Real Life Fellowship – Richmond, VA

I want to begin today by looking at the launch of the spaceship Voyager in 1977. Actually there were two spacecraft named Voyager and the 2nd was launched before the 1st. The Voyager spacecraft were designed to explore the outer planets of the solar system. And traveling — at 25,000 mph – it didn’t take long for Earth to become very small in her rear view mirror.
? In 1979 2 yrs after launch Voyager passed – Jupiter at 360 million miles
? 1980 Saturn at 790 million after this NASA sent Voyager 1 on a different trajectory. Sent out to space rather than visiting the other planets.
? 85 Uranus- 1.5 BIL
? 89 Neptune 2 ½ BIL
BUT Then in the 1990 – — Voyager began to approach the farthest outpost of our solar system. In fact it was now approximately 4 billlion miles away and it was hurtling further away into deep space.

February 14, 1990, Valentine’s day- of all days. And NASA scientists instructed Voyager 1 to turn around and take the first picture ever recorded of our solar system – from the outside. So they turned Voyager around. And from 4 billion miles away Voyager snapped a series of 60 images of our -home.
When scientists saw -image it seemed so tiny & Insignificant that they called it the Pale Blue dot.

Nevertheless, that Pale Blue dot is our home. Every human being who ever lived, has lived there. Abraham, Moses, Einstein, even Hitler & Amin But Listen: If you think little world is insignificant Don’t miss what I am about to say: Because that Pale Blue Dot is the sole object of God’s love.
It’s as if God has blinders on when it comes to rest of his galactic creation. For some reason God is fascinated with this little world. In fact John 3:16 in the Bible tells us – “For God so loves that world…”

Question then is why is God in love with a planet? It’s not that He’s really in love with the planet. It’s that He’s in love with the people on this planet. In matter of fact He’s so in love with you that 2000 years ago – He left heaven and came to this earth … and so loved you that died for you so that you could be with Him forever. By the way, Christians call that the 1st coming of Christ. He sacrificed & died so we might live.

But make no mistake: He’s Coming back to the Pale Blue Dot a 2nd time. Revelation 22: says of Jesus “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Meaning what? Meaning, God’s not finished with the Pale Blue Dot! God has a plan for this planet and people on it.

Winston Churchill, when talking about the Soviet Union, once said they were: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Hard, if not impossible, to understand. Right?

Unfortunately many Christians, including a significant number of Pastors feel the same way about the Book of Revelation. Because of this they never take the time to properly understand all of the richness this Book has to offer.

To begin with, we have a clue from the very name of the Book itself. The Greek word used in the title is “Apokalupsis.” It literally means a revealing or unveiling. Something that is revealed or unveiled is not meant to be hidden. So we can see, even from the name, that GOD has something He wants us to know. That knowledge should do a couple of things – 1) encourage us that we can understand this book and 2) and show us that it is not beyond our capability to do so.

Now a couple of things about that.
1. To be sure the Book of Revelation is filled with strange images and descriptions. Its different from other Books in Scripture.
2. In order to understand it we should utilize the same hermeneutic to examine Revelation as we do the rest of Scripture. That is, we examine it with the same literal, grammatical-historical hermeneutical method by which non-prophetic portions of Scripture are interpreted. Fancy way of saying we should determine what it means the same way we determine every other portion of Scripture: NORMALLY!
James, why are you making such a big deal about that? Because people have misinterpreted this book and abused it seeking evidences for their own bizarre end time views. The result has been confusion in the average person’s mind about this incredible Book and all it has to offer.

For example some hold a preterist view – that is they view all of Revelation as having happened already, specifically in the Roman empire of the 1st Century. This person holds that everything has already occurred including X’s 2nd coming (in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD), even though X obviously did not return then…

Then there is the historicist. This is a person given to allegorizing the text in order to be able to apply its images to whatever historical event they believe it depicts. Some see the advent of Islam, the French revolution, the fall of Rome, etc., all depicted in allegory.

Next we find the idealist. This person sees the Book as a kind of eternal depiction of the battle between good and evil, something that applies to every age but not for any specific age. The result is a mystifying of the context without any real life application and a spiritualizing of the text.

Finally there is the futurist. This person sees chapters 4 -22 of Revelation as describing future people and events. This is the only view that takes the Book at its word and ascribes a normal hermeneutical method of interpretation. This view places a high view of Scripture and does not attempt to allegorize away things that may be difficult to understand.

As a church, we want to interpret Scripture normally, not leave it open to human opinion or feelings or allegory. We approach this Scripture just like we do all other. That is, determining its historical, grammatical, and normative hermeneutical context and then determining what GOD has to say to us today based on what He was saying to the original recipients.

I. WHY MUST X RETURN TO EARTH? 2 reasons: We’ll go over the first.
#1: To Restore Paradise

Set up – study of the book of Revelation by having us turn to the Book of Genesis. Because to understand — final book of Bible we have to understand the first book of the Bible. Genesis & Revelation are like the 2 bookends of Bible. To grasp the wonders of Revelation we Have to grasp the gravity of situation in Genesis.
Genesis describes disaster of paradise lost. Revelation describes wonders of paradise regained.

Follow the sequence: It all began in GENESIS I with:

#1 PARADISE CREATED

Gen 1: 1] In the beginning, God created the universe & the earth. 31] God saw all that he had made, & it was very good.

PHRASE: very good means absolute perfection in the original language. In other words in the Garden of Eden there was perfection with no imperfection! There was no

(1) Pain
(2) Sorrow
(3) Suffering
(4) Disease
(5) Death

Say something must have happened- because this world is not paradise!

#2. PARADISE LOST
The loss of paradise was triggered when sin impacted creation. God warned Adam & Eve after He created paradise. He said, If you sin; you spark catastrophic disaster that will curse the world . The world will become a place of sorrow, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death. And from that day – till this day our planet has had an incessant history pain, suffering, disease and death.

WHY? because the laws of physics that once sustained PARADISE – were turned upside down and replaced with laws of physics that lead to death & decay. Laws like the Laws of Thermodynamics & Entropy which states that complex organisms tend to break down, over time, to their base elements. That’s decay! But that’s going to change because…

#3 PARADISE WILL BE RECREATED

What was lost in Genesis will be regained in the Book of Revelation: Paradise will be restored.

Rev 19: 11] 11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war… 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (ESV)

And what’s he coming back for? What is His goal in this? Rev 21:5] He who was seated on the throne said; I am making everything – NEW! Jesus says: Going be all this stuff going down. Rapture, Tribulation, Armageddon, Judgments, but Jesus says let me tell you where it all leads. It’s about making all things NEW.

21: 1] Then I saw a new heaven (universe) and a new earth.

That word “new” form the Greek Xainos means new in terms of quality. We’re going to get — a new quality universe and a new quality earth. And what will that earth be like?

Take a look at this passage…

21:4] 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” (NLT)

Simply put: Paradise is restored. And in the end we have a return to the Garden Of Eden type of existence.

Until next time,
James

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