This is the prayer that I have placed before God as we begin to observe Revelation. Will you pray, as well?
Oh, Most Holy God, Creator of the universe, Jehovah, our God, I come to You and I ask You to remember and to think upon the promise that You have given Your children, that Your Spirit will lead us and guide us into all truth. Father, You wrote the book of Revelation for Your bondservants. You gave the Revelation of Jesus Christ to Him so that He could show His bondservants what was going to take place quickly. He sent it by His angel and His angel signified it to John and John wrote what he saw and he gave it to the churches and it's been handed down from the churches to us. Father, we want to hear You. We want to understand what You are saying. You do not do anything without a purpose and whatever You do is of great importance and significance. So, the fact that You wanted to show us the things that would shortly take place can only mean that You want us to know and understand those things that You are showing us.
Father, two things keep coming back to me over and over about why You would want us to know these things.
One, Father, I know that in reading and understanding the book of Revelation there is such a growth of faith as we look at You, the Sovereign God, Who is in control over all scenes, all incidences, all events of all time. And even when mankind, in Revelation, thinks he is doing something for a certain purpose You put in little phrases that tell us You are the One Who put it into his heart to do what he was going to do. So, Father, we can be at peace with world events no matter how much they seem to spiral out of control. If we know the book of Revelation and we know our God who wrote it, then we can know that all is well, that everything is under control. You've planned and nothing can thwart those plans and You were gracious enough to reveal those plans to us, your bondservants, ahead of time. And Father, as hard as those things are going to be, no matter which portions we'll be here to see, we can also know, because You have told us in Revelation, and in the rest of Your Word over and over, that Your judgments are righteous and true. So, we know things won't be out of control and we know that they will be righteous, they will be right. That gives us, those who believe You, a great peace and a greater faith than before we knew what was going to happen. Thank You.
And then, Father, the other thing that I can't help but think is part of Your purpose for us to know these things is that as we see Your wrath—as Elohim, the Creator—come upon Your creation and judge Your creation and punish Your creation, as we see You spend every last bit of Your wrath that You have stored up to spend against humanity because we have been against You, as we see Your wrath, Father, it cannot help but give us a passion for the lost. We can be secure, but as we know what is going to happen to those that are lost we have to have a greater passion. We have to be able to look at these events and know that there are people who do not know what's going to take place and they don't know their God and that's our job while we're still here. Please help us.
So, Father, please teach us, lead us, guide us into all truth, give us understanding, and then give us wisdom about what to do with what we know—to trust in You more, to rejoice in You more, the same way that the courts of heaven rejoice when You open the book of judgments. We've become so tolerant of sin that we forget how much You hate it. Open our eyes to the way You think, increase our faith today, by causing us to believe what we hear You say.
And then, Father, increase our passion for the lost. If we're saved we have the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to witness anywhere, anytime, to anyone. Give us the passion for the lost that You have, that You want us to have.
May You be glorified in these blogs about Revelation. When we see Your judgments on mankind that are coming and we see that the people do not repent, and instead, they blaspheme You, Father may we have the opposite reaction. May we repent where it applies to us and may we glorify You and praise You for the opportunity to repent because until Your wrath is completely spent there is time. We don't know how much time, we don't know how much time for each person. But we know that there is time.
Open our eyes to behold wonderful things from Your Word in this blog and the ones to follow. Help us to hear what's being read so we can heed it and then inherit the blessing that You give us, the promise of the blessing for reading, hearing and obeying what You have spoken in Revelation.
In the name of Jesus, our Savior and our Deliverer, the One who is coming. Amen…
