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Voice Of Prophecy

Reading Revelation

Shawn Boonstra

Reading Revelation- 1

There's a mystique about the book of Revelation that almost makes it seem like it's off limits, like it's describing something just beyond the grasp of human comprehension.

So for generations people have shied away from the book, as if nobody can really understand it until the last few moments of this earth's troubled history.

But that's a concept I want to challenge on today's episode of the Voice of Prophecy.

So stick around because today we're going to start reading through the Book of Revelation.

Back in the early 1970s, my parents bought me a children's Bible.

It was really a paraphrase, which is a man-made rewording of the Bible in simple language.

But for a kid, it was great reading, and the language was close enough to the original that I actually got a sense for what the Bible was saying.

And I remember reading my way through that Bible because the stories really stirred my imagination.

And then I found the book of Revelation, which really stirred my imagination with vials full of God's anger, and a beast that climbs up out of the sea, and this Antichrist prostitute who manages to bring the whole world under her seductive spell.

I mean, what kid wouldn't find that interesting?

It's the kind of thing that makes Harry Potter or the Hunger Games seem kind of weak by comparison and as a kid I read Revelation and I reread Revelation and at 1 point I remember I ran out into the backyard and looked up into the sky to see is Jesus coming yet because I'd seen this bit in Revelation where Jesus says, behold I come quickly and as far as I was concerned as a kid that meant right now.

I was fully expecting something to happen right away but exactly what that something was I had no idea because I really didn't understand the whole book.

Like millions of other people, I sensed that the content in Revelation is important, that it's supposed to be telling me something, but I had no idea how to figure it out.

And then to make matters worse, there were all these people who used the book of Revelation to back up their own personal ideas.

And when I compared what all these different people were saying, I discovered none of them actually agree with each other.

And it left me wondering, Is the book of Revelation like an old piano or a violin?

Can you just take this thing and play any tune you want?

Can you interpret this any which way you please?

Instinctively I knew that couldn't possibly be true.

The rest of the Bible was so profound, so meaningful, that I refused to believe that the book of Revelation was just some kind of meaningless appendix, some kind of joke that God tacked on to the end to confuse people.

If Revelation made it into the canon of Scripture, it has to mean something.

The first people who read it, those 7 churches mentioned in the opening chapters, they must have understood what it said, or I doubt they would have bothered passing it on to the next church, and I doubt that we would have a copy today.

The Other books that John wrote are so profound, so meaningful, that I also doubt John would have attached his name to this book full of wild imagery unless it means something.

I remember that really came to a head for me during the first Gulf War back in the early 1990s, when the news channels were suddenly full of these video clips, tracer bullets, lighting up a dark green sky over the Middle East, And preachers were practically going into orbit, declaring that the Battle of Armageddon was about to begin.

People were talking about the threat to Israel, how Saddam Hussein was going to drop Scud missiles on Jerusalem, and how the Russians would get involved, and World War III was going to break out, and...

Well, if you're at all religiously inclined, you probably remember all the hype." And all the people who gave us the hype?

And all those people who were so busy quoting Revelation, they just disappeared into the woodwork.

And they wait for the next major crisis to break out so they can get started again.

It was at that moment, during the first Gulf War, that I became determined I was going to figure it out.

Surely, the book of Revelation isn't just meant to fuel crazy conspiracy theories.

And surely, Christians aren't meant to jump from 1 wild conclusion to the next.

Somehow I knew that book means something.

And That's when I discovered that for more than 1800 years, Christians have been in virtual agreement about how to read the book of Revelation.

It's only in the last few generations that we've made the book confusing.

If you go back in time and read what Luther said, or what the early church fathers said, or guys like Isaac Newton, the great scientist.

If you read what these people said, you discover that while many Christians differed on the fine details, there was almost universal agreement on the general concept.

They all approached the book of Revelation the same way.

And if you ever want to see how much agreement there really was, I highly recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Francis Nichols' monumental volumes, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers.

It's this detailed history, 4 volumes, of what people said about Daniel and Revelation from the earliest days of the Church right up to the 20th century.

Now I've got to warn you, those 4 volumes aren't exactly light reading, it's actually thousands and thousands of pages.

Those pages are worth every minute you might spend reading them.

Most of us as Christians used to agree on the interpretation of Bible prophecy And then sometime in the early 1800s, it all changes.

It's really only been for the last 200 years or so that we've had such a vast diversity of opinion.

And it's really only been the last 100 years or so that we've been jumping from 1 wild conclusion to the next, changing our minds about Bible prophecy every time the headlines change.

Let me assure you, it wasn't always like this.

And I'm convinced there's actually a reason there's so much confusion.

I know it's gonna sound like a conspiracy theory, but I'm convinced that someone doesn't want you to know what the book of revelation says.

There are people and movements out there who stand to lose a lot if you suddenly read the book of revelation and you actually understand it.

From time to time here on the Voice of Prophecy, and maybe not every week, but with some regularity, we're going to start working our way through the last book of the Bible.

Because I want to show you that understanding Revelation isn't nearly as hard as you think.

There are basic tools and concepts that if you had them, the book of Revelation would almost read as easily as any other book of the Bible.

And we're going to start doing that today by dispelling some important myths about this book.

So if you've got a Bible laying around the house somewhere, you might want to run and grab it and follow along, because in just a few minutes, we're going to start in at Revelation chapter 1 and look at some really important ideas, some foundational concepts, and I'm going to get you started down the road to really understanding Revelation.

So go get your Bible and I'll be back in just a moment.

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You are listening to the Voice of Prophecy, and today we're going to start working our way through the book of Revelation.

And I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking at what this preacher says, or what that preacher says, or what this book says, or what that book says.

I'm just going to deal with the text of Revelation itself and we're going to start giving you some simple keys that will open up the book in a way you never dreamt possible.

So Let's begin at the beginning with Revelation chapter 1, right up at the very top.

And I want to see how far I get before I actually run out of time today.

So Revelation 1 verse 1, listen to what it says.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants, things which must shortly take place." Let me stop right there for a moment and identify a couple of really important concepts, stuff you're going to need to understand before you can really understand the rest of the book.

In a lot of copies of the Bible, especially the older ones, there is a title at the top of this book that says, The Revelation of John, or The Revelation of St.

And really that's a pretty good title because the book was authored by the Apostle John while he's a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos.

But I don't want you to forget, that title above the book is a man-made title.

It was created by the translators who needed a title for the book, but that title is not actually a part of the letter that John wrote.

In fact, I kind of think John might be appalled if he knew what we labeled the book, because he states, point blank in his first few words, that this is not the revelation of John, it's the revelation of Jesus.

This is not about him, it's about Christ.

And unless you really take that concept to heart, you're not going to get to the heart of what Revelation is saying.

This is not a book about war or pestilence or hard times, even though John absolutely mentions those kinds of things.

This is first and foremost a book about Jesus.

Now you can actually understand that title in 2 different ways.

You can understand it to mean that it's a revelation from Jesus to John, which is something that's actually stated in the next few words.

Or You can understand it to mean that it's a revelation of Jesus, a description of who He is.

And in both cases, you'd be absolutely right.

Reading Revelation- 2

I'm your host Sean Boonstra, and today we're going to pick up reading the book of Revelation partway into chapter 1, the very spot I left off last time I was looking at this mysterious book.

Now if you missed part 1, you might want to look for it over on iTunes or on the Voice of Prophecy website so that you can catch up.

You can get some of the background that we established before we started reading.

But honestly, you haven't missed a lot at this point because we only made it through chapter 1 and verse 3, that all-important verse that makes it abundantly clear that God really does intend for you to understand this book.

It says in verse 3, "...blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it.

For the time is near." Now that whole verse deals a bit of a death blow to people who argue, and trust me there are lots of them, people who argue that the book of Revelation is somehow incomprehensible, that God never meant for you to understand this stuff.

How in the world, let me ask this, how in the world can God bless you for reading this book and listening to what it says and doing what it says if you just can understand it.

And as you and I work our way through the key parts of this book, I think you're going to see that it's simply not true.

It takes a little bit of effort, there's no question, to read Revelation it does take some homework, but believe me, you really can understand this.

I've been teaching it for more than 2 decades, and I've seen thousands and thousands of people say, hey this book's not that hard.

So I want to pick up today in Revelation chapter 1 and verse 4.

Actually, let's back up to Revelation 1 for a moment because there's a key thought there in the opening statement of the book that I don't want you to miss.

It says, "...the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place.

Now I want you to think about that statement very carefully for a moment.

I want you to look at it because today when most people talk about the book of Revelation, they speak as if the whole thing is going to happen at some point in the distant future.

Maybe in just the last few moments, the last few years of earth's history.

People talk about Revelation as if it's only about the last few closing moments, but look at what it actually says.

Look at the language that John actually uses.

He wrote this almost 2, 000 years ago, and the angel says that the things he's about to see in vision are going to take place shortly, as in the near future in John's day.

There is nothing in the language of the book itself that indicates that this book, the book of Revelation, is only about the last few years of earth's history.

What John is about to see, what John is about to describe, what you and I are going to read together in the weeks to come as we work our way through this book, the angel said, this is going to start happening right away.

The book of Revelation actually shows us the history of the New Testament period, the history of the New Testament Church all in advance.

And it stretches all the way from John's day down to the second coming of Christ.

And it goes over that ground again and again several times.

It covers that ground, the whole history of the world in the New Testament period, it covers it through the 7 churches, which represents 7 distinct periods in church history.

And then it goes over that same history several times more from differing perspectives and with new details each time, so that you and I learn well and we don't miss the key points.

So in other words, I guess I'm saying the book of Revelation is written historically.

It shows us a long chain of events that stretch all the way from the first century to the moment when Jesus comes back.

Now if that's a new way of thinking, if that's a new concept to you, if you've never heard that before, that the book of Revelation is historical and that it covers in a continuous way the whole sweep of New Testament history, well I should probably tell you that that's exactly how most Christians read this book for the first 1, 800 years of the Christian Church.

And then there was a major shift in thinking early in the 19th century.

I mean this whole idea that John was only writing about the very distant future, That's a new idea.

We came up with that in the last couple of hundred years.

That's an idea that the early church fathers and the Christians of the first few centuries would have found very strange.

Now that should raise a red flag in the minds of careful thinkers.

Why exactly did we change our approach just a few generations ago?

Why have we now chosen to ignore the angels' very pointed declaration that the predictions of the book of revelation were going to happen shortly back in John's day.

Maybe more importantly, is there a justification for the change?

Now I'm not sure that I'd be able to answer that question today, but as we read through the book together, I'm sure you're going to find the answer for yourself.

Because when you read the book of Revelation historically, when you read it the way it was intended, some really amazing stuff suddenly rises to the surface and it paints a picture that blew me away the first time I saw it.

And again, the picture that develops is, we're going to study together.

That picture would be nothing new for our ancestors in the Christian faith.

What you and I are going to see as we study together wouldn't have surprised our ancestors in the slightest because they all read the book of Revelation this way.

But what I'm gonna do is we're gonna go through the book together and I'm gonna let you see it for yourself so that you can learn to ask all the right questions.

And that will happen over the weeks as we study together.

For now though, let's get back to Revelation chapter 1 because we have only scraped the surface and it's really important that we have the right foundation so that the rest of this book makes good sense.

In chapter 1 verse 1, right at the top of the book, the angel says to John, look, the stuff you're going to witness will happen shortly.

And then he goes on to paint 1 of the most amazing pictures in the whole Bible.

Now, we've already covered verses 2 and 3 in a previous program, so I want to jump down to verse 4 where John starts in on his message to the churches.

And I've got to warn you, we are probably going to move rather slowly.

We might actually stretch this out over a number of weeks because there's so much important detail in this first chapter.

John, to the 7 churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the 7 spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over all the kings of the earth.

So pay attention carefully to the details here.

This is a letter from John, but it's also a letter from Jesus, the central character of the book, the 1 who inspired it.

It's addressed to 7 churches that were located in Asia or more precisely Asia Minor.

The 7 churches were all along the same road in what is modern-day Turkey and it was kind of a horseshoe-shaped road or an upside-down U.

And the idea was that the church in Ephesus would get a copy of this letter and the pastor would read it to everybody, and then they'd send it down the road to the next church in the town of Smyrna.

Then Smyrna would read it and pass it along and so on until it made its route all the way along that road.

Now what's interesting about this is that we know for a fact that there were more churches in Asia Minor than just these 7 and some pretty notable churches at that so there must be a reason that these churches are named and other churches are not.

I'm going to take a quick break and then I'm going to come right back and pick up on that thought.

Why are these churches mentioned and not others?

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My name is Sean Boonstra, and you're listening to the Voice of Prophecy radio broadcast.

And just before we took a break, we were talking about the 7 churches of the book of Revelation.

And I mentioned that there were actually more than 7 churches in Asia Minor.

For example, there was another church in the city of Colossae, the church that Paul wrote the book of Colossians to.

So that's a pretty well-known church, certainly not 1 that's overlooked by God, and yet it doesn't appear in Revelation's list.

And that tells me that there's more than meets the eye in this list.

If this book was just a message for the first century Christians living in Asia Minor, then it probably should have included everybody, but it doesn't.

It zeroes in on 7 churches, a distinctly symbolic number, the number of perfection or completion.

And these are 7 churches with very distinct characteristics.

These are churches that actually resemble the history of Christianity over 7 distinct historical periods, stretching from John's day to the second coming of Christ.

And in the weeks to come I'll show you just how amazing the similarities between these churches and those historical periods really are.

It is so uncanny that most Bible students all over the world are in agreement as to what these 7 churches represent.

Now that doesn't mean that this book wasn't addressed to the actual churches in the first century.

We know historically that these messages addressed to each church actually match stuff that was going on in those churches in the first century.

It's just that these messages also match what happens to Christians over the next 2, 000 years.

So if that's true, and I think you're going to find that it is, if that's true, It means that the book of Revelation is actually addressed to all of us.

It's addressed to all believers of all time.

This is a direct message from Jesus to the Christians of the first century, but it's also a direct message to you.

And that's really what makes the book of Revelation so exciting.

No Greater Love (Reading Revelation- 3)

Today on the Voice of Prophecy, a greater love than anything you'll ever see on the Hallmark Channel.

Welcome to the Voice of Prophecy, coming to you from the beautiful city of Loveland, Colorado, nestled up against the Rocky Mountains.

I'm your host, Sean Boonstra, and today I'm going to be continuing with a project that's just a few weeks old.

I'm actually reading my way through the book of Revelation and I'm taking enough time to really digest what the author is saying.

So I'm kind of going at a snail's pace, we're moving very slowly, because there's so much depth to the book of Revelation that you really need to slow down and pay attention to details, because this is 1 of those books of the Bible where the details are absolutely critical.

Now I don't think we're gonna study Revelation every single week because there's so much more to the Bible and there's so much more happening in the world that I really want to pay attention to, but from time to time I'll keep coming back to the book of Revelation And what I'm hoping is that over time, we'll cover all, or at least most, of what the book of Revelation says.

We are, after all, the voice of prophecy.

And by the time I'm finished, I want you to be able to download all the podcasts and kind of have this blow-by-blow, detailed study of the whole book.

Now that's my goal and it's kind of a lofty goal and I'm not sure how long it's gonna take but this is what I'm going to work on today.

So you might want to go and grab a Bible and follow along.

I want you to look at the texts as we read them because studying the book of Revelation is kind of like having God pull back the curtains of the universe and show you these things that, well, they defy the imagination.

This is a book that you can actually understand.

Once you put aside all the sensationalistic books and movies, and you go back and look at the original first century context, and once you take Revelation and place it in the broader biblical context, this book is actually fairly easy to grasp.

Of course there's so much depth to it that you might be studying this the rest of your life, but the essential concepts, the basic stuff, it's actually pretty easy to understand.

Now do I understand everything in the book of Revelation?

But I do understand the big broad themes, and I want to give you a chance to understand them as well.

It's just that over the last 200 years or so, the Christian world has kind of abandoned its historic understanding of how we ought to study this.

For 1800 years, there was widespread agreement, almost universal agreement, on the basic approach to Revelation.

But since the early 1800s, we've really seen this tectonic shift that, frankly, has produced an awful lot of confusion.

So what we're going to do with this study is go back to the basics.

We're going to go back to the way people used to read this book.

And I think you're going to see that this approach still makes sense, even in the 21st century.

In fact, it might actually make more sense because some of the stuff described in this book, especially the middle part, chapters 12, 13, and 14, that stuff's actually playing out right now.

Now, if you're just coming in on this study for the first time today, you might want to go to our website, VOP.com, or go to iTunes and look for the Voice of Prophecy and grab the first few studies so you can catch up and then you won't have missed a thing.

Now, today we are part way through chapter 1.

In fact, we are half way through a verse.

In our last study, we looked at these 3 titles John gives Jesus in the first part of verse 5.

He calls him the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and ruler over the kings of the earth.

Series

Reading Revelation

Reading Revelation- 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Reading Revelation

Seven Letters for Seven Brides (Reading Revelation- 6)

30m

Reading Revelation

Smyrna (Reading Revelation- 9)

30m

Reading Revelation

Alpha and Omega (Reading Revelation- 5)

30m

Delayed Departure

30m

Reading Revelation

Reading Revelation- 2

30m

Studies in the Book of Revelation

Revelation 17

54m

Death by Religion

30m

Studies in the Book of Revelation

Revelation 12-22 Chapter Review

1h 7m

Studies in the Book of Revelation

Revelation 6

1h

Studies in the Book of Revelation

Revelation 14, Part 2

1h

Reading Revelation

How to Ride a Cloud (Reading Revelation- 4)

30m

The Truth About the Historical Jesus

30m

Sound Doctrine