If you'd open your Bibles to Revelation 1, please. We're continuing with the series that began, I believe, almost two months ago. Revelation 1. And we're going to begin right in verse 1. Revelation 1.1. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his bondservants, the things which must soon take place, and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and he the things which are written in it, for the time is near. Blessed is he who reads, and those who hear the words of this prophecy, Unfortunately, many times when we begin to read or study Revelation, the last thing we feel is blessed. We feel confused. Revelation 1 verses 1 through 3 is the beginning for most of us what is the most confusing, controversial book of the Bible. We get lost in the details as we begin to read all these calamities that come upon the earth. As we begin to read about these battles that take place, we get lost. It's so confusing. And yet, it says here that we are to be blessed. Today, I would like to look at Revelation from a slightly different perspective, perhaps, than we've been studying it in the past. I would like for us to get the The big picture. Where does Revelation fit into the big picture? And also I would like us to briefly take a look at division. The division that different interpretations cause as we study Revelation. Studying confusing and complicated items or subjects is something that isn't new, all that new to me. When I was 18 years old, fresh out of high school, I joined the service. And the recruiter, I didn't know this at the time, but recruiters, Navy recruiters, they get two points, or it's like recruiting two people for every one, if they recruit someone for the nuclear power field. So I went to the different recruiters, talked to this one Navy recruiter, and he convinced me that the naval nuclear power field was the best way to go. And I took the bait. And I'm glad I did it. The Lord blessed me in that area. I was nine years in the service, operating nuclear power plants on board submarines. But it took a lot of training to get to the point where I could operate or understand a nuclear power plant. I probably don't need to tell you that nuclear theory and operations can be somewhat confusing and complicated. What I didn't know when I joined the program was that there was minimum math requirements, and I did not meet those math requirements. And my recruiter fudged my records a little bit, unbeknownst to me, and off I went to boot camp and the schools that followed that. When I began attending the nuclear power school, it was basically theory, I was lost. I was so far over my head, it was unbelievable. I was spending hours and hours every day studying, trying to figure out what in the world my teachers were talking about. When I left that school, by the way, because the material was confidential, you always had to study inside the classroom areas and you had to log in and out. The school's been in existence for like 30-some years. And when I left, I had logged in more hours than any other student previously in the history of the Naval Nuclear Power Program. And I was lost. I made it through that school. There was like 600 of us that started the program. About 350 graduated. The rest didn't make it. I was about number 340. But I made it. The only reason I made it so was because one day, toward the end, unfortunately, I had a chief pediatrician come up to me and tell me, Plent, actually he said pediatrician Delaplane, but the idea is the same. Plent, you're getting lost in all the details. This is confusing, but you've always got to keep the big picture before you. Never forget KISS. And I'm looking at this guy, what? Don't get too close to me. And he told me, Kiss, keep it simple, stupid. And I had a very confused look on my face. And he said, what that means is whenever you're studying something complex, you need to remember to keep it in the big picture. Keep it simple to a level that even a stupid person could understand it. Keep it simple, stupid. And I started applying that to my studies, and it worked. As I was studying, I'd get lost in the details, and I'd back up a little bit, see where this fit into the big picture of things, and it would help me to have direction to what I was studying. It helped me so much that the second school that I went to, Naval Nuclear Power Training Unit, which was theory and hands-on operations, I graduated number 10 in my class. I mean, the difference between being able to put things in perspective and not made all the world of difference to me. Many times when we study Revelation, what happens is we lose the big picture. We get so caught up in the little details. And that's not to say details aren't important. They are. But we get lost in the details and we forget where things fit into the big picture. We've been studying Revelation in a lot of detail in the past weeks. I would like us to apply the KISS principle to the book of Revelation this morning. I'd like us to step back a little bit and see the big picture of where Revelation fits in. As a matter of fact, I'd like us to back up a little bit farther, even from Revelation, and apply the Kiss Principle to our life in general. To life in general. As we think about life in general, what is the most important thing there is? God. Contrary to humanism, which teaches that man is the center of all things, God. God is the center of all things. That's been part of our problem from the time of the garden when man fell into sin. We've been man-centered. We have that tendency. We still struggle with that. Sometimes I think that Satan gets too much press. I think we are our own worst enemies. Yes, Satan tempts. He causes problems. challenges, but I know I caused my own greatest challenges. We went from being God-centered to man-centered. And God, in His grace, has given us the opportunity, has given us the way to be God-centered. He's forgiven us from our sins. As a matter of fact, why are we here today? A Sabbath day rest. A Sabbath day to come together. When you look at the Sabbath and the Ten Commandments, you see it in two places, in Numbers and Deuteronomy. What is the purpose of the Sabbath? To remember God as, in Numbers it says, to remember God as our Creator. In seven days, He created the heavens and the earth. It's kind of put us in our place to remind us who we are, where we came from. We came from God, our Creator. And also, in Deuteronomy, we find that we have a Sabbath day rest because He took us from Egypt. He freed us from our sins, from our personal Egypt. He's our Redeemer. We have this day to remember God as our Creator and our Redeemer. We are to be God-centered people. Going back to the basics in our lives, what is eternal life? What is eternal life? Anybody know scripturally what is eternal life? Little test here. Something, there's a step beyond even that. Eternal life. Okay. John, let's take a look at John. John 17. This is one of those scriptures that everybody should memorize. I believe anyway. John 17. Verse 3. We are going to get in Revelation here. We're just backing up a second to get a big picture about some of the most important things in our lives. John 17, 3. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. What is eternal life? It's knowing God. Eternal life is knowing God. Get in that big picture. God is the center of all things. We have a purpose to our life. We have eternal life, this opportunity to know God, to be God-centered as God intended us to be. As we grow and mature in our Christian walk, what happens? Our desire to know God grows and grows and grows. It becomes stronger and stronger. Our desire grows to the point where we desire to walk with God, to dwell with God, as Adam did in the Garden of Eden before the fall. Wouldn't that be just incredible? To be able to walk in the Garden as Adam did, with God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth? Amen. So then we come to the book of Revelation. And Revelation, remembering this big picture, is a book about God. It's a book about God and it helps us to understand more about our God, to develop a deeper relationship with our God. In fact, Revelation is a bookend, one of the bookends of the Bible. We started off in Genesis, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And we finish up in the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 1 again, verses 5 through 8, introduces Jesus. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood, he has made us to be a kingdom of priests. to his God and Father, to him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him. Even those who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. So it is to be. Amen. We'll learn a lot of things through the book of Revelation, but where should our focus be when we're studying Revelation or any book of the Bible? Upon God. upon our Creator. Revelation is a book about the supremacy of God, of Jesus Christ, over His creation. It's a book about the supremacy of God, of Jesus Christ, over His creation. Knowing that, how can we grow in our relation, our walk with God, through the book of Revelation? I'd like to give you a few examples And I'm not really going to be doing justice to this because really you could spend hours and hours and hours learning more about our Lord and Savior in this book. But I'd like to give you a few examples. The first one is we find Jesus glorified and leading over his church. You see, we see these first few letters in Revelation chapters 1 through 3. There's letters that were written to various churches. And we go into the little details and we're trying to figure out what do they mean. We tend to be a little man-centered, self-centered. What does this mean for me? Well, how about first looking at what does this show us about God? We look in Revelation 1, beginning in verse 12, Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe, reaching to the feet, and girdled across his chest with a golden sash, and his head and his hair were white like white wool, like snow, and his eyes were like flames of fire, and his feet like burnished bronze. And it goes on describing this magnificent image of Christ in the middle of these lampstands, in the midst of these lampstands, and then in verse 20 it says, and those seven lampstands are the seven churches. And then Jesus gives directions for these words to be spoken to these churches. What do we learn here? What do we see about Christ in here? One, we see His headship over the church. He is in control. He is the authority in our churches. He is the head of this church, tree of life church right here in Canoga Park. That is comforting. That is comforting to know. It shows these verses and chapters two and three show us Christ using his authority over the churches. He's caring for His churches enough that, in many cases, He disciplines them. The father who doesn't discipline his child hates him, hates his child. But Jesus loves His children, and He's willing to say, you've done this, and you've done this well, but I have this against you. And He encourages His children to live lives that they need to live. He's motivating them. He's encouraging them. What do we learn about Jesus through these chapters? He cares about His church, which means He cares about you. He cares about all of us as a body. And He's willing to do something about it. He is doing something about it. He is exercising His authority over the church. What else can we learn about our Lord in the book of Revelation. Revelation 4. Jerry spoke these words this morning. Beginning in verse 8, the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings and full of eyes around and within, and day and night they do not cease to say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. It's very fitting that we began our services this morning with these very words. I think that's where you got that, right, Sharon? Yeah. With these very words. Our Lord is holy. Three times holy. Back in December, I discussed how That's like with exclamation points. That's the most holy. You can't get any holier than this. This is our Lord and our God. He is the Almighty who was and is and who is to come. We can jump right down to verse 11. The elders saying, worthy are you, O Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things. And because of your will, they existed and were created. He created us by His will. He desires you, my brother and my sister. Isn't that a great thing to know about God? Doesn't that help us in our walk with Him, to know Him? That He created you out of His will. Revelation 5. Beginning in Revelation 5, some pretty interesting things begin to happen. I'd like to read a couple of verses here, starting in verse 1. I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. And then John starts to cry because no one is worthy to open the seals. And these seals are given to the one who controls the destinies of the nations, or has authority over the nations of the earth. In verse 5, one of the elders said to me, stop weeping. Behold, the lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals. There was one who was found who was worthy. Who is this? Jesus. The lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David. We find here Jesus worthy and presiding over the destinies of nations and people. We can skip down to verse eight when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song saying, Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you are slain. and purchased for God, and with your blood, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth." Wow. Who makes all this possible? Now, were the people that are being talked about here, were the ones that he was slain for? That'll be raining. But who's the one that was worthy? Who's the one that was capable of doing this? Who's the one that has the authority to open those seals? Jesus. We grow in our knowledge of who He is. Verses 12-14, it's saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. Every created thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them. I heard saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. To Jesus belongs the dominion. He is the authority over all things. He will be presiding over. He is presiding over the destinies of all nations and all peoples. We see this in the seals, in the trumpets, in the bowls. And yes, we can get confused and have different interpretations about what those mean as we look at the different details in each one. But who is it that has the authority over those things? Jesus Christ. Revelation 14. We find God reminding His creation of their priorities and coming judgment. Revelation 14, verses 6 and 7, And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people. And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of water." We are reminded once again a reoccurring theme. Our people seem to forget who is the creator of heaven and earth? God is. If He's the creator, who has the right to decide how things are going to run here? He does. And what else do we learn here? We have a compassionate God, one who goes out reminding the people, the inhabitants of this earth, of the day of judgment. He reminds them, fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. A compassionate God, willing to remind His creatures of coming judgment. Revelation 20. What else do we learn and know about our God? Revelation 20. This one's somewhat humorous for me because we find here Satan being bound. And yes, there's different interpretations of what that means and how that's applied. What do we learn about God from this section of Scripture? Satan being bound. God's in charge. As a matter of fact, so much so that what I love is that you don't see, and Jesus wrestled with Satan and then finally bound him and threw him in the pit. No! He sends an angel to do it. He sends an angel to bind Satan and throw him into the pit. I mean, Satan is nothing in comparison to our Lord. Doesn't that give you a little bit of peace? Satan can be overrated sometimes. Yes, Jesus takes care of Satan. But Satan's power is so insignificant in comparison to the power of Christ that he sends an angel to take care of his little tasks. God himself came here take care of you and me. Isn't that pretty incredible? That He actually came down and set foot on this earth for you and I. Wow! What an incredible privilege. An awesome honor. In Revelation 20, verses 11 through 15, Then I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat upon it, and from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, And no place was found for them. And I saw the dead and the great and the small standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds." The judgment. We're warned here, once again, of this coming judgment. And who is the judge? None other than Jesus Christ, our worthy judge. God reveals the judge of all creation to mankind in these scriptures. And he tells us, before it happens, he tells us what's going to happen. But remember I said that Revelation is a bookend to Genesis. In the book of Genesis, we saw God created the heavens and the earth. And then, who was it that walked with Adam? God Himself walked with Adam in the garden. Revelation 21, verse 3, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them. There's the bookend. There's the big picture. You see, God started off, He made man in His image so that he might dwell with Him. And man broke that relationship. And all through the Bible, we have this story of redemption. At the very end, it's God dwelling once again with His chosen people. What a great story. And what an incredible privilege we have to be active characters in this drama. But let's face facts. There are details that are confusing in Revelation. We can pull back and look at the big picture. But we can't deny the fact that there are some things that are just difficult to understand. So do we allow the book of Revelation to become a book of division? As we study different millennial viewpoints, dispensational premillennialism, historic premillennialism, as we look at amillennialism, postmillennialism, preteritism, do we allow these to become dividing lines? Traditionally, historically, there have been wide parameters given to the study of the book of Revelation. Historically, the church has said, as long as people fall within these guidelines, their different millennial viewpoints are okay. Those guidelines throughout history have been the understanding that there's three. The first one is that there will be a visible bodily return of Christ. That there will be a visible bodily return of Christ. The second is that there will be a general resurrection of all men. General resurrection of all men. And number three, a general judgment of all men. When you look at the different millennial viewpoints, Do they take into account a visible bodily return of Christ, general resurrection of all men, and general judgment of all men? Yes, they do. All those millennial viewpoints. So, should we say, well, I'm sorry, you believe in this viewpoint. You're out of here. No. No. We have to understand that Revelation is a difficult book to understand. We can set broad parameters on what is allowable and what is not. What is important is that in each one of these viewpoints, that we stand back and we see Christ. The supremacy of Christ in each one of these. And can we do that? Can we look at premillennialism and see the supremacy of Christ? Yes. Can we see the supremacy of Christ in amillennialism? Or in post-millennialism, yes. Yes, we can. I'd like to share a little bit about my understanding and how I've interpreted Revelation. And how finally I've got it all right. As a new believer, I read through the Bible, first time within a month or two. New believer, read through, cover to cover. Got to Revelation, it blew me away. And decided, we'll just leave Revelation on the back burner, and I can read those other books by now and forget it. It was a little confusing to me. Sometimes, maybe a year or two after becoming a believer, my pastor sat down with me and explained his interpretation, which was dispensational premillennialism. And that was basically all I... I was taught this is the way to study the Bible, or Revelation. So I accepted that and off I went, and thought this is the way to study it. That lasted until... Rosy and I moved to Costa Rica and about a year after that we joined a church and one of the points to become a member of the church, you had to sign something saying you believed in their doctrine of statement of faith. One of the points they had on there was that they were dispensational. I was like, you know, I've never really understood what this is. And so the preacher there gave me a whole bunch of books. He said, read these. So I went and read them and I gave them back and I said, You really believe this? For those of you that are dispensationalists, that's OK. But I had some real problems with what I was reading. And this was reading it from the guys who kind of created or perfected dispensationalism. So I set aside dispensationalism and became a historic premillennial and was pretty happy with that. I thought, OK, this works. Until, it was like a year or two after that, I took a course of study on the book of Revelation, and it was taught from a dispensational, premillennial viewpoint. I knew that when I went into it, but I thought, you know, still deep in my study, it was a one-year study, Precept Ministries. Really, if you know anything about precepts, they really go to town. I began to study and started to have lots of questions. In fact, I was writing letters to precepts ministers and had letters going back and forth. And pretty soon I started questioning historic premillennialism. Didn't know which way to turn after that, but I was confused. And I understood perfectly why my brothers and sisters that believed in prehistoric Historic premillennialism believe that way, still do, and some great brothers and sisters in the Lord hold that viewpoint, and I understand perfectly why they believe that. I had some difficulties in that. We began attending another church, a Reformed Christian church, and talked to a missionary there, and he opened my eyes to something called amillennialism, and For me, things started clicking together from my understanding of how I had been studying, and so took on that term. That was my understanding of revelation. A few months ago, Tim mentioned to me, Clint, have you ever heard of the preterite view of the interpretation? And I'd never heard of it. So I've been up to my elbows reading books and studying the preteritism, and it's been pretty interesting, and I don't have a clear-cut decision yet where I stand in all that. I do believe that a full preterite view is outside of the guidelines that I mentioned, because a full preterite view believes everything in Revelation is already passed, which means no visible bodily return of Christ, and that they believe that a judgment and resurrection involvement, in a sense, has already happened in a spiritual sense. Things aren't in bodily form. So I believe a full Preterite view is not really acceptable, but I studied it, and I am leaning toward a partial Preterite view. I see a lot there. It has a lot to offer. The evidence there is pretty strong. I have also, in the last five or six months, been studying pretty intensely post-millennialism. They have a couple ideas that I like, but I disagree with their overall picture. But the fact of the matter is As I've studied and worked my way through each one of these views, Christ has been at the center of each one. The supremacy of Christ reigns in each one of them. And, obviously you caught on I was joking at the beginning when I said I've got it all figured out now, I know godly men who fully believe in each one of those different viewpoints. I love arguing with them. I love discussing with them. Perhaps arguing is not the best word, but discussing with them, to try to come to a deeper understanding of God's Word, to encourage my brothers and sisters to learn more about our Savior. Are the details important? Yes. But let's not get so caught up in them that we lose the big picture. Let's not be afraid to open God's Word to any part of Scripture and study. Many times we look at some of the prophecies of the Old Testament, Daniel, Isaiah, in the same light that we've looked at Revelation. Too confusing? I don't want it. We need to stand back, look at the big picture. What are these scriptures teaching us about God? Can I come to a deeper understanding of who God is and what He's doing in my life as I study God's Word? Let's not be afraid to study other viewpoints. Let's not go back to the dark ages. where only certain viewpoints are allowed and we don't even want to hear about the others. Let's be open to discussion. Let's encourage one another and discuss our differences in these different viewpoints and encourage one another in our walk with God and our relationship with our Lord and Savior. As we study the book of Revelation, we have to remember, kiss. Keep it simple. Stand back. Keep things in perspective. Revelation is a book of hope. And we find that hope in the glory and supremacy of Jesus Christ in Revelation. In Revelation, we find our ultimate desire dwelling with God, seeing God. In Revelation 22, verse 3, we find something called the eutyphic vision. You see, we're going to be dwelling with God to such an extent that we will see Him. Revelation 22, verse 3. There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it. and His bondservants will serve Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads. My brothers and sisters, Revelation is a bookend to Genesis. We are going to dwell with God and we're going to see Him face to face. This is a book of hope. This is a book of knowing God. And perhaps understanding that, we can finish with the benediction that the high priest would give to the tribe of Israel, that God himself commanded that should be proclaimed upon his people. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron, his son, saying, Thus shall you bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. So they shall invoke my name on the sons of Israel and I will bless them. My brothers and sisters, may we be blessed as we read and study the book of Revelation. And may we be blessed as we come into a deeper knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus. And may we be blessed on that glorious day where we see God face to face. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you, Almighty. Oh, Lord, we look forward to that day where we will stand before you and rejoice in your presence. Thank you, Father, for saving us from ourselves, for saving us from our sins, for coming down to this earth and dying on the cross for us. Thank you for restoring that relationship that existed before the fall. The Lord help us as we study your word, regardless of what book it may be in the Bible, Father, as we study from Genesis through Revelation, may we grow in our knowledge of you. May you reign supreme in all things. May you reign supreme in each one of our lives. Help us, Father, to not be divisive in our different interpretations in this book of Revelation. May we know the truth. May we seek you. And may you be glorified, Father, in this body of believers, in our unity, in our love, in everything we do, Father, in thought, Word and action. Thank you. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, Amen.