THE SPIRIT-LIFE COACH

Our present study is an attempt to bring to my readers an understanding of the final preparation of the Bride of Christ which are the hidden truth in the book of Revelation. 

                                            SEALED WITH SEVEN SEALS 3

I think it would do us a whole world of good if we could just get back to the beginning of the book. That is to go back to the very first chapter.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ

Although we may not be entirely wrong to name John the apostle as the author of the book, but then based on context it would be better to call this book the revelation of Jesus Christ.

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:”

                                                                                    Rev 1:1 

You know that sometimes we do not consider some aspects of the word of God as important and worthy of note. However the truth is that every part of the word is important. For example you will see in the writings of Paul that he started some of his letters with greetings such as …”to them that be in Rome, called to be saints” Rom 1:7. Within the first three verses he makes a lot of profound statements even touching on the resurrection of our Lord. If we hurry and are harried to the body of the letters we may not be able to make the most of the intent of the Lord in giving us the document. Some of the things we regard as mere preambles may hold secrets of unlocking the body we are in such a hurry to get into. You remember the Lord is called the alpha and omega, He is as interested in the beginning as much as He is in the end.

Having said that, we can see the preambles of the book of Revelation also holds some secrets which would unlock the entire book to us.

Let us consider these secrets based on the first three verses of the book as quoted above.

1.       It is the REVELATION OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

2.       God, the Father gave it to Him

3.       The purpose of this revelation is so that the servants or DISCIPLES of the Lord would be able to understand certain important things that are important to God and that He wants to let them in on.

4.       The Lord Jesus Christ SENT and SIGNIFIED it through the HANDS OF AN ANGEL: this means He sent an angel to communicate His words THROUGH THE SPIRITUAL LANGUAGE OF SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

5.       The angel was sent to SIGNIFY it to HIS SERVANT John. This angel did that by using the spiritual language of signs

We can make certain deductions from these truths outlined above. They are:

1.       This book is so important to the Father that He had to personally commit the message in it to the hands of the Son.

2.       This book is also of such importance that it was given to the servant of the Lord with the stature of John the apostle. This is not because John was an apostle but because of the place that he occupied in the heart of the master. He was certainly the closest to the Lord among the twelve

3.       The book unravels the plans of God in the future as this age closes and would also help us to accurately interpret the things that had gone on before our time.

4.       The book is a book of SIGNS. The word sign here is not in relation to signs and wonders of the miraculous but of SIGNS that ENCODE or rather EXPLAIN a succession of events or activities without the use of words. For example when you beckon to someone to ‘come over here!’, there is a way you could wave your hands to make the person understand that you want him or her to come over to you without breathing a syllable.

GOD’S LANGUAGE OF SIGNS

The greatest difficulty of genuine children of God relating to the understanding of the book is with decoding the SIGN and SYMBOLS nature of the revelation. But then we must know that those symbols are easy to understand when one is well acquainted with one’s bible.

THE MEANINGS OF THOSE SIGNS AND SYMBOLS ARE SCATTERED ALL OVER THE BIBLE

Albert Einstein says God doesn’t play dice with the universe. God’s ways are orderly. He is also consistent in His interpretations of themes issues and events. One thing will hardly be ‘this’ at this time and ‘another thing’ at another time.  We must also follow His patterns. We cannot just say this means ‘that’ just because we feel so. We can’t just say this refers to ‘that’ just because we think, ‘logically that’s the way it should be’. We have to be guided by God’s principles of what those signs and symbols represent.

God also has not hidden the meanings in the air. He hasn’t left the meanings to human imaginations to try fathom out. He has put them in the bible. The amazing thing we will discover is that John wrote all those things using the words already revealed in the books of the Law, those revealed to other prophets in the bible and those contained in the section of the Old Testament known as the writings. Those are books such as the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the Songs of Solomon. It is also good to know that some of the symbols of the book represent the literal words of Jesus that were contained in the gospels.

You know why? Because the God that revealed those things to the ancients was the one that revealed the contents of the book of Revelation to the apostle. The language of the Old Testament remains His language still. So we can’t just jump into the book and begin to make deductions when we have not first understood and known and in fact acquainted ourselves with how the signs and symbols that were used to pass the message across were used in the first place in the Old Testament.

Now the book was written to the disciple. The disciple is one who follows the DISCIPLINE of Christ. A disciple is one whose life and total pursuits are contained in Christ. So for the disciple it’s not too much of a grievous work to familiarize his or herself with the total counsel of God in the entire scripture.

I shall state some of the examples in the next article.

THE SPIRIT-LIFE COACH IS A " NOW WORD" from the Spirit of God sent to believers to facilitate our coming into the present glory.

For more information about past messages in the series, counsel or prayer requests, you may e-mail: Pastor Dele Matthews, christcollege07@yahoo.co.uk or call 2348028783451, or 2347066668066

Pastor Dele Matthews is Senior Minister, Restoration Ministries and Dean of Studies, Christ College- a Word School set up for the Spiritual Growth of ALL Christians, focussing on bringing the believer into the fullness of Christ.