The Time is Near!

The title of my sermon is, The Time is Near. The time is near. That is a quote from the Book of Revelation. The first few verses of the Book of Revelation reveal to us that it was either written or revealed to him approximately 85 to 95 AD or ACE to be exact. 85 to 96 on the island of Patmos. Patmos was an island they sent criminals who they didn't put to death for one reason or another. Patmos is the island that consisted of a lot of mining mines that they would dig various worthy minerals out of for the Roman army to use. John is quite aged when he is released from the island of Patmos that he was sent there because they couldn't put him to death according to tradition and historical sources. When the emperor Domitian in 96 died, they released all the prisoners from Patmos. John went back to the church at Ephesus where he supposedly spent his last few years. I want to today give you a sermon that hopefully you can not only retain but go to time and time again because without the first chapter of Revelation and the understanding of it, the rest you're going to have more issues and problems with than you could dream of. Revelation 1. If you will turn there with me, I'll be reading from the New King James version. Some of this I have gone over here before, but I want to touch on it again and then go through it to my final verse. Chapter 1, verse 1, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants which must shortly take place, and he sent and signified it to his angel, to his servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ and to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear in the words of this prophecy and keep these things which are written in it, for the time is near. Time is near! What's he talking about? He wrote this almost 2,000 years ago, and we're supposed to believe that time is near? Come on! Does that make sense? How do you explain that? But not to us. As William said, a thousand years like a day, a day is like a thousand years. That's to God, but not to us. It will be some day. So I want to look at this because, frankly, that always threw me. So we have the Father who gave this to Jesus, and Jesus gave it to an angel, and an angel gave these words, gave these visions, gave everything he had to John at a very old age on the island of Patmos. And verse 2 says, then John is a witness to the Word. What Word? The Word of God. The Word of God. 2 Timothy 3 and verse 16 shows that the Word of God is breathed. God breathed His words that we find in this Bible. And then it says He had the testimony of Jesus Christ. Have you ever heard testimony? Go to court. You'll hear plenty of testimony. The 2 Timothy 3, 16 was the first one. But then the testimony of Jesus Christ says that John heard. He heard. He had three and a half years of testimony of Jesus Christ. He heard it from His very mouth.

Not only did He hear, He saw.

And the third part was all things that John saw. And all things that He saw. What do you think He saw? Just read the book of John. Just read the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke. He saw it. He saw it all. He lived longer than any other disciple, all the other disciples who were dead by this time. Most not all martyred. And Timothy martyred. And so He not only witnessed this stuff, witnessed the Word, had testimony of Jesus Christ, and He saw the things that Jesus Christ did as a, quote, unquote, human.

And what did He do? God said, because of this, write it down. No one else could do that like John. No one else had lived through this. No one else had these visions. No one else knew the truth as long or quite clearly as John did. The first two verses. But I love the third verse. I love this third verse. Blessed is He who reads. The only book in the Bible where you're promised to be blessed if you read it. Do you read it? Have you read Revelation? Or you kind of, well, them sort of.

Kind of. Maybe. Some of it, but some of it, frankly, is just a little too far out there. Do you want to be blessed? You know, in the book of Revelation, blessed is used seven times. In a good Bible study, sometimes, just look up all the sentences, all the phrases where the word blessed is used in the book of Revelation.

This is the first one. Blessed is from the Greek word makarios. Does anybody know what makarios means? Any of you Greek scholars out there? Makarios. In other words, it's translated to one time happy.

Happy. Blessed. If you're blessed, you're typically happy. Unless you're a miserable human being who just looks at everything negatively. Blessed also means privileged. It also means self-contained. What? I'm blessed. I'm self-contained. What does that mean? Well, I think that's why it's important to read this first chapter and to understand. What was makarios? Anyone know? I didn't until I did this study. Makarios is a name of an island. It was a name of an island at that time and for hundreds of years before this book was written that was known as a Shangri-La, known as Paradise, known as an island that you would go to.

They didn't need. They had plenty of water. Fresh, wonderful water. They had food. They had rain that would make all the crops grow. It was a millennial island and people wanted to go there. The Greeks all wanted to go there. The Romans wanted to go there because it was peaceful.

There was no crime. There was no poverty. There was just harmony and peace. Makarios. And everyone wanted to live on makarios. Anybody ever heard that? No? You want to go to makarios? The island exists today, but it's not makarios. The name has changed. The name has been changed. The island's still there. But what happened? Man destroyed it. Man corrupted it. Paradise is no longer on the island of Cyprus. One time it was not known as Cyprus, but makarios. This is why Paul, I mean John, put this down. They knew, the Greeks knew, everybody knew this was a place everybody would like to go.

They didn't need anything from the outside world. Neither were we in the kingdom of God. It is talking about a state of happiness, because as they found from the history of studying makarios, it's kind of like, well, I hate to refer to this, but I think I will. The eagles had a song about Hotel California. Now, they'd check in, but nobody checks out. Nobody moved from makarios. Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody wanted to come. They even made sure they checked you before you came in, so you wouldn't come in and corrupt their island.

This is what God has promised to us, this mind, this state of mind that was on the island of makarios. That is what blessed. That's what blessed here means. And John is trying to tell us. Because there's some other stuff that's in this book that could remove your peace, that could give you such fear, trepidation, but not if you understand and you read this book, and you have your trust in God, you can be blessed.

You can have a peaceful state of mind, not only today, but what's going to happen in the future. Most people are makadin! No. He says, be happy. It's all going to work out. It's all going to work out. It's all going to be a blessed life. And then it says, for those who hear, read, and hear, reads and hears those prophets, how do you do that? You read it from your Bible.

You hear it from sermons. You have it from discussions to where you're studying this Word. You're studying this book of Revelation, and you have discussions. No longer is it some strange things with strange creatures in a strange world, in a strange time. No. It's another blessing. And then it says, to keep, verse 3, keep those things.

The Greek word for keep is terio. Terio. And terio, as you could probably rationalize, think to yourself, terio, you know, keep, obey, observe. No, it's not okay. What's the thing for that? Except it's deeper than that. It's deeper than just what we think, keep. He used terio. Terio also means to guard, guard, preserve. How about you preserving some of the truth that is in the book of Revelation? How about guarding it? Oh, that's just a book of crazy opio. I remember when my father first came into a church, and in Francisville, Indiana, and the preacher or whatever came over when they started attending this church. I was about six, but I do remember it. And my father was looking in the Bible and wanted to know about the book of Revelation. And the preacher told him, oh no, that was just some crazy guy on an island. Nobody really understands that. You don't have to. I don't remember my father going there very often to that church, but continued for years till he was introduced to the truth.

And then it says, for the time is near. What time? If you're in your 90s, you think your time is near? It probably was for John, but he's writing this to us, for the time is near. Why would he say that? Think about it. Now, John is here, and as it says in these first chapters, he's supposed to write it down. God tells him, write it down. Okay, do you just start writing things down? No. You have to understand, this book, this chapter of this book is the prelude. Anybody ever read a book and read the prelude? It's kind of nice because it kind of sets it up. Sets up what you're about to read. Maybe there's a little history involved. Maybe the author is trying to get you to have a mindset. That is exactly what God is wanting us to do here. He's letting John set the background. Give the setup for this. Incredible thing.

So, John has seen everything. Everything that you are about to read from chapter 2 all the way through chapter 22, he has seen, he has experienced. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine, see everything that this book entails with your own eyes? Whether it's visions or being there, you saw it all. Nothing is held back from him, and nothing is held back from us as he tells the story that he's told to write. He's told to explain it to us.

John saw thousands of years in a very short time. Was it in a day? Probably not. Was it in a week? Don't know. It was why he was on the island. But he saw it, and he experienced this, and then God at the end says, write it down. And he wrote the prelude to help us, because it was mind-boggling. What he saw, what he experienced. Think about it. Most of you know parts or all of the book of Revelation. Am I correct? What did he see? Buddy?

He saw visions. He saw what? Chrissy? He saw a beast. He saw two beasts. He saw a false prophet, didn't he? He saw the seven churches that existed when he was put in prison, and they existed when he got out.

Can you imagine that? The persecution. He saw millions die. How would you like that? You want to describe that? Sorry, I made a mistake. Billions! Billions of people slaughtered, dying. Plagues of truly biblical proportions. He sees a false prophet rise up. He sees the wedding supper. And he sees who's there. Awesome sight, wouldn't it? He sees a resurrection. He sees a millennium. He sees a thousand years laid out before him with Christ as a king, as a king of kings. And he saw spirit beings, experienced angels. He saw the throne of God, the twenty-four elders, the seraphan. He saw what? He saw a new holy Jerusalem coming down, the holy city coming down, and God dwelling with men.

Talk about information overload. How do you see that and still have a sane mind? But he did, because he had a purpose. God gave him that purpose. He wanted him to reveal this, and by revealing it from the beginning to the end, the very end, which is the beginning of God's reign of a new heaven and a new earth with a family of God. And the universe before it. He saw earth burnt completely up.

He saw Satan cast into the pit, bound for a thousand years. It's just amazing what all he saw. Wouldn't you love for him to come here and say, here's our guest lecturer for the day. Ask him anything you want. You wouldn't be entertained by that?

I'd see my hand up all the time. Hey, tell me, tell me, how about, well, what about, boy, amazing. But you know what's amazing? He left with us this book, this book, so that we can know a lot. All we need to know is right here about the world and the world to come. And even the world after that. Eternity in this book. I find it interesting, and I would like to go there because I've read it time and time again. And until I began to understand that this was the setup, I missed so much stuff. And that this is how John was to present it to us after he had seen everything and writing everything. Did he know how many years he was watching? He knew some. He knew the thousand years. That date was given, wasn't it? Did he know some of the others? No, because he doesn't reveal it. So it wasn't revealed to him. If you watched this, would you know how many times? How many years went by? Probably not. But all this having to take place, you would think one thing. Time is near. There's so much stuff that has to take place. This is the future. Here was a man who was telling you what was going to happen in the future, who just thought before he went to prison that Christ was coming in his lifetime. All the disciples thought that. Isn't that amazing? But I want to take you on what time I have left here in the first chapter, which we've read parts of today. I want to take you to a verse that to me fills in the gap for a lot of stuff. And without it, you're probably not going to grasp it. Let's go to Revelation chapter 1 and verse 19. Here's God talking.

Amazing. Amazing. Except you missed something here, because that's not exactly how the Greek text or manuscripts were written. It's missing a word, a big, big word.

That word is therefore. Well, what's so big about that? What's so big about therefore? It's all through the Bible. Jesus Christ is written many times from him. Therefore is the connection between what was previously said and what is about to be told. It's in the majority of all the Greek manuscripts. It's left out in this one. I know I checked it. If you have a New King James Version, or many of them, it shows you that in verse 19, if you have a center column, it has a little number one right beside it. It says the NU and the M. The M being the majority of manuscripts. NU being the trans-Nestle United Society, which had Greek scholars get together to help put the Greek together, society, to make sure that it's correct. And when they all got together here, they found out somebody left it out. Therefore, write the things which you have seen. What had he seen? Eternity. He saw eternity. He saw things that no man has ever seen. Write down these things you have seen. And then, the things which are, which exist now. What existed now? Where in this book of Revelation is the R? Have you ever thought about it?

Isn't it all about the future? He's talking about things that are now, at his time on that island. Because he was getting visions of what was going on outside the island. How about that? You didn't know it, but guess what? The churches you work, they've got problems. And you're just about to see those problems. The things that are going on. You've been in prison here for close to 20 years, some say 15, some say 20. You've been away. All the disciples are dead. What has happened to the truth? It's being distorted. Remember what he said about Ephesus in the second chapter? The first church is addressed is the one he goes to. It's there. And it says, you've lost your first love. He's going to go back to that church. He's going to find a church that... Yeah, yeah, we were on fire back then. Wouldn't that be amazing to know? Why did God give him the R? Because he's about to walk into the R. He's about to be released. He has no idea when he's going to be reached. He has no idea when Domitian will be dead. Didn't take long. He's dead, and the new one comes in and says, release all the prisoners. And he goes back to the churches. Can you imagine that first sermon? I mean, but you can read in 3 John where the Atrophies, various people there, they didn't even want him back. We don't need you! We're churches are fine without you, you old man. How amazing is that? How powerful is that? And it's all part of this vision and this experience that he's going through here. And then it says, the things which will take place. It's not in real time. As a matter of fact, when he has a vision and he goes up into the throne room of God and sees the Lamb, four and five in these chapters, he's outside of time. When he sees the twenty-four elders, who are they? Is it outside of time? Hmm. Makes you think.

Everything, and people have actually said, well, wait a minute, there's inset chapters, which means they don't follow along in a chronological order. Of course they don't! God never intended to. He intended for John to write this with this put in this place and this put in this place. It's not made for everybody. It's made for those who want to be blessed. It's made for those who have his Holy Spirit. It's made for those to be revealed in the last days. He doesn't want everybody knowing. Same thing when Christ walked on this earth. Why do you speak in parables? Oh, so everybody will understand? No! So they won't. Because you have to have a spirit to understand. To understand what he's trying to get only those he wants to understand. Because like the old movie, you can't handle the truth! Because most of the world can't handle the truth. They can't even handle the difference between a man and a woman today. DNA! XY, XX, chromosome. Oh, that should settle it. No, not really. So you want to take them to things outside of this world and get them to understand that? No! But it is for us. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. So it's not in real time. He is ready to write after he has seen all this. The past. What's happening now? The future. And some mixed up time periods. And we sometimes think, wait a minute, maybe that's an inset chapter. And some of them, I agree, were. But there's other things that are in there that's not in chronological order that you may think they are. Only God can reveal that to you. And you begin to understand as you study this. Verse 10 of Revelation 1, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. The world has that so messed up. They're saying, I was in the Spirit on Sunday morning.

And he tells who's the Lord's Day is His Day. And Sunday ain't His Day. Let's put it that way.

And I heard, behind me, a loud voice as a trumpet. Can you imagine hearing that? Just imagine. Look at a couple more things. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 10. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 10. I know 1 Corinthians 2, 9, one of my favorite verses. And I say it every year at the feats of tabernacles. I've said it here, For I has not seen nor your heard nor is there the heart of man, the things that God has planned for those who do what? Of Him. And then, they don't understand, but we have the what? He's given us the Spirit. And what does the Spirit say the Spirit does? It searches all things. All things. All! Not just, oh, there's a couple verses here. All. All things. Even the what? Deep, deep, deep things of God. And where are there a lot of deep things of God? In the book of Revelation. You actually get to see where God plays, where God sits, everything that surrounds God. You get to even hear, because He writes down the words that they hear. You get to see angels fall down in front of God, praising again and again and again. I'm going to bring some of these things out, because every year I don't usually teach prophecy till towards the feast. Well, we're getting towards the feast, and now it's a meet and do season. And I'm going to be bringing some sermons here from Revelation. I'm not going to go through it verse by verse. I'm going to bring you things that are revealed and things that you need to really study and ponder on. Things that need to reach your mind and your heart that you've never even considered before.

Because they're in there.

So don't be me. I wrote that on a movie the other night, my favorite line from Time to Kill, with Donald Sutherland. A young lawyer, Matthew McConaughey, goes, come in with me, and we'll make the summation. Tracy, you see the same thing I did? Donald Sutherland in that southern voice. Don't be me. Be better than me. Well, I want you to be better than me. Don't be me. Don't be me. Why do I say that? Because for years, for decades, I dabbled in the Book of Revelation. I put my toe in. That's it. Because I didn't want it to blow my mind. Because I'd seen people that quoted different stuff, and they didn't have a clue. Find out later they didn't know. Found out they didn't line up with other scripture. And these were ministers. These were elders. These were deacons. And so I stayed away from it till I became a pastor. And the one thing I wanted to do when I was hired a pastor, was one of the reasons I was hired, or the reason behind it, was the president walked out to Denny Luker at the time and said he wanted to hire me. And I said, I'll take the job on one condition. Because I didn't want the job. Mary knows that. She can tell you. She didn't want me to take the job. We were kind of a little bit macarios back in Tennessee. Not as much as we wanted to be. Certainly wasn't as much as she wanted to be.

But I said, I'll take it if I can only teach from the Bible. I can't teach from booklets. Booklets. I can't teach from someone else's writings. I only want to teach from the Bible. If that's a deal breaker, I understand. He said, nope. As long as I'm here, we'll preach from the Bible, and we'll be fine. Sorry to say, two years later he passed. But I still keep that in preach from the Bible. And so my entire learning comes from the Word of God. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I've had teachers who've taught me, which is good. But 90% of everything I know comes from the Holy Spirit teaching me from the Word of God. And I ask you to do the very same thing. You'll never be disappointed when you do that. You'll never be deceived when you stick to the Bible. Know it. Now, you will be questioned. You will be questioned because men have created different dogmas. They have created doctrines of their own. They have followed the traditions of men. And that will always get you in trouble.

You don't do it. This is your Word given to you.

That's why I've always said, if I say something wrong from this pulpit, it doesn't line up with the Bible. It's your job. It's your job to correct me. And if I get upset about it, it's my problem, not yours. Because I have had to do that with ministers. There were decades, decades before me, and they didn't like it.

But I got it from the Spirit. I got it from the Word of God. This is how you enter the book of Revelation. Not with preconceived ideas, but you let the Spirit reveal it to you, teach you, nourish you, nurture you, and empower you to where you can't help but discuss it. And you'll have certain people you call. I have people I call. And when I was a virgin in this book, I had to call certain people. And they did the same thing that I do. So that's why I inspire you. It's just not me. I hope I inspire you to dig into this Word, because we're going to go through it. Because we're going to go through it. A lot of things. Before you go to the Feast of Tabernacles. Because I want you to understand. I want you to be able to teach others. William Brown sits among you today. He has an important job ahead of him in the weeks, as he is going to take my place and go to Guyana. Things that I can't do for a month. He's going to spend an entire month, if not longer, to help those people, to help that church get off the ground. To help empower them in so many ways, besides the Bible. Our job is to empower people in a lot of different ways. And the truth of God lets us do that. So why? Why this deep story? This almost ominous teaching about revelation? Because you will be blessed. You will be blessed when you read it. You will be even more blessed when you understand it. And you will be triply blessed when you go, now, my I see. Now, my I see. I was blind, but now I see. I know because I was blind for all that time. I gave sermons for 15 years and never really got into the book of Revelation other than just a few verses. It's a few verses. You remember those go-to verses? You feel kind of good. Oh, yeah, that makes you feel good. And my wonderful wife, who just left the hall now, she didn't know I was going to say this. Yes. As a deacon, I was assigned to go to Jackson, Tennessee. No, Memphis, Tennessee. Week in, I had a morning service in Jackson and an afternoon service in Memphis. Something happened in Memphis. A few small church we had, most of them were gone. I walk in this church, but almost it's almost as big. There was one person there. Everybody else had left gone somewhere. And I'm going, wow, just drove four hours.

And there he looks at him, the man, and she said, what would you like to hear a sermon about? I thought, she's my help-meet.

And he said, I'd love to hear overview of Revelation.

God inspired me to give that message to him because it wasn't in me. And when we drove the four hours home that evening, I told God, I'll never let that happen again. Wherever there's a weakness, I'm going to try to solve it. And I need your help. And that's when I started the book of Revelation with the help of my friend and fellow pastor Gary Beam, who opened my eyes to a lot, who, like me, studied the Word of God. Still does. If you haven't heard him, you'll realize he doesn't have many notes either. But he can talk the ears off a mule, as I say. So I ask you next week for the Bible study, bring something that'll help your plus one. But I also ask that you will start diving into the book of Revelation, especially the first chapter, because one of my first sermons about that will be here. We'll be talking, what don't you understand? So we get the first chapter down before we move into the deep stuff. And so if you will go, and I say go, to the island of Macarios, you'll have peace, not fear. Because you'll know, just like I know, so many knows. As the movies say, the good guys win. The time is near, because your time is now.