Revelation Lesson 1

Heavenly Father I thank you Father for the the privilege that it is to study your word and to teach your word that I might study it in preparation to teach father is a blessing for me and that I might have the the blessing of the spirits revelation in the course of my studies so that I share that with others is a blessing as well now thank you for the men and women who've gathered tonight to learn I pray that each heart in here everyone who hears whether in this room or elsewhere is moved by the spirit to understand and live out what's revealed to them through the word and that in the days we live in the times we occupy father our hearts would be turned to the urgency of these things so that the world that's out there that does not know these things yet and it desperately needs to know them might be influenced by some measure and what we can offer them and we pray this in Jesus name Amen alright friends welcome to a new verse by verse ministry study through the book of Revelation and this is probably or maybe easily the most challenging book of the Bible to study and as I begin it tonight I'm sure won't surprise you to hit me tell you that we have to approach our study of this book carefully every book of Scripture you want to study carefully there's no book you don't want to study carefully and we want to do it with systematic interpretation careful observation and the like but when you get to the book of Revelation the rigor requirements go up another level in my estimation and the book of Revelation is such that it stirs up so much controversy at times and I think it's because people don't study it necessarily with that rigor in mind and when you hear about all the difference of different opinions out there about what the book means what it says if you're like most you start to shrink back from a study of it because your thought is if so many learned people can't understand it Who am I to get into it and understand it and I don't really want to get involved in an argument and I don't really want to have all the people around me debating what's true and what's not true and so as a result we may never get into the book at all well let me tell you that those conflicting opinions and all the controversy that surrounds it is simply proof that the enemy does want you to study this book I will tell you that whenever I have chosen to teach this book in the five times now that I've done it in my career inevitably in the months weeks leading up to it all hell breaks loose and I'm not using that metaphorically the level of attack is unbelievable when I announced that I'm gonna do this book it's not a coincidence and I think it goes the other way too many who say they oh I'm gonna go study that book all of a sudden things happen I assure you there's somebody who was going to be here tonight in their car broke down and you can see the devil everywhere if you're not careful but what I'm saying is this there's a reason why this book makes somebody so many people nervous or create so much dissension or makes life and the church seem uncomfortable it's because the enemy knows that if you actually sat down and study that it would change your life change your walk as a Christian open up things in your mind you've never given thought to and as we see tonight the Lord gave us this book so that we would understand it and understand it well our God is not a God of confusion the Bible says and that means we should approach this book with the expectation that we can and will understand it but at the same time let's also acknowledge that the Lord expects us to approach this book with proper preparation and care and with due diligence and to explore what I mean let me give you a simple analogy I want you to imagine that you go to a bookstore not that those exist anymore but let's say you go to a bookstore and you just check you just select some large novel off the shelf you've never read it before you you pull it off the shelf you open it up and you go to the last chapter in that novel and you start reading it all right I want to ask you how much of the action in that novel would you follow would you be able to understand if that's what you did right wouldn't you be thoroughly confused by what you found in that final chapter moreover wouldn't you expect to be confused if you choose to go with the book that way well of course you would which is why you'd never dream of doing that if you wanted to understand the book so how is it that you might open up a Bible or somebody might do this and choose to go to the last book of the Bible first and expect to understand it because in effect the Bible that we have is much like a novel at least in this sense that it has 66 chapters or we call them books but it has one author and that author hasn't just written them all he actually laid them out in the order that we have every human act that led to the production of this book came about under divine providence and not by chance and as such it's saying something to us that he put this book at the end what it's saying among other things is study the other 65 before you try this one because the characters the setting the events the imagery the plot lines all of the details that make up the story line of Revelation are a summation of everything that came before it so as you study the book proper reparation in this case means knowing a good deal about what's in the other 65 books of the Bible but now I doubt most of us have done that background and I'm not saying you necessarily should have but it does raise a question how are we gonna get through this study if in the room we aren't all equally experts in the other 65 books of the Bible well that's where I come in and I say that with all humility my job is to give you the background that you need as we move through this book so that you can understand what it's saying based on what the rest of the Bible tells us and I've heard people actually describe my revelation study as a study of the whole Bible masquerading as a study of Revelation but I don't know any other way to do it because you know there's too much in this book that's dependent on the on what came before it so that's how we're gonna do it so that's the first thing to understand is there's a lot of cross referencing that happens in this book second thing you need to understand is that there are rules of interpretation and we're gonna follow them because if you don't then you've just gone off roading on your own and at that point you're your own worst enemy rules in terms of interpreting and rules of interpretation I'm talking rules are there to protect us against ourselves against our own imagination or biases or blind spots and I'm not gonna give you a lot of them tonight but I want to give you two rules that we're gonna follow both of which come into play tonight and before I give you the two rules let me tell you what we're not going to do which i think is unfortunately common when you study prophecy and particularly revelation we're not going to make it up as we go now you would look at me like well of course not but you would be surprised maybe at how many people try to teach this book purely through speculation they just imagine what they think it means they just look at the details they go I think that means this you know if any other area of study worked that way can you imagine two plus two I think it means seven you know Columbus discovered America I think it was last year in other words we don't think about any other area any other discipline with that kind of of speculation but when it comes to biblical interpretation it's fair game right anybody who has an opinion has an equally valid reason to speak up and tell you what they think if that's how we found truth we know nothing there are rules of interpretation there are ways you go at looking at the book that are right and there are ways of looking at the text that are wrong and you don't want to do the wrong ones because you end up in the wrong place so we're gonna follow basic rules of interpretation and when we find that our rules of interpretation do not answer a question that we need answer that is to say when we don't get an answer of something we need you know what we're gonna do we're gonna say I don't know and we're gonna move on because it's self-evident at that point that the Lord has chosen not to let us know that that is to say he's not made it clear and that means we have something to come back on and that's just the way it works when you study the Bible you don't get to know it all the first time you read it that's not how the Lord works but if you're not ready to do that here's what you might do instead you might fill that gap of knowledge with your own thinking because you just don't want to leave a gap open to problems with doing that the first problem is you didn't learn anything you just speculated but secondly when an F the Lord does one day decide to give you that answer that you were waiting for when it comes do you know what you're gonna do you're not gonna listen because you've already got your answer because you gave it to yourself in that earlier moment that's how you end up with 50 people who have 50 different opinions of Revelation because they filled gaps with their own understanding from wherever and then when the truth did show up they weren't ready to change their mind all right so we want to avoid that problem we can avoid it simply by following rules of interpretation and being willing to be without an answer sometimes if necessary so what are the guidelines we want to follow in interpreting revelation and really for any Speigle study well I said I'm gonna give you two these are two rules that anyone who's doing a historical grammatical hermeneutic which is a fancy way of saying a proper mafada cool way of interpreting Scripture they would use these methods the first is the golden rule hopefully you've heard of this somewhere the golden rule of interpretation says when the plain sense of the text makes common sense seek no other sense just stop there because you don't want to go searching for mysterious meanings deeper subtext something more exciting than just what it says because when you do that you've started speculating and we don't want to do that so we're not going to run wild saying oh this is what it might mean no we're going to be constrained by the text and say this is what it does say and therefore what the author did mean and we're gonna leave it at that and we're gonna interpret the text using every word at its ordinary usual meaning unless the text tells us to do something else with it unless the context tells us that there's some other way in which we need to be seeing the what's said on the page and you know sometimes when you do that use the plain sense of the text and just let it go it will say things that will blow your mind and because it does you might be tempted to say well that can't be true be careful with that there were things that the Bible said could happen thousands of years ago that people said ah that could never happen and yet today technology has actually made it possible where they said it couldn't happen now we would say it could happen but it just goes to show the folly of trying to interpret the Bible through a lens of your world you're supposed to interpret your world through a lens of Scripture and so we're gonna let it say what it says that's the first rule the golden rule by the way if you follow the golden rule of interpretation you will stay out of trouble 95% of the time second rule is with regard to symbols and that's so important because of the book and the way this book is structured symbols are always going to be interpreted by the scripture itself what what does the dragon mean or what does the beast mean or what does the angel the star the lampstand the way what do they mean they're they'll mean exactly what the text says they mean we don't have to guess that's the beauty of it you'll never ever need to guess at the meaning of a symbol because if the symbol has significance that is to say if we're supposed to know what its meaning is that meaning is in the Bible already somewhere did you know that there's no symbol in the Bible of any importance that's not defined somewhere in the Bible and there's a little bit of a rule of hung or structure on how this works the first place you look for the meaning that is the interpretation of some symbol is in the immediate context where the symbol appears and I'd say half the time if not more often in the Bible that's where you'll find it the first the versal say and then there were the seven mountains on the lady with the horns and then the next verse will say and the mountains were this and the horns are this and the lady is that it's like you only had to read one more verse to get your answer other times it's not there though when you can't can't find it in the context what you do is you go backward not forward you go backward in Scripture within the same book until you find the answer and then on rare occasions it's not in the same book it's somewhere else in the Bible but here again only backward now why is it always in the reverse never forward because the Lord knows how you read he knows you read from front to back so when he puts a symbol in the Bible he's defined it at that moment or earlier so that you're not confused he is not a God of confusion he wants you to understand what he wrote what leads us to be confused in a word two words poor scholarship so we want to do good scholarship here and you'll see how quickly and easily that clears up confusion all right that's all the background I want to give you because you're anxious to get into the book I know I am so let's dive into the first chapter I will be putting the verses of Revelation on the screen as we move through it but when I cross reference to other parts of the Bible I will not be giving you that cross reference scripture I'll be reading it but I won't be showing it if you have a Bible in front of you you're welcome to follow along that's what I'd encourage you to do here are the rules of interpretation we just covered I'm gonna put those up for you briefly as we get into the text so that will be for you to look at online later as well all right revelation 1 chapter 1 verse 1 the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his bondservants the things which must soon take place and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bond servant John who testified to the Word of God into the testimony of Jesus even to all that he saw 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're in taking in chunks as I always do this is the first chunk for the night the book of Revelation is actually a letter although it didn't read much like a letter and the way we see other letters in the New Testament it has this unique Chain of Custody that opens it up it begins verse one as the revelation of Jesus Christ and the Greek word for revelation there's the word we get apocalypse from just means to be revealed something to be revealed but that's where we get the term apocalyptic literature this is a book of apocalyptic literature that means it's heavily dependent on symbols and it's speaking about of future events and there is no other letter in the New Testament that is said to be the direct revelation of Jesus Christ furthermore you hear that this revelation passes as I said through this remarkable chain of custody it starts with God the Father giving this revelation to him meaning Jesus and then the book goes from father to son to the bondservants it says so that the bondservants might know something in fact notice it says the son shows this revelation to his bond servants now what is a bond sermon well you probably know this it's a New Testament word for the followers of Jesus and it literally means a slave and that's why the scripture talks about us being slaves of Christ so this is a revelation of Christ coming from the Father coming to us but you notice there's a couple of steps more between us and Jesus in this chain of custody it went from father to Jesus then - it says his angel we don't know who this angel is angels play a primary role in this letter as you'll see as we go through it all and you're gonna see them featuring prominently as messengers in fact the word angel literally means messenger in Scripture finally the angel or angels as we'll see will communicate this detail - it says John now John is the Apostle John here church history tells us that and so does the text in a minute and this text does not mention which John it is you notice it just says to John and that's more reason if anything to conclude that it's the Apostle John because frankly there was only one John in the early church that was familiar everybody so if you're not gonna identify yourself any more specifically than saying I'm John well then it's understood to be John the Apostle now why do we have this elaborate Chain of Custody to open the letter well first of all we I think God wants to encourage us to trust the extraordinary things you're gonna read in this in this document that this is not some fanciful imagination you know if somebody didn't just have a bad night woke up with a dream and wrote it down there's something real behind all of this and just as today the early church was infatuated with the the second coming of Christ but they were inundated with false teaching and the false teachers with respect to the return of Christ were saying all kinds of things remember the early church thought he was coming back very quickly at first and so there was a lot of speculation about had he come back yes he's already come back I heard he came back over there oh you know all the the things have always already come back and we missed him but then there were those on the other side saying oh he's never coming back so there was a lot of speculation and error and here in this letter you have a definitive explanation of his return that's what the purpose of the letter is frankly of Christ's return that is the circumstances and the events that will lead up to his second coming that's the purpose of the letter and to ensure that the church accepted this testimony while it was already rejecting a bunch of bad ones that were floating around in the church Jesus gives us this Chain of Custody all the way to Paul I mean sorry to John and then to us so that we'd have some reason to trust it's Providence that is where it came from it's a Fenton tissa T notice in verse 1 there's a really interesting aspect of this though in verse 1 Jesus it says will show this revelation to his bondservants by show what he means is the details of this letter are not spoken to John they're not narrated to John they are simply played in front of him like a movie so John has the task of recording what he sees to us that is what has shown to him he tells us and in fact looking down at verse 3 where I read John says this letter is his testimony to what he saw that is a fascinating detail and it really explains a lot of the trouble and people trying to interpret this letter because what it means is it says says that this letter the information in this letter was not explained to John it was simply played in front of him and so John did not take it upon himself to try to interpret it for us he just says that's your problem here it is this is what I saw you guys figure it out or is more appropriately the spirit we'll figure it out as we study it but that's part of what makes this letter so challenging it's not narrate narrated it's shown so as a result of that methodology a lot of what's in this letter is clouded in mystery and rather than explaining what will happen the book is just asking us to work through it with the Lord and I think there's a reason behind this first it obscures the meaning of the text to anyone beyond who it is intended for who is it intended for verse one gave to him to show to his bond service this is not a written work for the world I mean in a general way the Word of God is to be taken to the world as a witness yes but the information in this particular book this this is the book of Revelation was not written so that the world at large would understand things that have nothing to do with them or another way to say it is the events of this book will come to pass upon the world rather whether the world knows about it or not now obviously it can be instructive in the in the way the Lord may use it to bring a heart to know him but that's true for every verse in the whole Bible that's that's not just unique to one part of the Bible every III was saved in a church listening to a pastor preach on the story of Noah in chapter 6 of Genesis and not with a gospel presentation necessarily just the story of Noah the guy doesn't need a specific kind of wording to bring someone to faith the Word of God in its own way does that what I'm saying though is that the details the information here is not for the world that's why it's clouded in this form of description of activity of a showing rather than of a telling so that the world is not informed as the church will be and then I think secondly it makes this study the study of Revelation a bit of a reward it is a reward to the student or to the believer who sets their mind into studying it based on a knowledge of the rest of the Bible think of it it's the cherry on the top you get to know what revelation is talking about because you are a student of scripture generally and as such it draws you in and it rewards you for the effort look in verse 3 John says those who read and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things written in it will be blessed by God you may have heard this but this is the only book in the Bible that has a specific promise of blessing to those who would study it the only one now obviously studying Scripture is a blessing in general but there's something beyond that for those who would try to study this book and it would seem as though the Lord knew that there would be those in the body who would be hesitant to tackle this and if you're one of those well I'm thankful you're here what the Bible is there to tell you is God knew there might be that hesitation and so he gave us added incentive don't forget to study this book there's a blessing for it notice he does add though to heed or to observe the book is part of how you obtain that blessing and by that I mean there's more than just reading the book involved here there is a conscious appreciation of what it foretells and I would add a looking forward to it an anticipating of it but notice also what John does not say and I love this John does not say the blessing is for those who understand it the understand so to heat it in this context does not mean to understand it so well that you know everything that it's asking of you that's not what he means what it's means more is that you would give it your attention you would give your heart to it in to whatever level of understanding you might have that's the distinction our understanding is our understanding of this book will vary but the blessing is equally available and if you ask me what is this blessing I'm not saying it's one kind of blessing at all I'm saying that in your own walk as a Christian you will find some substantial some significant blessing in your life as a Christian that comes out of this study I know what it was for me they completely reoriented my life in Bible study it took me from a casual interest in Bible study to what you see me doing today this book did that because of what it revealed to me and really for what it did in exciting me that there could be that kind of information waiting for me in the Bible I hope that's what you'll experience - all right with that opening let's dive into the introduction of revelation itself that begins in verse 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth to him who loves and releases 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 behold he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him even those who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him so it is to be amen I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God who is and it was and it was to come the Almighty why we start with John he is the human author of this letter we knew that earlier the Apostle John but he acts as a sort of secretary here he takes dictation from Christ via the Angels as we're told and he prepares it for us and it says in verse four that he's writing it to the seven churches that are in Asia Asia refers to Asia Minor which is present-day Turkey and that reference to the seven churches of Asia that'll make more sense to you in chapters 2 and 3 but let's just begin with a simple observation on the number because this will help us kind of get our feet wet with what I talked about a moment ago with symbols it says here that there would be seven churches now numbers feature prominently in the book of Revelation probably not a surprise to you and in most cases the numbers have significance they have meaning all their own it's important to understand their meaning now I am NOT talking about some kind of silly Bible code thing here where you start taking things and manipulating it and doing weird stuff and you get a crossword puzzle and you add up the car know that's somebody who wants to play with the Bible what I'm saying is take its ordinary normal meaning and just understand what it says that's all we're trying to do here but he didn't say six churches he didn't say twelve churches and we know there were a lot more than seven in the world at that time so for some reason God picked the number seven that's evident and because he picked it we ought to ask the question why and that's this is just careful observation and if you look through the way the Bible uses the number seven consistently every time it shows up you see it being used over and over again if you look at how it's used in each of those circumstances you start to notice that it's being used in a consistent way and that's where you get its meaning from now we don't have time to go through all that tonight so I'm going to ask you to take me on on my word with this but the number seven when it's used by God to symbolize meaning it always means perfection or completion and I've told you all before in here in our church and and you may have heard this elsewhere that you can understand the number seven in God's way of doing things as the number one hundred percent in our way of doing things so in the Bible seven just means 100 percent whenever God uses it in that way and so what John just said is I'm sending this to the seven churches but we know there were a lot more than seven churches and God wasn't just interested in seven of them so he's speaking to the entire church by saying seven he was saying here is a letter for one hundred percent of the church not just one hundred percent of that day by the way one hundred percent of the church throughout the history of time as the church exists on earth to include us right now now you see why it would been hard for him to give any number at all that could possibly have captured how many churches there would be he just uses seven symbolically to represent all of us alright notice the greeting John gives us now by the way those seven Asian churches still have specific significance as well but we don't get to that until chapters 2 and 3 and then the greeting from John he gives to us and it comes from he says all three members of the Godhead notice the father who is was and is to come referring to his eternal existence by the way no matter how bad things get in this book no matter how bad things get on earth the thing that gives you peace in the midst of that is knowing God is on his throne he's always been there he always will be there and you are his child so there is nothing that can come against you if he is for you what can be against you right then secondly he says the seven spirits before the throne of God now the seven spirits refers to the Spirit of God there's only one spirit of God there's not seven spirits of God so why did he say seven again same answers before one are you saying wait a minute how can this not just be one there's only one spirit right but what does 7 mean 100% what did we just learn take out the word 7 and put him 100% and read it again from 100% of the spirit before the throne of God the spirit being spirit can be in multiple places at once right he can be everywhere at the same time could he also choose to be only in one place at a given time that is to say by his own desire could he concentrate himself in only one location that's what it appears to say from the Spirit of God before the throne room in his entirety all right and then of course finally it's from Jesus who is called the faithful witness the firstborn of the Dead and the rulers of the kings of Earth if you look at those three descriptions they refer to the three periods of his ministry beginning with prior to his advent prior to his incarnation Jesus was the one who witnessed to the existence of God through the creation and through the Word of God Paul says it this way in Colossians 1 Colossians 1:16 for by Christ all things were created both in the heavens on earth visible and invisible whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things have been created through Christ and for Christ so he witnesses as it were to the presence of God the Father by having created everything that we can see which is our evidence of God the Father and secondly after he came to earth in his incarnation the second term becomes applicable he is the firstborn of the Dead which is a reference to his resurrection before Christ died and resurrected into glory no one had ever done it he was the first to do it Paul says again in Colossians 1:18 he is also the head of the body the church he is the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that he himself will come to have 1st place in everything all right and then finally after his second coming to earth which we wait Jesus will rule this earth as promised in a day to come and that's the third and final description of Jesus so the neat the way that John has put this together is the the three moments of Jesus's ministry kinda lined out there for us and this book is basically a book that tells us how you get from the second of those to the third of those what set of events what circumstances transpire to lead us from where he was first born of the dead to the king of all nations on earth that's what this book is about while we await that he says we are a kingdom of priests now that's often a phrase that confuses people in the Bible especially our in the in the church especially if you came out of a traditional church environment before faith maybe some particular religious environment in which priests are a part of that tradition if that's your background where they had people with collars calling themselves priests and you had to you had to go confess your sins to them or if that's what you remember when you came out of that you came into a an Orthodox Christian world you may said to yourself well I'm glad I'm done with that whole priest thing no one's between me and Christ I can I can go straight to the throne now boldly I don't need any earthly priests anymore then you read a phrase like this we are a kingdom of priests and your wonder all right wait a minute where are we going with this well you need to understand what a priest is what is the job of a priest a priest is an intercessor someone who represents a person to a greater power so Moses was the intercessor for Israel before God Jesus is our intercessor before the throne for the believer and we are called a kingdom of priests because we intercede as it were but for whom for the unbelieving world we are priests to them in the sense that we represent to the unbelieving world the Christ that we know in the hope that by our representation of him to them they might come to know him as well we are a kingdom of priests to the world presuming we are taking that role seriously and we are going before them in that role all right with that John now begins to relate his story to you now we get into some of the more interesting aspects to this chapter by the way we're gonna finish this chapter tonight so hold on to your put your seatbelt on verse 9 I John your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and Kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus was on the island called Patmos because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet saying write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches to Ephesus and to Smyrna to Pergamum Thyatira to Sardis into Philadelphia and Laodicea then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man clothed in a robe reaching to his feet and girded across his chest with a golden sash his head and his hair were white like white wool like snow and his eyes were like a flame of fire his feet were like burnished bronze when it has been made to glow in a furnace and his voice was like the sound of many waters in his right hand he held seven stars and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword and his face was like the sun shining in its strength all right back to the author John says I your brother your fellow partaker obviously if any other John had been writing this letter they would have said something to specify who they were but because it is John the Apostle he just said hey it's John you know me more evidence for us that this is the actual John but even more convincing is what he says about his circumstances he says he's imprisoned on a Mediterranean island called Patmos which is out in the just off the shores of it's actually closer to Turkey than it is to Greece and the fact that he's on this island agrees with the early church fathers who report that John was exiled here by the Romans at one point in the 1st century because of his work in the church ministering the city from which he ministered though is Ephesus so Ephesus is right there if you see it so they move him from Ephesus to Patmos presumably in the hope that it would quiet him down what you know how much harm can an old man do sitting on an island out in the middle of the Mediterranean well they weren't counting on Jesus showing up and neither was John I should add and John says the he was on this island you know which tell you which raises this question how did John get what he received from Christ anywhere later well that's Richards father's give us a little history on this the fathers tell us why say church fathers I mean some of the very earliest leaders in the church post apostle which would be second century basically and the men who wrote in that day tell us that John wrote this letter very late in the first century probably in the mid 90s 90 95 ad which would also tell you that it's the last work of the Bible chronologically it's not just the last one in your Bible physically it's literally the last thing that was written the last prophetic work that God created for our purposes and John would have had to been in his 80s by then that's assuming he was in his late teens when he was with Jesus that fits because in the Gospels it's evident that John's the youngest how do we know that well there's one moment that tells us that at the Last Supper which was a Passover meal abstence ibly where is Jesus sit seated and where is John seated you know the story John is leaning against Jesus and in the way they would recline around the table they always positioned the youngest next to the most honored and so that means John was the youngest be Jesus being the most honored in that table which mathematically it all works he couldn't have been very old because he's still alive at this late stage of the first century and the early church fathers also tell us that he was put on Patmos by Domitian the emperor Domitian and when Domitian died John was allowed to leave the island and go back to Ephesus and when he did he would have carried this letter we think with him and it would have been distributed as it was supposed to be and then obviously we've retained a copies of it since then anyway John says on that day he was in the spirit on the Lord's Day now in Greek the phrase reads a little differently the word Lord there's actually an adjective in the way that or an adverb is it would be more like Al or d-day so when you take being in the spirit on al or d-day what he's really saying is he was experiencing an especially spirit-filled time maybe he was in prayer maybe he was just really alive in the spirit that day when it all makes sense because that's the moment in which Jesus appears it starts with a voice spying them he says a voice like a trumpet now I want you to imagine you're seated somewhere having a very reward rich and rewarding spiritual day you're just you're having a moment of meditation and prayer and quiet and you're just feeling centered in the Lord and then someone takes a brass horn from behind you and blows it at you that's what he said happened you imagine the startle of that which is exactly how he began this experience and the the difference here among many is that the trumpet actually conveys speech it's not just a noise it's actually a communication method because he says this voice that sounds like a trumpet speaks to him and it says you're too right John here is he has to write a book of what he sees and sends it to the seven churches notice again he is to record what he sees not what he hears that's what keeps the book so interesting for us and to send it to these seven churches not just to some churches again that's the reference to the one hundred percent of churches and those churches are named here again we'll get back to that when we get to chapters two and three it's only at this point that John turns around to see where this voice is coming from I think it must have taken him a moment or two to you know get his senses about back to him I mean can you imagine what this would have felt like if you you were on an island to by yourself you're in some jail cell or something what would you turn around expecting to see here's what I think John must have looked like when he he turns around right he sees this by the way I didn't draw this and there are significant problems with the detail in this and I'm going to point them out to you but John says when he turns around he notices seven lampstands now what's wrong with those lampstands yeah that's what they should look like here's one of those examples in which knowing your Bible helps if the Bible said tall single branch lampstands then you draw the picture that's up there it says nothing like that it just says lampstand so where do you go to know what kind of lamp stand the Bible means when it says lamp stand flip flip flip flip flip back and you look at the first time the Bible talks about lamp stands guess where that is Exodus guess what kind of lamp stand it talks about this one and there's no other mention of any other kind of lamp stand anywhere in the Bible everywhere that the word lamp stand is used after Exodus it's always in relationship to the menorah so I'm not saying there can't be other kinds of lampstands I'm just saying there's no basis on which to assume that this lampstand is different than the ones that are always represented before it in the Bible you see how rules just give you answers and create guardrails to avoid mistakes all right now it doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong about the lamps no it doesn't but I'm using it as an example of why the rules help you all right moving on he says the lamp stands aren't the main point all right except that there are seven of them here's that number again and you would ask yourself at this point well what is a lamp stand mean on the in this context it's got to have some meaning why are they there what are they trying to tell us well you remember our first rule about interpreting symbols where do I go go backward well let me let me just kind of give you a little corollary on that backward in the sense of chapters backward in the sense of books not backward in the sense of in the immediate context because it's not unusual for someone to say there was a lamp stand and then the next verse say and the lamp stand is that's that's not violating my backwards rule my backwards rule has to do more with the idea that you go completely out of the context and if you have to go out of the context you go back word makes sense all right in this particular case the context is really all of chapter one the scene of chapter one and somewhere in that scene the answer is actually given and so we don't have to go very far to find it let's wait till we get there though because it comes in a few more verses back to the main point you have standing in the middle of those lamp stands Jesus a figure and he's clearly the focus it starts with this description one like a son of man now that's a verse a phrase rather that clearly points us back to Jesus because that's a statement we hear used for him at other times but when you hear someone who is something like a son of man like the son of man why not just say I saw a man because he's not exactly a man which is the whole point he's like a man but not exactly like a man and that's the meaning of this phrase he looks human to an extent he as a robe his feet he has a waist he has a sash girding his waist and those are all details of a human being certainly what do they mean well this again depends more on your knowledge of the Bible than anything but people have authority we're robes and sashes around them priests kings and the like to have this this you know human-like representation is a part of how John is allowed to have some comfort in the moment I mean not to be completely shocked and yet at the same time we realized as we get deeper into the description not exactly is more the point because his hair is white as wool like snow and this isn't just someone who's got gray hair this is something very different than that and his eyes are like a flame of fire this is not stuff you see I mean I there been times in my life when I could describe my wife as having eyes like flames of fire but but that's different that's not like this she's not here please don't tell her I'm going on the description says that the feet are like bronze and a furnace that means glowing hot glowing red voice is like a torrent of water rushing through a canyon you ever been in a situation like in a flood or a downpour something in waters rushing over a waterfall ever ganda Niagara Falls that's the sound of his voice alright and his face shines as bright as the Sun imagine looking directly into the Sun that's what it was like trying to look at his face that's why I said this drawing doesn't really let you do it you know see it exactly but whatever alright so how do I interpret all those rules that's what we always want to do right or those descriptions rather how do we get to a point like that read it and then sit back and say oh I wonder what all that means well first glance down the chapter like I told you look at verse 20 we're just in jump there for a second because it shows you my point as for the mystery of the Seven Stars which you saw in my right hand and the Seven golden lampstands bingo here's your answer the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches no guessing required all right now as you read that though it doesn't really help because now you're wondering why does he have seven lampstands representing seven churches why does he have to hold stars to represent you in other words you still want to know where's that going I will just hold on to that where you find your answers is by going back in Scripture and finding places where these same ideas are represented and they're explained more deeply that is why our lampstands pictures of the church why are stars pictures of angels or what does it mean that he has seven angels for the churches does that mean we each have a little angel on our shoulder what does this mean well Hebrews tells us this in 1:14 angels are ministering spirits sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation did you know that that there are the angelic realm exists in large part to render service to the believer obviously in a supernatural way in a spiritual way ways that we don't necessarily detect and if you've heard people say I think an angel was writing with me that day before my car went over the edge and I'd almost died and you know some of that's just euphemism but I don't know that it's not always true but whatever God is using his messengers for they render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation it's one of the roles of angels so when he says he has seven stars representing the angels that serve the church seven means 100% all the angels are in his hand serving the church and what does it suggest to you that they're in his hand that they're under his authority that he controls what they do they obey Him that's what we'd expect and then the lampstand lamb stands in Scripture are commonly used to represent the illumination of truth reaching into the darkness and as you know even the believers own heart is described that way by Paul that God has shown the light of the truth into our hearts and that we would then shine it into the world you know Jesus says shine your light before men it's the idea that we represent truth in our testimony and it acts like a light into darkness so the lamp stands represent churches all of them together represent the whole church what is the mission of the whole church based on that short little symbolic description what would you say it is evangelizing is the means to the outcome the outcome being that we bring light to darkness right individually that is bringing hearts to know Christ but even if you're not saving an individual person through your tests monie you're still representing light to the unbeliever you know there's two ways to be a witness one way is to witness to the purpose of their saving and other times your witnessing to the purpose of their condemnation you don't choose which outcome that's in God's hands but I'm saying a witness works both ways a witness can testify to exonerate and a witness can testify to prosecute and convict so God decides how our witness is used but it's out there and that's the purpose what about the other details of his appearance for example Daniel 7:9 tells us this I kept looking until Thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his seat and his vesture was like white snow and his the hair of his head was like pure wool his throne was ablaze with flame its wheels were a burning fire later in Daniel 10 4 he says this on the 24th day of the first month while I was at the bank of the Great River that is Tigris I lifted my eyes and looked and behold there was a certain man dressed in linen whose waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of UEFA's sounds familiar right his body was like Beryl his face had the appearance of lightening his eyes were like flaming torches his arms and his feet were the gleam of polished bronze and the sound of his words were like the sound of a toll motor like water rushing so Daniel sees exactly the same thing John sees so what you're what I'm saying is that the description John gives is perfectly consistent with the Bible's general description of what God looks like in the form of the Sun anytime he appears in his supernatural state then one more we go to Isaiah and Isaiah 11:1 says this then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from its roots will bear fruit the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and strength the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and He will delight in the fear of the Lord and he will not judge by what his eyes see nor make a decision by what his ears hear but with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth and he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked also righteousness will be the belt about his law and faithfulness the belt about his waist what you're learning there and I'm moving through this quickly but I want you to see the example here more than the detail if I wanted to know what is a belt on a sash on a robe mean Daniel just explained where Isaiah just explained it it's a picture of faithfulness or righteousness I didn't have to guess I found it and what does it mean that there's a sword coming out of his mouth that's one of the details that was missing in that prior pick that sorry that was one of the details that was missing in that prior picture when the one I showed you a moment ago of Jesus standing with the lampstands he didn't anything coming out of his mouth but the description in Jen and John chapter revelation chapter 1 was a sword coming out of his mouth the artist overlooked that well I say it says that a sword coming out of his mouth is representative of the breath of his lips slaying the wicked all right so again those details in and of themselves don't necessarily become some huge revelation to us in the moment what I'm showing you though is the method of understanding them is to go back in Scripture find where it's been given understand it there and carry it forward into what we're learning now we do not guess at what we think it means there's no need it's already there all right so we have all of these descriptions of Jesus that tell us something about him and his power his might his purpose his righteousness and putting it all together Jesus is appearance to John then tells us he is glowing white pure you know purified holy his robe represents his priesthood his kingship his sash is his faithfulness his eyes a fire are piercing discernment his face shines like son that's the light of the truth and his glowing bronze feet represent judgment as he tramples out his wrath on those who were unrighteous this is this is the Lord we serve so we have Christ appearing to John in a form that is consistent with what we see elsewhere and all of that is interesting but probably not terribly surprising what is striking about this is the way John responds to this appearance look at verse 17 kind of backing up here to the two verses I skipped or the three verses I skipped says when I saw him I fell at his feet like a dead man and he placed his right hand on me saying do not be afraid I am first in the last and the living one and I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades so John if you can imagine he's been in his moment of prayerful meditation his Lord II day he swings around he sees this scene he tries to describe it I'd like to turn the camera back though unto John for a second and this is what I imagine may have seen this before I'm just appropriating what the internet gives me right yeah so only it's not quite that as static it's a little more fearful and I'm gonna take this off the screen otherwise I will not have your attention for the next 20 minutes he's flabbergasted at what he sees but it's more than that he's fearful John says as he sees this he falls at Christ's feet and he says he does it like a dead man what he means is he's literally scared stiff right he's immobilized by the experience now why is that surprising well first of all it's not uncharacteristic that is to say if you go through the Bible and you look at moments when men had these moments with God in some form like I'll give you one of Ezekiel in ezekiel 1:28 as he as he gets a similar kind of moment he says as the appearance of the rainbow and the clouds on a rainy day so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God and when I saw it I fell on my face I heard a voice speaking Daniel when he sees something like this he became so frightened it says in Daniel 8 17 I fell on my face all right I and this happens not just to when God appears in some form but angels angels will appear to people right and they'll do the same thing and I almost feel bad for the angels I can't seem to have a conversation with anybody without telling them do not fear get up I always make a joke that their their nametags say hi I'm Gabriel do not fear because it's just part of the script okay anyway why is it surprising in this case because it's John you know for three years John walked with Jesus he euphemistically describes himself as the one Jesus loved and it's not to mean that he complements himself it doesn't mean that but it's just to emphasize that they had a close relationship and yet he's now appeared this is the first time in 60 years 60 years that they have had any kind of appearance as far as we know you would expect that reunion would have been joyful right run and hug Jesus nope terrified falls down can't move alright we've seen this before and the reason it's happening now is because the time of the Gospels when Jesus walked the earth in the form that he had where he could be hugged okay that was a unique period of history think about it I've just read to you from Ezekiel and from Daniel they predate the Incarnation and now you have revelation which postdates that is it comes after so between them you have this moment when you could hug Jesus but on every other side of it all we know is that God the creator of the universe as he appears to his creation is awe-inspiring and feared driving in a healthy sense of fear right fear of the Lord and it tells and and of course if you go into other books of the scripture like Ezekiel which talks about what the times will be like when the kingdom begins and even later in this book what you're learning is you won't be hugging Jesus and I'm don't mean that to disappoint you I mean you don't if you can hug your God when you see him in his glory that's not a very powerful God that's not the guy do you want to worship the guy that can make everything should at least inspire a little bit of awe in you right and it was a unique exception to that rule that God appeared in the form of man Paul says it this way in Philippians that although he existed in the form of God he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of a bondservant being made in the likeness of man and being found in the appearance of man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death I mean the meaning of that well-known passage is that he went from what we see described in Daniel and Ezekiel and for what we now see in Revelation and for a period of history he came down as low as you can get that is lower than angels to the point of being like us but worse than that he dies on a cross which the vast majority of humanity will never do so it's a significant distinction that he took that approach now we only know that moment that's all we can remember our history we we only see him from that point of view which is why we have paintings of blue-eyed blonde-haired Jesus that looks like a movie star hanging on our wall and we think I can't wait to get to that guy and just give him a big bear hug Jesus I'm sorry that's not the way you're gonna encounter Christ and I'm not sorry because if you could encounter him that way that would be a very disappointing way to meet the creator of the universe all right you learn through this chapter that Jesus is to be worshiped and known for who he is and even someone like John who knew him and so personally was awestruck prone on the ground in the presence of the Living God though at an earlier time he responded to him in a different way and what we learn about the book in general through this chapter is that every chapter in the book of Revelation is a prophetic chapter to some degree even this one which looks back on a past moment a historic moment a time in history how is it still prophetic well it is in the sense that the appearance of Jesus and the description of his appearance here is a view of his way to be seen when we get in in his presence in the future it's a preview of coming attractions of who Jesus is in the kingdom to come and in our experience when we see him so it's showing us who were worshiping in advance in fact if you go to revelation 19 which will see obviously later in this book at the point of Christ's second coming in that chapter there's a description of what he looks like at his second coming I'll give you a 1 guess what he looks like 19 verse 12 eyes a flame of fire clothed in a robe comes with a sharp sword in his mouth sound familiar it's exactly the same appearance he gave John that is how your Lord appears not as we have known him on earth ok now in response to the fear we're wrapping up here Jesus responds you don't need to fear me John says do not be afraid but then he describes himself so that John knows who he's looking at it's me John but notice he doesn't say it's me Jesus what does he say it's me the first in the last right the one who was dead and is now alive forever in other words he doesn't describe himself by his temporal identity he despite he describes himself by his colonel characteristics he was God before he was man and he remains God even after his death and resurrection so his eternal identity is what we celebrate even as we thank him for his time on earth dying for our sins you see what I'm saying it's not that I'm making one more important than the other I'm not diminishing his humanity or any such thing I'm simply saying that when you think of him now and you worship Him now you think of him as he is now in those eternal characteristics in fact you know in Revelation 19 it also says this he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself do you know his name is not going to be Jesus or Yeshua in the kingdom that was his earthly name for us now but there is a name that will be his name that we don't even know yet which is fine you can have any name he wants right all right let's end tonight and we're gonna run a few minutes over the normal eight o'clock stop but I gave some extra intro tonight that started us late so that's all but it won't take much longer let's go to the one verse we haven't covered which is the last one we do tonight and it sets up the whole rest of the book verse 19 therefore write the things which you have seen and the things which are and the things which will take place after these things john is given a task and his task is to write this letter that we now have and it comes in three parts this is the outline of the letter that John is to write it moves as you can see from past tense to present tense to future tense write what you saw write the things that you have seen in other words past perfect and the things which are present and the things which will take place after these things all right so that may not sound like much of an outline but it is now the first part of this outline is actually very easy to recognize in the letter which part of the letter is part 1 in this outline well at the moment Jesus spoke these words to G to John he said saw past tense so at the moment he's speaking he's saying right what has already happened up to this moment what you saw what had happened up to the moment that Jesus that sentence well pretty much everything in the scene that we just looked at so the things of this chapter effectively are the things John saw they are the things that had happened before this moment I'm still got everybody in the room all he was saying is make sure you tell them where you got this from make sure you saw you tell them you saw me tell them what I look like and tell them this came for me that is the things you saw and then after that by the way that's this chapter right guess what congratulations you just finished one third of the book of Revelation I mean we're flying through this book aren't we all right now that would tell you that the things that are must be everything that happens after this moment up to some point right if this is the moment in the line in sand in which he says saw meaning what has already happened then by definition from that moment forward starts the next section which from our standpoint the way the books been divided that would be chapter two so from Chapter two onward we now reach into the times that are okay but that just gives us a bit of concern because this all happened 2,000 years ago so we might sit here today saying okay well now that that must all have been past tense for us the things that are must now be the things that were from our point of view right but that's not necessarily true and in fact next week I'm going to show you how it's not true but in the meantime we'd like to get the sense of where the next anchor is in other words I know that's chapter one is where the first part ends and the second part begins now I'd like to know okay where does the second part end and the third part begin because that will help me keep straight what I'm looking at in the book right that's that's the whole idea of an outline so let's talk about this you have the things that saw you saw the things that are and the things that happen after these things right the things that happened after these things they are the things that happen after our these things refers back to our so you have things he saw the things that are and then things that will happen after the things that are that's what he just said to do it's just confusing for us because we don't know what he's referring to yet we just know it comes in three chunks all right how would I know then when he moves from step from from the second of those to the third if I know the first one is chapter one how do I know and I know the second one starts in Chapter two how do I know where it ends well again our God is not a God of confusion so he must tell me somewhere in the book right there must be somewhere in the book what happens if you go down through the pages of this book looking for that break you know what you find it and you know where you find it if you look at the very beginning at chapter four verse one and I'm not gonna put on the screen you can look at it we'll get there later but the very beginning of chapter four verse one starts with the words after these things yeah it really is that easy people told you this book was hard they were lying no it is hard at times but this is this is actually proof to you tenth the God who wrote this was it trying to put one over on you he wanted you to understand it alright so what that just told us is if chapter four and onward is the things that is part three and there's only three parts then I go all the way to the end of the book with part three that means part two is easy to find now right because part two is what's between those two that's that's simple math you didn't even have to be a Bible teacher to know that so we still have a mystery to solve here many mysteries we still want to know how these letters to the churches that existed 2,000 years ago could still be relevant to us today why are they still the things that are and more about that and I'm gonna save all that for next week so next week we dive into chapter 2 we just keep doing this until we're done not so bad right all right let's end there we're gonna pray Heavenly Father we thank you for a great start to a difficult study but father that's confidence-building we thank you for that the grace that you've given us in that but father I also pray that as we get excited to learn and as we see things unveiled to us in this study that we would temper our enthusiasm and excitement with a sober realization of what we're learning and what it means for the world around us so that it would drive us into a seriousness of purpose as Christians who follow and serve the Living God that the world around his father might condemn us and mock us embarrass us reject us because we share things like this with them but yet Father that is how we will help them and we must be ready to do as you call us to do so I pray father we would not be those who would shrink back but would have courage and would follow you into the mission that you give us to seek the world as a light into darkness so convicted of that even as we learn the wonderful things you have for us in this book and if it be your will father bring us all back here in a week to come so we may continue we pray this in Jesus name Amen

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Length: 63min 7sec (3787 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 22 2019