Preached by Andrew Smellie, May 27, 2007

Are you getting your picture of Jesus from the world or from God’s Word?

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Revelation 5:9-10 rings out to us across the centuries! “And they sang a new song . . . with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”

The apostle John wrote Revelation to inspire his first century brothers and sisters to remain faithful because the Jesus they served was more powerful than any foe they faced on earth! Though we face much different challenges, we need to make sure we are getting our strength from this same Jesus!

Are you worshiping the victorious Jesus on his horse with the sword of God’s Word coming out of his mouth that can cut away any of Satan’s lies from your heart?

John taught some incredible lessons to help true disciples be faithful to the end:
1. We must obey God’s Word in times of plenty and times of want. (Rev. 2:1-11)
2. We must uphold a faithful proclamation of God’s Word. (Rev. 1:5)
3. We must continue to testify with Jesus’ world-view. (Rev. 7:9)

Will you be a faithful witness (Greek: martys) for Christ?

Sermon Outline
“Faithful to the End”
Preached by Andrew Smellie
Sunday May 27, 2007

Revelation 1:1-3
• God Almighty reigns.
Question: Do you believe that?
Question: Are you going to be blessed?
• If you want to be blessed, then not only do you have to hear the message but you also have to take it to heart.
• Pre-millennialism is the belief that after the Rapture and the Tribulation that Jesus will establish a 1000-year reign, a physical kingdom upon the earth.
• Post-millennialism is the belief that life will blossom into the millennial kingdom of Christ on the earth after which Jesus will come back and usher humanity into eternity.
• What people do not understand is that the church is the spiritual kingdom of God.
• The book of Revelation is essentially an “amillennialist” book.

Understanding symbolic language is crucial to understand how to apply the lessons Revelation has to offer:
• The number 1 stands for unity.
• The number 2 stands for strengthening.
• The number 3 is the divine number.
• The number 4 is the world or the cosmic number.
• The number 6 stands for evil like the number 13 does for us today.
• The number 7 stands for perfection.
• The number 10 stands for completeness.
• The number 1,000 stands for ultimate completeness (10×10x10).
• The number 12 stands for organized religion. (12 tribes of Israel; 12 apostles)
• 12×12x10×10x10 = 144,000 . . . God’s visible church, those His redeemed.

• Asia Minor is now modern day Turkey.
• The book of Revelation was written to comfort persecuted Christians.
Question: Why seven?
• It is perfect; it is complete.
• Revelation is to be applied to all churches of all nations of all times.
• Patmos is in the middle of the Aegean Sea halfway between Turkey and Greece.

Revelation 1:4-8
• God Almighty reigns.
• This was not written for the world, this was written for Christians who were trying to assimilate into the world. We are in the world but not of the world.
Question: How much are you becoming like or trying to assimilate in the world?
• The Greek word for witness (martys) means that to be a witness is to be a martyr.

Luke 9:9
Question: Why was John exiled?
• Because of the message to which he was a faithful witness.
Question: What are you willing to do or to go through to be a faithful witness to the end?
Question: What will stop you from the preaching the Word of God?
Revelation 2:10-13
• God wants you to remain true to His Word. Satan lives here.
• Now, the faithful witnesses in the book of Revelation are connected to three things:
i. Holding to the Word of God (obeying it).
ii. A faithful proclamation.
iii. A faithful proclamation to all nations. Maintain Jesus’ world view!

Revelation 5:9-10
• God wants the world to be saved.
• White signifies purity and gold signifies martyrdom.

Revelation 12:11
• People are so afraid to die and/or to get old because they love their lives so much.
Question: Where are you going?
Question: Will you remain faithful to the end?
• If you are not a faithful proclaiming Christian, then you are not faithful to God.
• Every disciple of Jesus Christ should have the same conviction, zeal and love.
• God has equal concern for those who are in a bad situation and for those who are in a good situation. Do not be deceived: Satan works!
• The challenge of faithfulness is remaining faithful to the end.

Revelation 14:6
Question: Do you get this sense that God wants His Word to go throughout the world?

Revelation 14:15
• God wants the earth harvested now! (Matthew 9:37-38)

Revelation 19:10
• Even the angels hold to the testimony of Jesus!
• It is clear that from the Scriptures, to be a disciple, to be saved, you must be faithful to the end, testify the Word of God and have the conviction that every nation needs to hear the Word of God preached to them.

Revelation 1:9-17
Question: Are you ready to worship God in spirit and in truth?
• In the book of Revelation, you find that the apostle John, an old man, heard a strong, loud voice that sounded like a trumpet.
• When he turned around, he did not see some baby, some effeminate white guy or some guy hanging on the cross. He saw the exalted, reigning Son of God. (Daniel 7:13-14)
Question: Do you see Jesus the way John did?
• The seven stars signify seven angels - perfect power.
• God sent one ordinary angel to deal with Sennacherib and 185,000 people died. (Isaiah 37:36-37)
• Jesus speaks with the Word of God. (Hebrews 4:12-13)
• Anyone who saw God was afraid.
Question: Do you have that godly fear?

Revelation 1:17-20
• The book of Revelation is hard to discern and/or understand.
i. Jesus addressed the church and let it know how it was doing specifically.
ii. He wanted to give the church some encouragement.
iii. He gave the church a rebuke about the things that pull it away from God.
iv. If the church stayed faithful to the end, then it will receive what is promised.

• Your deeds tell you about your heart. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
• Your deeds show God where your heart is.

Revelation 2:1
• If Jesus commended the church in Ephesus for their intolerance of false leaders, then we ought to take note and imitate the value Paul puts on their noble hearts willing to test everything, to see if it measures up to Jesus.

2 Corinthians 11:1-6
• Paul was a planter in Corinth. Paul wanted them to be pure in their devotion to Christ.
• What is interesting that even in this fellowship, Scriptures are need at different times.
• In other churches out there the call of discipleship is thrown out of the window.
• The problem is that some recognize the problem but aren’t willing to connect the dotted lines to the causes of the problem.

2 Corinthians 11:13-15
• Stop masquerading: Be honest with yourself!
• You need to understand that in the Scriptures you see a lot of problems in the church at Corinth.
• If you do not see that there are false teachers, false doctrine and false teaching, then you will be deceived.
• You got to make a correct judgment based upon the Bible.
• Call people out: that is what God calls you to do.
• Disciples tested people to see if they were Christians.
• Disciples of Jesus Christ make spiritual judgments to call one another higher.

Question: How do you test someone?
• You test someone by the Word of God and through the fruit of their teaching and their life.
• There are false teachers who talk about autonomy and cheap grace.
Question: Where is autonomy in the Bible?
• No-where . . . but brotherhood is in the Bible.
Question: What does cheap grace produce?
• Lukewarmness.

Revelation 2:4-5
• Spiritually, the wedding, your honeymoon is your baptism.
• Nothing has changed in God’s eyes.
Question: What has changed?
Question: Why did you leave this exuberance of your first love?
• Disciples of Jesus Christ go anywhere, do anything and give up everything for God.
• God calls us to have a first love.
• You may have persevered, you may be in your Bible everyday, you may be able to detect false teaching, you may be working hard, but if you do not have a first love relationship with God, then you are in danger of losing your salvation.
• If Ephesus was a church too comfortable, than Smyrna was a church in poverty.

Revelation 2:8-11
• You see that the strongest persecution came from the super-religious Jews who refused to believe in Jesus—those who Paul calls true Jews. Paul calls them a synagogue of Satan!
• So encouraging to think that though Satan tries to undermine, Jesus is walking among the churches (lamp stands) and therefore knows exactly our hearts, deeds and needs!

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