Revelation 22:22

For the faithful, the book of Revelation is itself a taste of the river of life, for it refreshes hope in the coming of Christ and gives certain knowledge of the overthrow of evil and the ultimate restoration of all things:

It has been a weary time, a waiting time, a suffering time, but His Coming or presence shall turn the gloom of night into gladness and everlasting joy. The shadows of time are passing away, and the first faint streaks of an eternal day, which knows neither evening nor tears are almost discernible. Hold on, ye wearied pilgrim host! Joy cometh in the morning. We wait for Him, not for the fulfilment of prophecy. Is His Coming a reality in our souls? Does it influence the life, and shape the conduct, and impart vigour, as we press on?¹

For the faithless, the book pushes him further in his hardened rejection of God:

I doubt not, that this Apocalypse has been and will be the rock on which many a one’s salvation is wrecked by reason of the offense taken at its presentations. To the savants and scientists of this world, there is no part of all the Scriptures which seem so absurd and impossible. They can get on with everything else a thousandfold better than with the outlines of the future which this Book gives. To their philosophy it is the very consummation of nonsense. And if this is the scheme and outcome of the Gospel system, they will have none of it. They know better. They have got beyond all such puerilities. They would not swallow such things for their lives, and scorn to take for divine what embraces them as the consummation of this world. Their sneers, contempt, and blasphemy nowhere rise to such a pitch as when they are asked to accept and believe that this Book is of God, and means what it says.²

The question, dear reader, is which are you? Will you reach out to take the promises which Christ gives the overcomer throughout the pages of this book and become one who believes in Him? Will you respond in faith to the open invitation to partake of the living waters, freely given? Will you be among those who are kept from the hour of trial which is to come upon the whole world (Rev. Rev. 3:10+)? Will you love the appearing of the Lord Jesus and say, with the rest of the saints: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

Or will you remain among the skeptics, the sophisticated, the independent and self-sufficient, who have no need of God and would just as soon He did not exist? Have you already hardened your heart beyond the point of return such that you will be one of those destined to stand before the Great White Throne, whose name is missing from the Book of Life (Rev. Rev. 20:15+)?

Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts . . . Now is the day of salvation! (Heb Heb. 3:15; 2Cor. 2Cor. 6:2)

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Notes

¹ Walter Scott, Exposition of The Revelation (London, England: Pickering & Inglis, n.d.), Rev. 22:20.

² J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse: Lectures on the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966), 518.