The purpose of this series is to be a compliment to the sermon series that we're going through. As pastor and I have discussed, of course, there's many things that you can do in a Bible study that you won't necessarily do in a sermon. So one of the purposes for this series is to give some very big picture ideas about the book of Revelation. That's what we're going to do today. And then we're also going to have some studies where we'll go very much in depth, looking at specific Old Testament pillars that God has used to reveal this revelation to John. So in these first few weeks, we'll begin talking about what revelation is, what is an apocalypse. Why are there so many symbols? How are we to understand these symbols? And then we'll take a look at specific Old Testament books like Exodus, Daniel, Zechariah, Ezekiel, and then some of those passages that a few of us may be wondering about. We will be talking about Armageddon, Gog and Magog, Revelation 20 and the Millennium, the number and the mark of the beast and the Antichrist. And then we'll talk about the various schools of thought as to how people have interpreted this book called the Revelation of Jesus Christ. But for now, we're going to begin where John begins. We'll read these first dozen verses. And as we read these verses, I would like for everyone to listen very carefully and consider this question. What is the revelation? That's going to be our opening question. What is this thing that we call the revelation or the apocalypse? So Revelation chapter one, beginning in verse one. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. And he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant, John. who bear record of the word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand. John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests, unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, amen. I am Alpha and Omega, beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. I, John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia. unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me, and being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and gird about the paps with a golden girdle. Amen. Thus far the reading of God's word. Let's bow our hearts together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you humbled, Lord, at your majesty, Lord, your power, your sovereignty, your authority, your wisdom. And we thank you that you speak to your church. We thank you for this book called The Revelation of Jesus Christ. We pray that you would give us grace, Lord, to see, eyes to see and ears to hear. to see your son risen and exalted in this book, and to understand our position among the seven golden lampstands where he walks in our midst now, Lord. So we pray that you would turn our eyes and turn our hearts away from this world Turn our eyes heavenward, Lord. Help us to see your son, hyper-exalted above all earthly kings, Lord, hyper-exalted above all authorities and rulers and dominions and powers. For he is the prince of the kings of the earth. And help us to know, Lord, that he has washed us from our sins with his own blood. So please help us to take that to heart in our consciences. Please bless this time, and we pray that it will honor you. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. As we begin to consider this book, we begin with a point that may be at first obvious, but that which may appear obvious can actually be very crucial. If you've ever heard someone talk about the book of Revelations, It's not. It's the revelation, singular. Or as I heard one very beloved pastor refer to it, the book of the revelation. It is actually much more appropriate to call this book the book of the revelation than the book of revelations, plural. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And that opening verse actually gives us a center point for the revelation that runs from chapter one all the way through to 22. So in a book that has often been very confused among its readers and has been often misinterpreted with all different schools of thought, some going far out of bounds with various interpretations, there is a toe cable that God has given us, which we can take hold of and follow throughout this book from beginning to end, And it is that this book is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's not the revelation of science fiction phenomena. It's not the revelation of geopolitical turmoil, although there may be turmoil and there may be strife in this book. If your interpretation strays too far from the revelation of Jesus Christ, you can know that you are going out of bounds. Now, this opening verse, if you can believe this, has had a considerable amount of discussion about this word, of, in verse 1. Scholars have asked, what do we mean by the word of here? It may seem like a strange question, but in Greek, as well as in English, This word of can actually have two rather different meanings. I'd like to give an example from 2 Corinthians 5.14. Just listen to this example from 2 Corinthians 5.14. There Paul says, the love of Christ compels us. He says the love of Christ compels us. And in 2 Corinthians 5.14, the question is, what kind of love is compelling us? Is it the love that we have for Christ? or is it Christ's love for us? The love of Christ compels us. Now, if you think about that context, of course, English and Greek can both have those two different meanings there, but do we really have to divide between those two options? If we know that Paul is writing to believers in 2 Corinthians, if we know that he's writing to churches that love the Lord, and we know that the Lord loves those churches, then can we affirm there that Both can certainly be true. Our love for Christ and Christ's love for us. So the question here in chapter one, verse one, is when we say the revelation of Jesus Christ, that word revelation means what? Apocalypse. It's an unveiling. It is the uncovering of something that you could not see clearly before. Are we saying that Christ is doing the revealing, the revelation from Jesus Christ? revelation that belongs to Him or comes from Him? Or are we saying that He is what God is unveiling, the unveiling of Jesus Christ? That's the question. So I'd like for us to look through these first 13 verses, and if you see some kind of a clue in the context that could give us an answer that shows us this revelation is coming from Jesus Christ, or that shows us this revelation is about Jesus Christ, just call out the verse. You could say verse five or verse nine, and then we can discuss that a little bit. So let's all take a moment to look through these first 13 verses. Some of our studies will be a little bit more lecture-based. Today's gonna be very interactive, So let's look through these first 13 verses. If you see a clue that this comes from Christ or that it shows Christ, please call out that verse for us. And one of the reasons I am making this very interactive today is I know we're sensitive to our time over the next few weeks in this study. So sometimes I'm going to run for about 30 minutes and then open up Q&A. But for today, this is a time to be very interactive. So please, if you see something that shows this comes from Christ or this reveals Christ, call that out. Verse five. What do we see in verse five here? From Jesus Christ. Excellent. He is the faithful witness. So we have grace and peace coming from Christ. That's revelatory from him. He is mediating God's grace, and he's also mediating God's message. He himself is God's witness. Excellent. Verse 1. Verse 1 is very, very close to this question. It's right here in the immediate context. It's the revelation which God gave to Christ to show his servants. So Christ is doing the revealing in verse 1. He's also the witness in verse 5. Yes. Absolutely. Verse seven, this is actually a lead verse for the entire revelation. Listen to this verse. Behold, he cometh with clouds. We are talking about the arrival of Christ, the second coming of Christ. And what does it say here in verse seven? Every eye will see him. A global revelation of Jesus Christ. If that's not the revelation or the unveiling of Christ himself, I don't know what is. verse 2 yes what about verse 2 yeah absolutely so John also himself is a witness and what does John testify he testifies about Christ in verse two. So we see here in this context, we don't have to divide between those two options. It's the revelation from Christ, and it's the revelation about Christ. The father gives it to the son, but the content of the message is to reveal Christ himself. So throughout this entire book, that's something that you can keep your eyes on and watch very carefully. And of course, If verse 1 shows very clearly that Christ is doing the revealing, what is the first vision that John sees there in verse 13? When he turns, The initial revelation that he sees is Christ himself. That's key. So throughout this entire book, God has given us a tow cable. When we get to chapter two and three, Christ is speaking himself. He's revealing to the seven churches. When we get to chapter five, Christ appears in the throne of God, in his throne room. There's the revelation of Christ himself. In chapter 10, we get a flashback to that throne room that makes us remember the appearance of Christ I'm just giving us that tow cable throughout the entire book in chapter 12 We actually have a flashback that shows us the revelation of the birth of Christ and then in chapter 14 We have a revelation of the final judgment at Christ's return the revelation of his return so to chapter 19 the return of Christ the revelation of him in chapter 22 the revelation of Christ in eternity. So we don't have to divide between the source or the content here. He is both. He is giving both. So considering our second question, if this revelation, that original Greek word is apocalypse, what is an apocalypse? Because in our culture, people are very confused. They think of, you know, apocalyptic movies, quote unquote, broken down buildings, earthquakes, people foraging for food, science fiction, things like that. The problem is, If we stray too far into pop culture and current events, we're becoming unhinged from the word of God. And the Old Testament is the foundation, not only for the New Testament, but especially for the revelation of Jesus Christ. As a general rule of thumb, as you go through this book, you will often find two Old Testament verses linked together in a single verse. Almost two verses for every single New Testament verse are filled with Old Testament citations throughout this book. And what it is revealing actually stands on the shoulders of Old Testament apocalypses. What is an apocalypse in the Old Testament? Daniel is an apocalypse. Ezekiel is an apocalypse. Much of Zechariah is apocalyptic. But these books are known as apocalypses in the Old Testament. But we also have apocalyptic moments or apocalyptic events. You could think of comparing Ezekiel, which is known as an apocalypse, with Isaiah, which we consider to be a prophet. But think about Isaiah chapter six. What happens in Isaiah chapter six? God actually catches up Isaiah and invites him, actually draws him into his throne room. Isaiah has a vision behind the veil within the spiritual realm. He sees the throne room of God, the very thing that John sees in this book. That's an apocalyptic moment in the book of Isaiah. And what is the content of that revelation there? It's the king of kings, just as we read here. Christ is the prince over the kings of the earth. In the year that King Uzziah died, what did Isaiah see? He saw the Lord exalted on his throne. He saw that there was a throne above all other thrones. And that when an earthly ruler dies, there's still a king upon his throne. So you've heard this expression. Someone, especially you, feel this after or during election seasons. You'll hear people say, well, God is still on his throne. It's a very biblical idea. That's exactly what's happening in Isaiah 6. He's showing no matter how the earthly rulers might rise or fall or change, there is a king above all kings. That's an apocalyptic moment in Isaiah 6. Turn with me to 1 Kings 22. This is perhaps a little bit lesser known passage. 1 Kings 22 also shows us an apocalyptic moment In the Old Testament, this is a miniature. You might call this a miniature apocalypse. First Kings 22. Start in verse 18. This is where the king of Israel is about to speak to Micaiah, the prophet who is opposed to the king of Israel, who is very sinful. And in verse 19, he said, This is Micaiah's response. He's now giving the word of the Lord and he's revealing an apocalyptic moment. Listen to this. Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne. and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner." This is an apocalyptic moment. What is happening here? The same thing that Isaiah saw, the same thing that John saw. We're seeing a vision, a throne room revelation of the King of Kings. You see the heavenly court is sat on the Lord's right and on the Lord's left before his throne. And what's the subject matter? The subject matter is God's sovereignty over all of human history. No matter what kingdoms may rise, no matter what kingdoms may fall, God is sovereign over every king and every ruler. So what he's saying here is, The wicked king of Israel, Ahab, is about to die. And he is about to die in his sins by God's sovereign appointment. So when the king on the heavenly throne makes the ultimate decree, there is no answer and there is no wisdom and there is no counsel from any earthly ruler that can alter that decision. So if we want to think about one extremely important element of all these apocalypses, it is that we are getting a throne room revelation of the King of Kings. And by the way, I am using that word of very carefully there. It is a throne room revelation from the King of Kings, but it's also the revelation of the King of Kings himself. Let's turn to our other handout now. We have a handout for you that should show 10 features of Apocalyptic. And with apologies, the teacher's gonna have to borrow a handout from his wife. Thank you so much, dear. So these are 10 key features of apocalyptic. As we go through this book, these are different features that you'll see. If you have specific questions about this handout, today's lesson will be a great time to open these up. There are specific key verses that we could use to affirm every single one of these 10 points. So what are we talking about when we talk about an apocalypse? An apocalypse or apocalyptic writing ordinarily has many or all of these 10 key features. Number one, it is dedicated to a revelation from the spiritual realm. That's very important. There has to be some insight behind the scenes into the spiritual government or spiritual realm where God rules. Number two, it is communicated ordinarily symbolically, not exclusively, but generally very symbolically. Number three, often mediated through angels. And if you think about this here, this may have something to do with the sinner's proximity to God during an apocalypse. You think about what Isaiah said when he was caught up into the throne room of God. Woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. If we had that unfiltered revelation of God's being and his glory in our sins, we would be eradicated by the holiness of God. Holiness is what he requires and iniquity cannot dwell before him. So these apocalypses are often mediated through angels and they're often communicated through symbols. which I believe has something to do with the overwhelming revelation of that spiritual realm behind the scenes for someone like John, when he reports back to us in our normal physical environment, see here, we're comfortable. We have our feet on the ground, right? We're using normal human eyesight, normal human ears. When John has the revelation come to him, he's not in a normal mode of experience. He's in the spirit. He's seeing visions from God. He's hearing auditions, verbal revelations from God. This is a special moment that is not granted to everyone. These are unique moments that are given to people like Isaiah, given to people like John. And when they come back to us, they report what they saw and God gives them the language to report back from God's behind the scenes revelation. And what language do they use to describe that? Symbols. Now the challenge is, where do those symbols come from? Well, in the modern church, many people seem to think that they come from movies, blog posts, pop culture, current events, geopolitical happenings. But if you read this book carefully, what you will find is that all of these symbols come from the Word of God itself. They come from the Old Testament. The reason the church is confused is because we do not know the Old Testament the way that John knows the Old Testament. If we knew the Old Testament the way that John knows the Old Testament, when he says, I saw locusts coming out of the pit, we would know what the Bible says about locusts. We wouldn't think these are Apache helicopters, war machines in Palestine, right? we would be asking, what does this symbol mean in the Bible? If you want to interpret a biblical symbol, see how the Bible uses the symbol. That's the rule of thumb. What were locusts in Exodus? What were locusts in Joel? These are the questions we're gonna be asking. Now, I'd like to take a moment to put a very important qualification there. There are real, concrete, historical, events and persons behind these symbols. These are real. These are historical. They're not airy-fairy, foggy allegories and wispy symbols that have no historical anchor. They are communicated symbolically, but they point to real concrete historical entities. That's very important. The other thing that we can know about the apocalypse, we see in number five here, is that it unveils what you might call an ironic worldview. What do we mean by ironic? It means that popular beliefs about the world, about reality and human existence, are generally the opposite of God's. They're not a little bit off kilter. They're typically the opposite of God's view of the world. You might think of hard atheism as an example. When God reveals that he created in the beginning, the atheist says in his heart, there is no God. It's the exact opposite of what God said. We might also see a radically opposite or a diametrically opposed view. When God says he is the only God that we are to worship, there's one exclusive God and then In a culture of pluralism, they say we can worship infinite gods, right? The opposite of what God says. Worship as many gods as you want. Typically the opposite of God's worldview. Number six, that revelation, once we begin to understand God's kingdom and what he's doing with the kingdoms of the world, it radically enhances our spiritual perception of the world and fuels us to endure the world's conflict against God's kingdom. Now, I realize we are called to be soldiers in this spiritual warfare. We are called to take every thought captive and then to expand the gospel to the ends of the earth. So there is a church militant metaphor there where the church can lovingly spiritually take the offensive. But frequently revelation is describing how the world attacks the church. That's going to be very common revelation throughout this book. Number eight, revelation interprets past, present and future redemptive history. This is extremely important because many people have approached this book as though it only gives you pictures of the distant future. Now, that's a big problem because the book begins with a special blessing that no other book begins with. And it says, blessed are those who hear and those who obey the words of this prophecy. And throughout this book, what you will see is that John refers to the entire book, the entire prophecy, keeping and obeying the entire book of the revelation. Well, if you say chapters 4 through 22 are only in the distant future, and they're only for some church age and so far away that I could never keep them, only a distant generation will keep those. How can you and I keep the entire book and obey the things that are written in them? Actually, what you'll find is that the revelation shows us past, present, and future events, and the focus is on redemptive history, God's redemptive love for his people. On the other hand, the way that the unbelieving world remembers this book is judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment. Because in Revelation, you'll see number nine, revelations of judgment and redemption are closely linked together. So please understand if you read this book and you hear God's love for you, if you see his redemption in this book for you, God has given you eyes to see and ears to hear. This revelation is filtered to you through Jesus Christ. and you are in Christ, and all these acts of judgment you will realize are actually working out for your salvation. They're working out for your good. But for the unbelieving world, they don't see any of that good. And in fact, for those who remain outside of Christ, there will be nothing good in the end outside of Christ. So there are massive pictures of judgment throughout this book. But that judgment also is the rescuing and the saving of God's beloved bride as he protects her. from all of her enemies. It's extremely important. Finally, number 10, this message is controlled by God's sovereignty over history. Remember that idea of the throne room vision, the king of kings? The thing that we need to know is that this revelation is something that is decreed. It's already written. It's already mapped out. So the apocalypse does not merely predict, it actually unfolds and enforces God's plan for all of human history. There is no changing it. The only thing that we can do is understand it and then fall in rank and follow the Lamb all the way to glory. That's what this book calls us to do. Some closing thoughts and then we'll open up more questions. Down at the bottom then, we can say that every apocalypse is prophetic. If you think of prophecy or prophets like Isaiah, every apocalypse has prophetic content, but not every prophecy is apocalyptic. apocalypse involves that unveiling, that apocalypsis, of a deeper reality from the spiritual realm. The apocalypse allows the seer, notice that word, not a prophet, but a seer, Isaiah and the other prophets are normally called prophets, but when John is called to the throne room, or you could legitimately say this about Isaiah, they are called a seer because they are seeing behind the veil. To understand more about the prophetic blueprint for God's eternal kingdom, and we'll see this especially when we come to the book of Daniel, God's eternal kingdom in contrast to the rise and fall of fleeting human kingdoms. They are only temporary. So, all 10 of these points here, we have verses we could explore, but especially if there are any pressing questions, what questions come to mind when we look at these 10 points? You can see all these in the book of Revelation. I have a question. So, you spoke about this being past, present, and future. How would you connect this to the English coming out of the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ and his first coming? How would you connect some of that language of Revelation to It's an extraordinarily important question because when Christ came, he came preaching the kingdom. And what did Christ preach? He preached the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What he's saying is the kingdom is imminent. There's a sense of arrival for this kingdom. But in another sense, the kingdom is not yet consummated. It's not yet perfected. So actually, the language here at the very opening of the book is very similar to Christ's message. I believe it's the same word, Yangus, when Christ says the kingdom is at hand. We have here in verse two. Look at this here. Actually, this is in verse three. Blessed is he that reads and those that hear the words of the prophecy and keep those things which are written for the time is at hand. So what we can say is that the kingdom was at hand 2000 years ago when this book was written. So actually, the church has been faithfully keeping the book of Revelation for 2000 years. So there are some exclusively future events that we're waiting on, particularly the coming of Christ, the return of Christ. But in another sense, massive portions of this book are Some of them are already fulfilled, but many of them are actually in process. We could put it that way. Did you have a follow-up for that? Yeah, that's really helpful. Another question is if you know the history, the early church history on examination of this book, how did they view these prophecies in relation to themselves? How did different schools of thought view the prophecies? Like in the early church, say, second century. Yes. And they're reading this book of Revelation, Yes. Yes. I would make one qualification that there's always some diversity, even among the early church fathers. But one very, very common idea was that there was an exceptional expectation for the imminent return of Christ. That was heavily on the church's heart and mind within the second century and even at the end of the first century. The imminent return of Christ. Mike. history. In the midst of that, if you go back to what Christ says, Is there a return, was that the last question? Before his final return, you mean. I will be very careful there because there are people who create a... artificial scheme of two returns of Christ at the end of time, and I think that's very problematic. But what I will say is that, to be precise, the Revelation does talk about multiple arrivals of Christ, and you could call those a coming of Christ with a lowercase c. In fact, even among the churches, he talks about coming to the church that is unrepentant. and saying that he would fight against them with the sword of his mouth or move their lampstand out of its place. So that would be an arrival of Christ in miniature that actually foreshadows his final coming. But when we think about the millennium and things like that, I believe in one final and ultimate coming of Christ. So that's very important. One other very important observation that Mike pointed out, he was picking up on language from right here in this context in the benediction, the God who is and who was and who is to come. That language is certainly speaking about God's sovereignty over past, present, and future history. And it actually is an expansion on the book of Exodus, when God spoke out of the burning bush to Moses. Now, what does that mean for us here in the church? What does that mean for John in the first century? What was God saying from the burning bush? He was saying to his people, I hear your suffering. I hear your groans and your cries from the harsh affliction that you're experiencing. What is John experiencing? Tribulation, persecution, oppression, Christians being marginalized. He says, I'm your brother and partaker in this tribulation. The way that God spoke out of the burning bush is the way he speaks to his church now. And what he said in the burning bush was, I am who I am. which implies he is the one who is who he always will be. This is the expansion on that statement to show he is the God who was, and is, and is to come. And Mike also noticed in verse 19, this is very important. Everyone look at verse 19. Christ tells John to write the things which you saw, which can imply past tense, the things which are, which can imply present tense, and the things which shall be hereafter. Now, we'll talk about this verse in the coming weeks. Some people try to divide this verse very harshly. And one very common, unfortunate modern interpretation is that the things that are present, they view as only the seven epistles, chapters one, two and three in Revelation. They say the rest of the book is distant future. It has nothing to do with us, but in a sanctified sense, blessed be the ones that can keep this book later. That's really how people interpret this book. But how can you interpret this book that way when chapter 12 gives you a flashback to the birth of Christ and the ascension to the throne? Those are not distant future, those are actually past. And as we work through this book carefully, what we'll see is that the revelation gives us past, present, and future for God's history. Excellent, so let's go ahead and turn over to the other outline now. We have a list of verses that you can consider, and now we're gonna take a moment to discuss just for maybe the next 10, 15 minutes, and we'll open up for additional questions. We're going to discuss how symbols are used in the apocalypse. And I now can trade my dear wife for the other hand. The question when we come to Revelation, is how do we read this book? Do we read this book like Genesis? By the way, it's very clear in the original language, Genesis is written as historical documentary events. It is not written as mythology. It's very clear, documentary account. Do we read this book like Proverbs? Short pithy sayings, memorable sayings. Do we read this book like Romans? exceptionally clear, logical arguments, point by point. Do we read this book like parables from the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, I will tell you, many churches read this book like it's Romans or like it's Ephesians. One very damaging term is the term literal or literally. When people say, I read this book literally. Well, it is helpful to take God at his word, but when God gives you a parable, you need to hear the parable as a parable, right? A parable is a figurative story that may never have a historical event behind it. When Christ says, imagine a certain man on a certain highway, that kind of thing, or the parable of the sower, for example. He's not thinking of a specific sower sowing specific seed. He's giving you a parable. It's like a sermon illustration, right? Well, in Revelation, we have to be very careful because these are not pure symbols detached from history, they're very historical, and yet they're very metaphorical, they're very figurative. So the way that we can consider symbols, you could think of symbols like this. A symbol in Revelation is like, think if you found a box. What if you found this box, you're going through Revelation and you say, hey, this box has a symbol in it. Pick up the box. Now, the box is not totally clear. You can't understand the symbol immediately, but it's not a black box that's been painted over. It's not like you have no access to the symbol. The symbol is like a box covered with frosted glass. So you have this little frosted glass when you see a symbol. And what you notice is if you pick up that symbol, you can actually carefully look through the frosted glass. You might turn it a little bit. You might see the silhouette. You might be able to even see some detail in there. You might see some grains or see some hairs, something like this. You could actually see some detail if you inspect these symbols very carefully. But if you turn that box over, what you would see is that there's a keyhole that will allow you to open up the box. You can open up the box, take out the symbol, and you can actually see it more clearly. So in this illustration I'm giving you, what is the key that will open up that box? Well, you would see underneath the keyhole, there's a little Old Testament verse written right there, right there on the bottom of the box. And if you were able to pick up that Old Testament verse and you know it, and you plug in that Old Testament verse, you can actually open up that box and you can unpack the symbol. Now, even then we have to be very careful because the interpretation of that symbol is going to be affected by our lenses. That's why we're taking very much care to talk about how do we read these symbols? How do they come to us? This is not like the book of Romans where Paul is speaking exceptionally clearly. Or you might think about times when the Lord Jesus was talking to the disciples and they heard parable, parable, parable, figure, parable. And then they said, wow. Lord, now you're speaking clearly and you're not speaking any parable, right? There are times when God speaks exceptionally clearly. But when he comes to us with parables, we have to be careful to unpack those parables, unpack those symbols. We also have to be careful of the lenses that we are wearing when we come to these symbols. So once again, one popular lens that people take to this book is they put on Israel colored glasses. Palestine colored glasses and they look through Revelation they see this is the color of Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel. Or they put on the science fiction lenses or they put on whatever other lenses. Very popular now is the lens of pure imagination, right? I saw a locust when I was 12 years old and it was so meaningful to me. What happened to me when I was 12 years old and what does this locust mean to me? That's what we call a private interpretation. The problem with that is no prophecy of scripture is of a private interpretation. These are public symbols given to the seven churches, given to the church through all ages, and they have public meanings that are actually available to all the church. The trouble is much of the time, we don't take the trouble to go back to the Old Testament, find those keys, come back to the symbol, and then unpack the symbol. So what kind of lenses did John and his first century readers have? John would have actually recognized these symbols before he ever wrote this book. Have you ever thought about that? Even before he saw the revelation itself, if someone talked to him about locusts, or talked to him about chains binding angels, or talked to him about The cherubim in God's throne room. He would have said, I remember that. I remember that. I remember that. Those are in the Old Testament. I remember those. Those have very specific meanings. Why does he know what these things mean? It's because he knows his Old Testament. So we are challenged to find the fixed meaning of these symbols. Again, it's not airy, fairy and detached and foggy. There's a very concrete meaning to these symbols because it's symbolic. Doesn't mean it's it's not precise. They are often very precise. And the other hand is if we get into trouble and start looking after foggy meanings from our own imagination. So I'll give you another example. The four horsemen. Very, very controversial revelation in this book. The four horsemen. Again, if you're thinking Israel colored lenses, you're gonna be looking for Panzer tanks or war machines in Palestine. But what would John think? He would say, Do I have a passage in the Old Testament that talks about four colored horses? That's Zechariah. That's Zechariah. Revelation 6, 1 through 8 is modeled directly on Zechariah 6, 1 through 8. So if God gives us a revelation in the Old Testament that says, this is what four colored horses means, if we ignore the answer key, how are we going to understand the book? The Old Testament is the answer key to the New Testament at large, but especially to the book of Revelation. Next week, we're actually going to talk about a little bit more deeper look into symbolism, because what you'll see is things are not necessarily always so easy. You might say, okay, I'll go back to the Old Testament, I'll find the key, I'll get the verse, I'll unpack the symbol. But what you'll find is that John often stacks symbols on top of other symbols. He combines symbols together, and he does it in astonishing ways. So what that means is, you're gonna have to go get more than one key, because you're gonna unpack more than one box, and you're gonna see how all these glorious symbols actually resonate together, and how they actually, they sort of create a symphony. If I switch from a visual to audio metaphor, by the way, John does that all the time. I heard and I saw, I heard and I saw. All these symbols together are gonna create a symphony of voices, and you'll be able to hear how they harmonize throughout this book. So now with the remainder of our time, let's consider our handout. These are exceptionally clear examples of symbols in Revelation. Because this is the handout with all the verses on it. These symbols come pre-packaged, or should I say pre-unpackaged for us. God has already unpacked these symbols. There are about two dozen examples in Revelation where God simply says, this is that. This is that. He tells us exactly what the symbols are. Now this is going to be a very important rule of thumb because In all seriousness, there are people who approach this book and they say, unless God spells out the symbol for you and says, the lampstands are churches, then just read, quote unquote, literally, whatever that is. So it should be a literal locust. Is the devil a literal snake? Is Jesus a literal lamb? It's impossible. He's a man. He's one of us. It's a human being figuratively He is a lamb He's the Passover lamb. In fact, he's the Lamb of God. He is slaughtered to cover our sins and pass over our sins So we have to understand when this book doesn't spell it out for us. I We still need to interpret the symbols as symbols, which usually means going back to the Old Testament. Look at Revelation 1.20. There you'll see the stars are not literal stars. It's figurative for angels. The lampstands are figurative for churches. Look at Revelation 3.4. The purity of the garments in Revelation 3.4. It's not literally talking about how carefully they've done their laundry, right? That would be a hyper-literal interpretation. It's figurative for their spiritual purity, their moral purity, they are worthy, they walk in white. We'll see that again in the coming verses. In Revelation 4-5, the seven lamps of fire are not literal lamps of fire, they're the seven spirits of God. Revelation 5-6, the seven horns and seven eyes are not really horns and eyes, they are the seven spirits of God. There you can see an example where John actually gives us two different camera views the same reality. He shows us the seven spirits of God, first as lamps of fire, second as horns and as eyes. This is very intriguing. So what you'll notice is that sometimes John will bring in different symbols, give us different camera angles to consider these, and sometimes there's still some figurative reference there. What is the seven spirits of God? Well, does God have seven Holy Spirits? Of course not. He's actually literally referring to the one Holy Spirit, if you want to be literal. But the Holy Spirit fills the seven lampstands, which is why he's revealed as the seven spirits of God. And those seven lampstands stand for the church universal throughout history. Seven being the number of completion. fullness and perfection in God's Word. So we have to be very sensitive to this figurative language. Look at Revelation 5a. The bowls of incense are the prayers of the saints. And if you think about the Old Testament, this is a place where you could say as you go throughout the Old Testament, incense is presented with prayer. Prayer is presented with incense. There's the hour of incense in Luke's Gospel when he talks about going in for prayer. Those things are closely linked. So when you see incense in Revelation, It's a symbol for prayer, spelled out. Revelation 7, 13. The question is, who are the ones clothed in white robes? And he spells out, these are the ones who emerged from the great tribulation. They've washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. Now, can you literally wash red, or can you wash robes in red blood and make them literally white with red blood? It's figurative. For the forgiveness of sins, this is Revelation 1-5, to Him who loved us and He freed us, or as one manuscript says, He washed us from our sins in His own blood. Very much figurative language. Revelation 11, the two witnesses are two olive trees, also known as two lampstands. By the way, that also comes from the book of Zechariah. Let's go forward a little bit further. Revelation 16. Let's see if anyone recognizes where this comes from. This is tricky. There's only one Old Testament passage, I believe, that stands behind this. John sees coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. We'll talk about them next week. What does he see? Three unclean spirits like frogs. And then he says, the frogs are not literal frogs. They are the spirits of demons. These frogs are literally demons. Now where does this picture of frogs come from? Does anyone have any ideas? This is very difficult. Very difficult. Okay. Exodus, the $10 million answer, the frogs out of the mouth of babes, the frogs come from the book of Exodus. What's happening here is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are performing miracles and sign wonders for the church. These happened in the first century, and he confirms his authority through miracles. As we heard this morning, cleansing the leper, showing the miracle that confirms Christ's authority, that he has that authority to forgive us our sins. Well, what happens in Exodus? When the magicians see God's miracles, they copy God's miracles. And what they do is they present counterfeit miracles of his miracles. And if you read through the book of Exodus, the frogs, this is incredible. The frogs are the last miracle that they're able to successfully replicate before they fail. After that, they try to reproduce the bugs and they can't do it. They say, this is the finger of God. and it cannot be duplicated. So what this is showing here in Revelation 16 is that you have something that looks like a counterfeit trinity, and they are giving you counterfeit miracles, just like the magicians did in Exodus. And what they are performing is the last miracle that they were able to counterfeit on the brink of failure before they ran out of power in their opposition to God. Let's turn over to the other side. Revelation 17, the seven heads are not seven heads, they're seven mountains, which refers to a geographical region. We'll talk about that when we get to the beast and the number of the beast. 1712, the 10 horns are really 10 kings. That's why when you see the beast symbolically has 10 horns, those are referring to the 10 kings that he gives authority to. Revelation 13, eight, the number, we'll talk about that in coming weeks. 1714, the lamb is obviously not a literal lamb. He is the Lord of Lords and he is the King of Kings. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. 1718, the woman is not a woman per se, she's a city, she is a kingdom. And what you'll see is that Revelation is a tale of two women, or you could say a tale of two cities. God's bride, and then you could say the bride of Satan throughout the book of Revelation, two kingdoms at war. Revelation 19.8, the fine linen, Not physical linen, it's the righteous deeds of the saints. The dragon, the serpent, is not a snake and he's not a dragon. He is the devil. He is a spiritual demon. Just like the frogs were demonic spirits, the dragon is a demonic spirit. The arch-demonic spirit. Revelation 2014, the lake of fire, it will literally be as bad as you could possibly imagine an everlasting lake of fire to be. Um, but literally God says it is what he calls the second death. And, uh, I believe there's actually some deeper, uh, punishment there even beyond what ordinary physical fire could produce. So there are deeper meanings here. Revelation 21, 22, there is no physical temple. Or you might say there's no literal temple because the Lord God and the Lamb will be the temple in eternity. Next week we're going to talk about signs and what you might call signifying or creating symbolic language. You see in Revelation 12 a sign in heaven, a sign in heaven. We'll talk about that next week, but for now, we'll take our last five minutes that we can open up for additional questions today. But I hope this puts our feet on the ground to realize this book is so filled with symbols that once again, the church's approach to this book is generally opposite of how God would have us to read this book. God is telling us dozens of times that these are symbols, these are figures. When you come to something like the lamb, it does not spell out for you By the way, this is not a literal lamb. But if you try to interpret it that way, you're going to run into heresy, right? So we have to be extremely careful there. Another problem is that even those people who claim you must interpret this book literally, they reach a breaking point where they approach a symbol where they say, I can't do it. And if you have conversations with people that come from that church tradition, what they will typically say is, well, that's obviously not literal. That's obviously not figurative. They will say it's obvious that Satan's not a dragon. It's obvious that the locusts are not bugs, right? Well, why is it obvious to you that the locusts are Apache helicopters? Where did you find Apache helicopters in the Old Testament? Where did John find Apache helicopters in the Old Testament? Is it that obvious to you or perhaps are you wearing Israel colored lenses? That's the problem. So I propose if we put on Old Testament lenses, if we put on Christ colored lenses, we will understand the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is communicated through Old Testament symbols. So further questions. What questions do we have as we wrap up our study for today? Or observations, insights, comments. Please. So you mentioned about the righteous, the white linen of the saints. You mentioned it was the righteousness of Christ and you also said it's the righteous deed of the saints. Can you connect those two for us? Absolutely. There are certainly two sides of the same coin. So the initial statement is the washing of the robes and the robes can only be washed by Christ. When Christ speaks of apostasy in the churches, he speaks of those that have or have not soiled their garments. So those who are basically claiming to be saved by Christ, if their garments are so soiled because they've worshiped false gods and they've gone into apostasy, they've left the gospel, that's the soiling of the garments. So the purity of the garments after the washing actually points to a faithful church that has actually followed Christ and has kept their robes unspotted from apostasy or from going out of bounds in that sense. It's very, very important. And that shows us something of the richness there of two different angles on the same symbolism. Right, it's a good question. The question is could something like locusts emerge on a greater scale and in a fairly literal sense in God's final judgment. I will say God is certainly free, and he is certainly able to do that if that's what he desires. The language that he uses for the locusts, when we come to that in Revelation 9, what we'll see is it becomes so impossible to interpret the locusts as locusts that at that point, you really can't view them too literally. They have hair like women. They have faces like human beings. They have breastplates of iron. There are so many different combinations of symbols that come together with the locusts that when we come to those we'll see one of the things that's happening is it presents a counterfeit version of God's holy angels when you see the locusts. We'll see that in the coming weeks. So that actually suggests demonic forces when we talk about the locusts in Revelation and he makes the language clear enough that we can see that. If God desired to use massive locusts, I would affirm He can certainly do that. But the language there, I don't think it indicates it. Mike? I wouldn't necessarily use the word scholarship, which is the only qualification I would make, but in terms of the revelation that was shared with the apostles and their fellowship, they were studious as scholars, I'll affirm that. I just don't want to suggest in any way that this is a purely academic thing, that they were able to just connect the dots or paint by numbers in the perfectly correct way. What happened was that Christ's teaching was the core of all the apostles' teaching, and they shared that fellowship together. The revelation that he gave of himself, that in me, he said, the scriptures must have their fulfillment. And he showed that he was the suffering servant from Isaiah and all these pictures from the Old Testament. That was the foundation for all of the apostles' teaching. And as God gave them grace to dig deeper and deeper, you're absolutely right. They did fellowship together. There was iron sharpening iron. There are shared ideas about the same passages that they studied together. And so there is a sense of incredible unity in many of the, many of even the symbols that they use. So I'll give you one example, and this is what we'll close with for today. When John is, sorry, not John. When Paul is caught up to the third heaven. When Paul has his apocalyptic moment, like John has his moment. John speaks of the seventh trumpet as the final fulfillment, the end of time, actually literally in that language. Some people say there will be no further delay, but the end of time in the seventh trumpet. When Paul was caught up, what did he describe? At the last trumpet, Christ will return. Do you think God gave them similar revelations in his throne room visions for Paul and for John? There's an exceptional commonality to the revelation that was shared with all of the apostles. It's it's it's a it's a beautiful, beautiful truth. And all of the apostles are fleshing that out for us. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your love and your care for us. We thank you for this book and we thank you for the immense depth and the riches that we find in this book. We ask especially, Lord, that you would give us the grace to dive deep into your word, and to scoop up the riches of the Old Testament, and to bring them and bow before your throne, and to see what is the glory and the fulfillment and the reality of all these things in Jesus Christ, in his death, his burial, and his resurrection for us, and his exaltation, Lord, as you reveal that he is now ruling over all the kings and kingdoms of the earth. So we pray that you would bless this study We thank you so much. Help us to worship and continue to worship today in spirit and truth. In Jesus' name, amen. You can keep some of these handouts for next week, and we'll dive deeper into symbolism next time.