Welcome to Episode #167 of Way of the Bible podcast. This is our seventh of eight episodes in our Twenty-First mini-series entitled, Sermon on the Mount Part 2. On today’s episode we’re going to take a look at short multifaceted passage concerning life and the Kingdom.
A quick review before we get started. I routinely do these reviews at the beginning of each mini-series episode to inform listeners who may be joining the podcast in real time of episode release without knowledge of the previous sequence of episodes. While each episode stands alone, eight episode mini-series comprise a bigger message, and the podcast library as a whole is an attempt to reveal a simple truth. What is in the Bible is not difficult or hard to understand if you have two keys.
That understanding includes the entire book of Revelation, which is perhaps the most important book in the Bible. You can tell that by what is written at the very beginning and very end of the book of Revelation. Revelation 1:3 – Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. It Is the only book in the Bible that says you are blessed if you read and/or hear the book read. Now certainly, God is not supposing the readers and/or hearers would not understand what was written. Yet that is what the far majority of people both in and out of the church say when encountering it. So what does that tell you? God is not playing hide the ball. It means that for a longtime, perhaps two millennia, the church has been Biblically illiterate, not seeing in plain sight what is in this book.
The last verse in the book of Revelation 22:21– I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. What does this mean? It means exactly what it says, you may not understand it, but don’t dare change anything about it. It is saying something critically important to the entire Bible.
So you’re blessed if you read it, and it’s meant to say exactly what it says. Periord, literally, the end of the story God wants us to know. And how does the story end? In a new heavens and on a new earth where God himself will have his throne and dwell with humanity into eternity.
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