A sign caught my eye last week as I was traveling in Phoenix, AZ. It was large, well designed, and very prominent on the side of the road, the kind you see for major businesses, car lots, restaurants, and churches. It was right in front of a larger building that seemed well maintained and manicured. The sign read in Large Letters… “Fortune Telling”.
I guess the “predicting the future” business is doing alright in Phoenix.
It made me think about how eager people are to know what is going to happen in their lives. They are so eager, that they are willing to pay lots of hard earned money to take a gamble at finding out. I just read a few days ago that Italians were spending $5 billion a year on Fortune tellers and Astrologists. That is a lot of dough invested in something that hasn’t even happened yet!
But, it’s not just in Italy, it’s everywhere. Here in Great Falls, booths are set up at the State Fair every year that promote “Fortune Telling and Palm Reading”. How many people in your circle of relationships investigate the Horoscopes every day to see what is on the horizon. We all are hungry to know what is coming.
That is why I am excited about starting this new series on the Book of Revelation. With the whole world yearning to know how this crazy drama we call life unfolds, it is only fitting to dive into the most “revealing” section of scripture that deals specifically with how life as we know it comes to an end… and then gives us clues about the kind of life that comes after that.
And, what is also exciting is that Revelation is the only book in the Bible that declares that the reader of the book will be blessed. I don’t know about you, but I need all the blessing I can get, so spending time in this book will certainly be worth the investment for me, for you, and for our entire church!
We are going to try and be as comprehensive as possible in this series, but just to be honest, we will only scratch the surface of everything that is “unveiled” in it. We are going to break it down into three mini-series, “Christ and the Church” (Revelation 1-3), “The Tribulation” (Revelation 4-18), and “The End of the Beginning” (Revelation 19-22). This will be a verse by verse study, which will be a fun and fresh break from our more usual “Topical” series. But, because of that, we will also be focused here for several months… possibly even a year, so who knows… we might be experiencing lots of this before we even get finished.
So, hopefully your as excited as I am and ready to dive in head first! I can’t think of a better way to prepare for this series than to read it. As you read, jot down the questions you might have and email them my way. I will try my best to answer each question as we go!
Revelation…. Here We Come!
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