Book of Revelation - Ch. 1, Vs. 3-15 (02/11/2018)

Revelation 1 and the Church’s Audience

Okay, maybe I just spoke loud, I don't know. Well, we're going to go ahead and get started. I think people are coming in, but as they drift in, they will know what we've already done. We are in Revelation, and we're in Chapter 1, and we've been there for about two weeks or three weeks, and we're going to get a little bit further.

There is a hum, okay? I don't hear it now. Yes, I do. One, two, three. One, two, three, four. Do you hear it now? No. I don't hear it now either. I don't hear it. Okay, one, two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three. There it is. It's in there. It's still in there? Okay. I can talk loud enough. We don't even need this. That was one of the, that's one of the trainings that I got. You don't speak up here.

You speak down here, and you can speak just as loud as you want to, just as long as you want to, or as long as you can keep people listening. Okay, we are in Revelation, Chapter 1. We're going to reread verse 3.

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand. That was from last week. John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace be unto you, and peace from him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests, unto God his Father.

To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. I'm going to read a little bit further. Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.

Even so, amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together in this place where we can study your word, the word that you have preserved for us through the ages, the word that you gave your Holy Spirit to us to help us to understand.

Bless us and keep us, and help us to keep your word in exactly the fashion that you gave it to us, not trying to add, not trying to remove, not trying to change, but trying to faithfully represent what it is that you have said to us.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, John to the seven churches which are in Asia. The first question that I dealt with is this one. To whom does John address the book? Well, it seems easy. It is to the seven churches in Asia, and maybe by extension to us.

But there's a problem with the seven. Were there seven churches in Asia? What about Jerusalem? Is that in Asia? It's in Asia Minor. It is in what is considered Asia. All of these churches that he is referring to are in Turkey, and that's Asia Minor too.

Well, if you don't like Jerusalem, what about Antioch? There are hundreds of churches by this time, and many were more significant, at least on the surface, than the ones chosen. So why not the church at Antioch or the church at Jerusalem?

One of my original notes, I said that the church at Rome, and the church at Thessalonica, and the church at Athens, and the church at Philippi, and then it occurred to me none of those were in Asia. They were all in Europe.

In any case, that's one issue. The second question is, how much of this message is intended for those to whom it's written? That's a little more difficult. If you take the position that the church was written just to the seven churches listed, then you're locked into the position that everything described in the book had to take place during the Roman Empire.

That's kind of the position that R .C. Sproul found himself, which is why he would have identified himself as a preterist, but there would be little things here and there. He said, well, I'm not a preterist with regard to the second coming because I know it didn't come in the Roman Empire.

So he was trapped in a trap of his own making, and we can do that easily enough. When we try, when we allow ourselves, we don't even have to try. The Satan will inspire us to try. When we allow ourselves to roam outside of what is actually said, we are in a position to be trapped.

But I'm going to say one other thing before I continue. That's not to say that a lot of things, especially in Revelation, is written in symbols. There's a lot of things that are written and are meant to be symbolically interpreted.

When you see Jesus described as a man from which a sharp two-edged sword is protruding out of his mouth, do you take that to be literal or do you take that to be a symbol of something? You take it to be a symbol of something.

So there are parts that are symbolic, and there are parts that are literal. And you've got to be sure that you're on the right path of interpreting. The Holy Spirit is there to help us do that. On the other hand, if you take this reference to be symbolic and say that it represents the entirety of the church body, then you've got this question to deal with.

How much of the book is significant to the church today? How much is significant to this church right now today? I would submit that it's symbolic of the entire church and also that all of the book has importance to our church today.

Yes, sir. The Revelation is part of the Bible, and the Bible is given to the church. That is certainly a clear understanding of what it is that we're dealing with. But you've got to understand also that that is an opinion of mine, it's an opinion of Mark, it's an opinion of John, but it is not gospel.

And it has a weighing factor of zero. What I think, what John thinks, what Mark thinks has no significance at all. What is significant is what the Holy Spirit told us, what the book says. The rest of this verse is reasonably straightforward with just a couple of problems.

The Holy Trinity in Revelation 1

Grace be unto you and peace from him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne. Okay, I'm going to hesitate here and tell you something that I heard on David Jeremiah just like two days ago.

The message of Revelation is from the Holy Trinity. That wasn't new to me, it's just I heard it from a source this week. I said, I need to say it that way. He said it was from, it was published by, he said it was published by Trinity Publishing Company Incorporated or something like that.

But the message is from the Holy Trinity. First of all, from God, the Eternal Father. From him which is, and which was, and which is to come. The word eternal doesn't quite describe the Father as I think most of us see him.

How many of you see God as eternal? God the Father as eternal? Okay, I'm going to submit to you that you don't really see him as eternal. You see him outside the bounds of time altogether. You don't even see him in time.

God is not in time. God is out of time. To come into time, he is Jesus. So I kind of see Jesus as eternal and God as outside of time altogether. I may be wrong. That, you know, I didn't look it up either and I should have because it does talk about him in this verse, doesn't it, as the Everlasting Father?

Doesn't it say that in this? I am in Revelation 4 but I don't see the word everlasting. But everlasting is in a lot of places and sometimes we use words, our own words that we take as being equivalent and they basically are and then we can't find them because they weren't scriptural to begin with or they were not in the scripture.

They could be scriptural and not be in the scripture, if I said that clearly enough. Right now, that's God. That's God the Father. That's what he said he was when he spoke to Moses. That may have been Jesus though, I don't know.

I guess that was Jesus. Okay, in any case, it kind of in my mind's eye, I see it as God out of time altogether, Jesus as the eternal one. And that may be a misunderstanding on my part. That's why it pays to study and I went through this and I went through it and I went through it and I thought I had it clear and I left it foggy.

So I guess that means there's room for another pass-through in about two years and outside of the realm of time altogether. I've heard that many times. In fact, from physics, I can tell you this. Time does not exist where there is not matter.

If there's not matter, there's not time because it's a property of matter. And so before God created anything, now how do you do that? I don't know how to say it. Before there was matter, there was no time.

So you can't say before anymore. Time is irrelevant to God the Father, but not to God the Son is all I'm trying to say. And I've lost myself in a train of thought. He created time so that we could exist as matter in the time and so that Jesus would come to us in the time and forgive our sins in the time and pay the price in the time and go back to heaven in the time.

And we dealt with that a while ago. I'm not totally convinced he's not still in time right today, but maybe he's not. Jesus, that is. Okay, I think you're right. The phrase that said time out of mind.

Yeah. I think your mind would have no conception of time in that space. And I'd be wrong about that, too. Wow. At least that's a good thing. I think the greatest thing about revelation is the number of times it's going to require us to reconsider what we thought we had all lined up nice and neat in a box and we find out that this is not in the box.

And so we got to either change our box. I'm going to come to one thing that I have changed in my box this time through. And I hope now we get there. Okay, so what I said was, actually, eternal does not quite describe the Father.

It is more God outside the bounds of time altogether. The God that has always been. The God that knows all that there is to be known. And we talked about that last couple of times ago. God the Father.

The message is also from the Holy Spirit. Described here as the seven spirits before his throne. Now it says seven spirits, but does it mean seven spirits? Or does it mean like I believe the seven churches meant not those specific seven churches, but the entirety of the church?

Well, does this mean the entirety of the spirit of the spirit rather than seven separate spirits? I think it's a symbol. The symbolic use of seven to indicate completeness. Maybe a better understanding would be the sevenfold spirit.

The seven aspects of the spirit. But this we do know for sure. This is an allusion to Isaiah 11 verse 1. If you turn there and read that with me, because I'm going to read some things, and I'm going to count them as we go.

Isaiah 11 1 begins with,. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, a branch that shall grow out of his roots. And that, of course, would be Jesus. Verse 2. Are you there? Isaiah 11 verse 2.

We've got the stem of Jesse. We've got the branch. That's Jesus. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. Rest upon who? On Jesus. That's one. And the spirit of the wisdom and understanding, and the spirit of counsel, and the spirit of might, and the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of fear of the Lord.

How many is that? That's seven. Is that seven spirits? Or is that seven attributes of one spirit? So what spirit is on Jesus? Is it those separate spirits? Or is it the entirety of the spirit? Is it the Holy Spirit?

I submit it may be the Holy Spirit. And that there would be seven attributes listed of the Holy Spirit. Well, this we know also for sure. How many members are there of the Trinity? There are not nine.

Nor seven plus Jesus plus God, the Father. So there's not nine. Okay. I'm glad that verse is behind me. Grace be unto you and peace from him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, the prince of the kingdom of earths, unto him that loved us.

All right. So we go on to the third member of the Trinity that's listed. And that is who? Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. Jesus said in John, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. He is a witness of the Father.

And by the way, do you know what the word witness means in the Greek? Martyr. Martyr. The first begotten of the dead. But that's more than just the firstborn. The firstborn in our society doesn't have very much meaning.

In the Hebrew society, it was very meaningful. The first son inherited twice the amount of anybody else. It's not just the firstborn of men, but it's the firstborn of creation. It also speaks of his priority and sovereignty.

So it implies the absolute sovereignty of Jesus over all would-be kings. The prince of the kings of the earth. Now that translation prince is kind of a different translation. We think of a prince as a son of a king, but prince is a ruler.

And so a better translation for us might be king of kings. He is the king of all kings. And we see him referred to many times as the king of kings, but this probably would have been better translated as king of kings because he's not the son of the king, although he is that.

He is the king himself. And from Jesus Christ unto him that loved us. We're not going to refocus here. We're not going to revisit here, but we did focus on this first last couple of Sundays ago, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him.

Here you've got it again from Jesus Christ unto him. But now you have grace given to us and to Jesus from all the entities of the Trinity, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son. You see the difference?

The difference is it's now grace. Who's the grace given to? Okay, but it says one other thing too. What else does it say? And from Jesus Christ unto who? And unto him that loved us. Who's that? Okay, it's Christ.

God is in charge of all of them. And this verse is saying, and this is what I was talking about a few minutes ago. Grace be unto you and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come. That's the Father.

And from the seven spirits, that's the Holy Spirit, which are before his throne. And from Jesus Christ, who is the fateful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kingdom of the earth.

Now, what's the next word? Unto him that loved us. Who is him that loved us? Jesus Christ. So here we are in kind of a dilemma. We have grace given to us and to Jesus Christ from all of the entities of the Trinity, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son.

But that means that we might need to change our catchword. John, can you identify me for me what we mean when we say grace? That's what we say, isn't it? We always say that unmerited favor. And grace shed upon us is certainly unmerited.

No question about that, is there? But what about the favor that Jesus receives? Is that merited? Did Jesus earn the favor that he received? I think he did. So I think maybe I'm going to continue saying there's a lot of things that are so valuable because of what they allow to us.

And this is one grace unmerited favor. I can certainly handle that. And just kind of in my mind say, but not the grace shed upon? Yes, sir. Well, that helps me a lot. Yes. And if I had talked to you before, I could have kept my little thing in my box for a little bit longer.

I think I agree with you, but I think you touched on one little key issue. Everything that we receive is unmerited. So if you're talking about the grace, Mrs. Mitchell has great grace. I can say that.

I recognize that. And it was given to her. And even though she is a good woman and has always been a good woman, she wasn't good enough to get that grace. It was given to her as a gift of God. But now Jesus is different.

Jesus merits all the grace that he has. And there's another little catch word we use. And I'm not going to quibble about it either. Justified. When we say just as if I'd never sinned. Oh, that is great because now I don't have to worry about what is it?

What am I trying to say? When I'm trying to say what I mean when I say justified, it's just like I had never sinned. That's good. There are good things about all of these catch words, but we got to be careful that we don't get trapped in our catch words.

Okay. And then we have the other Greek issue here. Unto him that loved us. It doesn't mean he used to love us and he doesn't anymore. It's not past. It's arist. And it means his constant attitude toward his children.

I debated whether to do that or not because that's what Brother David always does, but he does it up here. And I was afraid I might turn my table over. But I did. Paul put it this way. But God commended his love toward us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The work of Jesus on the cross for us is God's ultimate proof of his love for us. He may give us additional proof, but he can give us no greater proof, no greater proof than his son dying on the cross for us to tell us how much he loves us.

Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. The book of Revelations should not scare us. We should not be frightened by the book because the book is from Jesus Christ, the one who loves us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

And not just symbolic. Peter says, for as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversations received by tradition from your fathers, all of that stuff is good.

All the traditions you received from your fathers is good. All the stuff you have in your box is good. But you weren't redeemed with that. You were redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ as of a lamb without blemish, without spot.

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. And Timothy, Paul says in 1 Timothy 2, 5 and 6, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man, Jesus Christ.

And incidentally, on the way in this morning, I even stopped a few minutes in the parking lot to listen to the end of the sermon. I was listening to a sermon by the pastor at First Baptist in Jefferson.

And his theme of the week or the month is how many ways to God. And of course his position is, there is one way to God and only one way. And that's through Jesus Christ. But there are people that say there are many ways, but that's not what the book says.

He didn't even quote this one. He quoted the one in John 14 when he says, I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the father but by me. I was looking to see if he quoted this one. There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man, Jesus Christ.

There's no doubt what Timothy, Paul thought. There's no doubt what John thought that Jesus said. There's no doubt about what Jesus said. One way and only one way. The man, Jesus Christ, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

And maybe I shortchanged Dr. Jeffries because he did say that he is going to take next Sunday and do the second part of the New Testament references to the one way. So I guess he just hadn't got there yet.

Verse six, and he made us kings and priests unto God and his father, to him be the glory and the domination forever. And dominion forever and ever, amen. God made us kings and priests. Note the word his father.

Is he our father? Why is he our, how can he be our father? We are adopted in through Christ. And so we are, he is also our father. And we're seated on his throne, the throne of Jesus. Ephesians two, verse one.

And I'm gonna read through verse 10. And you, he hath quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

Among whom also we all had our conversation or our lifestyles in time past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

So that's where we are. We're undeserving and we're dead. And he made us alive. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.

By grace are you saved. And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That in ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Jesus Christ.

And by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourself, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Jesus Christ unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

So this is the work. So this is the work of Jesus Christ. He was the faithful witness. He was the first begotten among the dead. He is the king of the kings of the earth. He loved us and he redeemed us with his blood in order that he might make us kings and priests unto God, that he might receive glory and dominion forever.

The Coming of Christ with Clouds and the Question of the Rapture

I don't really have time to finish the next verse, but I am going to read it and get started. And we'll pick up next time on verse seven. But there's a couple of things we can get out of the way this morning.

Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, amen. There are those who believe that the clouds refer to clouds of witnesses.

And when I say there are those that believe, there are credible scholars who believe this. Scholars that you and I would all hold in high esteem. They say it's a reference to the church that is coming with him when he comes.

They cite the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. And I'm going to do that quickly. It tells us of all those Old Testament saints who through faith made their mark upon the world. Then chapter 12 begins this way.

Wherefore, we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

So they're saying this cloud is a cloud of witnesses. This cloud that he's coming back with when he says he comes with a, behold, he cometh with a cloud. And then they also go on and cite Colossians 3, 4.

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then ye shall appear with him in glory. Now, I don't think any of us can dispute any of that. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. Let me change the word I said because I'm in total agreement with you.

And stretch. Yeah, it is to me too. That's why I brought this up. That's why I want to deal with it today. What I meant to say was there is no doubt about the actual scripture that I read. 12, 10, there is no dispute about what 12, 10 says.

There are a great cloud of witnesses. They got the scripture. And Colossians 3, 4. When he shall return, when he shall appear, then you shall appear with him in glory. There's no question about that. The question is, is that the horse he rode in on?

What they say is, behold, he cometh with a cloud. The clouds are taken to refer to the multitude of people that will be returning with him, the church. That's what they're saying. I'm inclined, however, to believe the reference is to Luke 24, which is where everybody was saying, wait, hold up a minute.

That's not the horse he rode in on. The physical cloud that received him when he ascended to heaven, the same cloud will bring him back. And I don't have to stretch any, I can just read two verses or two passages, one in Luke that sets it up and one in Acts that nails it down.

That is an old country song or something. That was not made up by me, but I did kind of like that. And he led them out as far as Bethany and he lifted up his hands and he blessed them. And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.

And that ends there. But Luke picks it up in Acts chapter one, verse nine. Go ahead and turn there, it won't take long. And we're still ahead of the bottom line time. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which said, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.

Same cloud that took him will bring him back. That's probably, to me, that's probably the easiest passage in Revelation to deal with in that manner. And it's only for me, because it was so clear from the beginning that he's coming back on a cloud, the same cloud he came, he went out on.

He's coming back with that same cloud. And so when I saw this, oh, but it could be a cloud of witnesses. There's not to say that there can't be some witnesses on that cloud with him. But that's not the cloud that he's coming back on.

He's not coming back on the cloud of witnesses. He's coming back on the cloud that took him up in the first place. There's others that are just as stretched as that one. Here's one, and I'm going to go just a little bit further, because there's another five words in that verse.

And every eye shall see him. Now, that presents a problem for those who view the rapture as a semi-secret event viewed only by those who are raptured. The theme of the novel is left behind. Everybody was raptured out, and everybody that was left, I guess, knew where they were going, but everybody that was left behind didn't know what happened.

It doesn't say that. It says every eye shall see him. Now, that doesn't necessarily imply that or prove that those who hold the pre-tribulation rapture are wrong, only that when the rapture does occur, it will be seen by all, not just the ones that are taken.

That's all it really proves. It doesn't really, I don't think, say anything about whether it's pre-rapture or mid-rapture or post-rapture. I guess probably it's time for me to disclaim and tell you my current thinking.

And my current thinking is probably, certainly it's different from what it used to be, and it probably would be different in the past. I don't think anymore. I used to think that the rapture occurred sometime, even prior to the advent of Antichrist, the revelation of Antichrist.

So I was like a pre-pre-tribber. And as I went through this last time, I gradually moved my position that it's at least by mid-trib when it occurred. And Brother David is still over here on this side on me, but I am moving closer to where he is.

But that's just me. That's just my understanding. I think my understanding is growing, and it's growing as a result of having read and having heard, and it'll continue to grow. And I think that's really all we can strive for is to get a clearer and clearer understanding of what he is telling us.

And so where I will be when I get through this this time, I don't know. But I do know this. I won't have exactly the same set of thoughts. My box will not be exactly where it was when I started. I've already told you of one piece of material that I put out of my box this time, and I suspect there'll be more.

Okay, I'm going to stop there. And yes, ma 'am, I think there is a connection between the cloud that led the children of Israel by day through the wilderness and the cloud that took Jesus back to heaven.

I do believe that there's a connection there, and it might be exactly the same cloud. Yes, sir. I do, too. No, I didn't. Okay, so you would say that that is a confirmation of what Mrs. Mitchell just said, that it probably is the same cloud, and not the cloud of witnesses.

So that would be one more notch on the other side. Yeah. Okay, well, Dave Huber, Jr., could you dismiss us with a prayer? Yes, sir.