Take your Bibles, if you will, this evening, and turn to Revelation chapter 6. This is going to be a little bit of a different type of a study tonight. I want to introduce chapter 6 to you, and we will take some time to work our way through chapter 6, as there are many different obstacles, many different challenges that we'll have to grapple with in understanding it. Coming into chapter six is coming into the major portion of Revelation, not just in terms of the length of the book, but also in terms of the controversies that have been espoused over the interpretation of the book. There's large agreement, differences, but large agreement in terms of the interpretation of chapters one through three, some disagreement chapters four and five in terms of the interpretation. And then when you get into chapter six, everything goes crazy and all kinds of people have all kinds of different views. We'll introduce it tonight, as I said. I'll give you two of the major ways of understanding the book of Revelation in general, and also chapter 6 in particular, and we'll talk about which of them, at least I think, is best. So let's read the chapter together, and I would encourage you to be reading the chapter on your own as we go through it over the next several weeks and however long it takes us to get through. But again, there is important truth here for us, for God's people in the here and now, I believe, not just for the people of God who will exist in the future. And if we understand the meaning of this text, I believe it goes a long way towards securing our confidence in God's sovereignty in our lives and in the events of the world around us. John says, Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, Come. And I looked, and behold, a white horse. And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come. And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword. And when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come. And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and by wild beasts of the earth. And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God, and for the witness that they had borne. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth? And then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. And when he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, and the full moon became like blood and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place. And then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand." You can see why it's a controversial chapter. and why it's the beginning of the major section of the book that is controversial in terms of its interpretation. There's a lot of imagery here, there's a lot of symbolism here, there's a lot of graphic pictures at stake here, and understanding their meaning and the meaning of some of these statements that are made is difficult for us. For instance, what does it mean when one of the four living creatures says a quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, but don't harm the oil and the wine. What in the world is the message? Why in the world is that what's said and proclaimed by the living creature there? And in what way is the plan of God and the work of God being demonstrated there? Well, we'll get to that as we get into the book, but as with every portion of Scripture that we're ever going to encounter, either in the book of Revelation or elsewhere, One of the primary points of importance in terms of interpretation is that context is essential to understanding the meaning of the text, right? Without the context, the text is meaningless and you have nothing in terms of understanding. The context of chapter 6 of the book of Revelation is that it follows immediately after chapters 4 and 5. That's not just an obvious statement. That is to say that what we've learned in chapters 4 and 5 play into what's being told to us now in chapter 6. And so remembering what we learned in chapters 4 and 5 is going to be essential for understanding the meaning here. What did we learn in chapters 4 and 5? When we looked at the vision in chapter 4 of the throne room in heaven, the one seated upon the throne, the ancient of days from Daniel's vision, surrounded by the four living creatures and the 24 elders and the cacophony of angelic voices singing his praise day and night. And then the vision in chapter 5 of the lamb standing as if slain, being the only one proclaimed worthy to open up this mysterious scroll and enact its contents. What did we learn in all of that? What was at stake there in those chapters? Do you remember? Redemption obviously plays. a central part, especially in chapter 5, that it is the death of the Lamb, it is the fact that He was slain that renders Him worthy to be able to open the scroll, because He has redeemed for Himself and for God a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And because of that redemption and the power of that redemption, He's worthy to open that scroll. What else? God's plan of redemption has now been put into effect by Christ. the consummation of that plan, right? The final chapters of the history of God's redemptive purposes are being unveiled here, and that's the content of that scroll and what's being revealed to us throughout the rest of the book of Revelation. God's redemptive purposes are going to come to a final culmination, and he's going to tell us what that's going to look like and what that's going to involve. And in order for that plan to be unveiled and revealed and set into motion, somebody has to come and break the seals on that scroll. And the only one, again, worthy is the one who has accomplished redemption, the Messiah, the great anticipated one of the Old Testament. the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, God himself, Jesus Christ, who by his death again secured the salvation of all of these people. And so redemption is not only central as a theme, but as an event for understanding sort of the time frame of what's going on here. Some people, as we talked about last time, want to interpret chapter 5 in this scene of Christ beginning to open up the seals of the scroll and being proclaimed worthy to do so, as being in the future to us, as being after the time of the rapture and during the time around the second coming of Jesus Christ, the great tribulation era. What is it in that text that lends itself to interpreting it as involving that future period of time? Is there anything that necessitates that interpretation? and saying that in fact this obviously and clearly this picture of Christ who is standing there in heaven worthy to open the scroll must be taking place somewhere in our future, not just John's future, but our future. Is there anything that necessitates that or even suggests that? Okay, I don't think there is. Some people seem to think that there is. I believe that the reason why it gets framed in that time period is because of a pre-existing theological conviction, not one that comes out of that text itself. I believe what's central to this text is the redemptive, not only theme of redemption, but the redemptive events of Jesus Christ. The reason He's worthy is because by His death, He has redeemed a multitude of people, and by His resurrection, He has conquered death. and by his ascension now he has come up into the presence of God where the scroll is and he is proclaimed as worthy to open it. So I believe that the opening of this scroll and the breaking of these seals and this whole scene that's taking place in heaven is taking place at the ascension of Jesus Christ, where he is proclaimed worthy, where he is enthroned because of his worthiness and because of his resurrection and because of his ascension up to the right hand of God. where He is enthroned and given the authority to be able to do this, and therefore that the opening of these seven seals begins not sometime in our future, but begins with the ascension of Jesus Christ, and with that proclamation based on His redemptive work, based on His victory over death, that He is worthy to perform that work. I think that it's more clear that the text would suggest that, than the text would suggest that none of this has even begun yet, and that it has to begin sometime in not only John's future, but sometime in our future. I'm not saying that it's finished yet, but I think that it has begun. I think that the opening of the seven seals has begun. And that's what we want to sort of talk about tonight is As these seven seals begin to get opened, six of them get opened here in chapter six. And the question is, when are they being opened? And when are the effects of them being seen around the world? And in order to really answer that question, we have to get to the bottom first of understanding how to interpret the literature like we have tonight, texts like we have tonight. Remember, we talked last time as we came to the end of chapters four and five about how to interpret the book of Revelation. Even Dorothy tonight in her prayer was acknowledging that this is difficult. We're not used to this kind of literature. We're not used to this style of writing. And so it can be very hard for Western people to interpret this kind of thing and this genre. of literature. The book of Revelation, we said last time, is not written in the style of a historical narrative, like the book of Exodus or the books of Chronicles in the Old Testaments, for instance, where the purpose of those texts is to give a history lesson of God's work, God's redemptive purposes, yes, but to give a history lesson of that work through time chronologically. here is what God did, and then God did this, and then so-and-so did this, and then so-and-so said this, and then God did this, and you're moving chronologically through time as you move progressively through the text. There are certain markers, we said, that are able to be discerned in terms of identifying a book that is written according to that style, the historical narrative style, versus a book that is written according to some other style, like poetry. You don't read poetry in the same exact precise way as you read historical narrative. Of course, other than the fact that these dreams are not chaotic, so to speak, they are constructed and revealed by God Almighty. It is interesting. Yeah, but there is a greater level of, if you want to call it abstraction or symbolism, metaphorical content involved in certain kinds of literature in God's Word. We've talked about all kinds of examples of that from the vision of Christ in chapter 1 with the sword coming out of His mouth. Are we supposed to picture that physically? literally in that sense? Or are we supposed to understand that Jesus is revealing something about the power of his word and the nature of his speech and the nature of his word? The book of Zechariah, we talked about those night visions that Zechariah has. And if we just interpret them according to their visual significance, and if we said, well, historically, then this must be what had happened, we would miss the point of the allegory that was being made by way of those visions. And that's the definition of an allegory, isn't it? So I'm not saying, an allegory is what? An allegory is something where the normal boundaries of words and speech are intentionally transcended in order to make some kind of other point, right? So if I said, Bill is a big teddy bear, I'm obviously and clearly speaking allegorically, right? He's not actually a big teddy bear. But what would I be saying about the nature of Bill if I made that comment? Yeah, that he's a gentle guy, right? A gentle guy. Or if I said that I'm hungry like a wolf, right? Again, speaking metaphorically, going beyond, obviously, and intentionally beyond the literal meaning of those kinds of words and images in order to make a point about something else. And oftentimes God, the point is, oftentimes God does that in Scripture. So I'm not advocating that we do that to Scripture, that we begin to take Scripture and allegorize it ourselves. And see, this is where a lot of people have gone astray. And what a lot of people have done is to take and say, well, they've recognized the symbolic content of certain portions of Scripture, and they enjoy understanding the symbolic meaning of those passages, and then they try to go and dig into other passages of Scripture that aren't symbolic, that are historical, and try to discern or drag out of them other kinds of symbolic meanings God never intended to put in there in the first place. All right. And so there's a vast difference between us allegorizing God's word, which I don't feel like we're free to do, and God in his word using allegory as a teaching tool, which I feel like he does frequently and commonly. Right, because what's our, we talked at the end last time, what's our primary principle for interpreting any portion of God's Word. How do we understand and how do we know its true meaning? Okay, that's one of the tools that we use. One of the principles that we talked about, context, is another tool. And all of those tools, if we use them rightly, should help us to discern what the intention of the author was. And that was the big principle that we tried to talk about last time. The intention of the author, not what does it mean to me or what allegory can I pull out of it or what meaning can I yank out of it or dig out of it, but what did the author intend to communicate? And so we look for clues. in the style of the writing, in the context of the writing, all of these different kinds of tools, the kinds of grammar and words that are used, and the language that is used, in order to discern, was the author writing historical narrative? And if so, that helps me to understand his intent in saying that in seven days God created the heavens and the earth. Or Jonah was swallowed by a big fish. or there was a flood that covered the whole earth. Those are all statements that are made in texts that are historical in nature. And so we take them as historical statements, things that actually happened in time and in space, versus the visions that Zechariah had, or the night dreams that Daniel had, or some of these visions here, many of them that John is having in the book of Revelation, where the intention of the author, again, is not to help us to understand the physical appearance of God, the physical appearance of Christ necessarily, or necessarily a chronology of the end times, but the spiritual nature of the end times, and the character of the redemption of Christ, the character of God's judgment, the nature of the battle that is being waged between God and Satan, and Satan and God's people, and who comes out victorious and why. All of that is what's at stake here. The Book of Revelation, in trying to understand the intention of the author and interpret passages that are tough like this, you have to remember, the Book of Revelation is not written in the style of historical narrative. And therefore, different literary styles, different genres of literature require different reading strategies. If you were to pick up Herman Melville's novel, Moby Dick, and read it, and miss all of the symbolic import, you've all read Moby Dick. There's a lot of symbolism embedded in that novel and in that story, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy that is now out in film form. And if you just read it as sort of an action story and miss the point, what is the Lord of the Rings really all about? The Ring is all a big allegory, I think, all a big parable about power. and what happens when people misuse power, and what happens when people use power wisely, and all of these kinds of things mixed together. And see, if we miss that, then we just think it's a big action movie, or we think that Melville's book is just a story about a big whale, and we miss all of it. Melville intended for us to get something more than that out of his story, and I think Tolkien did too. C.S. Lewis, right? The Chronicles of Narnia, obvious symbolism involved there. intended by the author, and there's clues. The book of Revelation is written in the apocalyptic style or genre, like Ezekiel or Zechariah portions of the book of Daniel. apocalyptic literature where visions and revelations and dreams of things that are spectacular and defy comprehension and defy the ability to be described by way of anything that we normally have reference to in this world. Again, these kinds of literature often utilize that kind of thing. Visual symbolism, and the point of the visual symbolism is to convey a thematically intensifying prophecy. where key doctrinal themes are rehearsed over and over and over in a way that develops an increasing understanding of their meaning. And the book of Revelation evidences that, so that these visions are given to help us to understand the character and the nature of God or his redemptive purposes or His purposes and judgment. And then when you're given another vision, it deepens that understanding. And another vision deepens it even further on a doctrinal level, on a thematic level. Yes. Sinclair Ferguson's famous illustration of that is that reading through the book of Revelation is like climbing up a theological spiral staircase. you keep going around and around the same themes and the same ideas and even the same periods of time in redemptive history. But the more you cover those and the further you go in the book, even though you're covering the same things, the higher you get and the greater the perspective that you get, right? If you climbed up to a height, you would be able to see the landscape beneath you within the book itself. Exactly. The first and second Genesis would be something similar, in a way, in the sense that you have... You mean the first chapters there? That's okay. I understood you. I understood you. Yeah, what Bible are you reading? Or the same way. Sure. It's the same event, but just different perspectives. Sure. Even the gospel, you could say. Sure. Not the gospel. Yeah. And the more you rehearse the same events and the same themes, the better you understand them. Looking at the different facets of the same diamond is another illustration that's used of that. Okay. Climbing higher and higher, but you're going around the same ideas. Okay. And I would argue that you're not just going around the same topic, you're going around the same events in redemptive history, that you're looking at the same things that are happening in history over and over again, in order to develop a greater understanding of the character of those events. So the book is organized into a series of literary divisions. For example, the most obvious divisions that we're bumping into now are the series of seven, the seven seals, the judgment series, the judgment sequences. There are seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls of wrath. That's an obvious literary construct by the author in order to help us to understand something at least. And the essential question that you have to ask and answer in order to rightly understand the book and those various literary divisions is how did the author intend for his audience to understand the relationship between those divisions? In other words, what's the relationship between the seven seals and the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath? And there are other divisions, there's more to the book than just those three major categories, but as an example, what is the relationship between seals and trumpets and bowls in the book of Revelation? And there's basically three options. The first option is to say that they're related chronologically. That is, you go through the seven seals to the seven trumpets, to the seven bowls of wrath, that you are going in a linear progress of time from one point in time to another point in time. So that's one option. They're chronologically related. Another option is to say that they are thematically related. They're not chronologically related. They're only related in terms of theme, that they describe doctrinal truths that are essential to the church's right understanding of God and His purposes for His people. and that as you go through them you are increasing your understanding of those themes and those doctrines and that theology is becoming more and more nuanced in your understanding. And then what would the third option be? If option one is that they're related chronologically and option two is that they're related thematically, what would option three be? That they're related both chronologically and thematically in some way. that while they're not really intended to describe a linear progress of time, you go from seal one to seal two to seal three and on and on, that you're making progress in time all the way until you get to the end of the seven bowls, that while they're not intended to give a linear progress in time, they do nonetheless describe these doctrinal truths that are essential to the church's understanding of God and his purposes for history. as history is transpiring from the past into the present and on into the future. And so that's the understanding that I believe we need to have of the book of Revelation that both kinds of progress are at stake here. That it's not necessarily fair to the text to assume that as we move chapter by chapter that we're moving sequentially in time because Commonly in this kind of literature, the author will jump back and forth in time, and cycle back and forth in time, in order to increase our understanding of the point. But, the point is, that he's increasing our understanding of, that God is working in time, and God is working in history in order to redeem his people, and to judge his enemies, and to sanctify us, and to bring about the consummation of all things with the return of his Son. Human limitation, I think, has to do with our reading of it, since we are not infallible readers, but not in terms of the writing of it, as John was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when he wrote the book. But obviously, in our reading of it, we're going to be fallible. We're going to get things wrong. Nobody has a perfect understanding of this book. But at the same time, the balancing truth to that truth, that we're fallible readers, is that God has revealed his word infallibly and clearly, and that it can be understood. A lot of the confusion over the book of Revelation comes from, I think, approaching the book and looking at it from Western eyes or with Western eyes and saying, this is really confusing to us. We're unfamiliar with this kind of text. And then we sort of handle it immaturely. We sort of botch it when we try to interpret it because we try to interpret it like 21st century Westerners instead of like first century Middle Easterners or Jewish people or citizens of the Roman Empire. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that's probably not fair to the text nor reflective of the intention of the author. All right. So, again, the essential question that has to get answered is how are these literary divisions that are obvious and clear and explicit in the text, how are they related to each other? Chronologically, thematically, or both? I would say both. Now, let me give you an example. I have handouts for you tonight. Let me give you an example of an interpretation of the book of Revelation, specifically with reference to the seals and trumpets and bowls, that assumes that these divisions are related to each other purely and primarily, at least chronologically. This is called the futurist understanding of the book of Revelation. Most interpreters or most theologians who believe in a rapture that is distinct from the second coming of Jesus Christ The system of End Times theology known as Dispensationalism, which is a specific form of premillennialism, interprets the book of Revelation in this particular way. So the futurist understanding of the book sees these literary divisions as being chronologically related. Everything from chapter 4 and verse 1, that vision in heaven, all the way through to the end of the book, except for the very last few verses in chapter 22 where everything is kind of wrapped up and a doxology is given a benediction. Everything between chapters 4 and the end, 22, are representing a chronologically sequential forecast of events. So that again, as you move chapter by chapter, you're moving from this period of time into the next, into the next, into the next. That's going to become very obviously important when we get into chapters 19 and 20. Because in chapter 19, what happens? The Second Coming. That's a big event. And what is revealed to us in the first portion of chapter 20? The Millennial Kingdom. And so the premillennialist, the futurist, the person who tends to interpret the book this way, seeing that we're moving chapter by chapter sequentially in time necessarily, understands and believes that therefore the Second Coming happens before the Millennial Kingdom. That's why they call it pre-millennialism, because Christ comes prior to the Millennium. And so the Millennial Kingdom is something that is future to us, something that we haven't tasted yet, something that we haven't seen yet. Whereas other interpreters of the book would say that's not necessarily true. A chapter-by-chapter sequence doesn't necessarily insinuate or indicate chronological sequence, and it is possible that the Millennial Kingdom occurs prior to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The events of Chapter 20, in other words, may occur in time in history before the events of Chapter 19. For example, the events of Chapter 12 that are symbolized in the visions in Chapter 12 cover a period of time that deals with history prior to the events that are symbolized in chapters 9 and 10 and 11. In chapter 12, you have a vision of the birth of Christ, which happens obviously even prior to John's writing of the book, let alone prior to the images and the visions that are symbolized in chapters 9, 10, and 11. So you go back in history from chapters 10 and 11 to chapter 12. And isn't it possible? And maybe the context, in fact, indicates and necessitates that that happens later in the book in 19 and 22. But with relationship to the seals, which is our current chapter here, the futurist understanding sees this chronological progression as being necessary for interpreting the book of Revelation. And therefore, this chronological forecast of events is happening. And these events are seen as immediately preceding and ultimately culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Immediately preceding and ultimately culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. So that the seals and the trumpets and the bowls will not happen until immediately prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ, specifically after the rapture and during the period of great tribulation, according to what's called the dispensational view of the end times. So the way that they understand it, look at your little chart here that I just handed you, is that these are telescoping sequences of God's judgment. You see the sort of shape of an old sailor's telescope here that you pull out piece by piece by piece. And what they understand is that the seals, you start with the rapture of the church here sometime, and then the first seal is opened and you go through six seals indicating sequential progress, not only in the judgment of God, but also in time. And when you get to the seventh seal, the seventh seal, what is the seventh seal? Do you know? It's not included in this text here. It's further on. Well, according to the futurist view, it is. Silence in heaven. And so they'll say, well, because the seventh seal says that there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour and these other seals, you know, you got stars falling out of the sky and the moon turning blood red and horrible things happening. Obviously the seventh seal isn't really a seal. The seventh seal being opened is in fact the seven trumpets being blown. Okay. So that's your, your telescoping. progression here. So you go through seals one through six, you get to the seventh seal being opened and that is the trumpets and the seventh trumpet being blown is the bowls of wrath being poured out and you're marching from the rapture of the church all the way to the second coming of Christ by increasing and intensifying the judgment of God that is being poured out upon unbelievers and unregenerate people and the enemies of God until the second coming of Christ. So that's the the futurist understanding of the relationship between the seals and the trumpets and the bowls, chronologically sequential and telescopic in that sort of way, where there's this massive increase between seals and trumpets and trumpets and bowls. The other thing that's unique about that understanding of or interpretation of these passages of Scripture is that the futurist view understands the opening of the seals again as occurring after the rapture. In other words, entirely in our future. It's something that hasn't begun yet. It's something that won't begin until after the rapture of the Church. And if you're a believer now and go are included in the rapture, then the seals are not something you will experience, nor the trumpets, nor the bowls. And therefore, everything really in the book of Revelation between verse 1 of chapter 4 and verse 6 of chapter 22, the great bulk of the book of Revelation, according to this interpretation, is ultimately concerning a period of time that is not only future to us, but that we won't be a part of, because we will be raptured prior to that period of time. Perhaps you could see it and you could know of it. That's another theological question, but you wouldn't be going through it. You wouldn't be experiencing it. And so clearly the book is addressed to these seven churches in chapters two and three in order to prepare them for what is coming. And what is coming is revealed as this great tribulation consisting of this outpouring of God's wrath and judgment. And what God wants to do is to prepare them to be able to go through that. And I believe that even as Jesus prays, remember in his high priestly prayer, I don't pray for you to take them out of this world, but to keep them from the evil one while they're in the world, to keep them from temptation. Right. What's the relevance really for not only for them, but what's the relevance for me as a Christian living in 2005? because we don't really know when it's going to happen. Yeah, and that usually, I guess, is the message of the book of Revelation. And that's why it becomes a frightening book. And I'm kind of opposed to that. It's to scare me so that I repent and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ so that I don't have to ever be afraid to go through that kind of stuff. Well, I believe, see, that the seals are being opened now and have been since Christ's ascension. have been since John's day, and that these things that we're seeing have begun to transpire already, that the Great Tribulation has begun to transpire already, and that God's intention in giving us the Book of Revelation is not to prepare us for how to avoid it, but how to endure it, how to persevere in the midst of it, how to trust Him while affliction and persecution and hardship and trials and tribulations are going on. that as we even sung, that he intends to burn away our dross and to refine us with the fires of persecution. And the book of Revelation is a picture of how he's going to do that. Yeah, please. Also, if you did abide by the dispensational view, and who knows, maybe that is correct, you would almost be saying that there's nothing that anybody's gone through that isn't as bad as what's going to happen here. And truly, that's probably true to the very, very end. It's literally started falling out of the sky, the whole universe exploding, or whatever that is. But these other things, people have been experiencing this. Right. I agree with you. It's like, oh, so that terrible disease, These horrible things, in other words, that are being described in the seals and the trumpets and the bowls are things that Christians and non-Christians have been experiencing already since the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ. In fact, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, I believe, is the first event of massive catastrophic ramifications that occurs in the period of time known as the end of days. Right. I mean, what worse crime has ever been committed in the crucifixion of Christ? What greater catastrophe ever happened than the Son of God being murdered upon the cross of Calvary? I mean, horrible things have happened in our generation, in our world, in our lifetimes, from hundreds of thousands of people dying in a tsunami and hundreds of people and thousands being affected by hurricanes, millions of Jewish people losing their lives in the Holocaust. Horrible things, right? We don't want to undermine the significance or the horror of any of that, but do they really compare to the death of Christ in terms of the scope of their atrocity? In other words, the horrific events of the past that occurred around the Cross of Calvary far transcended any of the horrific events that ever took place after that or ever will. And certainly the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the destruction of the temple and the violence that was done to the Jewish people then constituted another step, another chapter in that. Yeah, in other words, what I'm suggesting is that the death of Christ, The events surrounding that era, the death of Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple constitute the inauguration of the Great Tribulation that will extend all the way until the second coming of Jesus Christ. When he... And certainly, they would never say that, obviously. goes without saying that there are many many godly men and women who have believed in that view and still do believe in that view and will until the day that they die. So we don't want to undermine the quality of their faith or their scholarship or anything just to say that I disagree with them. But that doesn't necessarily say much. There are godly scholarly men on both sides of this issue. Now there are four reasons really that can be identified if you read through the commentaries of people who hold to that futurist viewpoint and interpretation. Four reasons that they commonly cite why they believe that the Book of Revelation and the seals and trumpets and bowls specifically should be interpreted in the way that they interpret them chronologically, sequentially, telescopically, and in that kind of way. And the four reasons are these. First of all, Chapter 4 and verse 1 says, After this I looked, and behold, a door was standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. What must take place after this. The first reason given by the Futurists for their interpretation of the book of Revelation is that those words, the things which must take place after this, refer to events that are future to us. Future to us. Things which must take place after, and therefore they're in the future. Now, what's potentially wrong with that reason? Nothing in the text indicates when chapter 4 happens. Chapter 4, for all we know, could be, What else? If there is a future alluded to, why is it necessarily our future and not simply the future of John and his readers? This book was written a long time ago in other words. And perhaps the things that take place after have begun in our past, but in John's future or in the future of the readers of the apocalypse. So that's not really a great logical conclusion. interpretation of that text, number one, or reason to believe that the things that are happening here are future to us, certainly. Number two, then, the reason given for a futurist understanding of the book of Revelation is that the perspective or is that the, I'm sorry, that the letters that were written to the seven churches in chapters two and three are representative of the various phases of the church age as a whole. Have you heard that interpretation? That we start out in the Ephesian age and that we end up in the Laodicean age, and that each age as you progress through history is characterized by whatever the church that that letter was written to is characterized. People have laid this out marvelously and given what they think is clear-cut evidence as to why we now exist in the Laodicean age. and why the first century of the church was the Ephesian age, and why the period of the Reformation was the Philadelphian age, or whatever it is, however it works out. See, the point is that that seems to suggest to them that if you interpret it that way, that seems to suggest to them that the whole point and intention of the author is to indicate this sequential linear chronological progress. And therefore they apply that to the rest of the book and to the seals and trumpets and bowls and so on and so forth. So Mitch, what issue did you have with that? Again, you're moving from the dark ages to the Reformation. Every generation has seen itself in the latest C.N.H. as being the generation immediately prior to the second coming of Christ. The Golden Age. Right. Right. Instead of saying that. Yeah. It is and has been in every age. Right. Churches in every age and every location around the world have been classified by each of the seven churches and each of the problems listed in the seven churches or successes or failures listed in the seven churches. evidences of the miraculous and marvelous providence of God in sustaining churches, and evidence of the horrific sinfulness of men in apostatizing against God throughout church history. And so it's a little bit of a, not just a little bit, I would suggest, of a naive reading of history to suggest that these ages progress as cleanly as that motif would have us to believe. Ruth? Right. Yeah, in the Reformation, it was the Pope, right? He was Antichrist. And yeah, every generation has seen itself as being the final one in believing. They changed the A to a little one after. That didn't pan out. So again, I think that that's a reason for understanding the book as chronologically sequential that we could dismiss. It doesn't necessarily There really isn't any textual evidence, certainly for reading the letters to the seven churches and interpreting them that way. And then the only evidence for doing that would be some convenient perspective of history, which when you really look at history isn't so convenient after all, and so on and so forth. So that's not an indicator of sequential interpretation. So the third reason listed is the belief, again, that chapter sequence necessarily indicates chronological sequence, that moving chapter by chapter means moving point by point through time, never moving back, always moving forward, which would normally be true of a text that was written in the style of historical narrative. But again, Revelation isn't written in that style, certainly not all of it. Most of it is written in the apocalyptic genre. There's elements of it that are written like an epistle, the letters to the seven churches, and so on and so forth. But it cannot be classified in general as being the type of literature that would be more like Genesis or Exodus or Chronicles, so on and so forth. And then fourthly, the fourth reason listed for that interpretation or that strategy of interpretation is the fact that there is an increasing intensity that is portrayed in the book, increasing intensity of judgment that is portrayed in the book. And therefore they believe that indicates progress. Now I'd raise my hand and say, I agree with that. There is an increasing intensity that is evidenced clearly in the book, right? You get more and more intense visions of more and more intense judgments and violence being done in the book. And that does indicate progress, but what kind of progress? Progression of judgment, progression of theme, but necessarily a progression of time, a chronological progression necessarily. And I think what we'll see as we look at the other options tonight is that in fact, there are statements of, let me give you the second of three handouts tonight, There are statements throughout the book of Revelation between chapters 6 and 21, statements of final ultimate judgment, not just increasing judgment, but ultimate judgment being poured out that are then followed in the text by statements of final salvation. So not only is God the ultimate judge of the wicked, but he is the ultimate and final savior and redeemer of his people and those themes of judgment and salvation come into culmination at various different points in the book of Revelation. So that you, in other words, you move from a statement of final judgment. It can't get any worse. This is God's final judgment. It's a statement of final redemption for God's people. And then all of a sudden you go back to a statement of final judgment and then final redemption and then back to final judgment and final redemption. And you can see the pattern there. In other words, the spiral staircase. This is what's known as the recapitulation view of the book of Revelation instead of the futurist view of the book of Revelation. Most, well, the major theological schools that would be recapitulationist would be the all-millennial school and most post-millennialists and some pre-millennialists, historical pre-millennialists, even though they are kind of unfaithful to this idea when they get towards the end of the book, but nonetheless. So the all-millennialist, post-millennialist, and some pre-millennialists can be called to some degree or another. Recapitulations, you understand the word, right? Recapitulating, you're recapitulating the same events and the same themes over and over for the purpose of highlighting and increasing our understanding of the significance of those events. That perspective, that viewpoint of the interpretation of the book of Revelation understands these literary divisions to be thematically and again, chronologically related, but primarily thematically related. So that the chronology of the book, in other words, things are happening historically. There are events that are transpiring, but we're moving back and forth in time as we investigate what those events are and what's at stake in those events. And so there's this chronological and thematic overlap in the passages between chapters 4 and chapter 22. In part. Some people who call themselves idealists, what that refers to is a school of interpretation of the book of Revelation where the emphasis is primarily upon theology and not much at all, in some stricter forms of it, not much at all in terms of historical events. Some strict idealists. would say that there are not historical events being indicated here. There are only ideas of judgment and redemption being indicated here. So the whole book is just a massive allegory with no reference necessarily to history, except for some major events. And there's not too many people that would be that extreme in the idealist view. But I do believe that, yeah, in other words, rather than making the when the big question as to the book of Revelation, when and what, the question is how and why. How is God going to save His people? Why is God pouring out judgment? Not necessarily when are these things going to take place, and what are they going to look like? So there's this overlap between the passages as we go back and forth between those ultimate themes. And the point of the text, according to the recapitulationist view, is not to be chronological in terms of progression, but to be progressive in terms of an unfolding of those doctrinal themes that intensify as the visions progress. So you get a deeper and deeper appreciation and understanding of those themes, whatever they are. So time is involved But again, the intent is not to convey linear sequence necessarily. Events are at stake, but they aren't necessarily organized sequentially in a strictly linear way. In the book of Revelation, the recapitulationist is going to argue that there are three primary time references. which are repeatedly cycled through over and over and over again, again, for the purpose of progressively expanding and intensifying my understanding, your understanding, the reader's understanding of the doctrinal realities of the history of redemption. Three primary time references that we go around and around, and those are the works of redemption at Christ's first coming, His incarnation, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and then secondly, the latter-day church age that is, as I just suggested to you, inaugurated by those events. We're not told how long it's going to transpire, we're not told when it's going to end in terms of time, only that it's going to end, which brings us to the third time reference that's repeatedly referenced in the book of Revelation, which is the second coming of Christ and the consummation of the ages. There are other time references also, the creation of the world, for example, being alluded to, but primarily those three things, the works of redemption, the Latter-day Church age that those events inaugurated, and then the second coming of Christ and the consummation of the ages. So the recapitulationist believes that the structure of the text supports this understanding of the intention of the author in writing the text, that we're moving back and forth between those three primary time references in order to expand our understanding of them. Let me give you a couple of reasons why. This gets a little technical, for which I apologize, but the book of Revelation is complicated, so don't blame me. I didn't write it. Don't shoot the messenger. There's a word on the top that you may not be familiar with. But again, the recapitulationist view is justified or is argued for by way of the structure of the text itself. In other words, when God revealed this and when John wrote it down, they laid the text out in such a way that clearly indicates this idea of recapitulation, of moving back and forth in time. Does that make sense to you? Okay. One of the evidences for that within the text itself is what's known as, well, first of all, the genre, which we already talked about. The genre of the text is apocalyptic and prophetic, not historical, so there isn't a major clue that says chronological progression. There is a major clue which says chronology may have nothing to do with it at all, as it didn't in Zechariah or in Ezekiel. We're moving all over the place in time. Time isn't the issue, theme is. Second of all, Text is structured, the whole book of Revelation, I'm giving you an example of it here between chapters 11 and 13, but the whole book of Revelation is structured as one big chiasm. Chiasm, that's a big technical word, look underneath the little box there. A chiasm is an intentional literary structure that is used by the author in order to increase understanding through a specific pattern of repetition. That's the goal of a chiasm, is to take a statement, and follow it up by another statement that leads to another statement, and then the next statement in the sequence is similar to a previous statement, and so on and so on. Everything's organized. The reason it's called a chiasm is because if you lay it out graphically, the text comes to resemble the Greek letter chi, like an X, all right? So look at the box. This is, for example, the chiastic structure thematically of Revelation 11 through 13. In chapter 11, in verses 1 and 2, there's a vision of the holy city being trampled by the Gentiles. And the meaning of that vision is that God's enemies assault the church for a period of 42 months. And then in verse 3, the church is protected by God for a period of 1260 days. Conveniently, that works out to be about 42 months. And the meaning of that text, well, the vision that gives us that meaning that the church is protected by God is that the vision of the two witnesses that are prophesying, and their opponents can't harm them. They kill them, but they come back to life and breathe fire on all of those who were their enemies. So you move from a vision of the enemies of God assaulting the church for 42 months, to God protecting the church for a period of 1260 days. And then the next vision is the mother of the Messiah being nourished in the wilderness and the dragon seeking to destroy her and consume her child, but failing to be able to do that. In other words, the church is protected by God for a period of 1260 days. You see how we're repeating themes here. And then the next vision corresponds to the first one. See, so the second Two visions correspond to each other in this chiasm, and then the first and the last visions correspond to each other. And so the enemies again assault the church for 42 months. I need an overhead. So in other words, Dorothy, what I'm saying is that In this portion of the book of Revelation, between chapters 11 and 13, you can see that what the author is doing is repeating specific themes. So, the top line and the bottom line in the box there are similar to one another. They correspond to one another in that they even though the visions are different. In verses 1 and 2 of chapter 11, that vision is different than verses 5 and 7 of chapter 13. They're different visions, but they convey the same theme. They teach the same thing, which is that the enemies of God are going to assault the church for a period of 42 months. And then in the middle, sandwiched between those two, are two other visions which also correspond with each other and give us the meaning and the theme and the truth that the church will be protected by God for a period that is called 1260 days, which if you added up all of those days would come out to be 42 months. And the reason we see this not only in the book of Revelation and not only in a portion of the book of Revelation, many scholars, several of them in fact, have noticed that the entire book Maybe I'll bring next time a graph of that, how the entire book of Revelation is one big chiasm like this. Kind of, kind of. Are you understanding the point though? What would be the reason to do this? to have corresponding themes, and then corresponding themes, and corresponding themes, to move between theme, to theme, to theme, and back to the original theme again. To reinforce it. And the Lord sometimes does that within a specific verse. Yeah, history is... The thing about Melchizedek, not Methuselah... Methuselah? No, Methuselah. that was lame in both feet. And he kept saying, blah, blah, blah, and he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah, blah, he was lame in both feet. And then, blah, blah And when an author does that in a text, the point again is the progress of our understanding of the theme, not necessarily progress in time. Judy? Sometimes history is repetitive. The point of this example of chapters 11 through 13 is that the dispensational or futurist interpretation of the book of Revelation is going to say that each of these periods of time are distinct periods of time. This is how you come up with a seven year tribulation divided into two periods of three and a half years, right? 42 months and 42 months, 1260 and 1260. But the point being that maybe it wasn't God's intention to say this is how long this period of time where there will be these multiple periods of 42 months, but maybe he's talking about the same period of time and exposing two different facets of that period of time. In other words, during that period of time, enemies are going to assault the Church and God is going to protect the Church, and the way that the structure is laid out helps us to grasp that more naturally, all throughout the Bible, in the Psalms, in the Proverbs, all throughout. Old Testament chiasms are employed by the author in order to amplify our understanding and intensify our understanding. So, I know that's very complicated, that's very hard to grasp, but in other words, if you really look at the text a little more carefully, what's suggested is not necessarily chronological progression in a linear way, but thematic progression. and that that's more natural to this kind of literature than just assuming that we're moving ahead in time. And then the third reason for the recapitulationist view of the Book of Revelation is the repetition of the consummation language. repetition of consummation language, ultimate language at the close of various sections that encapsulate that same timeframe. So again, moving from redemption to the last days, to the consummation, back to redemption, back to last days, back to consummation, recycling back and forth in theme that way. All right, and that has to do with this handout that I gave you here. As you see visions of ultimate judgment leading to ultimate salvation, but then you go back to ultimate judgment How can you how can you have final judgment again? All right, because time isn't the issue The issue is a deepening understanding of what that ultimate judgment involves and that's why we we see it again and again and again Okay, so in other words don't think time only or even primarily as you progress through the book of Revelation All right. Now, let's wrap it up because we're speaking of time. We're running out of it We ran out of it. And then we'll continue on next time to start to really unpack the seals themselves. But the relationship between chapter six and chapters four and five, which preceded, is this way. John, in chapter one, saw a vision of the resurrected Jesus Christ standing among his churches, adorned as he was with all of that symbolic imagery. And the message of that vision was that Christ is sovereign. And he is omniscient and he is omnipotent and he is the king and the great high priest and the great prophet who is present with his people in the midst of whatever trouble that they encounter and endure. And then in chapters 2 and 3 we had those seven letters to the seven churches and the message throughout that was again that Christ is present and sovereign and therefore that the people of God need to persevere. that they need to repent of their sin because Christ is coming and they need to be ready for that coming. And then in chapters 4 and 5, John sees the vision of heaven and the exalted Jesus Christ and the message there is that God is sovereign and that Christ has conquered all of His enemies and Christ is exalted and He sits up in heaven and He reigns. And now we come to chapter 6. What's the connection? If you're a persecuted person who's been told that Christ is sovereign and that He's sitting in heaven reigning over His enemies right now, what question are you liable to ask? Why are we still suffering? And that's the connection of chapter 6. Chapter 6 teaches us and teaches all those seven churches and the Christians in them in Asia Minor that Christ is not only risen and victorious and sovereign and with them, but that He is with them in terms of pouring out His judgment right now, and that it is His judgment and an extension of His sovereign power of judgment that is responsible for the calamities that we see in the world around us, and that that serves two purposes. Number one, to punish the enemies of God, but number two, to refine the people of God, to be the refiner's fire, to be the trials and the the fiery tribulations that Peter talks about that result in our improved character, in our transformation, in our sanctification, in our coming to reflect the glory of Christ all the more. So as we get into chapter 6 and as you read through, especially the first four seals, my understanding of chapter 6 and the seals is this, that the first four seals involve judgment of God that accomplishes those two purposes, punishment of the wicked and refinement of God's people. The first four involve judgment that is being poured out here and now. It's been being poured out since the days of Christ's ascension. I'll give that to you next time when we get into it more. So the first four seals are judgments that are being poured out in an escalating way, in a progressive way, during the church age that John lived in and the seven churches lived in and that you and I live in until the second coming of Christ. The fifth seal is that question that the martyrs ask, how long is this going to go on? And the answer to the question is until God's purposes are fulfilled and the martyrs being martyred, essentially, until God's decrees are ultimately fulfilled. And then the sixth and seventh seals, I believe, are visions of final judgment that are future to us, that will be fulfilled when Christ returns, which obviously and clearly hasn't happened yet. So that's my understanding. the seven seals. And then when we get into the seven trumpets, guess what? We go all the way back and we see judgment that is being expressed in the here and now and judgment that will be expressed in the future. And when we get to the bowls, same thing. All right, so we're recapitulating the same views. But the important point for us is that Christ is sovereign. He is reigning upon the throne. And in that sovereign reign, He is pouring out judgment against His enemies right now, and the result for us is our own purification, and our own refinement, and our own sanctification. And that gives us hope, right? If you can't stand on the sovereignty of God in the midst of trials, what hope do you have? And if you can't say, this is an extension of God's sovereign purposes, what hope do you have when hard things happen? Okay, we'll finish there. Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, we do again thank You so much for Your Word and pray for Your assistance in understanding it. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth, that You will reveal not only the content of Your Word to us, Father, but its meaning as well, and that You will bolster up our faith and cause us to put our trust in You and cling to You, Father, and evidence Your glory as we grow in Your grace in the midst of whatever this world and Satan has for us. Father, we thank you for the promise of the book of Revelation that as bad as things are and as bad as they will get, that Christ is here and now presently victorious and that one day he will return and put all of his enemies as a footstool under his feet. We long for that day, Father, and ask you to hasten it. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. I think our pianist left.