Useful Bible Studies > Revelation Commentary > chapter 1
It seems that the speaker was one of God’s special servants called angels. This angel would act as John’s guide to the places and the events that he would see. First, however, the angel told John why God was showing him these things. God wanted John to write this book, the Book of Revelation. It would be a record of the things that John had seen. God wanted Christians to know about all these things.
Initially, the book was for the Christians in the 7 churches that the angel mentioned. Each of these churches was in a different town or city. They were all in the region that the Bible refers to as Asia; today, that is part of western Turkey. It seems likely that John was working in that region before his arrest. He was now living on the island called Patmos, which is near the coast of that region.
As we shall see in chapters 2 and 3, the 7 churches were very different from each other. Some churches were strong, other churches were weak. Each church had different problems and troubles to deal with. Soon they would all suffer even worse troubles, because their enemies would cruelly attack them.
God wanted the Christians in those churches to be strong in their relationship with him. So in the book, God showed them what will happen in the future. There have to be terrible troubles in this world, because the devil is fighting against God. These troubles will increase as the time for Christ’s return becomes near. However, the devil will never be able to disturb God’s rule in heaven. He will only be able to attack the earth, and he cannot prevent Christ’s return.
When Christ returns, he will overcome the devil completely. So, because of Christ, the people who remain loyal to Christ will certainly overcome their troubles. In the end, they will rule with him, in the New Jerusalem.
Next part: 7 gold lampstands (Revelation 1:12)
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© 2016, Keith Simons.