This Bible Study was recorded in 2008. Please excuse the video quality. Thank you! The end of time as we know it is rapidly approaching. The great battle of Armagaeddon is upon us. How will this final chapter all play out in the final days of man on Earth? The answer is documented in the Book of Revelation. Well are you excited about studying the Book of Revelation? I'll be honest with you, I really am, and for years I've kind of skirted the book, and about six months ago the Holy Spirit really spoke to me and He said, "Now's the time." And so I'm excited about sharing some of the things that we're going to be looking at. But before we jump into the book what I really want to do is I want to give you a little bit of an introduction. And uh, it's something that I think everyone needs to know and the reason you need to know this is because, there's a lot of books out there on the Book of Revelation. There's a lot seminars being held on the Book of Revelation. and if you don't know how they approach the book, then you might get carried away into something that's not Scriptural. So if you don't mind I'm going to just kind of give an introduction tonight. Revelation is what is known as an apocalyptic book. How many of you know what the word apocalyptic means? Apocalyptic means prophetic, but more specifically it refers to revelations or prophecies about the events regarding the end of the world. So Revelation is a prophetical book, describing what's going to happen during the end times. In other words it tells us what's going to happen right before Jesus comes back, when Jesus comes back and after He comes back. That's why everyone is so intrigued by it. We all want to know what's going to happen and that's why you're here tonight. You want to know what's going to happen in the end. And most of you are thinking we're so close to the end and we really are. There's some things you're gonna see in the news and you've already seen in the news That really indicates we're living in the time when Jesus could truly come back. In Generations past that was not possible and I'll tell you why: How many of you know that there's not just one battle during the Tribulation? Most of us have always thought that there's one battle it's the battle of what? Armageddon. Actually there are two battles that take place. One will happen, just as the tribulation begins. When one of the horseman of the Apocalypse comes out, he's going to bring in a nuclear war. Which country is going to instigate that? How many of you know? Iran is. Guess who's going to make a weapon of mass destruction? I don't care what they say, I don't care who's trying to impose all of these sanctions against them, Iran will have a nuclear bomb. And they will attack Israel, and God will supernaturally protect Israel. And that's going to be the beginning of many of the things that's going to happen in the Tribulation. But what I want to emphasize to you is that we are living at that time. And I believe that's why the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "you need to teach on the book of revelation." Because blessed are those who read the book, hear it, but more importantly it says, keeps it. We're going to find out what that means next week but any ways, before we jump right in let me explain the four different methods for interpreting the book of revelation. As you might guess theologians are divided on the issue of "how do we interpret the book of revelation?" well in the theological world there are four major schools of thought concerning the interpretation of revelation. first school of thought is known as the historicist approach. they see the book of revelation as a prewritten record of the course of history from the time of the apostles to the end of the world. those who teach this view, believe God revealed the entire church age in advance through symbolic vision of revelation. Let me give you an example of that. To them, the breaking of the seven seals in chapter six and seven is often said to be the barbarian invasions that sacked the western roman empire. The scorpions and locusts that come out of the bottomless pit in chapter 9, those are the arab whores that attacked the eastern roman empire. now at one time this was the predominant view of the protestants of most protestants and the reason I bring this up is because some of you have commentaries from some scholars from hundreds and two hundred years ago and some even longer. How many of you have Calvin's commentaries, anyone? Okay, I have it. if you have his commentary on revelation, he takes an historicist approach. What they do is they take all of these events in revelation and they say these are symbolic of what's taking place, what has taken place, in history. so they go to places and points in history and say oh well this what this was saying happened and it did. but most protestants do not believe that today except with one exception. The seventh day adventists still hold to this view with their own personal twist, teaching it in the revelation seminar. I don't know about you but about every two years I get a flyer in the mail and it says revelation seminar come and find out about the four horseman of the apocalypse find out about the seven seals and judgement and about the seven trumpets and the seven vials and i look at that and i see the picture and i say I'd like to go to that. and then i keep reading i get to the fine print and it's seventh day adventist. Now, I'm not dissing anyone I want you to understand that, But I know something that most of you don't know, they hold to the historicist approach. and i'm just going to tell you right now it's wrong. It was not the barbarian invasion. These things are prophesying what's going to happen in the future in a seven year period of time known as the tribulation. all right? Next you have what is known as the preterist approach. Now if you're from Oklahoma or Arkansas, or Texas, or some of the southern states, you pronounce this "Pretterist" But if you are *pause* more educated and from the east, and I'm not, then you pronounce it "Preeterist" all right? They believe that the things prophesied in Revelation were fulfilled shortly after it was written. They believe that the Great Tribulation is not some future period of time but it's a series of events that happened about 40 years after the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. According to them, chapters 4 through 19 describe the Tribulation in symbolic terms, but it was all fulfilled in 70 AD, when Jerusalem, and the Temple, was destroyed, or were destroyed. Then you have what is known as the Spiritual approach, and this is still very common today. Now, when i say common it doesn't mean that - a lot of people hold to this view but you'll be surprised in just about every evangelical church there's a few people who hold to the spiritual approach also known as the allegorical approach or the idealist approach anyone ever heard of those terms? Any ways, this group doesn't believe that prophecy is meant to predict any future event. But is only meant to teach spiritual lessons about the conflict between good and evil. And it's applicable in any time period. Let me give you an example of how they view it An idealist doesn't believe that the beast that's coming out of the sea in Revelation chapter 13 is a prediction of the future evil ruler that we know as the antichrist. They believe that the beast is meant to be symbolic of any oppressive political power at any time in history. So, Revelation was talking about the Hitlers of the world. The Stalins of the world. So this isn't really meant to be a prediction of one specific event, at one specific time period, but basically it's allegorical and we can all read through it and we can see certain things and we can go, "oh, that's happening right now!" But that's not really what Revelation is about. Last you have what is known as the Futurist approach. The Futurist approach is held by the majority of evangelical scholars of today. This group believes that John was predicting what would happen in the future. Right before Jesus comes back, when He comes back, and after He comes back. Those that hold to this approach believe that Revelation is to be interpreted literally. Yes Revelation uses symbolism. But you need to understand why Revelation uses symbolism Imagine if you would, living two thousand years ago and you see a nuclear bomb go off. It's something that you've never seen before. People are annihilated, all you see is this mushroom cloud coming up. How do you describe it, in your vocabulary? All you've ever seen before are chariots and bows and arrows and javelins, and now you're supposed to describe airplanes and helicopters and tanks, and all these things that are going to take place. So guess what they do? They use symbolism. But the symbolism represents literal events that will happen. Let me give you an example: When the second trumpet blows, futurists believe that a third of the sea will turn to blood. That will result in a third of the sea creatures dying. And a third of the ships in the ocean will sink. Futurists believe that will literally happen. They also believe that during the Seventh bowl or, vial if you want to be more technical because that's what it is in the Greek, hailstones will fall that weigh as much as One hundred pounds. Now i want you to think about that. We've all gone to Reasor's in the summertime because Our refrigerator couldn't produce enough ice, right? and we're going camping out and we want to fill up our ice chest so we go to Reasor's and we get a twenty pound bag of ice. That's just a fifth of one hundred pounds. Imagine five of those, you put them in a freezer pour a little water on them and they stick together. Hailstones are going to fall that weigh a hundred pounds. now I'm going to tell you that when we get to that point that that can happen and it will happen in fact it has already happened before once before. There just has to be the right conditions for that to take place. And we'll explain what conditions will happen that will cause this to take place. Now, as you can probably tell, I fall in the futurist category. Could you tell that? I believe That John wrote this book to let believers know what's going to happen in the end times. So in this series what I'm going to do is I'm to lay out the series of events that's going to happen right before Christ's return. and then I'm going to lay out what's going to happen when Jesus Christ does return. And then we're going to talk about what's going to happen after He's on this Earth for the next one thousand years. Now, let me explain Why I am a futurist and why I believe we should interpret the Book of Revelation literally. and the reason I think this is very important is because I didn't come to this conclusion just because I was taught this or I read one book. I had several eschatology classes and i have to be honest with you you had to learn a lot of this frontwards and backwards and a lot of that I just kind of filed away decided, well I'll never use that. Here I had to pull all of that information back again. But what's interesting about this Is that, I've come to this conclusion Because of my own studies in the Word of God Now let me explain why I'm a futurist and why I believe I and you should interpret the Book of Revelation literally first of all I believe that history has taught us to interpret Biblical prophecies literally. you see, all of the prophecies concerning Jesus Christ's first coming were fulfilled - literally. They were fulfilled exactly as the prophets said they would be. let me give you some examples, if you would, Look on the back of your notes at that table. we're gonna go through just a few of those you can look at these later. But let me show you some of the predictions the prophets made about the Messiah. The prophet Isaiah predicted that the Messiah would be born of a virgin and Jesus was. It's recorded in Matthew 1 chapters 22 through 23 Joseph did not know Mary when Mary became pregnant Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and Jesus was. We see the fulfillment of that in Matthew the second chapter verses three through six. Hosea predicted that the Messiah would live in Egypt awhile and of course Jesus did. We see the fulfillment of that in Matthew chapter two verse number 15. As we continue to go down through this it's amazing it said that He would enter Jerusalem in on a donkey and you know I didn't put all of these here When we study the 70 weeks, how many of you know what the 70 weeks are? Well you're gonna find out what the 70 weeks are. What's so interesting about that period of time is that when you go back and look at that prophecy Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on the very day it was prophesied He would. Almost 400 years before that time. We look at these and it's almost amazing to see what Jesus fulfilled. He was abandoned by his disciples, he was treated cruel cruelly, his hands and his feet were pierced soldiers gambled for garments, no bones were broken, He was crucified between two thieves now people you need to understand something about the crucifixion when that was prophesied the jews did not crucify how was a person killed for capitol punishment for jews when that was prophesied? they were stoned. Crucifixion was not something they even heard of. as a result of that this was prophesied Jesus came along it was fulfilled. Now, all of these prophecies were fulfilled literally. In other words the events happened Just as the prophets predicted they would be. So if all of the prophecies concerning the first coming of Jesus Christ were fulfilled literally, don't you think they prophecies concerning the second coming of Jesus will be? Of course! That's a no brainer! History has taught us that. When Jesus said: You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds in the sky in Matthew chapter 24, verse number 30 I believe that means that Jesus will physically return to this Earth and you're going to see Him coming in the clouds in the sky. Let me give some other passages of Scripture that confirm this. That talks about Jesus' return. Look with me if you would in the book of Acts chapter one verse number 11. men of Galilee they said why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday, he will return from heaven the same way you saw him go. they were standing there and they saw Jesus literally just go up into Heaven and go up into the clouds. and what did the angels say? The very same way that you saw Him go? That's the way He's going to come back. Now look at 1 Thessalonians Chapter Oner verse number 10. Because of what they said notice what 1 Thessalonians says And they speak of how, you are looking forward to the coming of God's Son from Heaven. They were looking forward to seeing Jesus come down from Heaven Now look at 1 Thessalonians chapter four verses 16 and 17 for the Lord himself will come down from Heaven with a commanding shout with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God. first the christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. now people that's pretty specific. so what is this telling us? it's telling us that Jesus Christ is going to come back and we're going to see Him come back. People Jesus isn't coming in just some spiritual, allegorical sense. He is literally visibly returning from Heaven. He didn't come again in the hearts of the disciples, or come again in some mystical sense at another time in history. You see, those that hold to the spiritual approach believe that Jesus already came back. He came back in your heart. Isn't that nice? Jesus lives in your heart He fulfilled His promise, now we do believe that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, when, you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives inside of you. But I want you to understand something when Jesus said I will come back He wasn't talking about some mystical sense. Where He was gonna come live in your heart even though, Jesus does through His Spirit live inside of us. He was saying, I am coming back to Earth. And the same way that you saw me leave, is the same way that I'm going to come back. And the Book of Revelation, laws out those events that will precede His second coming. Now, next week when you come you're gonna see a banner that stretches about 25 feet long it is a chart of all the events that are going to take place that will precede Jesus Christ coming back. When the Tribulation starts and there's a seven year period of time when we get to the 70 weeks, in fact I will probably speak on that after Easter in depth on a Sunday morning. I will go into depth in to what the 70 weeks are when we come to that last week and that word 'week' really refers to a periods of seven so we're talking about a 70 year period. When we see the Tribulation in this chart, I'm going to line up all the events that are going to take place. We're gonna have the four horseman of the apocalypse and what's gonna happen when that takes place we're gonna see the four seals and what's gonna take place. We're gonna go through the seven trumpets, did I say four seals? Seven seals. Seven trumpets that's gonna take place. The seven vials. We're gonna see the battle of Armageddon, and we're gonna see these events that are gonna take place. Now you're probably wondering why you have such a large handout right? We don't ever give large handouts. It doesn't fit in my three-ring binder. Well, next week if you bring your pocket book, you can buy a three-ring binder from us that will have Revelation on the front of it but, the reason we're going to this size is because I want you to have a handout just like the banner is. So as we begin to go through the events that's going to occur during the seven year period that's known as the Tribulation you can go right along side me and you can take notes on it but in order to get that banner to fit we've got to take that banner and fold it out like four times. So we had to put it in a big three-ring binder, all right? So i'm just telling you why we had to go this way, and besides that we're gonna be giving you so much information we realized, we couldn't put it all on that little piece of paper and that's why we're giving you a much larger handout. Now The second reason I'm a futurist and I believe in a literal interpretation of revelation is because of God's own words. turn with me if you would to the book of Isaiah chapter 46 verses nine through ten. God is speaking and notice what he says: Remember the things I've done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me! Now if you understand the characteristics of God then you realize, there is none like God. Even the angels He created, even though they have supernatural powers, there is none like God. One of the reasons there is none like God, is because God can tell you the future before it even happens. Look at verse number ten: Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass. For I do, whatever I wish. God can tell you the future before it even happens. Down to every little minute detail. And it happens just the way He says it will happen. When I teach on the 70 weeks, you're gonna see how God has precisely predicted events in the past hundreds of years before they ever happened. His prophecies are so accurate That critics argue that the prophecies had to be written after the fact not before. That's why most critics will reject the book of Daniel. How many of knew, or how many of you know that most liberals reject the book of Daniel? Do you know why they reject the book of Daniel? Because they claim it's way to accurate to written when it was. But people, evidence proves that the prophet Daniel predicted these events hundreds of years before the events ever occurred. Now how was he able to do this? It's because God gave him revelation. People, God knows the future. And the good thing about God is, He considers us His friend. And what does a friend do? A friend lets people in on secrets. So God has revealed the future to us in His Bible. So, as we go through the book of revelation I want you to be rest assured that the events are going to happen just as God said they were gonna happen. And as we go through them I think many of you are gonna be excited and reason you're going to be excited is you're going to see how these things are going to happen very quickly. We're living in a time as never before that these things could happen just as John prophesied. Now as we go through the book of Revelation you must keep the big picture in mind. What is the big picture of Revelation, does anyone know? Jesus is coming back! The fact that he's coming back! In John the 14th chapter verse number three Jesus said I will come back. Turn with me to John chapter 14 verse number 3 And if i go and prepare a place for you, I will come back now I want you to notice what he was saying if I go he's preparing his disciples I'm going to leave you. But if I leave you it's because I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if i prepare a place for you, I will come back. All other prophecy in the book of revelation revolves around the fact that Jesus is coming back. and when he comes back Jesus will fulfill all of the messianic prophecies that He did not fulfill the first time He came. You see, when Jesus came the first time He only fulfilled part of the Messianic prophecies. Did you know that? Let me see if I can explain this, because this is very interesting. On one hand, the prophets predicted a suffering Messiah. A humble, meek servant of God. ho would bear our sin and who would die in our place. If you read Isaiah the 53rd chapter, verse 1 through 12, what you'll find our amazing prophecies concerning what the Messiah will do. What you see is what Jesus did when He first came. This Messiah, this Christ is going to bear our sin. He's going to be chastised for our peace. By His stripes we're going to be healed. We're going to think that it's been brought upon Him because of what He did Isbut it wasn't, it was because He bore our sin and then God is gonna raise Him from the dead. Isaiah 53 speaks about this suffering Messiah. But on the other hand the prophet spoke about a powerful, victorious messiah who would conquer His enemies and who would rule the world. You'll find that in the book of Zechariah, the book of Jeremiah, the book of Ezekiel, you'll find it all through the Old testament. But this created a problem because there didn't seem to be a way to reconcile the two different aspects of the Messiah. As a result, some of the rabbis in the first century actually thought there would be two Messiahs. How many of you knew that? Yes. Many rabbis actually taught around the time of Christ that there would be two Messiahs that would come. One Messiah would be very humble, and He would bear our sin. The other Messiah would be majestic and earth-conquering. But you see the solution, wasn't in two Messiahs but in two appearances of the same Messiah. You see even the Old testament prophets didn't realize that the Messiah would come twice at two separate times. they just expected one appearance, and so did the disciples, they expected when Jesus Christ came the first time and they saw Him resurrected, they thought "okay, now we get it!" "Now you're gonna conquer the world, right Jesus?" Look at Acts chapter one we're gonna read verses 6 and 7 and then 9 through 11 and notice what's happening here now when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking Him, now what's interesting about this is it's written in the present tense, it means continual action or that's what it denotes continual action. They continually asked Jesus, they were driving Him crazy. And what were they continually asking Him? "Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?" What they were asking is "You're the Messiah the Messiah's supposed to come and conquer our enemies and rule the world. Are you going to conquer the world now, and rule?" now notice this, "Jesus replied, The Father alone has the authority to se those dates and times, and they are not for you to know." Now did you notice that Jesus did not set them straight, that it wasn't going to happen that way? He didn't do that - you want to know why He didn't do that? Because what they're expecting is going to happen, He just says is not going to happen, when you think it is. in other words its going to happen but its going to happen in gods timing. After saying this he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white robed men suddenly stood among them. Men of Galilee they said, why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return just like you saw him leave, he will come back and what you're expecting of him will take place. that's the early church continually looked for the great blessed hope. What was the great blessed hope? That Christ would return and every generation was supposed to look for it. Now here's what's kind of interesting to me. In the generation in which this is going to occur which is our generation we are the one that is actually fulfilling the prophecies that said oh he's slack concerning his promises he's not gonna come. But you know what I believe? I truly believe, that if I don't die prematurely, I won't die. I will be raptured. Because we're the generation that's going to see Jesus come back. As we're getting ready to go into this election year and we're seeing everything happening you know I'll be honest with you I'm a little disgusted in all of it but the truth of the matter is I realize it doesn't really matter. Jesus knows the future before it even happens and all of these things are just setting up our world is becoming the way it is for one reason because it's all happened the way God says it's going to happen it's kind of interesting when we look at this but there's a reason all of this terrorism is taking place you're going to give up your liberties and you're going to give up your freedoms in order to have safety and there's gonna come along a man that's gonna be able to promise peace and everyone's gonna follow that man but the world is setting it up for this time but what I'm trying to say here, because I've gotten off track, is that Jesus only fulfilled part of the Messianic prophecies the first time He came and He's going to fulfill the other part When He comes again. Now Revelations - Revelation, it's not plural Revelation deals with the events surrounding the second coming when He comes as the conquering king. In this book we're going to see a completely different side of Jesus. We're gonna see Him from the conquering king aspect. And you need to keep that in mind as we go through the book. Yes, He's still the loving Messiah who died for us He's our high priest who can be touched by our infirmities He's the one we boldly come through, uh too to the throne room of grace. Why is that? Because Jesus is that loving Messiah. And that's the part we've come to know and love. But you need to understand there's a second part to Jesus Christ. That second part is the conquering king. He's the one that's going to come in a judge the world for wickedness. And we're going to see both aspects in the book of Revelation. But the main focus, is not gonna be on the suffering aspect we're only gonna see those times in heaven, when the saints are before the throne room where the 144,000 are or the 12 elders are and at that point each one will sing a different song. And the song they sing depends upon the redemption. We're gonna come before the lord and we're gonna be singing a song because of what He did for us. And it's different than what the 144,000 will sing. And it's different than what the elders sang. But you need to understand something, for those who have not received Jesus Christ, Jesus is coming as a conquering king and He will rule the world with a rod of iron. So the focus is going to be on this conquering King, He's coming back to conquer His enemies and rule the world. Now, in this series, I'm going to try to the best of my ability to try and cover at least one chapter a night. and the reason I want to do that Is the same reason i tried to do that in the book of Ecclesiastes. I want to always make sure that you keep the big picture in mind and I'm afraid that if we get caught up in all the little details that you'll lose sight of the big picture. and what I really want as we go through the book of revelation is that you can take each event and you can say oh this will happen at this specific time in the Tribulation and you'll be able to see all of these events in chronological order. You're also going to understand that there are certain parts in the book of revelation at does not fit in chronological order. And the reason it does not fit in chronological order is because the Jews did not write like we do in the western world many times, we're reading along in the Gospels, and we don't quite understand and the reason we don't understand is because, wait a minute when did this happen? But you see, they didn't write like we do in the western world in the western world when we sit down to write e write everything in chronological order don't we? They don't do that. Now the book of revelation is written in chronological order except for, every once in awhile there are parenthetical chapters. I'll refer to them interludes and I'll explain what an interlude is. And if you try to fit that in to chronological order you confuse yourself. It's not meant to be in chronological order. What he does is he'll give you a series of events then he stops and he goes, "oh by the way you need to understand these details" and then he'll give you these details. They don't fit in this period of time they actually fit back before these events or during these events. And so as we go through the book of Revelation I want to make sure that you understand the book so I'm gonna try not to get bogged down. But i have to admit, I am a teacher. Did you notice we didn't start with Revelation chapter 1 tonight? Oh no, we had to do an introduction. And i told my wife that this is really discouraging because I'm preparing for next week already and I'm on verse number 4. There are so many good things that I'm going "oh I could spend an hour and a half on the first four verses." And I'm saying "no, no, no, how do I condense this? How do we just keep going fast?" So i'm telling you I'm going to try to cover a chapter a night But i do not promise I will. If there's good stuff What I'm going to do is, I'm going to cover it and then at the very end I'm going to go okay now here's the big picture. And that's what I'm going to do.
