God, who is sovereign over history, who is self-existent and eternal, who has all power, has a message for us. God himself is pulling back the veil and revealing to us what’s really happening in the world. He wants us to see the world from his perspective. This is what God wants to do. That’s why we need Revelation. We need God himself to reveal what’s happening in the world.

We’re beginning a journey today that is going to take us all the way into next year. We’re starting one of the most interesting and challenging books of the Bible. We are embarking on our journey through the book of Revelation.

Revelation is going to seem unfamiliar. Someone’s said it’s like entering a foreign country. It’s full of symbols that are hard to understand. It’s a sensory book. Someone’s said it’s “like something Dr. Seuss might have thought up after a sleepless night reading Stephen King.”

Revelation is going to challenge us. And yet, as we’re going to see today, the payoff is huge. It’s not a book that’s meant to confuse or divide us. It’s a book that’s meant to help us. David Campbell writes, “Revelation is not a handbook to last-day events. It is a pastoral letter written to Christians of every age and generation on how to live lives faithful to God and Christ in the midst of all the challenges a hostile pagan world throws at them.” This is meant to be a very practical book.

The Canadian preacher Darrell Johnson says that the Bible ever became illegal, as it is in some parts of the world, and he was allowed to keep only one book of the Bible for personal use, he would, without hesitation, keep the book of Revelation. Why? No book of the Bible presents the gospel as powerfully as this book does, he says. In no other book of the Bible do we see Jesus as clearly and compellingly as we do in this last book. “And no other book, in all of human literature, crystallizes what it means to belong to and follow Jesus in this world.”

Today I want us to dip our toes into this book by looking at the first 8 verses. These verses answer two questions for us: what is this book, and why should we pay attention to this book?

What Is This Book? (1:1-2)

That’s the first question we need to ask: what is this book? The first two verses tell us:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Here you have two important pieces of information that we need that are going to set us up to read this book well. It tells us what this book does, and where this book came from.

What this book does.

What kind of book is it? It’s a revelation. The word could be translated apocalypse, which has come to be associated with the end of the world or catastrophic destruction. But that’s not what apocalypse means in the Bible. Apocalypse means to uncover or unveil something that was previously hidden.

And this is so important for us as we start Revelation. Right away we have a great description of what Revelation is designed to do. It’s meant to reveal something that we need to know if we’re going to understand the world.

How do we know what’s going on in the world? I open up the news app on my phone. I can go online and find out what’s going on with world events any time I want.

But sometimes I go deeper. I read long-form journalism, or if I want to go deeper, I pick up a book on current events. That’s how we normally figure out what’s going on in the world.

But Revelation does something. It tells us that if we really don’t understand what’s happening in the world because we’re missing some important information. And then it unveils what we’ve missed. It shows us some realities that we could never figure out on our own, but are absolutely necessary if we’re going to understand the world. It lifts the veil between heaven and earth, so we see a fuller picture of the way that God’s working out his plans for this world.

Revelation unveils what’s really happening. It shows us:

• the resurrected and glorified Christ
• hidden angelic and demonic forces behind what’s happening in the world
• the ugliness of the world’s system
• the hidden beauty of God’s people
• God’s plan for the renewal of all things

In other words, if you just rely on news to figure out what’s going on in the world, you’re missing out. You’ll never understand what’s happening in the world. Revelation is written to tell us the true story of what’s happening in the world and what will happen in the world. It describes earthly events from heaven’s perspective.

That’s what this book does.

Where this book came from.

There’s a second question that verses 1 and 2 answers about Revelation. Where did this book come from? Verse 1 says it’s the revelation of Jesus Christ. He’s the ultimate source. It’s a revelation given by Jesus.

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