Revelation 1:11ff

Revelation 1 and the Distinction Between the Father and the Lamb

The ability to come, to open your word and to understand it. Lord, it's amazing that you would reveal yourself to us. So, bless us this morning, Lord. May our thoughts be towards you, and may we grow in the grace and knowledge of that one who loved us and gave himself for us.

Amen.

Revelation chapter 1.

I got asked a question about when I said, hey, I think the red letter edition has wrongly made the letters red in verse 8. That's God speaking, meaning God the Father. Someone asked me, you know, did I have anything other than me just disagreeing that it was done wrong?

And I said, yes. So, if anybody else is asking that question before I start, turn your Bible over to Revelation 20. Revelation 21. And look at verse 22. It says, and I saw no temple in it, and here it is, for the Lord God the Almighty, and listen to the distinction that's made, and the Lamb are its temple.

So, you see, even the book of Revelation has made a distinction between the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. Who's the Lamb?

Jesus.

Okay, so that's why I believe that obviously the red letters aren't inspired in the sense that that's how it was written. I think it doesn't help interpreting that passage by making those red, because that's not Jesus speaking.

That's God the Father the Almighty speaking. Alright, so, if anybody else had that question, if you didn't, let that fleet from your memory. I'm going to pick up in verse 9 and read to the end of the chapter,.

And then we'll walk through the text.

We'll pick up in verse 10 where we left off, but I'm going to start in verse 9. It says, I, John, your brother and fellow partaker, in the tribulation of the kingdom and the perseverance which are in Jesus, I was on the Isle of Patmos because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet saying, write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the middle of the lampstands, I saw one like the Son of Man. He was clothed in a robe, reaching to his feet, girded across his chest with a golden sash.

His head and his hair were like wool, like snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze when it has been made to glow in the furnace. And his voice was like the sound of many waters.

And in his hand, he held seven stars. And out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. And his face was like the sun, shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man.

And he placed his right hand on me, saying, Do not be afraid, for I am the first and the last, the living one, the one I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. I have the keys of death and Hades, therefore, write these things which you have seen, the things which are, and the things which are about to take place after these things.

As for the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in your right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

The Lord's Day, the Spirit, and the First Day of the Week

So last week, we left off at the end of verse 9, and we're going to pick up in verse 10. Obviously, this John is still on the Isle of Patmos. He is receiving this revelation. It was given to God, given to Jesus.

He says, he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. And he heard a voice behind him that was loud, or a loud voice. So, this is one of the, actually, it's the only time we see the Lord's day spoken of here.

It said he was in the Spirit. Does this mean he was in a trance? What does this mean? Does this mean he was zoned out? Actually, I think there is a translation, it's a paraphrase, that says in a trance.

Nobody has that in their translation here, do they? No? Okay. What it says is everybody's spirit, is it capitalized? It is? What does it mean to be in the Spirit?

Be a believer.

Okay, we could say if someone is walking in the Spirit, they will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. Does that mean that you can walk in the Spirit? Not walk in the Spirit. Does that mean the Spirit is residing within you?

Which does it mean?

The Spirit is residing within you.

Sure.

It means further than that, that you're actually at one with the Spirit. You're not internally battling.

Correct. Correct.

You're not hindering the Spirit. So it says he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. I take this to be he was in a mind ready to worship.

Why?

Because of the Lord's Day. Now, church fathers, and I think probably Keith at some point in our church history we're doing over the next few weeks in the academy, will develop the idea of what the Lord's Day was.

We understand the Lord's Day as being what?

The first day of the week.

First day of the week. And why? Because that's the day that the Lord resurrected.

That's why.

Because they gathered. When did Jesus appear resurrected? It was on the first day of the week. It was on the first day of the week. He appeared in the garden to the Marys. He saw Peter, James, John. Then later that day, what did he do?

Remember. He walked through the wall and he said to them, It is me.

It is I.

I am the resurrected one. I think I brought this up last week. He even told those that were in that inner room, he said, I want you to reach out. I want you to touch me. I want you to touch the scars on my hands and my feet.

I want you to feel me because I am flesh and bone. That does add more merit to what Thomas said later when they said, Hey dude, you missed it. He was here. And what did he say? Until I'm able to do the same thing you guys did, I won't believe it.

So all he was wanting to do was have the same experience that they had. So that was on the first day of the week. Jesus resurrected on the first day of the week or what we would call the eighth day. You have seven days.

The first day of the week would be the eighth day. Remember, they circumcised men, children of Israel, boys on what? It didn't say on the first day of the week. It says the eighth day, which would be the first day of the week.

The other way. Then, when did Jesus appear to them again after his first day of resurrection? First day of the week. Eight days later, he appeared to them again. That's when Thomas was there. Anybody remember what day it was when Pentecost happened?

It was the day of the Lord.

That's right. So that's how we understand...

Not the day of the Lord,.

But the Lord's day.

That's how we should understand when it says the Lord's day. This is the first day of the week. Now, why was he in the Spirit on the Lord's day? I'm going to make an inference, meaning I'm going to draw a conclusion based on internal and external evidence that's not explicit.

That's what an inference is. I believe him being alone, wanting to be with his fellow believers in worship. He was unable to do that. So what was he doing? He had his mind prepared to be in worship on the Lord's day as Jesus had commanded him, and then boom!

Here's what happens. Now, you might disagree with me.

That's fine.

It says he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and he heard behind him a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet. I don't think that Jesus was behind him and it sounded like a shafar was blowing in his ear.

Okay?

I had a friend of mine that... Actually, I went to Israel with him. He is a band director in Orange Park, and he was a trumpet blower guy, whatever, played trumpet. And I was like,.

Man, that is annoying.

He had that little thing that buzzed. And it was like,.

I was like, dude,.

What are you prepared to be? The trumpet on that day? You know, because... So I don't think that Jesus was... That annoying sound of a trumpet that you don't want to hear. I think this is actually making a point that when Jesus spoke, dude, it was loud.

It was audible. And it was powerful. It was powerful. And he'll even talk about the power of it.

Here in just a minute.

And that voice said to him, he wasn't playing the tune like a trumpet.

Saying this.

His voice was loud, meaning like that trumpet, and he said this. Here's the commission of the book. Write a book or scroll. Does anybody say scroll? King James or ESV?

Say scroll.

NASB.

Mine's NAS.

What is yours? NASB.

Is it 20 or 95?

I think it's 20.

Okay, that's why it's wrong. I'm just kidding. Write a book or scroll what you will see and send it to the seven churches. It will be to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum or Pergamus, depending on what translation you have, to Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

Why these seven churches? Do you remember in the introduction? Why these seven churches?

The postal route.

It was most likely a postal route. I'm going to put it over here. So if this is Patmos, and this is not an actual, I'm just making it, you would have come straight over here and you would have had Ephesus.

And then you would have had Smyrna. And then you go over a little ways and you would have Pergamum. And then you would have had Thyatira. Then you would have had Sardis.

What's that?

Sardis.

Yep, Sardis.

And then you would have come down to what's the next one?

Philadelphia.

Philadelphia.

And then you would have ended up back down here.

At Laodicea.

Are you saying that that's the actual route?

That's the actual route. That's the actual mail route. That would have been, I should have blown this up because obviously they're staggered a little bit. But it's actually,.

If y 'all want to come up here.

And look at this afterwards, you'll see how it goes. It's an actual mail route that goes circular, meaning although it's in a horseshoe shape, that's how it would have ended up. So it would have come here and this is how it would have went.

This is how those letters would have gone.

That's how it would have went.

That was the postal service for the Roman Empire. That would have been that route. So, like I've said before, I believe there was seven copies that came. Whoever that courier was, when he came across from the Isle of Patmos, he hit Ephesus, he had seven copies of the seven letters to the seven churches.

Yes, sir?

I'm just kidding.

Okay.

So not one letter to each church? It would have delivered all seven letters.

That's my conclusion. He doesn't say, hey, write one letter to seven churches. He says write seven letters to seven churches. So I believe in... I think I said this. It needed to be done quickly. Now, me and Bert would agree that there was probably men here,.

Here, and here.

Because these are local churches.

That would have been able to have.

The guys do it very quickly. Understand, they didn't have copy and paste. And if they're handling the Word of God, it would have taken some time. Because I have an early date, that time is short. So if John sends seven copies ready to be boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,.

Quickly, done.

I mean, you're not going to take the 22 chapters of Revelation and copy them in a day. I doubt it. Maybe, unless they had men that were going to do one section. Yes, sir?

The ESV says write what you see in a book. Does yours say something different?

The word, the book or scroll, the reason being is codices is actually what it's called. They didn't come about until towards the end.

That's why...

I know why they have book. I understand, but it can be scroll. Books were actually not... Codices is what we have. It was not really like this.

I think what I'm asking is...

Was it a book or was it a scroll? Or was it a letter?

Is it a letter?

Letters, but letters didn't come in books. They came in scrolls. Like, when Paul says, he's talking to Timothy, he wants his cloak, and he says, send me the parchments. That's how I would have understood.

Individual pieces of paper.

Pieces of leaflets that were on pap, rod, vellum. That wouldn't have been vellum back then, I don't think, would it? It would have been on papyrus. Yeah, not vellum.

I guess that's where I'm confused, because I always thought, and I can be corrected, of course.

I can too.

I always thought, like, chapter 2, verse 1 through 6 is the letter to the church in Ephesus, and that that letter was Charon.

Okay, but hang on. They're getting this whole thing. They're getting this whole thing. They're not getting... Hey, they didn't just send... Hey, because when he gets here, he says, I want... Send these letters to the churches.

This is going to be a circular book that when they get to Ephesus, Ephesus is going to know what's going on here. Then when it gets from Smyrna, they're going to go to Pergamum. They're going to know what's going...

What admonition that took place.

From here to here, okay?

So they're going to know what's going on within the church. I do believe that these seven churches are representative, although real, represent the atmosphere of the church as a whole in Asia Minor. And when we get to Ephesus, we'll talk to why I get...

Because we know a lot about the church of Ephesus, a lot. I mean, we know from the time it was planted until we have this, and we know that that church is not really there today, okay? But we know when it was planted, Paul's second missionary journey, in 52 probably.

I can't remember. I think that's kind of where me and Andy, when he did it at the academy, kind of around there. And then we know everything that took place from there. We have letters going. I didn't want to get into a discussion last week about it, but when Gary said, well, John would have been the leader there, that would have been...

He could have been basically the pastor there. It would have sent him as exile basically so that the church would fizzle out, maybe. I don't think that John was the pastor of the church based on the writings that we already have.

Based on the time that we have, the writings that we have, when Paul was executed, he wrote a letter between 65 and 66 to Timothy. Where was Timothy the pastor at?

Ephesus. Ephesus.

My dating is correct. It was written in 67. There's a very good possibility that when that letter came across from here, Timothy was still there. When we get there, we can talk about Timothy's role in the church and all of that because we're drawing conclusions based on what we know from the letters to Timothy based on what's written here.

But it's a circular writing. They didn't get just this little snippet. They got all of this. And when we get to the end of chapter 3, after we talk about the churches, I know if y 'all are thinking anything like me, well, then what was the relevance of those seven letters hearing about the coming destruction.

Of Jerusalem?

That's what I would think.

Right?

That's what I would think.

So, these seven churches, real seven churches, real seven issues, well, five with issues, two with none. Two with none. And admonitions. Then he says in verse 12, Then I turned to see the voice. Is that not an odd way of saying it?

I don't know about y 'all, but when I turn, I'm not looking for a voice, I'm looking for the one it came out of. He says, I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. I believe that is intentionally said that way for a reminder of what he has told you.

Write down what you see. This is apocalyptic revelation. Can you see voices? With apocalyptic revelation, you can just like in Daniel when he heard the bear say come and eat. You remember that? Bears can talk in apocalyptic literature in Daniel.

So you can see this voice. And when he turned to see that the voice that was speaking, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. In the middle of the lampstands, I saw one like the Son of Man.

So, he turned and he saw a lampstand. Where do we see the lampstand in the Old Testament? And what is the lampstand?

Yes, yes, but let's say.

This would have been.

Either the curtain or the gates.

That would have come in. You'd have come in,.

You'd have had to raise an altar.

You'd have come through.

You would have had, right here you would have had labor. Then you would have had showbread. You would have had menorah. Then you would have had altar of incense. And here you would have had.

Fireflies.

The first thing that John sees when he turns is the lampstand. I don't think that's insignificant. I think it's important. As that priest would have come through here.

You might remember.

The top of the tabernacle. Don't forget the temple for a second. The tabernacle, because even in the book of Hebrews it never really addresses the temple. It addresses this part. This part here,.

You might remember.

What the top of it was made out of? Seal skin.

What's that?

That's right. Yeah, this part here was covered with seal skin and then tarped. How dark would that have been in there? What was the only thing that was glowing in there? The lampstand. The lampstand. And why?

If you would have been a priest, not the high priest, because he's the only one that would have went in here, but Samuel or any of the other guys that tended this and this, if you would have walked through that, what would the first thing your eyes would have been drawn to?

The light. The light. The light. You walk into a dark room, if you're not looking for the light switch, you're looking for the light. So when he walks in, the first thing, when he turns, what's the first thing John sees?

He sees the glow of the lampstand.

So he didn't have an iPhone?

Probably not. So he sees the lampstand and the menorah had seven bowls. Okay.

Interesting.

The menorah would have had seven bowls that had wicks that glowed. This ain't saying seven bowls. This is saying seven lampstands. Seven lampstands. There's a passage that's in... Good morning. There's a passage in...

I think it's in Zechariah.

I can't remember.

Chapter four, maybe? You can go back and look. I think it's chapter four. And it talks about in his vision, him seeing the seven bowls that were glowing representative of the Holy Spirit that would come.

That's in that same idea of the lampstand being the brightness that would represent the Holy Spirit and its brightness was also in the vision of Zechariah. You can go back and read that. I think it's in chapter four.

And he says, in the middle of that lampstand, I saw the one like the Son of Man. Now, if there was anybody that was acquainted with Jesus Christ, I don't think there would have been anybody more acquainted at this point with Jesus Christ than John.

I've said it time and time again. He's Jesus' favorite. He was the one that reclined at Jesus on his bosom that night that he was betrayed. He was one of those who asked, which one will it be? And then what did he say?

He would have been one of those that would have said, is it I that will betray you? He is also the one that saw Jesus, his humanity unveiled on the Mount of Transfiguration and his face glowed with brightness.

He also, at this point, had already seen the resurrected glorified God. As a matter of fact, he didn't see Him on the day He resurrected. He was so fast, he outran Fat Peter. He outran the fat fisherman to the tomb so he could go in and see.

And then he saw Him eight days later. And then on top of that, what else did he see? The Bible says for 40 days. And then he saw Him in Galilee. And then he saw Him just outside Jerusalem when He ascended.

So if anybody is acquainted with the Son of Man, it would be John. Why use the terminology Son of Man? Anybody have any ideas? This is heavy on the Old Testament. Who used the Son of Man? Daniel. Ezekiel as well.

Ezekiel did as well. But in this case, when you're talking about, this is heavy on Daniel chapter 7 because his description of Daniel in chapter 7 and in chapter 10 are right here. So the Son of Man, under Daniel's representation of the Son of Man, that just meant, hey, this was a real guy.

This was a real person that had flesh and bone. The idea did not develop into a messianic figure until the intertestamental time. So in the intertestamental time, the Son of Man then began to be understood by the Jewish people, hey, the Son of Man is going to be the Messiah.

That's why when Jesus many times when He came in, in most of the Gospels, it's the Son of Man He speaks of Himself. It's in John that He speaks of Himself as the Son of God. But all the other Gospels, He speaks of Himself as the Son of Man.

And as He's talking to those men, whether it be the Jewish people or the Jewish leaders, what did He say? They would say the Son of Man. And what did they want to do? They wanted to pick up stones to kill Him.

Because they knew that He was claiming to be the Messiah and to be deity. So here it is. He says, I saw one like the Son of Man. He was clothed in a robe, reaching to the feet, nearly crossed his chest with a golden sash.

And here's some of the same description that was in Daniel chapter 10 when Daniel got the revelation of his last vision. His head and his hair were like wool, white as snow. And his eyes were like the flame of fire.

His feet were like burnished bronze when it had been glown in the furnace. And his voice was like that of many waters. Once again, his voice had power. So, him being clothed with a robe to his feet. What did the priest wear?

What did the priest wear? That's right, they wore a robe. What did they wear? They wore girded about sash. So we're seeing Christ in this vision to John in his priestly duty standing where the light is in the midst of where God is dwelling.

He says here, he was girded across his chest with a golden sash. Now, why is it across the chest and not around his waist like the vision in Daniel?

Don't know.

I heard one guy one time say, hey, when the guy's doing his priestly duties, he puts it around his waist. Then when he's done, he kind of flips it over and wears it as a sash. I begin to investigate. I was like, okay.

That sounds maybe okay. You know what? Zero evidence of that.

Zero.

But I mean, I guess if you're a commentator, you can just make whatever up and people are supposed to believe you. So why is it across his head this way? No idea. But it's the same type of golden sash that a priest would have worn doing his duties, and we see Christ still as an intercessory priest in the midst of these golden lampstands.

And his head was like, his hair was like that of white wool. What did white wool represent hair? A hoary head what?

Wisdom.

What's that?

Wisdom.

Wisdom. Yes, where did we see hair like wool and white like snow? In Daniel. We saw that. That was representative of God, the Ancient of Days, being that of absolute wisdom. Now what do we see? We see the Son of Man with the same identity.

His eyes like a flame of fire. Why would he have eyes like a flame of fire? He can see right through you. You ever seen somebody have some of that gaze? They get mad at you, and then they kind of give you that eye?

Well, Jesus has got those eyes. He can peer right into the heart of your soul, into your emotions, into your spiritual being, and he sees all things. Those eyes, and they can purify your absolute motive,.

Your heart.

Hey, think about the things that we say and do. We often think that we do things in pure motive, right? You know how self-deceived we are? On that day, when our things are tested with that fire, we're going to find out that those things that we did in pure motive may not have been pure at all.

Jesus, with his eyes, he can look right directly into your soul and see whether those motives are pure or impure, your actions. Are they doing for the glory of him? Are you just doing them out of duty?

Or are you doing them for yourself? And then he says here, his feet were like burnished bronze when it is to be made to glow in the furnace.

Well, what would be the significance.

Of having burnished bronze feet?

Anybody?

Burnished bronze feet, buddy, he can trample on the feet of his enemy. He can stomp them down. You're going to see later in this book, you're going to see the lamb, they're scared of the lamb, they're crying out for all of the rocks and the mountains to fall on them because they're scared of the lamb.

And when you get to the end of the book,.

It says,.

Throw them into the winepress of the wrath of God and let the lamb of God trample them down and crush them as grapes are crushed in the winepress. I think it's in Isaiah 61. It talks about that messianic figure.

I think it's in Isaiah 61. The messianic figure, as he is trampling down on his enemies, crushing them, splattering the blood of his enemies all over his robe,.

Stomping them.

That's what hardened bronze boots will do. Matter of fact, when you get to the depiction of Christ, which is my favorite depiction of Him, so much I had some ungodly stuff tattooed on me in my younger days, I had it covered up with a depiction of Revelation 19 on my arm.

So if you're listening by a live stream, don't call me a second commandment violator because I don't care. I did it to cover up some ungodly things on me. I took the guy of the Bible and I said, hey man, Revelation 19, draw me a picture, buddy.

He drew it. And it's almost to the T. And eyes like flame of fire, hair like wool, a sharp sword coming out of his mouth, boots like bronze. His robe was that of being trampled down with blood splattered all over it.

It says here, he had voice like many waters. Once again, why would his voice be like the sound of many waters?

Power.

Me and Bert were talking a few weeks ago after the floods and everything that took place up there in the Carolinas. A number of years ago, me and Sybil and the boys and her mom went up to Asheville and we wanted to go do the rapids.

So we did and they were boring. They were supposed to be very scary and we had more fun riding down the lazy river at Adventure Landing. So I asked the guys like, hey man, we want something that's going to scare us to death.

And he said, well, why don't you get to me? Just call me in the morning.

I was like,.

Maybe we might need a redneck translator to this guy. So I called him. He said, meet me at Pigeon Forge. So we go up to Pigeon Forge where there's a dam. It was obviously, there was nothing coming down and I was like, hey, so when, he says, just wait.

They're going to open up that dam and when they open up that dam, it's just going to be awesome. They opened up that dam a mile or so up and when he opened it up, you could hear that water coming. I was like, what is that?

He said, that's the water coming.

The roar and the rush and the, it sounded like 15 freight trains coming and when it came by, we were standing by the side, when it came by, it blew your, I mean, it's down below, it blew your clothes to see the way, the amount of force with that.

Well, then we got in and we rode it and we were about scared to death. Luke about flew out. The guy had to go-go gadget arm and had to grab you before he flew out.

So,.

But the force of water, just the sound of sheer force of water, rushing, that was the sound of the son of man. And this says here, he had a sharp two-edged sword and his face was shining like that, the sun and its strength.

What's represented, all right, let's ask this. Did John actually see a two-edged sword flying out of Jesus' mouth? Was Jesus walking around with a sword?

No.

What's it mean?

What?

What's that?

Okay,.

But what does the word of God do? It cuts you. It can either, and it can be used in judgment, just like in Revelation 19, you're going to see that sword that comes out of his mouth, he speaks the word and it's represented of all the nations of the world gathered against God's people, he speaks the word, fingers never laid, he speaks the word and it is over.

That voice that comes out, that sword that comes out of his mouth is that of judgment. He speaks it and it's over.

Yes,.

The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, able to divide even the soul, the spirit, the bone, and the marrow. I don't know about y 'all, but I can't make a distinction between the soul and the spirit.

Can you? It's so intertwined in our being that we can't even pull it apart. Well, the word of God says he can take that sword with his mouth and he can dissect that and remove it apart and lay it open to see the thoughts and intents of a person's heart and mind.

It says,.