Here are the “key themes” from the book of Revelation, as listed in the ESV Study Bible
- Through his sacrificial death, Jesus Christ has conquered Satan, the accuser, and has ransomed people from every nation to become a kingdom of priests, gladly serving in God’s presence.
- Jesus Christ is present among his churches on earth through his Holy Spirit, and he knows their trials, triumphs and failures.
- World history, including its woes and disasters, is firmly in the control of Jesus, the victorious Lamb.
- God is presently restraining his own wrath and his enemies’ efforts to destroy the church as he patiently gathers his redeemed people through the testimony that his suffering people proclaim about Jesus.
- Present disasters (war, drought, famine, epidemic disease), though limited in scope by God’s restraint, are foreshadows and warnings of escalating judgments to come.
- By maintaining their faithful testimony to the death, believers in Jesus will conquer both the dragon and the beast. The martyrs’ victory, now hidden, will be manifest in their vindication at Christ’s return.
- Satan attacks the church’s perseverance and purity through violent persecution, through deceptive teaching, and through affluence and sensual pleasure.
- At the end of the age, the church’s opponents will intensify persecution, but Jesus, the triumphant Word of God, will defeat and destroy all his enemies; the old heaven and earth, stained by sin and suffering, will be replaced by the new heaven and earth; and the church will be presented as a bride in luminous purity to her husband, the Lamb.
How many of these themes have you studied in your devotions or heard articulated in your church over the past five years or so? Something to think about.