Let us turn together to Revelation. We are actually going to begin in a couple of weeks to deal with Revelation chapter 4. But in preparation, we're going to deal with some principles of prophetic interpretation. And one place where we see this interpretation revealed is not only in Daniel 7, which we saw earlier, but also in Revelation 17, where we have a vision and then an interpretation of the vision right in the same chapter. So we are able to understand how the Lord's has revealed himself in this sort of vision. Let's stand as we turn to Revelation 17, page 1037 in your pew Bibles, if you're using those, and listen to the word of God, the revelation in visions, and then the interpretation that the Lord gives through the angel. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters. with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk. And he carried me away in the 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. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery, Babylon the Great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly. But the angel said to me, why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life and the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. They are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he does come, he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not and is an eighth, but it belongs to the seven and it goes to destruction. And the 10 horns that you saw are 10 kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast. These are of one mind and they hand over the power and authority of the beast. They will make war on the lamb and the lamb will conquer them for he is Lord of lords and king of kings and those with him are called and chosen and faithful. And the angel said to me, the waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated, our peoples and multitudes and nations and languages and the 10 horns that you saw, they are the beast. They and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth. Thus far, God's word tonight. Please be seated. How does God reveal himself? That's the question before us. from this and other texts as we begin an unusual sort of series of messages that are very topical. And yet, I trust we'll show you throughout scripture how the Bible all fits together and how God does reveal himself in various times and in various ways. Let's pray for his blessing. Lord, teach us again your word, its pattern, and its truth. In Jesus' name, amen. He goes without saying, I guess, that Revelation is a difficult book to interpret. How many different interpretations have you heard of the book of Revelation? And sometimes we are tempted to throw up our hands in despair and say, I'm never going to understand it all. Well, that's clear. We will not understand it all until it's finally revealed, but we can understand some of it. We do wonder, though, what about these seven bowls that we'll see? How are they similar to the Egyptian plagues if they are? How about the darkness? If the fifth bowl is actual darkness or literal darkness or darkness of a different sort, the darkness in Egypt was certainly physical. Would it be that way in the book of Revelation? The problem we have is that we have to look at the Bible as it demonstrates itself to be. How it speaks, it speaks in different ways though of one truth. For example, the Bible might speak in poetry, and yet the Bible also speaks clearly in prose or in history. We need a discussion in the midst of the series after finishing the more earthly view of the church, though with symbolism in the seven letters, because at the beginning of chapter four, John is invited to come up here to see heavenly visions. Thus, we have to understand how does God reveal himself if he reveals himself in visions? Is he revealing himself to us truthfully? And indeed, he is. Now remember who God is. We start with that. God instantaneously, exhaustively knows all things about himself and the universe, having made it, maintaining it by the word of his power through our Savior, understanding it all. And we barely understand what's going on in history Throughout, including today, we should recognize that, as the Lord revealed to Isaiah, the nations are but a drop in the bucket. And we have a hard time understanding some small things, much less the great things of the kingdom. God himself has direct, exhaustive, intimate knowledge of everything. He doesn't need human language to communicate within himself in the Holy Trinity, and yet As he has eternal fellowship in himself in the Holy Trinity, he also made us to have fellowship with him as Adam had in the garden. And though Adam was not God and we are not either, neither are we angels, God can nonetheless speak to us in human language. And when he does so, he does so truly. God can speak to us absolute truth. in human language since we're made in the image of God. God is sovereign, but we are made to be like him, understanding on our level what he understands perfectly. So in other words, God has not meant for us to be in the dark, even about this book of Revelation. We have to discuss some difficult things, and so I'm going to take my time introducing the rest of the book. I'm going to talk about big words like hermeneutics. What in the world is that, pastor? Do you have to use those fancy words? Well, it simply means thinking, stepping back and thinking how to understand the Bible. How do we understand the Bible? Well, we understand the Bible by looking at the Bible itself very carefully and seeing how it interprets itself. The basic teaching we have from the scripture is that scripture interprets itself or scripture interprets scripture. We do not go outside the Bible to find some higher principle than the Bible itself, because the Bible itself is the highest possible revelation of God culminating in Jesus Christ. So we have to look at how the Bible interprets itself. We read a little while ago from the book of Daniel, and we saw these strange visions of four strange beasts. And then we found out later that these beasts stood for various nations. And so it is that the Bible itself says sometimes there is difficult symbolism that needs to be interpreted carefully and properly. We read the book of Revelation chapter 17. And just as Daniel was puzzled, so also John is puzzled by the visions that he sees, and these visions need interpretations. We cannot come with our own set of principles that we think would be better than the Bible, Otherwise, you will have wrong ideas of how the scripture should be understood. Let me give you one example that's rather controversial, but let's give it a try. Some people have said, well, scripture should be interpreted literally whenever possible and only symbolically when necessary. Now, there's some truth to that. We realize that the Bible is speaking historical truth. Please don't mistake me here. The Bible does speak about what really happened. The resurrection is not a symbol, it's a historical reality. The cross of Christ is not a symbol, it's a historical reality. But sometimes the Bible does require us to understand symbolism as symbolism, though it stands for true things. And so we have to say what is symbol by understanding how the Bible is speaking at that particular moment. And we're going to talk about that in the course of this message tonight. and in a couple of weeks to follow. We have to understand, first of all then tonight, the history of revelation. Now when I say revelation, I don't mean the book itself. I mean all of God's revelation of himself to us. And back to the title, how has God revealed himself to us? I usually like to take a text as the foundation for my message. Though there are several tonight, if I had to pick one, it might be Hebrews chapter 1 and 2, or rather chapter 1 verses 1 and 2. Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to us, to our fathers by the prophets. Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Notice that God did speak over time, a long period of time in many ways, various ways and various times. He has done that in so many different ways. Let me mention a few of them. First of all, God shows himself in what he does. That might seem a little bit obvious to you or maybe not so obvious. How does God reveal himself in the creation? The Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God. And so when God made the heavens and the earth, he was speaking of himself. Look at my power. Look at my glory. Look at what I am like. When he finally sends the flood in judgment, look at how God judges the wicked. Look at how the wicked will not escape judgment. When he does works of redemption, like sending his son into the world, now we know that God is a loving God, a merciful God. When he brings that final judgment, he brings all things to where they ought to be in the final end of everything. So when God does things, He does things in consonance with his character. He speaks and it happens. He says and so it will be. So let's not forget that God does things in the scripture. But in verse one of Hebrews, it says, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. So the word speech or speaking is also intimately connected with God's work. When God says something, it happens, and then he explains what it means. And that you see is over and over again a pattern of God's work. He does something and then he explains what he has done. Even in the early chapters of creation in Genesis chapters one to two, we find God speaking and then saying what is it that he has done and how good is it? God speaks out loud throughout the scripture at certain particular times. For example, he spoke out loud, obviously, to Adam and Eve. He was there in the garden in an intimate and personal way. God spoke out loud to people like Abraham, or to Moses, to Samuel. Speak, Lord, for your servant hears, said Samuel famously. So God speaks, but then also God shows himself in an amazing way. We call this theophany, or the revelation of God in some kind of visible form. Most famously, perhaps Moses at the burning bush. He sees this bush burning in Exodus 3, and it is not consumed. And when Adam, rather Moses, seeks to draw near, God says, don't come near. Take your shoes off, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. For God, who is there described as the angel of the Lord, then speaks and tells Moses who he is. I am the Lord your God. And therefore God speaks sometimes accompanied with some kind of a visible form. And we call this the angel of the Lord, not an angel, but the angel of the Lord. Look at Exodus three, the angel of the Lord speaks. And then he says, I am the Lord. So this is a revelation of God in some kind of visible form. We see it in the days of Gideon in judges chapter six, the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and he touches the meat and the cakes, and then he disappears, a very strange thing indeed. Let us not forget a most famous example, in my mind, in the book of Zechariah, chapter three, or rather, yes, chapter three, where there's a vision, a famous vision, among a number of visions at the beginning of Zechariah, the night visions, perhaps most famously, the vision of Joshua, the high priest. Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And so here, Joshua is seeing, or rather, Zechariah is shown that reality of who Joshua the high priest is in a kind of a vision or theophany. And the angel of the Lord, in verse six, the Lord solemnly assured Joshua, thus says the Lord of hosts. And so God speaks and shows himself sometimes at the same time, and that's called a theophany, the other big word you might want to learn of the day. Fourth, let's talk about inspiration. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. We're talking about scripture written down. When you say the word scripture, you mean the word of God written down. We talk about script, what is a script? It is a writing of some sort, a manuscript. is something written by hand. And so a script is something written. Scripture is that which is written down in a way that is the very word of God. By inspiration, all scripture given by inspiration of God, in 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and therefore is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. All of scripture. That is, we have written down a record of what God did, a record of what God said, a record of how God shows himself in visible form. And good thing, because now we know what happened. And these things really did happen and we have it passed down to us. A little closer to home in our text and topic tonight are visions and dreams. Let us not take this lightly. Daniel was given visions and dreams, Joseph was given a number of dreams, and he could interpret the dreams of others, as you've seen on our Wednesday night study. Peter was given a vision of a sheet let down out of heaven. Remember that? Now we're in the New Testament. Back to the Old Testament, Jacob was given dreams. Jacob's ladder. Remember that? Angels going up and down. What does that mean? It means something beyond just angels going up and down. Isaiah was given visions of the one high and lifted up. Remember that in the book of Isaiah? Abraham was given a vision in Genesis 15, Ezekiel was given visions, Zechariah we've seen, Ananias, Cornelius, Paul was given visions a number of times, direct revelation but in vision form. Well, the book of Revelation, what is it? Fundamentally, it is given by visions. Now, if you look at the book of Revelation, you have a couple of places where this is clearly indicated and we have to go back to chapter 1 as revelation of Jesus Christ. Notice verse 1, the revelation of Jesus Christ. It only means from Jesus Christ, but about Jesus Christ, that God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. And so it's not just telling, it's actually showing. For example, in verse 12, I turn to see the voice that was speaking. So here it is, he is in the spirit, on the Lord's day, which means he was given visions to see something that he wouldn't ordinarily have seen. And turning, he saw seven golden lampstands. Well, where were these lampstands? Well, they're a heavenly revelation of heavenly truth in vision form. And here we see the vision of the son of man, very similar to the description of Jesus Christ in Daniel chapter seven. And then these visions are revelation of mysteries. That is, They stand for something else. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So you see, the Bible says, these things stand for something else. A lampstand is really a church. But the lampstand is like a church in that it might burn brightly or not so brightly. And it might be tended, so it might burn more brightly. These are the kind of things that we need to understand are the symbols, as we'll talk about it more next week, the symbols of these visions of the Book of Revelation. So the Book of Revelation is fundamentally a vision written down as scripture itself. Next, the forms of revelation. In other words, when God writes down or has written down by the apostles and prophets those things that God has done, the things that God has said, how God has shown himself, how God has written things down, how does it happen And in what form does it happen? Well, let's think for a minute, how many authors are there of the Bible? A little bit of a trick question. There's just one. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the author of all scripture. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. How many writers? How many writers wrote down? Well, by our calculation, 36 writers, Old Testament and New. How much time? We find in the book of Hebrews, which again is our text more or less, at many times and in many ways, well, approximately 16 centuries. Moses lived about 1500 BC and the last book of the New Testament, more or less around 100 AD. So we have over the course of many times, 16 centuries, in how many ways In many times and in many ways, Hebrews chapter 1 says, many ways, well, many ways. Just look at the Bible itself. And now let me list for you some of the ways that God has put revelation down in writing. First of all, there is history. The Bible is fundamentally a book of history. It's what God has done, how he has saved his people through the Lord Jesus Christ. We see it in the Pentateuch. describing God making the heavens and the earth, the laws that God gave, the people wandering the desert, coming into the promised land, and so forth. The Gospels are history. They are written in narrative form. And then this happened, and then Jesus said, and then he did this, and then that happened, and then that happened, and so forth. Clear history. And then, of course, the Book of Kings. So and so a king was born, and then he lived so many years, and then he died. And the Book of Acts, the apostles went forward. to carry out the gospel in various ways, and it happened just that way. And the amazing thing is that when God writes these things down, he writes in common language. That is, he writes in human language. It's interesting to me that the New Testament was written not in the elevated sort of fancy Greek of the poets of those days, but it was written in what we call koine Greek, which means the common Greek. In other words, it was written in a language that everybody on the street or in the towns could understand. It was meant to be clear, common, direct speech. And that is the way the scripture speaks to us in the historical narratives, particularly. Now, there is also poetry. I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, poetry was my favorite subject. I liked the straightforward stuff. I liked the science. But when it came to English, give it to me straight. But poetry has its place, and we all need to learn to appreciate it. What is it exactly? Well, it's kind of an elevated prose. It's not really prose. It's poetical, elevated language. Usually it has rhythm. It sometimes does include symbolism. It includes figures of speech. Parallelism in the Hebrew. Elevated, non-daily kind of language. Sometimes poetry appears right in the middle of narrative. For example, in Numbers chapter 24, we have Balaam being given a prophecy that comes out in elevated language. For example, in Numbers chapter 24, it says, The oracle of him who hears the words of God and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty falling down with his eyes uncovered. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob. And a scepter shall rise out of Israel and shall crust the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth." Well, you see, it's talking about historical prophecy. But notice the elevated language. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A kind of a sing-songy, symbolic, rhythmic way of saying something that is true. It's talking about a star and a scepter, something about the reign of a king. Well, we know who he's talking about, King Jesus. It doesn't come right out and say it. It says it in this poetic form. This poetic structure is many times shown in our English languages. If you look at your Bibles, you'll find in the book of Numbers, paragraphs in paragraph form. And then when it's poetical, it'll be in stanza form. And you can many times pick it out that way that you can't tell the difference in the original. By the way, it just kind of goes on and on. So there's history, there's poetry, there's parable. You all know the parable of the sower. Was there really a sower that sowed seed upon the stony ground and the ground with the weeds and the hard ground and the ground that was plowed up and ready to produce seed? Well, not a merely earthly sower of seed. There is a sower. The sower is God himself spreading around his word. The Bible itself interprets the parable that way later on when the disciples were puzzled. And so is there a sower? Well, the earthly sower, no, but the heavenly sower, yes. So we sometimes say a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And so we know what a parable is. Even this morning we saw an example of a couple of parables. Patching clothes, remember? Wine in old wineskins. They're kind of brief little parables or illustrations speaking in a kind of a poetical way an indirect way, but teaching truth. Then, of course, there's prophecy. Prophecy includes some poetical forms. If you look at the book of Isaiah, much of it is in poetical form. Some of it is simply describing history, as in the books of history. Prophecy includes, and let us make sure we understand this, not just foretelling, but forth telling. That means God not only foretells the future, as he often does in prophecy, but not always. Sometimes he just says what the people need to hear, like Isaiah calling the people to repentance. Sometimes prophecy just declares forth what God is thinking, what God is saying. And then finally, and most relevantly, we need to use another big word, and we'll use the word apocalyptic. Apocalyptic, it comes from a word meaning to uncover or to unveil, the apocalypse. You remember the four horses of the apocalypse from the book of Revelation, but it's a word that is derived from the Greek that applies particularly to the form of speaking that includes all kinds of fantastic imagery, usually about catastrophe. It includes symbolic figures. We saw it in the book of Daniel, and you see it in the book of Zechariah, and you see it in the book of Revelation. It even occurs outside the Bible in such books as First and second, Enoch. Fourth, Ezra. Second and third, Baruch. Oh, names familiar to you all, I'm sure. But these are examples of books that were written in that form, in that style, in various languages, in Ethiopic, in Latin, in Syriac, and in Greek. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the most obscure and yet extant apocalyptic literature of the third century BC. It occurred in Judaism in the early church. but flourished in Christianity even down to the Middle Ages, even not in scripture itself. But the apocalyptic books, as mysterious as they are, were well known, and this is important, well known to the people of John's day. When they heard him speak about the visions of heaven, the visions of Christ, they knew what he was doing. And we often don't. We're not used to the idea. And so in the book of Revelation, we have revelations that are mediated by angels that disclose a supernatural world, focusing on, I guess I'll use another big word, why not, eschatology, the doctrine of the last things, which really is beginning with Christ's resurrection and on to the end of the age, often entailing cosmic transformation and the judgment of the dead. Therefore, this revelation of Jesus Christ is an apocalyptic display and revelation of who Jesus is and what he is all about in this age between the first and second coming of Christ. But most of all, I want us to turn back in conclusion to Hebrews 1 again. Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. That's what we've been talking about. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. He has spoken to us by his son. Jesus Christ, as you know from John 1, is the eternal word of God. So when God speaks everything that he speaks, it was through the word, even Jesus Christ, that he spoke. For Christ is the mediator, the one who communicates God to us, the living and abiding word of God in personal form. Matthew says, all things have been handed over to be my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. So in other words, the son, Jesus Christ reveals God to us. That's why he is the personal word of God. And that's why in Revelation chapter one, when it says the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants, the things that must soon take place through the angel to his servant, we are speaking of the centrality of Jesus Christ. Just suppose for a minute, it's not true, but suppose for a minute that God predicted everything that would happen. Jesus Christ came, or he didn't come, or if he did come, he failed. Just imagine that for a moment. God speaks and it doesn't happen. What a horrible thing. That means we really cannot know any truth, that God is not able to carry out his plan, or that God is weak, or that God is deceptive. What a horrible universe in which to live. But we have God speaking to us in Jesus Christ. God reveals himself to us in one who has come to conquer death. And he did that on the cross. He has come to be raised from the dead. And he did that on the third day. And now he shows to us everything that he's planning to do henceforth in greater detail, more than the book of Daniel, more than the book of Zechariah, more than all the other plans that were revealed to us in the old Testament. God finally reveals to us, not completely, but more than what he has told us before. In Romans 8 it says, I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. We have an even greater glory yet to be revealed. When it actually happens, we don't need to know everything. But what we do need to know is given us in Jesus Christ. The creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God. So Christ is revealed. Someday you and I will be revealed. In all of our transformed, redeemed glory on that day when our bodies are raised and we are presented as a whole and complete church and bride to the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's look now in the months to come most likely at the glorious revelation of the reality of Christ in this vivid form. Catching a new wonder of the spiritual realities in which we now dwell and which will be revealed at last in fullness. when Christ returns. And as John says, even so come, Lord Jesus, shall we pray. Lord God, your word is complex. It is difficult to understand in some parts, but we thank you that it is clear enough for us to come to Jesus Christ, to understand the gospel, to understand our sin, to know who you are, to see yourself revealed to us in your word and in your son. O Lord God, help us to understand it all insofar as we are able, and then wait in patience for you to tell us the rest when Jesus returns. In your name we pray. Amen.