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THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 6, 2024 – A few years ago, I met a guy who’d all but memorized the book of Revelation. Every time I saw him, he would immediately start quoting verses, such as those pertaining to the mark of the beast or the four horses of the apocalypse and asking me if I thought what was in the verses was happening now. We had some interesting conversations, but it wasn’t until much later that I learned the guy wasn’t a Christian. I knew he wasn’t born again, but I’d just assumed he was a Christian, since he’d mentioned attending a church in New York City and he listened to Christian pastors and Christian music while driving. As it turns out, he told me he didn’t really believe in anything, he just found the book of Revelation fascinating.
Many people, Christian and otherwise, find Revelation fascinating. Some find it so fascinating they’re using it as a script. But for us, as born-again believers, the book of Revelation should be like every other book in the Bible – we’re meant to learn from it, not speculate over it, keeping in mind that speculating over scripture is a form of adding to it or taking away from it, which is a big no-no we’ve been warned against doing at the end of Revelation. If you want to know what something in scripture means, ask God, not Google.
I find it very telling that the more marginal the believer, the greater the focus on the dark side of the book’s prophecies. Because the book of Revelation definitely has two sides – a dark side and a light side, and those who are attracted to the dark are not surprisingly also drawn to the prophecies in the book depicting the dark.
The main message in the book of Revelation is not the ravaging of Earth and its people during the tribulation period or the rise of the anti-Christ or the installation of the beast system. No; those visions are not central to the book of Revelation and so they shouldn’t absorb us like they absorb the guy I mentioned above who’s not a Christian. The main message in Revelation is written in red font at the start of the book. Those words come directly from God through Jesus, and so deserve our utmost attention and focus.
That the book of Revelation begins with God’s words is also very telling. Certainly, the rest of the book is informative though highly symbolic in sections, as prophecy is wont to be. God’s words, on the other hand, are plain-spoken and don’t require any interpretation. They just require us to read them and pay close attention to what they’re saying.
If you, a born-again believer, haven’t read – I mean, really read – God’s words at the beginning of the book of Revelation, you should do so ASAP, because God’s talking to you in those words. The rest of the book is basically a lot of images shown to John that could be falsely applied to any number of scenarios, but God’s words are definitive and clear: They’re not meant to confuse or even fascinate; they’re meant to edify, comfort, and warn.
You’ll find yourself depicted somewhere in God’s red-letter words to his Church. One part of you might be in one city and another part of you might be in another, but if you’re born-again, you’re definitely being spoken to in one or more of the seven cities, and it’s worth your time to find out exactly which one(s). I hope and pray you don’t locate yourself in Laodicea, but if you do, consider it fair warning that it’s high time to shift your gaze away from the dark side of Revelation and focus on the light.
WHEN TIME’S UP
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 11, 2024 – Jesus once wondered aloud whether he’ll find faith on Earth when he returns. He also mentioned that if God didn’t shorten the final stage of the tribulation period, no-one would survive, but for the sake of his elect he’ll shorten it.
Our numbers are dwindling. Even as the official head count of the worldly church continues to increase, the remnant Church is shrinking day by day with every passing or falling away of a believer. No-one is rising to take their place. Scripture tells of a time when there’ll be silence in Heaven, which I interpret as a time of no more conversions. There may be false conversions (we’ve had those since the beginning), but no more genuine conversions, no more rebirths. God’s voice will no longer be heard by potential converts, so hardened hearts will no longer have the opportunity to soften: “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.” The opportunity to “seek the Lord while he may be found” will also have ended and no matter how desperate the pleas, they won’t be answered, just like the pleas of those drowning in the Flood waters went unanswered and the screams of those being massacred in Jerusalem were ignored.
When time’s up, it’s up.
There’s a doctrine of men that insists God will rescue anyone who calls on him right up to and including Jesus’ return. The sole intent of this false doctrine is to lull people into believing that there’ll always be more time to make things right between you and God, so that even if you miss the last bus tonight, you can catch one tomorrow morning. But what if there won’t be a bus tomorrow morning? What if there won’t even be any more buses tonight?
When the age of mercy ends and universal judgement begins, the sealing of God’s people will be complete and no more sheep can enter the fold. They’ll be able to exit, but they won’t be able to enter. And if they do exit, they can’t come back.
The book of Revelation tells of a time when there will only be the condemned who’ve taken the mark and the remnant who’ve been sealed. There is no third category of people mentioned, such as, for example, those who’ve refused the mark but haven’t (yet) been sealed. There are only the condemned and the remnant. Find me, if you will, that third category of people in the book of Revelation, because I’ve scoured the text and found no mention of them. There’s just the condemned and the remnant Church.
The purpose of the age of judgement is to determine each soul’s eternal reward. After the sealing, the age of mercy ends and the age of judgement begins. This is not the wrath (the wrath comes after the judgement, after Jesus has taken his Church Home and leaves only the condemned behind); it’s a time of determination. During the age of judgement, all souls on Earth will be tested to see where they belong in the eternal realm.
Being sealed doesn’t exempt you from being tested. Being sealed also doesn’t exempt you from falling into perdition. Being sealed marks you as God’s child, which affords you certain spiritual protections, though not necessarily physical ones. Scripture is clear that the age of judgement will be a time of all-out war against God’s children and that most will be martyred and some will fall.
We always like to believe there’ll be more time. Even Jesus thought there’d be more time for him to do his Father’s work, but when God gave the signal, he had to go. Our time, when it comes, might also come with the sense that it came too soon, that we need more time, that we still have work to do. But God knows best and his timing is perfect, and so like Jesus we’ll have to go.
In the meantime, also like Jesus, we need to devote each and every day to serving God and serving God only – not serving the world, thinking we’ll have the time to serve God later, not dividing our time between God and the world. No, we need to spend each day now serving God and God only, because tomorrow’s not a guarantee, and you will be held accountable (that is a guarantee) for every second you spent as a believer with your back turned to God.
The book of Revelation tells of a sealing and then a time of judgement that is also a time of testing and, for some, of falling away. How do we avoid falling away? By spending each and every day serving God and God only, like Jesus did.
There’s no other way.
THE RADICAL AND THE LUKEWARM
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 9, 2023 – The devil invented the term “radical Christian” as a derogatory label to denigrate anyone who’s all-in for God, like Jesus was. That’s because the devil wants you to be anything but all-in; he wants you afraid to be labeled a radical lest you catch the attention of the wrong people. But the term “radical Christian” is actually a tautology, like saying you’re a “Christian Christian” or a “radical radical”. You don’t need “radical” to describe “Christian”, if “Christian” is applied as God intends.
There is no such thing as “Christian-lite”.
A passage in Revelation describes a church that is so unpalatably lukewarm, God has no choice but to spew it out of his mouth. His gut reaction is not to swallow but to spew, to unceremoniously get it out of him as quickly as he can. That lukewarm spew of a church has expanded to encompass most of Christianity today. If this weren’t the case, our world would be entirely different from what it is, as Christians are the main conduits (not the only ones, but the main ones) of God’s blessings. If one-quarter of the world’s population really were Christian (as statistics claim), the blessings would be overwhelming; it would be almost like living in Paradise. But we live in a world that is nothing like Paradise and is daily growing worse and worse as genuine followers of Jesus are taken Home and more and more of the lukewarm grow farther and farther away from God.
I am not afraid to be called a radical, however misapplied I consider the term. If I’m not a radical in the eyes of the lukewarm, I’m not doing my job. Jesus was considered a radical for no other reason than he lived his beliefs: He didn’t just mouth them, he lived them. And his beliefs were not radical; they were and are the only beliefs worth holding in this life – put God first; keep the Commandments; love your neighbours and your enemies; preach the Word; and continue doing all this “to the end”. These beliefs are what made him a radical not to the heathens but to his own people. Like the majority of Christians today, most of the children of Israel in Jesus’ day were also lukewarm spew.
I was born-again from atheism, so the concept of “lukewarm” is alien to me. Being a believer, I can’t imagine not believing; and believing, I can’t imagine being lukewarm. How can you be a believer and at the same time lukewarm? By very definition, a believer can’t be lukewarm because a believer lives his or her beliefs. No-one can make unbelievers of believers, as Jesus says: “no-one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand”. Believers can choose to be plucked out by choosing sin (that choice remains open even to believers), but they can’t be plucked out of God’s hand while they’re under God’s protective grace.
So the problem is not that people are choosing to be lukewarm but that they are lukewarm by default because they’re not genuine followers of Jesus. If they were, they wouldn’t be lukewarm: They’d be like Jesus – fiery and “radical”. The solution to this problem is making believers out of the lukewarm.
But how can this be done?
The same passage in Revelation that describes the lukewarm also describes what they must do to become believers before it’s too late for them: they must anoint their eyes with eyesalve so that they see, they must repent, and they must open their heart for God and Jesus to enter in. But first, they need to buy gold that has been tried in God’s fire and white clothing to cover their nakedness. In other words, they need to seek and embrace genuine righteousness and submit themselves entirely to God so that their pride will be broken. Their pride is the main obstacle preventing them from believing. If and when their pride does break, they’ll be able to see their need for God and their need to repent and will do so sincerely. Their cleansed and purified heart will then open wide for God and Jesus to enter in, and they’ll finally believe.
There is no such thing as a radical Christian – there are just believers who are all-in for God, like Jesus was during his time on Earth. These believers may appear radical in comparison to the lukewarm, but the flaw is in comparing believers to what are essentially unbelievers. Thank God there’s a remedy for the lukewarm if they choose to accept it. Pride not only comes before the fall; it blinds people and prevents them from genuinely following Jesus.
FIRST CHURCH
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 3, 2023 – We all know about the first church that was founded by Jesus nearly 2000 years ago. We know about the conversion of the disciples at Pentecost and how the church grew in leaps and bounds after that, even though it was being persecuted and its members imprisoned and in some cases martyred. We know about the first church because we read about it in scripture. What we might not take into consideration is that we are members of that first church.
The first church didn’t end at some point and then give birth to a second church and a third church, and so on. No. There is only that one church – the one founded by Jesus and written about in scripture. If you are genuinely born-again, you are a member of that church. It is the one and only and the same that is written about in scripture. That its early members are no longer walking the earth doesn’t mean that the church left with them. Born-again believers today are as much members of the first church as were Peter and John and Jesus’ mother and brother and Paul – we are no less members just because we happen to be born-again nearly 2000 years later. We are all members of that first church.
And being members of that church, we are not only expected but required to be as committed to God and to spreading the Gospel as the early members were. We are required to be as committed or we will lose our membership. The first church was written about so that we would know how we are to act as members of that church and would know what is acceptable and what is not. None of these requirements have been watered down over the centuries, any more than any of God’s Commandments have been watered down. The Big Ten still stand exactly as they were given, just as the first church still requires of us the same as it required of its early members.
What does it require? That we put God first. That we treat others as we want to be treated, whether neighbours or enemies. That we keep the Commandments. That we follow Jesus’ example in everything we do. In doing these things, we model to others the Gospel message so they can see how it plays out in real life, but we also have to actively teach and preach God’s Word. It’s not enough only to model the Gospel message, we need to preach and teach it; and it’s not enough only to preach and teach the Gospel message, we need to model it. We need to do both: We need to live the Gospel message and we need to share the Gospel message with others. This is what’s required of us as members of the first church. It was required of the early members, and it’s required of us.
Scripture gives us examples of early members who fulfilled their membership requirements, and it also gives us examples of early members who did not fulfill the requirements. Members in good standing with God (not necessarily with their synagogue or with greater society, but with God) were visibly blessed, and God was able through them to bless others. Think of Peter and Paul and their miraculous escapes and healings. Think of Philip and Barnabas, and the Johns and the Marys. But those members who reneged on the requirements were dealt with accordingly; think of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold their land and held back part of the proceeds, lying in the process. God struck them dead for their deceit. Or think of Simon the magician who claimed to be converted, only to show by his intent to buy the Holy Spirit that he was not. These examples of the actions of church members in good standing and those who are not were written down for our edification. We are meant to learn from them.
The book of Revelation provides further examples of membership requirements. The first part of the book describes the church in various locations. Note that the churches were described by their location, not as separate denominations with different beliefs. The churches in different locations were still part of the same church. There is only one church, and that is the first church, the one founded by Jesus.
We need to look very carefully at each of the messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation because those messages are as much for us as they were for the early members of the first church. Many people who pore over the book of Revelation for its prophecies overlook the messages to the churches. But these messages are the most important part of the book: They are a direct teaching from God, delivered to us by Jesus and his angel, through John. We need to take the messages as much to heart as the early members did, as those messages are still as valid today as they were nearly 2000 years ago.
Note that every message begins with: “I know thy works.” Everything we do, say, and think is known to God. These are our works. God knows our works better than we do. Even the things that we’ve done, said, thought, and then mostly forgotten, God remembers in intimate detail. He knows it all, and if necessary, will refresh our memory at the Judgement. There is nothing you can hide from God and nowhere to hide from him. This is a great blessing, as it goads us always to do, say, and think only those things that are right in God’s eyes.
In saying “I know thy works” to the early members of the first church, God’s also saying it to us.
The first church is the one and only church, and we are members of that church. It has been ongoing for nearly 2000 years. How the early members were expected to live their lives, we are also expected to live ours. Nothing has changed in that regard. The Gospel message hasn’t changed, the messages to the churches in Revelation haven’t changed, the Ten Commandments haven’t changed. Our standard is the standard set by Jesus and written about in the New Testament.
This is the first church, there is no other, and we are members in it, together with Peter, Paul, John, Mary, Philip, and all the members throughout the ages whose names are written in the Book of Life.
If we truly understand and believe this, we will live our lives as if we do.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 