Greg Ford - Unpacking Revelation
We are today in week 15. This is it! This is the grand finale of the Cover to Cover series. We started at the beginning of January and we said, «Hey, we’re going to go through the whole Bible.» Of course, it’s going to be at a high level; some of it was summarization and of course we would zoom in and out. But we started off just talking about what the Bible is: How did these 66 books become the Bible? Who decided that and how was that determined? We looked at how to read the Bible. Think about this: the Bible is a very unique piece of literature. It’s written over 1500 years by over 40 authors. It’s written in a variety of genres and different literary tools.
The framework we’ve been using in reading the Bible consists of three things: It’s literature, it’s history, and then it’s theology. Frankly, it’s a mistake to just open the Bible, start reading it in English, and immediately come up with theological answers based on how we’re reading it. You could be reading it wrong. Some of the ancient Near Eastern context and understanding some of the literary tools are tremendously helpful to ensure we’re understanding it well.
So we learn words like exegesis. Exegesis is essentially recreating in our minds, as best we can, the original context: Who is writing this? Who are they writing it to? What’s the point? The more you can sort of recreate that scene, the more you can go into the next word we talked about, which was hermeneutics, which essentially considers: Okay, we know what it meant to them. What is it supposed to mean to us? Is this something we’re supposed to do? How do we apply it into our lives?
We kind of worked our way through the entire Bible, and now we are going to end up in the last book of the Bible, which is the book of Revelation. All right, now let me set expectations here: the book of Revelation is a very complicated book. There’s no way in the world I’m going to be able to fully teach you the whole book. I’m going to give you kind of an overview, and we will keep to the framework we’ve been using.
What I’m not going to be able to do is answer every question that you may have or that I would have about the book of Revelation. What I want to do, though, is share some resources with you because we’re going to stick our toe in the water on this today. If you’re like, «Man, I want to learn a lot more,» I’m hoping today to give you a little bit of confidence that you have the tools you need to delve into this.
A lot of people avoid the book of Revelation because it is so rich in symbolism. When you read it, it can be quite confusing. I mean, there are dragons, and beasts, and all these things in there, and it’s like, «What do I do with all of this?» So, a lot of people find it terrifying, especially when you think about the implications of this book as it relates to the future. You know, you want to be ready for whatever is coming. The recipe for terror is if there’s something scary coming that you don’t understand, right? If I have to try to crack a code that I can’t understand, and if I don’t crack the code, it’s the scariest thing I can imagine. That’s why a lot of people put their heads in the sand as it relates to the book of Revelation.
But we’re not going to do that today. I’m hoping to set you on a course today ultimately so that you will be able to do more with this material. Let me quickly put some resources up on the screen for you. The first thing I want to do is bring up the ones I’ve been highlighting this whole time because it’s my last chance to do it. The one in the middle is the Cultural Background Study Bible. In fact, today when we’re talking about the historical context, I’m going to show you something that I just took a picture of when I was studying in this Bible. It’s definitely worth it. You can get it easily on Amazon.
These other two books, «How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth» and «How to Read the Bible Book by Book,» are just fantastic. I would say you won’t regret having these in your resource library. They are written by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart, two brilliant writers. So these are just solid resources.
On the topic of Revelation, go ahead and go to the next one. On the top right is the Bible Project. This is free and easy; you can go to YouTube or the Bible Project website. What they do are visual summaries that they construct in front of you. They draw them up in real-time and provide an outline and a summary of the book, which will give you a much better understanding from a high-level view. Revelation is so complicated that they make two episodes, so it’s about 20 minutes long total to really understand where we should be thinking.
In the middle is a book from an author I’ve mentioned several times — one of the brilliant theologians of our time, N.T. Wright. He wrote a book called «Revelation for Everyone,» and he’s written several of his own commentaries, like «John for Everyone.» So this is his book on Revelation, and if you want to get more into it, it’s a great resource.
Then this other one is «Reading Revelation Responsibly» by Michael Gorman, which is another excellent choice, especially when you look at some of the symbolism and some of the things in the book of Revelation. It’s hard to know sometimes what is symbolic and what is literal, and so sometimes people talk about these things as if they’re literal. He can help you work your way through that. I definitely recommend those resources.
All right, so here we go. We’re going to our framework: Revelation is literature, history, and theology. We’re going to start with history, then go to literature, and then we’ll look at some theology. Okay, when you think about the book of Revelation, it’s written by the Apostle John-the same guy that wrote the book of John, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, the letters. He writes Revelation.
So, time period-wise, this book is dated toward the end of the first century. In the middle of the first century, you have the reign of Nero. Nero reigned as the emperor of Rome from AD 54 to AD 68-or a 14-year reign. Nero was known as an absolute tyrant to Christians. What was going on is what we now would refer to as an imperial cult. The emperors would see themselves as deities and god-like figures and would demand to be worshiped.
If you kind of go back in history, that’s more of an eastern idea. A Greco-Roman or a Greek coming from the west didn’t really see it that way. They might take a king or an emperor, and when they die they might say, «Yeah, they were with the gods now.» But they didn’t see them in real time when they were alive. This was more of an eastern thing, so as they moved east, they decided to adopt that.
Nero wanted to be worshiped. He insisted on being worshiped. He set up ceremonies and required sacrifices. They referred to Caesar as Lord Nero. In fact, I’ll show you a coin that they had minted in Ephesus that shows-it’s a bronze coin. Go ahead and bring that up. It has Nero in the image of Zeus, who was their chief deity. This is the big reason why the Christians were being persecuted during this time.
Nero is famous for his persecution of Christians. He fed them to animals, crucified them, and was known for lighting them on fire to illuminate his imperial outdoor seating and gardens. He was absolutely terrifying! In fact, even after he died in AD 68, there were rumors that he was going to come back to life to terrorize the Christians. Certain people would claim, «Oh, Nero’s back, he’s not actually dead!» And so even after he died, people were still terrified of him.
Okay, Herod Antipas was able to negotiate with the Roman government. He basically said, «Look, these Jewish people are not going to worship a person; they believe in their one true God.» He negotiated what was called the Jewish exemption to get them a deal where they would say, «Hey, we’re not going to sacrifice to Nero, but we’ll sacrifice to God on behalf of Nero and his health.» Once Nero died, they stopped doing that, and Rome saw that as essentially an act of war. That’s why in AD 70 Rome comes in, ransacks the city of Jerusalem, destroys the temple, and sets up standards and images of the emperors where the temple used to be, setting them up as places of worship.
Okay, now you have a group of Jewish people, Christians, who believe that Jesus is the one true God-Jesus is the King of Kings- and declare him the Lord of Lords. They’re not going to bow to anybody else. So now they are being persecuted; their physical health and lives are in danger, and there is certainly a tremendous amount of social pressure. You now have Domitian at the end of the first century while John is writing this letter, writing this apocalypse, and Domitian continues this imperial cult.
He goes to Ephesus, which is again in Asia Minor, where these letters are supposed to be distributed, and he puts a 25-foot statue of himself in their biggest temple. Again, this becomes a very controversial thing because now these men are declaring themselves to be gods.
So, that’s what was going on historically. When John is writing to these churches and these early Christians, he’s encouraging them to follow Jesus, to see Jesus as Lord, and to endure whatever persecution they have to for his name’s sake.
Okay, so let’s look at literature. The book of Revelation is called Jewish apocalyptic literature. The purpose of Jewish apocalyptic literature is to reach back into history, into the Old Testament, to essentially encourage contemporary Jewish people to stand firm and endure suffering because they’re questioning: is following Jesus worth it? Should we just give in to Domitian? Should we just give in to the Romans? They seem unbeatable-is it worth fighting over?
Many people thought after Nero died that the Roman government, the Roman Empire, would implode, and it didn’t. They were seen as impenetrable, so they were questioning: should we even fight this fight or should we just give in?
What John is doing is reaching back into the Old Testament. If I were to say «word association» with the book of Revelation, what would you think of? You wouldn’t typically think of the past; you would tend to think of the future. You’d say it’s a futuristic book, and it’s a scary futuristic book. The irony is that the book is rooted in the past. It’s really a book about the Old Testament reaching back to those examples and is supposed to be rooted in hope and encouragement.
It is by far the book of the New Testament with the most Old Testament references. Conservatively, it contains over 250 Old Testament references; some would say, given a lot of the symbolism, there might be more like 500 Old Testament references. So, it’s rich in that, but it also has tons of symbols, which is why it’s prone to misinterpretation.
When you read Revelation, you’re going to see numbers. You’ll see a lot of the number three, the number seven, and some large numbers. What you need to understand about those numbers is that they’re not supposed to be specific. They’re not making specific quantitative statements; they’re making qualitative statements, and they’re largely symbolic.
You’re going to see seals-not like the animal, but like seals on a scroll-trumpets, bowls, crowns, beasts, dragons, battles, weapons, lambs, lions-you’re going to see all this stuff. What you have are Old Testament references and Greco-Roman references. One of the interpretive concepts used a lot is called «remez.» Remez is essentially a hint that reaches back; it might give you a sentence or part of a sentence, or give you a symbol or picture that’s supposed to take you back to a moment in time.
In this case, it’s the Old Testament. It would be like if I said to you, «Hey, it’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.» You would hear that and know I’m talking about Neil Armstrong, space travel, and all that. Just that one sentence would take you back to that whole situation. You’re going to see that a lot, and that’s why we have to have our bearings on Jewish apocalyptic literature to even read it. Otherwise, it’s super confusing.
I’m going to give you a great example right now. So, Revelation 13 — imagine you wake up for work, get your coffee, and you’re about two sips in. You’re just starting to feel the caffeine start to awaken your bloodstream, and you think, «You know what? I’m going to encourage myself today in God’s word. I’m going to read some scripture and get a little bit of that in my system.» So, you open up to Revelation 13:1-3:
«The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns. And on each head, a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had the feet of those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. And the whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.»
You might think, «All right! I guess it’s time to go to work. I don’t know what to do with this. Maybe it has something to do with my boss, who I think is a beast, or I don’t know what you’re going to do with this, but Lord bless it. Let’s head to work and turn on the radio.»
So, what’s going on here? How would we even handle this? This is a remez. It might feel like John is on the Isle of Patmos and imagining this for the first time, but this is not a unique vision. He’s reaching back to the book of Daniel, chapter 7.
Before we do that, let’s bring it back up, and I want you to notice and just make a mental note of the highlights. So, you see ten horns; go to the next one. You see a leopard, a bear, and a lion.
When we hear that, it doesn’t mean anything to us, but to the Jewish audience, it would take them back to Daniel chapter 7. Quick timeout before we read Daniel 7: If you think back on the book of Daniel, why would John, at this moment, reach back to Daniel of all books? The book of Daniel contains the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Remember this story? Nebuchadnezzar builds a huge statue of himself and demands everybody bow to it. If you don’t bow to it, we throw you in the fiery furnace. Doesn’t that sort of rhyme with Domitian, who has a 25-foot statue in the temple telling everybody to make sacrifices and bow to him and call him King of Kings and Lord of Lords?
If you don’t comply, it’s your life. So he’s reaching back into this moment. This is the same Daniel who was thrown into the lion’s den. If you pray to your God and honor your God instead of honoring the king above your God, they’ll throw you to the lions, but he says, «I’m going to be faithful to my God.»
Now you have a group of people who have their own Nebuchadnezzar, their own tyrant, and they’re wondering how to stand when their lives are on the line. So, what is he doing with apocalyptic literature? He’s reaching into the past to encourage them in the present. This exemplifies what faithfulness to God looks like right here, right now.
In Daniel 7, he has a vision of four beasts. Daniel 7:3-6 states, «Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was a lion and it had wings like those of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and lifted from the ground. It stood on two feet like a human being and the mind of a human was given to it. And there before me was a second beast which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, 'Get up and eat your fill of flesh.' After that, I looked and there before me was another beast that looked like a leopard.»
So we’ve got the lion, bear, and leopard. If you skip down to verse 7, it says, «There before me was a fourth beast, terrifying, frightening, and very powerful. It had large iron teeth and crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the other beasts and it had ten horns.»
All this imagery-ten horns, lion, leopard, and bear — when we hear it, it’s just a weird morning with our coffee, but to the recipients of this letter, it takes them right back to Daniel 7.
Now we go to the question: what is this imagery? We have the Old Testament that we’re reaching into, but we’re also looking at the Greco-Roman imagery of the world. These images represented the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and the Persian Empire. These visuals would have been included in their statues and artwork; they would have used them to walk into buildings to symbolize their prowess and power.
In the book of Daniel, what he is talking about is these empires falling, and then he prophesies there will be a fourth empire represented by the ten horns. So, in the book of Revelation, when John is talking about this and says there is a beast with ten horns, he’s applying it directly to their context, which was the Roman Empire, the work of Nero, and the work of Domitian. He’s saying, «Hey, listen, I know it’s bad; I know we have this egomaniacal Nero and Domitian trying to get us to bow down and worship, and there’s an imperial cult and persecution and injustice. But look, these empires fall and this one will fall too.»
He’s introducing Rome as the beast. The idea of the dragon is the idea of empire, so when we’re looking at it from an exegetical standpoint-which is essentially what did they hear and how did they receive it? — John is writing about Rome, and these churches in Asia Minor who received this letter are thinking about Rome when they read this.
From a hermeneutic standpoint, when we ask what this means to us, it forces us to think not only about Rome and Assyria and Babylon and Persia, but we have to look deeper than that at the «empire mentality.» We have to analyze what empires are prone to. We have to examine our context.
We’ve talked about this before. When you look at the Bible, you’ll see a juxtaposition and contrast between the Kingdom of God expressed through Jesus-the good news of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God -that’s what he came talking about. It wasn’t geographic, nor was it national; it was Jesus as King and we conduct ourselves this way. That’s what the Sermon on the Mount was about. We spent four months talking about that.
So, the Kingdom of God stands in contrast to the empire of the world. What are the differences in the mentalities? The summary is that empires are built on the love of power and the power of fear, while the Kingdom of God is built on the power of love. So ultimately, what he’s showing is that these empires will rise and they will fall. They’ll be powerful and beastly because of their craving and lust for power, and the way they control with fear will do a lot of damage. But don’t give in! Don’t be seduced! Don’t compromise! Follow the Kingdom. Who is your King? Who will you follow? Who will you be obedient to? Who will you be loyal to?
He’s calling them to faithfulness. Let me give you the outline. I took this from Gordon Fee’s «How to Read the Bible Book by Book.» Go ahead and bring it up.
The first three chapters set the historical context. John announces he’s the author. He’s writing it on the Isle of Patmos. He says, «I’ve been exiled to Patmos because of Christ.» In other words, «Because I’m saying Jesus is Lord and I won’t bow to Domitian, I’ve been sent to prison, so to speak. I' ve been exiled to the Isle of Patmos.»
Then he goes into the motif of the seven churches of Asia Minor, recreating a scene that would be the closest comparison for us to a State of the Union address. At that time, Caesar would make speeches and he would talk about cities or regions. He would commend them for this or that, then tell them what he didn’t like and say, «Here’s the judgment if you don’t fix it.»
That was a common political way of speaking to constituents. What John does here is he sets up God as King and he says to the seven churches, who are supposed to pass these letters around in Asia Minor, «Here’s what I commend you for, but here’s what I have against you. You need to fix it, or there will be consequences, there will be judgment.» He does that in the first three chapters.
After that, from chapters 4 to 5, there is a vision of heaven and earth. You see a heavenly throne and then a vision of a scroll with seven seals. In this vision-I’m simplifying it, but the summary is that the scroll represents the judgment of God. The just judgment of God is sealed up with seven seals, and they’re like, «Man, we have this problem. We have the scroll with God’s judgment, but no one can open it. There’s no one who is worthy to open it; no one is able to open it.»
Symbolically, in their context, when you give someone a scroll, it’s the person it was written to who opens it-the person who has the authority to open it. So, no one can open God’s judgment except for the Lamb of God-Jesus, the one who was slain from the foundation of the earth. He is the only one who has the authority, the only one permitted to open the scroll.
So, now he opens the scroll, the Lamb of God. It starts with a preliminary judgment on the empire, along with visions of seven trumpets. These trumpets represent warnings, and they also represent judgments. At one point, it will reference the plagues in Exodus. If you remember when Pharaoh was holding out-when Moses says, «Let my people go» and he wouldn’t do it, and God sends plagues on him.
In this judgment upon Rome, he’s given these warnings and talks about the plagues; he uses some of the same ones as in Exodus. Then you have these two interlude visions. You also have a conflict between the church and evil powers in chapters 12 through 14, which describes a war in heaven. Again, this is a vision; it’s a symbolic war in heaven and its aftermath, with beasts out of the sea and the earth, resulting in vindication and judgment.
In the next section, you have the seven bowls which represent God’s judgment on Babylon. Anytime you see Babylon in the book of Revelation, it refers to the Roman Empire. It calls it Babylon because, again, this references an old empire and uses that symbolically. Babylon is judged.
At the end, we have what we call the original tale of two cities between chapters 17 and 22, which creates again a contrast between Babylon-the city that’s given in to the empire mentality-and the New Jerusalem.
Now we’re going to move on. We’ve done the history; we’ve done some literature, and now we’re going to look at some theology. We' ll go to the last couple of chapters. By the way, there’s a ton of theology in this book, but I’m going to give you just a little towards the end.
In chapter 21, John describes the New Jerusalem. What is the New Jerusalem? John reaches back to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 47. In Ezekiel 47, the context is significant: their temple has been destroyed. Ezekiel has a vision of a new temple. The temple that Solomon built has been destroyed, which is heartbreaking, as that was where the presence of God was-the holy place.
So, the temple is destroyed, and now Ezekiel is seeing a vision for a new temple. Look at this: Ezekiel 47:1-3 states, «The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced the east, and the water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me back to the north gate and led me around outside to the gate facing the east, and the water then trickled to the south side. The man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand.»
Now this is common in the Old Testament for them to measure the temple. Don’t worry about all those directions; just get the idea that he’s measuring the temple. And look at this: He measured off a thousand cubits. So, Ezekiel is seeing a vision of the new temple. Do you know how big a thousand cubits is in modern measurement? That’s why you need that study Bible! In the study Bible, it tells you in feet how big that is: it’s 1,700 feet!
Why that’s significant is because he has a vision for an expanded temple — bigger than the one that Solomon built. So when he’s writing about it, he’s saying, «Listen, guys! I know we’re down about the temple being destroyed, but that’s not the last word. God’s still doing stuff. There’s another temple coming, and I saw a vision of it, and it’s going to be 1,700 feet!»
Now again, that’s not necessary for specifics; he’s just saying, «God’s doing something new, and it’s bigger and better, so let’s not lose heart!» So when John, in Revelation 21, is writing about the New Jerusalem, look what he says in Revelation 21:15–16: «The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. The city was laid out like a square as long as it was wide. He measured the city with a rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, as wide and as high as it is long.»
So, imagine a cube — wide, square, tall in the sky-12,000 stadia in each direction. How much is 12,000 stadia? You might wonder. Well, in modern-day measurements, that’s 1,400 miles. That' s essentially from here to El Paso, Texas!
So, in this second to last book of the Bible, John is having a vision of the New Jerusalem and he’s seeing a city that’s bigger than anything they’ve ever seen. It’s not about the precision of 1,400 miles; it’s about how it’s beyond what they’ve ever encountered. None of them had ever traveled 12,000 stadia or 1,400 miles.
The way they traveled, they thought, «It is bigger than you can possibly imagine, and it’s higher than you can possibly imagine, and it’s greater than you can possibly imagine.» And then when you keep reading Revelation 21:22, he says, «I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.»
This is significant! Think about this through the lens of the contemporary hearer at that time. How appropriate: you have Ezekiel having to come to grips with the destruction of Solomon’s temple but a vision of a new temple, 1,700 feet. Now you have this reaching back into Ezekiel, encouraging them in real time because what happened to their temple in AD 70 is destruction.
They’re crushed over it. They think, «Life is over. The bad guys have won!» And he says, «No! In the New Covenant, I’m doing something that nobody can grasp! It’s beyond anything physical. It’s beyond anything your eye can see.» He’s inviting them not only to be encouraged but to get on board with what God is up to.
I’m going to keep going. Ezekiel 47:12: So, we just read Ezekiel 47:1-3-look at this: Ezekiel 47:12: He has a vision of fruit trees of all kinds. These fruit trees represent God’s people and their fruitfulness-what they do. He says, «The fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river, and their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail.»
In other words, most trees bear fruit in season. He says, «These trees will not stop bearing fruit, and every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food, and their leaves for healing.»
So again, to the hearers of Ezekiel, that’s still tribal, national, «It’s still us; there’s still a line in the sand.» God’s going to save us! Now he’s saying, «Look, this is beyond nation!»
In Revelation 22:1-3, it says, «The angel of the Lord showed me a river of the water of life as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life.»
By the way, this is the last chapter of the whole Bible-Revelation 22. Do you have a Bible in front of you? If you do, look at the top of chapter 22; what’s the heading? «River of Life: Eden Restored.» So the whole narrative that starts in Genesis 1-3 is restored in Revelation 22, and it says, «And down the middle of the street on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.»
Does this remind you of Ezekiel 47? «And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.» Verse 3: «No longer will there be any curse.» In chapter 22 of Revelation, he reverses what Adam did in chapter 3 of Genesis! The New Adam, man!
All right, I need to wrap this up, because I’m three minutes over, but I don’t even care! It’s 12:00; I don’t even know what time it is. The Baptists are already eating at the buffet, but we’ve got a little more time! Revelation 19 is the perfect way to lead into Easter!
Yes! Revelation 19 describes the image of Jesus the King heading into the battle of good and evil. It says, «In Revelation 19:11, John states, 'I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.' This Jesus, with justice, judges and wages war. The one who is able to unseal the scroll, the one who is able to be the ultimate judge, is Jesus and Jesus alone. He alone has the authority; he alone has the wisdom; he alone knows enough to understand the situation and to know what the judgement should be. We can trust his judgment to align with justice.»
«His justice — he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.» Verse 13: «He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.»
It’s kind of strange that he has a robe dipped in blood when he hasn’t even gone to battle yet. Whose blood is on the robe? It’s his own blood!
Praise God! John’s writing to a group of people who feel defeated. They look out and see Domitian building a 25-foot statue of himself. They see the consequences of fighting against Rome, and they’re questioning, «Should I just give in?» Where is Jesus in all this? He’s gone! Should we keep following the Kingdom of God? Should we keep operating according to the Spirit? Or are we going to walk by sight instead of by faith?
John says to them that the ultimate victor and the ultimate victory is that Jesus has already won the battle. The blood on him is his own; what he did on the cross is the ultimate victory! Thank you, Jesus!
So, friend, I encourage you: don’t be scared of this book. Go into it! You’ve got the tools. Work your way through. Be patient and persevere through this, and what you’ll find is that the further you dig into the history, the more you delve into the literature, and the more you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, you' ll continue to see a faithful, gracious, powerful, glorious, holy Jesus emerge as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Let’s pray together. Thank you, Jesus! Yes, Lord! As it says in Revelation 4, day and night they never stop saying, «Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.» So today, Lord, we say you are worthy of all glory and honor. You are the Lord our God. Lord, we bow before you today.
Like first-century Jewish people, we have our own set of challenges, our own concerns, our own fears in the world that you’ve placed us in, in our context. Yet somehow, in John’s intention to challenge and encourage the seven churches in Asia Minor, we ourselves find ourselves challenged and encouraged!
Lord, I pray that today-amidst all of the images, visuals, news headlines, and realities — we see a picture of Jesus, the one true King. Lord, give us the courage to live it out, to walk it out. Give us the wisdom and the grace, Lord God, to be the Kingdom of God, to be the people of God.
I pray that you would guide us and give us wisdom. Help us to be more like Jesus. I pray for each individual today; you have so many different people here with different avenues of influence and levels of authority in different places. Lord, I pray that in a world often enthralled with power and often bound in fear-controlled even more than we know — that you would help us to operate on a higher plane, to walk by faith and not by sight, to be completely motivated and driven by the power of love-the example set by you.
For, Lord, you don’t ask us to give something we’ve not received, and we receive your love and grace, even fresh and new in this moment. So use us as individuals in every corner of this community, and Lord, use us as a collective. I pray that everyone who walks in this door would feel the presence of Jesus, would see the eyes of Jesus, for we are the body of Christ. In Jesus' name, everybody said, «Amen.»