We're going to try to finish the third verse of Revelation 1, and I'm reading from page 21 of your bulletins. 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, not just to understand it, but to live it. And we pray that you would anoint my preaching and enable me to clearly articulate the things that you have laid upon my heart. Bless this, your people, as we continue to worship. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. May be seated. Well, we've been seeing that every word in verses 1 through 3 is packed with meaning and is very critical for understanding the book. These are interpretive clues that the Apostle John has laid down for us, and that is true of this phrase that we're going to be looking at under Principle 19, that this is a prophetic book. John calls it a prophetic book so that we will immediately know how to interpret this book. We should interpret it with the standard rules of interpretation used for the Old Testament prophetic prophecy. The Old Testament prophecy genre is what it's called. Now you wouldn't think that this would be very controversial. It seems so obvious right on the surface of the text and yet it is indeed very, very controversial. Verse 3 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. This written book is clearly called a prophecy here and four times in chapter 22 and we're going to examine what does that mean and how does that help us to understand and to interpret this book. There are Right now, two basic ways that people have looked at the terms and the concepts of prophecy, Reformed people have typically seen Old New Testament prophecy as being identical with Old Testament prophecy, and that would include the prophecies of the two prophets in Revelation chapter 11. Okay, but there is a charismatic view that claims that New Testament prophecy is quite different from Old Testament prophecy. They would say that the Apostles are the New Testament equivalents to Old Testament prophets. So far okay, but that the New Testament prophets They operated and they continue to operate quite differently. For example, Wayne Grudem would say that Old Testament prophecy was inspired and infallible, followed the principles of writing that would conform it to the Old Testament prophetic genre. But he claims that the New Testament prophecy is non-authoritative, non-infallible, deals with general ideas and not with the very words of God and is not inerrant. So how does he handle the fact that this book is called a prophecy? Well, he would say that the Apostle John is using that word in a non-standard way. He believes the book of Revelation is inspired just like we do, but he claims that it is not inspired because it is a prophecy. It is inspired because it is apostolic, and it just happens to also be prophetic. So his view of the prophetic character of this book will cause him to interpret the book differently than we would. So I need to get into this debate between Wayne Grudem and your traditional reform view of prophecy before we can even apply this principle to interpreting the book. It is my belief that Revelation and the whole New Testament use the terms prophet, prophecy, and prophesy in exactly the same way that the Old Testament uses those terms. Wayne Grudem disagrees and he has to disagree if he is to preserve his idea that this gift continues into our current time period. And I hate to even get into this debate, really, in these introductory sermons, but I have to. I absolutely have to, because this is a critical principle for interpreting the book of Revelation. Now, I do appreciate the fact that Wayne Grudem has been trying very, very hard to get Charismatics to honor the authority of the Scripture, to see it as the final, the only, the only infallible rule for faith in life. And so he's been a very good influence upon the charismatic church, but his attempt to have prophecy continue and to only allow for the cessation of apostleship simply will not work. If Ephesians 2 through 3 teaches that apostleship ceases in the first century, which Wayne Grudem is forced to admit, then it also teaches that prophecy ceases in the first century because in that passage, Both together are the once and for all revelatory foundation for the church. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of that foundation and the prophets and the apostles form the rest of that foundation upon the which the church is going to be built. And it gives to us everything that we need. Now as I say, Grudem disagrees and his theory can be summarized in just a few statements. I'm not going to go in depth in this critique this morning because I've already dealt with that in the Acts series. And I'm going to be dealing with it in depth when we get to the cessation of prophecy in chapters 10 through 11. That is where I think is a critical passage that most books completely ignore. But let me quickly make some summary points. First point that Grudem makes is that the Bible is the only infallible and authoritative rule for faith and practice and that non-apostolic prophecy is not authoritative. And in one sense, I praise the Lord for this because it is moving charismatics away from a thus says the Lord kind of authority when they utter what they consider to be to be their prophecies. The problem is it's not really imitating how the New Testament prophets acted. You know, Agabus said, thus says the Spirit. Acts 21 verse 11, and the two prophets in chapter 11 of Revelation do indeed speak with absolute authority. And that simply does not fit into Wayne Grudem's paradigm. When we get to those chapters, I'm going to be pointing out that John in chapter 10 speaks of the imminent cessation of all prophecy. The imminent cessation of the mystery of revelation that had been given to the New Testament prophets and the two prophets in chapter 11 are the last of the prophets. And maybe at the end of this sermon I'll return to that very, very briefly depending on how much time we have. But in terms of Grudem's theory, he claims that unlike Scripture, prophecy is not authoritative. And as we will see, this first pillar of his theory is contradicted by chapter 11 as well as some of the other verses we're going to be looking at this morning. Grudem's second claim is that the New Testament prophets are totally different from the Old Testament prophets. He claims that unlike Old Testament prophets who spoke the very words of God, spoke with the very authority of God, that the New Testament prophets can make mistakes without being considered false prophets and that they do not speak God's very words. and therefore have, quote, no absolute divine authority, unquote. Instead, such a prophet is, quote, speaking merely human words to report something God brings to mind, unquote. So he believes that apostolic writings, like the Old Testament, are the very word of God to man, whereas prophetic gifts just give general impressions that can have a mixture of truth and error mixed together. Now, of course, Grudem recognizes that the whole book of Revelation is called the words of a prophecy in verse three and four times in chapter 22. And that's quite different from the way he claims the rest of the New Testament defines these words. He recognizes that the prophecy of Revelation carries with it ethical imperatives, is authoritative, functions exactly in the same way that the Old Testament prophecy did. But astonishingly, rather than admitting that the book of Revelation disproves his thesis. He claims that the book of Revelation is unique and is an exception to the rule. Let me quote him at length. He says, it is safe to say that in authority, in content, and in scope, no other prophecy like this has ever been given in the New Testament church. And let me first of all say that is absolutely false. Romans 16 verse 26 clearly calls all the New Testament scriptures, quote, the prophetic scriptures. And we're going to be seeing that Mark and Luke and James and Jude were not writing as apostles. Nobody thinks of them as apostles. They were writing as prophets. But in any case, he claims it is safe to say that in authority, in content, and in scope, no other prophecy like this has ever been given in the New Testament church. In conclusion, the book of Revelation shows that an apostle could function as a prophet and record a prophecy for the New Testament church, but because its author was an apostle, and because it is unique, it does not provide information which is directly relevant to the gift of prophecy as it functioned among ordinary Christians in first century churches. So he dismisses the whole book of Revelation as being in any way relevant to the debate. That's very convenient. Here is a book that uses the terms prophet, prophecy, and prophesy in ways that completely contradict his whole thesis of what a New Testament prophet is about. And yet he does not allow this book to define New Testament prophecy. That's a rather arbitrary dismissal. But even if we were to give in to Grudem on that argument, he still can't dismiss the evidence of this book because there are a lot of examples in this book of non-apostolic prophecy. For example. What about the two witnesses in Revelation chapter 11? They are two nameless prophets who die in Jerusalem in the first century. If New Testament prophets are utterly different from Old Testament prophets, why on earth did John confuse us in Revelation chapter 11 by comparing Those two New Testament prophets to Moses and to Elijah and to Zechariah, Zerubbabel and Joshua. I mean that's not a good way of convincing us of Wayne Grudem's thesis if indeed that's what he's trying to convince us of. No way. And if they do not speak directly for Christ, why are they called His two witnesses for His covenant lawsuit? And if they were not inspired, why are their words compared to Zachariah's two olive trees, which pour forth the pure oil of the Holy Spirit's inspiration? Okay, that is clearly a reference to the inspiration of two individuals in Zachariah. And if these two witnesses are also those olive trees pouring forth pure oil, it indicates they too were inspired. If they're not inspired, why are they also compared to Zachariah's two lampstands that shone forth pure, unadulterated light? Grudem never addresses the two witnesses, but they totally destroy his thesis. It's not just the book of Revelation that stands in continuity with the Old Testament prophets. The prophets of chapter 11 do as well. And I could just end with that but I'm going to be hammering this morning because I know some of you have been reading these debates and really want to get into this. Grudem's only attempted defense is to claim that revelation is unique that nowhere else in the New Testament are the terms prophet prophecy and prophesy used in any way that is equivalent to the Old Testament use of those terms. But is it really credible to think that the Holy Spirit couldn't come up with a new term to describe something that's utterly different than prophecy of the Old Testament if he really intended it to be different. Why would he use the term that has had a standard usage for 2,000 some years up to that point and then confuse people by intermingling them? It's not credible at all. Furthermore, Revelation simply is not unique in stating that all true prophecy is authoritative. In the Acts sermons, I demonstrated that Acts, the book of Acts, uses the terms prophet, prophesy, and prophecy to refer to both Old Testament prophets and New Testament prophets, sometimes mingling the two in the same verse. Luke didn't do a very good job of showing that they're utterly different from Old Testament prophets, you know, if that was his intention, as Grudem claims. And when I put this sermon on the web, I'll put a whole bunch of those scriptures into a footnote. But it's not just Acts. I've already mentioned that Romans 16, verse 26 calls all the New Testament scriptures that have been written so far, quote, the prophetic scriptures. Prophecy and scripture are clearly linked together. Now Grudem says that that passage has to be a reference to the Old Testament, which again begs the question of why he would use a very confusing term like prophecy or prophetic if that was the case. But Paul is quite clear that the revelation he is talking about is, quote, The revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures made known. It is not until now that the prophets and the prophetic scriptures have made this mystery known. He's clearly referring to New Testament prophets and New Testament scriptures. So Romans 1626 declares that every book of the New Testament was indeed written by New Testament prophets. It's not just the book of Revelation. And yet Grudem has the audacity to claim, quote, to my knowledge, nowhere in the New Testament is there a record of a prophet who was not an apostle, but who spoke with absolute divine authority attaching to his very words, unquote. Wait a minute. Luke speaking with absolute divine authority. He was not an apostle. What about Mark? What about James? What about Jude? They were not apostles. Indeed, the apostle Peter completely contradicts Grudem's statement. Let me read Grudem again. Then I'm going to read 2 Peter 1 verse 21. Grudem said, to my knowledge, nowhere in the New Testament is there a record of a prophet who was not an apostle, but who spoke with absolute divine authority attaching to his very words. In contrast, Peter insists that, quote, prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Prophecy never came by the will of man. There are no exceptions. According to Peter, there are simply not two kinds of true prophecy. They don't exist. There's only one kind of true prophecy. Prophecy was always inspired without exception and that's why Jesus in Matthew chapter 7 tells us how we can tell the difference between true prophets and false prophets. He says a false prophet is going to be a good tree that always produces good fruit. Never an exception. 100% infallible. There's never going to be a bad prophecy that comes out of his mouth. If he's a true prophet, It's going to be inspired, infallible, inerrant. That's exactly what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7. He says you're to test the prophets. It's exactly the same as in the Old Testament. Exactly the same. And we demonstrated that Agabus was inspired and perfectly accurate in his prophecies. Now, I'm not going to cover all of that material again. It would take too long. But if only apostles could write scripture, how on earth did Mark, Luke, Acts, James, Jude, and Hebrews come into existence when they were not written by apostles? And the answer is easy for me. They were written by prophets. It was prophecy. Romans 16 says, all the New Testament scriptures were written by prophets. Now Grudem disagrees. He insists on a different theory. He says that each of those authors wrote something true under the oversight of the apostles. And once the apostles read it and approved of it, it became inspired. Brethren, sisters, that is not how prophecy works. God gives His inspiration to the authors, not to the people who are supposedly overseeing the authorship of that book. So, inspiration works on the author. It was Luke, James, Mark, and Jude who were moved by the Holy Spirit so that nothing of their prophecy was moved by their will. But there are other ways in which this book contradicts Grudem's thesis. Where Grudem claims you can safely ignore a prophecy, anybody who ignored those two non-apostolic prophets in chapter 11 of Revelation, boy, were they in deep trouble, okay? Where Grudem claims over and over that modern prophecy is not the very words of God or of Christ, this book claims the opposite. It speaks of the words of prophecy and claims that those words of prophecy constitute the very testimony of Christ. For example, Revelation 19, verse 10. says that other prophets than John had the testimony of Jesus and the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. He is defining what all prophecy is characterized by. He says for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Now Mounce's commentary says of the second phrase, John's readers would certainly understand his reference to the spirit of prophecy in terms of the Holy Spirit as the one who inspired all prophecy. That's the meaning of the second phrase. What about the first phrase? In a previous sermon, we saw that the phrase, the testimony of Jesus, that's found in chapter 1, verse 2, and verse 9, is a reference to the very words of Jesus. The inescapable conclusion of those two facts means that Revelation 19.10 teaches us that the Holy Spirit who inspired prophecy brought the very words of Jesus Christ. Now here's where it gets interesting. We've already seen that the whole book of Revelation is also the testimony of Jesus and yet Revelation 19.10 says all prophecy of all prophets is the testimony of Jesus. Well logic tells you that this is making prophecy equal to scripture. It is God's very word to man through Christ. Grudem says he doesn't know what that verse means. Look it up in his books. He said he had no idea what that verse means. Well, you can't just dismiss a verse like that. In that way, ignorance is not good enough. The verse makes prophecy clearly parallel with the rest of scripture. Where Grudem says the modern prophet can be 20, 30, or even 40% wrong and still not be a false prophet. And whereas he says, quote, there is almost uniform testimony from all sections of the charismatic movement that prophecy is imperfect and impure and will contain elements that are not to be obeyed or trusted, unquote. All true prophecy in the book of Revelation claims to be authoritative, including the prophecies of those two prophets in chapter 11. And all prophecy in this book claims to be true. For example, Revelation 22, 6 says of the words given by the angel to John, these words are faithful and true, but the reason given in the rest of the verse is that the prophetic message was given from God who controls the spirits of the prophets. Not just John, himself, but of the prophets. The verse says, these words are faithful and true. The Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show to his slaves the things that must shortly take place. I want you to notice the plural there. It's not just John who had these things revealed to him. The words he is talking about in that verse are not faithful and true simply because John is an apostle. They are faithful and true because God is the Lord of the spirits of the prophets. I think that's very, very significant. And I won't belabor this issue anymore. I think it's fairly obvious. And if it's not obvious to you, I would encourage you to read my volume two of the Canon book when it comes out. Hopefully sometime this year it's going to go into great detail on these issues. But I wanted to give you enough this morning so that you could see that revelation is not a weird exception to the New Testament usage of the terms prophet, prophesy, prophecy. Rather it defines prophet and prophecy par excellence and it defines those terms to mean inspired revelation. There are only two kinds of prophets in the book of Revelation. There are inspired prophets and false prophets. There is nothing halfway in between. Now when we actually get to the chapters dealing with the forever closing off of revelation and apostleship and prophecy, I'm going to get into much more detail on why it is that Daniel and Isaiah 8 and other passages talk about the sealing off of prophecy in 70 AD when Israel is cast away. And why we have in this Bible every prophecy that must not be despised. it's all been accumulated put together and it's here for us to have as our foundation for the rest for the rest of time now other general revelation that God continues to give to his people and I believe that he does continue to give general revelation the laws written on your heart right he gives guidance illumination But it should not be called prophecy. I have experienced the same illumination that my charismatic friends have but I do not call it prophecy. It is dangerous to do so. It undermines the authority of scripture to do so. Those experiences are forms of non authoritative personal guidance and illumination but not of inspired revelation. I think it's so so important to hold to that distinction. I know it's a long long rabbit trail. But if we don't understand this phrase, what the words of this prophecy refer to, what they mean, what they do not mean, then we cannot apply it. There is not a radical disjunction between New Testament prophet and Old Testament prophet. On the contrary, John wants us to treat the whole book the way you would treat Old Testament prophetic literature. Now it's very helpful because we've got all kinds of rules on how to interpret the Old Testament prophet. Any Jew who read that phrase would immediately know, oh okay I need to interpret this book like I would any prophetic genre. So I need to kind of dust off the rules, maybe forgotten what the rules are, look in my file and read these rules. But they're very easy rules. They're not hard to remember. But it would have been a very helpful phrase for him. And you'll make huge mistakes if you do not interpret this book as belonging to the prophetic genre. Now, if you want to delve into this in depth, there's a couple of great books by an author that Ray has been reading that show how to interpret prophecy and where do they get the rules for these? They get it straight from the scripture just like we're getting rules for interpretation from the first 11 verses of Revelation. Milton Terry has written two standard books on hermeneutics. One of them is focusing on interpreting prophecy. There is another one that has a chapter related to prophecy. Now I don't necessarily agree with Milton Terry on all of his use of those rules, you know, when he's interpreting that. I've got disagreements with him on that. But I have no issue with the rules of interpretation themselves that he lays out in those books. And prophetic genre is quite different from historical, narrative, poetic, parabolic, and epistolary genres of the Bible. And by the way, this is not just post-millennialists who hold to this. You might think, okay, this is just some Rules that Phil Kaiser is coming up with for himself, and they're unique. No, no, no, they're not. These are standard principles for interpreting prophecy that were held to by historic premillennialists, by historic amillennialists, and by historic postmillennialists, which means they're not enough to completely settle all of the debates between us, right? Because they're still pre, post, and ah, right? But those rules are very important and unfortunately dispensationalists, and there is a number of subgroups of amillennialists, have violated these rules left and right. They're the most guilty. Well, full preterism is just as guilty as well. what some people call hyperpreterism. Now if you want a seven page summary, most of you would like a CliffsNotes version of this. Well, there's a CliffsNotes version that is so easy to read, put out by Louis Burkhoff. In fact, his whole book, if you want a book on hermeneutics, this is the easiest one to read. It's a thin little book, but it's a powerful one. Yeah, let me see if I wrote down the name here. Principles of Biblical Interpretation. Now he's an amillennialist, I'm not. But he is spot on on giving the 13 principles that have historically been used for interpreting Old Testament prophetic literature. And here's the point. If you believe that revelation should be interpreted within the genre of Old Testament prophetic literature, then hey, you can safely use Burkhoff's 13 rules. I'm just going to give you three examples of his 13 rules so you can see how they fit into John's more comprehensive 30 principles of interpretation. Birkhoff uses scripture to prove that while prophecy must be interpreted differently from the historical narrative genre, quote, prophecy is still closely connected with history. Well, that's our interpretive principle number six, isn't it? And it rules out several approaches to this book. His fifth principle states, though the prophets often express themselves symbolically, it is erroneous to regard their language as symbolical throughout. Well, that's a perfect summary of John's principle number nine that we looked at some weeks ago. In other words, there is both literal and there is symbolic in the book. And many times God has the symbolic actually in history itself. So again it's a great summary from the scriptures he brings up. I'll mention just one more of Burkhoff's principles and I'm going to dig a little bit deeper into this one, not because it's more important but just to give you a little bit of a feel for how I'm approaching this book and so that you can see that this is just a summary. I'm not going to make you an expert on hermeneutics when we go through these principles, but I'm giving you enough of the basics so you'll be able to read the book for yourself and say, OK, this a lot of this makes sense. Burkhoff's fourth principle for interpreting prophecy is that prophetic judgments on nations are conditional and dependent on the contingent actions of men. In other words, don't view prophecy in a hyper Calvinistic way. View it covenantally. And I want you to turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 18 for this particular rule for interpreting prophecy. And the reason this is so important is it keeps us from having fatalistic attitudes with regard to the future of a nation. It helps you also avoid the errors in the charismatic movement. I've talked to quite a number of charismatic pastors Who who have been confronted about their dogmatic statements about their prophetic pronouncements and then they haven't come true and they say well that no more makes me a false prophet than Jonah was a false prophet when his prophecy didn't come true. I think what are you talking about? It's right He said, well, he said in 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed. And Nineveh didn't get destroyed in 40 days. He was obviously mistaken. And yet he's a true prophet. So you can see how very subtly it undermines the integrity and the authority of Scripture. Let me tell you something, brothers and sisters, Jonah did not make a mistake. He gave a conditional prophecy and that illustrates what I'm going to go through here in Jeremiah 18 illustrates how foolish such a criticism of Jonah really is. OK, Jeremiah 18. Let's begin to read at verse 7. The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. On the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it, if it does evil in my sight so that it does not obey my voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it. Now therefore speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, thus says the Lord, behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now everyone from his evil way and make your ways and your doings good. And they said, that's hopeless. So we will walk according to our own plans and we will everyone obey the dictates of his evil heart. The people were taking a fatalistic attitude toward the prophecy. Their attitude was, hey, if the prophecy is true, there's nothing we can do about it. What's going to happen is going to happen. So we might as well enjoy ourselves in the process. We might as well continue on with our sin. And a lot of modern interpreters of Revelation are taking sort of that kind of an attitude. They see the future of America as hopeless and so they rejoice in how things are getting worse and worse because on their interpretation that means that Christ is coming back soon and so they don't do anything about it. Their attitude seems to be that if it is prophesied it will happen. There's nothing we can do about it and it leads to fatalism. It's not a proper view of prophecy. So even if you believe that chapters 6 through 19 refer to events in our future, which they don't, but even if you believe that, you've not yet been convinced of my preterist views, if you're a futurist, what this principle is saying is, don't be fatalistic about your attitudes toward culture. Now look at Jeremiah 26. This gives an example of this principle in real history. And let's start reading at verse 10. Jeremiah 26, verse 10. Jeremiah had been captured. He was being tried for treason because of his prophetic message against the nation. And here is his response. When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord, and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house. And the priests and the prophets spoke to the princes and all the people, saying, This man deserves to die, for he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears. Then Jeremiah spoke to all the princes and all the people, saying, The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city with all the words that you have heard. Now, therefore, amend your ways and your doings and obey the voice of the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent concerning the doom that he has pronounced against you. Now, he does not back down on his message of judgment against that nation. Unfortunately, a lot of modern church men are backing down when the IRS gives threats or when the GLBTQ community begins to get threats. But Jeremiah does not bow down in the verses 14 through 15. In effect, he said, hey, kill me if you want, but I am not going to stop preaching. God has sent me. Verse 14. As for me, here I am in your hand. Do with me as it seems good and proper to you, but know for certain that if you put me to death, you will surely bring innocent blood on yourselves, on this city and on its inhabitants. For truly, the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing. And I want you to notice the wise response of the princes in verses 16 and following. Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the mountain of the temple like the bare hills of the forest. Did Hezekiah, king of Judah and all Judah ever put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and seek the Lord's favor? And the Lord relented concerning the doom which he had pronounced against them. But we are doing great evil against ourselves." So I think you can see Berkhoff's principle is not just, hey, I'm going to come up with a principle of how to interpret. He gets his principles of interpretation from the Bible very, very clearly illustrated here. It is how we should view God's pronounced judgments in Revelation. So, for example, in chapters 2 through 3, we see the repeated call to repent. And if the churches repent, then the disaster that is looming over those churches will not fall upon those churches. And we see the same graciousness of God toward Israel and Rome, even as evil as they had become in the first century. Let me just read you four examples. Take a look at Revelation chapter 9. Even though judgment had already fallen and was increasing, there was still hope that there would be repentance. Look at verses 20 through 21. Revelation 9, beginning at verse 20. But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders, or their sorceries, or their sexual immorality, or their thefts. So according to the rules of prophetic interpretation, promised judgment can be averted if there is repentance. But the way many people interpret revelation and apply it to our modern times, you'd get the impression they believed in fatalism. Look at chapter 16. And in this chapter, we are seeing increasing judgments and yet further opportunities for repentance. And when repentance is not forthcoming, the judgments heat up even more. chapter 16 verse 9, and men were scorched with great heat and they blasphemed the name of God who was power over these plagues and they did not repent and give him glory. Now it's true God knows, he foreknows that they're not going to repent but covenantally it is still just as true that if they had repented the judgment would have been averted. This is simply the principle that if Israel does not repent, God will increase the judgment seven times worse. And if they don't repent, He's going to increase it seven times worse again. Four times, He says that in Leviticus. And the whole way that the book is structured, it's structured around that four-fold increase. I mean, there is seven-fold increase four times in the book of Revelation. So God pours out yet another bowl of judgment in verse 10, but take a look at the result in verse 11. 16, verse 11. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they did not repent of their deeds. The point is that biblical prophecy is not simply a foretelling of the future. It shows us a gracious God who is willing to relent if we are willing to repent. Even promised judgments encourage change. There is always hope if there is repentance, and that's why we need to keep pressing America toward repentance. Well, that makes prophecy not just something to titillate our curiosity about the future, it makes prophecy profoundly important for living. We must study the book of Revelation so that we could know the kinds of things that the church should repent of and that nations should repent of. And I'm not going to take the time to go through all 13 principles that Burkhoff outlines, but suffice it to say that John really lays them out pretty clearly in the 30 principles he gives in the first 11 verses. Revelation must be interpreted within the prophetic genre's hermeneutical rules or we will make needless mistakes. Now let me try to be extremely brief on the other subpoints. Subpoint 2 says as prophecy, Revelation is quite different from the non-biblical apocalyptic literature of the ancient world, which had a pessimistic view of history and saw evil triumphing in history. And sadly, many commentaries on Revelation, they treat it in the same way that they look at the apocalyptic secular literature that is out there. In fact, many of them say that is the paradigm. We need to look at how to interpret the Gnostic apocalyptic literature and they impose that on Revelation. They say this is how we have to interpret it. Full Preterists are notorious for that. Absolutely notorious. They're not the only ones though. In the last 50 years it has become very, very popular. But it is wrong. This is not allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture. Revelation is not Gnostic apocalyptic literature. That is a liberal presupposition which unfortunately a lot of evangelical and even Reformed commentaries have bought into. Revelation is prophetic literature, and I spent a great deal of time contradicting apocalyptic literature in an earlier sermon, so enough said. But hopefully you can see how all of these 30 principles really tightly hold together. You throw out one, it messes up the others. Subpoint 3 says, the prophetic view of history is covenantal. Like the prophetic books of the Old Testament, Revelation is structured like a covenant lawsuit. Many interpretations fly in the face of this fact. Now, I dealt with the covenant lawsuit aspect and the structure in a previous sermon, so I'll skip over that. But let me just give you some ways in which people are ignoring the covenantal aspect of this prophetic book. All Old Testament prophetic literature was thoroughly covenantal. In fact, it doesn't even make sense apart from the covenant. Those prophets were always applying Deuteronomy 28's blessings and cursings upon nations that refused to live by God's law and by His grace. And Revelation is exactly the same thing. Now here's the problem. If you think we're living in the great parentheses, which dispensationalists do, then there are no nations in covenant with God. And therefore there are no judgments that can fall in this current age. There is no cause and effect relationship between the behavior of nations and God's judgments. Why? Because law, covenant, and judgment don't apply right now during this parenthesis period. We're not under law, we're under grace. They say. But according to dispensationalism, suddenly, out of the blue, during a future seven-year period, God covenantally judges nations severely. The very nations He's ignored for 2,000 years. I hope you can see it really doesn't make any sense. It's extremely odd. After thousands of years of ignoring the sin and rebellion of nations, God smashes the poor, hapless nations that happen to be living in that period of time. Well, Meredith Klein's Amillennial view is exactly the same. He claims that there is no intrusion ethics, no intrusion of God's law, of God's covenant, and therefore of God's judgments during this, what he calls, common grace period. But suddenly, during the last three and a half years on his system of history, he believes that intrusion ethics will start again and God will judge all nations covenantally. It doesn't make any sense. On both dispensational and radical two-kingdom theories, there is no covenantal cause and effect in place between Christ's first coming And that future is seven or three and a half year period of time. And that means that eschatology is a matter of curiosity about the future, has no practical application to the present. In contrast, on the evangelical preterist view, there is a clear covenantal cause and effect, not only for the time of fulfillment in 70 AD, but for any period of history where nations neglect God's law and grace. In other words, this book is applicable for all time. The Preterist interpretation looks at one illustration of how God works in history with Jewish nations and the Jewish nation and Gentile nations and with the churches and it applies that and says this is the way God always works in all time. And so Preterism really is the most practical of all of the approaches to revelation even though it's got a historical fulfillment in 70 AD. And I think the reason why is because it's taking Revelation seriously as being prophetic literature just as much as Old Testament prophetic literature was. Subpoint 4 says, the prophetic view of history is teleological, progressive, and optimistic with God's eventual triumph over evil. And then I list a bunch of references in Revelation that prove that statement. And I'm going to skip commenting on that point, even though it's a very, very critical presupposition. You know the question is are we going to view Revelation through the eyes of biblical prophetic literature or are we going to follow the lead of many and view it differently through pessimistic eyes of apocalyptic Gnostic literature. Now I'm going to quickly breeze over Subpoint 5 as well because we dealt with this Principle number 18 showed that the book of Revelation is an ethical book. But I list it here to reinforce that all prophetic literature is ethical. As a prophet, this is the whole function of a prophet, as a prophet he must appeal to a broken law. what verse 2 refers to as the Word of God. And he must represent the lawgiver who has been rebelled against. What verse 2 speaks of is the testimony of Jesus and what verse 1 talks about. Anyway, Subpoint 5 says the prophetic view of history is ethical. It is not an irrelevant talk about the future, but something that impacts us now. And then I give a bunch of scriptures to prove that and conclude. Any interpretation of this book that cannot be applied to other portions of history is false. In other words, this book does not show God's unusual way of working at the end of history. But it shows his ordinary way of dealing with ethical behavior throughout history. Or you could word it this way, any interpretation of this book that has no bearing on our ethics is wrong. We already saw that in the last sermon, but I think it's a necessary implication of the prophetic nature of this book. And I won't comment much on Subpoint 6 either. because it's a point I've harped on previously, it says the prophetic view of history promotes the church's active involvement in history, not a passive or fatalistic waiting on our part. I give some scriptures and then conclude any interpretation of revelation that promotes passivism, paralysis, or cultural impotence is a false view of revelation. Just two scriptures, Revelation 15, two speaks of those who had been victorious over the beast and his image. It's not the beast that is winning. The saints are winning. Revelation 17, 14, they will make war against the lamb, but the lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and king of kings. And with him will be his called chosen and faithful followers. So to reiterate, if this is truly a prophetic book, any interpretation of revelation that promotes pacifism, paralysis, or cultural impotence is a false view of revelation. I know this is a long sermon, but I really, really want to finish verse 3. I don't want to come back to verse 3 next week. So let me just take a few minutes to quickly go through the phrase in verse 3, for the time is near. Now, this is not a new principle. It was already articulated in verse 2, and that's principle number 8. But let me give you five more reasons why the time was indeed near. First, chapter seven lists the tribes of Israel as being still in existence when the judgments fall. It lists Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Ephraim and Dan are not mentioned. Apparently there were no surviving believers from those two tribes that existed back then. But here's the point, none of those tribes that are listed exist today. None of them. Talk to any Jewish rabbi and I've talked to various rabbis on this point and I've listened to them and I've read their writings and they will say that the tribes were so mixed up hundreds and hundreds of years ago that they are indistinguishable. There is no Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, etc. today. There are no genealogies. They do not exist, which means that the fulfillment of this prophecy had to have occurred in the first century A.D. when they did exist as separate tribes. And by the way, when Revelation is quoting Zechariah as this is the fulfillment, What does Zechariah talk about? It talks about not just the tribes being separate, but even the families of those tribes having their distinct areas that they lived in, like the family of David. They were recognizable by each other. So you cannot explain it away by saying that those who are saved in the future will have some of the genetics of those ancestors in their veins because during the time of fulfillment of these prophecies, they are separate tribes living separately in the land as tribes, 12,000 listed from each of those tribes. There was no mixing. Here is a typical lame explanation by a premillennialist. Oliver Green says, where the Lost Ten Tribes are, I do not know. Nor does any other man on the face of the earth know. Their identity is lost. But God knows where they are, scattered among the nations today. When God is ready for them, He can find them. We need not worry about the Lost Ten Tribes. We need to be concerned about lost sinners. You know, it's much better to simply say, as I say, that the judgments of this book fell in the first century AD. And why is it even important? Well, it's very important because liberals have attacked the inerrancy of the scripture on exactly this point. They have said that the New Testament is mistaken when it says that these things would happen soon and that they are near. And they say that evangelicals, dispensationalists, premillennials, other futurists, are not handling the text honestly when they say, well, in God's eyes, near and soon can mean 2,000 years. No, he's communicating to them. He wants them to understand that this is near, this is soon. He's giving them comfort. That wouldn't have made any sense to the first century Jews who read this book. A great deal is at stake if we do not see a first century fulfillment. As a matter of upholding the inerrancy and integrity of scripture, we must believe that when John says it would happen soon, it happens soon. Okay? We can totally trust the accuracy of the Bible. And as we go through the book, I think you're just going to be blown away by the accuracy of the prophecies down to the tiniest details. Second, the punishments in Revelation are identical to those in the first 34 verses of the Olivet Discourse. And Christ said of those judgments, Surely I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things are fulfilled. Matthew 24 verse 34. All what things? Not the things that come after verse 34, that's referring to the second coming. but all of the things that are listed in the first 33 verses. All of them. On the evangelical preterist view, those judgments happened within 40 years of Christ's Olivet Discourse. Third, Revelation 11 makes it clear that while John was writing the book, the temple was still standing, still had worshipers in it, and it was the destruction of that temple that is being described, not some future temple. Too many commentaries ignore the temple that John was writing about and concoct a future temple. but the time of the destruction of the temple was indeed near. Fourth, Revelation says that John was writing this book during the reign of the sixth king. Revelation 17 verse 10, and it's during the reign of that sixth king that judgment falls on Israel and on Rome. If you look in your outlines, you'll see that the succession of the first six kings are Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. And since Nero is the sixth king, it just perfectly falls into place. That's the time of the great tribulation against Christians, the great persecution. That's the time of the seven year war against Israel. And when the head is wounded, when Nero dies, the whole beast dies. The empire is destroyed and then it gets revived again. It all happens perfectly in that time frame within two to four years. Well there's one more reason for nearness that I haven't given yet and that is that Jewish persecution of the church that we find throughout this book had to have happened pre 70 AD time frame. They never again had the power to be able to persecute Christians with the kind of intensity that they were persecuting Christians under Roman authority in chapters 2 through 3 and in chapter 11. It was the years leading up to 70 AD that were the last days when things were getting worse and worse for the church despite its growth. The New Testament does not define our days as the last days. Instead we find this. Hebrews 1-2 says Christ's ministry on the earth was in the last days. Joel prophesied that the gift of prophecy would be poured out in the last days. And Acts 2 says, hey, that's fulfilled this day. Acts 2 is in the last days. 1 Peter 1 verse 20 says that Jesus was born in the last times. Genesis 49.1 says that the incarnation would happen in the last days. Numbers 24.14 says the same, the incarnation in the last days. Deuteronomy 31.29 speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem in the last days. Daniel 2.28 speaks of Rome as being in the last days. All of the references to the last days are the last days of the Old Covenant. It was the last days of temples, sacrifices, priesthood, ceremonial laws, holy land, etc. And Revelation describes the last of those last days in chapters 7 through 19 of this book. But tying this together With principle number 19, as predicted repeatedly in the Old Testament, prophecy and inspired revelation would be ended by the time Israel was cast into exile in 70 AD. And that's exactly what happened. John wrote the last book. of the Bible before 70 A.D. and Revelation 11 describes the last of the prophets as dying in 70 A.D. And Revelation 10 verse 7 says, In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished as he declared to his servants the prophets. What mystery would be ended? Well, the Bible's talked about it over and over again. According to Paul in Ephesians 2 through 3 prophets were needed in the churches to settle the dispute of whether Gentiles could be included in the new Israel. It was the mystery of Jew and Gentile being together. He said that this mystery quote in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it is now been revealed by his spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. Ephesians 3 verse 5. Paul ends Romans 16 by saying, according to the revelation of the mystery, kept secret since the world began but now made manifest and by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations. The same mystery that required the New Testament is a mystery that required prophets to exist and settle this dispute once and for all time and they were throughout the empire. But Romans, Revelation 10 verse 7 says that the mystery of God would be finished at the time of the last trumpet in 70 AD. And that's when the last two prophets die in chapter 11. John predicts the ending of prophecy in 70 AD. And when he finishes the canon, he says, anybody who adds to this canon, God will add to him the plagues that are written in it. And so you can see that Principle 19 fits perfectly within this reiteration of the near time frame. And really all of the principles in verses 1 through 11 are a tightly knit together complex of interpretive principles. And it's my hope that going through these, even though I know you're dying probably to get into the juicy stuff of the book, going through these principles will really open up the book in a rich way like you have not seen before. Father, we bless you for your word. We bless you for the sufficiency of your word. We bless you for the prophetic messages that you have incorporated in your word. Help us to value them, to stand upon them, to live them out day by day. Give us illumination to understand those scriptures and to understand and have wisdom in the world around us to be able to apply them. Help us, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.