00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Verse nine, I, John, your brother
and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient
endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos
on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Verse
10. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and when I heard behind
me a loud voice like a trumpet, verse 11, saying, write what
you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus
and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis
and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea. Verse 12, then I turned to see
the voice that was speaking to me and on Turning, I saw seven
golden lampstands, verse 13, and in the midst of the lampstands
one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden
sash around his chest, 14. The hairs of his head were white
like wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of
fire, 15. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a
fire, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. Verse
16, in his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth came
a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining
in full strength. Verse seven, when I saw him,
I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand
on me, saying, fear not, I am the first and the last. Verse
18, and the living one, I died and behold, I am alive forevermore.
And I have the keys of death and Hades. Verse 19, write therefore
the things that you have seen, those that are and those that
are to take place after this. Verse 20, As for the mystery
of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand at the seven
golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. This
is the word of the Lord, most surely magnify and bless this
holy truth. Are there any questions before
we start? Now, I mentioned this last week, and I think I mentioned
it the week before, that as we read verses nine through 10,
one of the places that are significantly absent from the English Standard
Version in my reading is what is spoken here in the King James
Version that's saying, in verse 11, saying, I am Alpha and Omega,
the first and the last. And what thou see us write in
a book and send it to the seven churches. which are in Asia,
under Ephesus, and under Smyrna, and under Pergamos, and under
Thyatira, and under Sardis, and under Philadelphia, and under
Laodicea. And the thing that is conspicuously absent from
that is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Write
what you see. Now, Certainly, even in the English
Standard Version it has quotations and we don't discount that this
is Christ's letter to the churches because There are expressions
throughout that we recognize this is the revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ that God gave to him and he sent it to his
servant John. So this isn't John writing to
the seven churches, it's Christ writing to the seven churches.
But the significance of his absence shows this truth of who we are. See, again, one of the things
that are often missing in a study of the book of Revelation is
in many expositions that look to the future and its futurist
view, it forsakes the fact that this was written to real people,
real saints, brothers and sisters of ours living 2,000 years ago
and needed this truth for their life in Christ then. And the
reason why it's significant to us is because it was significant
for them. And so one of the things that
we see is the church now being written to the seven churches,
which we're going to get into when we get into the chat, actually
in the next verse. When we look at it, and then
go again and look at it in detail in chapters two and three, we'll
see some significant features from the church that are blessed
insights into who we are as individuals, but also what we are as the body
of Christ, how we may be led of the Lord because of these
things that are identified in these seven different churches
in Asia Minor. And so by its absence, we see
a truth of what the church is all about. Because as John says,
he was in the spirit on the Lord's day. And then when it's, and
he hears the voice of a trumpet, we know that this voice of the
trumpet is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when he hears this voice,
it says, write to the seven churches. And then verse 12 says, then
I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And
on turning, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in verse 20,
we see what the seven golden lampstands are. They're representative
of these seven churches. In verse 20, it says, in the
mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and
the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels,
or if you will, the messengers or the evangelists of the seven
churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. And when
we get to verse 20, we'll cover that in a little bit more detail.
And that's the truth of who we are as a church. We're the body
of Christ. And when the trumpet of Christ's
voice vibrates harmoniously through the land because of our witness,
when they start hearing as the Spirit is ministering unto souls
that are unsaved or unto souls that are saved, like in our gathering,
when we turn to hear that voice, we see one another. We see Christ
because that's the purpose of our salvation. Romans 8 verses
28 and 29, for we know that all things work together for good
to them who love God, for those who are the called according
to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow he also predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his son that he, Jesus, might
be the firstborn among many brethren. He's making us to be more like
Christ. So when the world sees us, the unbelieving world sees
us, or when other churches, other local churches see us, they're
seeing Christ. They should be seeing Christ.
When they hear the voice of Christ, when they turn, they should see
the church. And that's a blessed truth. That's why its absence
is, it doesn't, in fact, it doesn't detract from who Christ is. It
actually amplifies his work through you and me. So that's the explanation
I have for what is called textual criticism. In most of the Greek
manuscripts, in fact most of the ancient manuscripts, the
27,000 manuscripts of antiquity, most of them do not have Alpha and Omega here. Now Alpha and Omega will be later
on, and it doesn't detract from who Christ is. In fact, as I
said, the absence of something doesn't mean, well, that translation's
no good. It actually, if we look at the
original autographs, and the majority of those autographs
being what they are, it actually is much more powerful. And what
it does say is that How does that encourage us? It says that
Christ must speak through us. We must be seen when Christ's
voice speaks in the world in order to evangelize souls. And
in order for us to move as a church, it should see us when it hears
Christ's voice. Unfortunately, sadly, in some
cases, mostly it sees some kind of There's a pastor I used to
listen to long ago. He would say, sometimes I wonder
if the body of Christ, when people look at the body of Christ, they're
not seeing a spiritual spastic. I heard it and it stuck with
me because I heard it twice, once in Hawaii and once in Southern
California. This pastor, he goes, because
of all the, you know, the corruption of false churches, false teachers
are out there. But the bride of Christ, When
we look at Revelation and we look at it through a gospel lens,
we see the blood of Christ for what it is. It's beautiful. It's
got Christ's body. He's the head. When he speaks,
then we see the gold. We see the golden lampstands
and the light of Christ on those lampstands. So we're looking
at verse 10 in particular. In the King James Version, it
says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind
me a great voice as of a trumpet, verse 11, saying, I am Alpha
and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest, write
in a book. And since we're going to concentrate
on verse 10, the first thing we'll take a look at is this
first phrase, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. And I provided
that first part for you. And it's, Eganamene enneumete
ente kuriaka himera. Hemera is day. Kuriaka is the
Lord, and it's the Lord's possessive day. It's the Lord's day. Pneuma,
pneumati, pneumati, it comes, it's where we get the, it's the
root word is pneuma, which is spirit. And pneumati would be,
is conjugated for en-pneumati. And we've seen this word before
in verse nine. Egonomine. And egonomine is just,
it's like the Greek form of the verb to be. Is, was, this was,
in this case, it's past tense, and objectively past tense, and
it has the, that ege, part comes from the Greek ego, which means
I. So, and we saw that in verse
9 when it says, I John, was when, excuse me, it's not I John that
was translated there in verse 9. It was egonome en naso. It was, I was on the isle of
Patmos. and he used that. And that was
a question Brother Steve had asked last week. He said, does
it say that he was in exile or that he was banished? No, in
the Greek it simply says that he was, but historically we know
that Patmos was a place of banishment. It was a place historically that
was, I think they had salt mines there, and they had a couple
of mines there. And it was kind of, if you will,
it was the ancient, Greek Empire or Roman Empire. It was the Roman
Empire equivalent of Devil's Island. You all heard of Devil's
Island down in Guyana, down in South America. This is where,
with John being there, he had to grow his own, like grow his
own vegetables. He was given a place to stay.
It was desolate. And really the only time that
boats had come across into Patmos where they'd come in or where
they'd left, pretty much the only time was to drop off prisoners
and not to pick them up. As far as supplying, I have not found any historical
records as far as for Patmos, whether there were actually guards
on board there. The sea state was, again, like
Devil's Island in South America, was such that there's really
no way that they could have chopped down trees and make a boat for
their own escape. I think there was only one safe
harbor there just because of where it was situated. And remember
that Patmos would be situated about 40 miles northwest, about
35 to 45 miles northwest of Asia Minor, north of Ephesus, which
was the key port on the Aegean Sea. And so that would be Patmos. But at any rate, this first portion
in Numati, ennumity, meaning in the spirit
or lowercase spirit or in the spirit. Now this term is used
and we see this here in Revelation 4, not only here in Revelation
1.10, we see it also in Revelation 4 verse 2. It says, at once I was in the spirit
and behold the throne stood in heaven and when seated on the
throne. And so he was in the spirit in
Revelation chapter four. And again, we see it in Revelation
17 verse three in these some significant visions. This phrase
itself, ennumity. Revelation 17 verse three. says, and he carried me away
in the spirit, or literally in spirit, into a wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on
a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and it had
seven heads and ten horns. And then also in Revelation 21
verse 10, Verse 10 says, and he carried
me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the
holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Now,
John uses this term these four times in Revelation 1 verse 10
and these three times that we've looked in chapter four, chapter
17 and chapter 21. Now, and just these two words
in that order, I provided you several places where it exists
there. There are some places where if
you kind of look it up, I did do some scraping on this one,
because there's sometimes it says en-to-nu-ma-ti, sometimes
it says en-te-nu-ma-ti, which can be translated in the spirit,
but the contexts of those are a bit different. And so I didn't
even provide them. So if you took a Strong's Concordance
and followed it around and looked at the scriptures where pneumati
or pneuma is used, you'd probably find several of them, but you'll
know by even the translation that they have a different context.
Now, I did provide you under here, and I'm asking you to turn
first of all to Matthew chapter 22, And I gave you some for comparison. I just put them in there. I didn't
divide them up. If you're a note taker, you might want to put
a slash between Luke 1.17 and Romans 8.9 because we have the
same term is used in all of these references, ennumity, but only
in two of them The first two, Matthew 22 verse 43, and then
Luke 1 and verse 17, do they seem to have the same connotation of what is talked about here
by John? And I'll have a quotation for
you from A.T. Robertson in his 19th century 19th century word studies in
the New Testament. So in Matthew 22, remember the
context of Matthew 22. Matthew 22, Jesus is being confronted
by the Pharisees and Sadducees and the Herodians and so forth. They're trying to right after he tells some parables
and then they're trying to trap him in his words about paying
the Caesar what Caesars and then the resurrection of the dead
and the great commandment. And then finally, let's see,
where are we? 22 verse 43. He Well, beginning in verse 22,
Jesus says to them, who've been questioning him, what do you
think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said to
him, the son of David. In verse 43, he said to them,
how is it then that David, in the spirit, right there, that's
that term, calls him Lord, saying, verse 44, the Lord said to my
Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your
feet. And here the Lord Jesus is speaking
of David, who is, by the inspiration of God, ministering in a revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ a thousand years before Jesus is born and
crucified, that he says that he does so in the spirit. And so there is at least, if
it's not revelation unto comprehension, it is still as revelation that
he penned. I was quoting, and here is the
quote from Psalm 110. that is also quoted in Hebrews,
two places in the New Testament that we have it, and Jesus questions
them about it, but David is in the spirit when he pens the Psalms. We take that, or at least the
commentators, the Bible commentaries, will take this, and the theologians
will take this portion right here where Jesus says that David
was, by being in the spirit, he was inspired of God. He brought
forth revelation. So we can assume this from the
Psalms is what the commentators, or the theologians, at least
the reliable theologians, in my humble opinion, will suggest. Luke chapter 1, if you turn to
the right there, to Luke chapter 1, we see another that seems
to be more in line with what in the spirit means in the case
of John. Luke chapter one, and this is
actually speaking of John the Baptist and his ministry before
he's born. As the angel Gabriel presents
to Zechariah, in the temple while he is of the course of Abijah
or Aviyah, the eighth course according to the sons of Aaron
and performing the priesthood that was set up by David. And
in verse 17, or beginning in verse 16, speaking of John. Oh,
we'll begin in verse 15. Why not? For he will be great
before the Lord and he must not drink wine or strong drinks.
So he's going to be a Nazarite. and he will be filled with the
Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, verse 16. And he will turn
many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, verse
17. And he will go before him, before going before Jesus or
the Messiah, in the spirit, there's that term right there, ennumeti. He will go in the spirit and
power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children
and the disobedient and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to
make ready for the Lord a people prepared. The reason why that
would be still in keeping with this, that Jesus called John
the Baptist, in Matthew 17, he called John the Baptist Elijah.
If you will, Elijah's already come, and this they understood
that he was talking about John the Baptist. But John said, John
the Baptist said in John chapter one, that no, I am not Elijah. Are you Elijah for to come? No,
I'm not him. Are you then the prophet? No.
There's one that comes after me. In John chapter 1 he denied
being Elijah. In fact, I think in Matthew he
also denies being Elijah. But the angel Gabriel, speaking
unto Zechariah, says that he is in the spirit and power. And
the way that this is reconciled is that he's not really Elijah.
Elijah is his own person, but the spirit of God that was upon
Elijah that foreshadowed many truths of the Messiah to come,
that, because he would be like, since the forerunner is to be
like Elijah, this same spirit being in the spirit, it's a transforming
work that ministers unto John as a prophet so that he would
be a voice crying in the wilderness. This is, and so in the spirit,
which is different from, if you'll turn with me to Romans chapter
eight, verse nine, I guess, I'll just take one of these because
Romans 8 verse 9, 1st Corinthians 12 verse 3, Ephesians 6 verse
18, and Colossians 1 verse 8 speaks of in the spirit as it pertains
to us in a general saved manner. We're saved by God's grace and
so we are in the spirit that we're not in the flesh. Brother
Mike, you have something. I've thought often that John
the Baptist, he preached against just like Elijah, yeah. For those
of you, yeah, for those of you who think I'm being very silly,
I've noticed that some of the recordings when, way back there,
Brother Mike is asking a question, and for the sake of the folks
in the fellowship hall that are listening, Brother Mike was saying
that the spirit of Elijah, that as John rebuked, political leaders like Herod,
etc., so did Elijah in his rebuke of Ahab and Jezebel, etc., and
against false gods, which interestingly would go to the fact that when
John the Baptist was calling people to repent, he was telling
them to repent from dead works. Don't just go through the motions
of keeping the law externally. You must repent. This is what
prepared the people to receive Christ who was the progenitor
of grace. Though all that were saved in
the Old Testament were still saved by grace through faith.
Or by grace. By grace alone is anyone saved.
There's no one that is saved apart from God's grace. Oh, so
Romans 8 verse 9, Romans 8 verse 9 says,
Oh, that's verse 9, or chapter 9. Romans 8 verse 9 says, you,
however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Now, certainly
in my English Standard Version, it has spirit capitalized. And
most commentators will take that as being that since Galatians
5, 17 speaks of that the flesh lusts against the spirit and
the spirit against the flesh, or the desires of the spirit
are against the flesh. desires of the flesh are against
the Spirit in Galatians 5.17, both King James Version and the
English Standard Version, that what it's speaking of here, our
flesh opposes the Spirit. Because our flesh hates God,
hates God's Christ. Our flesh hates grace. And it opposes the Spirit, Galatians
5.17. So in this, in verse 9, where
it says, you however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
and it uses the same ennumity, it is in fact the Spirit of God.
If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does
not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. And this
is one of the also one of the key verses as far as being saved
by grace. You don't get, as far as for
the Spirit, it is by God's grace that saves us because in order
to, if you look at Galatians, and don't turn to Galatians 5
verse 22 and 23, but faith is all the way down, pistis in Greek,
And in the English Standard Version, in the American Standard Version,
or American Standard Bible, they translate that word, that the
King James Version rightly translates faith, they say faithfulness. I don't know why they translate
it that way, because in Greek it's pretty clear that it is
faith. It's the word faith, pistis. Faithfulness is sometimes conjugated
in a different way, expanded the word in Greek. But it is,
you know, faith is way down on the list. How could you have
faith apart from the Holy Spirit is my question. You can't. The faith that is apart from
the Holy Spirit is the faith of devils. James chapter two,
verse 19. You believe God is one, thou
doest well, the devils believe and tremble. You know, they've
seen Christ. And that was evident by those
who were demon-possessed. When he walked the shores of Galilee,
and they cry out, who are you? We know who you are, son of David.
Have you come to torment us before the time? Son of the most high
God, and he was called that. In fact, in one place, was it
Luke or Mark, where the demon-possessed man went up and worshiped him.
It was filled with a legion of demons. They went and worshiped
him. but they were rebuking him at the very same time, which
is the acme of evil. Because to, for example, if we
came in here, in the flesh, to rebuke the Lord Jesus Christ
and said we're worshiping, that is, one of the most heinous of sins.
And we see that in Matthew chapter 7 verses 22 to 23, or 21 to 23,
that Jesus said in that day, not everyone that comes to me
in that day that says, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom
of heaven. You know, did we not Cast out demons in your name.
Did we not do many mighty works in your name? Did we not prophesy or proclaiming the truth? Did we not prophesy in your name?
And I'll say to them, depart from me you worker of iniquity. I never knew you. Those are the worst kind. But
anyway, we see this and we'll see it in first, we're not turning
to 1 Corinthians 12 verse three or the others, but they say the
same thing. What it is is in context, this is our general
salvation and so we're in the spirit, but how many of us have
had special revelation that was so transforming that we've been
able to do work of the apostles or see special visions like this,
you know, the 22 chapters of John the Apostle, the brother
of James. How many of us could say something
like that? We only have one reference that
I believe really that equates to this from the Old Testament,
and that's Ezekiel chapter 37, verse one. It's just one simple
word. It's actually two words, but
it's the only place that really references this in the Old Testament. And it's, the word is veruach. And ruach is spirit, it equates
to the Greek pneuma. But having the word, having the
letter bet in front of it, bet will either mean in a or in the. And the way that the, well, let's turn to Ezekiel chapter
37 in the Old Testament and we'll see this a little bit, hopefully
a little bit more clearly. And 37 is a very well-known passage
of scripture for many of you. It's the Valley of Dry Bones.
When Ezekiel sees this great vision before the Lord, Ezekiel
was very much with the visions and so forth. And verse one, Ezekiel 37 verse
one, it says, the hand of the Lord was upon me. And he brought
me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle
of the valley. It was full of bones. I want to read it a little
bit because I like this passage of scripture. And he led me around
among them, and behold, there was very many on the surface
of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. Verse 3, And he
said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O
Lord God, you know. I like the King James version
of that. O Lord God, thou knowest. You
know. I love that portion of Scripture.
In fact, that would go very well. I kept it out, but I don't know,
I might throw it back in to this morning's message in Job where
we look at the incomprehensible God, a God that we can't fully
understand. And here Ezekiel is presenting
a truth. Lord, you know all things. I
don't. You're God, I'm not. And so, you know. You ask me
a question, I'll leave it up to you. And that's where we see
this in the spirit. That's where we see this in the
spirit that's particularly seems to reference what John is saying
in Revelation and what Jesus said of David and what in Matthew
22 and what Gabriel said of John the Baptist in Luke chapter 1.
We see Ezekiel and he's transported whether in the body as Paul says.
You know, whether in the body or out of the body I know not.
2nd Corinthians chapter 12 verses 2 through 4. Remember he was
caught up into the third heaven. Whether in the body and or out
of the body I do not know. The Lord knows. But I saw things
that were unspeakable. They were unlawful to utter.
In other words, if I said anything about it, it wouldn't do it justice.
He was taken to see something. Although I would suggest Moses,
when he was seeing the instructions for the tabernacle and everything
that was to be built, he was seeing heaven, but it doesn't
have a reference of that he was in the spirit when he was taken
there, but I would suggest it's the same thing. this is what
would be marked as different. We're in the spirit here, worshiping
God in Sunday school, through God's word, looking at the truth
of God's word. And it doesn't mean that we're
not in the spirit at all. We are in the spirit. However,
this in the spirit, I believe, tends towards something that
is very marked. And as we read the book of Revelation,
we go, yeah, it is pretty marked in the visions that he's saying.
This, so yeah. Any questions or comments there? Other places that you might,
I believe that might equate to it, but doesn't use the term
in the spirit and in the New Testament are like Acts chapter
10 verse 10. You don't have to turn there.
Did I provide it, Acts 10 verse 10 in your handout? because I
don't know what I did with the handout. Oh, I didn't take it
from you, did I? I just have my notes there. Let
me see. I did not provide that for you.
So if you're a note taker, you might wanna write down Acts chapter
10 verse 10. We won't turn there, but you'll
recall that in Acts chapter 10, just before Peter gives the gospel
to the Gentiles, to Cornelius' house, he's in Joppa, and he
is on the roof of Simon the Tanner. And he has a vision, and it says
in the English Standard Version that while he was praying at
midday, just before lunch, that a vision came to him, he was
in a trance. It was, you know, he fell into
a trance, and then he saw this great vision, a vessel, a sheet
came down full of creeping things, and it says, Arise Peter, kill
and eat. So he saw a vision, and so several commentators present
M.R. Vincent of his new picture, Pictures
in the New Testament, his commentary on the Greek language, and A.T.
Robertson mentioned this as well, and several others, John Gill.
presents that this being in the Spirit was more like this, akin
to this. So that Acts chapter 10, that
there was a particular vision that came to him. Also Acts chapter
22, when Paul is preaching to the people in
Jerusalem when he's arrested and is allowed to speak, He presents
in Acts 22 verse 17, that same similar truth. In fact, I'm turning
there in Acts. Acts 22 and verse 17, he says,
when I had returned to Jerusalem, Acts 22 verse 17, he says, when
I had returned to, excuse me, when I had returned to Jerusalem
and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance. And the
term is the same one that's used in Greek that was spoken of by
Peter in Acts 10, or spoken about Peter in Acts 10 verse 10. And I gave you the reference
also of 2 Corinthians 12 verses 2 through 4. If you're a note
taker, that's when you probably want to look up and check it
out that that was, again, Paul was in the, that he saw the third
heaven. It doesn't say he was in the
spirit, but he saw the third heaven. And that term for you
young people, young men, so that you understand what that is,
is we have the first heaven is what we see out there in the
sky. the atmosphere around us. The second heaven is outer space.
That's where the stars, where God hangs the stars in the sky. The third heaven is the abode
of God, which that was a term that the Jews had for the third
heaven because they understood there was the sky that you see
immediately. And at night, beyond the sky
that you see immediately and beyond the clouds, there is the
stars where the sun is, et cetera. That's the second heaven. And
the third heaven would be the home of God. And so that's just
a term, not as far as, well, is it beyond the outer space?
Yes and no, I guess. We'll see when that time comes.
And if you're not saved, well, you'll see it too, but a lot
more uncomfortably, I'd suggest. The next one is the Lord's Day.
And this is, I guess we'll, We'll take the second part of the sentence
when I get back from Skamon Bay. Any questions so far? Are you
tracking, at least a little bit? So John is having this particular
special revelation, according to most of the commentators.
And then we have Ente Kuriake Hamara. Hamara means day. Kuriake is the Lord. And so, on the Lord's day. Ente
is on the Lord's day. This expression means on the
Lord's day or in the Lord's day in Greek. But A.T. Robertson
says this in his word studies in the New Testament. Quote,
Diceman has proven from inscriptions in papyri that the word kuriakos
was in common use for the sense imperial. as imperial finance
and imperial treasury, and from papyri and astraka, that Hemera
Sabbas Day, which means, he has in parentheses, Augustus' Day,
or Augustus' Day, was the first day of each month, or called
Emperor's Day, on which money payments were made. It was easy,
therefore, for the Christians to take this term already in
use and apply it to the first day of the week in honor of the
Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection on that day, according to Ignatius,
again in parentheses from his Didache 14. He continues to quote,
in the New Testament the word occurs only here, and in 1 Corinthians
11 verse 20, the day for the possessive of the Lord. You know,
kuriake or kuriakin, because it uses the term kuriakin dipnon,
kuriakin dipnon. His quote continues, it has no
reference to Hemera Kuru, the day of judgment, as 2nd Peter
chapter 3 verse 10. There are some terms, 2nd Peter
3 verse 10, I think the Apostle Paul uses it as well. There's a few references where
the words are turned around. Day of judgment or day of the
Lord. Hemera Kourio, which would be
Day of the Lord, most of the commentators, and I'm one of
the, I would agree with that, is that it does not, this is
an equating to that. And I've heard it said of others.
Some teachers, the late Chuck Missler, believed that, because
there were some people that believed it was a reference to the Day
of the Lord. But in the Greek, it's not. It does not jibe with
the consistency of Greek. Plus, you have the extra biblical
writings as well, historically, that this was a term that was
also used in the Roman Empire. Because remember, the common
language still in this time of the mid-90s, the common language
was still Greek. Latin would not become the common
language in Rome until the fourth century. So Greek was still Koine
Greek, the common Greek, historical Greek, and all that. That was
still the language of the civilized world. And so one place that we see,
and he made reference to the first Corinthians 11 verse 20.
I'm going to turn there. That was not the translation. The first day was not the translation.
No, the first day was not the translation. The extra-biblical
historical writings that they know from the Roman Empire, that
they took the first day of the month and they called it, they
used the term that was something like that. They would call it
Curiacan Hemera or Curiacan, let's see, where was the term
here? Oh, excuse me, Hemera Sebaste. was Augustus' day or Augustus'
day. But the term also, what he implies
here is that the term was also used among common people who
were not Christians that they would call it curiacon haemora,
which is the Lord's day or because curia was used of the emperor. Remember that historically, this
in particular was something significant with Domitian. Nero did it too,
but not as brutally as Domitian. This is why John, and for some
of you who may not have been here, before John was exiled
to the Isle of Patmos, He was boiled in flaming oil
and was not hurt. That's the testimony of history.
And so upset was Domitian, who was the Caesar at the time, so
upset that nothing happened to him, he just banished him to
Patmos, never to be seen again. And then the Lord, by his grace,
after John had received this vision, had allowed him to come
off. His heart was softened to this
Christian. He was so dead set against Christians
that he was breaking into the church home, the house churches,
and taking what scriptures that they were, the New Testament
scriptures that they were writing down and burning them. But where were we? First Corinthians
chapter 16. is one reference, Acts chapter
20 verse 27 is another one, but 1 Corinthians 16. I know we're
at the end of our time here. And so not in scripture, but
again, extra biblical historical writings from the ancient church
fathers and so forth, suggest that the reason why we do And
we're calling it the Lord's Day because it's commemorative of
the Lord's resurrection. This was the first day of the
week. And then from Scripture, 1 Corinthians 16 verse 1, Paul
makes mention of now concerning the collection. He's writing
from Ephesus, remember, in his third missionary journey. He
says, now concerning the collection of the saints as I directed the
churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. Verse two, on the
first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside
and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting
when I come. And historically, they met on
the first day of the week because If you recall from way back from
our church history lessons when we were walking through Acts,
Paul was very practical in his Christianity and in his mission
work. That's why mostly, with some
exceptions like Philippi, he would go into the urban centers
where there was a synagogue. proclaim the gospel among the
Jews, and since they knew the scriptures, those are the ones
that as he worked with them, whom God had called and God had
saved, since they knew the scriptures like he did. He was a Pharisee
when the Lord saved him. And the only scriptures that
were around was the Old Testament. And since they didn't have Gutenberg's
press for 1,500 years after this, They were handwritten, so not
everyone had the Torah scrolls. Not everyone had the Law and
the Prophets. So these scrolls and parchments
were in the synagogues. So the teachers would go into
the synagogues on the Sabbath, on the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday,
hear the reading portions, and then preach Christ from it on
the first day of the week, on Sunday. And historically, that
was going on for quite a long time. And so when the Christians
were gathering, mostly, it was on the first day of the week.
And we see that in Acts chapter 20, verse 27. Now, I won't ask you to turn
there. I'm almost there real quick. And then we'll end it with that,
unless there's any questions, because I've taken us too far. Acts 27 verse 27, remember that
when he was speaking to the Ephesian elders, ending his third missionary
journey, having left Corinth and traveling, towards Jerusalem
with the, you know, from Acts 16, the collections that they'd
taken up. And he was, in Acts chapter 15, he was saying, you
know, take up the collection also for those, you know, I bragged
to those in Macedonia about your wealth. So, you know, the saints
are suffering in Jerusalem. So when I come by, I'll pick
up that collection as well so that I can take it to Jerusalem. And in verse 27 of Acts 20, he
says, Excuse me, was it, not 27. Oh,
not 27, Acts 20 verse 7. Can't even read my own notes,
my own handwriting here. Acts 20 verse 7, on the first
day of the week when we were gathered, it was before the Ephesian
elders, on the first day of the week when we gathered together
to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on
the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. Verse
8, and there were many lamps in the upper room, where we were
gathered and a young man named Eutychus sitting in the window
sank into a deep sleep as Paul still talked still longer and being overcome by sleep he fell
down the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went
down and bent over him and taking him up in his arms said, do not
be alarmed for his life is in him. And when Paul had gone up
and had broken bread and eaten. He conversed with them a long
while until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth
away alive and were not a little comforted. They rejoiced that
Paul killed them by his extensive teaching, but then raised them
from the dead. to show the power of three hours
of preaching, I suppose. And so that's where, when I say
I've gone a little too long, I don't really feel too badly
because none of you have fallen out the window. All of you are
still alive. And so I rejoice in that even
more than if you were dead and then brought back to life again.
Any questions or comments? We'll pick up when I get back
from Scammon Bay on the Lord willing that the weather is nice,
that it doesn't, Hold me there that I'll be back on the 30th
for communion, but our Sunday school will pick up verse 10
and run into verse 11. So let's pray. Our most blessed
and gracious God and Father, thank you, Lord, for the precious
word that you have given us. We don't seek after great revelations
like John, but we do seek to understand that which you have
revealed through John, not just in Revelation, but also how you've
revealed Christ through all the scriptures, that you may be glorified
through Christ's exaltation, and that we, as your people,
be seen as shining lights of Christ's light. In his name we
do pray, amen.
In the Spirit on the Lord's Day
Series Revelation of Jesus Christ
Class Reading: Revelation 1:9-20
Rev 1:1-3, its theological truth
Rev 1:4-9, its soteriological truth
Rev 1:10-20, its ecclesiological truth
Other Scripture References Cited:
Rev 4:2; Rev 17:3; Rev 21:10; Matt 22:43; Luke 1:17; Rom 8:9; Ezek 37:1; 1 Cor 16:1; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 11:20
Download notes & outlines from above PDF.
| Sermon ID | 31825045195252 |
| Duration | 50:57 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Revelation 1:10 |
| Language | English |
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.
