Intro to Revelation Part 4

4 views

0 comments

00:00
Gary, you'll open up for the prayer? Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you this day and we ask,
00:10
Lord God, that you see there's another storm coming our way. We pray for the people that were affected and we pray for, in your sovereignty, you'll guide the storm where you need it to go and keep the people safe there.
00:22
But now, Lord God, we are here in your house and we thank you, Lord God, that we are able to come and listen to your word and apply it to our lives,
00:31
Lord. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, last week we went through the four approaches to the book and I got a couple things
00:42
I need to get squared up. One, we've got to deal with the translation issue as we go through.
00:54
Don't talk into your cell. We've got a translation issue that we have to deal with because of each person in here.
01:03
There's multiple translations in here. ESV, New American Standard, King James, New King James.
01:11
How many got King James? King James, when we get towards the end of the book, we'll read a little differently probably.
01:20
Reason being is because the Greek manuscripts that were available at the time in which the
01:28
Textus Receptus was available, there was not, if I remember correctly, 2280 -21, if I remember correctly, were not available for Erasmus in the 15th century.
01:49
So what he had to do was take the only thing he had, which was the
01:55
Latin Vulgate, and then he had to back translate that into Greek to make the Greek text.
02:00
Do you understand? Everybody follow me? So that's why it's going to read a little differently. Textual variants were very high up until we had more available.
02:12
So we'll get to a textual variant right out of the gate in Chapter 1.
02:18
It says one, I think the King James says washed. All the other new translations say free.
02:24
And you say, well, what's the big deal? I'll tell you the big deal when we get there, because it does make a difference when you understand what the book's trying to convey.
02:31
But I just want you to know, if you have a King James, these will read a little bit differently. It's not going to change the meaning of the text, but it's going to read differently.
02:43
Then you also have a transmission of the text.
02:49
I was asked this by multiple people, so I think this needs to be answered on the front end.
02:58
In 180 A .D., there was what was called the
03:04
Moratorium Fragment. The Moratorium Fragment had 22 books on it.
03:11
How many books are in the New Testament? Twenty -seven. There are 27 books in the
03:19
New Testament. In this moratorium, 22 were wrote as being canon, as apostolic.
03:33
Revelation was in this. If you remember correctly, back two weeks ago, there was a man by the name of Dionysius who said he didn't think
03:46
John wrote it. Do you all remember me telling you that? He didn't think that John wrote it. He said, hey, I think the book's divine, but I don't know who wrote it.
03:54
I just know it wasn't John. To me, that's a stupid statement. You're going to say, hey, I don't know who wrote it, but I know it wasn't him.
04:01
But he did say the book was divine. But that was in around the 250s or 260, which led to Eusebius in 325.
04:11
Do you all remember me telling you about him? That led to in 325,
04:18
Eusebius saying the book was spurious. Do you all remember me saying that last week? So this became the problem.
04:32
Do away with this being canon. Remember, okay, 180?
04:40
He began to call into question whether it was to be part of the canon, okay?
04:46
So that's where the East and the West Church partially had a discrepancy of whether it was going to be in the canon.
04:57
In the Council of Carthage, 397, with Ashkenazis, it was part of the canon.
05:06
But want to hear something crazy? Not in the
05:12
Far East Church. It did not become part of the Far East Church until 680.
05:20
That's pretty crazy. Pretty crazy. Far East Church, from my studies, okay, the
05:31
East probably didn't even know we had Revelation until the 5th century. Ain't that wild?
05:39
A book so important that they probably didn't even know they had it. A man by the name of Andreas of Caesarea and Arethas, not
05:50
Aretha, Arethas, were very instrumental in getting it in the
05:56
Far East, getting it because they wrote commentaries on it until they finally said, Hey, man, this book's been apostolic.
06:03
And they did a show all the way back to where the apostolic age had said,
06:08
Hey, this book was legitimately from John the Apostle. If that was beneficial to you, great.
06:16
If not, erase it from your memory like I'm taking it off the board. Now, this part is far more important, the structure of the book.
06:34
The structure of the book is not chronological in nature.
06:43
Most premillennial futurists, whether they're historical premill or dispensational premillennial, will say that the book is chronological, meaning you start it here.
06:58
I'm going to use your pens. Go right there.
07:07
Meaning you start at chapter 1, and it just goes all the way chronologically to 22.
07:15
As you go, if you follow that, I mentioned this I think last week, if you follow that, you're going to have times when you have the same thing said several times.
07:25
If you've been reading ahead, you get to the end of the seals, you're going to have what looks like a final judgment.
07:33
If you get to the end of the trumpets, you're going to have something that looks like a final judgment. When you get to the end of the bowls, you're going to look like something that,
07:42
I don't know anybody that would say that that's not the end of time. Maybe some of your heretical preterists would say that that's the end of time.
07:55
End of time meaning that that was the end at 70 AD. But every one of them, whether it be the seals, the trumpets, and then the bowls, and if you're a
08:15
King James, I think it says vials. Is that right, Mike? I think a better way of understanding the book is parallel.
08:29
And the reason why, is because you're going to see some similarities here.
08:44
You'll see some similarities here, and you'll certainly see similarities at the end.
08:52
So as we teach through these, you're going to go, oh wow, that sounds kind of familiar with the one before it.
09:02
The only difference is as you go from here to here, you're going to see an intensification.
09:08
As you go from here to here, you're going to see it intensify not only from here, but to here.
09:15
So let's just take, for instance, if you started at the seals, you're going to see in a section where one quarter is destroyed.
09:22
You get to the trumpets, you're going to see one third.
09:30
Then when you get to the bowls or the vials, you're going to see the whole is destroyed.
09:39
So you understand how it's actually called the fancy word recapitulation. I don't care for that particular word, because to me, recapitulation is just recapping what has happened.
09:52
I like progressive parallelism, because see they're parallel, and as you go to the next parallel to it, it progresses in intensity.
10:02
But the real fancy word is actually recapitulation. If you read any books or commentaries that hold that position, it will probably say recapitulation.
10:10
Greg Beal has a 1 ,308 -page commentary, and he holds the progressive parallelism.
10:19
I think it's very good, although I don't hold all of his positions. I think his is more exegetical, a lot of Greek.
10:28
So if you get his book, it's available if you want. They make a shorter commentary as well.
10:35
If you want the shorter one, I think it's only 600 pages. The 1 ,308 has every option that you can imagine, but when you get the shorter of it, he basically did away with all the confusing parts for people and says, this is just what
10:50
I think, instead of going, this is what 15 church fathers said before. So if you want it,
10:55
I can give you where you can find it. What's the word again? Progressive parallelism.
11:09
Now, we have to deal with the numbers part of the book.
11:17
Are numbers very important in the book of Revelation? Sure. Better believe it.
11:22
Let's just take, for instance, how many times do we have seven? Let's just count a few.
11:29
We've got seven churches, seven letters.
11:36
Anybody know else how many other sevens we've got? Seals. All right, yeah, let's go.
11:42
Seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls.
11:52
When we get to this one, we have no - What's that? Seven mountains? No, I don't think so, but we do have seven lamps.
12:03
Seven beds? Who? Seven beds? Beds? I don't know. I haven't read that part yet.
12:08
I haven't read that part. Maybe. That's no way. What's that?
12:14
Oh, seven, hey, I just thought, what about seven hills? Seven hills. Yeah. Hills, all right.
12:21
Anybody else? Who? Seven stars. I was waiting for somebody to say that.
12:30
Seven angels? So seven is very significant.
12:40
Why? Are these statistical? Meaning, is it relaying something, or is it specifically saying literal seven?
12:53
I say that depends on the context of the chapter. When you get to the seven churches with seven letters, with seven angels that are holding seven stars, okay,
13:08
I think that's literal. I think it is very literal. I think these were, and when we get to that point, when we start teaching through the letters, there was real seven churches in Asia Minor with five of them having major issues.
13:25
Two of them were absolutely exemplary of how we should be, but five of them were rebuked and called to repentance.
13:36
So there were real seven churches. Were there more than seven churches in Asia Minor? Of course. Where was
13:42
Colossae? Where was Hierapolis? What about Troas? Yes, there was other churches there, but those seven churches were real seven churches, but they were representative of the church complete.
13:58
So when we see the number seven, it's not always statistical. By and large through the book, it's using to mean complete or totality.
14:09
Matter of fact, when we get to the end of the bowls, he gets to the last one and he says, when
14:16
I finish this, God's wrath is complete. So seventh, think about creation.
14:26
Six days, seventh day he rests. What does that mean? Creation was complete. Complete. So we should look at it as complete.
14:31
And then when we get to John sees the lamb, the
14:37
Lion of Judah, well, that lamb has seven horns and seven eyes. Do you think that Jesus actually had seven horns?
14:44
Did he have seven eyes? Explain to me. It's a legitimate question.
14:50
Then tell me how would we understand that? Horn meaning power. Remember David in the
14:56
Old Testament says, God has exalted my horn. He has given me power. And even in Daniel, we saw the section where it says that there was ten horns, meaning horn means power, even in the
15:09
Old Testament. So when we see Jesus with seven horns, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, which was a lamb with seven horns, we should understand that as what?
15:19
Perfect power. Perfect power. Exactly what that means. What about the seven eyeballs? Jesus sees all things.
15:27
He sees all things. I mean, we're not talking about Jesus, you know, having a head spin around.
15:34
Come on. Perfect vision. He sees all things. So when we see these, we need to understand that it's talking about perfection.
15:43
I do want you to look at these real quick. Beatitudes. Is that how you spell
15:51
Beatitudes? I hope. If not, somebody spell check it. Because this is important. I love reading through this.
16:00
Take your Bible and I think the first one is in Revelation chapter 1, verse 3.
16:11
Seven Beatitudes. This doesn't actually say seven. So it ain't like the one that says seven stars, seven.
16:16
It doesn't say that. This is what I counted. Chapter 1, verse 3.
16:22
First of all, what's a Beatitude? Anybody know? A Beatitude.
16:28
Good. It's a blessing. A blessing. Or happy is he. Favored, per se.
16:36
That's what it means. So when we think about the Beatitudes, when Jesus was on the Sermon on the Mount, blessed is the poor in spirit.
16:44
It's that type of understanding. Well, here in chapter 1, verse 3.
16:50
And this, to me, is the thematic statement for the whole book.
16:57
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near.
17:06
That's the first Beatitude. Let's turn it over to chapter 14. And look at verse 13.
17:28
Yeah, chapter 14, verse 13. Blessed are the dead who have died in the
17:36
Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit. So they may rest from their labors and their deeds follow with them.
17:44
So what is that saying there? Blessed are those who are martyred.
17:50
Blessed are the martyrs. Turn it over to chapter 16, verse 15.
18:08
Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes on so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.
18:19
What does it mean to stay awake? Does it mean just, hey, don't fall asleep?
18:24
Be alert. Not like when Burt was teaching last week and a guy fell out the window and Paul's preaching.
18:33
Certainly, he shouldn't have stayed awake. Paul did go down and resurrect him. But does it mean just, hey, don't get sleepy?
18:41
Be alert. Know what's going on around you. When Jesus told His disciples when
18:46
He took them to the Garden of Gethsemane the night in which He was betrayed, He said, stay awake.
18:52
Could you not stay awake? Be alert for one hour. For one hour.
18:59
So, that's the other. Go to chapter 19. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the
19:14
Lamb. 19 .9, I'm sorry. 19 .9.
19:21
Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Yeah, I think anybody that sits at the table with Jesus, happy is that person.
19:33
Then flip over to chapter 20. Actually, it might be, just look at the next page. Verse 6.
19:45
Blessed and holy is the one who has part in the first resurrection.
19:51
Over these, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of His Christ, and His Christ will reign with Him for a thousand years.
20:01
There's that thousand years stuff, right? Once again, statistical or representative?
20:10
We're going to get into that. So, when we see other, and we're going to talk about a couple of more numbers that we look at.
20:18
That's going to be one of them, actually. And then if you flip over to 21 .7. I think it is 21 .7.
20:24
I'm sorry, 22 .7. There's two in here. First one is, blessed is
20:33
He, chapter 22, verse 7. Blessed is He who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.
20:39
Have we not already heard that? Where did we hear it? What's that?
20:46
Chapter 1. Chapter 1? Bookends.
21:13
You want the fancy word? It's called an inclusio. That's the fancy word in literature. Bookend by the same thing.
21:22
We'll get into it maybe next week when we get further into it, but it's interesting that this is the beginning and the epilogue, and this is the prologue, or the end.
21:35
And they say they're almost identical. They don't say it identically, but they're almost identical in what it's saying.
21:44
And we'll go through the similarities when we get there. But it's all included. So blessed in the beginning, blessed in everything that's in the middle.
21:53
Because the whole book needs to be what? Obeyed. Obeyed.
22:00
Obeyed. Obeyed. It doesn't just say, hey, blessed is the one who hears it, does it? It says blessed is the one who reads it, who hears it, obeys it.
22:11
Yeah, actually the reader part is interesting because in that time, could everybody read?
22:20
Not everybody could read. Matter of fact, I'm not sure how many of them could have read the Greek that was there.
22:27
I don't know if anybody's seen an early first century Greek manuscript. It is all capital
22:33
Greek letters. No spaces, just... No spaces.
22:40
Not like our Greek text, our Nessel -Allen 2829, whichever one you want to read, and you know you got uppercase and lowercase, and you know where the words start.
22:47
I have no idea how them dudes read that because there's no breaks. You don't know where it's at. So you better be blessed as the one who can read it.
22:54
You've got to have some discernment of where the breaks are. No hyphens when you get to the end. You know, we get to the end of a piece of paper and go, okay, hang on,
23:00
I wonder if there's a hyphen here. No, they just keep going. So blessed as the one who reads it.
23:06
So that's how it should be understood. Then 2214. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city.
23:24
Blessed are those who wash their robes. We're going to get to the beginning of the book. What do they wash their robes with?
23:33
The blood of the lamb. What'd you say, Todd? They wash their robes with the blood of the lamb.
23:40
I don't know about y 'all, but man, if you take a white robe and you wash it with blood, it's not white.
23:46
And it ain't real clean. So you see what it's trying to convey. And interesting too here, once again, beginning of the book, what do we see in the beginning in the garden?
23:57
Tree of life. What do we see at the end of the book? Tree of life. What were they to not touch in the beginning?
24:07
Tree of life. That tree of knowledge is real. And then they were removed from not touching the tree of life for the reason being is once that they ate and they became corrupt and they were to then partake of the tree of the life, they would have been in a perpetual state of sinfulness forever.
24:25
What's that? I said kind of like the demons, where they couldn't be redeemed. Unredeemable.
24:31
Unredeemable. That's why God being gracious, rich in mercy, he put a chair about it and sent them east of Eden.
24:39
You understand how gracious of God that was to do that to them? It wasn't certainly bad, okay?
24:45
But it was a gracious act of God. And we get to the end of the book. What does he say? Those whose robes have been washed, those who have washed themselves in the blood of the
24:52
Lamb, they will have access to the tree of life. Beginning and end. Once again, if you want to put this in Genesis 1, okay, at the beginning, you can put at the end, chapter 22 of Revelation, everything in the middle, bookends.
25:08
So, what about the number four?
25:16
Have you all been reading? Have you all seen four come up? No? All right.
25:24
Give me some fours. Maybe the four elders. Actually, there's 12.
25:30
Oh, we'll get to them in a minute. You got the four living creatures. You got four creatures.
25:42
You got four winds. You got four angles.
25:50
Ma 'am? Rivers? I don't know. I ain't got that far yet either.
25:57
Four creatures, four winds. Four corners.
26:04
Are these statistical? Four creatures.
26:10
Has anybody been reading in chapter four and five yet? That's awesome. That is two awesome chapters, four and five.
26:18
You know, with the four creatures. Got crazy eyeballs. Anybody read it? Like, whole head full of eyeballs.
26:24
Read now. Think about the gumball machine, or you used to go to pick and save when I was a kid, and you'd put a quarter in there, and you'd turn it, and you'd have the little cat -eye ball.
26:35
They'd shoot real high. I'm reading, I'm going, is their whole head made of those gumball eyeballs?
26:41
Because that's what it said. It said, whole head's made like that. And you remember the creatures that were there? They were an eagle, an ox, eagle, ox, a man, and what was the other one?
26:57
I give up. Anyway, a lion, that's it. And they were all representative of, if you look at those, the eagle, the ox, the lion, and the man, they're basically the highest of each one of those creatures.
27:13
I mean, what's the lion called? King of the jungle. What's the man called? The king of his castle.
27:19
No, I was kidding. He's the crown jewel of God. What about the eagle?
27:26
Man, an eagle just soars. He's a bird of prey, and he is just awesome.
27:31
Well, what about an ox? Powerful, yeah, strong, powerful.
27:37
So when we get to that point, we'll look at what those four creatures mean. But then you have the four angels holding back the four winds of the four corners.
27:48
What's that talking about? North, south, west, east.
27:59
Holding back the four winds of the earth. What does that represent? The totality of the cosmos, we'll say.
28:09
That would be the easiest way, the totality of the cosmos. And what had control of those four winds?
28:19
God's assigned beings for that. So we have that. Then somebody said a second ago, the elders.
28:27
I know what you said, Mauritius? Yes, sir. Okay. You have 12s, numbers of 12s, and 12s on top of 12s.
28:40
So he's right. You have the 12 elders. Then you have the 12 apostles, which came to a total of 24.
28:54
Then you have 12s on top of 12s, on top of 12s, which if you get to one of those chapters, we're going to get to 144 ,000 of the redeemed.
29:13
Statistical representative. If that's God calling, we'll call him back.
29:21
Statistical representative. I think the 24 elders, and we'll talk about this.
29:31
This deals with Old Testament saints. The apostles deal with New Testament.
29:41
And around the throne are the 24 representative of both
29:46
Old and New Testament, meaning the totality of the church.
29:57
Remember, Jesus makes a statement to his disciples. You'll sit with me and rule on thrones with me.
30:04
I do think there was a part of that where he says, Oh, you'll reign with me in heaven. You've been sitting in heavenly places and all that.
30:10
But I think it was in John that he said that too. I can't help but think John didn't catch on to that.
30:21
And then 144 ,000, this is not Jehovah's Witness. This ain't 144 ,000 real virgin male
30:32
Jews that are going to be Jewish Billy Graham's in Palestine.
30:39
I'm serious. That's what they think. I was thinking that when you wrote that. And when we get to the 144 ,000 and how they all represent, you're going to see, oh, wow, there's missing a tribe or two.
30:51
And they've added a tribe or two that ain't even in there. So then you have to say statistical representative. So just to clarify, the 24 are the 12 plus 12?
31:02
12 plus 12. You have Old and New Testament. You have the 12 in the Old, 12 in the New, Old Covenant.
31:08
Totality comes to 24 because there's 24 elders sitting around the throne. And when we get to chapter 4 and 5, that's where we see them.
31:16
The church as a whole. Yep, church as a whole. All right. Any questions or comments?
31:32
Clarifications? There is 12 gates. And if you get to the end of the book, there's also 12 foundations.
31:41
And if you read, just take you a highlighter. Make different colors for different things they represent.
31:48
This is just a suggestion. Take you a highlighter.
31:53
Know what that highlighter means. And as you're reading through, anything that you're reading through when you study a book.
31:59
And just say, okay, every time I see something that referred to grace or whatever, I'm going to use whatever pen color you want to use for that.
32:05
But you get to Revelation, if you want to do 12, look how many 12s are in there. There's a lot. There's 12 foundational stones.
32:11
Actually, that's a good point, too, Andy, because when you look at the stones that are on the chest of the high priest, it's all these majestic stones, okay, that were representative of what?
32:28
The 12 tribes of Israel. Representative of the 12 tribes of Israel. Hey, when we get to the whole of Babylon, you ought to see what's on that chest.
32:36
The colors. The whole of Babylon may not be what you think.
32:42
The whole of Babylon might be somebody very close to Jerusalem, not some distant, far civilization 2 ,000 years away.
32:54
So good point, Andy. Anything else before I lay out how the book is going to be taught?
33:09
Chapter 1 has the prologue. Oh, that's not it.
33:17
That's the epilogue. Let me do this. Chapter 1 is going to have
33:34
Jesus with the churches right at the beginning. This ain't how fast I'm teaching it.
33:39
I'm just letting you know chapter how it's going to look. Then 2 to 3, letters to the churches.
33:56
4 and 5, and this is majestic. There ain't often you get scenes in heaven.
34:05
This is a scene in heaven around the throne.
34:21
Just for another tidbit of information, do you know how many times the word throne is used in Revelation?
34:28
34 times. So wouldn't you think the throne is important? Whether it be
34:33
Christ sitting on his throne, the lamb on his throne, God on his throne, or the beast in his dominion over the throne.
34:41
The throne is important. And then you have 6 and 7, which will be the seven seals.
34:51
And you have 8 through 11. There may be some overlap here, and I'll show you why in a second.
34:58
Seven trumpets. Where else have we seen seven trumpets of judgment in the
35:08
Bible? Who said it? Who said it?
35:14
Jericho. Jericho. Hey, I want y 'all to, as we're reading through the book and studying it,
35:21
I don't want to make every connection because there's over 800 of them. Old Testament. Old Testament.
35:27
Old Testament. Old Testament. Old Testament. Old Testament. Old Testament. Old Testament. So what did the seven trumpets do when they walked around Jericho?
35:36
Walked around Jericho. What's that? Destroyed the walls. Yeah, the walls fell, and Jericho was destroyed.
35:44
All right, well, those seven trumpets of judgment in Jericho were going to be seven trumpets against something. Everybody knows what my seven, well,
35:52
I think it is. I think it's the judgment on the very nation that judged Jericho.
35:59
It's interesting. And you're going to see these reversals and flips. The very things that God said
36:04
He would do to those who rejected His people, the nation, God then is now doing to these people in the book of Revelation for rejecting the
36:11
Messiah. Now, whether you think it was written in 96, or whether you think it was written before 70, that statement will always be the same.
36:21
Whoever your conclusion is, well, you think this is some generation far off, or was it actually speaking directly to that generation that rejected
36:29
Christ? The thing is the same. Those who reject Christ get what? They get punished.
36:35
The nation will be punished. Hey, every nation that's come and gone, it's been because they rejected
36:41
Christ. Everyone. And if you think this nation is going to be any different, I ain't no prophet nor son of a prophet, but if you think this nation will be anything different, you need to take off your glasses and clean them and read your
36:50
Bible. So it's not about Trump? Huh? Trump?
36:56
Here, want me to scratch off the heads? And then this one will be,
37:05
I think, more interesting because you've got some overlap here. And this will be the little,
37:15
I'll call it scroll, because books haven't quite come into being yet. And some of them say book.
37:25
You know, books really, codexes really didn't come in, codex meaning strapped together like this, didn't come in until the late 1st century after.
37:34
So most everything was a scroll or parchment that pages put together.
37:40
What's that? Was the book papyrus the one thing? The pages were. Parchment, something like that, yeah.
37:46
Matter of fact, the very first, I think it's papyrus 18, is the earliest manuscript of revelation that we have, and it was the 2nd century.
37:57
3rd century, which meant the 200s. It was on papyrus, yeah. But they weren't bound like this.
38:04
I mean, here was somebody this last week about the parchments. Paul asking for, hey, send the parchments to me, probably leaflets put together.
38:12
I mean, think about a scroll. Think about my tent carrying a scroll. I don't think there's people riding like this. I don't think when the people left from, when the courier left
38:21
Patanus and started his route, that he was carrying scrolls across Asia Minor, probably smaller leaflets.
38:33
So does everybody see that? I'm going to go to that side so I can finish. 14.
38:52
You have the followers of the beast and the lamb.
39:08
You know, we often hear about, and it's earlier in the book, you know, the mark of the beast. You know, what is it?
39:16
It's not going to be a chip. It's not going to be of axe and edge. I mean, something ridiculous like that, okay? The mark is something that was evident.
39:26
That's rooted in the Old Testament. Anybody remember when, don't say nothing,
39:31
Mike, I told you the other day. Don't answer this because I told you just the other day. Anybody remember in the
39:37
Old Testament where God went out and he marked people in the city? Book of Ezekiel.
39:45
Once again, Old Testament. Book of Ezekiel chapter 9, it was right before he went in through the final destruction of Jerusalem.
39:52
Remember, there had already been two deportations. He's fixing to send in Nebuchadnezzar to lay waste to the city, burn down the temple.
40:01
And he says he saw a vision, and he saw these angels with battle axes ready to go into the city.
40:08
And then it says the angel of the Lord then tells one of them, hey, hey, hey, hey, take your ink back.
40:15
I want you to go through the city, and I want you to mark on the forehead of every one of them that's mine.
40:22
Mark a mark on their forehead, every one that's mine, and they will be saved from the destruction of the city.
40:28
You see the same thing in the book of Revelation. Who can stand before the great judgment day of God?
40:35
And then what's the next thing? Only those who are sealed with the mark on their forehead. Only those who are sealed.
40:41
So you understand, once again, we're back to the Old Testament, understanding how was this used in the
40:48
Old Testament? Is it used in a prophetic way in the book of Revelation or anywhere else in the
40:54
New Testament? And that is, yes, it is. What's evident of someone who is part of the beast?
41:03
Is there going to be another mark on their forehead? Or is it going to be, can you tell a person by the way that they live, whether they're a believer or a non -believer?
41:11
That's how you can tell. And you can say, well, wait a minute, I didn't get 666 put on my forehead. Well, no, but look at your life.
41:19
What did your life represent? It represented that of seeking the beast. And what is that?
41:25
Everything other than the lamb. See, the lamb's very narrow. That's why Jesus says, wide is the road that leads to destruction, narrow is the way that leads to life.
41:34
And very few times you hear people say this part of it, okay? Difficult is that way.
41:41
Difficult. Why? Because it's so constricted and so narrow. I remember a guy saying,
41:46
Mike, you're so narrow -minded. Yeah, because Jesus was narrow -minded. When He said, the way, the truth, the life, that means there ain't no other way.
41:55
So I'm going to follow His words until you can predict your death, your resurrection, and then glorify yourself,
42:02
I'm going to stick with the words of Christ and not you. So, then you get to 15 through 16, which are the seven bowls.
42:17
17 and 18. This is the fall of the whore.
42:39
Interesting, as we read through the book, how long had Babylon already fallen?
42:45
That ought to tip somebody off right then. Babylon had fallen, how long before this?
42:53
Hundreds of years. Hundreds. But Babylon's going to fall again.
43:00
So is this really talking about where Saddam Hussein was building? Y 'all remember that?
43:06
Oh, building Babylon again. And you had Jack Van Empy with his big old funky hair and everybody else writing new books.
43:12
John Hagee standing up with new charts. You know every time something happens over there they write a new book.
43:20
Or they just recover it. So, Mike, going back to 14, you mentioned that in Ezekiel God had marked
43:28
His people. Ezekiel 9. That was a vision, right? That wasn't literally somebody marking it.
43:34
It was an angel. Gregor, remember, this is a vision too. Both of them are visions.
43:41
Just to make an equivalent, when Ezekiel's told to go measure the temple, that was a vision too.
43:49
What was John told to go do? Measure the temple. It was a vision. Man, it depends so much on the
43:58
Old Testament. And we've got to go because I just have to preach. 19 is
44:03
Second Coming of Christ.
44:21
27 is Millennium in the
44:28
Eternal State. Best sermon I think Andy ever preached.
44:33
Y 'all going to listen to it? That right there. Eternal State. Best message he ever preached. That's my opinion.
44:45
Then... I said, yeah, it was all right. It was good.
44:51
It was encouraging. I mean, it's like, dude, everything's good at the end. It's better. It's just like the beginning but better.
44:58
And then here, closing of the prophecy.
45:10
Daniel's prophecy ends. Seal it up. Sorry, Daniel.
45:15
Go your own way. You old. You dusty. You stinky. Remember he ain't had a bath.
45:21
You stank. Go your own way, Daniel. This ain't for you. When you get to the end of Revelation, the closing of that prophecy is don't seal it up.
45:33
Key words. For the time is at hand. That's the key words.
45:41
The time is at hand. Does the time at hand mean 2 ,000 years away? No. It means, hey man, this is fixing to happen.
45:50
It's fixing to happen very quickly. Matter of fact, it says it several times. This must soon take place. Soon don't mean 2 ,000 years later.
45:58
You'll pray us out? Lord? Yes. Father God, thank you for this time.
46:09
It takes the time to study and the time to make your word clear to us. I pray now that as we go, still our minds and open our hearts to you.