The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. And I said, oh, well, good. And she said, well, you said it was gonna be like a seminary class. She goes, it was. So we have one more of those tonight. So I guess tonight she's gonna be okay. But we're not gonna review anything that we learned last week. You didn't hear that, did you, hun? We're not gonna review anything, it's all on sermon audio, we record everything, just go to sermon audio, you can listen to the first part. We're gonna actually just jump right back into our introduction and talk about basically the four interpretive views of the book of Revelation. Now, this is important because most of us have only heard one view of revelation. Most of us have only been exposed to one view so that that's the only view we think that there is. But the reality is is that there are four different perspectives. And by the way, it's helpful to understand these perspectives. Whether you agree with them or not, it's helpful to understand and you'll see why in just a second. So, Rog, if you go ahead and put that next slide up. So the interpretive views of Revelation, we begin with what is called preterism, and preterism just comes from a Latin word which means past, all right? And so the preterist view of Revelation, first of all, it emphasizes all of the time-related phrases in the book of Revelation. So when John repeatedly says, these things must soon come to pass, they take soon to actually mean, wait for it, soon. And so the preterist position sees the book of Revelation as predominantly fulfilled in the first century. There's a couple different ways this ends up being played out. So early date, people that think Revelation's written prior to the fall of Jerusalem actually see the beast is Nero, Babylon is Jerusalem, the destruction of Jerusalem is the judgment that's spoken of. A late date, 95 AD, it would basically be the destruction of the Roman Empire. Now, most preterists actually would see chapters 21 and 22, New Heaven and New Earth is still future. There are a few heretical preterists out there that think everything is fulfilled and that's profoundly wrong. So what do we make of this view? By the way, it's very well represented. There are a number of very strong advocates of this position. I would say that the view has some strengths. The first strength is that it does justice to the time statements, to the things that must take place, things that are near, all right? And the other thing, the other thing that's a strength is that the Preterist view looks at the book of Revelation and it puts an emphasis on how would people in the first century have understood the book, right? By the way, You have to ask yourself that repeatedly as you go through the book of Revelation. If all you do is look at the book of Revelation in terms of helicopters and atomic bombs, then you're actually removing it from the very historical context in which it was written. And so the Preterist view does justice in a sense to the time elements, but then also the relevance for the first century. The weakness of the Preterist view is not seeing the ongoing relevance of the book of Revelation. In other words, they see the historical fulfillment, so let's just take the beast in Revelation 13, and that's fulfilled in Nero, so they would say it's fulfilled. And so they look at the historical fulfillments of certain passages as exhausting the meaning or the fulfillments, and I would just say that's not even how Revelation, for instance, uses the Old Testament itself. So for instance, the book of Revelation is gonna talk about beasts, and where do those beasts come from? Those beasts come from the book of Daniel, and what does Revelation do with those beasts in Daniel? Were those beasts fulfilled in the time of Daniel? And the answer is yes, and then subsequently. But then Revelation takes those and actually sees not just the fulfillment in the time of Daniel and afterwards, but then sees the way in which those beasts, in a sense, create a trajectory of future, as it were, fulfillment. So I would say that's a weakness of the Preterist view. All right, the next view is futurism. And futurism comes in two forms. The most common is dispensational premillennial futurism, which goes like this. Revelation 4 to 19 only deals with the last seven years of human history. So you have, let's just say the Lord returns in 2020. you have almost 2,000 years of church history in which the book of Revelation sees no fulfillment whatsoever. It's all waiting for the last seven years, all right? There's another form of futurism, historic premillennialism, which actually will melt together, meld together a futurist view and then typically, let's say, an idealist view. So they would look for the relevance. So here's the strength of futurism, is that the futurist view takes revelation and maintains its prophetic perspective, all right? In other words, it really looks at revelation as a prophecy. Now the weakness of futurism is that it undermines the relevance and the significance of the prophecy for every single generation with the exception of the last, and then marginalizes interpretations which would have seemed clear to the first century, right? So in other words, if everything, if everything is waiting for fulfillment in the last seven years of human history, then what did it have to say to the first century? What does it have to say to us unless we happen to be that terminal generation? The next view, historicism. I like talking about historicism because I'm least sympathetic to this, but it is the predominant view of the reformers and of our reformed confessions It was the view of Matthew Henry. It was the view of Jonathan Edwards. You would think I would believe it just for that, but it's not so. Johannes Albrecht Bengel, great, great textual scholar. Sir Isaac Newton, E.B. Eliot, Albert Barnes, right? And Charles Spurgeon. and even the famous Southern Baptist founder, B.H. Carroll, believe it or not. Now, historicists have sort of an interpretive thing they do where they equate a principle that says when you see days are years, Okay, so days are years. So what they end up doing is they end up looking at the way the book of Revelation unfolds throughout church history. So for instance, for the historicist, Revelation 9, right, so the locusts that come out of the ground, right, is the Islamic invasion. The Babylonian harlot is the papacy, it's the Pope. That's why Reformed confessions say that the Pope is the Antichrist. Not because they're trying to be mean, but because that's the way they understood the book of Revelation, right? And so the beast, the false prophet, it's all the papacy. The view itself, I mean let's face it, doesn't a view held by Edwards and Spurgeon sound compelling just on the face of it, right? So here's the thing, is that the pedigree is absolutely impressive. It is a veritable who's who in church history, but the problem comes in in plugging in the events. Right? So by the way, historicism actually lends itself to date setting. You wanted to know a famous date setter that you maybe didn't know was a date setter? Martin Luther. Based on what? On his historicist view of the book of Revelation. So there are strengths to it, not many, but there are some. And I would say that they were very serious about prophetic interpretation of history. They viewed history as the unfolding of God's work. And so Edwards, for instance, Edwards was a political animal in a sense of constantly just absorbing as much news as he could get from France and from England, and he was always paying attention, why? Because he believed that prophetic events were unfolding before him that lined up with the book of Revelation. And so the idea of having a prophetic interpretation of history seems fine, but the weakness is it promotes date setting, which by the way, the minute somebody sets a date, my immediate conclusion is they're wrong. Who's been right in 2,000 years? Absolutely nobody, okay? And of course, you have this really nagging little statement by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse that nobody knows the day or the hour, all right? And so it lends itself to date setting. It promoted this idea that I think was futile in many ways of trying to make history fit into the book of Revelation. And here's one of the big problems. Western history. into the book of Revelation, right? So the historicist's view, for instance, would completely ignore the history of the church in Asia or the history of the church in Africa. It was very specific Western history. And so there is, by the way, there's no consensus on events. You know, there are big ones like the Islamic invasion and the papacy. but then you get as many interpretations on the details as there are historicist interpreters. By the way, there is still a group of people who are committed to historicism today, and it's the Seventh-day Adventists. That's their interpretive grid for the book of Revelation. Now, notice Preterism, historicism, and dispensational futurism are all focused on historical events, either past or future, as specific, quote, literal fulfillments, okay? That's what those three views. So actually, the preterist has something in common with the futurist, and that is that they are looking, one's just past and one's just future, to actual specific historical events fulfilling every single passage, all right? There's a fourth view. It's called idealism, or the spiritual view. So you know, if it's the spiritual view, it's gotta be right, right? So this would be a view that looks at revelation as a symbolic conflict between good and evil. Now there are strengths to this view, but the weakness is that as it stands like that, prophecy ends up being removed completely from history, in a sense. So in other words, if it's just about sort of this, if it's just spiritual lessons about a cosmic battle between good and evil, then what it does is it really removes itself from the unfolding of history. There is the right view, which is gonna be called, did I put this up here? Yeah, look at that. So any view that's this long you know has to be right. Eclecticism or Redemptive Historical Modified Idealism. Now let me just tell you that those titles are never gonna catch on, all right? So here's this view, and by the way, this is my view. It looks at the book of Revelation, and what frames the book of Revelation is in fact the cosmic battle between God and Satan, between good and evil. it sees the book of Revelation as depicting the time between Christ's first and second advent thus redemptive historical, all right? And so I would say that the strength of this view is that it does the most justice to the type of literature that we have in the book of Revelation, right, apocalyptic, and it also does the most to preserve the relevance of the significance of the book for every generation. I would say that this view ends up best framing the exhortations and the ethical sections of the book. It looks to the truths expressed in the symbolism and does not restrict fulfillment to one particular period of time. Okay, does that make sense? So this view held, for instance, Greg Beal is probably the most prominent, doesn't ignore in time events but sees end time events simply as the ultimate fulfillments of the book, all right? And so we'll talk about this in a little bit. I hope that it will make more sense by the time we're done. So here's the thing that I think we take away from the different views, is each interpretive perspective should not be ignored as you go to the book of Revelation. You should actually understand how the first century understood the book. I think it's even helpful to understand how historicists typically understood the book. I think it's important to understand how futurists understand the book. And I would say that each view makes, to varying degrees, a contribution to our understanding of the book of Revelation. But, at the end of the day, I think both the structure and the type of literature gives the most weight to the redemptive historical perspective, which we'll talk about more in a second. Now, I shouldn't actually do this, because I don't have time to develop it, but let me just give you an example. By the way, if you want to see how the four views work, Steve Gregg put together Revelation, four views, a parallel commentary, and when I was in China one time, I sat there and read through Revelation in my Greek text, and then read through this whole set, every view on every passage, And it was actually really enlightening. It was a great exercise. So let me just paint very quickly how each view understands, let's say, a particular section in Revelation. So you get to Revelation chapter 11, and you have the temple. at the beginning of Revelation chapter 11, and it's being measured inside the temple, outside the temple, and then from there, you go from the temple then to the two witnesses. All right, everybody with me? Everybody kind of familiar with that section? And you get the two witnesses and they prophesy for three and a half days, okay? Or 42 months. And so then they end up getting killed, all right? So you've got the temple and the two witnesses. So the Preterist view would look at the section on the temple as being physically the temple in Jerusalem that was destroyed in AD 70. it would look at the two witnesses as actually two historical people. Now, there's no agreement as to who they are, actually, among preterists. One of the most common is that they're Peter and John. Whether that's true or not, of course, your guess is as good as theirs. And so there is this very, in a sense, very historical, very specific fulfillment. Actual temple destroyed in AD 70, two witnesses. So then jump over to the futurist position. How does a futurist read Revelation 11? The temple is a real temple, but it has to be what? A rebuilt temple, okay? So it's just as much a real physical temple as the preterist view, it's just a rebuilt temple, and you know why you have to have a rebuilt temple? Because there's no temple. Well, oh, let me rephrase that. The true temple exists, okay? Jesus Christ. By the way, let me just give you a, this is free, there's no charge for this. If your enthusiasm and excitement comes at the prospect of somebody rebuilding a physical temple in Jerusalem, then you are missing the glory of the fact that the true temple, Jesus Christ, has already come, okay? And so Jesus, by the way, is a much better temple than something that's made out of stones. So then the futurists say, who are the two witnesses? So just like the preterists, the two witnesses are two historical figures, who are the two witnesses? And of course, I'm sure that you've heard all different kinds. So Enoch and Elijah, right, have you heard that one? Because neither of them died, right? So anyway, whatever it is, I don't think the two witnesses are Paul Crouch's two TBN satellites. All right, so just probably forget that interpretation, okay? So then you have that interpretation. The historicist reads Revelation 11. and sees, and I'm not gonna go into the detail as to why they see this, I'm just gonna tell you, they see the forerunners of the Reformation, the Reformation restoring true worship, and the Reformers actually witnessing to the nations. What about the right view? The right view actually says, well, how's temple used in the New Testament? Oh, let's rely on scripture interpreting scripture, okay? So the temple ends up being a picture of the church. And then you get to the two witnesses. And the two witnesses are testifying and then they actually are killed but then raised and you end up having these two witnesses identified as two candlestands. Have candlestands already been identified? What are the candlestands? The churches. Out of the seven churches, how many of those churches were actually faithful with no words of criticism or condemnation? Two. And so what makes much better sense to me is to see the two witnesses as representing the faithful church in the midst of persecution who end up losing their life but being raised again, all right? So you can see that these are very different. So my approach to Revelation is when we get to the text next week, it's blessed as the one reading it and those hearing it, and what else? And those obeying it. So by the way, you do realize that if none of this comes to fruition until the last seven years, it's kind of hard to obey right now. So my view is revelation was something that was heard by the churches and it was a message to be obeyed and therefore you have to teach Revelation in the way that Jesus intended it to be heard. And so we'll look at the meaning of the passages, obviously, we will look at the meaning of the images, obviously, we will see the strengths of particular passages from the different views, but Revelation 1.3 is the guiding principle. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy of this book and who obey them. And so we'll pay attention to how the first century saw it, we will pay attention to what this tells us about the future, but most of all, we're going to see what lessons there are for us as followers of the Lamb engaged in a cosmic conflict, which ends with Jesus winning in the end, all right? So very quickly, the purpose of Revelation. Just like other apocalyptic works like we saw last week and works of prophecy and epistles, the main purpose of revelation is not to unlock some kind of secret code. That's not the purpose of revelation. The purpose of revelation is not even to predict certain events, let's say like COVID. See, that's how some people read the book of Revelation. They look and they say, oh, a plague. We're enduring a plague. This must be that, okay? The purpose of Revelation is to not get you excited about helicopters, atomic bombs, and COVID. The purpose of Revelation is to challenge and to encourage us in times of crisis. And so Brian Tabb, who's a New Testament scholar, he says, revelation exists to help us resist worldly compromise, spiritual complacency, and false teaching. That'll ruin your charts. The goal of revelation is to actually encourage the church to stay faithful in the battle. to persevere in the midst of persecution, to actually, for the church to maintain a prophetic witness in the world for the Lamb and against the world, which in Revelation terms, against the world means against the religious and political systems of this world. The challenge and the encouragement come by revelation empowering the church to see things as they really are, not simply as they appear to be. And how are things really and truly? The Lamb has won and the kingdom of God will triumph. That's how things really are. And so when we, by the way, we have to understand how powerful that actually is. To give you a perspective on the way things really are, not simply the way they appear to be, okay? If we would lay hold of that and have that kind of perspective, then we really would walk by faith and not by sight. That's what walking by faith is all about, is actually seeing things the way they really are. And how are things really and truly? There is a God who reigns in heaven, Revelation 4 and 5, and a lamb who is overcome. And so this book is tremendous in the sense of its encouragement to believers and a challenge to believers not to compromise. You do understand that there is a much bigger danger regarding the mark of the beast than some sort of microchip that might get injected into your hand. It is actually compromise with the beast, taking his mark. as opposed to being one of the sealed ones by God. So there's gonna be all kinds of people that go, I didn't take the mark, and God will say, you most certainly did. Look at your life. Look at the compromises that you made. Look at your priorities. You were in lockstep with the beast your whole life. His mark was all over you. So this book is, by the way, this book is far more powerful than just trying to figure out who the Antichrist is. Roger reminded me last week, I totally forgot Gorbachev was the Antichrist. By the way, do you remember why? Everybody's like, yeah, that big thing on his head, obviously he's got the mark of the beast on his forehead. It's like, no, it's just an unsightly birthmark, really. All right, so what about the structure? Now this is where we really will have some fun, I think, at least my kind of fun. All right, so structural revelation. Next, oh, there you go, Raj. Okay, so first of all, remember, apocalyptic literature is heavy in symbolism, right? That's the nature of the writing, is it's heavy in symbolism. And guess what? Numbers play into the symbolism. And so what are the most significant numbers in the book of Revelation? 12, 12 and multiples of 12. Seven, by the way, seven is the winner, all right? There are sevens within sevens within sevens in Revelation, right? So you have 12 and multiples of 12 and seven and four. Four, okay? Four. Why four? Well, first of all, you're introduced to the four living creatures, right? And the four corners of the earth is a symbol for the entirety of the cosmos, okay? You have four, you have seven, you have 10, and multiples of 10, and 12, right? And so, You look at the numbers and you don't just automatically say, well, I interpret the Bible literally. You look to see what the symbolic significance is of the numbers. By the way, when we get to the measuring of the New Jerusalem, the New American Standard absolutely cracks me up because I love the New American Standard, but the symbolism of measuring is using the symbols of 12, and you know what the New American Standard does, New American Standard actually translated into miles. So you know what ends up happening. You lose all the significance of the number, right? We'll get there. Some of you will be in heaven by then, and you'll know the best interpretation, all right? So you got heavy symbolism, use of numbers, and then the Old Testament passages and themes. Now I think, if I remember what I said last week, I think I misspoke last week about quotations, right? There are Old Testament quotations, but check this out. The book of Revelation contains more Old Testament references than any other book in the New Testament, including the book of Hebrews. Does that seem stunning to you? I mean, if I were to ask you what New Testament book most heavily makes Old Testament reference, would you not have said Hebrews? It's the book of Revelation. Now, I gotta do this quickly. So trying to track down all the Old Testament references is an incredible challenge. So, for instance, there's one Greek text that's published by the United Bible Society text, and they have a little section where they have New Testament use of the Old Testament, both in citation and allusion, and you get to the book of Revelation, and they have 394 Old Testament citations or allusions. Overwhelming majority being allusions, alluding to. But then you go to the Nestle-Allen text and they have a similar tabulation and they come up with 635 Old Testament references. So you do understand what this means. What this means is that on any given page in the book of Revelation, you are going to have a multitude of Old Testament references. Therefore, what do you need to understand in order to interpret the book of Revelation, an understanding of the Old Testament? Now, One of the things that we need to try to understand is, well, what constitutes an Old Testament reference, right? And so there's different criteria, which accounts for the different numbers, all right? And so you have clear references, you have probable references, you have possible references. But I'm gonna give you something that's a little more helpful. Thematic references. Creation, new creation. Eden, is Eden referred to in Revelation? At the beginning and at the end. Tree of life, right? These are all developments of Old Testament themes, all right? What about plagues? Are the plagues in Revelation a development of an Old Testament theme? the plagues of the Exodus, right? There are new Exodus themes, there's Son of Man, by the way, Son of Man imagery from Daniel 7 is just packed into the Book of Revelation. Old Testament language, Old Testament imagery. Then there's what we would call analogical use, and that is the idea that the Old Testament provides an analogy which then is creatively adapted by the Book of Revelation. So for instance, The two examples that come off the top of my head is the teaching of Balaam. Was Balaam alive during the writing of the Revelation? No. John draws an analogy to what Balaam taught to what was being taught in one of the churches. What about the woman Jezebel? Jezebel had long been eaten by dogs and scattered through their defecation, which was the prophecy. Centuries before Revelation was written, but Jesus says, you hold to the teaching of Jezebel, the prophetess, right? So you see there's an analogy, an Old Testament analogy, analogical use. There is a trajectory to the universal. So Old Testament events as a type now finding their fulfillment, all right? And you could make an argument that the new heavens and the new earth is the consummation of that. Various forms or levels of Old Testament fulfillment. then there are these magnificent inversions or reversals using Old Testament. So this is gonna freak some of you out, so I'll just tip my hand right now. So Jesus is going to say things to the church at Smyrna. He's going to say that there is in Smyrna a synagogue of Satan. of those who say they are Jews but are not. Then Jesus takes a text from Isaiah 45 about the Gentiles bowing down before Jews and inverts it so that unbelieving Jews bow down before believing Gentiles. That's what I mean by inversion or a reversal, right? So it's used this way in the Old Testament, but it gets inverted, it gets turned on its head in the way that John uses it, all right? Then you have just Old Testament texts and themes just used in a variety of different ways. Then you have contrast reversals and counterfeits. And by contrasts, stop and think about this. Do you have a, a prostitute in the book of Revelation. Do you have a bride? Do you have a wicked city and a holy city, right? So you see, by the way, these contrasts go, you have these counterfeit contrasts. So you have the lamb, but guess what the beast looks like? a lamb, he's a counterfeit lamb, right? And so you have all of these magnificent counterfeit contrasts. One of the best ones, my favorite actually, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon on it. So John says that he sees the lamb in Revelation 5 standing as if slain, and when that lamb is identified, he's identified as the Lion of Judah. The lion is a lamb. The lamb is a lion, right? So you get all of these, wonderful pictures and these contrasts, and then we get to the structure. And this is this is where we really need to pay close attention. So the structural revelation is what I would say is cyclical, or it's repetitive. So there is thematic overlap. So the way that most of us heard revelation is that you have the seals first, and then you have the trumpets, and then you have the bulls, and you just have this chronological unfolding, but Really what you have in Revelation is you have different camera angles. Each camera angle recapitulating or repeating the previous one from a different perspective with an intensifying emphasis. By the way, this idea of what's called progressive parallelism is the structure of Ezekiel. It finds its structure in Daniel. it finds its structure in 1 John. So the idea that somehow this is just a weird way to look at Revelation, actually there are a lot of examples in scripture of what's called progressive parallelism. So what I mean by that is that the, go ahead and turn to the next one, Raj. So, the seals and the trumpets and the bowls run parallel with each other, okay? In other words, think of them as overlapping each other, all right? Not successively. And the span of the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls is the span between the first and second Advents. Now, what should tip us off about this is that the seals, open up and it ends, the seals end in judgment and salvation. You see the text up there. And then you get the trumpets and guess how the trumpets end? The trumpets end in judgment and salvation. By the way, this should actually trouble us a little bit if we see them as just unfolding chronologically, so that first you have the seals, and then immediately, because the seals end with judgment and salvation, and then you go to the trumpets, and they end in judgment and salvation, and then you go to the bulls, and they end in judgment and salvation, and so then the question is, how many judgment and salvations are there? Now, you have four series of sevens, so you have a prologue and an epilogue actually that parallel each other almost precisely, and then you have seven letters to seven churches, and then you have seven seals that are opened, and then you have seven trumpets that are blown, and then seven bowls of wrath that are poured out, and then you have interludes in there that are also in sevens. So, after the bowls, You have the ultimate judgment, Satan is judged, great white throne judgment, and you have salvation for the bride at the second coming. And so I would argue that you have this, I'll show you a graph here in a second. I would also say the nature of the scroll reveals the parallelism. So the scroll in Revelation 5, what is it? What is it? It's the script for the whole book. You do understand, that's why John weeps when no one comes forth as worthy to open the seal, or to break the seal and open the scroll, is because the scroll is the script for the whole book. And so as the scroll, as the seals are broken, then the wrath comes, which in turn parallels the wrath poured out in both the trumpets and the bulls, all right? Now, let's see, let's go ahead and go ahead and go to that next slide, Roger. I should have went to that one. So this is the parallelism that I'm talking about. And so notice what I did is I made the arrows and the font bigger with each one, all right? So they all parallel each other. There's just an intensification with each one. But they all end in judgment and salvation. All right, go ahead and go to the next one, Roger. You have time indicators in the book of Revelation. We'll go into more depth later. You have 1260 days. So you know what the historicist would say. It's 1260 years, all right? But 1260 days, 42 months, which by the way is the same as 1260 days. And then you have this phrase, time, times, and half a time, which is another way of saying three and a half, all right? So you have 1260 days, 42 months, time, times, half a time, or three and a half, all right? Here's the thing, is that all of those time indicators, that's the time given for temple witness, or the temple for witness, that's the time that's given for the war with the dragon, that's the time given for the beast to blaspheme. And so what I'm saying is that those time references actually span the first and second Advents, okay? So what is the span between the first and second Advent? 1,260 days. You go, well, hold on a second, 1,260 days, how many months is that? Well, then you're forgetting what we started with. The numbers are symbolic, okay? 1,260 days is the same as 42 months, which is the same as three and a half times and half a time, okay? So why would we think that those time indicators actually are the span between the first and second Advent? Well, not only because of the events that take place that are attributed to those time references. So for instance, war with the dragon. How long has the church been at war with the dragon? Since the first Advent, right? There's, by the way, you get that from the dragon that's trying to kill the man-child as he's born. He's ascended into heaven and then he makes war with his children for 1260 days. That is the time between the two Advents. Now where would we get this? Well, actually, we get this from Daniel chapter nine in verse 27 and the prophecy of the 70 weeks. Messiah is cut off in the middle of the last week, which is 3 1⁄2 days. After Messiah is cut off, there is a remainder of 3 1⁄2 days, or if you prefer, time, times, and half a time, or if you prefer, 1,260 days, or if you prefer, 42 months. This is the span of time between the two Advents which by the way is the same span of time with the seals, the trumpets, and the bolts, right? Does that make sense? Do you at least understand what I'm saying? All right, so I said we were gonna do this and so by the way, progressive parallelism, this view, helps make sense of the time references. If this is the way that prophetic literature looked at the time between the Advents, then the time references of things which must soon take place is perpetually true. All right, well, let's do this one last thing and then we'll take time for questions and tomatoes and eggs. Theological themes. Sovereignty of God. You read the book of the Revelation, what's the theological theme? Sovereignty of God. His throne is mentioned 34 times, right? Revelation 4, Revelation 5 form the center of the book, as it were, from which all of the subsequent unfolding events take place. So everything flows out of the fact that God is on his throne in heaven. It may look like the beast is on his throne, but the reality is that God is on his. Next theological theme, the victorious lamb. This is not just about a God who's sovereign over all, this is about the victorious lamb. And this is one of the great paradoxes which teaches the church the lamb has triumphed through suffering and the lamb is the one who brings victory out of your suffering. In other words, the lamb and his suffering and then victory is the paradigm for believers to follow of living a life of suffering which gives way to victory so that Christ triumphs in victory through our suffering. That's why Isaac Watts could put it, they conquer though they die. Death doesn't even do anything to the followers of the Lamb. Because for them, that's victory. Suffering is victory. But it is through the Lamb who is already conquered. You also have suffering in spiritual warfare, and so there's loyalty to Christ and not to the beast, and that will mean suffering. It's easy to see it in places like Sudan and in North Korea and in Uganda and Nigeria. It's getting easier to see it in front of our very eyes. Loyalty to Christ and not to the powers that be means suffering. Next theological theme, the perseverance of the true church. So the overcomers of the seven letters, by the way, are also the overcomers that are mentioned in Revelation 12, Revelation 14, and what is overcoming, it is actually persevering to the end, and this is what you're called to. Every single one of you that name the name of Christ, whether you're a hardcore pre-rapturist and all of that, the fact is is that you're still called to persevere, to overcome, to endure, to resist worldliness, to resist temptation, and to overcome in the one who is conquered. Next is God's victory over evil in Jesus Christ. So everything God does in judgment is gloriously righteous. We're gonna see judgment in Revelation repeatedly, and everything is working towards the restoration of a new heavens and a new earth. This is part of what's happening before our very eyes. John puts it like this in 1 John, the darkness is passing away, the true light has already begun to shine. This is, in a real sense, this is the book of Revelation. It is that Jesus Christ, God in Christ, is overcoming the powers of darkness. He's overcoming the dragon, he's overcoming the beast, and he is overcoming in such a way that the darkness will one day give way to the light of a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more sin and no more curse. That's way more exciting than a chip. Finally, God's glory and his worship actually are central from beginning to end. It's fitting to begin with the sovereignty of God on theological theme and then conclude with worship. Revelation is the most powerful book in the Bible dealing with the worship of God, surpassing even the Psalms. And that's the goal, is that the church would worship and that those who would be subdued by King Jesus would be worshippers. If you don't actually get the idea that God created you to be a worshipper and redeemed you to be a worshipper, then you don't know what salvation is. Seriously. He saved you to be a worshipper. Okay? And so he didn't save you so that you'd have a cool fire insurance policy in your back pocket to pull out on the last day. He saved you to be a worshiper, and that's what the book of Revelation is all about. Worshiping God, worshiping the Lamb, and following them no matter what the cost. All right, so next week we'll actually get to chapter one, dig into the text, and we'll probably go a little faster than what we're normally used to, which I don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds good. Any questions? Any questions? Ellie May. Well, I don't think asking what are the differences is the right way to ask the question. I think the right way to ask the question would be, how do we look at prophecies fulfilled in Daniel, and how does John appropriate those in Revelation, right? Because that's what happens. So here's, Here's just a little rule of thumb, and that is a fulfilled prophecy doesn't exhaust the prophetic nature of that prophecy. In other words, I'll give you a quick example. So the first century would have understood Revelation 13, which is the prophecy regarding the beast, they would have understood that as Nero, no question about it. They would have understood the Mark of the Beef 666 or even the variant 616 as a reference to Nero, okay? So what I'm saying is that the principle is that even a fulfillment doesn't exhaust the nature. So John looks at those prophecies, imagery, apocalyptic imagery of Daniel, and then re-appropriates them for his prophecy, all right? In other words, they have, I don't wanna say a life of their own, but that's in a sense what I mean, yeah. Anybody else? Well, this probably is not a good sign. No questions on progressive parallelism. Did everybody understand what I was getting at there? Okay, all right. You already asked a question. All right, well Don has one and I have to respect my elders. That's not true, there is an end to it. And the end is when the beginning is restored. Okay. They all have a terminating point, and that terminating point is judgment and salvation, and then restoration. So that the end is like the beginning, only better. Jesse. So Jesse wants to know how long the view I'm advocating has been around. It's about six or seven weeks, no. So you can see, by the way, every, this is important, every millennial view and every view of revelation is represented at virtually every period of church history. Just there are times where certain views have more prominence than others, okay? So you can go back and you can see even for instance Augustine speaking in terms of a cyclical pattern or what we would call recapitulation, even some of the early fathers understood the recapitulation nature of prophecy. So the question is, or the answer is, it's been around for a long time. You end up having people that have developed it more, right, dug into it more, paid more attention to structure and symbol and so forth. And so I would say that it's picked up steam over the last 100 years for sure. Jeff. Well, here's, okay, so that's a good question. So where do the millennial views fit into the categories? And the answer is, is there's no hard and fast rule. So whatever, the futurist view, though, is almost always premillennial, all right? But you could have preterists that were amillennial or premillennial, not very many, most of them are postmillennial. Amillennials basically fit most with the progressive parallel view, all right? But not all. So in other words, there's not a one for one equation, there's just sort of rough overlap, okay? All right, well, I had fun, so let's pray. Lord, thank you for the revelation of your son, Jesus Christ, and we pray that as we devote ourselves to the study of this book over, Lord, the next number of months, that you would help us to actually just have an open heart, help us to be challenged and to grow through this, Lord. Father, we are living in difficult times, challenging times. We are living, Lord, in times of increasing crisis, and so we pray that you would take Revelation and do with it what you intended to do with it and strengthen your people to be followers of the Lamb. In Christ's name, amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.