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DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

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Rev 22:6-7

6 The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place." 7 "Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book." 

NIV

We are coming to the closing statements of this revelation. The angel is saying a few words. John will make his statement, and Jesus will make his final appeal and concluding words, and the Spirit will make his final statement to close out this revelation. Then we will have John finish up that which he was told to write. Here we are seeing the words of the angel and of Jesus. The angel is telling us these words, all these words of the revelation are trustworthy and true. All the things that have been shown to John to write down are true, and we should trust them as what is to happen. The reason we can trust them and know they are true is because the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show John, his servant, the things that must soon take place. This was not something John conjured up by himself. This revelation was not written by a man, although he wrote it down, it was not from his own thoughts, but from the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets who sent this angel to show John all this which we have read. This would speak well of not just this revelation as the very words of God, but all of scripture, as we have been told so.

2 Tim 3:15-17

 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

NIV

This certainly includes, as we are told so, is all the words John recorded he saw in the revelation given to him by the angel sent by the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets. This is why we had to take a closer look at this revelation rather than to dismiss it as being too confusing and too difficult to understand. It is the word of the Lord and thus it has been given and is available for us, with the help of the Spirit to comprehend the truth for our lives. We can use all this revelation for teaching us, or to rebuke us, or to correct us, or we can also use it for training in righteousness. It might serve to do all of that in our lives, as we have seen throughout our investigation. It would be good for us to remember the truths we have had revealed to us. This we are told by none other than Jesus.

7 "Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book." 

We are blessed, fortunate, well off, happy, connected to God, if we keep the words of the prophecy in this book. This would certainly imply that we needed to not only read it, but keep it. This Greek word, keep, carries the meaning of to guard, to keep an eye on it so it will not escape, to attend to carefully. This is why we had to read and observe the truths within this revelation and now we have to keep them in our mind, not letting them escape. We cannot allow them to slip away under the cover of our being distracted by the things of the world. We are going to see that Jesus tells us in the next closing statement the he is bringing his reward with him and that he will give to everyone according to what we have done. We need to keep our eyes on the prize, the reward. This is not to say this reward is the only reason we should love the Lord our God with all our hearts, our mind, our spirit and our strength. But by doing so, Jesus is certainly bringing us a reward, which is eternal life and all that encompasses, living in this new city. The other word that bears a little thought is this word, soon. What does soon mean? How soon? He told that to John, and that was some two thousand years ago, and that is definitely not soon, at least what we consider soon. When we think of soon, we think of a couple of minutes, our hours. We will be there soon, when we are getting close to our destination. But what is soon to God is certainly not soon to us. When we use the Greek meaning of soon we see, He is coming soon, quickly, without delay. Now that has something we need to see. He is coming without delay. This simply means nothing more has to be done. All is complete for his return. The revelation is complete. when all these events revealed to John are done, Jesus will give us our reward. Does that mean we have to experience all this madness, these plagues first? No, that is not the meaning here. The meaning is because we keep watch over all the words of God, all the scripture, all the truths of the Lord we will be rewarded in the end. How that all plays out does not really matter in the sense that we always stay true to him. He is coming in the clouds for us one day. It might be today, it might be tonight, it might be in a few weeks, or months, or years, but in the time of God it is soon. We always need to be ready, at a moment’s notice to leave everything, when we hear the sound of the last trumpet call of God and we need to look up, look to the eastern sky, for our redemption draws nigh. Let us keep watching.