earth will mourn because of him, so shall it be. Amen." Now I was saying last time that I believe that this is very commonly and radically misunderstood. I would like you once again to turn and put your finger in your Bible at two places. The first is in Daniel chapter 7, and the other is in Zachariah chapter 12. Now, when I grew up and started my pilgrimage as a Christian, I believed, like everybody else, that whenever the Bible spoke of Christ coming on the clouds of heaven, He was talking about His second coming at the end of the world. I believed that not because I'd studied the Bible myself and found that that's what it taught. I believed that just because that's what I heard everybody else say. But when I really began to study the Bible, I found that the language of Scripture doesn't mean what it is popularly taken to mean in many, many instances. Now, please look in Daniel chapter 7. In verse 9, Daniel is having a night vision in Babylon, and he says, As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like white wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze, a river of fire flowing, coming out from before him. Ten thousand upon ten thousand attended him. stood before him. The court was seated and the books were opened. And then he says, I continued to watch because of the boastful words of the horn that was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. The other beasts had been stripped of their authority but were allowed to live for a period of time. In my night vision In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence." Now, in the Hebrew, there is no period after heaven. In the Hebrew, it reads, "...one like unto the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven unto the Ancient of Days, and was led unto his presence." He was given authority, glory, sovereign power, and all people, nations of men, and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away." Now that phrase, coming on the clouds of heaven, means, therefore, being brought into the presence of Almighty God. In other words, it is equivalent doctrinally speaking, to the ascension and glorification of Christ at the right hand of the Father, and does not mean the second coming of Christ from heaven at the end of the world. Now, if you look in passages through the Bible, you find that quite often this idea of God's Sovereignty and enthronement is expressed this way. I'm not going to ask you to hurriedly look these up, but listen as I read them. From Isaiah 19.1, an oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. Psalm 97, verse 2. This is another place in which this kind of idea is clearly expressed in the Old Testament. The Lord reigns. Let the earth be glad. Let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. And again, the prophet Nahum 1, verse 3, in storm and tempest is his way, and clouds are the dust of his feet. Whenever the Bible wants to emphasize then God's exalted enthronement in glory and his complete sovereignty, it uses this on the clouds and coming on the clouds idea. And the point here is that Jesus Christ, having finished his work on earth, is now ascending into heaven. He comes on the clouds of heaven to the right hand of the Father, and there he is enthroned. And all authority is given to him in heaven and on earth. And there, on the clouds of heaven, he comes in history more and more into his dominion. And that is what it means, in my opinion, cannot be evaded if you look at Matthew 26, verse 64, because there we have a statement which I do not believe can be taken in any other way. In Matthew 26, verse 64, we read, The high priest has Christ now under arrest and they're about to crucify him, and the high priest says, I charge you under oath by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. And he says, yes, it's as you say. But I say to all of you, in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven. And that in the future is a very wrong translation because in the Greek it says, and I'm literally translating it, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. I don't think there can be any doubt that the meaning therefore must be that from the judgment of Jerusalem they will have the undeniable proof of his reigning and sitting at the right hand of God in heaven. And I believe that that is the meaning of the well-known passage in Matthew 24 to which I now direct your attention. Please turn to it. because Christ in this great passage is giving the signs of the end of the old covenant era. And I remind you again that he says in verse 34, I tell you the truth, this generation certainly will not pass away until all these things have happened. And what are those things that he says? are going to happen in that generation? Well, here's one of them. Verse 29, immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time, the sign of the Son of Man will appear. in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. At that time, that is, immediately after the distress of those days, they will see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven." Now, in the Greek language, this is the way it reads. At that time, they will see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. Now, a lot of people make the very big mistake of confusing two different things. When you see the sign of Christ in heaven, you don't see Christ. You see the sign. What Christ is saying is, in this generation you are going to see a sign which will manifestly prove that the Son of Man is in heaven. And I've always marveled at the fact that people don't notice that. He says, you'll see the sign of the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. I believe that what that means is this. When they see Jerusalem leveled to the ground the way Christ said it would be, and hardly a person believed Him that day when He said it, When you see this city leveled to the ground so that not one stone stands upon another, you're going to see in that the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And you might remember back in that other point that we just looked at, look at it again, 26, 46. As soon as the high priest heard Christ say that again, talking about coming on the clouds of heaven, he tore his clothes and he said, he has spoken blasphemy. Now, blasphemy means claiming divine glory when it doesn't belong to you. In other words, they very well understood They very well understood that Jesus was claiming in that statement that he was the Son of Man, that he was the messianic figure of Daniel's prophecy. And they tore their clothes because that offended them. But they understood what he meant all right. He was claiming that he was the one who was going to go up there and sit in heaven. And they thought that was blasphemy. It wasn't blasphemy. It's exactly what's happened. Now look in 1 Corinthians 15, 25 to 28, because here we see what actually is going on here. For there we read in 1 Corinthians 15, 25, he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for he has put everything under his feet. Now, when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all. Now, all in the world that Paul is doing is expounding that same concept. When Christ ascended to heaven on the clouds, he was seated at the right hand of God, and God gave him all authority in heaven and earth, and that authority belongs to Christ in his mediatorial kingdom, and will belong to him until he has finished everything pertaining to the coming of his kingdom, and then he'll turn things over again to the Father, and the Father will be all in all. So when it says there in Revelation, Look, he's coming with the clouds. That's what it's talking about. It's talking about Christ's manifestation of glory in the destruction of Jerusalem. And you can see that from what immediately follows. And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. And all the tribes of the land will mourn because of him, so shall it be." Now, you'll notice I translated that, all the tribes of the land. Well, that's what the Greek says. And here again, as is so often the case, translators are somewhat They somewhat modify the text because of their preconceived ideas, but it is not talking about all the peoples of the world, geographically speaking. It's talking about all the Fulai, the tribes of the land. And on this point, please now turn to Zechariah chapter 12, that other text that I gave you a little bit ago. In Zechariah 12 we are told that the Lord God will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. Then it says, they will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land will mourn each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves, the clan of the house of David, and so on." Now that is exactly equivalent to the statement in Revelation. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the land will mourn because of him." And I maintain that this has been fulfilled in the immediate subsequent events after the destruction of Jerusalem. Look at Acts chapter 2, please. In Acts chapter 2, we read that Peter preached the Pentecost sermon. Christ is now on the clouds of heaven at the right hand of God. He pours out his spirit on the day of Pentecost. What happens? Verse 37, when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter, and the other apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And they said, repent and be baptized, every one of you. And as you go on through the book of Acts, you find over and over again that this type of thing happens. Thousands are added to the church, and the Spirit of God moves upon them, and they repent of their sin. and they come to realize the enormity of what they have done. In chapter 4 of the book of Acts, you see this. In chapter 4, verse 25, we have a quotation of the second psalm, and then he says in verse 27, Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and they did this. What did they do? Verse 28, What your power and will had decided beforehand should happen, and now, Lord, consider and so on. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Jesus. And then it happened. And there were people who were greatly changed. And we go on through the book of Acts. The point that I make is that there was a tremendous effect on the people. If you have any doubt that this is legitimate, you can look at John 19, verses 34 and 37, because there John even says that the beginning of the fulfillment of the Zechariah prophecy was on the day that Christ was pierced. For we read in John 19.34, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony. He knows that he tells the truth. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled. Here's one. Not one of his bones will be broken. And here is another. they will look on the one they have pierced." Well, this looking upon the one whom they have pierced, and mourning because of him, is clearly a contemporary event. And the fact that the very people who pierced him would see it and come to mourn is quite out of accord with the idea of putting this way off in the future, long after they're dead, long after they have passed from the earth. So I believe that verse 7 is not talking about the second coming of Christ at the end of the world. but it is talking about the impending event of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., which was predicted by Christ in Matthew 24 as certain within that generation, and as the infallible sign, meaning, manifest evidence of the fact that Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father in glory. Maybe the Sanhedrin would laugh at that on the day that Christ stands before them all beaten and crowned with thorns, but they would not laugh on the day when he from his throne in glory flattens their city and reduces the temple to rubble and begins by the outpouring of His Spirit to turn many hearts throughout the land to recognize and realize what they didn't realize before, namely, that Jesus is the Christ. Well, now in verse 8 there follows a second introductory statement, and it is a statement concerning the being of God. And here we are probably to think of God in the aspect of His unity. God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without particularizing any one person. The true and living God, in the unity of His divine being, He says, I am the A and the Z, the beginning, in other words, and the end. The one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. In verses 4 through 7, We had a salutation from these persons. Then in verse 7, a summary of the message of the book of Revelation. That's really what that is. Here then is a reference to the one who gives the salutation. This explains some textual variations. And it would mean that we can be sure of these things because he who is the beginning and the ending, the Alpha and the Omega, the sure source of everything which was and is and will be, can say this with authority and certainty." Now in verses 9 and following, John tells us how he received the commission to write this book. And you'll notice here the emphasis upon suffering and kingdom. I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus." You'll notice in that very statement that John recognizes that the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a present reality. Now there is a kind of eschatological thinking abroad in the land, especially among fundamentalists, which puts the kingdom of Christ in the future. Premillennial teaching puts the kingdom of Christ in the future. Kingdom of Christ is not yet, they say. But someday he's going to come again, and when he comes, then he's going to establish his kingdom. A guy like Jerry Falwell teaches this heresy, and it's a serious heresy. It's not true. Because the kingdom of Christ is a present reality. Absolutely. My kingdom is not of this world, he said. And if they tell you, here it is, there it is, don't believe them. The kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ transcends earthly kingdoms in its nature and character. Well, John says, I, your brother and companion, in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus was in the island of Patmos. Now, he's writing this letter to people in these seven churches that have their back against the wall. We're going to see that. They were enduring persecution. This was probably written in the days of Nero, and if you know anything about Nero, you know that he made it very hard on Christians. Some of them were tied up on stakes and they coated them with tar and set them afire to light up their evening pastime in the city of Rome. And they thought that was fun. That kind of thing was going on, and John knows it's going on, and he's telling these people that I'm writing this to you not from some safe retreat way off from the problem. I am right in the middle of the suffering, but I am also right in the middle of the kingdom. In other words, John wants them to know that he shares their suffering, but he also wants them to know that even though these things are taking place, the kingdom is a reality. And that kingdom is a fact in the present. Now you'll notice here the striking likeness between what happens here and what happened to Daniel. Please go back to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, chapter 7, verse 28. There we read, "...the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power, and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom." That's clearly what John sees as now a reality. That great kingdom predicted by Daniel back in The days of the Babylonian captivity is now a fact, according to John. Look at chapter 8, verse 1. In the third year of King Belshazzar's reign, I, Daniel, had a vision after the one that had already appeared to me. Look at verse 2 of chapter 9. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the scriptures according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. Look at chapter 10, verse 2 of the book of Daniel. At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food, no meat or wine touched my lips, and I used no lotion at all until the three weeks were over. In other words, there is in John's experience something remarkably like that of Daniel long before and these other people. He was a companion in tribulation but also in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. He doesn't want to emphasize his glorious office of apostle without first of all recognizing his fundamental sharing with these ordinary people in the persecution that was then a reality. And by the way, here is a strong indication of the genuineness of the book of Revelation. It would be hard to imagine any one coming along later and forging a book like this in the name of John, who would ever dream of a place like the island of Patmos as its point of origin. That would just not occur to someone who would fabricate a book like this. But we do know that the island of Patmos was a place in that era where prisoners were sometimes sent, by the Romans, and that's where John was on that day. Now, what does he mean when he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day? Some say that he means by that he was in a disembodied existence. Hendrickson, the late writer who has written commentaries on quite a few New Testament books and who is quite often very reliable, at this point, I think, succumbs to false Greek thinking because he imagines here that that John somehow, by his soul part, left the body and all these things took place, and that what he's emphasizing is the fact that he got away from the prison house of the body. Well, I don't think that's what John means at all. I think what he means is that he was in the medium of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit, in other words, was upon him. If the Holy Spirit is upon John in the way that he does come upon those who write the Bible. No prophecy of old time we read came by private impulse. But holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. That's the kind of thing John is talking about. He was in the medium of the Holy Spirit. on the Lord's Day. And by the way, that statement on the Lord's Day, in my opinion, does certify to us that already before the destruction of Jerusalem, in the very early history of the Christian Church, there was a day set apart as the Lord's Day. And all of the arguments in the modern period against what we call a weekly Sabbath, in my opinion, fall to the earth on that statement alone. It's all very well, as some Dutch theologians of recent time have done, to argue that every day is the Lord's day. Well, that's true in a sense, just like every meal is the Lord's supper. Every time I sit down to eat at the table, in a sense, that's the Lord's meal, isn't it? He gave it to me, I trust he's present there with me as I take it, but we all know very well that there are ordinary meals and then there is the Lord's supper, meaning by that something specifically ordained by him and set apart as his in a preeminent way, and it is the same with the Lord's day. Every day, in a sense, is the Lord's day. You should never live a single day of your life that is not lived unto the Lord. But just as there is the Lord's Supper, so there is the Lord's Day. And we know from the very earliest history of the Church that that day was the first day of the week. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, says, on the first day of the week, let every man lay by him in store, the King James language. But you know the meaning. And we read in the book of Acts that on the first day of the week, Paul the apostle preached, and he went on till midnight, and that man fell out of the window. And on the first day of the week, Christ met with his disciples. So there is a day that belongs to the Lord, and it is a tragedy that in the modern era this has been forgotten. this is still something that we must remember that a day each week belongs to the Lord. Well, this book then was not the product of John's skill and industry, and here we must therefore beware of the idea that because this book is highly structured and uses an enormous content of Old Testament symbolism, We must beware the idea that John wrote and rewrote and refined this many times out of his own human wisdom. John was a great student of the Old Testament. He was full of the Bible, but it was the immediate divine inspiration of the Spirit of God on that Lord's Day. that brought all these things into a finished form in this wonderful book. In other words, it is a product of divine inspiration and not John's premeditated literary effort as such. Now, then we read that John heard the Lord like a trumpet. I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said, Write on a scroll. And he says in verse 12, I turned around to see the voice that was speaking. Now that contrast between hearing and seeing we're going to meet again and again in the book of Revelation. John hears a voice, and he turns around and sees a vision, or a person, or an angel, or whatever. So, the idea is that the voice content is conveyed to him not so much by words he hears as by the vision he sees. And right away here we are apprised of the fact that symbolism will play a large part in the book because it's a voice like a trumpet. It's not a trumpet, but it's a voice like a trumpet. Trumpets in the Bible were used from very early times for specific reasons. Look in Numbers chapter 10, verse 2. Here are trumpets in the tabernacle in the wilderness, and here's where we first come across them. The Lord said to Moses, make two trumpets of hammered silver and use them for calling the congregation together and for having the camp set out. When both are sounded, the whole community is to assemble before you at the entrance of the tent of meeting. If only one is sounded, the leaders, the heads of the clans of Israel, are to assemble before you." In other words, these trumpets gave the signal for movement, for gathering, for summoning together in the congregation of the Lord way back in the time of the Exodus. Look again in Exodus chapter 19. verses 16 and following. Here God comes down on Mount Sinai and we read, on the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Obviously then the point of that was it was a trumpet that sounded the call to God's people to be ready in awe to receive this Tremendous vision that God gives in this encounter at Mount Sinai. And all the way through the Old Testament prophets you see this phenomenon again. Look in the book of Joel in the Old Testament. Joel chapter 2. Below the trumpet in Zion sound the alarm on my holy hill Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It's close at hand. A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness." So these trumpets are such as to arrest attention, to arouse in the person who hears them a sense of awe, reverence, even in the proper sense of the word, fear of the living God. And then he is told to write on a scroll what he sees. And that, of course, reminds us that in those days they didn't have books with multiple pages, but they were written on a roll like the ones found in the Dead Seas. And this scroll is to be sent to the seven churches. Now, we're going to have to terminate about this point, but I just want you to notice that the seven churches actually did exist at that time. And while each church really did exist and is addressed, I believe, quite definitely in terms of the real situation then existing in that church, yet it is clear all the way through that the message was intended for more than that particular ancient church. How do we know that? Because, you'll notice, At the end of each of these church letters, we read, like in chapter 2, verse 7, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And then after the second letter, again we read, verse 17, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. And as we will see, the whole symbolism of the church under the figure of the lampstand clearly is meant symbolically to indicate the whole Church of Christ in its unity and diversity under the symbolism of the Tandelabra back there in the Old Testament. Well now, next time we'll come back and start from verse 12 as we see this great vision of the Son of God in the midst of the lampstands. But now, in one or two minutes, before we turn to prayer, if you have any questions about what I've said, it's a good time to give you an opportunity for them. Are there any questions? I would like to ask, in Matthew 24... Yes. 29. Yeah. That has happened. There's no escape from that because Christ went right on to say in verse 34, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Now, obviously, at first sight, because of the influences we have all had upon us by others, we think of those statements is having to do with the second coming, like the sun being darkened, the moon not giving its light. But as a matter of actual fact, there's nothing in the Bible to suggest that that will happen to the sun and the moon at the end of the world at all. There will be new heavens and a new earth. The heavens that are now and the earth now will be changed, but not destroyed. And if you go back in the Old Testament, you will find that These symbols are used again and again in the Old Testament with regard to the overthrow of nations. Now let's see if I can quickly find that for you. Maybe I'd better begin next time by bringing the evidence to show you this. But I'll do that. Before we take it up next time, I'll try to satisfy your mind on verse 29 of Matthew 24, which I have not brought with me, but I'll bring it next time. Any other questions?