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Heavenly Father, we ask you to
be with us this day, beginning now, this morning, as we look
into your word. We pray that you would help us,
Lord, to look to you for all the wisdom that we need. We pray,
Lord, that you would be with us this day by your Holy Spirit
to help us to receive what you would have to give us to stay
through your word, and especially in the worship of you this morning
and this evening. We pray, Lord, that you would
just give us what we cannot get ourselves, and that is more of
your Holy Spirit, Lord, that we would live lives that are
worthy of our calling. Help us, Lord, we pray, and give
us the joy that we need today to worship you aright. So we
thank you, Lord, for all your goodness. We thank you for the
Lord Jesus Christ, our all in all. We pray now you be with
us, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Okay, so we're covering the book
of Ezekiel, right? Oh, no, no, no, no. Sorry, Revelation. Okay, sounds
right? Okay. All right, so we know from
our previous studies looking at chapter one that Pastor Dan
went over in verse three, we know that we're supposed to be
able to read this, we're supposed to be able to understand it,
hear it, and do what it says. That's what verse three of chapter
one basically says, right? And we know that the book is
written mostly in symbolic visual imagery. book as we would a book of prose,
a book that is straightforward, literal writings. Now there are,
there is literal writing here in this book, especially in the
beginning, in chapter 1 and chapters 2 and 3. 1 to 9 in chapter 1
and verses 2 and 3 are all fairly literal. We can understand them
pretty clearly. But the imagery represents literal
realities. And there's no one correlation
between the image and the literal meaning. In other words, we can't
take the symbolic language and literalize it. And I want to
explain that. Let's go to Revelation 1. Someone want to read verses 13 through
16 of Revelation 1? Let no one say when he is tempted,
I am being tempted. No, Revelation 1. Oh, I'm in
jail. You said 13 to 16? 13 to 16.
Take your time. You can read it. Verse 13 in
chapter 1 through 16. Go ahead. And in the midst of
the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe
and with a golden sash around his chest, the hairs of his head
were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like
a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished
bronze. refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar
of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars. From
his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like
the sun shining in full strength. Yeah, so we read that, and we
think rather than actual descriptions, right, these indicate truths
that are actually there. This is similar to the symbolic
language used by Jesus in his parables, right? He used word
pictures. For example, who is this about? Jesus. Does Jesus have eyes like
a flame of fire? No. Does he have a sword in his mouth?
No. So we can't say the sword means
a sword, right? We can't do that. We have to
understand that we can't interpret these things literally, right?
So it's pretty clear. Remember in chapters two and
three where he deals with all the seven churches, he says,
but he goes from literal language in the beginning, and here he's
still there, and he says, he who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches. That's what he says to every
one of the seven churches. In other words, he's speaking
to all the churches of all time. right, that we are to hear what
the Spirit says to the churches. And then beginning in chapter
four, the style changes from a verbal message to a visual
message. Beginning in chapter four, 52
times John says, I saw, I looked, and I beheld. Right? So he's
describing now a vision. He's describing the things that
he sees. And these pictures are meant
to convey the reality of the conflict between Jesus Christ
and his saints on one side, and Satan and his, those are under
his control, including non-Christians, the world. So rather than get
wrapped up in the details of the pictures, we need to focus
and understand the message given to us, and it's one of encouragement
and blessing to the church, right? That's the whole concept of the
book. All right, so just go with me
for a bit and review each section of the book for encouragement
and comfort that it's intended to bring to us, the church. So
look at number one, chapters one to three, Jesus loves his
church. We see his affection, his focus
on his bride. He is in the midst of his church,
in these seven churches, guiding, protecting her in the midst of
persecution. And his true church, all his
dear saints will persevere and overcome to the end. And this
is what the message of chapters one and three are. And you go
to chapters four and five. Yet he sees God the Father on
the throne, and we should be comforted that he is ruling and
reigning. All our enemies are his enemies,
and he is in control of them all. And then we go to chapters
six and seven. Christians overcome and are worshiping
and rejoicing around God's throne. His enemies are powering in fear
and cry out for the rocks to fall on them, thinking that it
will save them from God's wrath. Now, I took some of this from
the book from Max Donner. I put a lot of this in my own
words, but looked at how he was looking at this. I also looked
at a couple other men who were looking at this similarly. This
is what these chapters represent. So chapters eight through 11,
we have the seven trumpets are sounded and God pours his wrath
upon the persecutors of his church. They have God's wrath upon them
in this life and God is against them and they will be punished
severely and eternally in the next life. In chapters 12 through
20, Jesus is victorious over the dragon, the beast, and the
false prophet. He destroys Satan and all his
servants who persecuted his church. And in chapters 21 and 22, we
see where we will be. We'll be in the new heavens and
the new earth where God dwells with us and blesses us. So the
persecuted church is victorious in the end. And that is to spur
us on in our battles against principalities and powers of
this age. That's why the book begins with blessing for those
who hear and obey. And that is the whole message
of the book. So Revelation then conveys the same message as the
Gospels, but in picture form. The Gospel present the message
in verbal form. What is the message of the Gospels
at the end Christ is victorious. Nothing
can stop the church. Nothing can stop God's kingdom.
It will continue and Satan and all those who are under his power
who are enslaved to him will be taken care of. So Revelation
is apocalyptic literature. Revelation means apocalypse.
Why is it an apocalypse? Because it contains a lot of
symbolic language, right? The word revelation means what?
Unveiling of something hidden. That's what it means. It's unveiling
of something that's been hidden. What does it unveil? What does
the whole revelation unveil? N times. N times, but it unveils
the truth. At the end, it does reveal that,
yeah, but it also reveals the plan of God through all history,
beginning with Christ, coming in the flesh, all the way until
the end, when all things are put under his feet, right? And
what other books of the Bible are considered apocalyptic? How about Ezekiel? All the ones
that have these symbolic languages. And it's important for us to
know that because those of you who are Old Testament experts
will know that you're going to need the Old Testament a lot
to interpret this book. You can't do it simply by the
New Testament. So we're forced to interpret
this language symbolically, not literally, unless the language
is literal. will take, you know, some who
interpret this book will take things symbolically sometimes
and then they'll literalize it sometimes. They're not consistent
with looking at the symbolic language and treating it as such
that it is. It's symbols. So the meaning
of the symbols should be interpreted how? How should the meaning of
these symbols be interpreted? By what? Scripture, right? So we don't
interpret this book by anything other than Scripture, right?
Not by other sources or events, not by what happens to Israel.
As the dispensationalists think, whatever happened to Israel,
this is how we interpret things, that's not how we do that. We
need to look at the Bible to see what other passages clarify
and shed more light on difficult passages. We don't go to the
difficult passages and interpret that. We go to the clear passages,
we interpret that and we use that to interpret the difficult
passages. Isn't that right? Even in the
New Testament we do that. We have to do the same thing here.
In our chapter one of our confession says the infallible rule for
interpreting scripture is scripture itself. Therefore, when there
is a question about the true and full meaning or sense of
any part of scripture, and each passage only has one meaning,
not many, it must be understood in light of the passages that
speak more clearly. And that's where you run into
heresies and other things where people start to interpret these
difficult passages without reference to the clear, much clearer passages. In other words, scripture interpreting
scripture. So how do we interpret the symbolic
language that we're gonna read here? There's three points about
interpreting this language. So we look and say what passages
of scripture are literal? and shed light on the meaning
of the symbols, right? That's how we do it. There are
clear prose passages of scripture that can help. What New Testament
passages will shed light on the book of Revelation, especially
the end times? Ephesians, Hebrews. No. How about Matthew 24? The big
one, the big behemoth, Matthew 24. First Thessalonians 4 and 5 talk
about what the end time will look like. Second Thessalonians
1 and 2 2 Peter 3, all speak to what things are gonna look
like, right, in English, in language, not in symbols. And we'll go through those as
we go through the book. So we start with the non-symbolic scriptures
to interpret the scriptures, not the reverse. So that's number
one. Number two, we must interpret
the language of Revelation in light of the analogy of faith.
What is the analogy of faith? in reference to the Scriptures. That means no interpretation
of Scripture, including Revelation, can contradict the rest of Scripture. There is no contradiction in
Scripture. So whatever interpretation we
come up with, It must be what the other parts of the Scriptures
teach. It cannot contradict another
section of Scripture. So the principle of non-contradiction
is the presupposition that we must use to interpreting any
part of Scripture, especially Revelation. All Scripture is
God-breathed, so it must be true, must be unified, must be harmonious,
and not contradict any part. So when we study eschatology,
all the teaching of Scriptures on eschatology must conform to
each other and not contradict each other, so that's number
two. Number three, the symbolic language of revelation must be
interpreted in light of how it is used elsewhere. There are
symbols being used elsewhere in scripture, correct? Especially
in those books that we talked about, in Daniel and in Ezekiel.
So we interpret Revelation's symbols based on those symbols
as well. So since Revelation was the last
book written chronologically, it should be understood in light
of everything that was written before it. And that includes
the Old Testament particularly. G.K. Beal says that there are
404 verses in Revelation 278 of them contain one or more references
to the Old Testament. Out of the 404, 278 refer to
the Old Testament. That's two-thirds. There are
over 500 allusions to Old Testament passages in Revelation compared
to 200 in the rest of the New Testament. So there's a lot of
reference to the Old Testament, though there's no formal quotes
of the Old Testament in the Book of Revelation, it continually
alludes to the Old Testament with its imagery and its symbolism. So this confirms the divine inspiration
of the whole of scripture, that one single narrative runs through
both Old and New Testament and begins with the first prophecy. What is that? Seed of the woman
shall rule the serpent. Yes, Genesis 3.15, that's where
the battle between the seed of the serpent, the seed of woman,
was declared by God, right? And the rest of Scripture is
the outworking of that battle between Christ and Satan and
Christ's people and Satan's people. All the rest of Scripture points
to Christ and his victory over Satan. So why do we think people
in the first century imagery of revelation. They were a bit more studied
in these, right, in the Old Testament. A lot of Christians, including
myself, are not as studied in the Old Testament as I am in
the New Testament, right? And so they were very studied.
They didn't have the New Testament. The scriptures were the Old Testament,
so that's how they interpreted everything. So how do we, again,
just to review, how do we interpret the imagery and symbolism? Look
to clear passages of scripture that shed light. Interpret scripture
by the analogy of faith, no contradictions. The symbol language of Revelation
must be interpreted by looking how such imagery and symbols
are used in the Old Testament. So the structure of Revelation,
we take the idealist view of the
structure of Revelation that Pastor Dan spoke about, and that
is a non-consecutive, cyclical view of Revelation. In other
words, the book doesn't start at chapter one, like a history
book, and go to the end in chapter 22, and then it's done, so it's
consecutive all along. We don't view it that way. We
believe the book structure, one that looks at the time period
beginning with the coming of Christ into the world, his death,
his resurrection, then ending with the second coming and establishing
his kingdom forever with the saints. but it's from different
perspectives. It's actually from seven different
perspectives. Seven looks at this one book
and taking a look at each of the seven, and we'll go over
them in a minute. It's like looking at a certain
object and kind of checking out from all different sides, like
a diamond, right? A diamond, you look at the what?
The four Cs. Anybody know what the four Cs
of a diamond is? The cut. Clarity. Clarity. Color. Color. and carrot, right? So the four
C's. You look at a diamond from those
four perspectives to understand the value of the whole diamond,
right? So that's how you do it. By the
way, the cut is its shape and quality, the color is its, is
it tainted, is it yellow, is it pure white? Clarity, is it
brilliant, is it clear, right? And it's carrot. It's not necessarily
the weight, the carrot. It's the overall size, not the
overall size, but the weight of it. So Revelation's like a
diamond. It's like one time period, and
there's warfare going on, and we're gonna look at that warfare
from seven different perspectives, seven different views of that
same warfare going on, and we'll talk about it. It shows us what
the church will experience in the continual warfare of every
generation, from the first coming to the second. Examples of the
various perspectives with the different imagery, we have seven
seals, we have seven trumpets, we have
seven bowls, are all about spiritual warfare that is happening concurrently
with one another. They're not separate time frames,
they're happening And they're about what we, the people of
God, experience in this spiritual warfare, what the wicked will
experience as time unfolds. So these battles are what every
generation of believers experience when Christ returns. There will
be struggles for the church to overcome, and Revelation tells
us that we must remain faithful in the face of these trials and
these persecutions that come against the church, Again, knowing
the end, knowing that, as he said to the seven churches, if
you overcome you will remain faithful and overcome, this is
what I will give you, right? And so we are to persevere and
overcome by God's grace against all that comes against us. There
are passages that deal with prophecy that will be fulfilled. These
include the Antichrist, the second coming of Jesus, the final judgment,
the damning of the lost into the lake of fire. All these realities
are repeated and become more and more clear as we get to the
end of the book. And so what does this mean? Every
generation will deal with all of these things that are in,
even those seven churches, all the things that Jesus brings
up, those are all the churches, we have some of that here in
our church, and every church has some of what Jesus brings,
both commendation as well as negative things that the church
needs to deal with. Every church is dealing with
that. And every generation will experience the seven seals, the
trumpets, the bowls. Everyone will battle against
the dragon. The beast and the false prophet.
All will be seduced by the great whore, Babylon. It's where I
live. So you know they're coming against
me, so I need prayer. And all must refuse the mark
of the beast. And all must obtain the seal
of God on their forehead. Are these symbols literal? Are
we gonna receive seals of God on our forehead? Are we gonna
have a mark of beast on our hands? No. There'll be no visible mark
of the beast. There'll be no seal on our foreheads.
These marks and seals have been in existence since Christ came
to this earth. The beast has been in existence
since Christ came and will continue to exist until he returns. So
the structure of Revelation is repeated and recapitulated and
we see this clearly in chapters eight through 11. Turn to chapter
11. And we'll go to verses 15 Who has the NASB? Okay, can you
read, Sheila, can you read verses 15 through 18? The reason I say
that is because the New King James has plurals when it says
kingdoms here, and the newest versions have the singular, which
is the newer manuscripts, the oldest manuscripts, by the way.
Anyway, you can read that. Then the seventh angel sounded,
and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of
the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,
and he will reign forever and ever. And the twenty-four elders,
who stood on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and
worshipped God, saying, We give you thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty,
who are and who were, because you have taken your great power
and have begun to reign. And the nations were enriched,
and your wrath came. And the time came for the dead
to be judged, and the time to reward your born servants, the
prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name, the
small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.
A couple of things which, as I said, are important. One is
that the kingdom refers to one kingdom, whereas kingdoms, if
you have that, would refer to many. but it should be singular,
the kingdom. And notice in verse 17 where
it says, we give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty. This is
the New King James I'm reading. The one who is and who was, and
then it says, and who is to come. That is not in the New American
Standard. There is no who is to come. It's
just who was, who is, and who was. It's not referring to someone
coming yet. It's referring to what is. And
it's also, because you have taken your great power, which means
you have, this is at verse 10 to 17, because you have taken
your great power, that's a completed action. It's not a future action.
It's a completed action. Power is completed. And it says,
and reigned. And it should have begun to reign.
In other words, Jesus began his reigning, and all these things
are current, We have the seventh angel sounding the seventh trumpet,
right? And we have the second coming,
Christ's reign and the final judgment. Now the dispensational
view of this is different. Paul wrote right in 1 Corinthians
5, 1552, he wrote that the last trumpet will blow at the return
of Christ when the dead are raised for the final judgment. So that's
the last trumpet. Revelation's seventh trumpet
does not include the details of these events, which are given
later in Revelation, but simply announces Christ's return to
judge. Dispensationalists teach that
the trumpet heralds only a thousand year reign of Christ on the earth,
after which another rebellion will occur, failing to note that
the trumpet proclaims an eternal reign. In verse 15 of chapter
11 here, he shall reign forever and ever. That's one. The Preterus Cetus trumpet is
beginning the gospel age in which Christ spiritually reigns, yet
verse 18 defines it as the time of the dead to be judged. The
seventh trumpet, therefore, announces the glorious return of the king
of kings to reign forever on the earth. And then what happens? Look at chapter 12. Let's look
at verses one through six, chapter 12. So right after we have this
end, Christ comes, reigns forever and ever, and then we go to chapter
12. And why don't somebody read verses
one through six. Go ahead. And a great sign appeared
in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon on her
stars. She was pregnant and was crying
out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another
sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with
seven heads and ten horns and on his head seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of
the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon
stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when
she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male
child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to
God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness
where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be
nourished for 1,260 years. And Satan wanted to attack the
child, right? So we go from chapter 11, the
end, where Jesus judges, back to the beginning again, where
Jesus is born. Just an example of this, the
way the revelation works. It doesn't go one way. It goes
back like this. Just continues to go back. And
we'll see that as we go forward. And there's no question that
these describe the birth, most everyone would agree that this
is talking about the birth of Christ. And we see that each
chapter that follows will continually work on that. In this case, we're
brought back to the beginning. So we have the literary style
of the book is symbolism, not literalism. So the symbols give
us the message of the book. And how do we interpret the symbols?
We do it by other scriptures. And the structure of the book,
non-consecutive and cyclical, describes the spiritual warfare
that takes place since the birth of Christ until he returns, all
from different perspectives. How many different parallel perspectives
are in this book? It's a number that indicates
the complete message of Revelation. What number of parallels would
indicate that it would be a complete picture of Revelation? Yes! Yes! You get 100 points! And so it's divided into seven
parallel times, right? And then it's divided into a
couple different sections. These sections are to be complementary
and interdependent. If that is the case, how many
sections would that be? If they're complementary and
independent, the number must be, Two. There must be two. And eventually
we'll go over the numbers, right? But there's two. So it's divided.
Division one is chapter one through 11. The first half of the book
is about the physical conflict between believers and unbelievers.
It describes the visible human history between the first and
second coming of Christ. The church has preached the gospel
to the world since Christ came, right? Satan has been bound.
Church now is able to preach the gospel throughout the world.
The gospel will continue to go out through the world. And the
world has persecuted the church since the beginning, right? Since
the beginning when Christ preached the gospel. This is what's symbolized
in the first division. The second division is from chapters
12 to 22. This group of visions show the
spiritual struggle behind the physical. between Christ and
Satan. In this division, we see the
spiritual battles take place behind the physical battles we
see in chapters one through 11. In chapter 12, as we saw, we
see Satan attacking Christ, and since that is unsuccessful, he
turns to attacking the church. In subsequent chapters, we have
Satan, we have the dragon, and he employs four accomplices to
help him in this war in the second part of Revelation. Who are these
accomplices? Who is the Satan, the dragon,
who does he employ to help him with all of this work he's going
to do? The false prophet, yes, that's
one. Dragon? No, the dragon is Satan. The beast from the land is the
false prophet. Is there another beast? From
the sea, yes, there's another beast. And there's a I live there. There's a harlot in Babylon,
right? And then there are those who
have the mark of the beast. But in the latter half of this
section, all these accomplices are destroyed. Who destroys them? You get bonus points for this. Jesus, right? Who is destroyed? Satan is destroyed, right? So
that's the divisions. So what we see is not all that's
happening, right? There's a spiritual dimension
that's going on. And when we bring the gospel to the world,
we know that the rejection that we receive or the persecution
that we receive is not just from that individual, right? They're enslaved to Satan. And that's part of his kingdom.
Now, unless God has elected him from the foundation of the world,
they won't repent. We'd call him to repent. That's why Paul
goes in. God said to Paul, go into that
city. Many of my people are there. Not all of those people are mine.
Just go in and preach the gospel, and my people will come. And
so, that's what happens when we preach the gospel. But the
church will be successful, regardless, because it's not about our power,
right? It's about God's power. Okay. Let's see what we got here. All right. So we're going to
go into the seven parallel sections of Revelation. Sorry, you're
not here. I would turn it, but I can't. We have the seven parallel sections,
and we'll see the physical conflict, again, it's chapters one through
11, is that physical conflict that happens between believers
and unbelievers, the persecution of the church. And then we have,
you'll see the first, it says 1B, the first parallel section
of the book. And that's, again, each parallel
section begins Christ is born or comes onto
the earth, and it ends with Christ coming at the end. Each of these
parallel sections do that. So we have the first parallel
section in chapter 1 through chapter 3, verse 22. And all those who take the idealist
point of view have these break-ups as well. other authors who have
written commentaries on Revelation that have this idealist view
will have these breakdowns. So the first parallel section
is chapter 1 to 3, 22, where we have the introduction of the
book and We have the source of the revelation is God, the father,
the messenger is John, the recipients are the seven churches, and the
focus is the glorified Christ. That's chapter one. And then
we go chapter two to three, you have the seven letters to each
of the churches, right? And then that's the first parallel
section. The second parallel section starts
with chapter four and goes to chapter eight, verse five, where
we have the vision of the throne and we have the vision of the
seven seals. six trumpets, the vision of the
little book, the vision of the two witnesses, and the seventh
trumpet. That is the third parallel section.
Then we go into the second division of it, starting in chapter 12,
222. We have the fourth parallel section
in chapter 12, all the way through chapter 14. Then we have the
third parallel section of the book, And then we go to chapter
16 for the fifth. We have the sixth parallel. Did
you pass that along? I got another one. You're making
me nervous. I gotta go All right, so we have this sixth
parallel section, and then the seventh parallel section, starting
in chapter 20 through 22. And we have the vision of the
binding and loosing of Satan in chapter 20, we have the great
white throne judgment, and then we have the new heaven and the
new earth in chapter 21, and then we have the conclusion.
So, and then here, Each of these seven parallel sections begins
with the first coming and ends with the second. Each describes,
from various perspective, the warfare that will take place
during that time period. While all these sections are
parallel at coming, happening, they also progressively reveal,
with increasing clarity, the nature of the second coming.
So it becomes clearer and clearer about the second coming of Christ.
The theme of the book is that Christ will triumph over Satan
and will bring deliverance and victory to his suffering saints
in his second coming and establishment of his new kingdom in heaven. All right, so that's the key
verse is Revelation 17, 14. These shall make war with the
Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is the Lord of lords
and King of kings, and they that are with Him are called and chosen
and faithful. That's Revelation 17, 14. So those are the, and we'll go
through all of that as we move forward in this. Is it possible to get a copy
of that? Hmm? Is it possible to get a copy
of that? I can, yeah, this comes from the book, so I didn't want
to hand it, I'm not familiar with copyright law, so I didn't
want to do that. So I'm assuming we can send,
I can send copies by email. This is Max Donner. One of them
is Max Donner. There's also a similar... Yeah, Joel Beeky has a commentary
as well that's very similar to the way Max Donner lays it out
in terms of these seven different aspects of the book of Revelation.
So they're very very similar. Okay, so just wanted to go through
a few things here. So the fact that each of these
go through the same time period and they tell us what's going
on spiritually and then It continues, each section does that, and that's
why we say it's not a linear prophecy. The narrative is to
continue, John has to go back to the first coming, he has to
retrace that same journey to the second coming again, and
this is what he does seven times. And if we want to, we can go
to, let's go to Revelation chapter one, So the first parallel section
is chapters one to three, as we said, right? And it opens
with the mentioning of Christ. Let's read verses four to six. Who wants to read chapter one? 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, And continue. To him who loves
us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us
a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and
dominion forever and ever, amen. So when did Jesus do that? When did he become the faithful
witness? When was he the firstborn from the dead? When did he love
us and wash us with his blood? Resurrection. He lived, he died, and he washed
us in his blood, right? And he made us kings and priests
unto our God, that's it. That's his first coming, right,
when he came, that's what he did. And so verse five describes
the first coming of Christ and the work he achieved on the cross,
right? And it speaks about him washing
us in his blood. And then notice verse, read 17
and 18. When I saw him, I fell at his
feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on
me, saying, fear not, I am the first and the last and the living
one. I died, and behold, I am alive
forevermore. And I have the keys of death
and pain. OK, so we have his coming, and
we have his death. those things that have happened.
So it's a vision of Christ and his first coming. What he achieved
by his death is burial's resurrection and the cleansing power of his
blood on the cross. He then dictates seven letters
to the churches, right, in chapters two and three, and these portray
the virtues, the challenges, the deficiencies and blessings
that all churches experience to some degree or another. So
we see Jesus as the head of the church, standing in the midst
of his church in chapters two and three, right? He warns them,
he challenges them, he gives them tremendous promises which
we'll go through. It's all a great blessing, right,
because that's what the book is supposed to do. It's supposed
to be a blessing to the church, and so this is what Jesus is
doing. Okay, so then let's go to the end of chapter three,
and let's read verses 20 and 21 of chapter three. To him who
overcomes, I will grant to sit with me all day. as I also overcame
and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear. That's 21, right? Start at 20. 20. Behold, I stand at the door
and knock. If anyone hears my voice and
opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and
he with me. To him who overcomes, I will
grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down
with my father on his throne. Okay, so what does that verse
remind you of when it says that he will come into him and sup
with him? What does sup mean? Have a meal with him, right?
When will we have a meal with Jesus? Marriage Feast of the Lamb. Yes. Verse 21 says, to him that overcomes,
I will grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I also came
and sat down with my Father in heaven. When will we sit on the
throne with Jesus? When he comes, right? When he
comes and takes us with him at the end, we'll all be surrounding
the throne of God. So that's when Jesus comes back.
So we have the beginning in chapter one, and we have the what he's
going to do at the end in chapter three. So it's just an example
of, so this first section opens with his first coming and closes
with an allusion, perhaps, to the marriage supper of the Lamb,
right? We will sup with Christ. Anyway,
so that's just an example of the first parallel section of
the book. We'll continue to go through
the book, through chapter one and continue on. But I wanted
to give a complete kind of overview of what it all looks like and
how we treat the book of Revelation and how idealists treat it generally. And so that's how we're going
to look at the book. Any thoughts? Any questions regarding
that? Good, because I don't have the
answers. We're all studying together.
We're all looking at the book together and seeing what we see
there. But it's good to have different
perspectives. Using both Max Donner, Richard
Phillips, Joel Beeke, all these different sources to study out
the book. Also taking into account some
of the other perspectives, the preterist perspective, certainly
not the dispensational perspective on the book. So that's what we'll
be doing going forward. So why don't we pray and we'll
get ready to worship this morning. Let's pray. Lord, we just thank
you for your word. Pray that you would help us,
Lord, to continue to look into your word see it from the perspective
that you would have us to see it, Lord, that we would see that
all that's happening in this book is a revelation of what
is actually going on even now. As we battle, we are in a battle,
Lord God, but we have you on the throne. So we thank you,
Lord, that your church will prosper you by your grace. We thank you
for that. We pray now that you would help
us as we look to worshiping you, preparing our hearts to worship
you this morning in spirit and truth. We pray your blessing
on the whole day now.
Eschatology: Session 4
Series Revelation
| Sermon ID | 16252122759 |
| Duration | 48:37 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Revelation 1:1-3 |
| Language | English |
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