Everyone Today’s passage: Revelation 7:9–12 Focus verse: Before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Revelation 7:9) Immediately after John details how many people from the tribes of Israel receive the seal of God, he describes a great […]
The Mark of God Today’s passage: Revelation 7:1–8 Focus verse: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” (Revelation 7:3) Many people are familiar with the mark of the beast as revealed later in the book of Revelation, […]
Breaking the Seven Seals Today’s passage: Revelation 6 Focus verse: I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. (Revelation 6:1) Jesus has just been declared worthy to open God’s scroll, that is, to access the words on the sealed document. One by one, Jesus will break each of the seven seals that […]
Who Else Is Worthy? Today’s passage: Revelation 5 Focus verse: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain.” (Revelation 5:9) Our scene in heaven continues to unfold: the four living creatures have declared God holy, and the twenty-four elders have laid their crowns at the feet of […]
Praising God as Worthy Today’s passage: Revelation 4:9–11 Focus verse: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.” (Revelation 4:11) The four living creatures have affirmed God as holy, holy, holy. The twenty-four elders are there too. What are they doing as the four living creatures chant their praise? […]
Praising God as Holy Today’s passage: Revelation 4:1–8 Focus verse: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” (Revelation 4:8) Having considered Jesus’s seven letters to the seven churches, we move forward into the third and longest part of the book of Revelation. Jesus, with a voice booming like a trumpet, explains what’s about to […]
The Church in Laodicea: Lukewarm for Jesus Today’s passage: Revelation 3:14–22 Focus verse: “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16) We don’t know that Paul ever traveled to Laodicea during his missionary journeys, but he mentions their church in his letter to the […]
The Church in Philadelphia: Weak but Worthy Today’s passage: Revelation 3:7–13 Focus verse: “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” (Revelation 3:8) The church in Philadelphia is another church that only appears in Revelation. In Jesus’s letter to them, he offers encouragement for […]
The Church in Sardis: A Dead Church Today’s passage: Revelation 3:1–6 Focus verse: “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” (Revelation 3:1) As with the churches in Smyrna and Pergamum, Scripture provides no additional information about the church in Sardis other than what occurs in the book […]
The Church in Thyatira: Sexual Immorality Today’s passage: Revelation 2:18–29 Focus verse: “By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” (Revelation 2:20) We hear of the city of Thyatira once in the book of Acts. It’s the home of Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, […]