So let's start with prayer and then we will go over our quiz and our method for today. Our God and Father, thank You so much for the blessing of this day, for the opportunity to come together on such a beautiful morning to study Your Word. We thank You, Lord, for the desire that You have placed within our hearts to know more of what You have revealed concerning Yourself. We're thankful for the delight that we feel in reading Scripture and for the delight that we have in learning more of what it has to teach us. And we pray that You would bless us toward that end this day. that Your Spirit would guide us and help us, that He would illumine our minds and the text as we read and study it together, that You would bless this class, that indeed all of us would grow in faith, in our understanding of Scripture, and grow in our hope in the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen. Okay, so a couple of notes. First of all, the class audio is now available on sermon audio. So I said we weren't originally going to do that. We were going to make it available some other way, but we had so many requests from people who are not ladies. that we decided to put it on sermon audio and turn about his fair play because Chuck is with us this morning and Debbie's been coming to the men's Bible class for months, right? So I said, turn about his fair play. So he said he's not going to participate, but I'm excited that he's here. This is a good opportunity for us to make this material available to more people. All of the handouts are available on the website. Jonathan has a special page devoted to that, and then links to the audio, but you'll also be able to access it through sermon audio with all of the rest of the sermons and classes that we put up there. Now, I've given you a quiz, and you'll have a weekly quiz that as you come in at the beginning of class each week, before I give you a new handout, you'll have that quiz. Now, there are several ways that you can use it. You can fold it up and make a paper airplane out of it. And that's a perfectly legitimate thing if you want to do. You can put your name on it and keep it as a record with a binder or a folder of these studies. You can do it anonymously. You can use it as an open book exercise where you're filling it out from your notes. You can do it as a closed book exercise. But we will give you that quiz at the beginning of each class period and then I will review that quiz at the beginning of each class period. So, if you want to use it as a closed book test, you'll still have the opportunity to fill in the rest of it. It will always relate to what we covered the week prior. Okay? Yes, ma'am. You're just taking it home and doing with it whatever you want to. I'm not going to collect them. I'm not going to grade them. You're going to have the opportunity to grade them at the beginning of every class. And all of the answers to the questions on the quiz will be in the notes that I've already provided you. So even if you want to keep it blank and take it home and use it as a review later, you certainly can. And then you can check yourself with the notes or you can ask me. and I'll help you check it. What I have found is that we learn more when we engage in active learning methods. One of the ways that we do that is instead of just passively sitting and listening or reading, we actually listen and read. We take input and then we hide that information and we try to repeat it. We try to speak it or try to express it in terms of a quiz or something like that. and we retain far more that way. So I told you a few weeks ago at the beginning of our class, when I started doing pre-tests and weekly quizzes and final exams in church-based class settings, there was a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. But after about three or four weeks, people were saying, I've never learned this much out of a Bible class. So I really do believe that the method is sound. And even if you don't want to avail yourself of it, if you say it's just not helpful to me, it stresses me out too much, that's fine. Just fold it up, put it in your Bible, come to class, and just enjoy and participate. OK? Now, the quiz for this week, several of you said, no, I already have this one. But actually, you don't. If you look carefully, you'll see that three of the questions on this week's quiz also appear. Did I take yours? I'm going to – can I use it real quick? Sorry. I didn't know if that was yours or if that was an extra. It is very close to the same. Here, let me grab – because I forgot to keep one up here for me to use now for the review. Okay. Now, it looks very much the same because there are three of the questions that are the same from the pre-test that I gave you in our first class period. But you'll notice that question three and question five on this week's quiz are new. Now, part of the reason that there is repetition is that repetition is the key to learning, right? And so some of these questions that you saw on the pre-test are basic questions about the Book of Revelation that if you have those firmly in your mind, they're going to help you as you read and study the book. And of course, the rest of the contents, if you will, of the book, and some of which was on the pre-test, will recur on later quizzes and in the lesson material that we study. Now, first question is, what is the theme of the revelation? Notice it's revelation, right? We said it's singular, not plural, right? What is the theme of the revelation? Okay, you could answer this a number of ways. The theme that I suggested is God's avenging of the saints, right? Avenging his people who are being persecuted. But you could express this a number of different ways. We said that chapter 17 and verse 14 is an excellent thematic verse, kind of a thematic summary of the whole vision that John receives. You could simply say Jesus wins, right? You could say that Jesus protecting and preserving his church in the face of persecution. There are a number of ways you could express that theme. What's important is that you find a theme that correctly captures the contents of the book and it's easy for you to remember. So I recommend you memorize themes for every book of the Bible and that you try to make them no more than three to five words long. Okay? Now secondly, describe the circumstances at the time Revelation was written. How would you describe that? an eye of the storm. That's exactly right. You're between the walls of the storm. So there's already been persecution that is mentioned, especially in chapter two. We're going to see references to this next week. And then there is a greater persecution and an hour of trial that's coming upon the whole world. And so at the time of revelation, you could say that the church is being persecuted. But if you wanted to be even more specific, you might say that we're between periods of persecution. We're within the persecution and kind of in the eye of the storm where there is a moment of stillness, but the worst is yet to come. Okay? You could do that, absolutely. That's part of the historical background. John's exile on Patmos. Yeah. Question three, what type of literature is the Revelation and list three characteristics of that genre? Karen. That's right. Okay, it's apocalyptic. That's the primary genre. And then we've also said that it has the characteristics of an epistle, and it has the characteristics of prophecy, more general prophecy. So sometimes commentators or pastor and preachers will say that Revelation kind of fits into three different categories. If you're going to remember one primary genre, one literary type, then it's apocalyptic literature, but it's also an epistle written to these seven churches, and it's also prophetic discourse, okay? Now, what would be three characteristics of apocalyptic literature? It's very symbolic, highly symbolic, okay? So again, a lot of times people come to Revelation, they'll say, well, you don't believe in interpreting the Bible literally. Of course I believe in interpreting the Bible literally, but if you tell me it's raining cats and dogs, then what I think you mean is that it's literally raining hard. I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that literal interpretation is literalistic, right? Where if you say it's raining cats and dogs, I expect that puppies and kittens are falling out of the sky. All right? So a literal reading of apocalyptic literature recognizes that there's symbolic value here. There aren't seven Holy Spirits. There's only one Holy Spirit. But in chapter one, there are seven Holy Spirits, right? The three generals at the Battle of Armageddon I don't think are going to be demonic frogs, and yet that's how they're portrayed in chapter 16. OK? So we have to recognize that there is symbolism that is central to apocalyptic literature. What's another characteristic? Visions. A vision is different than the way that most of the prophetic literature, especially in the Old Testament, is delivered to the prophets where God will speak directly to them or where they might have a dream. A vision is kind of like a virtual reality experience where John is caught up into heaven itself. His body is still on Patmos, right? But he is caught up to be with the Lord in the throne room of God and to see things in kind of an out-of-body way. And in the context of a vision, he can see, he can hear, he can smell, he can taste, he can experience all kinds of things just like we could in ordinary life. And that's very, very different from a dream. You know, a dream you're participating in, but it's not that real, okay? And so a vision is a characteristic of apocalyptic literature. And then maybe one more. We gave several, but maybe one more. Future events. Apocalyptic literature always looks at future events, particularly in the context of national crisis. And so it's always kind of foretelling the victory that God is promising to his people. And that's not always a characteristic of prophecy. We think, well, all prophecies telling future events. Well actually that's not true. The primary role of the prophets in the Old Testament was not as foretellers, but as foretellers of the Word of God. They were preachers primarily. Now they would sometimes make predictions, but primarily their role were as foretellers. preachers and teachers of the people, especially in a time where the people needed to be called to repentance. Apocalyptic literature, though, is predicting the future, is telling the future events to the persecuted church, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, and reassuring them of God's victory. Now, number four, list the seven churches in Asia to whom the message of Revelation was sent. Remember that Asia here refers to the province of Asia Minor. So we're not thinking about China, Russia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam. We're not thinking about the continent of Asia. We're thinking about Asia Minor, which is today mostly Turkey. And what are the seven churches to whom the Revelation is addressed? Ephesus. Philadelphia is one. Thyatira, Smyrna, Sardis, Pergamos, Laodicea. Very good. And so it will be helpful to you if you memorize that list in the order that they appear, because actually the order that they appear is roughly a circle in the province. And so I'll give you a map. probably next week in our class that will show that to you. Now I'm going to suggest as we study the seven churches of Asia that even though these are seven actual churches and they're receiving copies of this letter and what Christ says to them is for them, right, and it is directly to them, but nevertheless the fact that there are seven of them And seven is kind of this number of perfection and completeness all through the book of Revelation. I'm going to suggest that those churches stand for more than just themselves. In other words, that these churches are in many respects kind of symbolic of the whole church, the full church, the visible church to whom God is speaking. And then number five lists the four basic interpretations of the book of Revelation. We gave this to you in our first session, and these are different ways that people approach the book. Do you remember? Futurist. Futurist is today by far the vast majority of evangelical Christians are futurists when it comes to the book of Revelations. By far the most popular school of interpretation, which is interesting because that was not the case up until the 1800s. And so it's a very much more recent way of reading the book. Futurist reading of Revelation says the vast majority of the book, if not almost the entirety of it, is still in the future. We're still waiting for the outcome of that, the rapture, the tribulation, and those sorts of things. What's another approach? The literist? You're thinking maybe preterist. Yeah, probably preterist. Preterist believes just kind of the opposite of the futurist, right? By the way, a futurist is almost always, he will say he's having a literalist interpretation. So that may be where that got confused in your mind. But a preterist believes almost the opposite of the futurist. He believes that the vast majority of the book is in the past, right? That it's already been fulfilled. And there are two different ways that Preterists read the Book of Revelation. One is that it is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. And there are many examples of people reading the book that way over the years. And then secondly, reading the Book of Revelation is a prophecy of God's judgment of Rome, the Roman Empire, which was the dominant persecuting force at the time that John was writing. And so in either case, a preterist would say most of the events of the book are already fulfilled, and just like we look back at the exodus and at the wandering in the wilderness and the invasion and conquest of Canaan, we see God's faithfulness there, and that's the way that Revelation benefits us today. At the same time, any orthodox preterist, okay, and an orthodox preterist still believes in the second coming of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead, right? Any orthodox preterist would say, but the final chapters of the book of Revelation, those speak of things that are yet to come. So chapter 20 clearly describes, I think, a day of judgment. for all the dead, all the world. And that is still in the future. And most preterists, not all, would say chapters 21 and 22 are a picture of heaven and of the eschaton, the glory that awaits the church. And so that would still be in the future as well. So we've got futurists, we've got preterists. What are the other two? The idealist. Now, an idealist, we said this is the best commentaries on Revelation by and large over the last 60 years have been written from this perspective. And I'll give you some recommendations on some reading as we go forward. But an idealist says, well, the book of Revelation is not really about any particular historical moment or event. It's describing instead this ongoing struggle between God and the church, and the devil and his agents, the demons and the forces of darkness in this world. And this is a story that is repeated over and over and over again. So the Jews persecuted the church, but God overcame them. And the Romans persecuted the church and God overcame them. And at any given point in time in human history, somebody somewhere is persecuting the church, but God overcomes them. And that's kind of the idealist reading. And I said, even though I'm not an idealist, I think the idealist school, as it were, of interpretation has a lot to teach us about the book of Revelation. Very, very helpful. Because one of the things that the idealist interpreters are very good at is helping you see the forest and not get lost among the trees. And remember that, look, this is a symbolic picture of this struggle, and people are wanting to get down into the weeds and talk about, what does this mean or that mean? And they're saying, no, no, no, you're missing the big picture. So the idealist school of interpretation is very, very helpful in that regard. And then what would be the fourth one? the historicist, that's right, the historical reading of the book of Revelation. Now this was very popular in the time of the Reformation, sadly, I think. I'm showing my bias here just a little bit. There are great, wonderful, godly men who have read the book this way, but I think that it is a mistake to read it this way. They see the book of Revelation as really kind of a timeline of human history, from the time of John all the way up until the return of Christ. Now you may say, well, that sounds like a futurist reading. Now, the Futurist reading says almost the whole book is still in the future from us, 2,000 years after the time the book was written. Whereas a Historicist says the Revelation is describing the whole history of the church, and so we see the papal anathemas against the Reformation, we see sometimes Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, all kinds of important historical characters, they're all kinds of illustrations. I was talking to a friend of mine who is a historicist today and he was talking, we met last week for dinner and we were talking about the book of Revelation and he said that he was thinking following one of the Puritan commentators that in chapter 12 maybe the child that is born is Constantine. And I'm like, oh no. not Constantine, it's Jesus. But anyway, that's OK. That's all right. Because the Puritan he was talking about, I really love and admire. So we all have flaws in our theology. I think that the historicist reading of Revelation is a little bit misguided there. But what I do appreciate about it is that it recognizes that the Bible speaks to real people in real places about real events. And this is the weakness of the idealist reading, is that the idolist reading says, well, this is just kind of a philosophical description of this struggle, whereas we saw in our last class, and we'll see again today, the book is addressed to real people at a specific point in time about specific events that are going to happen very soon, okay? And so that's very, very important. Now, we said that some people will say there's a fifth view, and probably even a lot of the commentators that I would describe as idealists would put themselves in this fifth camp, and that is an eclectic view. An eclectic view kind of draws on the strengths of all of the camps and probably to some extent all of us are eclecticists in that way, right? E-C-L-E-C-T-I-C, eclectic. And so there's probably some truth that all of us are kind of hybridizing all of those different views. And that's one of the reasons that it's good for us to be able to dialogue with Christians who have different interpretations of books of the Bible. I did all of my undergraduate work and a good bit of my seminary work at a dispensational school. And so I spent a lot of time studying dispensationalism. I took classes on the books of Revelation and Daniel from very prominent dispensational scholars. And I disagree profoundly with their conclusions. And yeah, it was a wonderful experience. We had a very good time. And I wrote against their view. And I got good grades. So I didn't have anything to complain about. All right. Now what we're going to do today, and I do have a handout for you. Kirstie, would you and Nanette maybe hand these out? What I'm going to do today is I'm going to give you a handout that is going to far exceed the amount of material that we're going to cover in our class today. This handout will outline for you chapters 1 through 3. And my primary interest in these classes is not to interpret every sign and symbol in the book. but to try and help you get the big picture of Revelation. So when I teach Revelation, I like to do it at three different levels of granularity. I like to teach the whole book of Revelation in one sermon or class period. I call it a thumbnail sketch or a big picture view of Revelation. Secondly, I like to do it in about eight classes, because in eight classes you can get the big picture, but you can drill down a little bit more on the details. And then I like to do this kind of class, where we're going to take probably about six months going through the book. But my sense is that what most people need is an overall understanding of the book rather than a detailed exegetical study of every line and phrase. And so what we're going to do is move through the book at a pretty good clip. There are 22 chapters and many of the chapters we'll handle in just one class. We're going to cover all of chapter 1 today. Chapters 2 and 3 we may take a little bit more time because we'll be looking at the seven churches. And some other chapters we may be able to combine. But we're mainly going to let the flow of the narrative kind of determine the pace of our study. And as we have specific questions as we go through, sometimes I may reserve the right to punt because I may know that it's something that's going to answer itself later on and I'd rather you see it as we come to it. Or it may be a question that I'm willing to answer but that I would rather answer at a different point in the book and so I may put you off a little bit. Sometimes we may just have to say, you know what, we're not sure. That there may be questions about nuances within the descriptions that are found. That we may just have to say, I'm not sure. But most of the time I think we'll be able to see, as long as we keep the verses in context, we'll be able to see the point that's being made. Now let's start by rereading chapter one. We read it in our last class and we'll read it and discuss it today. the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings of the earth. to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priest to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so, amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. 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. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, 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. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 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. The hairs of his head were white like white wool like snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 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. 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 and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Now chapter one is fantastically important in understanding the rest of the book. And that's often the case. We think about a lot of books of the Bible where the first chapter really is foundational. Certainly the first chapter of the Bible itself, the first chapter of Genesis. is a key to understanding the rest of the whole Bible, right? But in Revelation chapter 1, you have not only the introduction and the address and a little bit of historical background and the purpose of writing, but you also have this vision of the glorified Christ, right? John is on the island of Patmos in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. We're about to talk about what that means. And he has this vision of Jesus. But it's not Jesus as he was prior to the crucifixion. It's not even Jesus as he was after the resurrection, where he is in his glorified body. Now, he's already in his glory there, but he has not yet ascended to the Father. He has not been seated at the right hand of the Father. He has not yet received the kingdom and the fullness that he does at the ascension. And now, in this vision, we see Christ not only in his resurrected body, but in his glory. And John's response to that is to faint, you know? I mean, he falls down like a dead man. Now, you need to remember, John, the apostle John who is writing the Revelation, is, I believe, the disciple that is referred to as the beloved disciple in the fourth gospel and is also the author of the fourth gospel and the three letters of John that we have in the New Testament. And if that's correct, then this John was Jesus's closest friend among the company of the apostles. I mean, they have the closest relationship of all of the apostles with Jesus. And John sees Jesus, and it's not as though he walks up and says, hey, buddy, how are you doing? Long time no see. I mean, he faints. He just falls down like he's dead. And Jesus has to tell him, do not fear. Right? Places his hand upon me, verse 17, saying, fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. What's going to happen when every eye sees him one day? When the dead are raised, and every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and they won't be able to do anything else. We see this in the Gospels in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the reactions that the demons have to the presence of Christ. You'd think the demons, they would be the last ones to ever acknowledge Jesus, but they're actually always the first ones. Right? They recognize who Jesus is. They run toward him. They bow down. They confess him. Every time they come into proximity, and even when the apostles don't understand who Jesus is, the demons know who Jesus is. And you would think that the devil is such a liar that the demons would want to lie about Jesus, but they don't. They will say, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Have you come to torment us before the time? There is something about the personal presence of Christ that makes it impossible for anyone, regenerate or unregenerate, to do anything other than bow down. and acknowledge him. So one day, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now, we go back up to the beginning of the chapter, and we see this is the revelation, right? The apocalypsis. The apocalypse. And revelation is a reminder that this is intended to be an unveiling, an uncovering. And it's sad. I don't believe that the book of Revelation is the hardest thing in the New Testament. I really don't. I don't think it's the most difficult passage or section of literature in the New Testament. In fact, I don't think it's probably number five. It maybe squeaks into the top five of most difficult books in the Bible. There are multiple other books in the Old Testament that are far more challenging than Revelation, and yet I think a lot of the church approaches Revelation as if it is still this great mystery. You know, and maybe pastors are afraid to preach about it, or there's been so much misinformation about it, so many different interpretations of it that we just don't know what to think. We feel intimidated by it. What I tried to encourage you in our last class, and I will continue to encourage you throughout the duration of our study, is the best way to understand Revelation is for you to be reading Revelation regularly and in large chunks. Preferably in one sitting, and if not in one sitting, try, if at all possible, to do it in two halves. Chapters 1-11 is one unit of the vision. Chapters 12-22 is the second unit of the vision. If you can read it according to its natural divisions, and you can see a big chunk of text at the same time, read Revelation with your imagination turned on. so that you are seeing and hearing and smelling and experiencing right alongside John, you will have a much better understanding. If you'll read Revelation the way that you read a novel, rather than the way that you read an academic text that you're trying to parse out and interpret, a lot of people are intimidated by Revelation, and yet the message of Revelation is pretty clear. Now, the symbolism of Revelation can be complex. There are a lot of things in Revelation. But part of the reason is that Revelation is so difficult for us is that we're asking the wrong questions. And I don't mean that in an ugly way. I don't say that to be offensive. But we're asking the wrong questions about the book so often. So we're coming to Revelation and say, well, who does this refer to? Or when is this going to be? Or what do I see in the news or in the newspaper that is comparable to what I'm seeing described? And what I'm telling you is if you would read Revelation as if it were a story, A picture, a symbolic message of comfort and assurance to the saints. You get a lot more out of it than you do right now worrying about what it means. Well, spend the next six months reading Revelation weekly. And then after you've read it 25 or 26 times, you're going to have a much better sense of what it means even without doing a lot of interpretive work trying to find what it means. So the very word revelation is important here. The name of the book is important here. It's an uncovering. It's a revealing of something, albeit hidden in symbols, it's not hidden to the church. that has the Holy Spirit. God gave this message to the Son to show to His servants the things that must soon take place. You want to, if you're the kind of person that underlines in your Bible, you want to underline this, right? Chapter 1 in verse 1, chapter 1 in verse 3. We're going to see it again in chapter 3. We're going to see it twice in chapter 22. All of those references are on your study guide from the first week of class. Things that must soon take place. The time is near. Don't bind up. Don't seal up this prophecy because these things are going to happen soon, not just suddenly. And that's how some futurist interpreters, in fact, virtually all futurist interpreters will interpret these portions in that way. They'll say, well, what it means is when it comes, it's going to come quickly. You say, no, that may be true, but that's not what that means. It says it's going to happen soon. And Jesus is saying this to John 2,000 years ago. John is saying this to the church 2,000 years ago. Now, remember that when we get technical, Revelation was not written to us. It was preserved for us, but it was not written to us. Originally it was written to the seven churches of Asia that John was personally acquainted with in the first century, right, in the Roman world. And they were the original recipients of the message. Now, does that mean it has nothing to say to us? No, of course not. No, I mean Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, but the Spirit saw fit to preserve that letter for us so that it can also benefit the church in Mesa, right? And so we're not saying that the Bible is not intended to be for us, but we're saying revelation like the rest of Scripture was written to a particular audience. And if we read it in a way that eliminates any real significance of that work for the original audience, well then we can be pretty sure that we're misreading it, right? So we'll have more to say about that as we go. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John. This is how Jesus, who has received the message from the Father, gives it to John by means of an angel. That's a characteristic of apocalyptic literature. Who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. John is an eyewitness of the revelation the same way that he's an eyewitness of the life and ministry of Jesus. Revelation is a very visual book, right? I mean, it's probably good that we don't have a movie version of the Revelation in our canon rather than the literary form because it would violate the second commandment. But nonetheless, it's a very visual book. There's a lot here to see, to hear, to smell, right? And John experiences this. He's not just writing down words that are being dictated to him by the Lord. He's actually seeing this and writing down what he saw. Verse 3, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. Not everybody in the church in the ancient world, or for the first 1,500 years of the church for that matter, had their own copy of the scriptures. Only the very wealthy could have their own copy of the scriptures, and then they might not have a complete canon of scripture. You would have, each church would have a reader, right? And you would have men who would stand and read the word of God. And that was how scripture was intended to be heard. We go all the way back to Deuteronomy chapter 30. That's how Israel was supposed to hear the word. I'll say this, I think about this every Lord's Day, although I don't think I've ever commented on this, but When I say, our scripture reading for the day, and I'll give the passage, and I'll say, if you'd like to follow along in your Bibles or listen carefully as we hear the word of God, I think about the fact that following along in your Bible is not a bad thing at all. That's normally what I do when I'm visiting at a church and they are doing scripture. And yet, there is something to be said for listening without following. and exercising what is becoming, unfortunately, a lost skill. And that is the ability to listen to text without seeing it and still remaining focused. And we live in a world now, I mean, how many of us memorize phone numbers anymore? I have trouble remembering Kirstie's phone number. I mean, that's embarrassing. But it's because it's programmed into my phone. I can just punch a button that has her picture on it, and I don't have to remember her phone number. And a lot of us have difficulty focusing for any given period of time if we're not being visually stimulated. We have trouble retaining numbers or words or ideas because we don't have to, because information is so readily accessible. So there is something to say. discouraging you from following along. That's why I've never mentioned it in the service. There's something to be said for practicing the discipline of listening, you know, closing your eyes and really giving attention to the Word of God, right? David's lazy listening. Oh, yeah, exactly. Right, right. Very good, yeah. That's right. Yeah, it was very convicting. No, that's an excellent connection. That's right. That's right. When Dave Crum was talking about lazy listening and warning us as a church against being lazy listeners and how profound and helpful that was, yeah, we tend to be that. It's easy to fall into that rut. So here is the first, by the way, of seven beatitudes in the Revelation. I've given you the references in the study guide for all of them. But blessed is the one. Blessed is he. You think about the opening of the Sermon on the Mount. You think about Psalm 1, blessed is the man. These beatitudes occur throughout scripture. Seven of them in Revelation. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. And blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it. Why? For the time is near. Now I don't think that that second part of the beatitude is describing two different sets of people. There's a blessing for hearing, and then there's another blessing for keeping. No, the ones who hear are supposed to be the ones who keep, right? So you're not only supposed to hear, you're not be hearers of the word only, but be doers of the word, right? And that's what he's saying, is that the one who has the privilege of standing before the church and reading aloud the words of scripture, that is a blessing. There is a blessing for that man. But there's also a blessing for the church that hears it and keeps it, And therefore, there is something to do in Revelation. Not only for us, but especially for that original audience. There is a message. Overwhelmingly, Revelation is a message of comfort. But it's not only a message of comfort. It is a promise of victory, but it's not only a promise of victory. There are exhortations in this book that we are not only to hear, but we are to apply, to obey, and those exhortations all relate to perseverance. Endure, persist, be faithful until death, we'll see next week in the letter to Smyrna. But that's not saying just keep going to church until you die. That's saying be faithful to the Lord Jesus even to the point of death, even to the point of giving your life for Jesus Christ. And if that's what the church in Smyrna was called to, then the very least that we could do is keep going to church until we die. I mean, seriously, the challenge of persevering in our day and time and in our context far less than what many of our brethren experience even today. John to the seven churches that are in Asia, verse 4, grace to you and peace from him who was and who is and who is to come. We have the apostolic greeting at the beginning of the service where the minister raises his hands. And this is symbolic, by the way, of placing hands on you. That's what we do with the apostolic greeting and the benediction. You open and you close the service with the laying on of hands, but it's just a collective laying on of hands. And how do the New Testament letters begin? Grace to you. How do they end? Grace be with you. So bringing grace and then leaving grace. grace, and Revelation is an epistle, so it has that feature, but it is an explicitly Trinitarian blessing and greeting that is brought. The one who is, who was, who is to come. There is the eternality of the Father, Son, and Spirit, right? He always has been, always will be, and is now present with us, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne. Now, that's not talking about some other spirit. You say, well, is this some special class of angels? Well, no. You can see that there is the Eternal Father, the spirits, and Jesus Christ. Well, there's the Trinity in this greeting, so the seven spirits would be the Holy Spirit. You say, but why are there seven? I thought there was one Holy Spirit. There is one Holy Spirit. Welcome to one of the features of apocalyptic literature, the use of numbers as symbolic images, right? Again, when people say, you don't believe in reading the book of Revelation literally, I say, I absolutely do. I don't think that We should disagree about some of these things, you know? All of us should be able to see that there are not seven Holy Spirits, that there's one. So what would the number seven convey? Fullness, completeness, perfection. The Holy Spirit who goes out into all the earth, right, is perfect, complete, there before the throne in heaven. Sandy. Okay. That's exactly right. It's the divine number. The perfect number. The number of perfection. Which is why we're going to see numbers that are not 7 with the number of the beast in chapter 13. But I'm just teasing you now because we're not there yet. And from Jesus Christ, this greeting, this blessing of grace and peace is coming from the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. The church is being called in Revelation to be a witness. In fact, right now, as John is writing, the church is dying for being a witness, right? I mean, as you go over the next several chapters, what are you going to see? Chapter 6 and verse 9, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain. For what? For the Word of God and for the witness they had borne. Those martyrs, you know where our English word martyr comes from? It comes from the Greek word for witness. Martyr, in Greek, is a witness. And a martyr, in our English use of the term, is one who bears witness and gives his life for that witness. And so there is this beautiful, beautiful, blessing at the beginning of the book, that as John is writing on behalf of Christ, he brings grace and peace to the church from the Father, Son, and Spirit, but he identifies Jesus as the one who has faithfully witnessed to the grace of God, to the Word of God, to the truth of God. And now the church that is suffering and dying for their witness to Christ are reminded that Christ was faithful until death. and the church will be faithful unto death. This is the theology of the cross, right? This is a theology of suffering. This is a theology of perseverance. He is the firstborn of the dead, not the first person ever to rise from the dead, but the preeminent one. That's the significance of firstborn, right? The preeminent one, and the first one to rise, never to die again. And he is the first to ever rise in a glorified, resurrected form. All others who were raised at a point in time subsequently died. They remained mortal. And he is the ruler of kings on earth. Why is that important? Because it's the kings on earth that are persecuting the church. It's the kings on earth that are almost always the enemies of the saints. Yeah, I want to tread lightly here, but Viola's reading my mind. I mean, this is just bizarre that American Christians think that there are political solutions to spiritual problems. that they think if you put the right person in office or the right people in office or the right policies or programs, then we're going to enter into, I mean, maybe we're just all post-millennial and that's how we believe that this piece of the gospel is going to come about, but I don't see anywhere in scripture that there's a political way of bringing that about. It's always been, almost always, not always, almost always been the case that the governing authorities were the opponents of true Orthodox Christianity rather than the friends of it. And on those occasions where we have seen a enmeshing, if you will, of the church and the state, it's almost always been to the detriment of the integrity of the church. Right? I mean, praise God for the fact that Constantine, to whatever extent, converted to Christianity and pronounced this edict of peace at Milan, but it wasn't in the long run good for the church. You know, you say it's good that the persecution ended, yes, but there was a lot of pollution that resulted. And unfortunately, that's what you've often had, where the church and the state have enmeshed themselves and the church has looked to the state rather than as a potentially hostile foe, has instead looked to them as a savior. We need to know that Jesus is the ruler of the kings on earth because I need to know that Jesus's power, pardon the expression, pardon the pun, but he trumps the power of the president, right? He has veto over our Congress. He is the judge who will sit in judgment over our Supreme Court. Praise God, right? I need to know that. The church needs to know that. To him who loved us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom. Could I point out that it doesn't say will make us a kingdom? Made us a kingdom. You are the kingdom of God. You have been translated, transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son, Colossians 1, verses 11 and 12. And you need to recognize this is your identity. You are a pilgrim and sojourner in this land, but you are a part of the kingdom of Christ. He has made us to be a kingdom and priests to His God and Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. You should never mistake the pastor for a priest. I mean, I do think that much of evangelicalism needs a much more robust understanding of ordination and the importance of ordination. I think our church learned a lot about that over the year and a half as we went through our own process coming to the OPC. And then we saw our elders coming to the front and hands being laid on them, and me coming to the front, kneeling down, and hands being laid on. That was a powerful moment. We need a more robust understanding of the significance of ordination, right? But you never need to mistake a pastor or an elder for a priest. You are priests. We are priests. The church is a nation of priests, as Israel was supposed to be. Exodus 19 is where John is actually alluding to that reference in Exodus 19, 5 and 6. And to Him, to the Father, be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds. This is the promise of Jesus' coming in judgment. And every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. And all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him, even so. Amen. May it be so. So be it when we say amen. We're saying, so be it. We want that to be true. We want that to be firm. We want that to be sure. Now, depending on how we're reading Revelation, we may see this promise of his return as a coming in judgment against Jerusalem. Those who handed him over for judgment and the Roman soldiers that were stationed in Jerusalem that actually shoved the spear into his side, we could see this perhaps as a promise of Jesus coming in judgment against the Roman powers that ordered him to be placed on the cross and ordered his side to be pierced. Or we could see this as Jesus coming in judgment against the whole world. And when all the dead are raised and every eye sees him, we see that in that global extent. But what I want you to recognize is that it's not necessarily a choice between those options. Right? It's not necessarily an either-or. It can be a both-and. Because every time Jesus comes in judgment against a nation, he is foreshadowing the day when he will come in judgment against the whole world. And that's part of what I mean when I say getting the big picture of Revelation. I don't think it would be a good use of our time for us to spend a lot of time debating all of the interpretive possibilities in verse 7. And to say, now we've got to decide today, when is this coming that's being described? Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. What's the significance of that? Is that Jewish? Is that Roman? Is that global? And what I'm telling you is, if you're reading the book of Revelation, you're recognizing that's an interesting question, and it might be worth giving some thought to at a given point in time, but it's not super important in terms of the overall message of the book. What's the promise of the book? Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. The church that was persecuted by the Jews needed to know Jesus is coming. The church that was persecuted by the Romans needed to know Jesus is coming. The church being persecuted today needs to know Jesus is coming, right? And we pray that He will. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Again, the sense of God's eternal, infinite majesty. You cannot read Revelation without being impressed with that, unless you're just not paying attention at all to what you read. 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." I'd love to unpack this at some length, but just recognize that John is already a participant in the kingdom, and so are all the Christians to whom he's writing, and so are you. He had been exiled to Patmos because of his faithful witness to the Word of God, because of his faithful preaching of the Gospel. And in verse 10, he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. Now, this is a fascinating place for us to suggest something that you may or may not have thought about before. I think many people just assume that when John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, he's describing some kind of a trance, being in a visionary moment of communion with the Lord on the first day of the week. I think he's talking about being in worship. I think he's actually talking probably about corporate worship on Patmos. Whatever church there may be there, whatever other individuals may have been sent there or have gathered together there, maybe he has had the opportunity to preach the gospel to some of the natives. I don't know who he'd be gathered with. If you're curious about references to this, we see this over and over and over in the New Testament. We could see in John chapter 4 in verse 24, Jesus saying, those who worship must worship in spirit. In truth, Philippians chapter 3 and verse 3, Paul says, we are those who worship in spirit. Over and over, language of worship is associated with being in the spirit. On the Lord's day, the church is in the spirit when we come together to worship God. Now, you may say, well, I'm just not sure I find that convincing. And that's fine. I'm not trying to argue that that's the only way you could read it. But I would suggest to you that you have far more references that support that reading of verse 10 than you would of simply assuming that in the spirit means in a vision, right, for which some proof text would be lacking, I would suggest. So I think John is actually worshiping when this vision comes upon him. It was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day when suddenly he hears this sound. A loud voice like a trumpet. Not a trumpet, but a loud voice like a trumpet. You see the symbolism? I mean, what is a voice like a trumpet sound? I don't know. It's a loud voice that is like a trumpet, right? But it gives you a word picture, right? It calls to your mind something startling and great. And John hears this voice saying, write what you see. and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. And that's when John turns. And what does he see? He sees one standing in the midst of seven golden lampstands. And he has this description, clothed with a long robe, with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head are white like white wool, like snow. His eyes like a flame of fire. His feet like burnished bronze refined in a furnace. His voice like the roar of many waters. 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. Now this is fascinating to me. Here's a description of Christ that's not a description of Christ. Because what's described? How tall he is? His facial features? No. It's a description of the glory that accompanies him. We have to be careful about images of Jesus, right? Drawn, represented, and even mental images of Jesus, right? And yet here is a description of Christ given to us in scripture that is not a description of Christ, but rather a description of the glory of the ascended and enthroned Christ. How powerful is that? That's what we're supposed to see, folks. One day, I do believe you will see Jesus' face. Revelation 22, 5. We're going to get there. I think you will see Jesus' face. But you don't know what Jesus' face looks like. And you're not supposed to be worried about what Jesus' face looks like. You're not supposed to be focusing on what Jesus' face looks like, right? Because that's not the aspect of the person of Christ that is so important for the church. It's the description that's being given here. Now, just real quickly, because our time is almost up, the description that is found here in chapter 1 is the basis for the description in all seven of the letters in chapters 2 and 3. That's another reason that chapter 1 is so important to the rest of the book. All of the description that Christ makes of himself in chapters 2 and 3 is drawn out of the first description in chapter 1. So we'll see that relationship as we go. Verse 17, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. We don't need to have a casual attitude toward Jesus. I think I talk about that probably a lot, maybe too much, but I am not a fan of chatty prayers. And I know that's a little bit subjective, and I want us to have an intimate, personal relationship with the Lord, but I think there's an appropriate reverence that needs to establish some healthy boundaries, you know? And when we pray to the Lord, we're not praying to our buddy. Jesus is our friend. He's our brother, but he's also our lord and our king. God the father is our father. He's not our daddy. That's been a misreading of Abba. Kind of a point trying to be made there that is good. There's an intimacy to that name, but it's not nearly as casual as we make it out in our society today. Revelation will give us a sense of awe, I think, if we spend time in it. Now this part of verse 17 makes me want to weep when I read it. He laid his hand on me. Just think about that for a second. His right hand that holds these seven stars that are the seven churches of Asia. He takes that hand and he puts it on John. And he says, do not be afraid. I need Jesus to say that to me. Right? That's what God is saying to his church in the Revelation. It's a church that is being torn apart by the devil. The forces of hell have surrounded the church. Antipas is dead. Souls have been beheaded. People have lost their homes. Families have been separated. And Jesus is going to lay his hand on the church and say, do not be afraid. That's powerful. I am the first and the last and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. That power does not belong to the devil. Death is an enemy, but Jesus has vanquished that enemy, and he holds the keys to death and to Hades, to the grave. That power doesn't belong to Satan. Jesus is the one who will unlock the door. Write, therefore, the things that you have seen, those that are, and those that are to take place after this. Now, not all commentators will agree with what I'm going to suggest about this, but this seems pretty clearly to me to be a reference to past, present, and future events. And I think that there are those three aspects in the Revelation. We said that the circumstances at the time of writing seem to be kind of the eye of the storm. There are going to be references to the persecution that has been. There will be references to the particular occurrences and circumstances of the time of writing. And then there will be references to that which is coming. And we're going to see this starting in chapters 2 and 3 with the letters to seven churches. Antipas is dead, but a great hour of trial is about to come on the whole world. And in the meantime right now, what are you supposed to do? What was, what is, what will be, that past, present, and future aspect. I think that that helps us understand. Now, we're not saying what is past all the way back to creation. It doesn't look that far. And I would suggest that for the most part, Revelation doesn't look as far as 2,000 years ahead. Now, the end of the book certainly does. I think the end of the book is a description of the second coming of Christ, the final judgment, and the glory of being with God in the new heavens and the new earth. But for the most part, the references are going to be to things that are soon to take place, as he's already said twice. But here, this is the basic summary of the contents of Revelation, what John has seen as a persecuted witness in the church, those that are right now and those that are about to take place. And then, the explanation. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamps are the seven churches. Now I'm going to argue next week that the seven angels of the churches are not what you think of as angels. I'm going to argue that they're men. But you'll have to come back next week if you want to hear why I'm going to argue that. So now your study guide looks all the way to the end of Chapter 3, and you'll notice that the notes there are maybe more sparse than you wish that they would be. Maybe in some cases, they're more complete than you think they ought to be. I'm just trying to help you get a big picture. They're intended to be an aid to reading and study, not answer every question, but point out some things that will be, I think, helpful for you to reflect on and also to provide you more cross-references than we can give in the oral presentation.