I'll tell you, when you're kicked in the stomach with the cultural defeats that sometimes we face, it's good to be reminded that the Lord is on His throne, that His victory is going forth, and even these things that are happening are actually judgments, redemptive judgments from His throne. And I think you're going to find that the The message of the book of Revelation is equally encouraging as these psalms that we have been singing. And it's slightly different in the majority text, and so we've gone ahead and put it into the bulletin on page 16, reading God's inerrant word. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his slaves, things that must occur shortly. And he signified it, sending it by his angel to his slave John, who gave witness to the word of God and to 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 it is our desire to more thoroughly understand it but even more importantly to live it out to your glory and I pray father that you would increase the faith and the hope of each one in this congregation as we look into your word that we might learn to expect great things from you and to attempt great things for you. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. Let me be seated. Well in these introductory sermons to the book of Revelation, I've been trying to give an overview of the whole book through the lens of each one of these principles of interpretation that the Apostle John has given to us. And there's a good reason we're spending a lot of time on these principles. And that reason is that I think most of the confusion that you see in the book of Revelation out there and all of the differences of opinion is because these principles have not been understood. They've not been dealt with. You read a lot of the commentaries and they just brush over most of these principles. And if you take all 30 principles that the Apostle John lays out in the first 11 verses seriously, I think it rules out every interpretation of the book of Revelation except for one. Now, I think the most important ones are the ones we've already dealt with in verses one through two, but I think you'll find the remaining interpretive principles to be helpful as well. So we're up to principle number 16, which states, when rightly understood, this book brings great encouragement to believers. And you can see that in the word blessed. 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. Now the dictionary defines the word for blessed as quote, blessed, happy because of circumstances, fortunate, privileged, unquote. He's going to be bringing them good news good news of God's vindication of them against their persecutors and of the triumph of the purposes of the Church of Jesus Christ. In other words, this is a book of encouragement and comfort and hope. It is not designed to make the Christian frightened and discouraged. He does not say discouraged as he who reads the words of this prophecy and, you know, who understands them. And no, it does not say that at all. He says happy. As one writer put it, would it surprise you if I told you that the book of Revelation isn't a horror story at all, that instead it's written to increase your delight and joy in God forever? The book of Revelation is meant to be reveled in. It is the fountain for the future's happiness. And I say amen. Seven times this book pronounces this blessing or this happiness on those who pay attention to its contents. One time it pronounces this beatitude of blessing upon the worship of the saints. Another time he pronounces it upon the dominion of the saints. Another time he pronounces it upon the death of the saints. Yes, even the death of the saints is a blessing when we understand life appropriately. Revelation 14 gives such a perspective of victory that believers can even face death with great anticipation. It says, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them. Death can't even rob you of your works. Do you want to be able to face death with joy? Well, then study the book of Revelation. It gives you the answers. It tells you how. So if your interpretation of the book frightens you, discourages you, or removes hope, or takes away your happiness, you are definitely interpreting this book wrongly. It is par excellence the good news. The interpretation many people give brings a sense of foreboding and hopelessness. Over the last 40 years, 45 years or so, I have read hundreds of teachings on revelation that not only promise that we're living in the last times, it's the end of the world, but convince people that it is hopeless to even try to change the culture. It's a hopeless situation. As one amillennialist told me, The church is guaranteed to be defeated in history, but it will be victorious in eternity. So he was saying it's a depressing message for history, but it's a very encouraging message for eternity. Well, praise the Lord. He's encouraged by the message of heaven, and that's an important message. But when were these people blessed? It is while they are reading this message, listening to this message, and trying to live out this message that they are blessed. It's before death. Another teacher of Revelation says the church wins by losing. And how does he explain that we win by losing? He says that when we're all martyred, we're going to enjoy our reward in heaven. Okay, well, there's an element of truth to that statement, but this book does not just give us good news for heaven, it gives us good news for planet Earth. But that is so contrary to most of the commentaries on Revelation that I have read over the past 35 years. Their teaching has been unbelievably discouraging and demotivating. One commentary that was published in 2013 continues this tradition and says, No book in the world is more frightening than the Revelation prophecy. It is the last book of the Bible and it is a book of events which are yet to take place. What is foretold is so horrific I could not even imagine living through it. Residing in these last days is difficult enough. While all judgment prophecies are harsh and frightening, the Revelation prophecy stands out as the most terrifying. It ends in the cataclysmic destruction of the earth and the commentary goes on to give anything but good news for those who are living on planet earth. And it's not just the past two years that have seen this kind of discouraging message being written about and preached on from the book of Revelation. When I was a teenager, people were telling me that I was going to be facing the great tribulation in my teen years. One person told me, don't even bother getting married because Christ is going to be coming back anytime. For sure don't bring any children into this troubled world. His viewpoint on Revelation was anything but blessed or happy. One writer said that famine would be so severe by 1986 that, quote, human body parts will be sold in stores, unquote. Well, obviously his message of despair didn't turn out, but people took this guy so seriously. This is a very popular radio teacher and writer. that they decided things are predestined to get worse and worse, so there's no point in even wasting time and getting involved in the culture, and look at the mess that that's left us in. No wonder we are facing such difficulties in America. The church has failed to be salt and light, has failed to try to do anything in the culture. You can see the horrible results of this false hope, or this anti-hope, if you want to look at it that way. Back in 1977, Salem Kerbin's understanding of Revelation was so discouraging that he basically told people to give up trying to influence culture. He said, we have reached the point of no return. We are on an irreversible course for world disaster. Without the hope of our Lord's return, What future do any of us have? And I say, no, we have every reason for hope. We have every reason to be hopeful in this book. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy. So if you're tempted to get depressed and really be down and blue over the Supreme Court's decision this past week, I think you need to be listening to this series. You need to be getting a dose of the blessedness that comes from the Apostle John. Now, that's not to deny that we could face persecution. I mean, the saints in this book face persecution and trouble and bad times. And there was judgment galore in this book. The book is divided up into seven parts, five of which describe horrible judgments in the first century. My question is, who's being judged? It's the persecutors of the church. It's the enemies of God who are being judged. In answer to the prayers of God's persecuted saints, the husband of the bride raises himself up in jealous indignation and he destroys those who dare to touch the apple of his eye. Okay. He proves himself to be the vindicator of the bride when the bride is willing to cry out. And by the way, in the book of Deuteronomy, it was required that when a woman was being raped, that she cry out, right? She had to cry out, and that is what God calls the church today. Now, in this past week, I have read articles on eschatology that rejoice in the Supreme Court decision, they say, because it proves that Christ is coming back any time. That is the bride of Jesus Christ being raped and refusing to cry out. Well, in this book, none of the saints takes a who cares attitude. They cry out, and when the church cries out to her husband, He cares. He does something. He intervenes on their behalf. Okay, that's good news. And even the way the book is structured shows hope, encouragement, and victory for God's people. Now, I've given you an outline of the book of Revelation on the back of these sheets here. If you pull that out, I'm gonna give you an overview of why this is such a hopeful book. There are many other sub structures that we're going to be adding to this chart as we go through the book of Revelation but I was trying to keep it as simple and clear as possible for today. You'll see that the book as a whole is structured as a giant chiasm and a chiasm is a an ancient literary structure where there's a parallelism at the beginning and the end of a passage, or in this case, in the beginning and the end of a book. And so those would be labeled A sections because they're parallel with each other. And then the next section is parallel with the second to last section. And so we label that as a B because it is parallel with each other. And then you get to the center of the book. That is where the central theme of the entire book is located. As I say, this is very, very common in ancient literature and certainly in the Bible. Now, if you take a look at that E section, That is the heart of the chiasm, and that section of the book guarantees the victory of the church in chapters 12 through 14. Now interestingly, it is being guaranteed in the midst of very troubling times. Though there is a cosmic battle between Satan and his kingdom and Christ and his kingdom, the saints of the kingdom are guaranteed to win and to progressively advance the cause of Christ. Now just for purposes of understanding the incredible joy that this book would have brought to the first century saints, you don't have to just look at the last section of this book. Yes, that is very glorious, that is very wonderful, but everything in blue, in blue letters on this outline, constitutes the introductions to these sections. And those blue introductions are filled with faith-building statements. So if you take a look at section B there, is right after the prologue. Chapters 2 through 3, we have some discouraging news about the church militant. This is not a pie in the sky, buy and buy book. It is realistic about troubles. And so it's describing compromises in the first century church that interestingly are very similar to the compromises we are seeing in the Church of America today. He speaks of apathy, persecution from liberals, materialism, idolatry, sexual immorality. In fact, there is a woman named Jezebel who is teaching people that it's okay to have sexual immorality. I mean, we're experiencing the same thing where the church claims to be the church of Jesus Christ is teaching that homosexual marriage is an okay thing. And there were churches that were compromised doctrinally in the first century. And there were good churches that seemed to be the minority. So that's the first B section. It's describing the church militant and pointing out that it has weaknesses. There's discouraging things, there's encouraging things in those two chapters. But if all you thought about is God's message concerning the church is chapters two through three, you're missing the most blessed part of his message to the churches. which includes the introduction in chapter 1 and the parallel section in chapters 19 through 22. He's going to end the book with a parallel B section on the church triumphant that is very positive. That's the trajectory towards which the church is heading. We don't want to go back to New Testament apostolic times. They were a mess. And everybody says, I want to be an apostolic church. I want to go back to the way it was in the New Testament. I don't. First Corinthians. I mean, you look at the apostasy that happened in those churches. You look at the letters in chapters two through three. I don't want to go back there. I want to be heading toward the trajectory that this book says the church will be heading. OK, I want to be improving my own sanctification, the sanctification of the church. as a whole. But in any case, John gives us a basis for being hopeful and positive in the blue introduction to the first B of the chiasm. That introduction shows that Jesus Christ is present with His church. He's not an absent husband. He cares for His church. He's going to fight for His church. He will purify His church. He will be the one to guarantee the eventual triumph of the church. So even though chapters 2 through 3, you'll see some pretty messed up churches in the first century, he starts in chapter 1 by giving a Christ-centered perspective of the church. That's where our focus needs to be, on Christ who will build His church. so that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it." The gates of hell will not prevail against the church, not because it's so good, because it's so strong. No, God starts off by saying it's incredibly weak. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church because Christ is walking in the midst of the candlesticks. Christ is in the midst of His church, amen? Okay, now let's move on. The first section, the first C section of the chiasm deals with the seven seals. Now those seven seals deal with pretty horrible judgments, but you'll notice a blue letter introduction to those seals in chapter 4 verse 1 through chapter 5 verse 14. John introduces those seals with an awe-inspiring description of the throne room of God, and he shows how Jesus is worthy to open up that scroll, to break those seals, to start moving the judgments that He had already predicted when He was on earth in the Gospels, those judgments against Rome and against Israel. And each of the seven seals deals with historical judgments starting at Christ's first coming and working all the way up to Nero. Every one of those seals was a release of heaven's courtroom judgments. The first D section of the chiasm shows an intensification of judgments against God's enemies. And those are pretty scary if you take them out of context. But before those trumpets are opened, he gives a joyful introduction in chapter eight, verses one through six. And that chapter describes how the prayers of the saints go up to heaven, how they are directly related to whether or not angels have permission to go out and take battle on our behalf. No prayer means no battle. It speaks of silence that exists in heaven. You know, it's almost as if heaven is ignoring the plight of the church. Well, it's not ignoring the plight of the church. Those angels are standing with swords in their hands. They're standing with trumpets ready to go forth on our behalf, but they can't go forth. They're waiting for the church to pray. And the moment the church, the incense of the church goes up to heaven, what happens? There's lightnings, there's judgments, there's earthquakes on the earth. Trumpet blast after trumpet blast sends the regiments of angels out to bring these judgments against the enemies of the church. Okay? So that's the context. That's the incredibly good news that the church can make a difference in history if we'll take our duty of prayer seriously. Chapter 12 forms the introduction to the central section of the book, the E section. So chapter 12 is the heart of the heart of the book. And it's a very positive introduction. And since chapter 12 is also structured as a chiasm, you see that verses 10 through 11 of chapter 12, see that over to the right there in the middle right? So verses 10 through 11 of chapter 12 are the heart of the heart of the heart of the book. And what's the central message of those two verses? That Christ is progressively extending his salvation and his kingdom to the ends of the earth, that Satan has lost the battle, that he's been cast out of heaven, that the saints are victors, and even in their death, they are victors. It's the beginning stages of Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan, tough times, and yet exciting times, because Jericho is falling, falling, falling. And humanism is proving itself to be impotent. Is this book good news? Yes, it is. Very good news. Now, I'm not going to go through every blue introduction to the seven main sections of the book of Revelation, but I think if you read through them, you will see that each section fills the Christian with faith to triumph, even in the midst of very, very difficult circumstances. And I would encourage you to just go ahead and fold the outline, put it into your Bible, use it as a roadmap as you're reading through the book of Revelation. By the way, this is the result of decades of research, this outline. I have studied over 50 different scholarly attempts to outline the book of Revelation, probably closer to 100, but I'll be conservative, say over 50. And it's there's there's tensions, all of them found tensions. And these blue introductions, I think, are the key to resolving all of those tensions that are in in the book. And so anyway, hang on to it. I think you'll find it very helpful. But in terms of the overall blessing that this book brings, think of it this way. The saints of the first century had far worse setbacks than we have had, than we have received from the Supreme Court this past week. Yet they were not discouraged. They were not discouraged because they knew they were on the winning side, right? They knew that their efforts in the Lord are not lost, that every one of their efforts are advancing Christ's kingdom. They knew that their labors in the Lord were not in vain. Any interpretation of the book of Revelation that fails to give hope, encouragement, and pronounced blessing on the labors of the church militant is an interpretation that has failed one of John's fundamental interpretive principles for this book. Now there is a caveat, and it's an important caveat that you will find in every section of this book, and that caveat is that this blessing does not come automatically on the church. Okay, the blessing in chapter one verse three is not automatic. It doesn't say, blessed is he who reads and ignores the words of this prophecy. Okay, the later sections of this book only promise the joy of victory to those who are willing to pay attention to God's word and obey it. If we're gonna be like that first generation of Israelites who refused to take the conquest of Canaan, God says, fine, go suffer for 40 years. I'll put you on the back burner. But if we're willing, by faith, to expect great things from God, to attempt great things from him, there is no reason we could not change things around in America within a generation, if not less. Principle number 17 is that this book is meant to be read aloud in the worship of the church and thus has a liturgical function. Now that's hinted at by the word anagnosko, which one Greek dictionary defines as, quote, to read aloud in public worship." Another dictionary says, for the most part, it is used with the sense of reading or public reading. And so the one who reads is in the singular because it's referring to the pastor who's reading to the congregation, those who hear is in the plural. They're the congregation listening to this message. And because of the liturgical nature of that word, David Chilton, David Wallace, and a few other authors say that this is one of the first of several clues in the book that the whole book is structured liturgically. They say that it follows the normal order of a worship service. Now most scholars are a little bit skeptical of that. I'm still on the fence on that one. But it does at least point to three other things. Even if it doesn't point to that, it does point to three other things that are not so controversial. The first thing it points to is that this book is certainly appropriate for reading in worship. This is not a book that should be relegated to a specialty Sunday school class or academics to study. It was intended to be read in public worship. This is a book for all God's people. Second implication is that if we're commanded to read it out loud, which most Greek dictionaries give as part of the definition of that word, it's a reading out loud, then there must be something about the out loud part that is beneficial. And I'm not going to get into it this morning, but in future lessons we're going to be seeing that both worship and spiritual warfare were intended by God to be out loud experiences. We'll be seeing that even our private worship was intended to be out loud. In fact, you know, when I started, when I started doing my private devotions out loud singing, out loud reading of the Scripture, out loud praying to God, It transformed my private worship. It gave it energy. It gave it faith. There's something about doing it out loud that's important. Same with spiritual warfare. You're not going to find a whole lot of success against Satan if you, in your head, pronounce your curses against Satan. If you, in your head, try to resist him. Well, for one thing, he can't read your mind. You need to do just like Jesus did in the wilderness. Out loud, you use the sword of the word against the enemy and he must flee from you. And there's many other dimensions of this out loudness that we'll look at later, but at least in terms of the definition, there is a significance to speaking the words of this book out loud. And then thirdly, even if the book as a whole does not follow the liturgical pattern, it is certainly filled with liturgy, doxology, prayer, and dialogical worship. Indeed, we're going to later be seeing that this book presents in some way, just like Hebrews 12 does, that the worship that we have on earth is somehow connected with the worship of heaven. And in some way, the worship of heaven becomes the pattern for the worship on earth. That much is clear. And there are enormous implications for our worship. For example, it gives us guidance on the content of the songs that we sing and the instrumental music that accompanies our songs. And there's many other implications for worship. that I think will become clear later on in the book. But because there's debate on how far we can take the word anagnoska, I'm just going to stop with those three applications. I don't think they're too controversial. I think it's enough to know this book was intended to be a part of the church's worship. Well, we're going to end with one more principle. Eighteenth principle is that this book is a book on ethics, and that could be seen by both the words hear and heed, as New King James words it, keep. And when the Bible uses the term here or pay attention, it's not saying, hey, I want you to put a whole bunch of information in your head and store it there real good. That's not the way it's using that word here. You know, when a mom says, you're not listening to me, you know that she means that the kid is not following through on the instructions that she's given to him. She's not obeying, right? Child is not obeying. Well, it's the same thing in the Bible. Here's how the dictionary defines that first word for here. Quote, faith and obedience are the marks of real hearing, unquote. It says faith and obedience are the marks of real hearing. So most, at least Reformed commentaries, acknowledge that John is calling Christians to ethical obedience to the demands of this book. And certainly the second word, to heed or to keep, emphasizes that. Dictionary defines tereo as, quote, to persist in obedience, keep, observe, fulfill, pay attention to. Well, that means this book is not a book for idle curiosity seekers. It is a book on ethics par excellence. And if we don't understand the book, how are we going to keep it? How are we going to obey it? It's very important that we understand it. And let me give you some examples of the broad range of ethics covered in this book. Chapters 2 through 3 deal with church ethics. Chapter 4 shows how ethics must be God-centered, must flow from God's throne. There is no natural law in this book. The only ethics this book is interested in is the ethics of Scripture. Chapter 5 shows how our ethics must flow from grace. It is the Lamb of God alone who can keep the commandments and enable the church to keep the commandments. And so He's the one that empowers the church through this book. And chapters 6 through 9, excuse me, 6 through 19 show that God is not neutral. to people who keep or who disobey his word. There are always judgments that flow from disobedience. There is always blessings that flow from obedience to his word. In fact, Deuteronomy 28, we'd expect that, right? That's a way God says he's laid out his providential history. Sanctions are historical blessings and cursings. Well, this means that it's impossible for humanists to escape from God's ethics. They might try to escape from his ethics, they might fight against his ethics, they might hate his ethics, but those ethics are going to grab that humanist by the shoulders and is going to enforce God's ethical sanctions. You cannot escape from it. It's impossible for the Supreme Court to be rebelling against God's law without God doing something in history, especially if the church is involved in doing the things that this book says that they ought to be doing. Now, what kinds of things does the book of Revelation speak to? What specifically are believers commanded to pay attention to and obey? Well, the church is called to sing. So if we go through an entire worship service without opening up our mouths and singing, we're not paying attention to the words of this book. We're not obeying the words of this prophecy. And specifically, it calls us to sing the songs of Moses. Which means we gotta sing songs that are in the Old Testament. This book is not about New Testament only kind of Christianity, or New Testament only kind of worship. And it's not just the song of Moses that we are to sing. Chapter 15, verse three says, they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb sang, and then comes a new song you won't find in the Old Testament Psalter. So it instructs us on how we are to sing. Various chapters call the church to prayer. And more controversially, they call upon the church to pray down God's judgments upon His enemies. And people say, whoa, whoa, whoa, that does not sound very loving. How can that be compatible with Christ's call for us to love our enemies? Well, it's very compatible. For example, In chapter 14, God destroys his enemies by converting some of his enemies in verses 14 through 16, and killing other enemies in verses 17 through 20. And even his judgments on Israel were that way. Of 144,000 Jews that were spared from the seven-year tribulation, had Christ bearing the curses of this book on their behalf, but the curses had to come. Why? Because there's rebellion. So Christ bears it on our behalf, or they bear it themselves. But either way, it is an absolute essential that we come into agreement with God's judgments. But it's God doing so, not us. Scripture says, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. We're not to take vengeance into our own hands. But when we ask God, Lord, would you take care of our enemies? Would you bring your judgments there? Then we're freed up to love our enemies. Because it's God doing the judgment, right? Not us. This is the way David did it. He prayed imprecations against King Saul, and that freed him up to love King Saul. Same with his son Absalom. He prayed God's imprecations against his son Absalom, but he did indeed love him. He hoped he would repent and come to forgiveness. But Saul's tyranny could no longer be ignored. So David, by divine inspiration, wrote many imprecatory psalms against King Saul, just as the book of Revelation does with Israel and with Rome in the first century. And the point of this book is that God hears such prayers when the church is finally willing to pray them. It is in direct response to the prayers of the saints that God's judgments fall on His enemies. Why are judgments not falling on God's enemies in America today? You can't find any pastors who are willing to teach this kind of stuff. You can't find people who are willing to actually say, OK, we will take God's imprecatory Psalms. I don't know how many pastors have told me that those imprecatory Psalms are sub-Christian. They're not worthy of the Christian. Christ took them on his lips. The book of Revelation has the saints taking them upon their lips. Now, I mentioned tyranny, and this book of Revelation gives saints ethics for handling tyranny. You don't just patently wait and see if the tyrants are going to kill you. Instead, the book of Revelation brings these kinds of things. It brings prophetic rebuke to tyranny. Calling Rome the ugly beast from the sea is hardly polite tea time chat, okay? John pulled no punches when he described the demonic evil that was controlling Rome. But he also described the beast from the land which was Israel and he exposed the deceptiveness of that form of statism. Israel was a beast that looked a little bit like a lamb and yet had dragon's breath. Like Democrats and Republicans who waved the Bible while engaging in horrible anti-biblical statism, the beast from the sea claimed to be the Lamb of God and to speak for God, and yet Israel, the beast from the land, was just as controlled by the demonic as the beast from the sea was. And so Revelation helps people to see through the pretensions of statism and to oppose it. That is part of Christian ethics, to resist the idolatry of statism. I am convinced that Bozidar Marinov is absolutely right that the greatest idol in America is statism. And you find it in the Republican Party, you find it in the Democratic Party, you find it amongst evangelicals, you find it amongst liberals. It is pervasive. Who's the first person that they go to when there's any problem? They go to the state. Statism is an idol that we must fight against, that we must speak against, that we must pray against, and if we're not willing to tear down that idolatry, we as a church are part of the problem. We're either a part of the solution or we are a part of the problem and I think the silence that the church has in the face of all of the humanism and the statism in America makes the church part of the problem. I think what's happening with all of these, this quick slide is Romans 1, God's giving them up but I think in part he is doing it to bring discipline to the church of Jesus Christ to purify us and to separate between the wheat and the tares and the goats and the sheep. And we need to pray that God would do that purifying work and not just completely cast away this nation, but would wake up the church so that we could make a difference, so that we could make a difference. In any case, this book has ethical calls to confront, to flee from, to pray against, to teach against, to refuse to submit to the state's demonic demands. And yet in chapter 13, there are limits to that resistance. God warns Christians not to take vengeance into their own hands, to not be revolutionaries who use the sword against the state without authorization. This is forbidden in Revelation, just as we saw in our series on 1 and 2 Samuel, that it was forbidden in the Old Testament. In other words, this book is an incredible resource on how to be balanced in resisting tyrants. Totally agrees with our founding fathers that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God, but it warns us about the danger of throwing off all authority in the process. It's a fabulous resource on the ethics of interposition and resistance. But this book gives ethics related to Christian's personal walk in holiness, gives ethics related to business, even the evils inherent in international banking. Yes, this does speak about the evils of international banking. And those who pull the strings behind governments are not omnipotent according to this book. God takes them out. You especially see those principles in chapters 13, 18, and 19. It gives guidelines for bypassing fascism and how to use an alternative economic system when the state tries to force conformity through fascist economics. The satanic fascism of Mussolini and Hitler and of modern America is not a new thing. It's almost as old as Satan. It certainly has Satan behind it as the author. When we later discuss the Mark of the Beast and the prohibition of any commerce to those who do not take on the Mark of the Beast, we're going to see that Rome and Israel had fascism with a vengeance. Okay? And simple logic will tell you that if no one was allowed to sell, Without taking on the Mark of the Beast and Christians survived this seven year tribulation, it's quite clear that the Christians were involved in a black market. Now there are Christians who think, oh, that's horrible. You can't be involved in a black market. Just think of the logic of that. It is inescapable. You read Corrie ten Boom's book, The Hiding Place, and you will see they wouldn't have been able to survive without a black market. Don't think of that as a bad word. Think of it as an answer to the evils of fascism. I think there's no alternative conclusion. Chapters 18 through 19 give amazing insights into the world economic system of our modern day, even though I believe it was describing the world economic system of the first century. So you can see we got a ton of stuff we're going to have to go through in the next couple of years or however many years it's going to take, I don't know. But to summarize this point, Revelation is a book of ethics for all of life. And to miss the ethics, as many commentators have done, is to ignore the admonition of chapter 1, verse 3, which says, 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. Now next time I preach on this passage, I won't be here next week, but next time I preach on this, I'll try to finish off verse 3, perhaps start verse 4. But let's go to the Lord and let's thank Him that this is a book of blessing. This is a book that shows us how we ought to worship, how we ought to have church government. It shows us how to apply the ethics of the Bible to all of life. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is our life as Deuteronomy points out. that this gives us guidance and a lamp for our feet during dark and troublesome times. And I pray that we would take it seriously, we would find faith and hope and encouragement in it, and that we would be in a position where we could encourage others who lose faith, who have lost hope in America. And I pray, Father, that you would indeed bring reformation and revival to the church of Jesus Christ and through that to culture as a whole. Satan has robbed this country from from Christ's kingdom and I pray that you would restore it to Christ's kingdom. In fact that you would restore it sevenfold. Take restitution out of Satan's kingdom and I pray that this country would become seven times more godly than it ever was at its founding. We pray, Father, that you would make it to be more and more consistently Christian and that you would overcome the evil of the wicked one, that just as in the book of Esther, Haman overstepped himself, that the wicked one will have overstepped himself with some of the things that have happened in this past week and that are coming down the pike and that this nation would wake up and certainly the church would wake up. and begin to call out upon your name to repent of their own apathy and their own fears and their own anxieties and silliness. We pray, Father, that our priorities would be patterned after your priorities, that we would hate the things that you hate and love the things that you love. But please, Father, do not abandon or cast out the church of Jesus Christ. We deserve to have our candlestick plucked up and thrown away, but I pray that you would not do so. that for the great joy of angels whom you have said rejoice over the repentance of sinners, for the glory of your name, for the honor of your son and of his kingdom, that you would restore the church of America and restore this nation, and really, Lord, all nations of this world, that you would cause them to bring great glory to the name of your Son, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray this. Amen.