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Earlier this summer, book outlets built anticipation for J.K. Rowling's last book in the Harry Potter series. Stores sported large posters that counted the days until the book could be purchased. Harry Potter banners slid across Internet sites. Everywhere we turned, we were reminded of the last book. I spoke to one worker at a local bookstore the day before the last Harry Potter book sale began. She told me that her store alone had 1000 copies of the book to sell. All of the fuss focused on how Rowling would end the story of the characters she developed in the previous books. The last book promised a surprising end. So fans stood in line at midnight to grab their copy and discover the end.
The last in a series of books finishes the story line. Whether The Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Ring or Father Brown or Harry Potter series, the last book completes the story. It brings finality to things that have captured the imagination and senses.
We have come this morning, not only to the Bible's last book, but also to the last verses of the last chapter of the last book. What began some 1500 years before John penned Revelation in the last decade of the 1st century, with contributions from about 40 more authors from varied backgrounds, comes to a close in these final verses of the Revelation. However, unlike the novels that I just mentioned, the story doesn't end here. The God-inspired, authoritative, and inerrant words of Scripture do not end here. For in the Bible we have a living word. It gives life wherever it is read or proclaimed or heard, as hearers open their minds and hearts by faith to it as truth. It builds anticipation—eternal hope—in our hearts for seeing the face of Christ and living with Him eternally. Many wonderful books about Christ and the gospel have been added over the centuries from Ignatius, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Bunyan, Edwards, Lloyd-Jones, and our own Piper, Sproul, MacArthur, and Packer, but no other books are on par with the 66 books of the Bible. Many books can be classified as inspiring yet only the 66 books of Holy Scripture are inspired in their totality, and therefore, profitable for life and doctrine.
And here we've come to the end of this last, majestic book of the Bible to hear the last words of authoritative, Holy Spirit-uttered revelation. That sobers my mind as I hear these concluding words of Scripture.
Writing a conclusion to a story or an essay often proves to be the most daunting chore of writing. Anyone that has done much writing knows the struggle of sitting at a desk, staring at the last page in hope that a bit of inspiration will strike! The whole body of work culminates in an economy of words in the conclusion. Such is the case with Revelation's concluding words. God has declared, promised, warned, instructed, commanded, and revealed. Now He brings His book to its grand culmination in the promise of the New Heaven and New Earth. These last words offer something for each of us. We must give heed to the last words of biblical revelation. The last words challenge and instruct us. We must hear them with a readiness to obey because God has spoken with finality in Jesus Christ. How does the Lord God conclude biblical revelation? I want to look at this text under five simple points of last issues in the Bible.
The idea of "invitation" is prominent in evangelical vocabularies. However, rather than seeing it as the call of Christ in the gospel, invitation has become a portion of a worship service right after the sermon where interested people can indicate a decision for Christ or whatever the preacher may call for. In this case, "the invitation" implies re-arranging one's geographic position at the end of a service. Yet the Bible knows nothing of such a practice; it was added in the 19th century to accommodate revivalism that swept churches in the northeast [cf. Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism and The OLD Evangelicalism]. Instead, the real invitation is found in the gospel; it is declared whenever the gospel is rightly spoken, calling sinners to Christ.
The clearest example of this is found in verse 17. "The Spirit and the bride say, "Come"." Here we find the Holy Spirit and the Church—(shown to be the bride in 19:7-9; 21:9-21)—in concert by calling sinners to Christ. Interpreters wrestle with whether the Spirit and the bride are calling for Christ to come or whether they are calling people to Christ. While there is a sense that both are true, as evidenced by John's prayer in v. 20b, it seems that contextually, more weight is placed on this as an invitation to come to Christ. The reason is found in the balance of this verse, as it clearly points to calling anyone who is thirsty and desirous to come to Christ.
Consider that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to Jesus Christ. In the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus spoke to His disciples concerning the Spirit's ministry as well as their own in concert with the Spirit: "He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning" (John 15:26-27). The Spirit's aim is to point people to Christ. So too, the aim of the Church throughout the ages must join with the Spirit by His power in pointing people to Christ. Proclaiming Christ's worthiness and sufficiency, the Spirit and the bride call upon those who will hear, "Come."
There is no simpler invitation than what we find in this text. As Jesus Christ has been proclaimed as the Lamb of God slain to redeem sinners, then the call to sinners is "Come." Come to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God slain for you. Come to Jesus Christ, the sin-bearer, mediator, and Lord. Come to Jesus Christ, cast yourself upon His mercies, depend upon His sacrificial death and life-giving resurrection. Do not come to an institution or an imagination or a religious mantra. Come to Christ!
Further, John moves from the Spirit and the bride as the corporate body of Christ issuing the gospel invitation to come to Christ, unto the individual believer that has heard the gospel. "And let the one who hears say, "Come"." Seven times in chapters 2-3, we heard the refrain, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Those who don't hear give vivid evidence of unregenerate hearts. They show the stoniness of their minds and coldness of their affections toward the Creator and Lord. But there is a great difference in those who have ears to hear. They have heard from God through His Word. The gospel has become the sweetest music in their ears and the song of their hearts. They have a reason to appeal to others to "Come!" They know the gospel experientially as well as intellectually. They have heard—and the message has penetrated their hearts with transforming grace. Now they call their relatives and friends to come to Jesus Christ where they will find forgiveness and life.
We see this beautifully illustrated in the first conversions under Christ's gospel ministry. "Follow Me," Jesus declared to Peter and Andrew, "and I will make you become fishers of men" (Mark 1:17). Coming to Christ implies following Him as His disciple; it implies that you believe Him to be both God and man, as well as your only Savior and Lord. Just like Peter and Andrew, coming to Christ means leaving everything else, laying aside one's first loves, and embracing Christ as the chief of his affections. But notice as well that in coming to Christ, following Him, that His followers become fishers of men. In other words, those who come to Christ now call others to come to Christ. Those who have responded to the gospel invitation now make the same gospel invitation for others.
The second half of this verse aims more directly. "And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost." The one who feels his need for Christ—"the one who is thirsty"—let him come to Christ. The great Old Testament gospel book, Isaiah, is one foundation for this text. "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost" (55:1). Using metaphors of thirst and hunger, Isaiah calls for those who recognize their need for the Lord to come to Him "without money and without cost." In other words, what He offers you cannot afford or buy; what He offers He has already purchased on your behalf; what He offers will give you more satisfaction than you can even imagine. When Christ calls us to come to Him, He does so with the certainty that He has already secured what you need, so it is "without cost." By the sacrifice of Himself at the cross, He has borne away your sins and satisfied God's judgment. That's the message found throughout Revelation (cf. 5:9-10; 7:13-17; 10:10-12). He is the perfect host that satisfies our deepest hungering and thirsting for life.
Suppose that you were to invite me to your home for dinner. "Come tonight, pastor, come for dinner." When I arrive, you welcome me in but immediately recognize that I brought my own dinner with me. You remind me that you invited me to dinner, and that you have prepared dinner for me. I retort, 'But I cannot afford your dinner; I've brought my own dinner that I've made for myself; your food is too good for my palate, so I'll have to eat my own food. I know that you invited me to dinner but I just cannot believe that you really mean for me to eat at your table.' You tell me that you have already paid for the dinner and prepared it—that there's no cost to me. And you've also labored to make sure that the dinner is something that will intensely satisfy my desires. And again you welcome me to your table.
Do you realize that many treat Christ in the same way? Christ has prepared a gospel feast for us; it cost His lifeblood at the cross; it demanded that He battle all the powers of darkness on our behalf and face eternal judgment for us. He spreads His table before us and welcomes us to the gospel feast. Yet some prefer to bring their own pathetic food that can never satisfy the soul's hunger. Some think that Christ welcomes others but not them. Some think that surely Christ will pull the food from the table when they arrive.
Hear the gospel invitation, my friend, "Let the one who is thirsty come." Christ has promised, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37).
A second biblical text is background for this invitation. "Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water'"" (John 7:37-38). You who feel the need, who recognize your sinfulness, your spiritual bankruptcy, your emptiness, your thirsting to be satisfied by Christ, then Jesus tells you to come to Him.
But suppose you don't have intense feelings regarding your need for Christ. You have no feelings at all. You just simply recognize by the preaching of God's Word that you are a sinner and have need for Christ. Then the balance of this verse is for you: "let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost." The feelings are not there but the desire for Christ is; you do want to know Him; you do want forgiveness of sins and a relationship to God; you do want the life that only God can give. You have been waiting for a certain feeling of neediness; something that you've imagined is necessary before you can be saved. While you don't have it you do have a will to be a Christian yet you are afraid that God will not accept you. Hear the word of Christ. The one who wishes or the one who desires or the one who wills, "take the water of life without cost." It is yours. Christ offers you this living water. You cannot find it in the polluted wells of this world. It is found only in Christ. Come and take; drink deeply from the wells of salvation; drink of the water of life. Spurgeon commented on this verse, "When your will is brought to accept the Saviour, then depend upon it, it is God's will that you should have him" [MTP, vol. 46, 356]. Come! Come! Come to Jesus Christ—take the water of life without cost! Come and drink and live!
We know by this point that the book of Revelation has ample warnings. But so does the rest of Scripture. Adam was warned not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; he was warned that in the day he sinned he would die. Cain was warned that sin was crouching at the door of his heart. Wicked King Ahab was warned of God's judgment on his family for their idolatrous ways. John warns of the judgment in the seals, trumpets, and bowls. He warns of the beast and the great harlot. He warns of deception by the dragon and his minions. Yet some scoffed at these warnings. Because their hearts were inclined toward idolatry, they found the warnings of this book to be fairy tales. They also considered its instruction and exhortation to be faithful until death as hyperbole, unnecessary religious jargon. They had better ideas than what John penned under the inspiration of the Spirit in the Revelation. They were idolaters and sought to lead the churches of Asia Minor down a path that intertwined something of Christianity with idolatry. For that kind of mindset, Christ gives the last warning of Revelation.
It may be that your edition of the New Testament is red-lettered, identifying the words of Christ in red. However, when this is done, it is the subjective opinion of the publisher as to what Jesus said. I point this out because while my particular Bible identifies verses 16 and 20 as statements of Christ, it points to verses 18-19 as words of John. Yet verse twenty's opening phrase connects the confession of Christ's coming with the testimony in verses 18-19. "I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book…He who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming quickly'." Here is the testimony of Jesus Christ set in legal language. Jesus gives this legal declaration in verses 18-19, and then John affirms that Christ is the one giving this testimony. In doing so, He intensifies the warning of these verses. The stakes are high; divine justice will be required of those violating this warning.
To whom does Jesus speak in this warning? Note that He addresses "everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book." Throughout Revelation we have recognized that it is a book for the churches—its even addressed to the seven churches in Asia Minor (1:4). The indication is that the warning was for particular people in the churches who had thought of either adding to or deleting portions of this prophetic word. Recall chapters 2-3. Though unsuccessful, the Nicolaitans waged their unbiblical influence in Ephesus. Some in Pergamum held to idolatrous teachings, called "the teaching of Balam." They also had adherents of the teaching of the Nicolaitans. The church at Thyatira had some that followed a prophetess that taught that immorality and eating things sacrificed to idols were part of their responsibility as Christians. The Laodiceans had made an idol of their great success. In other words, the call to live distinctly as Christians in the midst of the world, of persevering even in persecution, of laying down your life for the gospel didn't fit into the doctrinal framework of these false teachers! They may have acknowledged some of the teachings of the gospel while adding their own particulars or deleting a few things that didn't suit them.
The basis of this interpretation is found in the warnings in Deuteronomy 4:2. As Moses reiterates the Law, calling on Israel to follow the Lord faithfully, he warned about adding to or taking away from the word that he had given them. "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." Then he reminds them of what happened at Baal-peor, which was the occasion when the teaching of Balaam slipped into the camp of Israel so that God's people fell into idolatry (Deut. 4:3-4). The deceitful strategy employed was "that idolatry was not inconsistent with faith in the God of Israel" [Greg Beale, NIGTC: Revelation, 1151; cf. Deut. 12:32-13:18 that bears out the same interpretation]. Here was precisely the problem facing the churches of Asia Minor and of our own day—that of thinking that idolatry in any form might be acceptable to the Christian faith.
So our Lord warns, "if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book." Certainly, the book of Revelation has not shifted theological gears to promote losing salvation! Throughout the book we've noted the underlying surety of Christ bringing His elect through every danger into His presence in the New Jerusalem. None whose names are written in the book of life fail to enter. Rather in the warning, our Lord states it with austerity, giving assurance that the one who would take away from this prophetic word or add to it is not Christian and therefore will face all of the judgments promised to unbelievers. In spite of their parading in the churches, and even in spite of leadership positions or places of prominence in the church, if they distort the holy message of the gospel then they face severe judgment. They may profess to be Christian "but their allegiance to other gods betrays their confession" [Beale, 1152].
Jesus Christ is not distanced from these words or disassociated from them. They are His words; hence, John prefaces Christ's last promise with the introduction, "He who testifies to these things." It is Jesus Christ who bears witness to the message in Revelation. And what does He call for in Revelation? He calls for us to worship God not creatures and certainly not through idolatrous ways. He calls for us to persevere to the end even in the midst of suffering, persecution, and trials. He calls for us to trust the sufficiency of His redemptive work and God's faithfulness to bring us through the fire into His presence. He calls for us to live distinctly as Christians, clearly marked by the character of Christ. Now, to reinforce the seriousness of the call to live as Christians, our Lord reminds us, "Yes, I am coming quickly." He offers the "Yes" (vai) of affirmation. It is a certainty, a reality that we dare not presume upon. While it can be said that Christ comes to us many times through the centuries, the focus in this context is upon His ultimate return. He does come in judgment; He warned the Pergamum church that He would come against them quickly unless they repented. As a number of scholars point out, Christ comes to us in both blessing and judgment through the Lord's Supper [Beale identifies Borkham, Sweet, Aune, Krodel; 1155]. Yet the impetus of this text focuses on the final return of Jesus Christ. "Yes, I am coming quickly."
That kind of language is intentional—not for us to develop a chronological schematic—but to remind us that nothing stands between Christ's first and second coming. We dare not grow careless and complacent because we have lots of end-time-events that we think must come to pass before Jesus can return. "Quickly" dispels such notions. It also implies suddenness. Just as Jesus prefigured it, two will be working in the field, one taken in Christ's return and the other left for judgment.
Yet to us, "quickly" means immediately or right now. 'Bring that cup to me quickly!' That means that there is to be no hesitation. Come right now. However, in light of eternity, if Jesus waits 1000 years or 2000 years or 3000 years or 5000 years before the Father sends Him back, then it's still but a blink of the eye in comparison to the infinite days ahead. The emphasis seems to be this: live as though today Christ might come.
John's prayer echoes the last promise of Jesus Christ, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." It is an agreement, "Amen," complemented with a prayer, "Come, Lord Jesus." Why the anxiousness on John's part? For the same reasons that believers throughout the centuries have prayed this same prayer, "Come, Lord Jesus." When we pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," (Matt. 6:10) we're embracing something of this same prayer of John, since ultimately, when Christ returns, God's kingdom will be fully established on the earth. Yes, we pray for His kingdom to come in the present so that the evidence of God's kingly reign on earth may be seen—yet knowing that its fullness comes when Christ returns.
I know that Christian students facing big exams have uttered this prayer amiss! But much more, it is the prayer of those whose hearts are filled with a consciousness of Christ, who are rapt with the loveliness of Jesus Christ, and who are unsatisfied with the things of the world to such a degree that they desire only Christ. Are we detached enough from this world so that we can pray with John, "Come, Lord Jesus"?
You notice that verse 21 has a rather Pauline ring to it. The reason is because this is a common epistolary ending—just like those we see in most of Paul's epistles. That's because Revelation is an epistle or a letter to churches. So it ends with this pastoral blessing for grace. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all. Amen."
Indeed, our ultimate need each day is for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ! If we are to worship rightly, to worship God alone and not the idols of this world, then we need grace to do so. Grace informs our minds of the truth of God. Grace humbles us before God and enables us to set our affections upon Him. Grace gives us the attitude and words that comprise our worship of God.
If we are to persevere in faithfulness to Christ, then we desperately need grace! How else can we overcome our own excuses or the barriers laid by the enemy or the temptations of the world? Grace implies that God is at work in our need, providing just what is necessary for us to do His will. He gets the glory because He provides the grace. None of us can keep pressing on in faithfulness in our native strengths. We're far too weak and helpless. Grace is needed.
If we are to live distinctly as Christians, being marked by the character of Christ, then we need grace—much grace! How else can we practice patience in adversity, kindness in the face of ugliness, gentleness in times of opposition, and love even for those that do not love us? Grace!
If we are to proclaim the gospel boldly, offering that gospel invitation, "Come!" then we need much grace. Our man-fearing spirit overwhelms us. Our fear of what others may say or do to us paralyzes us. Our fear of not having the right words to speak silences us. How can we call upon our friends to come to Christ, apart from grace to utter those words? Grace—we need grace to overcome so that we call others to Christ.
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all. Amen." It's the whole church that needs grace—"with all." My brethren, because of what Jesus Christ has done in His death and resurrection, because He reigns as Sovereign Lord so that all power belongs to Him, and because He is the eternal Judge that gives to all men according to their works, then to Him we look for grace. And He gives it over and over, again and again to helpless believers like us.
Press on in faithfulness to Christ. No power of hell or threat of man can keep the grace of our Lord from prevailing in those He has redeemed. Our Lord comes quickly. Even so, Lord Jesus, come.
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