Rev 1:3, Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near. 
We began our considerations of this Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ delving into it with the focus on this third verse of the first chapter. What is written here is true of the entire manner in which we are to read, to hear, and to obey the Word of God. There is to be a reverent attitude in our minds and hearts as we reflect on His Word. There should be a sense of awe and wonder at the idea that God would so love us that He would give us His very Word to guide and to direct, to instruct and to encourage us.   
We measured the truth that we need to read His Word. It is not enough to have a Bible in our homes and think that we are OK before Him. It is not just a matter of going to church to hear sermons, and then have a Bible to refer to when we need certain things in our lives. It is not just a collection of stories to read to our children or grandchildren before bedtime. It needs to be read and to be prayerfully studied. We need to read it individually, with our family, and corporately with an earnest prayer unto God to open up that which He desires to show us. We should spring to our Bibles at the first sign of an issue and cleave to it during those times of trial and tribulation. It should become our bulwark against all the darts and arrows that are cast against us day in and day out. We need to pick it up and to read it and read it and read it again for our daily substance and sustenance.
We, then, began to look at the importance of the truth that we need to hear the Word of God. That is one of the great reasons that we are called to join together in praise and worship and admonition as the Body of Christ. We must read the Word and we must also be hearers of the Word. There is much that God opens to us as we listen to what He has to say. Sometimes the messages may be fiery and emotionally packed. Other times they seem to be somewhat mundane and mild, but He always speaks to us if we will stop and listen. We really need to grasp this truth, because it is something that many people do not seem to realize. When we come to the Lord to listen, it requires that we do just that- listen. We must come prepared to hear what God has to say to us. We set aside our concepts and our ideas and we earnestly, honestly, beseechingly ask God to speak to us. Then we listen; intently listen with ears that we have asked to be anointed by His Holy Spirit. It matters not His choice of the delivery of His Word, the trained voice, the emotionalism, the power, or the inflections. We listen to the Word of God, asking Him always “What do You want me to hear in Your Word?” 
As we read in James 1:18-21 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures. This you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. We seek Him to implant His Word into us, deep and solidly and eternally. We submit ourselves to listen to Him. This is something that is very, very difficult, to submit to listening. This means no mental arguments, no intellectual dissertations while the Word is being preached. Not setting ourselves higher or lower than the one ministering. Just listening with an active discourse with the Holy Spirit to make Himself known in all His fullness. 
Let me be very clear on this point. This does not imply that we accept everything that is spoken in the pulpit. There needs to be an active listening in our hearts and minds. That means that we ask the Holy Spirit to validate or invalidate what we hear. That is part of this active hearing, the need for our anointed listening. We hear and then we take what we hear before Him with His Scripture open before us as the witness of His truth. 
The reason this is so important is that many people will say things in the name of the Lord that are simply their own interpretation of what they think God is telling them. All the while, what we hear are merely ideas and conjectures and good hopes rather than God’s truth. We must always measure what we are told is the word of God against the written Word of God. That is why it is so important to read it and to know it. What we hear from God will always, always, always be in complete line with what He tells us in His Word! He will open those passages through our listening to His Word preached. He will advance our understanding by His revealed Word, under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, but it will always correspond exactly to His written Word.   
	The other aspect in this line which needs to be addressed is that we often do not like what we hear preached. Because we do not like it, we simply discount it as not worth hearing or not valid, even though it is exactly what the Holy Spirit wants us to hear. We close our ears to the truth that is preached because it means that we will have to change our thoughts, our conduct, our ideas, or our comfort level of understanding. Rather than accommodating and adjusting our lives to His truth, we change ministers until we hear that which we want to hear. To anointedly listen means that we are willing to hear and then act on that hearing in our lives. Our Lord tells us this in Luke 11:28, But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it." We need to listen with hearts that are willing to respond. 
	The very beginning of this book of Revelation contains the admonition to hear what the Spirit has to say to us, His church. We are directly addressed with the admonition to hear what is being spoken to us and to live in accordance with what we hear. This is done seven times, not including this morning’s passage. Some of the examples are: Rev 2:7, 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.' Rev 2:11, 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.' Rev 2:17, 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.' And, Rev 2:29, 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' It is of utmost importance that we are prepared to hear what God has to tell us!
	This brings us to the final aspect of the promise of blessing that is before us in this passage: Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it… We need to heed that which we read and hear. It is not a matter of simply reading and listening to the Word, we need to obey it. It needs to make a difference in our lives, a change in our entire understanding and motivation of life. As Jesus Christ is proclaimed and taught, He needs to become our every manner of life on this earth. That is inherent in each of the Revelation passages that we just read, to hear and then to overcome, to obey, to hearken to and abide by the Word that we receive.
	The Lord is very specific about this in Ex 19:5+6. 'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel." There is the promise of His blessing as we obey Him, as we do that which He instructs in His Word.
	One key aspect or truth of this obedience is that we seek after Him with all our heart and soul. It should develop within us that we want to do those things which please Him and a key truth is that we give ourselves over to diligently searching for Him in our lives. Deut 4:29-31 But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. 
	We cannot just listen, then sit back and expect God to bless us. We need to seek Him. We need to struggle through the arena of self desires vs. God’s desires and find ourselves wholeheartedly throwing ourselves unto Him for His sake, Alone. 
	Hear the heart of God calling for us to render unto Him all that we are. Deut 5:29 'Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever! How He desires to bless us eternally with the knowledge of Himself, His great love, His tender mercies, His loving kindnesses, and His eternal joy and peace. 
	Deut 7:12-15 "Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. And the Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you. 
	He calls us to the obedience of His Word over and over again with the promise of the blessing of Himself forever and forever. Deut 28:1-9 "Now it shall be, if you will diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. "The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way and shall flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord  your God gives you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in His ways. 
	This goes so far beyond simply trying to obey the law in order to receive a blessing. It is a matter of living the life that is in complete conformity with the very heart of God. It is a matter of knowing that which pleases Him and then choosing to live our lives with the single focus of that which honors and blesses Him. In having that heart, we will know what true contentment and purpose and joy and blessing are. We will have eternal life in the presence of God, not based on our good deeds, but upon the basis of the life of Jesus Christ Who indwells us and lives His life out from us day by day. 
1 Kings 3:14 And if you walk in My ways, keeping My statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days." As we obey Christ and live unto Him, we please the Father and we live unto His complete pleasure and glory with no thought of our own benefit. When that is our life, then we are following the course of the life that He has planned for us forevermore. Job 36:10-12 "And He opens their ear to instruction, And commands that they return from evil. "If they hear and serve Him, They shall end their days in prosperity, And their years in pleasures. "But if they do not hear, they shall perish by the sword, And they shall die without knowledge. 
The Word, the true knowledge of God, is always centered in His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Apart from Him we have no life and we have no basis of any standing before God. 1 John 3:21-24 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. 
It is not enough to read the Word. It is not enough to listen to the Word. We need to live the Word, live in the truth that God opens to us and within us in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is, after all, the purpose of our lives on this earth, to glorify God through the living testimony of the life of Jesus Christ in and by Whom we live.
As we are told by James, the blessing of God resides in the manner in which we live in line with that which we read and hear. James 1:22-25, But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does. 
It is in this light that we will forge forward in our studies of this Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. We seek that which God chooses to reveal to us. Lord willing, we will be united with hearts that will search and seek and pray for His Word to become our lives, today and forevermore. So be it!
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Rev 1:5b-6. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.