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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.
Divine Guidance for Understanding Revelation, Part 8
Series Revelation
This sermon covers the Biblical hermeneutics for interpreting prophetic literature. In the process it introduces what this book says about the nature and termination of New Testament prophecy.
| Sermon ID | 9932416184320 |
| Duration | 56:42 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 1:3 |
| Language | English |
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