01: Introduction

A Study of Revelation

A Study of Revelation

David Brandt Berg

1981-04-01

The passages in the Bible we are going to study in this series are some of the most thrilling in the entire book. It’s the grand finale, the last book in the Bible. The book is called the Revelation, or in the Catholic Bible, the Apocalypse, depending on whether you prefer Latin or Greek.

Revelation is the Latin term; Apocalypse is the same word in Greek. The New Testament from which this book comes, and with which it ends, was originally written in Greek, so that was the original Greek name of it. It’s called the Revelation of Saint John the Divine in the Protestant Bible. It’s called the Apocalypse of Saint John in the Catholic Bible.

The fact of the matter is that the book is neither one. It is a revelation, it’s definitely an apocalypse, but it’s not Saint John’s apocalypse nor his revelation, and I can prove it by reading you the first few lines of the text. In fact, the very first line of the first verse of the first chapter tells you whose revelation it really is.

So what does it say here in this very first line of the very first verse of the very first chapter of the very last book in the Bible? Whose revelation is it? “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” There it is. Who cooked up this other title, I don’t know. It says, “The Revelation of Saint John.”

Of course, He gave it through dear old apostle John, who by this time was nearly 90 years of age. Think of that! He survived all those years from the early days of Jesus’ ministry when he was just a young lad, a teenager about 16 years of age leaning on Jesus’ bosom at the Last Supper, John the Beloved Disciple. He’s called John the Beloved, John the Revelator, Saint John the Divine, John the Apostle. He’s got quite a few different names, but not John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was not one of the twelve disciples of Jesus; he baptized Jesus. John the Baptist was His predecessor, His herald, the one who introduced Him to the public when Jesus was about to begin His ministry and gather His disciples.

John the Baptist was a great prophet of God who came in from the wilderness to preach the truth of God and the soon-coming kingdom of Christ, to preach “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Jesus was already alive and well and 30 years of age and about to begin His public ministry (Luke 3:1–17).

When Jesus came down to the water, John the Baptist, humbly at Jesus’ request, baptized him according to the old Jewish custom of the Old Testament and the old Jewish traditions—not a requirement for today in the New Testament days. Now we are to be baptized with the Spirit of God, a much better, greater baptism than mere water baptism.

John the Baptist died soon afterwards in prison, beheaded at the hands of that cruel tyrant Herod, at the behest of his stepdaughter, a little teenage dancer. She pleased him so well that he said he’d give her anything she wanted, up to half of his kingdom. She asked her mother what she should ask for and her mother said, “Ask for the head of John the Baptist.”

The king couldn’t take back his promise then, although he liked John the Baptist. He feared him and he didn’t want to kill him, but he felt bound and obligated by his word and his vow to keep his word and behead John the Baptist. So he was killed during Jesus’ ministry here on earth. (See Matthew 14:1–12.)

But this John, John the Beloved, John the Revelator, who had been a teenager during Jesus’ ministry, is now about 90 years of age at the time of this glorious final Revelation of the Bible, his final, climactic, triumphant years after he had served the Lord for nearly 80 years.

They had tried to kill him and martyr him. They even tried to boil him in oil, but he wouldn’t boil, because he wasn’t done! He was too tough for the Roman Empire, because God was too tough for them. When they tried to boil him, he wouldn’t boil and they had to take him out of the oil perfectly whole, not a hair singed, not a bit of skin burned! What can you do with such a man?

They said, “Banish him to a distant island where he can’t cause any trouble preaching this dangerous radical revolutionary doctrine of love. It could destroy the Roman Empire.” And that’s exactly what it did. It finally reached Caesar’s house. Sad to say, Nero went crazy and tried to burn down the city of Rome and destroy all the Christians.

But thank God many still survived and have survived down through the centuries. John the Revelator, John the Beloved, John the Apostle who wrote that beautiful Gospel of John lived on to be 90 years of age, and clear up until about 107 A.D.

Since they couldn’t boil him, they exiled him to the Isle of Patmos, a beautiful island in the Mediterranean just off the coast of Turkey. There he spent his days in solitude and prayer and meditation, Bible study, writing letters to the churches to encourage them, until finally God began to give him this supernatural, miraculous, prophetic revelation from Jesus Christ Himself about the end of the world.

It’s a prophecy which actually begins with John’s time and continues through our time, through the endtime to the very end. In fact, it goes right on through the Tribulation, the wrath of God, the Millennium, and clear into heaven itself. It’s a marvelous book. I think you’re going to find it very fascinating, thrilling—and confusing, unless you understand it and you understand how beautifully God organized this book.

When John finally got to this time on the Isle of Patmos, he was beginning to draw close to the time of his departure from this earth and God was ready to give him the biggest job he’d ever done, to reveal to him the future of the world and the future of His church, His Christians, His children, those who love Jesus.

So there on that isolated island, far removed from the crowds and the multitude, God gave one of the greatest revelations that has ever been given to man, that has circled the globe for nearly 2,000 years and has given people warning for generations and given His children hope for hundreds and hundreds of years. This revelation showed that someday it was all going to come to an end and they were going to see the glorious, wondrous beauties of that Heavenly City coming down from God out of heaven to land on that heavenly earth, a New Earth and a New Heaven, and no more sea.

You think there’s not going to be enough room for everybody? There’ll be plenty. There won’t be any more sea. Today about 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water, by seas, so when the seas are all dried up and the mountains are made low and the valleys filled in, we’ll have a beautiful rolling landscape, heaven on earth, heavenly flowers, trees, grass. We’re going to tell you all about it in the last chapter of this series, about that golden city like crystal gold, pyramid-shaped, 1500 miles wide and 1500 miles high.

I never understood the book of Revelation when I first read it, and I’ve known many preachers and theology students and philosophers and theologians who have read it and who haven’t understood it. Although I had known the Lord all my life and had studied God’s Word ever since I could remember, every time I studied the book of Revelation I got so confused I didn’t know what it was talking about.

There are parts of it that you can understand very clearly, and parts of it that you can certainly apply to yourself, which have a message for you and me today and have had messages for His church and all mankind for 2000 years. But it takes a little bit of the divine guidance of the Lord to really sort this book out right and understand what it’s talking about. You need the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God to guide you aright through this thrilling but confusing book.

When I became a young pastor and I had a congregation of my own, I felt responsible as their shepherd to teach them. I’d been teaching them Bible prophecy, and the prophecies of Daniel seemed very clear to me. But when I came to the book of Revelation and wanted to teach this to my people, I said, “Lord, I have heard so many interpretations of this book. I have read so many books on this book that I don’t know who to believe.”

So finally I climbed the ladder one day in my little adobe church to its belfry, and I knelt down by my little cot there in my study, between my cot and my desk, and I asked the Lord desperately, kneeling on those rough floorboards of that unfinished building:

“Lord, I’ve got to teach my people the truth. I don’t want to just teach them somebody else’s interpretation, and I’ve heard so many I don’t know which one is right. I have got to know what is the right interpretation of this book. Lord Jesus, show me what this book means. Please help me to understand it. Please show me how to teach them the book of Revelation. You must have put it here for some reason.”

I’ve heard some preachers say, “Well, it’s just an allegory, it’s just a kind of parable; it wasn’t meant for you to understand. It’s in sort of mysterious poetic language and you’re not really supposed to understand it. You can’t understand it; don’t try.” So I said, “Lord, how can I be expected to understand it? Some of these theologians who know the Bible better than I do don’t even understand it. But, Lord, I’ve got to know because I’ve got to feed my flock, which You commanded me to do, and I’ve got to be able to tell them the truth and what’s right about this book.”

Do you know what the Lord told me? He didn’t start telling me what all these different beasts and symbols mean. He didn’t start explaining these mysteries and telling me what every detail meant, and every word and verse. He said, “My son, sit down and read it as though you have never read it before. Just read it straight through and I will show you. I’ll reveal it to you.”

So I sat down right then and there and I think I spent a whole afternoon reading. I was preparing a day or two before Sunday what I was going to preach, another sermon on Bible prophecy about the book of Revelation. I’d already announced it and advertised it, and here I didn’t understand it myself.

I sat down and I read it straight through nonstop that afternoon. It’s possible, it’s only got 22 chapters. The reason it takes some people so long is that they get so bogged down in things they don’t understand that they stop and try to figure it out, and then they lose the whole meaning; they don’t get an overall grasp of the book.

I was sort of like a bird flying overhead viewing the scenery from a lofty height, from a vantage point far above, and I was watching the landscape passing rapidly beneath me as I read. It was so clear, it was so beautiful! The sights, the sounds, the scenes were so clear to me that I wondered why I’d never seen it so clearly before. The chapters just fell right in place so beautifully, and the continuity, the narrative, the chronological sequence, the harmony and beauty of it all became so clear as I read that I was astounded, I was amazed that I had never understood before.

You’re going to find out in this book of Revelation that John had help from the spirit world. Angels came and talked to him, Jesus came and talked to him, former saints of God came and talked to him, former prophets of God came and talked to him, those who had departed from this life into the spirit world talked to him and told him all these things that we’re going to find in this book.

It’s in the Bible and it’s true. Every word it ever said is true and has come true, and every prophecy it ever uttered has been fulfilled except the ones that are yet to come, and they’ll be fulfilled just as surely as the ones that have been fulfilled in the past.—God’s predictions of the future through this apostle John, the great revelator.

It was really Jesus who showed it to him. He’s telling us about the future, from the immediate future to the very far distant future: clear on up through the Antichrist reign, Tribulation, wrath of God, Millennium, and the New Heaven and the New Earth, the whole works.

I flew over Revelation and through Revelation like a bird, with the ease of a seagull floating above, floating on God’s divine currents of His Spirit and viewing the scenery below enrapt, enthralled in a rapture beyond description as God opened this book to me and I got a bird’s-eye view of the whole book, just as clear as anything I’ve ever read.

God willing, in the next lesson I’m going to try to summarize it for you. I’m going to give you a fast flight through the whole book of Revelation first, sort it all out for you in three marvelous parts composed of seven chapters each, each one on a separate part of history. So may the Lord help you understand this wonderful Word of God.

(Prayer) Jesus, help these who are sincere and hungry, who know Thy voice and hear it and follow Thee, help them to understand it. Help them to read this book. Help them to understand its words. Help them, Lord. Open their minds and their hearts and their understanding. Fill them with Thy Holy Spirit that You might speak unto them these words of life so they can know whereof they speak, and know not only what’s happening now but also the future, and know things that will help them in their everyday life to be joyous, to be healthy, and to lead a happy, fruitful life for You in helping others and sharing Your love with the whole world, in Jesus’ name we ask for Thy glory. Amen.

Copyright © 1981 The Family International.