Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And Happy Monday. This is Pastor Chuck Allen, and welcome
[00:00:10] Speaker A: back to another weekday podcast. This week we're going to spend a little time in the Book of the Revelation. And as we talk through some of this, we want to start with this one thought on this Monday.
The Book of the Revelation is not
[00:00:24] Speaker B: a scary book because the Revelation is all about Jesus. Let me begin with a confession. For a lot of folks, the Book of Revelation is the Bible's like Halloween haunted house. You walk in and all of a sudden there's dragons, beasts, trumpets, bowls, earthquakes, strange numbers, and a whole lot of stuff that seemed designed to make you wonder if you should have stayed in the Book of Psalms or Proverbs. But here's something fascinating about the Book of the Revelation.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Its title doesn't mean confusion. It means unveiling the Greek word apocalypsis, which literally means an uncovering of the vealing of what was previously hidden.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: In other words, Revelation isn't primarily about hiding the truth from us. It's about helping us see reality through the eyes of God. The first words of the book say in the new living translation, this is a revelation from Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. Now, notice where the book begins. The book starts with Jesus. It doesn't start with a beast or it doesn't start with the mark.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: It doesn't start with 666. It starts with Jesus.
And the book gives us promise right at the beginning.
Revelation 1:3 says, God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy
[00:01:56] Speaker B: to the church, and he blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says.
Now, that's a pretty awesome promise, y'. All. We tend to think blessing comes from understanding every symbol perfectly. We imagine that if we can decode every image and calculate every number and then line up all the headlines with every prophecy, then we've probably mastered the Book of the Revelation.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: But the blessing is attached to reading, it's attached to hearing, and it's attached to living faithfully.
That tells us something wildly important.
The Book of Revelation was never intended to be a spiritual crossword puzzle for
[00:02:41] Speaker B: the cleverest folks in the room. It was written to encourage ordinary people, ordinary followers of Jesus who are just trying as they follow in this complicated and often hostile word world.
How do I follow Jesus? Well.
Well, John wrote to seven actual churches in Asia Minor.
They're not fictional congregations. They had real pressures. They had super real temptations and struggles.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: They had the same kind of disappointments we have, and they had a lot of questions about whether faithfulness was worth the cost that they were having to pay.
And Jesus, through the Book of the Revelation, speaks to them. He tells some of the churches, y' all need to wake up.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: He tells others, well, don't compromise.
And yet he still tells others, you're suffering, but I see you and I walk through it with you. That means that the Book of the Revelation isn't just about what happens someday in our future. It's about how we live today.
Now, that's a pretty awesome phrase. In Revelation 1, 5, 6, where Jesus is described as the faithful witness, the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all the kings of the world.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: And then John says, all glory to
[00:03:57] Speaker B: him who loves us and has freed
[00:03:59] Speaker A: us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. That's the entire center of the book, y'. All. That Jesus loves us, that Jesus frees us, that Jesus reigns.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: If you've been avoiding the Book of Revelation because you're afraid it's going to terrify you, maybe we just approach it a little differently this week. Don't begin by asking, can I figure it all out? Maybe start by asking, what does this really reveal to me about Jesus? Because the Jesus revealed in Revelation is not some absent, nervous or defeated king. He is present among his people, me and you, right here, right now.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: He knows our suffering, he confronts our compromise, and he holds us securely. And that may be exactly what you need today.
You might feel like the whole world is spinning faster than you can understand,
[00:04:54] Speaker B: and that totally is understandable.
You probably are carrying some anxiety about your future, maybe about work or family, your health, state of the world, your finances, whatever.
Revelation doesn't promise that life's going to be predictable, y'. All.
It promises that Jesus is always and still is, Lord, especially when life is predictable or not predictable.
So today, take a breath, open your Bible, read a few verses, and remember,
[00:05:26] Speaker A: this book is not about revealing the power of chaos. It's revealing the faithfulness of Jesus.
Let our prayer today be something like Jesus helped me see clearly My life
[00:05:39] Speaker B: feels confusing and help remind me that you're not confused and that when the world feels frightening to me, remind me that you're already there and give me the grace to hear your word and live faithfully in it today.
Amen, friend. We're going to spend a few days in the Book of the Revelation, and tomorrow I'm going to talk about how we can know that we're not alone in the dark. Thanks for joining me on today's weekday podcast.
