Reading Revelation as if for the First Time
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · March 9, 2025 · Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation series
Jeremy MacDonald opens Revelation 1, showing that the book is not a timetable for the end of the world but a message of hope to struggling first-century churches. The risen Jesus, alive and holding the keys of death, calls us to trust and follow Him as King.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation series
Topics: Hope, Fear & Anxiety, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:01] Do you know? Helpful question. Seriously, if anybody has an answer or a response, the end of the world, when is it gonna happen? Like, legitimately? Who knows? One person did, Harold Camping. Some of you might remember Harold Camping. He was really clear. He knew exactly when the world would end. Harold Camping said this, he said September 6th, 1994. What? Done? Yeah, he said that before 1994, obviously, and was very, very clear. That is gonna be the end of the world. I was there in 1994. It was a reasonable year. Nothing like earth-shattering. It did not end, obviously, the world. Harold actually changed his tune.
[0:46] And if you Google, actually, Harold Camping is a fairly prolific person around this particular topic. And so he kind of reordered his thoughts on when the world would end. And he said, this is a fact: May 21st, 2011, that's the day that the world will end. It's the Rapture, which is this recent Christian idea of how that might all happen. And Judgment Day, obviously that day passes as well. No problem. Harold does some renewed calculations by some billboards, if you might remember this one, and said, thus we must realize that October 21st, 2011 will be the final day of this Earth's existence. Harold has since passed away. So in some ways, the world did end for Harold, just not for anybody else.
[1:33] At least not for us. And that's unfortunate in some ways for him. But he had a faith and a hope in Jesus and yet missed it a little bit on this particular one. Now, some of you, if you're a little older than me, and some of you are a little bit older than me, you might remember this book, 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988. Has anybody actually seen it? Has anybody? Anybody? Okay. It wasn't, they said on Wikipedia, many millions of people had copies. Then there was this date, you might remember this one. December 21st, 2012. Anybody remember what happened on that date? Calendar? The calendar ended. Yeah, absolutely. Coincidentally, I was also engaged to my wife and I got to celebrate Christmas with my in-laws for the first time. That was not the end of the world.
[2:18] It was the start of something great. Ron and Glenda, I love you guys. But the Mayan calendar ended on the 21st and people were anticipating that this was gonna be, we're done for, because if there's one thing we know about the Mayans, they would be able to tell us exactly what was gonna happen in 2012. Like, the point is, we've all enjoyed and watched, perhaps, as people have got wonderful, fantastical ideas about how the world ends. And some of them you can even make into movie format. Some people, perhaps instead of that other book, you might remember this movie. And Kirk Cameron's perhaps his best. Well, we'll be careful on that one. Okay? The second edition came out to refresh it a little bit more intense. And so they even upped the ante a little bit of, like, Kirk Cameron 2.0 is Nicolas Cage.
[3:05] And so Left Behind, now Left Behind, for some of you, you'll remember, was this book series. I grew up reading these books, telling the stories of how the world would end. And it was so much, you know, it was so interesting, like I was captured by it. And they pulled these ideas from the Christian scriptures. If you remember, the final book of the Christian scriptures, Revelation, the Greek word for revelation is apocalypse. And this idea that perhaps it gives us clues to the end of the world. And so they write these books explaining exactly in great detail, fictional books. But for so many of us, and when you watch the movie, perhaps feels less fictional and more about the future and how we might anticipate it all going down.
[3:56] Now, the interesting thing about the final book of the Christian scriptures, Revelation, the Apocalypse, is it also includes all these fantastical characters. And so people make a living, lots of people make a living trying to draw the connections and build out the case of why today. And these days, this is the end of times, we're in the midst of it, and the characters start to line up and go with me for a second. But these are legitimate articles that we see online that perhaps the Antichrist character, we found him. But maybe it's not this guy. 'Cause a few years ago, just to be clear on both sides, is Obama the Antichrist? Is Trump the Antichrist? Is this person or that person or this world event or that world event a sign that this and what we're living in certainly must be?
[4:46] It has to be the end. And people have been saying that for generations and anticipating and believing and drawing connections. And it has profound implications. There's countries' foreign policies and how they look at war and how they look at interactions with other places and people, shaped perhaps by their understanding and their reading of the last book that we have in the Christian scriptures, the book of Revelation, the Apocalypse. Is it really about the end? And if it's not, what is it really all about? And so for a few weeks, for six weeks, as we head into Easter, we're going to wander through the book of Revelation.
[5:40] And hopefully for each and every one of us, myself included, we might discover more about what the book is really trying to do. And that in the end, our hope, my hope, is that your hope might be even more firmly planted in the person of Jesus. 'Cause the reason we open the scriptures, and maybe for some of you, you know, when you come to a place like this, the reason you're here could be fairly different. It's somebody invited you. You're here for the first time. You don't necessarily believe everything that I believe or that you think I believe. You know, you have to come 'cause somebody drags you. And so you show up and you get to this part of where we kind of do this preaching thing. And it's a little bit confusing sometimes if you're new to this whole experience as to what this is all about.
[6:27] So let me just be clear, we have this collection of ancient texts that we open up and we find ultimate truth in them. And so when we open up these Christian scriptures, we're hoping that they might shape and change us. And for so many of us, that's been our journey and our story, that the God that's revealed in the Christian scriptures is this one true living God. And when we open up this particular book, We discover things about ourselves and how He's made us and how He calls to us and how He is doing something in our world today that you and I can participate in. And so let us open up the Book of Revelation, but let's open it up, at least for me, with the hope that God might do something in my life and perhaps He might do something in your life because of this ancient text that's been preserved for thousands of years.
[7:22] So Revelation chapter 1 verse 1 reads as this, the revelation, actually, there's an earlier slide that's a bit much. Yeah, there we go. The revelation from Jesus Christ. Also the revelation of Jesus Christ. No, those two aren't in your Bible, but one of them is and one of them isn't. And so we just have to pause for a second right off the very start because depending on what Bible you got as a kid or what app you're using to read the Scriptures, you discover right off the top when you open the Book of Revelation that there's something happening in the very first three words, the Greek word apocalypse and the Greek word for Jesus Christ.
[8:14] And so what we discover is that the comment or the translators of the Bible, because the original Bible is written in Greek, the translators are trying to come to grips with what's going on in the language. This is happening constantly, just so that you're aware. And it happens constantly when you talk and when you interact with the people around you, you pick up on the context of the tone and the direction and the rest of the conversation to determine the meaning. That somebody might say, if you invite me to lunch and I say, "Oh, great," that says something to you. If you invite me to lunch and I say, "Ah, great," says something different. And so the author writes something about the context of this book and the translators are trying to find a way to say it so that us as English speakers could understand, there's different translations that take it differently.
[9:02] So the revelation from Jesus Christ is NIV, NLT, CEV. The revelation of is KJV, NASB, and so on, so on. But the question right from the very start, when we begin the book into this book that causes so many people interesting ideas and, you know, sets us up to think about what the end of the world might be like from the very start, we have to ask ourselves this question: is Jesus the subject of Revelation or is He the one revealing it? Is Jesus the subject? This is the revelation of Jesus, the revealing of Him, or is He the one revealing it, the revelation from Him? And the answer, I think, and what most of the commentators would say, is the answer is yes. It's both. That both things are happening.
[9:51] And right from the very start, the clarity is that when we read Revelation, it's about, and it's from one person, that person is Jesus. And so John, the author of Revelation, explains what is happening and why we should care about it. So let's go back. Revelation 1:1, the revelation from Jesus or of Jesus, which God gave Him to show His servants the events that must soon take place, which, that's the line that everybody's like, "Oh, when is it gonna happen?" The events, this is exciting. There's something happening, the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to His servant John, who faithfully reported everything that he saw. Because as we read into Revelation, we're gonna discover John sees things.
[10:41] And if you're a visual kind of person, it's a beautiful book because as you read or if you listen to it, you can close your eyes and imagine the imagery that John's trying to articulate and trying to paint a picture of. This is the report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. John goes on explaining what's happening. God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy. Isn't that wonderful? I just got a blessing 'cause I just read it to you. You guys are tracking. And He blesses all who listen, that's you guys. You got a blessing, you just heard it. If you weren't sleeping, wake up, wake up, this is good. And obey what it says.
[11:26] This is really important because sometimes when you read, and sometimes when I read and I think about faith or think about the Bible, I think about belief, right? Like, you talk to people about faith and it's like, well, I believe it. I believe in God. You believe in God, but belief is only, it only gets you so far. Like, you know that the demons even believe in the God of the universe. The difference comes when you, or when I obey and follow the God that we're seeing revealed in the Scriptures. And so right from the very beginning, John, the writer, says, what you're about to read is going to spark a question, a turning point, a fork in the road where you will have to decide, where you're gonna have to decide.
[12:19] Throughout this series, Revelation calls us to obedience as an action step. And so it's not just believing in some kind of connection in the future, but it's about what are you gonna live out and what are you going to do with your own life today, this afternoon, and this week. And that is an important thing to carry as we start in: obey what it says, for the time is near. Next up, the letter is from John. This is the author of the Book of Revelation to the seven churches in the province of Asia. Now, this is really important because when we open up the Scriptures, we have to realize so often they aren't written to us, they're for us, but they're not to us.
[13:08] And the Revelation's no different. There's an audience that John is writing this particular revelation, this apocalypse, to in the first century, specific places that you can look at on a map, specific people that were going through specific situations. This message has a primary audience. And what that means is that we have to step back and as we start our journey into Revelation, realize that if you grew up in church thinking that this was going to be some cosmic connection to end times events, you just have to put a slight pause on that for a moment as we're starting in, because of the nature of the audience, the commentators, the people that study these books and that write in intense volumes about it. Craig Keener in particular says this about this particular section.
[13:54] When we think of Revelation today, many of us think of debates on the fine points of end times events, but these details are hardly the primary message of Revelation. Instead, he says, Revelation speaks to churches, both alive and dead, churches being groups of people, folks that would gather around just like this to hear the reading of the Word, to celebrate and to look to the one true God. The churches, some of them were alive, but some of them were dead. And more of the churches are in danger of compromising with the world than of dying from it. This is the nature of where this message is delivered. And so as we open up the book, we realize perhaps we have lots in common with Revelation, but perhaps for different reasons than we would like to admit.
[14:44] John, talking about the context of what he's writing about, he says, still in Revelation 1, he says, "I, John, am your brother speaking to these churches and your partner in suffering and in God's kingdom and impatient endurance to which Jesus calls us." The partner in suffering. Because John knows that the audiences understood the difficulty of following Jesus in their day. It's hard to know exactly when, we know, kind of the rough range of dates that this potentially came out to these churches, but we know the context of the day and the Roman rule that was oppressive and filled with violence and filled with all sorts of atrocity that the Christians were living in the midst of, that following Jesus meant turning away from the empire that would've been so easy to follow after and instead to pledge allegiance, not to Caesar, but to the risen King that they believed in because of the message of Easter.
[15:42] And so for those Christians, the idea that this would be an encouragement to them and a call to action for them meant that John knew the suffering that he was experiencing was not just his own, but that others would have similar experiences. And so what happened to John, and he says this in Revelation, he says, "I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus." The empire saw the threat of the Christians, not because they were overtaking the empire with political power, but because their message, their message of love and kindness and gentleness and self-control was eating away at the foundation of fear and control and power because these Christians, their King, their King promised them so many things that the Roman Empire could not provide.
[16:38] And so they took their attention and focused on their King. Because of that, they were threats. And because of that, the empire would eventually be transformed and crumbled because of the influence of this band of rebels, of dissidents, of those that knew that life was meant to be lived a different kind of way. And so John says, "It was the Lord's Day, a Sunday. I was worshiping in the Spirit, and suddenly I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast." And the voice that calls out to John in his mind, in his live person, whatever the experience was, the vision John now records and brings to us what the Spirit of God was bringing to him for the sake of others.
[17:34] And so he says, the voice said, it said, "Write in a book everything you see, and send it to the seven churches in these cities," specific places with a specific message for each of them. And what ends up in, and we're gonna walk through some of those specific messages, but when you read the book of Revelation, recognizing this particular audience, it starts to help you understand that the message is specifically calling to these churches and calling them into something really, really clear. In fact, a buddy of mine, actually, Cody Matchett, who grew up here in Moncton, co-wrote a book called Revelation for the Rest of Us and speaks to this particular context and kind of why the book is written.
[18:19] He says, "John instructs these seven churches of Western Asia on how to live as Christian dissidents in an empire racked by violence and power and exploitation and arrogance. The message is to follow the way of the Lamb." And it thumps that drumbeat of this book time and time again. Another commentator, Fanning, says, "Attempts to correlate the Revelation symbols with events in world history have repeatedly met with failure and embarrassment to the groups that espouse these identifications." He gives all these examples. And you can see throughout history, in this next slide, the invasions of Rome, you know, in Eastern Europe by the Ottomans, the imprisonment of the Pope in 1798, the rise of Mussolini or the European Union or Saddam Hussein.
[19:09] All throughout history, people have taken these ideas and said, "Oh, this is clearly, clearly this is the book of Revelation come to life." But instead, what's happening and what Fanning explains is that it's a prophetic. This book is a prophetic revelation from God Almighty through John intended to bless the churches by showing how God's redemption will be consummated through the imminent coming of Jesus to rule over the whole earth. And so the hope of those early Christians in the midst of the suffering, in the midst of the empire and in the midst of wondering, is Jesus actually in charge? Is He actually the King? John has this vision to encourage them that yes, you are with hope, you can live your life knowing that Jesus is the true King, and that He ultimately is the one that prevails, and in the midst of the darkest times, in the midst of the most deepest struggles, that you do not have to lose hope.
[20:11] And the vision that He has is of One so strong and so intense, as we'll discover, is that it's trying to showcase this power that God has over our world today and the work that He's doing in our midst and that we can contribute and be a part of and experience and step into, and that our hope is in Him and Him alone. And it's worth all sacrifice and suffering. Amen. And so for the next few weeks, this is what will happen. You know, when does the world end? I don't know. I mean, Jesus said we would not know, but we do know who wins in the end, and this is where we'll go here in a moment. Next week, we're gonna look at these characters 'cause they're interesting and it's curious as to why we might have these fantastic images.
[21:01] And so we'll just take some time and kind of walk through, okay, what do they actually mean? What are these teams and who's playing on which side? And why does it look so wild and crazy when you put it into ChatGPT and ask for an image of it? Should I be scared by Revelation? We'll take a week on that and just wrestle through. Marc Jolicoeur will spend some time looking at some of the specific things that often scare us and that make for great movies. We've got a big Q and A week. What about a long list of really wild and interesting things, at least to perhaps some of us, and that will be in week four. And then, do these letters that the church has received, do they matter to me today? And what should we actually do with Revelation? All of these things we'll walk through over the next few weeks. But as we continue in this first chapter, this very beginning of what Revelation says, we get this beautiful image that I would love for you to catch a glimpse of because of what it might do for your week this week and for your day today, and maybe even for your life, depending on where your faith has been.
[22:07] John writes in verse 12 of this again, This first chapter says, "When I turn to see who is speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands." And you can see this connection to the seven churches. There's imagery throughout this book, and I wonder, even for a moment, if you want to, that as we read this, you might close your eyes and just kind of imagine, because the idea of Revelation is that you would see the picture that John is painting, that when Revelation was read, even in the early church, the idea was that it would bring with it some kind of creativity in terms of its presentation. I'm not as creative as I should be, I apologize, but the people who were hearing it could imagine and see what John was seeing. And so if you want, as you close your eyes, imagine John, imagine you turning to see this speaker and seeing these seven gold lampstands.
[23:01] Then standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man, and he describes Him. He says He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across His chest. His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And His eyes were like flames of fire. He goes on to explain more of what He looked like beyond this verse in Revelation. Let's go ahead to the next one. He held seven stars in His right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from His mouth.
[23:48] It's this visceral image, but it's calling to this important truth that Christians anchored on, which is that God was bringing His Word, His Word made flesh and then revealed and then written and then brought to us in this form that we receive as the Scriptures. And throughout even the New Testament, it talks about itself in profound ways as the sword, that there's something spectacular about the Scriptures and the Word that comes through. And in fact, in Hebrews, we read, and you kind of connect the dots from what John is writing here, "The Word of God is alive and powerful. It's sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword." There it is. "And it cuts between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires."
[24:33] And this is the nature. If you've been in the Scriptures before, you know, if you take time to read them on your own, if you take time in a group to read them, you recognize the profound nature of how it somehow cuts to your core. That God reveals things and changes you and makes you into the person He wants you to be, in part because you're letting the Word actually speak into your life. It's a reminder that it's more than just opening it and wondering what's gonna happen. It's actually the act itself of taking time and letting that Word hit you and shape you. And so if you've spent any time before wondering, is it worth reading these Scriptures? It's worth it. It's worth the sacrifice. It's worth the time. It's worth restarting the practice.
[25:21] And even today if you feel that twinge of conviction, that you might reintegrate with that app again and take the time, because it's the sword. In fact, in Ephesians, we read this about the sword. It says, "Put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." And so there's this thing that's happening, and in Revelation, John explains, there's something about the Word of God. There's something about the sword. It's powerful. It has a strength to it. It divides to our core. And he says, "When I saw these things, I fell at His feet as if I was dead."
[26:06] Because when you experience and see, and when Christ shows up in His power with all power, the response is one of complete and utter, "I'm done. I'm done. The power of Christ is too much for me to bear." It's terrifying to be able to witness and experience it. The experience is so intense that John clearly, he says, "I fall as if I were dead." But the response of Jesus, and the response is always the same. Jesus says, "He laid His right hand on me and He said, 'Don't be afraid.'" This is the Jesus message. Don't be afraid. When the disciples see His power and they cower, He says, "Don't be afraid."
[26:54] The fear that you have in God should be greater than fear of anything else in our world today because of His power and His immense greatness. And this is what John is experiencing. And Jesus says to him, "Do not be afraid, because I am the first and the last." His declaration over the world and John's world and the power and the empire that was around him was, "John, you do not have to be afraid because I am your King, not Rome. I am in charge, not them. I am the one that you can pledge allegiance to." And Jesus says to him, "I am the living one."
[27:42] You see, the Caesars would die. And although they imagine sometimes themselves and throughout history, the religious leaders of different cultures and days would imagine themselves becoming like deities. But they all are still dead. You could point to their tomb. But the Jesus of the New Testament, He was the one that rose from the dead. The tomb was empty. And so He says the fact that He is alive, the Jesus, the fact that "I'm the living one," this is what we put our hope in. That the reason you can have hope in this world today is because you can serve a God who's actually alive and active and carries the sword and ultimately is the one that wins.
[28:27] And the reason He lives. He says, "I died, but look, I'm alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and the grave." And this was the nature for that first century group. The fact that the empire couldn't even end their lives because they knew that they had eternal life. They had the hope. There was no power. There's no power that was stronger than the Jesus that they served. And it gave them all sense to be able to surrender and look to Christ as their King. The sting of death is gone. We do not mourn as those who have no hope. The fear of death is completely gone. And in that setting, Christians are the ones that should walk into the world today and find the places in our own hearts and in our own worlds where it's clear that Jesus is not King, and we step in and make sure that we bring His kingdom.
[29:28] We bring His kingdom. Now He calls us to be people of love and kindness and gentleness. These are the fruits of the Spirit. And so let's be clear, the fascinating thing about the first century is the overtaking of the world wasn't a political one, it wasn't a power grab. It was this gentle servant's heart to come and to serve the world and to transform what was around them because Jesus was their King. And so, friends, when we read Revelation, this is what we get to: what's the end of the world? It's when Jesus is on the throne and He's the King of every human's heart. But it starts with you.
[30:14] And it starts with me saying, He is my King. And I pledge allegiance to that Lamb. And it will require something of you. And here's the part that I don't know. I don't know what that means for you today. Like, I don't know what your week has been. I don't know what your life is like. I don't know exactly what the struggles have been. But here's the thing I know, because if you're anything like me, it's easy for the world and the empire to creep in and to be a part of your life. But allegiance to Jesus requires that we say He is the King and no other. And we'll discover throughout the book of Revelation that this is the drumbeat: that we look to Christ. And He is the One that is worth everything that we would sacrifice and give to Him. Because as He says, He holds the keys to death and the grave. He's alive forever.
[31:04] And that is the Person that you surrender everything to. And that's the message that you and I should carry from this book. And believe in hope that the world, that the world would know that Jesus is King. And so let me pray for you and let me pray for me. Heavenly Father, this book, it's wild, it's crazy. It's in intense. There's so much to it. And yet, God, the energy that we've put into wondering where it connects, God, would we realize that it connects to our hearts? Would we realize that it connects to our lives this week? Would we realize that as You stood next to John and declared these things over him, and as he looked to You and saw You for who You are, God, that we might understand that You are here with us and You request the same thing: that we would make You our King and God. For all of us, there'll be a temptation to be drawn away from that.
[32:14] And yet, God, for You to be our King requires the surrendering and allegiance to You each and every day. And God, I pray that that would be the marker of those that are part of this congregation and this church, God. For anybody that wanders in here and doesn't know who You are, that they would want to experience You as their King because of who You are. And would that be the kinds of people that we would be, those that look to You as our King. We look to You and Your kingdom, and we say thank You, and we serve You and we surrender, 'cause You are the King of all kings.