I think those three songs that we just sang really summarize the message of Revelation so well. But reading from the majority text Greek translation on page 16, The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his slaves things that must occur shortly. And he communicated it, sending it by his angel to his slave John, who gave witness to the word of God, even the testimony of Jesus Christ, the things that he saw, both things that are and those that must happen after these. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things that are written in it because the time is near. Father we thank you for your word and as we study it I pray that our hearts and our heads and our bodies would all be united in serving your kingdom that you display in this wonderful book. And I pray that you would give me the ability to clearly articulate the things that you have put upon my heart and each one of us to be able to process through them and live them out. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Now in these introductory sermons, I've been trying to kill three birds with one stone, so to speak. First of all, I'm trying to lay out 30 interpretive clues that the Apostle John gave to us in the first 11 verses of this chapter. God has basically shown us how he wants us to read the book. in these first 11 verses, and so we're not going to rush through the material. My second goal for these introductory sermons is to use those 30 interpretive rules to kind of rule out some of the faulty approaches to the book of Revelation that are out there. I think it's helpful for you to understand not only what it means, but what it is not, what it does not mean. It doesn't mean that these people that hold to these other views are bad or ungodly. Many of them are godly people. It's just that they have violated one or more of the principles that are laid out in these introductory verses. And then third, in the process of doing those two things, I want to introduce you some of the main themes of this book. I'm going to kind of weave them in as we're going through these these interpretive principles to illustrate how these principles would work out. And then hopefully by the time we get to verse 11, you're going to have a fairly well-defined roadmap of where we're going in this book. And the later principles will probably take a little bit less time than what we're taking on the first principles. Now let me summarize the eight principles that we looked at last week. We saw that the word revelation or apocalypsis means an unveiling of something so that it is crystal clear. God did not intend this to be a difficult book that obscures the truth. He intended it to be an unveiling, an opening up of the book. And then when the curtains are drawn aside or there's an unveiling, we see what on the stage of life? We see Jesus Christ. We see Jesus the Messiah. And so, fundamentally, this book was not written to scare the daylights out of us about everything that's going wrong. Instead, it's to open our eyes to see that Jesus Christ is on the throne. It's to help us look at what He is doing with nations that oppose Him and nations that embrace Him. And so even though it's going to talk about the Antichrist and other things like that, that's not the focus. It talks much more about Christ than it does the Antichrist. And we saw that there are huge implications for those first two principles. And it really does rule out quite a number of commentaries. The third principle rules out liberal interpretations of this book. Verse one says, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his slaves. These are the very words of God. This book is an inspired gift from God's hand, and he wants us to treat it with reverence. Reverently, that's the word I was fishing for. And he does not want us to be dealing with this book in a loosey-goosey fashion, not at all. Now most evangelicals accept this, at least theoretical, but unfortunately because of a lust for academic respectability, there are quite a number of commentaries that borrow ideas from the liberal worldview. So this principle says we have got to see this as the inspired Word of God. Every word of it is important. Fourth, we saw that this book is not simply intended for experts or academics. This is a revelation, it says, to be communicated to all Christ's slaves. Well, that's you and me, okay? That's all believers. They are Christ's slaves. One author said, God tried to make this so accessible to all of his servants that you could liken it to a cartoon book that even the children can understand. Fifth, the word show completely rules out the idea that this is a mystery book akin to Gnostic literature. God is not hiding anything. He is showing the meaning of the book to anyone who wants to read it. And we saw that this principle rules out at least some viewpoints on the book of Revelation. Six, this book deals with history, not just ideas. It speaks of things that must occur shortly. So that rules out the theory of revelation of idealism. And idealism says, now this book just deals with ideas. that are applicable in any age, but there is no history that it is foretelling. And yet this is very clear that the things that he is going to show them are things that must occur in time. They must occur in history. Now that again does not mean that idealism doesn't have some good things to say. Almost all of the evangelical views on Revelation have some truth or people wouldn't buy into them. Okay, and where they tend to excel is on the applications of these principles. And so they do have some good things to say, but the general approach of idealism is completely ruled out by this because this is a history. Then we also saw that the same phrase shows that this is a providential history and that can be seen in the word must. Who rules history? Some commentaries definitely give you the idea that Satan is the lord of history and others give you the idea that the Illuminati is the lord of history or some other creaturely force and this is saying no there is a must Things are determined, they are moving forward, but it's Jesus Christ who is the Lord of history, and that gives us an incredible amount of comfort as we go through this book. Then the eighth point was seen in the word shortly. That word shows that the bulk of this book deals with events that were going to start happening within months, even some of them within weeks of his having written this, depending on where you believe he wrote this book. And we spent quite a bit of time distinguishing between the seven-year tribulation that came against Israel and against Rome, that was about to happen, and then the Second Coming, which is a long, long ways away. And that brings us now up to principle number nine. This principle comes from the second sentence in verse 1, and he communicated it, sending it by his angel to his slave John. Now, the Greek word for communicated refers to a very special kind of communication, not just any kind of communication. It means to communicate by symbols or signs. And the New King James Version actually translates it a little bit more literally than Pickering's translation here. They translate it as he signified it. And some people like to mispronounce the word signified. He signified it because signified means to communicate by means of signs or symbols or figures. And everybody admits that the word for communicated in Pickering's translation or the word in the New King James Version for signified means, has a dictionary definition of, quote, to write in symbols, signs, and figures, a semen, to write in symbols, signs, and figures. But many people do not allow this principle to really drive their interpretation. And then others carry out the symbolism big time, but they do it in a way that violates three of the first principles that we looked at last week. And this is such an important point for understanding the book of Revelation. I'm going to spend the entire sermon on this. The whole point of this sermon is how do we properly interpret symbology? symbolic literature. John is giving us advanced notice that you are not supposed to take this book as narrative literature, you are supposed to take this book as symbolic literature. Now let me repeat that because that sentence there is in a nutshell what the whole sermon is about. John is giving us advanced notice that he does not want us to take this book as narrative literature, He wants us to take this book as symbolic literature, but many people deny that principle. For example, dispensationalist writer John Wolvard admits, quote, the words he made known are from the Greek verb as semenon, meaning to make known by signs or symbols, but The verb also includes communication by words. Well, he's missing the point. Everybody agrees it's communication with words, but what kind of words? He's communicating with words that are signs and symbols and figures. Now, he takes the opposite viewpoint. He says there are only 26 symbols in this book, and he claims that the vast majority of the book needs to be taken as non-symbolical. Why would he say that? Well, there's something in his system, not in the text itself, but something in his system that drives him to say that. Robert L. Thomas does much the same thing in his massive two-volume commentary. And telling his readers how they should interpret the book, he tells them to interpret it non-symbolically unless it is impossible to do otherwise. So that's his guiding principle of interpretation. Where did he get that principle of interpretation? He didn't get it from Jesus. He didn't get it from John. This is something imposed on the text. Anyway, in answer to other commentaries that point out that this Greek word here makes it quite clear that the Apostle John is writing with symbolic literature, he makes an astonishing answer. He first admits that the word does indeed mean communication by symbols, and then he says, but that has no relevance on how we should interpret the book as a whole. In other words, he admits that God gave to John symbols, but he denies that we should interpret the book that resulted as symbolic literature. Let me quote him. It says, the words of Revelation are to be interpreted as one would interpret the rest of the Bible. And that should be followed by a big not, because the rest of the Bible is not interpreted monolithically. It has all kinds of different literature. But anyway, he goes on, he says, the verb assaymanan, he signified in Revelation 1, verse 1, furnishes an advanced notice of the symbolic nature of God's communication with John. This has nothing to do with how the resultant communication should be interpreted, however. You see how he's trying to get around that. His claim is that John saw the symbols, but he communicated those much more clearly to us, and therefore we do not need to interpret the book symbolically. That doesn't make any sense of the straightforward grammar of verse 1. The whole book which was given to us was being communicated with symbols, with signs. Thomas goes on to say, we must assume, and I should point out it's an assumption and only an assumption, but he says we must assume A literal interpretation of each symbolic representation provided to John unless a particular factor in the text indicates it should be interpreted figuratively." Now this debate so far may be over some of your heads. It may not be computing as to why it's even significant. Who cares? You know, if you interpret it symbolically or literally, what difference does it make? But I want to make it clear that at this point that there are some who admit fully that the revelation was communicated to John by symbols, but they deny that we should interpret it as symbolic literature. They believe it's no different from the rest of the Bible. It just happens to have some symbols in it. To quote Thomas again, The words of Revelation are to be interpreted as one would interpret the rest of the Bible. And Reformed people say, well, what do you mean as you would interpret the rest of the Bible? The rest of the Bible is not interpreted monolithically. I mean, the Bible itself says that it has historical literature. It's got law, which is a different kind of style of writing. It's got poetry. It's got prophecy. It's got epistles. People call it epistolary literature. And it would be an absolute disaster if you try to interpret the book of Genesis, for example, as if it was poetry, like Meredith Klein does, instead of as historical narrative. It's going to totally mess everything in Genesis up. And in the same way, you are going to totally misinterpret the book of Revelation if you fail to see it as prophetic symbolism that is picking up all of the prophetic symbolism of the Old Testament prophets. Some people claim it follows apocalyptic symbolism. We've already demonstrated last week that is absolutely not the case. But I want you to take a look at verse 3. I'm just going to very, very quickly anticipate a future principle. Principle 3, I mean Principle 11 or 12, something like that. Verse 3 says that the style of literature fits into the prophetic literature mold, not apocalyptic. It says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy. Okay, six times the book of Revelation is called a prophecy or a prophetic book. And prophetic literature is just jam-packed with symbols. Prophetic style literature is symbolic literature. Now, what difference does this make? Well, if the message of this book is symbolic literature, we need to understand how the Bible treats those symbols. Some people go off half-cocked and they think that if Revelation is full of symbols, then we can interpret these symbols somewhat subjectively. In fact, Some people liken that to going to an art gallery. You go into an art gallery, you've got five people looking at a picture, and they come away with five different interpretations of that painting, and they're still blessed, and they say in the same way, five different people can interpret the book of Revelation five different ways and still be blessed. We say, no, that's really not how it works. The question then changes from what does it mean, which is the question we really need to be asking, to what does it mean to me? Now we're gonna go off into error if we start with what does it mean to me before we ask what did it mean to the first century readers? And it's astonishing to read commentators and see how they put modern ideas of computers and planes and tanks and other technology into the text. And many of them in their commentary say, you know, this reminds me of, and this sort of looks like, and this makes me think of. And our response is no, the Bible must interpret those symbols. Far too many commentaries that I've read are reading modern ideas into the text that are simply not there. And in any case, subjectivity in interpretation contradicts the first five principles that we looked at last week. God shows us what He means by explaining the symbols. He opens them up. He unveils them. And most symbols were already explained earlier in the canon of Scripture, and the symbols that are not, that are new, John very, very clearly identifies and explains. in this book. And it's my contention that the first century Jews who were familiar with prophetic literature would have found this book super easy to understand. And let me give you an illustration of how easy it is to understand the symbols that we have in our own culture. I'm gonna show you several pictures, and it's my guess that you will immediately recognize these symbols and what they represent, even though some of them are older symbols, like from my generation or my parents' generation, I think you're gonna immediately recognize what they are. Okay, what sin do these first two pictures represent? And go ahead and say it out loud, shout it out loud. What's in? Lying, okay? It's very, very easy. We instantly recognize it. But you know what? There's a lot of cultures wouldn't have a clue what these symbols refer to because they've never seen the Walt Disney movie of Pinocchio and they don't have a clue what the superstitious idea, you know, of crossing your fingers would be. So a growing a long nose, crossing your fingers, utterly meaningless symbols in other cultures because they're not familiar with American symbology. It's not a part of their culture. Now, here are three well-branded corporate logos that most people instantly recognize. And the reason they recognize them is these products are everywhere. So what companies, very quickly, are represented here? Super easy, right? Let me give you something a little bit harder for you younger ones. First of all, what game is this from? Monopoly. Okay, what profession does this guy represent? He's a banker, right. Monopoly banker. Okay. What is this profession here? Politician. What does this symbol represent? Okay, this one? Democratic Party. Okay, very, very easy. And here's one a little bit harder for you younger ones. What kind of a person is this? Wow, you guys got it really quickly. See, in terms of the conventions, the rules for doing cartoons, the striped black and white shirt makes you automatically think, okay, those used to be the prison garments, and so he's some kind of a criminal. But then there is other things that they put in there that fine-tune what kind of criminal. The flashlight, the toolkit, and the mask makes you realize this is a burglar. That's what kind of a criminal that he is. Now, is this guy a good guy or a bad guy? Okay, he's the villain, right? And the next two pictures are quite the opposite. And even though that's a frog, you know what it is. What is it? Superheroes, right? The cape is what gives it away. Now, if you were in another culture, you'd look at those things, and say, I don't have a clue, a frog with a cape? They don't know American symbology, so a cape does not mean a superhero to them, but for us, because we are living in this environment in our culture, without even thinking, instantaneously, we are getting the symbols. And my point in doing this little exercise is to show you is to show you how easy it is for us to understand symbols if they are a part of our culture. We don't have to struggle with them. In fact, it would be silly for me to stand up and give a 45-minute lecture on what these symbols mean. You'd think, come on, pastor, we already know what those symbols mean. The reason we do not understand the symbols in the book of Revelation is because we are not steeped in the symbolism that comes from Old Testament prophecy in the way that the first century Jews were. First century Jews, they had been taught these things for so long, it was such an important part of their culture. When John writes the epistle or writes the prophecy of Revelation, it would have been so easy for them to understand it immediately. They would be getting those symbols just like that, and it would be almost like reading a comic book, only it would be much more vivid because their minds are the ones painting these images for them. Now, to the literalists in our midst, let me point out that symbols can be fluid without losing their meaning. And I'm going to give you some examples from Revelation in a bit. But take a look at these four official images of Apple's logo. Well, let's see. We didn't get Apple's logo in there. Going two slides forward. Okay. No. Backwards? Did I skip over them somehow? Okay. Anyway, you can imagine it. You guys have it in your head. You can put it on to the slide if you see it. It's got four different logos. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Anyway, even though these logos, one of them's got all of the different patterns, you know, different colors representing the color scheme for graphics, and Macs were big on graphics. Then they got another one that's silver, another one that's metal, and one that's 3D. Even though there is quite a bit of difference between those symbols, nobody is confused at all. They instantly recognize every one of those symbols represents Apple Corporation. So the denotation, what it's pointing to, is Apple. The connotation is drawing out different facets of what Apple Corporation is all about. Now, I'm going to go ahead and give you the picture earlier of the banker. Now you saw a monopoly banker. Here's a pig, quite different. And yet I think you would probably, within two or three seconds, recognize this is a representation of a banker. There are conventional rules for drawing these symbols that indicate how much needs to be present and how much you can deviate from those things without losing the meaning of the symbol. Just as an example, you can have a picture of the president's face drawn in cartoon format, And it can only be distorted so far before you don't know who it's representing. But it is astonishing how much you can distort a person's faith and you immediately recognize, oh yeah, that's Hillary or that's Obama or whoever it is that it's a drawing of. There is a fluidity that occurs in some of these symbols, and that's the beauty and the power of symbols. When a symbol changes a bit, it still has the same denotation. In other words, it is still pointing to the same literal person, literal event, or literal thing, but it has a different connotation. In other words, it's telling you something different about that person, event, or thing. You understand the difference between denotation and connotation? Well, the same is true of the symbols of the Old Testament prophecy. John amalgamates the four beasts of... He amalgamates the four beasts of the book of Daniel into Rome, the symbol of Rome. Now, the four beasts of Daniel were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. And anybody who's looking at the beast in Revelation 13 and Revelation 17 immediately recognizes this is the fourth beast of Daniel, but there is some fluidity in there because the way John draws that, he makes it clear enough that it's the fourth beast of Daniel, but he adds some features from the previous empires into this beast to give the idea that Rome has some of common features with the previous empires. Some common worldviews, some common actions, but it's still its own distinct beast. And everybody, almost all of the schools of eschatology out there, when they're looking at Revelation 13 and 17, they all say the same thing. They say, oh yeah, he's just got some fluidity here, but he's taking Daniel's fourth beast He's just drawing in a few common features to show that there's continuity instead of discontinuity between those empires. Another picture here, and this is yet another banker. This one a little bit more like the Monopoly man, but still different enough where you can recognize him as a banker. It's part of our culture, and you wonder why. Why do I recognize him as a banker? But there are some common features that are in there. He's enjoying life. He's at the top. Now, the previous pig-shaped banker, there's something evil, something selfish about that banker. He's on top at your expense, okay? And so, again, same denotation, different connotation. Now, that was super easy, wasn't it? I didn't have to spend a lot of time. If I put the logo of the FBI or quite a number of other logos up on the overhead, I think immediately you would be catching those images. And we don't as easily get the images of Revelation simply because we aren't immersed in the Old Testament prophetic literature like the first century Jews were. Now, there are new images that John introduces. Every prophet does that. They introduce new images. But here's the point. Those are easily identified because any brand new images that John introduces are clearly, clearly identified. Nothing is left to guesswork. In chapter 1, verse 20, God explains what the symbols of stars and lampstands mean. In chapter 4, verse 5, he explains the seven lamps of fire stand for. Chapter 4, verse 6, he explains what the seven horns and seven eyes represent. In chapter 5, verse 8, he tells us what the bowls of incense represent. And you guys already probably know that because you've read Revelation enough that it represents the prayers of the saints that ascend to heaven, right? So because he defines it, it's fairly easy. Later on in the book, he identifies the 144,000, chapter 7, verses 13 through 14, and the dragon, chapter 12, verse 9. And I won't give you the references, but heads of the beast, horns of those heads, what do the waters represent? What does the woman represent when she's riding this beast? And a whole bunch of other images. John clearly defines it for us. Over 36 times John defines his own images. And that is why it is so frustrating when people import their own interpretations into symbols. For example, even though John clearly tells us that the locusts in Revelation chapter 9 represent demons, You've got Charles Ryrie saying it symbolizes UFOs. And you've got Lindsay claiming, no, no, they symbolize Cobra helicopters. That's violating the hermeneutics of prophetic literature. Scripture must interpret Scripture. But hey, it's not just dispensationalists who ignore this principle of letting Scripture interpret the symbols. Even though John clearly says that the 144,000 in chapter 7 are a specific number of believers saved out of every tribe of Israel, it's ethnic Jews that are being saved. you're going to find idealists and historicists who just cannot imagine that after the New Testament is started that you can still have distinctions of Jew and Gentile. And they have a replacement theology, and so they say, no, the 144,000 in the first half of chapter 7 represents the whole church of Jew and Gentile. And then the multitude that nobody can number, which ought to immediately clue you, it's a little bit different than the ones you can number, 144,000, well that also represents the whole church of Jesus Christ worldwide. They're ignoring John's own interpretation of the 144,000. And by the way, even some partial preterists do this. We have got to let the Scripture drive the interpretation. And if we don't, it's like saying, you know, that this picture here, you know, represents the arthritic society and this picture represents polka dancers, right? No, that's foreign to what was the intention of the cartoonist. We're importing our own ideas because we don't have a clue what the image is. originally meant. And so if you know how to interpret the symbolic literature of the Old Testament, you're going to do just fine in reading through the book of Revelation. Typically, prophetic literature will explain the meaning of a symbol and then expect you, once it's explained at once, it expects you to know what that symbol means through the rest of that book. And I want you to turn with me to Revelation chapter 11. We're going to just experiment with this principle and show what a difference it makes. Throughout this book, there is an evil city that is doomed to judgment that is called The Great City nine times and simply called The City several more times. And this great city bears the name of four pagan civilizations. It bears the name of Babylon, Rome, Sodom, and Egypt. But if you look at Revelation 11, you're going to see that God defines the term, the great city, the very first time that he uses it. He's giving us a heads up on how he plans to use this phrase throughout the book. And unfortunately, both Bonson and Moorcraft mess up on this one. They're pretty good on a lot of different areas, but on this identification, they blew it. So what is the great city in chapter 11? Take a look at verse 8. He says, "...and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually..." ESV translates that as, "...symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." Now was Jesus crucified in Egypt? No. Was Jesus crucified in Sodom? No. I mean, Sodom didn't even exist, right? So why did he say he's crucified in Egypt and Sodom? And they're actually quite geographically separate. He's obviously not talking literally. And he even says it's symbolical there. But he did so because Judaism was acting like Sodom, was acting like Egypt, and therefore was doomed to destruction just as Egypt and Sodom were. They claim to be true believers, but John says they're no more believers than Sodom and Egypt were. They're no longer in the covenant. In chapter 2, he speaks of the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not. But are really a synagogue and say that they're a synagogue of God and they're really not. They're a synagogue of Satan. God has excommunicated them and they are now a part of the world. And so that's what he is saying. And what John is doing is exactly the same thing. What the Old Testament prophets did the Old Testament prophets called Jerusalem the great city doomed to destruction Jeremiah 22 verse 8 Likened it to Sodom Isaiah 1 verse 10 a whole bunch of other passages likened it to Gomorrah Isaiah 1 verse 10 a bunch of other passages to Egypt Ezekiel 23 8 Said that Judaism was the offspring of a Hittite and an Amorite. Wow, those are scary words because God dispossessed the Hittites and the Amorites out of the land of Canaan, right? And he said, well, you're just like them. You're acting like them. You're going to be doomed to exile. That was the first time when they were cast out of exile. Well, here John is doing that again. John calls apostate Jerusalem, Sodom and Egypt, and then later likens it to Rome. and to Babylon. So the first time the great city occurs, he defines his terms. But he didn't just leave it there. He gives us a whole bunch of other clues. One of the clues is the contrast that we see between two cities. You've got a great city on earth contrasted with a great city in heaven, which is called the New Jerusalem. You've got a great city on earth, which is called a harlot, and it's contrasted with a great city in heaven, which is called the Bride of Christ, adorned as a bride. And there are over 20 other clues that tie the Babylon of chapter 13 and chapter 17 in with the earthly Jerusalem. So there's the earthly Jerusalem versus the heavenly Jerusalem, the earthly harlot versus the heavenly bride, the city doomed to destruction versus the city which will last forever. And when you begin to delve into it, oh wow, it's incredible symbolism. And yet, despite the clarity of John's definition of the harlot great city, many interpreters believe that chapter 11 is the only place in Revelation where Jerusalem is described as the great city. And all of the other references to the great city are something totally different. Well, that leaves Revelation 11 like an orphan. It doesn't really have any place. Why did God confuse us by using that phrase? They're not letting John or the Old Testament prophets define the terms. Now there is one last issue that I need to deal with on the subject of interpreting symbols. And we've already anticipated this a bit in last week's sermon. And that is, the book as a whole, is it literal or is it symbolic? And you'll have commentators who go to one extreme or the other, when in reality it can be both if you define literal in its classical definition of having a single grammatical historical meaning. See, the historical definition, the definition that I believe is the sensus literalis. literalis. Okay, that's just the grammatical historical one meaning definition. I'll define that in a moment. But dispensationalists typically use the term literal differently. Dispensationalist author Norman Geisler says about Revelation, the rule of thumb still stands. If the literal sense makes good sense then seek no other sense lest it result in nonsense. Now, generally speaking, I'm in agreement with that rule. It's a great rule. If you define literal in the historical definition, but he does not, he insists, by literal he means it cannot be symbolic. It's not, it's the opposite of symbolic. He claims that the Word of God, which passed from Father to Jesus, to Angel, to John, and to us, was not given in symbolic form. We say it's the same revelation. If it was symbolic when it came to John, it was symbolic when it came from Jesus, when it came from the Father, and he just passes it on to us. It is symbolic literature. And because both historicists and dispensationalists have messed up the linkage of literal and symbolic, I want to deal with that issue a bit more. Let me quote from Vic Reasoner's commentary on the two different ways that the term literal has been defined. First of all, it deals with the way literal is used by me, used in history. It says, actually the word literal is derived from the Latin litera, which means letter. To interpret Scripture literally is to interpret it as literature. In other words, it is to be interpreted according to the normal rules of grammar, speech, syntax, and context, and that includes the kind and style of literature that you are reading. So when I say I interpret the book of Revelation more literally than the dispensationalists do, I mean, I'm taking the intent of the author, and I'm taking the style of the literature, and I'm taking the literal referent that these symbols are pointing to far more seriously than the supposed literalist does. But Reasoner goes on to describe the second usage of the term literal. He says, but literal can also mean not figurative or symbolical. Dispensationalism has demanded that all the Bible be interpreted monolithically and that symbols be recognized only when their literalism contradicts common sense. And it's my contention that if you read this book that way, you're going to repeatedly mess up your interpretation. Now, if you go to the opposite extreme, and you take the book as only symbolical, and not having a correspondence of this symbolic language to literal events in history, then you're going to violate principles 6, 7, and 8. And you're going to become loosey-goosey with the symbols. All of these principles need to be held together. So is it literal? Is it symbolic? Really the answer is it is both. And I want you to turn with me this time to Revelation chapter 9. And I'm going to give you an example to try to make this as concrete and easy to understand as possible. This is a text that has been torn and abused by both historicists and futurists. I'm not going to interpret every word but just enough to give you an idea. Starting to read at verse 1. Now earlier we saw that the star symbolized an angel and here it's clearly referring to a person. and this hymn opens the bottomless pit. Now some interpreters don't see it as an angel. They say, well, wow, a thing falling out of the sky like that looks more to me like a nuclear bomb coming to the earth, and the smoke rising up looks like a mushroom cloud. And when that nuclear blast, when that is detonated, that bomb, Then it starts World War III, but John says bottomless pit and the bottomless pit is where demons are, right? Verse 2, and he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. Now, if these locusts come out of the bottomless pit, they're not your ordinary locusts. They are symbols of demons, and what incredible symbols they are. I've been in locust plagues out in Africa, and they blot out the sun. I mean, the whole sky is covered. And then they come down onto the earth, They completely get rid of all greenery and they scratch you. I mean, they're everywhere. And in the same way, these many demons that were unleashed from the bottomless pit and that were unleashed upon Israel in the first century were so many. that you read Josephus, you read those early historians, it looked like they were all demon-possessed. I mean, they were crazy. They were crazy, the things that they did. And these locusts, just like locusts consume and devour and destroy everything, these are locusts whose desire is to destroy. In fact, God has to say, you may not destroy this, you may not destroy that, but that's their impulse, is to destroy. And just as scorpions can poison and they can hurt, demons can do so as well. Verse four. So anyway, the point is you cannot interpret these locusts woodenly. Verse 4, they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or any green thing or any tree but only those men who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads and they were not given authority to kill them but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days men will seek death and will not find it. They will desire to die and death will flee from them. Now he's going to get a little bit deeper into this description of these demons. Verse 7, the shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lion's teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months, and they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon. But in Greek, he has the name Apollyon. Now, if you follow the normal, the biblical rules of grammatical interpretation of symbolic literature, you're going to see this as a symbolic portrayal of demons who literally Okay, are led out of the bottomless pit, unleashed upon Israel in 66 AD, which is when the war started, and when, by the way, various tribes of Israel could still be distinguished. It's impossible to know any tribal divisions in Israel today. And let's contrast that straightforward and simple interpretation, what I call literal interpretation of the symbols, with two alternative extremes. The first extreme sees the locust as a symbol of something demonic. So far so good. And the demonic as something that is a symbol of Muslim invasions of Christendom in the 7th century. Not so good. Okay, and the Polly on they take as Muhammad. Okay, he's the ruler over those locusts. The locust is a symbol of demons in their interpretation and the demons in turn become a symbol of the Muslims. You see the problem there? The symbol has become a symbol of a symbol, which in turn symbolizes something else real in history. That's taking symbolism too far. Biblical symbols always have a correspondence to something literal, something real. They're not going to symbolize another symbol that symbolizes something else in history. A symbol's always going to symbolize something real or literal. not yet another symbol. Now in the Historicist's interpretation, because there is a symbol of a symbol of something in history, I mentioned last week that there is no necessary connection between the original symbol and what the commentator says that the symbol means. There's one step too many and it leads to squishy subjectivity. And when you see all of the interpretations given by the Historicist, you can see how really squishy and subjective it is. Early historicists saw these demonic locusts as symbolizing the Roman Catholic Benedictine orders that arose in 530 A.D. and that's when they start counting forward. Others applied it to the Dominican orders in the year 1200 A.D. and others to the Jesuits after 1500. Last week I mentioned that the Roman Catholics returned the favor and they said, no, no, no, that's referring to the locusts of the Lutherans who are absolutely destroying the church. But the point is, there's nothing in the text that would give you any clue of what the symbol of the symbol symbolized. Does that make sense? There's a problem there. They're not letting the text determine what is symbolized. Now, as we'll see next week, Principles 11 and 12 completely rule that out. We believe that the references to the bottomless pit where these locusts came from, the fact that they have a king who rules over them whose name is Apollyon, Makes it clear enough. They symbolize demons, not men. And if we just stuck with the symbol having a literal reference, then everyone would be agreed that the locust symbolized demons and the demons don't symbolize anybody. Demons are demons. Now let's go to the opposite extreme. Let's look at the dispensationalist interpretations. They too, not all of them, but many of them violate these contextual clues for interpreting symbols. Charles Ryrie agrees that there has to be some demonic here, that's pretty obvious. But he wants the descriptions to be as literal as possible and so he's looking for a literal counterpart of each part of the locus to some modern phenomena. And he just has the demonic kind of being in the background. So he says, Quote, John's description sounds very much like some kind of war machine or UFO. Demons have the ability to take different shapes, so it is quite possible that John is picturing a coming invasion of war-like UFOs. Until someone comes up with a satisfactory answer to the UFO question, this possibility should not be ruled out. But this so-called literal hermeneutic is no more grounded in the literal text than the earlier historicist interpretation was. And so you'll find dispensationalists all over the map on this one. How Lindsay gives a different interpretation. Instead of UFOs, he says this. I have a Christian friend who was a Green Beret in Vietnam. When he first read this chapter, he said, I know what those are. I've seen hundreds of them in Vietnam. They're Cobra helicopters. He then goes on to say, a Cobra helicopter does fit the composite description very well. They also make a sound of many chariots. Note that John keeps saying, looked like, something like, resembled, was like, etc. By these qualifying terms, John sought to emphasize that he was aware of describing vehicles and phenomena far beyond his first century comprehension. So, he used symbols drawn from first century phenomena that looked like these marvels of science. Using a mixed composite of things from the first century, he strove to represent what he saw. With that in mind, let's see if we can find the passage's meaning. The vehicle's overall shape, and all the way through here there was assumptions, but he's assuming it's a vehicle, right? But anyway, he says, the vehicle's overall shape looked to John like a locust. The general outer shape of a helicopter is similar to that of a locust. The phrase, horses prepared for battle, probably means the attack helicopters were heavily armored. John had seen Romans drape armor over their horses to protect them from arrows, lances, and swords. At this point, John seems to switch to what he saw inside the machine. The phrase something like crowns of gold most likely describes the elaborate helmets worn by helicopter pilots and their faces resembled human faces. As John looked at the front of the helicopter, the face of the pilot appeared through the front windscreen. The appearance of something that looked like women's hair could describe the whirling propeller that looked like filmy hair. Remember, John had never seen a large instrument spinning so fast that it couldn't be seen clearly. The term teeth probably describes the weaponry projecting from the chopper. There's a monster six-barrel cannon suspended from the nose of most attack helicopters today. And he goes on, describes it more. You see what's happening? He's ignoring John's interpretation of the symbol and he's turning every bit of that symbol into something non-symbolic. His attempt to be literal has gotten him about as far away from literal as you could possibly get and that's why I say my interpretation of Revelation is far more literal than most dispensationalist interpretations are. These symbols describe literal demons unleashed upon first-century Israel, not Cobra helicopters. And believe me, those demons were a whole lot more scary than Cobra helicopters would have been. I know this has been an incredibly long time to spend on just one principle, but it's probably the most important principle that we're going to go through. And hopefully our sneak previews into the future will start giving you a little bit of a feel for where we're going. And then secondly, hopefully the simplicity of this book's symbology will show you Hey, God cares about even the youngest children. Younger children will sometimes get more out of the book of Revelation than adults will because they still, you know, value pictures and imagery in their minds, and they don't have to be untaught so much of the garbage that we have picked up. Now, that's not to say that the book does not have complexity. It's an incredibly deep book. Its structure is incredibly deep. It deals with most of the perplexing issues that we are facing in our culture today. And the more you dig into it, the more you get out of it. But it's basic message that Jesus is in control, that Jesus will win, that we can be bold in the face of trouble, I think can be understood even by the youngest children. Vern Poythress, a professor in a Reformed seminary, once told the children in his congregation this, I want you children to read Revelation 2. If you're too young to read it for yourself, have your parents read it to you. You too can understand it. In fact, you may understand it better than your parents. And then the children started telling the pastor what they thought the book of Revelation meant. And a lot of times they were closer to the truth than the scary commentators were. They knew God was in control, Jesus Christ is king, governments are sometimes bad, they're evil, and sometimes you don't dare trust the government, and that God protects his people in the midst of evil, that evil is, good is winning, evil is failing, and ultimately Jesus wins. Well, that's the book of Revelation, isn't it? And as Poitras shared that story with the seminary students, one seminarian asked him after class, do you know that 12-year-old boy? Yes. I know exactly what he meant. I can remember reading Revelation when I was about 12 years old and understanding it. I've been understanding it less and less ever since. So this morning, I would encourage you to try to read Revelation afresh without consulting any commentaries, at least at first. Read it and see what you can get out of it. You may not understand all of the details, that's okay, but start reading it with at least these first nine principles in mind, and I think you're going to find you're understanding a whole lot more than you thought you might. First principle that we covered should give you faith that you can understand it. As you read it, don't think of this as an impossible book. Think of it as an unveiling. Approach this book with faith that God can help you understand it. Keep the second principle in mind as well. Your focus when reading should be on Jesus Christ and what He is doing in history. It's a revelation of Jesus Christ and should not have the Antichrist or any other evil creature as a main central focus. If you start with Jesus, you're much more likely to read it with faith. Third, believe that God gave these words, that it's a perfect book, perfectly delivered. Don't wish God had written it differently. He wrote it this way on purpose. Fourth, believe that this book shows you God's mind. Fifth, as you read this, believe that God intended this book to be accessible by all of his slaves. It's his gift for you, and you can ask him, Lord, give me the same wisdom that you gave to your first century saints so that I can understand this book when I read it as well. Sixth, realize that it is history. Seventh, realize it's providential history. Eighth, realize that most of what's recorded in chapters 1 through 19, not all of it, but most of what's recorded in the first 19 chapters is about to happen. You know, was about to happen in their day. Now these words were probably written in 64 AD. Some people say 62, some people say 66. There's a little bit of fuzziness in there. I think it's probably in 64 AD, but no later than 66 AD. And that means that the bulk of the first 19 chapters were fulfilled within seven years. He really did mean shortly when he said shortly. Now if you read Revelation with that time perspective in mind, I think the book will open up to you in a fantastic new way. And the ninth, read it as a picture book, maybe even likening it to a comic book. Even if you are not familiar with all of the biblical symbols, actually one of the ways you can get familiarized, most of the symbols are found in Daniel and Ezekiel. There's other prophetic books and Genesis, we went through a book that showed a lot of symbols there. But even if you cannot get all of the symbols, just look at it in terms of the general thrust, the general message that it's giving to you. And may God give you great joy and encouragement as you begin reading his last great gift to the church of Jesus Christ, the book of Revelation. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the book of Revelation. And I'm very excited to dig into some of the later chapters, but we do want to lay the foundation firmly And we want to understand this book as it applies to so many different areas of life. And I pray that as these people start reading this book that you would open the eyes of their understanding so that they could see things new and old and that you would bless them through it. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Go ahead and stand and respond to this message by reading or singing, The Son of God Goes Forth to War.