Amen. We're finally up to verse 4. It's in your bulletins. We're either going to be reading from Wilbur Pickering's translation of the majority text or from one of the other majority text translations in the future, but Revelation 1, 4 through 5. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace and peace to you from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the sevenfold Spirit who is before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from among the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and we pray that as we study it, that our hearts would be realigned to your scriptures, and that we would be given new eyes to see, new faith to follow, and Father, that you would be glorified in the continued worship as we look into the meaning and the application of your scriptures. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Last week somebody asked if I would be willing to write out the principles of interpretation that we've looked at so far and that's why you have this second sheet in your bulletins. And for visitors it might be helpful to know that I've been going word by word through the first three verses of Revelation chapter 1. seeking to demonstrate that the Apostle John has actually given us interpretive clues for understanding the rest of the book of Revelation. And I think it might be appropriate to review the first of the eight principles on here, especially since they do relate to verse four that we're going to be looking at today, and it's been a while since we've looked at them. But eight weeks ago we looked at that first principle, We saw that the word revelation or apocalypsis means unveiling something so that it can be seen clearly, it can be understood clearly. God did not intend this to be a difficult book that obscures the truth. He intended it to be an unveiling or an opening up of the truth. And When the curtains on the stage are drawn apart, that's the word, apocalypsis, to draw aside, to unveil, to open up, what's the first thing that we see on the stage of history? We see Jesus Christ. We see Jesus, the Messiah. He is the focus of this book. And unfortunately, some preachers and some commentaries scare the daylights out of people by focusing on the evil and everything wrong that's going on around us They are just preoccupied and obsessed with the Antichrist and with some of the dark things that are in this book. And what I want to point out from this principle is that this is a book about Jesus and what he is doing in history. It's more about Christ than it is about Antichrist. In fact, Antichrist is just a puppet. He's a tool in Christ's hands. So it gives us faith when we have the right focus. And then the third principle on your outline there rules out liberal interpretations of this book. Verse one says, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his slaves. These are the very words of God. Now all evangelicals accept that in principle. They believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. Well, there's people that call themselves evangelicals that hold to limited inerrancy, but true evangelicalism holds to the inerrancy, the infallibility that every word of Scripture comes from God. But unfortunately, because of a lust for academic respectability, many evangelicals have bought into liberal presuppositions, don't even realize it. And these liberal ideas are utterly inconsistent with what they're trying to communicate in their commentaries. And so we've looked at some very dangerous ideas that evangelicals in recent years have adopted that are really liberal ideas. Fourth, we saw that this book is not simply intended for experts. or academics, this is a revelation that God has designed to be communicated to all of his slaves, which means you and me. Be suspicious of any hermeneutics which is so complicated and convoluted even the experts are confused by it. No, that's not God's approach. This is a book for the common man. Fifth, the word show completely rules out the idea that this is a mystery book or part of Gnostic literature. Unfortunately, that's become a very popular viewpoint, but God is not hiding anything. You don't have to be a member of a Gnostic group, you know, to have the secret code to uncode this book. He lays everything out that we need in this book. Six, this book deals with history, not just ideas. It speaks of things that must occur shortly. That phrase rolls out. Idealism, which is perhaps the most prevalent viewpoint in Amillennialism, at least on Revelation. Now idealism is a viewpoint that says the book represents general ideas or ideals, but it actually is not pointing to any one point in history. And I'm not going to say that idealists are wrong in everything that they say in their commentary. Some of their applications are actually quite good. That's probably their strongest suit. But where they are dead wrong is violating this principle, which says that this whole book is going to deal with issues that are going to transpire within time, real history. But that phrase also shows that it is providential history, okay? That is seen in the word must. The future is not open, as openness of theology claims. There is a must about the future. But who controls the future? Some commentaries give you the idea that the future is controlled by the Illuminati or by Satan or by some other creaturely force. Nonsense. In context, this must is indicating that Jesus Christ is the Lord of history. He is the one that is moving history forward, and it gives us tremendous, tremendous comfort. Now, we do need to balance this with what I pointed out. What was it last week or a couple of weeks ago? that this is a covenantal book. And it follows the genre of literature called prophetic literature, which always allowed for contingencies. Okay, you cannot be fatalistic about this like some people are about the future. It's hopeless, God's predestined what's going to happen to America or whatever their interpretation might be. Jeremiah 18 says, the instant a nation that I've declared judgment against repents, what happens? God relents of the disaster he was going to bring. So we've got to view this covenantally as well. There's a balance in there. Of course, God knows the future, and He's the one who gives repentance to people. And so it's still a determined future, and yet there is human responsibility that we've got to factor into it. Now, the eighth point was seen in the word shortly. That word shows that the bulk of this book deals with events that were going to start happening within weeks or months of his having written this book. And we spent quite a bit of time distinguishing between the seven year war against Israel and the disasters that also happened in Rome with the far off distant second coming. Now, Jesus did come. In fact, he was seen by the Romans and the Jews, but he didn't come to earth. He just appeared in heaven with the chariots and everything. But his coming in judgment in 70 AD is quite different from the second coming, which is at the end of time. Both are important concepts in this book, but the bulk of the book concerns issues that are said to occur shortly, soon, or about to happen, or near. For example, look at verse 3. It says, for the time is near. Because we dealt with the other points more recently, I'm just gonna skip over those. But verse four now introduces us to principle number 20. And because it's an important point, I'm gonna spend the whole sermon on it. First phrase of verse four shows the historical John writing to seven historical churches that existed in a real region called Asia. It doesn't say John to the Church of America, or the Church of Europe in 2015, watch out, there's something about to happen to you. He doesn't say John to the whole church or even John to the seven epochs of the church from the first century to the second coming of Christ. No, he says John to the seven churches that are in Asia and that the word are is an appropriate translation. that can be seen by the frequent use of the past tense and the present tense in each of the letters to the seven churches about what's going on right now in their lives, okay? Well, if you take those words seriously, it rules out historicism and at least some versions of dispensationalism that take chapters two through three as representing an age of the church, with our living generation being the Laodicean age, which occurs right before the Great Tribulation. It's been a very common approach to revelation because they know that chapters 6 through 19 follow in sequence the earlier chapters. And if chapters 2 through 3 are in the first century, well then it would be most natural to interpret the Great Tribulation as occurring right afterwards in the first century as well. And of course that's exactly what I've been teaching. We've been seeing that the Great Tribulation does not end New Covenant history, it begins New Covenant history, and the seven-year war divided up into two equal 1260-day periods, went from 66 through 73 A.D., and the temple was burned smack dab in the middle of that seven-year period. And then there was 1290 days, exactly 30 days in additional throughout the Roman Empire as a whole before hostilities ceased against the Jews. And then there was exactly 1335 days until Masada fell. And so all of these different numbers And all of the details of the Great Tribulation, I believe, happened in the first century, as you would expect if the seven churches that are going to be described in chapters one through three are in the first century. But even if you somehow get around the present tense used to describe the seven churches, historicists and other viewpoints are still going to run into a lot of problems. Stretching chapters 1 through 3 over 2,000 years doesn't make sense of verse 1, which says these are things that are going to shortly take place or soon take place. Doesn't make sense of verse 3, which says the time is near. Doesn't make sense of verse 9, where John says, hey, I am a fellow with you in the tribulation that we're going to be talking about in this book. It doesn't make sense of verse 19 which says the book deals with things that are and the things that are about to take place after this. And that's the Greek word mellow which means it is on the verge of happening. Well they've got a response for that and you would expect it because they're trying to interpret the scripture. Their response is that the time is near only for the events of the first century church, the supposed age of Ephesus, which they say spans the first century to 315 AD. So they admit, yeah, the things in that first age are about to begin. They are near, they are soon. And yet that's not true of the other ages. Well, at first blush, that makes sense. Let me show you some problems with that explanation. And the most obvious problem is that each of these churches has the same kind of imminency phrases connected with them. For example, take a look at chapter 2 and verse 10. Speaking to the church of Smyrna, John says, do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. About is the Greek word mellow again, which means it's on the verge of happening. He goes on, indeed the devil is about, Mello, is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested and you will have tribulation ten days. So their experience of the tribulation was going to be shorter than most other people's experience of the tribulation. When we get to that chapter we'll deal with why. But John says, be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life. But I want you to notice the two occurrences of the Greek word mellow in that verse. When John wrote this book, the fiery trial was on the verge of happening to Smyrna just as it was about to happen to Ephesus. If Smyrna is a church age that starts 250 years later, then really the occurrence of those two phrases, about to, Doesn't make any sense. And there are many things in this book that John says would happen soon, shortly, be about to happen, or be near when John wrote the book. And to say it's near after the events of the age of Ephesus have occurred really misses the grammar of John's message. Now just one more example, if you take a look at chapter 3 and verse 10, he speaks to the church of Philadelphia. Now Oliver Greene, a dispensational premillennialist, follows the lead of many dispensationalists as well as many historicists, amill, premill, and postmill, when he identifies the age of Philadelphia as the period from 1750 A.D. through to just after World War II is what they say. But look at chapter 3, verse 10. Because you have kept my command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall, and that's actually the Greek word mellow again, meleus eis erchesthai, which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. You gotta ask yourself, is it really credible to tell a church that's going to start in 1750 that these things are about to come upon them? I don't think it's credible at all. 1700 years later is not, on any definition, about to happen. And yet this verse indicates that this is just as imminent as the trials of the previous churches. It couldn't be just as imminent if there is a sequence of ages. Now, did that happen in the first century? Yes, it did. Very, very clearly, very literally, it all happened. Virtually the whole known world was in chaos from 66 through 70 A.D., and if this book was written in 66 A.D., wow, that was imminent. If it was written as early as 64 A.D., which some people held, it's still very, very near. But in any case, in 68 A.D., the empire died when Nero died. It was split into three parts and millions of Romans and other nationalities died during that one and a half years that the empire was dead. It got revived again. And it was an incredibly tough time to live through. And we already looked at some of those tough times and trials. I won't get into it this morning. But it is significant that when Daniel wrote about the great tribulation that God's people went through, he was told to seal up the book and not worry about it. Why? Because it's such a long ways away. 500 years is a long ways away. But then when you get into Revelation and it's describing the same Great Tribulation he says this. Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book because the time is near. Now since the wording in Daniel and Revelation is identical other than the addition of the word that it's now near. You would expect that the events in Revelation would be less than 500 years away, and yet many, many commentaries say, no, this is pointing to things that are still future to us, some 2,000 years later. And here's the problem. If the 500 years of Daniel was a distant event not to be worried about, And the events of Revelation, they're 2,000 years away, but they're near. It's soon. We do need to worry about it. Then we might as well give up on even trying to understand any time clues whatsoever in the Scripture. It would be a hopeless task. And people say, well, yeah, but the Bible does say 1,000 years in God's sight are like a day. And a day is like 1,000 years. Well, let me tell you something. Peter is talking about God's timelessness. He's above time. This is not talking about timelessness. It's describing time. Time factors within time and within history. It's totally different things. And we've been seeing in the introductory sermons that God is very precise and very careful in the numerous time clues that he gives in this book with some of those predictions. being verifiable in history down to the day. And there are so many other things that simply do not make sense if we don't take seriously that all seven churches existed in the first century. For example, last week we looked at Revelation chapter seven. Here's all of these Jews being saved from each of these tribes of Israel, 12 tribes. And it's clear in context that that happens during the Great Tribulation, And yet you talk to any Jewish rabbi today and he'll tell you there are no tribes of Israel. They've all been so intermixed there are no genealogies. Nobody has a clue what tribe anybody else would be from. So that has to be fulfilled in a period of time when those tribes exist. And there's a lot of other clues in the book of Revelation on timing. Now let's leave timing aside and let's look at the implications of audience relevance. That's really the most important part of this principle. Most books on hermeneutics say that it is absolutely critical to first try to grasp what the original audience would have understood the book to mean. And this is true whether you're studying Deuteronomy, Matthew, Hebrews, any other book. And if the book of Revelation was written to first century churches, we need to ask ourselves, what would the book have meant to them? What would they have understood it to mean before we start applying those principles to our own age? Original meaning must be understood before we make application. But many modern interpreters do the exact opposite. Using what appears to me to be free association, they allow the text to stimulate thoughts about the similarities in some modern event. Now that's jumping the gun on application. I've got a very well-researched book here called The Day and the Hour by Francis Gummerlach. And this book documents some of the craziest ideas that people have read back into the book of Revelation over the last 2,000 years. And every crazy idea arises because people are ignoring this foundational principle of hermeneutics. So we need to ask, when chapter 13 calls the readers to understand the identity of the beast and to calculate the identity of the name by calculating the number 666, we need to ask, was he writing those instructions to first century Christians or was he writing to 21st century computer nerds? don't have anything better to do with their time and their hands. In my research, I have run across numerous candidates for the beast, some of which use such specialized codes, you need a computer to be able to figure out what on earth they are talking about. And weirdly, many of these identifications do not use Greek or Hebrew or Latin. They don't use ancient languages. They're using English and even calculating, you know, which ordinal, which does this line up with. Okay, that's the seventh letter in the English alphabet. Like English had any relevance to the first century saints. Or they'll use ASCII codes in the lowercase or ASCII codes in the uppercase. And there's all kinds of creative ways that they get these names to come to 666. In 1990, Gary D. Blevins said that each of the words of Ronald Wilson Reagan's name had six letters in them. So obviously Ronald Reagan was the beast. And obviously Pope John Paul II was the false prophet. And because his bodyguard was shot in the head, the wound in the head, you know, of this empire, was James Brady, you know, his security guard. That is not exegesis. That is free association. The strangest one I've run across must be a joke. I mean they take it seriously but I think it has to be a joke. I think this guy is just trying to pull legs, see how many people buy into it but whatever. He uses ASCII code to prove that Bill Gates is the Beast of Revelation. Let me quote from him. The real name of the Bill Gates is William Henry Gates III. Nowadays, he is known as Bill Gates III, where third means the order of the third. By converting the letters of his current name to ASCII values and by adding his third, you get the following. B equals 66, I 73, he goes down through, voila, 666. Some might ask, how did Bill Gates get so powerful? Coincidence? Or just the beginning of mankind's ultimate and total enslavement. You decide. And before you decide, consider the following. MS-DOS 6.21, why he picked that particular MS-DOS version, but anyway. MS-DOS 6.21, and he gives the codes on ASCII, adds up to 666. Windows 95, and he gives the codes, and it adds up to 666. He says, coincidence? I think not. Now granted, that is extreme, and I think hardly anybody would take that seriously, but I bring it up to point out that even the identifications of the beast that many people do take seriously are equally irrelevant to the first century saints. They are violating this important principle of hermeneutics. And there are many other ways in which people have ignored the principle of audience relevance. Right now people are going crazy over John Hagee's Four Blood Moons book and Jonathan Cahn's book The Mystery of the Shemitah and they're both making a bunch of money. Actually there's a big fight going on right now between Blitz and and haggie over who came up with this idea first because they're kind of getting into each other's profits on this. But if you've done much research on these kinds of questions, you realize this is nothing new. People have been doing this for centuries. Many past solar eclipses, blood moons, meteor showers and other celestial signs have been taken as sure evidence that revelation is being lived out before our very eyes. I counted up 15 major wars from the year 300 to 1400 A.D. that theologians had at that time dogmatically said, these are the devastations that are being described in the book of Revelation. Gumerlach's book here shows hundreds and hundreds of examples of Christians who thought that the end was near in the 300s AD, 400s AD, 500s AD, every century, every century. In 1572, even some Reformed people, who generally speaking are hermeneutically savvy, But even some reformed people were ridiculously duped into thinking that 1572 would be the fall of Rome. In 1593, John Napier was absolutely certain that the Ottoman Turks was the rise of Gog and Magog, okay? In 1597, there were many who thought that the end of history would be that year. Because why? It's a thousand years after the birth of Mohammed. And of course, Mohammedanism factors very big into historicism. In 1599, Christians were sure that the Antichrist had appeared. In 1666, many were absolutely certain that the Russian czar, Alexis, and the Russian church patriarch, Nikon, were the two beasts of Revelation 11. The Puritan writers, Cotton and Increased Matter. See, I'm just being fair. I'm picking on Reformed people too, okay? I like a lot of what cotton and increased math are sad, but this is ridiculous. They calculated that the fall of Antichrist would be in 1716. And there are literally thousands of such miscalculations. And most of them, the only reason I say most is because I don't want to pretend to be omniscient. I've not examined every particular theory. Every one I've looked at, but I will say almost all of them got messed up because they ignored principle number 20, the issue of original audience relevance. When Hal Lindsey says that the locust coming up out of the smoke of the bottomless pit sure reminds him of nuclear warfare and Cobra helicopters, I say, who cares what it reminds you of, Hal? What did it remind the first century saints of? Using the Old Testament and the New Testament scriptures they had in their hands, what would be coming into their minds? Original audience relevance. clear when you look at it that way, these are simply demons that are coming up out of the bottomless pit. Historicists of all stripes were notorious for reading Popes and Cardinals, Moors and Turks, the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and all kinds of other current events back into Revelation. When you're reading something into the text, we call that what? Eisegesis, right? Eisegesis. You cannot do that. and their Eurocentrism would have astonished the members of John's churches. William White cynically points out that the historicist view, quote, seldom, if ever, takes cognizance of the church outside of Europe. What relevance do late European wars have to first century saints? Not much, not much. And I'm picking on historicism because there is a resurgence of historicism in our circles. Now, can we apply the first century issues to similar situations in our own day? Absolutely yes. There is one meaning, but many applications. But the issue of relevance to the original audience always needs to be taken into consideration when you're interpreting any portion of the Bible. I'm astonished at the number of people who read bullets and space travel and Saddam Hussein and other current characters into the text. They don't belong there. If John's original audience were to read modern commentaries, they wouldn't say, ah, that's what it meant. No. They would say, what on earth is this person talking about? computer system in Belgium named the beast that's calculating everybody's data? What's a computer? What? I mean that's what they would have said probably. Well not with that accent. So when we see the fall of an international trading and financial system in chapter 19 and it is there We should not use our modern newspapers to start trying to figure out when our stock exchange is going to fall. And by the way, why is it that Americans are so Americentric? If it's dealing with modern stock exchange, why not the Japanese one or the Chinese one? Why is it always centered around us? But you see, none of them would have had any relevance to John, the first century church, to Asia or to the Roman Empire. But when we see the true fulfillment in the first century, the applications to the present financial system are obvious. They're very obvious. We're going to see this is an incredibly practical book for the kinds of troubles we are going through in America. Very, very practical. So let's look at each of these words in this phrase. Some of you are probably saying, uh-oh, he's not done. He's just starting. No, we won't be taking that long. But let's look at each of the words in this phrase in verse 4. And I'm going to give you some hints of what difference this principle will make when we get to later chapters. Verse 4 says, John is giving this greeting. Understanding who the apostle John was helps us to interpret the book of Revelation. For example, The fact that John was commissioned to be an apostle to the Jews, Galatians 2, 9, is unfortunately ignored in a lot of commentaries on 1 John and 2 John and 3 John and the book of Revelation. They have them written to Gentiles. And yet it explains why there is so much about the Jews in this book. Jesus had assigned John with the job of being an apostle to the circumcision. And in this book he is clearly writing to Jewish Christians who were tempted to fall away from the faith and rejoin Judaism just like those in the book of Hebrews were tempted to fall away. from the faith. And Ken Gentry makes this book come to life because he takes seriously the Jewish historical background in almost every chapter. I'm really looking forward to his commentary coming out. For the last decade he said it is imminent, which makes the word imminent, soon, near, to have no meaning. But anyway, he is a friend and hopefully it's going to be a good commentary when it comes out. He's given us bits and pieces that make it just like, wow, very exciting. I'm looking forward to it. But anyway, this Jewish leader, two Jews, was so Jewish that the book of Revelation has to have a special dictionary and a special grammar that accommodates the Hebraisms and the specialized Greek that is influenced follows Hebrew grammar of all things. And older commentaries that did not take account of that, they messed up many times. Thankfully, a number of modern commentaries have become very strong on this, but it's a Jewish book through and through. And when you see Jewish John's Jewish ministry to Jewish Christians, it almost makes the liberal accusations that Revelation is anti-Semitic laughable okay it is not anti-semitic and they respond yeah yeah yeah what about chapter 2 verse 9 and chapter 3 verse 9 that says Jews really aren't Jews and they're a synagogue of Satan that is anti-semitic no it's not anti-semitic at all What he's doing is he's giving an apologetic, a defense of the Jewish church, which also had Gentiles in it, but of the Jewish church as being the true inheritor or counterpart of the Old Testament church. The Jewish-Gentile controversies in this book must be understood in light of the fact that John was the apostle to the Jews. He loved the Jews. Now, let's not go to the opposite extreme. John's love of the Jews did not make him buy into the heretical idea that there was a consensus between Judaism and Christianity. I hate that phrase, the Judeo-Christian consensus. There is no Judeo-Christian consensus. Instead, you find Jesus castigating Judaism in the strongest terms, as did the Apostle Paul, as did the Apostle John. And the Apostle John's love of the Jewish church and severe condemnations of Judaism in this book I think are an incredibly healthy corrective to the modern heresy known as dual covenantalism. dual covenantalism, primarily dispensationalists who hold to it, not all of them by any means, it's a smaller section, but they think that Jews can be saved by law-keeping, Gentiles are saved through Jesus. Let me give you some quotes from a very prominent evangelical leader whose books are selling like hotcakes. This leader says, I'm not trying to convert the Jewish people to the Christian faith. In fact, trying to convert Jews is a waste of time. Jews already have a covenant with God and that has never been replaced by Christianity. That is incredible heresy. The Jewish people have a relationship. This is continuing to read from him. The Jewish people have a relationship to God through the law of God as given through Moses. I believe that every Gentile person can come to God through the cross of Christ. I believe that every Jewish person who lives in the light of the Torah, which is the word of God, has a relationship with God and will come to redemption. The law of Moses is sufficient enough to bring a person into the knowledge of God until God gives him a greater revelation and God has not." Now the maker of those statements was none other than the dispensationalist writer John Hagee who wrote Four Blood Moons and many other books. I've had sincere friends give me these books and they say, what do you think? This is really exciting stuff. Things about to happen here in America. They've not really appreciated the answers that I've given to them. But this guy is a heretic. Now he has withdrawn those statements because fellow dispensationalists got all over his case calling him a heretic. And he was, OK? So he withdrew those statements. He said, you know, I didn't word myself quite right. And he rewrote his heretical book in defense of Israel. But you know what? The fundamental error is still there. He continues to contradict the book of Revelation left and right and claims anybody who disagrees with him is an anti-Semite. The irony is that he is labeling the apostle to the Jews as an anti-Semite. Where Haggai claims that God's favor rests upon Israel, the book of Revelation shows God's fiery indignation coming upon Israel. Where Haggai claims that Jerusalem is the holy city and the city of God, Revelation 11 says Jerusalem is, quote, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Now don't get me wrong, they're going to be saved in the future, but it's only by faith in Jesus Christ, okay? In the meantime, they're under God's wrath. Where Haggai calls Christians to move to Israel, to unconditionally, he always uses that word, unconditionally support Israel, John says, come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins and lest you receive of her plagues. Where Haggai calls modern unbelieving Jews God's holy people, Revelation 2.9 and 3.9 calls them a synagogue of Satan. Point by point, Revelation stands as an absolute contradiction to the heresy of Christian Zionism, and it is a heresy. And the question is, why this difference between the Apostle John and modern Zionists who love, they both love Jews, why this difference? And the answer is simple. Modern evangelicals confuse Talmudism with the Old Testament. But talk to any rabbi, and I have done this, talk to any rabbi, and he will tell you that the Talmud, not the Old Testament, is what defines a modern Jew. And where the two come into conflict, the Talmud always wins out. I studied under a Jewish rabbi who gave us basically what amounted to the teachings of the Pharisees, of the scribes, that Jesus opposed so strongly. And that motivated me to read over a thousand pages in the Talmud. And it is not the Old Testament. It is not the Old Testament at all. It is in contradiction to the Old Testament. Jesus said that the Pharisees and scribes had nullified the Old Testament with their man-made traditions. So who is the real Jew who adheres to Old Testament religion? It is the Apostle John. Beale, Carson, and others have shown that this is a thoroughly Old Testament book. Under principle number 13, we saw that hardly a verse in this book is not saturated with the Old Testament. Where the Pharisees would quote tradition, John quotes the Bible. Beale and Carson say, quote, it is generally recognized that Revelation contains more Old Testament references than does any other New Testament book. Vanderwaal's commentary has demonstrated that there are over 1,000 Old Testament allusions in the book of Revelation. When you realize there's 400 and something verses, I forget the exact number of verses, that's more than two Old Testament references per verse on average in this book. So when chapter 2 verse 9 says, I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, that are a synagogue of Satan, John is not being anti-Semitic. He is being anti-Talmudic, anti-traditions of man, anti-occultism, all of which characterize modern Judaism. I challenge you to read any consecutive 100 pages in an unabridged Talmud and not see it filled with all kinds of occult references from Babylonian religion. It is a superstitious, oh, it's just an incredible book. There is no concord between Judaism and Christianity, and to say that there is, is syncretism and comes under the strong condemnation of Jesus in the Gospels. The members of Judaism worship a different God, submit to a different authority, have a different way of salvation, have a different goal for history. So knowing who John is helps maintain a balance between the extremes of liberalism that claims that Revelation is anti-semitic and the extremes of some forms of dispensationalism that claim that John was Zionist. He was neither. Now another tidbit about the Apostle John that is helpful is knowing that he appears to be a blood relation to the high priest and certainly seems to have served as a priest before he started following John the Baptist and later Jesus. And there are a number of hints in the Gospels that point in this direction. Now when you understand this fact, Then the intimate knowledge that John had of temple liturgy, ritual, architecture, priestly preparation, words and rituals makes total sense. The great Jewish scholar, Alfred Edersheim, examined all of the biblical evidence on this subject and then he wrote this. The other New Testament writers refer to temple services in such language as any well-informed worshiper at Jerusalem might have employed. But John writes, not like an ordinary Israelite, he has eyes and ears for details which others would have left unnoticed. The temple references with which the book of Revelation abounds are generally too minutiae. which a writer who had not been as familiar with such details would scarcely have noticed. They come naturally, spontaneously, so unexpectedly that the reader is occasionally in danger of overlooking them altogether, and in language such as a professional man would employ, which would come to him from the previous exercise of his calling. Indeed some of the most striking of these references could not have been understood at all without the professional treatises of the rabbis on the temple and its services. It seems highly improbable that a book so full of liturgical allusions down to minutiae could have been written by any other than a priest one who had at one time been in actual service in the temple itself and thus become so intimately conversant with its details that they came to him naturally as part of the imagery he employed." Did you know that? Did you know that John almost certainly served as a priest in the temple before he followed Jesus? Well I As we go through the book, we're going to be showing what a difference this makes to interpreting the book. For example, very few have captured the power of chapter 8 and its relevance to our prayer meetings as Alfred Edersheim has. There are some. Patrick Johnson turned my prayer life upside down when he rooted Chapter 8 in its relevance to John, his Jewish audience, and their persecutions in Asia. He quotes Edersheim as proving that the half hour of silence was the half hour of total silence in the temple that preceded the prayer meetings as the priest, the high priest, made preparations behind the curtain. He couldn't be seen. But as soon as the incense that he lit, the cloud of incense, went up and over the curtain, that was the signal for prayer. And all of a sudden you got hundreds of thousands of people. It's a cacophony. People praying to God. And Revelation says, as a result of that prayer meeting, instantly there are trumpets blown in heaven. Angelic regiments go forth. Providential changes begin to happen on earth. And I wish Patrick Johnson's essay was in every at the introduction to every edition of Operation World. As far as I know it's only in the 1991 edition. But he handled this principle number 20 beautifully. That's what made his applications so powerful. If the impossible situation that the first century saints were in was resolved with spiritual weapons, any impossible situation we can face can be similarly solved. If they as a tiny minority had faith to expect extravagant things from God's throne and see those things delivered, what cannot millions of faith-filled prayer warriors today achieve? That's the way to apply it. And I'm looking forward to preaching on chapter eight of Revelation. There's a whole lot more in that chapter, but I have not seen any futurist interpretation of Chapter 8 that can do that. They ignore the relevance of the passages to the original audience, and so they lose the ability to properly apply it to our lifetime. You might say, well, how does that follow? Well, it follows because futurists do not see Chapter 8 as a paradigm for us because they only see it as an unusual circumstance for an unusual period in the future. It is not a standard for history. It's not representative of what happens throughout history. Now back to our phrase in chapter 1 verse 4, the rest of that phrase says, John to the seven churches. Why only seven churches when the New Testament makes it very clear that there were other churches in cities in Asia there? Like, for example, Troas, Acts chapter 20, Colossae, Colossians 1-2, Hierapolis, Colossians 1-14. I mean, these are near to these other cities. Why are they not mentioned? Well, Ramsey points out that these were presbyteries and the churches in the other cities were grouped into these seven. So the whole country of Asia was divided up into seven regional presbyteries and they took their name for the major city of that region. And I don't know how many people mess up on their interpretation of chapters 2 through 3 because they see only one local church in each of those cities with one local pastor. It's not even remotely credible, yet I've heard partial preterists. I won't tell you who this morning. Partial preterists who see the angel of each church as being a defense of the three office view. We hold the two office, they hold the three office view. They say it's the pastor. It's not the pastor. He's the moderator, the messenger of each of those presbyteries. Why do I say they were presbyteries rather than one local church in each city? History. History tells you. It's just clear on the surface of it. By 64 AD, the faith had expanded like crazy in those regions and Ephesus probably had hundreds of local churches, not just one. hundreds and including congregations radiating out. It was a hub and yet John speaks of the church singular of that region. Same is true of Smyrna and Pergamos and other city churches that are mentioned. Well this has huge implications for ecclesiology and connectionalism. Now some Charismatics are seeing this. They speak of a city church But they're still not getting the full Jewish background. We're going to be seeing that the church was simply the continuation of the synagogue system that Moses laid out in Exodus chapter 18. And considering the Jewishness of this book, it makes perfect sense. But it also factors into methods for missionary efforts. Why these cities? And a number of books have demonstrated that the apostles really didn't do village work. They were very strategic for stage one of missions. They established churches in the most important cities and gave those first churches a missionary zeal to plant churches radiating out from the center. And one group of scholars pointed out that these cities were targeted because these were the centers of imperial religion. As Bojidar Marinov has pointed out in his essay, Missionaries of the Acts, the most successful examples of missions over the last 2,000 years have been missionaries who have taken on the central idol or idols of a country, and he uses as an example St. Boniface, who worked for years and didn't have much success. I mean he had a lot of people coming to Christ, but there was no change in culture with personal evangelism. It was not until he actually took his axe and cut down the central idol, the Oak of Thor, that there was a declaration of Christ's Lordship over the whole nation and he was forced because of this action to be speaking to every area of life under the Lordship through the Bible. Then he started engaging in nation discipling rather than simply individual evangelism. It was like he was entering the lion's den. He was binding the strong man. And when we get to those chapters, we're going to be highlighting a bunch of stuff, Lord willing. Well, the same is true of the region, Asia. Many teachings do not draw out the significance of these churches to Asia, Asia to the Roman Empire. We're not going to do that this morning. We don't have time. But geography factors into interpretation. I'll just give you a sneak peek hint. Why was Satan's throne in Pergamos rather than in Rome? Rome's the capital of the whole empire, so you would expect that Satan would go to Rome. But he did not. And how does that relate to the demonic warfare later in the book? Are there territorial spirits? And how do they relate to each other? If Satan's throne was in Pergamos, why does chapter 2 verse 10 say the devil was going to, about to throw some of them, those Christians in Smyrna, into jail? I mean, those two cities are separated. How could Satan be in two places? Well, we know he can't. He can't be in both places. And if Satan is said to dwell in Pergamos, in chapter 2 verse 13, why does Thyatira know the depths of Satan? why is the Jewish synagogue in Philadelphia called a synagogue of Satan which literally means a gathering together of Satan when you begin to put the bits and pieces of spiritual warfare information together you begin to realize that Satan's kingdom is an incredibly tightly knit together kingdom with information traveling back and forth from power centers principalities and powers being assigned to various tasks in various cities. And again, just to give you a tiny sneak preview, Pergamos had enormous influence over all the empire in medicine. And I won't get into how that was the case, but to this day, the influence of Galen. You know, the medical sign of the staff with the serpent circling around it? That came from the occult center there, and it's a very occult sign. healing in Pergamos. Pergamos was also hugely influential in education throughout the Empire. They had one of the largest libraries, over 200,000 books, handwritten books in Pergamos. It was the center of Emperor worship, it was a financial center, there's a lot of different things. Now here's the point, Satan always goes after the leverage points of society just as the apostles Paul and John went after the leverage points of society. And older missionaries like William Carey, they went after the leverage points of society. It's one of the reasons that they were so incredibly successful. They were engaged in nation discipling, something our church is passionate about. Anyway, there's just lots of ways in which geographical location is important for understanding the rest of the book. Well, let me conclude with some summary statements about the difference between relevance to the original audience and relevant application to us. How do we apply something that was fulfilled in the first century? Well, when you study the international banking system that existed in the first century and you see how God took down what appeared to be impossible to take down, it gives you hope for today. Chapters 13 through 19 give incredible insight into moneybrokers, powerbrokers, and how Satan and his demons used those moneybrokers and powerbrokers to control various kings and to control the empire. Now when you're looking at that, it's very practical, but it's practical not because it's predicting Wall Street, or Monsanto, or Bilderbergers, or other modern organizations. It's powerful because it's describing first century conspiracies, money brokers, and power brokers, especially as illustrated in The Harlot and The Beast, and then showing How God took them out because of the prayers and the testimonies of the saints. And if God could do it back then, he can beat them today. Seeing original audience relevance actually helps make the biblical principles very concrete for today. Does that make sense? When we see how God related to the churches of the first century, We can assume this is how God always relates to churches. It becomes a message to us. When we see his discussion of statism and imperialism in chapter six and following, we can assume that the same Jesus who hated statism in the first century is a Jesus who hates statism today, even if it exists in America. He hates it. But if we think that God has ignored these issues of statism for 2,000 years but suddenly whams them during a seven-year period in the future, we have no confidence that He's going to do anything about them today. We don't have a historical paradigm to follow. When we take Chapter 7 is dealing with literal Jews from 12 literal tribes of Israel who were saved and spared from the seven year war against Jerusalem in the first century. We can apply that to God's love and care for his people throughout all time. Now some of them were martyred. Some of them were miraculously spared, but all of them were used by God powerfully to advance the kingdom of Christ. Well, that gives us a concrete paradigm for facing life and death issues today, not just at the second coming. So the bottom line is we must take the original historical context seriously, especially when God says over and over again in this book that these things will happen soon, quickly, are near, and are about to happen. And hopefully Spending this much time on this principle will bear fruit as we get into the later chapters. May it be so. Amen. Father, thank you for this word, this scripture. Thank you for the care that you have about history. Help us to value history. Help us to learn from history. Help us to apply the lessons of history as well as the predictions concerning the future that are in this book. But Father, we pray that you would open the eyes of our understanding as we dig deeply. And we pray it in Jesus name. Amen.