For forty-three years, at one minute after midnight on Christmas Eve, Bert Holloway of Cambridge, England has handed his wife Ethel a love letter.  The gift is a tradition they started when they were married. 

Mrs. Holloway says she treasures all the love letters she has received from her husband. 

A Wonderful Blessing

The beautiful tradition described above has a powerful message for God's people. God wants us to express our love to Him, because He has expressed His love for us in the gift of His Son. 
 

Now, let us give this due consideration:  Do you think maybe God feels this way when we get too busy to spend time with him?  I think so!

God loves us, if fact he calls us his children! John 14:23 tells us: 

"If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him." Wow!  1 Corinthians 6:19 tells us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. 
 

The Book of Revelation

I feel prompted by the Holy Spirit to preach out of the book of Revelation for the next few weeks.  We will start off verse by verse and see where it goes from there.  This is a difficult book that contains many word pictures that are hard to understand.  We studied Revelation in Sunday school a year or so ago, and that was very helpful. 

God is so interested in us studying Revelation that He promises blessings to us for reading, understanding and applying its message.  The revelation started with God the Father who gave it to Jesus.  Jesus passed it on to an angel who delivered it to John. 

The book of Revelation!  One of the most powerful books in the world.  Over the next few weeks we will be studying it carefully to see what the Lord has to say to us in the year 2000. The book was written by the apostle John during his exile on the island of Patmos.  His purpose was to give hope and encouragement to those Christians who were suffering persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ.  As you know, the Lord promised that we would suffer persecution, so we should not be surprised when it happens.  On the other hand, we shouldn’t do things that cause persecution.  If you fully follow the Lord enough persecution will come all by itself. 
 
 

As I mentioned, there are a lot of word pictures in Revelation.  We will look at these as we do our study.  If you study them at home during the week, you'll be able to grasp them more quickly.

Revelation 1:1-3

This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God (the Father) gave Him to show His servants (that would be us!) what soon must take place.  "Soon" refers to God’s timetable.  God says that to Him 1,000 years is as a day, and a day as 1,000 years. (See 2 Peter 3:8)  We need to learn to see things from God’s perspective!

God made the revelation known by sending His angel to His servant John, who testified to everything he saw in the vision.  He saw the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 

Blessed is the one who reads… understands… and takes to heart (applies) what he or she reads, because the time is near.  If the time was "soon to take place" two thousand years ago, it looks like we are 2,000 years closer today! 

Verses 4-8

 John writes to the seven churches in the province of Asia. He starts with a greeting from God the Father, who is, and who was, and who is to come.  And from the seven spirits (KJV uses seven-fold spirit) before His throne.  This refers to the Holy Spirit.  The number 7 is the perfect number.  Isaiah 11:2 is another possible explanation. 
 

Also, the letter is from Jesus Christ, who is the Faithful Witness, the Firstborn from the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.  Now that is a sweeping statement!  Think about it! Our Savior is the firstborn from the dead.  How is this significant?  Because we will be resurrected from the dead just like He was.  We won’t be number two or three, but someplace down the line we, too, will be resurrected!

John then breaks forth in praise when he writes, "To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father – to Him be glory and power for ever and ever!  Amen."

Another big mouthful, huh!

Verse 7 reminds us of Acts 1: 9-11
 

Jesus is coming back!  I shared this with an individual recently and he said that he had gone to church all his life and did not know Christ was going to return until he read it when he was 36 years old.   We need to preach all of the Word of God, not just our pet themes or the Lectionary. 

Verse 8 

Jesus states, "I am the Alpha and the Omega…who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."  Sometimes people try to down play the importance of Jesus.  They want to make Him a mere man!  Don’t buy into that!  Isaiah 9:6 states, "For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders.  And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."  Jesus is God… as is the Father and the Holy Spirit. 

Verses 9-29

John continues with his story, explaining that he was on the island of Patmos because he was being persecuted for the Word of God.  Being in God’s perfect will for your life is a wonderful place to be.  But plan on having some problems, for the closer you get to God, the more the enemy of your soul is going to fight you.  One well-known evangelist recently said, "You don’t even want to know the troubles I am going through!  Satan fights harder and harder as we get closer and closer to God."

John says that "On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit…." Today he would probably say, "The Holy Spirit and I had connected… we were in tune with each other!"  One commentator states that it was a prophet receiving a supernatural revelation.  I understand what the commentator is saying, but you and I may not be prophets, but we can be "in the Spirit" if we will tune out the distractions and learn to listen closely to God.

When John says, "I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet," he is painting a word picture.  It was startling, loud, and clear.  Then he heard, "Write what you see."  The Bible is the Word of God.  The Holy Spirit inspired the writers, but they used their own words.  God guided the words, and they are powerful.  But it is pretty easy to see the writers' different personalities coming through.  God speaks through each of us routinely – sometimes we are not even aware of it, but He does.  And, to be honest, the devil speaks through us some of the time!

John then saw seven golden lampstands, someone "like the Son of Man," and seven stars.  The Lord had a sharp double-edged sword coming out of His mouth.  Now that is enough to muddle our minds! Let’s see if we can clarify this.
 

The seven stars are either the pastor-messengers of the churches or the guardian angels assigned to the churches.

John states, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead."  (What would you or I have done?)  Jesus then placed His right hand on John (remember, this is a vision) and said, "Do not be afraid.  I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hades."  When God tells us not to be afraid, He has the authority to back up His command.  Do not be afraid, folks!

God is vitally interested in each of us. Yes, He is interested in the church as a whole, but He loves us as individuals.  Please learn to see how vitally important that you are to God. 

Repeat this with me: 

The word enthusiasm is a very important word. You and I need to be enthusiastic about God and His love for us. Enthusiasm literally means "possessed by a god."  What are you enthused about?  What really gets you excited?  What do you watch on TV the most?  What occupies you thought life the most?

Or are you "on fire" for God?  I sure hope so!

Just asking!