and briefly an introduction to the Book of Revelation. So eschatology What is eschatology? Anything that we have which has an ology on the end of it always, of course, means the study of something. So, we're studying eschat. What is that? It comes from the Greek word eschatos, which means, literally, last or end. So what we're studying is the last or the end things when we look at eschatology. It's the last or final things in the history of this world. In other words, what we say by even saying you can study eschatology is that the world has a defined length of time. It has a beginning, it has all the progress during the middle of it, and it has a defined end, and of course that is in the hands of God. We're looking at what God tells us with regards to His plan for this world and where He is taking all things and what the end things will be. More fully, of course, it's actually the study of Scripture because the only way in which we find out what is going to happen in the end times is from the very Word of God. So, eschatology is to take up Scripture and say, what does God speak to us? All the events that lead up to the end times, of course, are also part of eschatology because they bring about the end. Jesus Christ said to his church, behold, I come quickly. and we're to have that understanding. Christ is coming, and he's coming quickly. That's his word, that's his promise. We're to know that and to understand that in the whole of our lives. We are waiting for that. And it's not only us personally that are waiting for that, God's people, but in fact the whole creation is waiting for that. We read of that in Romans 8, that The whole creation is waiting to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, and then we, of course ourselves, we groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. So, as it were, the whole creation, including us, we're looking for that, we're desiring that. How much more should we be studying also what God tells us about those last things? While we eagerly await the second coming of Christ, we study, take to heart, and live out of what he has told us. In fact, God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, he's told us plainly that we ought to be eagerly waiting and ready. After the main teaching of Matthew 24, which in fact is a very significant chapter in the Bible with regards to end things, but after that teaching that Jesus had given to his disciples, he then told a number of parables, and it's very useful to read through those parables that occur to get a sense of what Jesus is saying about what we are to be like in looking at the end things. One of those parables, for example, is the parable of the ten virgins. Are you familiar with those? Of those ten virgins, five were wise and five were foolish. What made the difference between the two of them? What made one wise and the others foolish? The wise virgins were waiting and watching and they were ready for the husband to come. And therefore what Christ is teaching us is that that's what we're to be. If we're going to be wise Christians, we're going to be watching, waiting, we're going to be ready for Christ's coming. And the only way we're going to be like that is if we know our eschatology. We know the end times and the end things, and what is coming, and what are the signs of it coming, and what we're to be watching for. But besides all that, the topic of eschatology is just plain fascinating, isn't it? It's something that is fascinating and amazing to look at what God tells us about the end times. In fact, these truths that are found in the scriptures are the answer to one of man's burning questions. Who am I? Where am I going? Mankind out there in the world is constantly trying to answer that question and provide answers to that. God has already given us answers. We already know. if we really know what God has said about who we are and where we've come from, shows us the importance of beginnings as well, and what is going on now and God also reveals what's coming, what is going to happen. We, as God's people, wonderfully can have a peace because God has revealed those things to us and we know what is coming and where all things are going from eschatology. We have a certain and sure future which is part of the good news, part of the gospel is we know that good news for the future. Romans 8 24 says that we are saved by hope and that hope is the beautiful hope of the life hereafter that we have in Christ. Why is eschatology important further? It's important And the whole of these truths are important because more and more in our day, these particular doctrines, these particular truths have become far more prominent. They've actually become far more important in the understanding of Christianity as a whole. That's not always been the case, that eschatology, the doctrine of the last things, has been quite so prominent. In the past, the Church has very much struggled with and battled with over many other doctrines which have been far more central and more important. It's very interesting, James Orr, who was a Scottish Presbyterian theologian in his Progress of Dogma, Dogma is the teachings of the Church, He says that the church has really thoroughly treated many of the areas of theology, but not so much eschatology. Now he was writing quite a few years ago. He died in the early 1900s, I think. But what he was saying at that point in time was that the various what we call loci of theology, the various main areas of theology, the Church has had to deal with many of those areas and had to deal with them well, but the area of eschatology hadn't really come to great prominence. And what he was saying is that this is an area that the Church is going to need to deal with and there are errors at that time already creeping in. And we've started to see that more and more and more over the last hundred years or so, that there's increasing error and increasing teaching. And right now, in our day and age, we need to be aware that there are so many different wrong teachings out there. And by those teachings, it's actually bringing an attack on many other areas of doctrine in the church as well. So we need to be clear about our eschatology, we need to be clear about what God teaches in that area to also put up the walls of God's truth to stop inroads and attacks in many other areas of truth of the Word of God too. Now that's not to say that the church hasn't ever studied eschatology and they had no idea back then, that's not true. Even in the early New Testament church, they believed all of the basic truths of eschatology. So you can read back there in the writings of the early church fathers and so forth that they held to the second coming of Christ. They held to the resurrection, the judgment, eternal life. But these truths were not so much emphasized or developed. In fact, they started to come in more and more errors as you entered into the Middle Ages and so forth, along with the degradation of so many other truths, particularly in Roman Catholicism and that general great juggernaut of a church which tended to go down the path of darkness. There were other places where there was light still that God kept in small churches, but in the broad main church they departed into darkness in so many areas, and that was the case with eschatology as well. So all sorts of errors arose. For example, the error of purgatory that was an invention of the Roman Catholic Church and the idea of this horrendous punishment that would occur even to those who were Christians and members of the Roman Catholic Church, you would still end up going to purgatory and there's all sorts of fear associated with that. During the 9th century, the whole idea of universalism was advocated. The idea that there would be salvation of every single human being, and that even went to the extent in even some theologians of later years of saying even Satan would be saved. So, these kind of ideas started to arise. By the end of the Middle Ages, they had a morbid fascination with the last things and all sorts of strange ideas that were there. In particular, there was all sorts of fear that was generated in so many people with so many superstitions that there was a fear of even Jesus Christ. He was seen as someone who was austere and this dreadful judge that was coming. And the only way that you could be saved was to have enough good works. And therefore you were tied to the church and you needed to have confession and you needed to get your indulgences and have these masses. And hopefully that had reduced the numbers of thousands of years you would spend in the fires of purgatory. And so the end times were seen as something horrendous and fearful and horrible. even for the child of God. And in reaction to that, the cult of Mary, of course, became ever stronger because you had this beautiful mother figure who, in fact, was lovely and loving as compared to the horrible Jesus who was this nasty, terrible judge who was coming to cast you into the fires of purgatory. And therefore, very much people gave themselves to the Mary-olatry and so forth. The Reformation did a great service then to actually bring people back out of all of those horrible wrong ideas of the last things and of Christ. There are many who say, when you listen to what they say about the Reformation, they say that it neglected eschatology. Now, you've got to say that during the Reformation it's not that they spent a huge amount of time on the doctrines of the last things and in that sense you could perhaps say they neglected eschatology but in reality what the Reformation did is it rescued people out of all of the dreadful bondage into which they'd been brought by the wrong teachings of eschatology and they brought the doctrine of the Gospel back in. So it completely redeemed people, if you like, out of that bondage. The truth of the gospel being brought to bear upon people was that they were delivered out of that horrible idea that Jesus Christ was this judge and was austere, and instead saw that Jesus Christ was the loving Redeemer and Saviour. And instead of seeing that death which was coming was about to cast them into the fires of purgatory, instead for the Christian, with their faith in Christ, they knew that they passed from this life into eternity, that that day they would be with their Saviour in Paradise. So it made a huge and massive difference to people's understanding. It was such a radical change about these things that Luther, for example, came from being absolutely dead scared of death. Remember his experience where there's a crash of lightning and a thunderstorm and so forth and he's cowering on the ground in horror about death. And he then says that the second coming of Christ is our happy day. That's the marked difference that occurs. In the Westminster Confession of Faith, one of the greatest Reformation confessions, it then speaks of the beauty of these things. The bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption, but their souls immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory. waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. God is appointed today wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ for then shall the righteous go into everlasting life and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord. That's our glorious hope that the Reformation brought to light again. The Reformation, in comparison to the terror of the Middle Ages about eschatology, brought eschatology to be a joy, to be something that the Christian loved to hear about. But, nevertheless, the Reformation did not develop the doctrines further. Since the Reformation, there have been all sorts of wrong understandings and ideas that have come forth. And that's what we need to see, is the importance of our having a right understanding. There's been the rise of post-millennialism, which, Lord willing, I'll be taking up and having a look at, along with also there's been the rise of pre-millennialism, which made its appearance in the mid-18th century. Initially, pre-millennialism didn't teach some of the strange doctrines that have continued to develop and become wild since that time, but they did teach the setting up of an earthly kingdom by Christ after his return. There's also been the effect of evolution in our day, with the rise of that, with Darwin in the 1800s. And that has had an effect on eschatology. There's this whole idea that's prevalent in the world, and it creeps into the church as well, that things are just going to get better and better and better. That's what evolution teaches. And there's been the powerful views of various men that have arisen too. People such as John Nelson Darby and his ideas that were popularised by Schofield. And that led to this whole idea of a differentiation between the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church. Well, Old Testament Israel and the Kingdom and the New Testament Church. And this whole idea of separating out the New Testament, the Old Testament, and the whole idea of separating Israel from the Church has all sorts of pervasive effects on people's understandings of doctrine. Then there are all sorts of other things. Within the post-millennial movement there's the theonomic movement. There are people such as John Stott and others who are annihilationists and they completely deny that there is an eternal hell at all. There are some modern liberal Protestants that are teaching sort of an evolutionary view that everything is getting better and better in the whole universe and eventually everybody will reach sinless perfection here on this earth. That's what they refer to as the Omega Point, as in you know Alpha and Omega, so they talk about the Omega Point reaching the Nirvana here on this Earth. Because of all these teachings arising, this actually lends a great importance to eschatology, great importance to us. If all of this is going on and swirling around and having all sorts of an impact upon all the other truths in the Church, we better make sure we know what Christ actually says in the Gospel. so that we're not affected by all of these false teachings coming in. The true church is compelled through the work of the Holy Spirit to look at these doctrines. We must do. It's an imperative because God and his providence causes these things to rise up and he says to us now, what do you believe? What do you hold to? What does the scripture say? Thirdly, Why is eschatology important to us? Well, it's because in all of the scripture that God has written, eschatology has a prominent place. A prominent place. Don't go thinking that the doctrines of the last things are just a sort of a bit tacked on the end, that you sort of, as long as you've got teaching of Christ, well, you know, if you want a bit of extra learning, we'll go and learn about eschatology, as it were. Don't go thinking that way. The whole of the scripture is eschatological. The whole of the scripture is in fact written with the end in view, right from the beginning. Just an example of that, in Genesis 3.15, what's that? Mother promise, alright, God speaking to Satan and saying to him, I will put enmity between you know, you and the woman, your seed. That promise that's made there, we quite often look at that in terms of, well that's Christ, who's coming to crush the head of the serpent. That was his first coming, when he came and worked that wonderful work and that's the central part of history. But, What about Romans 16 20? After Christ has come, Paul is writing to the Romans and he says to them, and the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. You see that promise in Genesis 3 15, look forward to Christ in his first coming, but it's also looking forward to Christ in his second coming. Okay, the whole of scripture right from the beginning has its eye on the last things. Isaiah 11, it speaks of the sprout that will finally result in what? A peaceable kingdom. The coming of Christ seen in its entirety. And as we've already seen in Romans 8, what's the whole creation doing? The whole of the world all around about us at the moment is groaning and waiting. And the idea of this groaning and travailing that it speaks of there, it's like the idea of a woman in childbirth. It's looking for that end. It's looking for the coming of Christ, where it understands, as we look at the whole of creation and look at the whole of the work of the Church in this present time, the whole of its purpose is Christ coming again. And therefore, all of our doctrine and all of our teaching is to be tied intimately into the last things. We're to understand and know that. The purpose of God in creation and in history and in the church right from the beginning was not to make this beautiful kingdom with Adam in the Garden of Eden. That was never God's purpose. God didn't sort of come to the fall and go, oh no, what am I going to do now? His purpose was always, through the way of Christ's coming and marvellous redemption, to lead to the perfect last day and the bringing about of His perfect Kingdom and His justice and His mercy and love and grace shown forth. That's always God's purpose. We need to see that the whole of eschatology is also found in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We will see it all the way through. In fact, you cannot understand properly the New Testament Scriptures of 2 Thessalonians 2, Revelation and Matthew 24 unless you have first gone back and grasped the significance of the Old Testament prophecies. For example, in Ezekiel and Daniel. In Daniel chapter 7 through 12 it forecasts the coming of the Kingdom, of the Messiah, of the Antichrist, of the Great Tribulation and the Resurrection, all in relation to the Covenant. Ezekiel 38 and 39 deals with Gog and Magog which are then taken up in Revelation. Matthew 24 verse 15 says, when you see the abomination of desolation, he who reads, understand, and of course it's referring back to what Daniel said in Daniel 11 and Daniel 12. We also see this understanding in the Old Testament, New Testament connections, for example in Peter at Pentecost. He announces that the last days have come. And he points out that this is the prophecy of Joel, back in Joel 2. All of these passages point out that the whole of eschatology, the last things are found right from the beginning of scripture and all the way through. You can't then go saying, oh eschatology is just a bit on the end, it's just a bit tactile. It's not. It's actually what the whole of Christianity is about and we need to have it tied in, woven in to all the rest of our understanding. I'd say to you, look carefully. reading, when you read the scriptures, when you take it up and examine it, do so with the eyes, with those kind of eyes, of understanding. Let me, Lord, look for and understand what you are saying about the things of eternity, about the last things, as I read the whole of the scriptures. And you may well be surprised how often you start to see that there. But, let's move on. I haven't got a ding yet, so that's a good thing. Really the main final matter I want to take up with regards to our introduction to eschatology is this idea of the end of all things. That's what the Bible speaks of, doesn't it? It speaks often of the end of all things. We ought to understand clearly what the Bible means by the end of all things. It doesn't just mean the cessation of all things, the finish. Often when we talk about the end, we're talking about like today, we will end about 1pm, which means we'll stop doing what we're doing now and we'll go off and do something else and it will be finished. But scripture means much more than that. It is true that all the things on this earth will cease at a certain time when Christ comes again, then the sorts of things that we do and so forth will end. They will finish, they will cease, they will come to an end of that. When Peter says that in 2 Peter 3 verse 4 and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. We understand from that that things will not go on as they were forever. But the end of eschatology actually means the goal. It actually means the purpose, the aim. How do we know that? Why would I say that that's what that word means? Well, it's actually from the Greek that the Holy Spirit uses. Very often when we read in the scriptures and we read that that word end in association with the last things, it's the Greek word telos and the word Telos actually has the idea of a goal or an aim or a purpose, not the cessation, the limit, the finish. There is a word in the scripture which does mean the end, the limit, the finish. For example, in Romans 10 verse 18, that word is used. It says, yes, verily their sound went into all the earth, their words unto the ends of the world. And there the word end, it's referring to the limits of the world. The world has a limit, and he's saying there that, you know, their words went to the limit. And that word there is peros. So the word peros means the limit, the end, the finish. But when you come to this other word, telos, it actually means the purpose. And you can see that in verses such as 1 Timothy 1 verse 6. 1st Timothy 1.6 says, now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. You see what it's saying there? Now the end of the commandment is love. It's not saying the limit of the commandment is love. What it's saying is that the purpose of God's commandment is love. The aim of the commandment, when God gives all of his law, it's to say, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. That's the purpose of the commandment, love. So it is that when we come to the understanding of that word end, as it appears with the last things, it means purpose. So 1 Peter 4 verse 7, but the end telos of all things is at hand. The scripture is saying that the purpose of all things is at hand. What God has always been purposing and aiming to is at hand. Where we're all going, what God is designing to do, that's at hand. Not just simply the finish, the finish line as it were. That understanding is very important. Christianity is in that way radically different from every other philosophy and understanding on this earth. Radically different. We understand, therefore, that everything that happens in our lives, everything that's happening in the wider world, even when, you know, trucks plough through people in France, whatever is happening, it's happening in the purposes of God. God is the one who's in control of all of those things. Naturalistic belief, the naturalistic beliefs of mankind say that this world will continue forever. You know, we came into existence billions of years ago and that things are rolling on and that, you know, everything just continues to keep on and we'll be here for billions of years more and eventually maybe the, you know, universe goes out again with a whimper or a bang or whatever else and that's the whole idea. I mean, it's just, you know, for us who have these limited lifespans of a tiny blip, it's sort of, we're almost nothing in this huge stretch. At best, worldly philosophy enters into a kind of a vague pantheism, sort of a God is everything and everything is God type of idea. And the heathen religions most often have a sort of a cyclical view of epochs and the whole idea of reincarnation in one way or another, but no end in view. And the one word to describe all of that kind of understanding is this, hopelessness. It's a hopeless philosophy. Because what does it matter if you've got this interminable rolling on and on and on and on and on. What's the purpose of all that? You end up with a life that's purposeless, meaningless, endless. There's nothing to it. The scriptures speak of that having no hope in Ephesians 2 verse 12. It says that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world. You don't have the true God and the true religion and a true faith in Jesus Christ, you have no hope. You're without God in the world. But for the Christian, the end, the purpose, the aim is Jesus Christ. We have a fixed, most glorious hope no matter what happens around about us. No matter what is happening, we know it's all perfectly controlled in God's purposes and the end is Christ coming again. And He is. And every day that I live, I'm a little closer. Every day draws closer to Christ coming again. Matthew 24 verse 14, and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come. Telos. Purpose. Then shall God's purpose come. The reason for this purposeful character of Christian eschatology is that God has determined and decreed this goal. God is directing all things towards his purpose, and that purpose is the work of Christ and the fulfillment of bringing in every one of his covenant people. And God is not willing that any of them should be lost, but every one of them saved and brought into his kingdom, and that's what he is working. We read in Colossians 1 verses 15 through 20, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist. He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of the cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in heaven or things in the earth." Thank you. So, let's ask the question. According to the Bible, what is the goal? What is the end? What's the aim or the purpose of all things? What are we directed toward? Well, the answer to that would be there's just one end. There's just one goal, but it has a threefold, if you like, aim or goal. The first one is the glory of God, the glory of the triune God. The main purpose of God is not the glory of man. It's not even the salvation of man. That's not God's main purpose for the whole of this world. It's not realising the full potential of the creation or any such thing. If we lose sight of the fact that God's purpose in all things is His own glory, then we actually start to go seriously wrong. We go wrong in the understanding of the circumstances of our personal life. If we start to think that God's aim and purpose is to make me happy, then why aren't I happy? If God is to give me pleasure in my life, if God's purpose is that, then what's going on? Why are things hard? Why am I struggling? That's not God's purpose. God's purpose is His own glory, and He will do it in the best way and the wisest way possible, and that may be to take you through very hard roads. His goal is not my happiness, or my position, or family, or wealth, or health, etc. It's rather His glory, and it's always been His goal. The second element of those three, God's glory first, second element is the goal of Jesus Christ Himself. Revelation 22, 13, Jesus says, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Jesus is the goal in His coming, or His presence, or His parousia, as the Greek has it. As Christ comes, and also when He comes, He will be the head of the covenant. He will be the King of the Kingdom of God. He will be the Saviour of the Church. And in Him, all glory will be given to God. So, the second end is Christ. First end, the glory of God. Second end, Christ Himself. Third is the purpose of God in the consummation of his covenant. The salvation and glory of the church as the bride of Christ, because as the glory is for God's glory and for Christ, the glory of Christ is of course found in the salvation of the whole of his church and the bringing forth of that salvation into that relationship with himself. Luke, 21 verse 28, and when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draws nigh. That's the end of all things. Our redemption draws nigh. The redemption of the church. That's God's purpose as well. That fall and great redemption when he will bring his bride spotless and perfect to the marriage supper of the Lamb. We as the church, therefore, in that covenant relationship to God, we live in an eager anticipation of those last days. That will be for us then to live in the presence of a glorious God, in the presence of our great King, and wonderfully that we have been given a relationship to him. That end, that purpose, that goal, needs to be understood also as a beginning. And I better hurry here. I haven't even started on the book of Revelation. The end needs to be understood as a beginning. We often emphasize it as an end, but the Greek has it as a purpose, and the purpose is a beginning. We will have a new body, a new name, a new life, a new goal. It will be a new beginning for the church, The new beginning will also be the whole creation of God. God's creation will be renewed, made perfect in the new heavens and the new earth. It will be a new beginning because it will be the complete fulfilment of all the promises of God. They will have all come to pass and they will all begin in all of their perfection and we will be in that state forever. We also must understand when we talk about the end, the purpose, the goal, that we don't actually lose sight of the fact that this is not just all future. We have already entered into the Kingdom. We've already tasted of the end of all things. We've already received the earnest of our inheritance, which is the Holy Spirit, and we are already participating in the life of being in covenant relationship to God. so that we've already started to enter into those end things and we're already the fish caught in the net and we're being drawn up and we will be drawn into those end things finally, but we're already there. Christ has already laid a hold upon us and we're already experiencing what he gives to us in those last things. We have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. But I'd better leave the introduction to eschatology there a very brief outline of the book of Revelation. What are we to understand about the book of Revelation? It's so important, particularly that book, that we understand it correctly. And there's some important principles to take up. First of all, we need to understand Revelation is highly symbolic. Many people try and read it literally and you end up with all sorts of nonsense. But God himself tells us that it's symbolic right there in Revelation 1 verse 1 Revelation 1 verse 1 says the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants which must shortly come to pass and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his church on the word signified means to give a symbol or a sign So he didn't just simply tell him this is the history of what will happen, but he signified it, he symbolized it. We must understand that as we take up Revelation, we don't interpret it as literal fact, because God says it's not literal fact. It's symbols, it's signs, it's pictures. And therefore when we read further in Revelation 1 and it says that Jesus Christ has a sharp sword coming out of his mouth, then we don't simply say, oh, well, I didn't know that before. You know, Jesus Christ has a sword for a tongue. No, we're to understand what that means, what it symbolises and so on. The next thing to understand about the book is that it does not proceed chronologically. This book, as it's written, it's not just reading from the beginning to the end and one thing comes after the other in history. It's what we call progressive parallelism. This book covers particularly the whole of the New Testament era, from Christ's first coming to his second coming, mainly, But it does so repetitively. So it goes over that history, then it goes back and goes over it again, and it goes back and goes over it again. In fact, it does that seven times through the book. But it's progressive because it reveals more and more and progressively more about the end times. So finally, the last two chapters reveal particularly about the new heavens and the new earth. So we're to understand that it's going over the same history again and again and again, but progressively as it does so, unfolding more. General structure of the book, first three chapters are an introduction, Exalted reigning Christ is on the foreground as the one who reigns over all things to his church. And that's what's set forward in the first chapter. The next two chapters involve letters to the churches. Notice there are seven churches. We've been looking at symbolism. There's the number. Symbolism seven for the perfect number. It's referring to all the churches. These are letters to all of the New Testament churches in every place and every age. And these things apply to us as we await the coming of Christ. These are letters to us all. Chapters 4 and 5 are fundamental to the understanding of the remainder of the book. The rest of Revelation is built on those chapters. Here, it changes from the focus of Christ caring for his church on earth to the far greater and broader picture in heaven of Christ being the only one worthy to break the seals on the scroll. He's the Lamb of God and the scroll refers to the whole of the unfolding of New Testament history. Christ is the one sitting upon the throne in heaven who comes and unfolds all of the history of the world and brings it to pass according to his perfect purposes. Chapter 6 and 7 reveal that part of the opening of the seals is the persecution which the church has in the world because the darkness hates the light. And we see the purpose of God in the world then, the seven seals, which are opened up, unfolds into God's then judgment that is poured out upon the world in the seven trumpets and the seven vials or the seven bowls. The one leads into the next. These things are the judgments of God that he's already bringing to pass. Chapters 8 through 11 reveal that despite the persecution of the world, The church is triumphant in the land, chapters 12 through 14, once again steps back again, goes over the history again and we're shown a more broad picture of the ongoing battle between the church and the world because of the far greater battle between Satan and Christ's kingdom and Satan uses all the resources he can including the rise of the Antichrist 15 and 16, God is pouring out his justice upon the earth, but the emphasis is that there is no repentance amongst those that are not his people, and therefore they bring themselves to be ready for judgment. 17 through 19 is the judgment brought to its final zenith, and Christ is seen as the victorious king of kings. And chapters 20 through 22 are the final and seventh section. Lord willing, we'll take up and look at chapter 20 not too far away. In between, there are also interludes with glimpses into heavenly peace and glory. In general, this book, it symbolises the whole counsel of God revealed by Christ himself and found in the precursory signs. The book of Revelation, we need to understand, is not about everything about what will happen. It's not about everything that has happened. But in fact, it's all of that which has already happened and is happening and will come to pass. And we're to see that beautifully unfolded and spread out before us. It's all about Christ and his work for the comfort and the edification of God's people. Let's know and study that beautiful book of Revelation. And I'm sure better finish. Thank you very much. There is time for some questions. I've actually managed to leave some time for questions before we begin our next talk. Any questions with regards to eschatology in general or my exceedingly brief and rushed summary of the book of Revelation? Justin. Q. Did you mean by that that the seven churches is symbolic of all churches, or did you mean that it was actually seven churches but the teaching applies to all churches rather than just one? Yep. Certainly the names that are given there, we recognise them as being actual places that were there and in fact many of them still are actual geographical places in Asia Minor, aren't they? So in that sense they are addressed to seven churches and some of the aspects of even the physical and geological features that are there are specific for those places that you read there in Revelation. But the point of it is that it's also symbolic, so that the seven real churches that are mentioned there are actually symbolising and representing all the churches in the New Testament age. Because in various ways, as you take up and read those letters, you can see, this applies to me and to my church. In every single instance, you can see that it applies. So, yeah, it's both. In many ways, you will see that with eschatology, quite often there's frequently a kind of an immediate type of application, but the far greater and more important application is the greater and spiritual one. You see that, I mean, particularly that comes out in Matthew 24, where the disciples are saying, Lord, when will these things be with regards to the destruction of the temple and what will be the signs of your coming, which in fact is much later. And Christ answers both questions about the destruction of Jerusalem and about his second coming through Matthew 24. And unless you understand he's answering both of those questions, it doesn't quite make sense, everything that he says. So it has a literal and physical sort of fulfilment, but far more importantly, it's talking about his second coming. I thought, Gavin, did you have a question? More of an observational question. Last week you and I talked about how language has changed over the years. So maybe 100 or 200 years ago, I think we understood more what the word end meant in that sense. The science wrote what's a cheap end of man, not thinking one of the people will get confused about this. Yeah, very much so. We don't use it much at all, do we, in terms of purpose today. It's only the finish. Cameron and I think then Noel. Way back in a different century, I heard a person talk, dispensationalists, and each of those seven churches, they split up to a certain time through the history of the world. Yeah, so they relegate this one to then and this one there. Sadly there is a lot of that literalism that goes on and you end up with sometimes very strange interpretations that then come out of it. But we need to... It does, yep. Yeah, in every age. Otherwise, all that it ends up with, if it only applies back then, we might say, oh, that's an interesting historical nature that doesn't mean anything to me. But every one of those seven letters applies to me and my church. Yep. Noel? You mentioned the creation is going to be renewed on the earth, isn't that the order? And what Jesus said, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Should we dwell on the earth forever? We speak behind the heavens. We will. That would take a lot more than just a brief answer but I better make it brief. We will indeed dwell on the earth because we're told that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. So that Peter tells us that the elements will melt with fervent heat. so that the creation as it is now will go through the fires of purification if you like and God will bring forth a new creation which is renewed and it is renewed in both heaven and earth but it appears that heaven and earth join together so that we are going to dwell in heaven and on earth, the both of them together and we'll have free access before the Lord, be able to stand before his face and his throne and worship him and yet also enjoy the beauties of God's created world made perfect and far more glorious than ever it was in the Garden of Eden. So, there you go. Yeah, I believe so. I believe so. Christ, when he rose again from the dead, he ate honeycomb and fish and so forth, and I believe that that tells us, yep, we will eat. Will we need to eat? Will we get starvingly hungry and starve and we don't eat? No, I don't think so. We will have bodies that will be very different. And how different? We won't know, I don't think, until we get there. All right. Oh, look at that. Phew. All right. Well, I might pass over to Pastor Shan, who's going to take up and speak on, what was it? Personal Eschatology? Yep. The Intermediate State. So, welcome.