out to the town square and they tried to poison him. But the poison didn't affect him at all. He didn't even get sick, didn't have any ill effects from him. So he said, well, throw him in a pot of boiling oil. This will be a warning to other Christians. Let them see him burn and boil to death. Well, the oil didn't harm John at all. And he stood up in the cauldron he was in and started to preach within this huge fire that was going on. And he started to preach and people started getting saved. Well, they couldn't have that, so they yanked him out of the pot of oil, put him on a boat and dumped him on a deserted island called Patmos, which is about 30 miles off the coast of modern-day Turkey where Ephesus was located. And there, all alone, marooned on this island, Jesus himself comes to John and reveals who he is and what he looks like in his exalted state. And that is what Revelation is all about. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ revealing of who he is as our Lord, our God. And King over the end times. And Jesus assigns an angel to explain to John what is to come. In essence, if you think about it, this prophecy in the books of Revelation is part two of Matthew 24. You remember in Matthew 24 the disciples ask Jesus, when, when he's talking about end times, they ask him, tell us, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age? And Jesus answered this question to his disciples back then in Matthew 24, but he focused pretty much on a few world events. But here in Revelation, Jesus pulls back a curtain on the spiritual realm for all of us to see. And there, we see the seven blessings of the end times. There's a list of them right here on the back of your bulletins. Things we're going to be talking about in the future. But today, we're going to be focused on the first one in Revelation chapter 1, verse 3, which says, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it because the time is near. And Father, as we go through these seven blessings in the next several weeks, I ask, Father, that you enable them to become part of who we are. Just as we want the original Beatitudes to be who we are in representing Christ to the world, help these Beatitudes be who we are in living for you during the end times. During the times immediately right before the rapture. Help us to see the blessings that you have given us and see what you would have us be doing during this pivotal point in human history. Lord God, we thank you and ask this in your name. Amen. Now, maybe it's my pastor and teacher side coming out, but I find it interesting that the first blessing we see in Revelation is about preaching the Word of God. And what it shows us is that in the events of Revelation, that what we're seeing is the accumulation of a spiritual fight that started thousands of years ago. The entire reality that we're living in now, this reality that is full of sin, is full of suffering, lies, disease, and death. All this started because Adam and Eve didn't believe God's spoken Word to them. In essence, God preached to Adam, Adam preached to Eve, and both of them did not take God's Word as true. But now in the end, that is exactly the blessing that God gives His people. To have the privilege to proclaim His Word to this planet that's starting to spin out of control as people continually slide into sin. And we're seeing the consequences coming every day in our world. That is why I believe that this first blessing was placed where it is, because it's the foundation of who every single person in this room is supposed to be in these end times. And it also gives us a short mission set to follow. In Revelation 1-3 it offers a three-fold blessing in one. One for reading the Word of God, one for hearing the Word of God, and one for keeping the words of this prophecy. So let's break down each one of these components and see how it applies to our life today. The Bible says, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the word of this prophecy. In the early church, literacy was not as widespread as it is today. And copies of the Scriptures are not readily available to everyone. So the primary way the Gospel was spread in the early church was through this sacred act of proclaiming God's truth through preaching. The most effective evangelism in history has always revolved around the preaching of the Word of God. In fact, it's so important that during the Tribulation, God sends an angel to proclaim the entire planet, circling the globe, proclaiming the Gospel throughout the entire world. So whoever is alive at that point is without excuse. They've heard the Gospel. And Paul emphasizes this point in Romans when he asks the rhetorical question, How then can a person call on one they have not believed in? And how then can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. I've spoken in the past about a missionary to Asia that we know. Peter Chong. He tells us about whole communities in China and North Korea that only have a few pages of the New Testament. They memorize, the leaders will memorize those pages and then pass the pages to other church leaders and they memorize the entire New Testament. Because you can't be caught with a page from the Bible. You get sent to a concentration camp. So they memorize the Word of God and then they take it out and preach the Word of God to the people through a verbal proclamation. Because they know there is power in the Word. There is power in our words. The Bible says that the tongue has the power of life or death. And in this case, there is an immense power in God's spoken Word. In fact, if you think about it, by His spoken Word, all that is, all that was, all that ever shall be was created. God said, let there be light. The entire universe spun into existence. And I alluded earlier to the fact that this whole mess we're in right now is because humanity ignored that spoken Word of God. God spoke to Adam who spoke to Eve. Both of them disobeyed. And that was why the verbal proclamation of the Gospel is a medium that God first chooses to bring people back to Himself. He's simply trying to reverse what happened in the beginning. It's a method that He has chosen to distribute truth to the unbeliever. And I need you to see something else this morning that is crucial for us in these end times. Verbally proclaiming God's truth is the one offensive weapon we have in the armor of God. The Bible tells us to pick up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, Lagos, your Bible. Remember that phrase, Word of God? It is not Lagos. This is the Lagos, your Bible, the written Word of God. Now the written Word of God has power within it, but not like the rhema Word of God, which is what is in the Bible. That word rhema means the spoken, Spirit-infused Word of God. It's taking the Lagos from the page and speaking it out to the world. And that is what is going to demolish the lives of the enemy. If you remember, that's how Jesus did it. The Lagos Word was such a part of Him that when He spoke the rhema Word, the devil had to flee during his temptation. And both here in Revelation chapter 1 and in Revelation chapter 19, Jesus is depicted as someone who returns to earth as having a sharp sword coming out of His mouth that slays His enemies. And that sword is the rhema Word of God. It is speaking out the truth that we see in the Bible. It's not literal. Jesus isn't sitting there with a giant sword like that. He's speaking out the Word of God, and His enemies fall dead before Him. It's the same Word that said, Let there be light. That's the kind of power that the rhema Word has for us. And that's why we need to have that Lagos inside us. Why we need to study our Bibles so we can speak it and let that powerful Word become out of us. The Bible even says there's supernatural power in proclaiming God's Word. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 4, it says that the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and, very important, we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. There's a blessing for you here and for anyone that is bold enough to proclaim the Word of God in the midst of this darkness, so that His light can come into a situation or a person and bring salvation. There's a blessing for you. The second part of this blessing is the blessing of hearing. It says, blessed are those who hear. Hearing in the biblical sense goes far beyond just merely perceiving a sound. It implies listening with intention and attention, allowing the words to penetrate our soul and our hearts and our minds. Hearing is a first step toward understanding and ultimately obedience to the Word of God. All of us here, we've been around for a while. Anyone here ever been accused of not hearing what a person is saying to them? I get accused of this. You might be listening. You might be listening. You could probably quote their last sentence back to them, but your mind is somewhere else as they talk. Or, in my case a lot of times, I'm already formulating a response in my mind to what they are telling me and blocking out what they're actually saying. It's a common problem with married people or parents and children. We listen, but we don't hear. But it's also a problem in our society and sometimes even the church. And we see societally that there's a huge problem right now with people not hearing that rhema Word of God. In fact, there is a prophecy about the end times we're seeing fulfilled in our day today. And it's all the way back in the Old Testament in the book of Amos. Chapter 8, verse 11 it says, The days are coming, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I will send a famine through the land, not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. There is a famine of hearing. And you can write this down and re-read it later, but I refer a lot to Romans 1, 18-32. Those last few verses say God gives them over to a depraved mind. God sending this famine of hearing the words of the Lord. It's because humanity has plugged its spiritual ears to that Word of God. And what we're seeing today is a result of a people trying to fill spiritual bellies with physical and fleshly food. It's kind of like we're all children. Around five or six years old, and we're sitting at a table. On one end of the table, we've got donuts. We've got candy. We've got sweets. We have everything a kid wants over on this end of the table. Breakfast cereal. Just all kinds of good stuff. Over here we have fruits and vegetables and lean meats and all that kind of stuff. Well, which one is the kid going to naturally gravitate toward? The bad side, right? The sugar side. We all want our sugar. But what is that going to do for them long term? Make them very unhealthy, right? But that's what's wrong with our society. What's wrong with our society is we think that this is all there is. The flesh. We've forgotten we are not fleshly beings. We're spiritual beings. You are a spirit living inside of a body. And instead of feeding our spirits through the hearing of God's Word, we've fed our flesh with the candy of sin and now personally and culturally and nationally reaping what we've sown. We keep feeding our flesh and wonder why we're spiritually anorexic. The principle that the Word of God says about this is whatever a man sows, so shall he reap. It's the law of sowing and reaping being lived out right in front of our eyes. We are spiritual beings that need spiritual food. We need to be connected to God through the Holy Spirit so we can hear His Word. And I admit I can be as guilty of this as everyone. It's easier to bury our heads in social media, video apps, shorts. We get those little hints of dopamine. That's the reward chemical in your brain that makes you feel good. Makes you happy. The problem with that is it's very short-lived. And then you feel even hungrier or needing that distraction again and going back to it and back to it and back to it. Instead of just putting it down and pulling up to the table of God for some spiritual food. Again, it's sowing and reaping. If we sow to not hearing God when He is speaking to us, either through a message on Sunday morning or the Spirit is speaking directly through us through the logos found in the Bible or when the rhema of the Holy Spirit is trying to speak to us in our prayer lives, then we will go and fulfill our hunger elsewhere. And usually fulfill that hunger by feeding the flesh and reaping what that causes. Again, your spirit resting inside of a body. Feed your spirit first and your body will follow. Discipline yourself to hearing, not just listening, but hearing the Word of God the Word of God first and foremost in your life. And He will take care of the rest. And that brings us to our next blessing. And that is the blessing of keeping. The blessing is, he who keep what is written in it, the Word of God, for the time is near. To keep the words of this prophecy means to obey them and to guard them. This applies specifically to Revelation. You see this throughout the book that you have to keep the words of this prophecy. Even at the end of the book, it says if you take away from the words of this book, talking about the book of Revelation, God's going to take away your access to the tree of life and if you add to it, He's going to add to you the punishments described in this book. I'm talking pretty specifically about the book of Revelation, but generally to the entire Bible. And early in my ministry preparation, I saw the importance of guarding the Word of God. In the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul ends the first letter by exhorting Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. He begins his second letter to Timothy saying, Timothy, guard the deposit with the power of the Holy Spirit. Now if we're trying to keep something safe, or if we're trying to guard something, why do we do that? Because what we're guarding is valuable. They don't put a bunch of armed guards around a haystack. I mean, you can get hay fairly cheap. You put a guard around an entire fort filled with gold bullion, don't you? Fort Knox. Because it's valuable. In this case, what God is telling us to guard is the treasure of the Gospel. The Word of God. It's the way to salvation for everyone on earth. In fact, I would call it the cure to spiritual cancer. We have this treasure that we are to guard. And we need to guard it with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength so that we can keep this truth and live it for those who don't know God. And God even gives us the why behind it. He doesn't just tell us the what, He tells us the why. He says because the time is near. The church age is wrapping up. It's almost over. And the next coming age won't be very pleasant. I remember hearing in children's church that the word Bible is an acronym. If you take the letters in the word Bible and put words to those, it's basic instructions before leaving earth. That's what Bible stands for, at least in children's church. But it's a very true statement. Before I went into the military, I held a job in a furniture warehouse. And I was putting together pieces of furniture, like the huge stereo system boxes and entertainment centers that people used to have in their homes. And my boss at the time had a very simple instruction for me. Open the box. Read the instruction cover to cover before you even pick up a tool or do anything. I need you to read those instructions cover to cover and then put it together. Well, I was young. I was a male, which means I'm kind of a prideful idiot once in a while. And all the women said, Amen. And I looked at the picture of the box and I looked at the pieces on the floor in front of me and said, I can do that. I don't need the instructions. Threw them in the garbage. Well, several hours later, and now attempting to put this thing together for the fifth time, I finally had to go to the garbage can and get the instructions. But now I had drilled so many holes and broken parts of the wood that this entire $150 entertainment center was ruined. And my boss came by, and I'm sitting here looking at it with a drill in my hand, and he goes, You didn't follow my instructions, did you? You didn't follow my instructions? Well, follow the instructions. And you know, when it comes to our lives, someday we're going to stand before God, and He's going to ask us the same basic question. Did you follow my instructions? Did you keep this book that was entrusted to your care? And maybe it's a question that God is asking you right now. Are you keeping His Word? And it's not meant to be a condemnation because I'm just as human as any person here. There have been times in my life where I've looked back and thought, What were you thinking? John, you know better than that. Why did you get yourself involved in that situation? But this is why the Bible says we should take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ because every mess we find ourselves in is because we've had this thought that wasn't of God and let it grow. And when it grows, it became sin. And then we had to get ourselves out of that again. So the Bible says take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ because the enemy has twisted this world to keep you from doing just that. Therefore, he steals this blessing seen in Revelation from you. We're constantly bombarded in this world with thoughts. Subliminal messages we don't even understand we're seeing to get our minds off of God's truth and bend us toward thinking as the world does. The other night, my wife and I watched a movie from the 90's. Many of you may have remembered it. Remember the Truman Show? The premise is a baby boy is adopted by a media company who builds this false world for him in this huge movie set and dome in California. Truman thinks he lives on a small town on an island. He's never left that island. Everyone in this town is either an actor or an extra meant to give him the illusion that he is just one person living amongst many. He has no idea he's the subject of a 24-7 TV show about his life. In order to keep him on the island and inside this dome they placed all kinds of signs around him warning him about the dangers of going on the water. They even went so far as to have his father die on the water to reinforce the fact you can't ever leave this place. Don't go out on the water. Don't try to cross the bridge. Don't go anywhere near it. And as we were watching this show I saw just signs in the background like public service signs saying the dangers of the water. Don't drown. Don't do this. All these things that he would see every day probably not even notice he saw them but they would reinforce it in his mind that he wasn't supposed to do that. And as I was watching this movie I realized that many things in our world are just like the Truman Show. We have billboards, advertisements little snippets on our phones that pop up and tell us certain things. All of this is the devil trying to twist our brains and get us to think differently and fill us full of his lies to keep us from experiencing God's blessing in all of its fullness. It's all out there. So in closing today I want us to just look at this promise one more time. Because preaching, hearing, and keeping the Word of God both the Lagos and the Rhema is the first blessing that God gives us as we move toward what we see in the book of Revelation and His return.