Revelation - The Introduction
There's A Man Going 'Round Taking Names • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I have titled our Revelation Series “There’s A man Going Round Taking Names”
It’s a line from a song by Johnny Cash title “The Man Comes ‘Round”
It is one of the last songs Cash wrote before his death.
Both sung and spoken, the song makes numerous Biblical references, especially to the Book of Revelation
It immediately came to my mind when I began researching for this series.
Here are some words from the song:
There's a man goin' 'round takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down
When the man comes around
Till armageddon no shalam, no shalom
Then the father hen will call his chickens home
The wise men will bow down before the throne
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around
Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin', voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn trees
It's hard for thee to kick against the prick
In measured hundredweight and penny pound
When the man comes around
Some of this will become familiar to us as we travel through Revelation.
We will also see that names are in fact being taken and written down, we will get to that much later.
For this seriesI have restarted Pastor’s Corner for weeks videos to help supplement our time in this book. There is a link on our website un P.C. to our You Tube Chanel.
I have also started handouts in the bulletin to help with note taking as well.
Let’s read together from Revelation chapter 1; chair Bible pg. 826
For this series all passages will come from NASB 1977 edition.
It is the translation of my favorite bible , it even has some old English in it. So that is the reason for the change You can still follow along in the chair Bible and the NASB 2020. Just wanted you to know why the text might read different in places.
Let us read together verses 1-3
Revelation 1:1–3 (NASB)
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,
2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Are you ready for the message God has for us today?
Cool, let’s dig in!
My last assignment in the preachers training program came in the spring of 1997. The Assignment: An Outline and Study of the Book of Revelation.
It took me 17 1/2 years to finish that final assignment.
I don’t know how I did, I haven’t heard back from my mentor in 9 years, maybe partially because I am no longer part of that denomination, who knows.
Why did it take so long? You might ask.
Of all the main reasons it was the feeling of inadequacy in dealing with this book and my relationship to the Bible as a whole.
That was then this is now.
In this series I am using the following - Eugene Peterson, Scot McKnight, Gordon Fee, N.T. Wright, Bruce Metzger, and Michael Gorman.
My main source however, is scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
How to approach Revelation
How to approach Revelation
As I thought about how to approach the Book of Revelation, I remembered something Jesus said to His disciples:
44 “For this reason you be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
This statement from Jesus comes on the heals of talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and His second coming.
The lesson Jesus states He is coming when we don’t think He will, when we least expect it!
So be ready!
I see the opposite in many who come to Revelation and any book of prophecy.
For centuries they have thought it applied to their generation.
Yet Jesus tells us we won’t expect His return. Even Jesus doesn’t know that is reserved for the Father alone.
Paul also wrote to the church at Thessalonica - 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2
1 Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you.
2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.
Paul is writing this because people were troubling the church in Thessalonica, stating that they missed Jesus second coming.
Paul reassures them they in fact did not.
Here Paul teaches what is familiar in Scripture Acts 1:7
7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
It is not for us to know the time of Jesus return.
Revelation will show us just how fixed God in His authority has made things.
Just know that He is coming back as thief comes to a house in the night, an hour not expected.
Thus, we are bound by Scripture as we come to Revelation.
The take away from these passages as we consider how to understand Revelation is this: Revelation is intended to prepare not predict.
Jesus wants us, as He did the disciples before us, to be prepared.
To live everyday as though He is coming tomorrow.
This is the way First Century Christians lived.
Revelation and Human Imagination
Revelation and Human Imagination
In reading Revelation something struck me
I have a vivid imagination, which came to life in my reading
Revelation is full of imagery, some hard to imagine even for someone with a vivid imagination.
Bruce Metzger: “The book of Revelation is unique in appealing primarily to our imagination” (pg. 16).
There can be no doubt that Revelation has inspired human imagination for centuries.
One author noted: “Revelation is a book that in all centuries inspired and nourished the imagination of visionaries, artists, and hymn writers, reassured prophetic critiques pf oppression and corruption in the state of the church, sustained hope, and resistance in the most hopeless situations. (Richard Baukham)
There seems to be pushback when Revelation is connected with the imagination.
The pushback comes so often from people whose understanding of Revelation comes from works of fiction.
Books like the Left Behind series, or the multitude of movies and other novels about end times, Armageddon and apocalypse.
A word you might hear is eschatology and that is a fancy word for the study of end times and Christ second coming.
Another word is dispensationalism: A doctrine prevalent in some forms of Protestant Christianity that divides history into distinct periods, each marked by a different dispensation or relationship between God and humanity. Dispensationalism further holds that Christian believers will be transported to heaven without warning and that soon thereafter there will be a period of tribulation, followed by the Second Coming.
Scot McKnight: “Could it be that dispensational inspired fictions gains some of their potency the same way the Book of Revelation does, as eschatology wrapped in imagination? (pg. 28)
So use your imagination as read the text of Revelation, but be careful when considering it with books of fiction.
Our greatest concern is not what a fiction book says is going to happen, but what Jesus says is going to happen.
Preparation and Prophecy
Preparation and Prophecy
Please do not misunderstand me here, I don’t deny that Revelation is impart a prophetic Book.
That said, I think we spend a great deal of time looking to Revelation for predictions of the future, missing the point about prophecy.
It is not exclusively or even primarily about making predictions concerning the future.
Rather prophecy is speaking words of comfort and/or challenges on behalf of God to the people of God in their concrete historical situation.
That is true for every prophetic book of the Bible.
Prophecy written to people of God in a specific historical context.
Ezekiel people of God in exile in Babylonian camps; Nahum the people of Nineveh during the Assyrian Empire and Asherburnipal’s reign; Revelation the seven churches of Asia during the reign of Domition late 90s early 100s AD.
Eugene Peterson: “I do not read Revelation to get additional information about the life of faith in Christ. Everything in Revelation can be found in the previous sixty-five books of the bible. The Revelation adds nothing of substance to what we already know. The truth of the gospel is already complete, revealed in Christ Jesus. There is nothing new to say on the subject. But there is a new way to say it.”
You see we are not the direct audience of the Book. Watch my Vlog in Pastor’s corner tomorrow for more on that.
We should read Revelation not to get more information but to revive our imagination!
There are certainly prophetic elements, but prophecy is not Revelation’s primary purpose.
Conclusion
I hope this has you excited as we begin this series together.
A question that one must ask now is, if Jesus were to come tomorrow would you be ready?
I open the altars now to those who want to respond to the invitation to come to Christ.
Have you given your life to him?
Lay aside what hinders and come to him the alters are open for you now.
Come to the altar!