Happy New Year! Here are a few sayings that will make you laugh and think about the New Year:
Bill Vaughan—Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.
P. J. O’Rourke—The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.
Jay Leno—Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year’s resolution.
James Agate—New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
Mark Twain—New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions.
A New Year’s resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to one or more lasting personal goals, projects, or the reforming of a habit. It is usually dedicated to some type of self-improvement:
• Improve health: lose weight, exercise more, eat better, drink less alcohol, quit smoking
• Improve finances: get out of debt, save money
• Improve career: get a better job
• Improve education: get better grades, go back to school, learn something new
• Improve self: become more organized, reduce stress, be less grumpy, manage time, watch less television, play less video games
Just out of curiosity, how many of you have ever made a New Year’s Resolution? How did that go? Did you keep it? How many of you have made a New Year’s Resolution for this year? Well, if so, I have some bad news. Recent research shows that while 52% of participants in a resolution study were confident of success with their goals, only 12% actually achieved their goals. I guess the saying is true, “A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.”
This morning I would like to propose to you, that instead of another humbug New Year’s Resolution, what we really need is a holy New Year’s Revelation. By revelation, I mean a communication from God whereby he reveals himself to humanity. Today, God reveals himself most clearly to us through his Word, the Holy Bible—and where better to gain a fresh glimpse of God’s character and action in our lives and our church than the Book of Revelation, the last and most mysterious book of the Bible. So, this year I would like to help you get to know God better via a sermon series through the Book of Revelation. I hope that we will attain a better understanding of what God has done for us in the past, what he is doing for us right now, and what he will do for us in the future, particularly in the end times.
2012 Prophecy
Another reason why I would like to preach through Revelation this year is that there is a chance that I may not be the pastor of this church by this time next year. Actually, I don’t even know if I am going to be on earth at this time next year. Why? How many of you are aware of the 2012 End Times Prophecy? Apparently, many people believe that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012!
In light of this, I would like to go on record this morning and share with you a discovery that I have made about the end times: If you take the ancient Mayan hieroglyphic calendar and divide it by the number of days found in the secret numerical code in the Book of Revelation, and then subtract that from the number of times the name “Jesus” is spelled upside down in Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code and multiply that by the number of times you hear the word “hell” when you play Led Zeppelin’s song “Stairway to Heaven” backwards, it actually spells “Anti-Christ December 21, 2012.”
Ok, not really! And I’m not really going anywhere! But I would like to take this next year and help us wade through the myriad of misguided conspiracy theories and make some real sense out of the Book of Revelation. And I believe that God will give us a fresh glimpse of himself! So, let us begin by looking at the prologue of the Book of Revelation.
Revelation: An Apocalypse (Revelation 1:1-3)
The opening verse tells us a lot about the book. The first phrase reads “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The Greek word translated here as “revelation” is “apocalypsis” from which we get our English word apocalypse. The literary genre of the Book of Revelation is apocalypse, which typically refers to a special dream, vision, or prophecy of end time events. God the Father gave this revelation (or apocalypse) to Jesus the Son, who gave it to an angel to deliver to the Apostle John. Then John recorded “everything he saw” which was the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and distributed it to Jesus’ servants throughout the world. The ultimate purpose of the book was to show God’s servants what is going to take place in the future so that they would be prepared.
This purpose is reiterated by the blessing in verse 3. The phrase “blessed is the one” is the familiar ancient literary form “beatitude.” It is similar to Jesus’ list of beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, when he says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Here, Jesus pronounces a blessing on anyone who reads the words of this prophecy, hears what it is saying, and takes to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. Jesus doesn’t promise a blessing for those who simply read the Book of Revelation; he promises blessing for those who take the contents of the book seriously. The blessing comes to those who are spiritually prepared for what is going to take place in the future; those who are not prepared will miss out on the blessing.
This reminds me of the time I organized a night skiing trip when I was the youth director at a church in Pennsylvania. Since it was a youth group event, I invited our pastor to go along. He had never skied before, but he was young and was a good athlete, and I thought he would pick it up quickly. I didn’t know he had a fear of heights and high speeds.
When we got to the main lodge at Seven Springs Resort, outside of Pittsburgh, the high school kids began putting on their ski clothes, but our pastor was just standing there. I said, “Aren’t you going to get dressed?” He had a look of panic in his eyes as he watched the kids get ready. He said, “I never even thought to bring other clothes.” All he had on was a pair of blue jeans, a sweat shirt, thin cotton socks, a baseball cap, and an embarrassing fluorescent orange hunting parka. Even though he lacked the necessary ski pants, hat, scarf, gloves, and goggles, he had already paid for rental skis and a lift ticket, and he was going to give it a try anyway.
We told him that the best way to learn how to ski was to by-pass the bunny slope and just head to the top of the mountain. To make matters worse, during our first chair up, a strange hail, sleet, and lightning storm blew in from the west. After an hour and a half of wind whipping him in the face, sleet smacking against his squinted eyes, and terror from lighting flashes all around him, he eventually took off his skis and walked the whole way back to the lodge. When he came in, his face, ears, and hands were cherry red, his blue jeans were soaked the whole way through, and he was mad! Needless to say, he has never gone skiing again.
He missed out on the blessing of skiing because he wasn’t properly prepared. This is exactly what Jesus is saying about the Book of Revelation. Just as you don’t automatically receive the blessing of skiing by just showing up at the mountain, you don’t automatically receive the blessing of Revelation by just reading the book; you have to be prepared for what will come!
For some of you, this may be the first time you have ever read the Book of Revelation. I hope that you will hear what it is saying! I hope you will take it to heart! I hope that you will be spiritually prepared for everything that is going to happen in the future. I hope that you will receive the full blessing that Jesus offers us in the apocalypse!
Revelation: An Epistle (Revelation 1:4-6)
The Apostle John received this revelation from Jesus when he was exiled on Patmos, a little island off the coast of Ephesus in the Aegean Sea. The volcanic and rocky island was used as a prison colony for the Roman Empire, and John had been banished there for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. He fashioned this revelation in the form of a letter and addressed it to the seven churches in the province of Asia, with the intention that the book would be circulated among these churches and eventually distributed to other churches.
Before John was exiled, he had ministered in the city of Ephesus (one of the seven churches) for many years, and he would have had personal experience with each of these churches and acted as sort of a spiritual father to them. At this time, these churches were suffering intense persecution from the Roman Empire and John wanted the Book of Revelation to encourage them to persevere by reminding them of what Jesus had done for them in the past and revealing what Jesus would do for them in the future. In the greeting, he immediately reminds them of what Jesus has already done for them: “Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father– to him be glory and power forever and ever! Amen.” (Rev. 1:5-6) The rest of the book will reveal what Jesus will do for them in the future.
The Book of Revelation serves the same purpose today as it did 1900 years ago. It is meant to encourage us to persevere in the midst of persecution and difficulty. It is designed to help us remain faithful in the Christian life amid trials and tribulations. It does this by recapitulating Christ’s work on the cross throughout human history and giving us a glimpse of our future glory, when Satan will be destroyed and we will be delivered from sin and suffering once and for all.
So, whether you are facing persecution for your faith, the pain of suffering, the fear of the future, or you just feel weighed down by the anxieties of life and you feel like giving up, I say to you today: Hang in there! Persevere! Be Faithful! Jesus has shown his love for you by dying on the cross. He has shown his power by rising from the dead. And when he returns, he will deliver you from all of your suffering!
The Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ (5b-8)
Some of you may be saying, “That sounds great, but when is this going to happen?” He has already told us in verse 3—“the time is near,” and he reiterates it in verses 7 and 8. He tells us to look! Be ready! He is coming in the clouds! He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He is coming soon! We must be ready at any moment!
Neither in the Old Testament prophets, in the Gospels, nor anywhere in the Book of Revelation does Jesus reveal the precise time of his return. Jesus himself said “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Matthew 24:36) All the Bible tells us is that he is coming soon!
Throughout history, every generation has had individuals who have tried to predict the specific time or date of Jesus’ return and the end of the world; everyone from the French seer Nostradamus in the 1500’s to radio preacher Harold Camping in 2011. Many people now regret that they were stockpiling bottled water for the devastation of Y2K when they should have been partying like it was 1999. I suppose the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the most famous for this. Their leaders have falsely predicted the end of the world more times than I can count.
Back in the 1980’s, some Christian bookstores ordered large quantities of Edgar Whisenant’s bestselling book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 (over 3 million copies were sold.) The following year he came out with another book called 89 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1989. He didn’t sell nearly as many of these!
Well, will Jesus return in 2012? Will the world come to an end on December 21st of this year? I honestly don’t know! But let me tell you what I do know: Jesus is coming soon! He will come in the clouds and execute judgment over the whole world and he will gather his people (the ones who have trusted in him as Lord and Savior) from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and take them to heaven to be with him forever.
Are you prepared? Is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Will you be ready if Jesus returns in 2012? Will you experience the blessing? We don’t need a New Year’s Resolution, we need a New Year’s Revelation!