Revelation 1 (Introduction - The Time Is Near)

Moore's Corner Church

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The book of Revelation. So let's turn to Revelation chapter one. And before we read,

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I'd just like to dispel one myth right up front. This idea that the book of Revelation is just too difficult to understand.

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But think about it for a moment. What's it called? Revelation. Which means to reveal or to make known.

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So the very title of the book suggests that God gave it to us so that we can understand it.

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In chapter 22 verse 10, John is told do not seal up the prophecy of this book.

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That stands in stark contrast to Revelation's Old Testament counterpart of the book of Daniel.

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Daniel was told to seal his book until the time of the end. John is told not to seal it.

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But the time is at hand. In other words, from the time that John wrote this, right up until now, we are living in the last days, that final age before the consummation of all things.

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In the Old Testament, they were waiting for Christ's first advent. In the New Testament, now we are waiting for Christ's second advent.

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So this is the book of Revelation written by the apostle John sometime around 95

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AD. And the theme of the book is the consummation of all things.

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And God wants his people to know about it. So God's story of redemption, his plan for the earth, it all gets resolved right here.

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But first, for that to happen, before it can happen, the Lord's enemies must be defeated.

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Then Christ will be revealed from heaven. That's chapter 19 of the book.

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He then takes the throne where he reigns forever and ever. And the book of Revelation really is a book about the future.

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It tells us the future, what's in store for this earth, what's in store for humanity.

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In the end, God wins, Christ wins. So we want to make sure that we are on the winning side.

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Amen. Now, if you turn on the television, you would get the idea that the devil is winning.

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But again, the time is at hand. So the day of the Lord is drawing near. When the

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Lord steps in to intervene, everything is going to change. And when that happens, it's all going to happen.

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It's going to happen fast. It's going to happen quickly. So with that as an introduction, very simple to understand what the book is about.

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Let's go through Revelation chapter 1 verses 1 through 20.

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The revelation of Jesus Christ. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which

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God gave him to show his servants, things which must shortly take place. And he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant,

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John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.

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Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near.

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John, to the seven churches which are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.

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And from the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

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To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and has made us kings and priests to his

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God and father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

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Behold, he is coming with clouds and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him.

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And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. Even so, amen. I am the

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Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.

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I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called

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Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the

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Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet. The first and the last, what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

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Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned,

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I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the son of man, closed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

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His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire.

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His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters.

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He had in his right hand seven stars. Out of his mouth went a sharp two -edged sword.

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And his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.

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But he laid his right hand on me. Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last.

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I am he who lives and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore.

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Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.

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The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands.

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The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw by the seven churches.

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Like I said, this is a book that can be understood. So let's start small. Let's start with the introduction, verses one through three.

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Again, it says the revelation of who? Jesus Christ. So that's the real title of the book.

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The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants things which must shortly take place.

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That kind of jumps out to some people. And he sent and signified it by his angel to his servant,

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John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.

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Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is what?

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Okay, the time is either near or at hand. At hand is probably a better rendering, and I'll explain that in a moment.

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Because it sounds like when this was given to John, it's like about to happen.

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Of course, it's been 1900 years. So we'll get into all that. But the first thing, the most important thing to start with, is the full title, the official name of the book.

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The full title is not revelations. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Okay, so the book is all about Jesus Christ. So if you understand that and you take it literally at face value, you'll be able to understand it.

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But verse three says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear.

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So the Greek word translated here is Akuo, and it means to perceive or to understand.

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So blessed is the one who reads it and understands it. Because there's a whole bunch of people who have read revelation, but they don't understand it.

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The blessing is in the understanding. So the first thing to understand is what is being revealed.

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This is the revealing or the unveiling of Jesus Christ. So who is

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Christ? Verse five says that he is ruler over the kings of the earth.

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He is also called the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

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Verse 14 says that his eyes are like a flame of fire. And verse 16, his countenance is like the sun shining in its strength.

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So what's being communicated? You're seeing Christ in his glory or Christ and his divinity, the glorious king.

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In chapter 19, when Jesus is actually revealed from heaven and it says every eye will see him, when he actually is revealed, it says that he will come and he will rule the nations with a rod of iron.

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And he is called king of kings and Lord of lords. So this is the revealing of the true nature of Christ.

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Because when he was born in Bethlehem and when he walked the earth 2000 years ago, people didn't really see him for who he was.

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His divine nature, you could say, was veiled in human flesh. There's that one occasion, remember

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Matthew 17, the Mount of Transfiguration, where his glory sort of broke through for a moment.

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And John actually got to see that along with Peter and James. But for most of his life or all of his life, his glory was concealed by his human nature.

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So the book of Revelation is Jesus's divine nature revealed.

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He is God almighty. He is the glorious king, king of kings, judge of all the earth.

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Okay. So not to get too technical and please don't be offended. Uh, cause

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I know there's somebody in here, most people do this, but they say they call revelation, what revelations with an

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S like again, most people do that. So don't feel bad, but it's not revelations, plural as, as though there's many revelations being given it's revelation, singular.

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And again, the full title, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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So there's, there's one thing being revealed one person and that's Christ. Okay.

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Uh, another, another misconception I guess, is people think that the book of Revelation is a book about the end of the world.

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Okay. That there's a little more truth to that, I think. Uh, but it's not really the end of the world. It's just the end of the world, uh, as we know it.

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So this world system that currently exists where it's under the control of the

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God of this world, right? The devil, uh, this world system comes to an end and it gets replaced with the kingdom of God.

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Uh, just one more thing about the name. It's also been called the apocalypse who has a really old

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Bible, maybe like a King James version from 1920 or something like that.

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Anyone got one of those really old Bibles. If you do, and you look at it, it'll call revelation, the apocalypse of St.

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John or like the apocalypse of St. John, the divine, right? And the word apocalypse today, if you ask the average person on the street, what's the apocalypse, what does that mean?

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What are they going to tell you? Yeah, it's, it's the end of the world, but actually the word apocalypse is just Greek.

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It's the Greek word that means revelation. So, uh, some misunderstandings about the book.

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Uh, but what we need to understand the thing to keep in mind, it is a book about Jesus. And this is, this is his message to the seven churches, but really the seven churches you could say, represent all the churches.

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So this is his message, uh, to believers. And we want to know, uh, what it's all about.

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So just to give you a brief overview, you can look at the sheet that I handed out. Uh, there is a built -in outline here in chapter one.

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So that's a verse 19 and the outline I'll explain it. It says, uh,

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Jesus saying to John, write the things which you have seen, or the angel saying to John, write the things which you have seen and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.

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So three things, the things which you have seen, that's the vision

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John sees in chapter one, the things which are, that's what was happening in John's day.

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These are the letters to the seven churches, chapters two and three. And then the things which will take place after this, this is the future.

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Okay. It's not just John's future. It's our future. So that would be chapters four through 22.

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Speaking of future events, chapters four and five, John is transported to heaven's throne room and he sees many things, but the church is depicted as being in heaven, depicted by the 24 elders.

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We'll cover all of that when we get there. Uh, Jesus is going to take the scroll from God, the father, which could be seen as the title deed, uh, to the earth.

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You know, God is giving Jesus the nations as his inheritance. The son inherits all things from the father.

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So Jesus takes the scroll because he's the only one who's worthy and he's the only one worthy to judge the earth.

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Uh, chapters six through 18 is Christ judging the earth.

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Uh, this is him defeating all of his enemies and what we would call typically called the seven year tribulation period.

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And that comes from Daniel nine. We did a study on that, whatever, eight months ago, that video is on, on YouTube.

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You can check that out. If you didn't see it, saw, I have this quoted Psalm one 10 verse one is also quoted in Matthew 2244, uh, where the

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Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand till I make your enemies, your footstool. So where is

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Jesus today? He is in heaven, seated at the right hand of the father, and he will stay there until all his enemies are defeated.

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And that is happening during the tribulation chapter six through 18.

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There's seven seal judgments, seven trumpet judgments, seven bowl judgments, right? It's a seven year tribulation.

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So you're seeing this number seven repeated again and again. And the number seven stands for completeness, perfection.

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Uh, chapter 19, Jesus returns to the earth, uh, fights the battle of Armageddon chapter 20.

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He establishes his kingdom on the earth. 1000 years. This is called the millennium. So does

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Jesus come before or after the millennium? When does he come?

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Chapter 19. So he comes before, right? So you take it at face value. This is called pre millennialism.

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Jesus comes pre before the 1000 years. During that time, Satan is bound in the bottomless pit.

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At the end of the thousand years, Satan is released. He goes out and stirs up one final rebellion, which is basically crushed immediately.

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Uh, the wicked faced the final judgment where along with the devil, they are cast into the lake of fire and chapters 21 and 22.

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Uh, that's the heavenly city, new Jerusalem, which descends heaven and earth become one, uh, redeemed mankind.

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Now we'll live with God forever. So a lot of this stuff should sound familiar. We've touched on a lot of it, uh, over the past year and revelation 22 ends with this statement.

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Jesus says, I am coming. What quickly. Okay. I'm coming quickly.

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And Jesus gave these words to John about again, 1900 years ago, there's somebody out there thinking, you know, if it doesn't really seem that quick and you can say, well, you know, to God one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.

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Well, that's, so it's been like two days really. Well, I mean that that's in the Bible. That's true.

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But let's deal with this issue because some people look at verses like that and they see a potential problem.

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Um, so Jesus says this several times in chapter 22, I'm coming quickly, but you're in chapter one.

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Look at verses one and three revelation one, one begins the revelation of Jesus Christ, because this goes to how do you interpret the book?

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There's going to be some people who interpret it totally different than us. And we want to get things right to start with.

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So revelation one, one begins the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants things, which what must shortly take place.

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And then verse three ends with him saying the time is near or the time is at hand.

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This has led many people to question the timetable that we're dealing with.

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So is revelation a book of future prophecy that was written in 95

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AD? That's what I believe. I believe that very firmly. So then how do you reconcile these statements about the time is near it's going to happen quick or soon, because there's another group of people who say that the book was actually written in the sixties, not the 1960s, but you know, the, the sixties and the century.

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And they do not believe that this is talking about the end times. They think it's talking about the end of the

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Jewish age. So it was written in the sixties and the end of the world or the return of Christ that it's talking about is

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Jesus coming back as they say in 70 AD, where Jesus destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the

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Jewish temple. What's the problem with that? Jesus didn't actually return and said, unless you say that Jesus is the

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Roman military, Jesus did not come back. He did not destroy Jerusalem. And I realize

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God uses other nations sometimes to fulfill his will, but no, we do not believe that view that is called what, what's the word for that?

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That says all the book of revelation, these events already happened in the past. What's the word for that?

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It begins with a P. Preterism. Okay. So I bring this up because the majority of people, this is making a resurgence.

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It's in the Catholic church. It's in the Presbyterian churches, maybe even the majority of people out there, certainly a lot, take this other viewpoint that the events of revelation, it's all symbolic and it already happened in the first century.

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Okay. So many Catholic bishops teach preterism, Presbyterian and reformed churches teach it.

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And you know, it's a powerful argument for some people because they point to verses one and three, and it's going to happen.

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These events, it's going to happen soon. It's at hand. So you understand where they're coming from, where they get that.

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Okay. So this viewpoint called preterism, preterism means in the past, this is the view many people take.

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They say that we, Jesus came back in 70 AD. And that means we are living in the millennium right now.

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Or some have said that we're living in the initial stages of the new heaven and the new earth.

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Some people would say that I believe that is 100 % false. Okay. I have no doubt in my mind that is 100 % false.

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And obviously anyone who teaches that they do not take the Bible at face value.

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They have to allegorize or spiritualize everything in the book so that it no longer means what it clearly says.

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So just so you're aware that view is out there, but I think I have to be upfront with you.

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There are four main ways people have interpreted the book of Revelation historically.

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What is our position called? Does anyone know? Futurist. Yeah.

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Futurist or futurism. Because we believe it's a book telling us the future, right?

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But there's four main ways people interpret it. They are number one, the preterist view, meaning in the past.

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Number two, the historicist view. Number three, the idealist view or the spiritual view.

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And then number four, you know, the correct view, which would be the amen.

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It'd be the futurist view. How do I know that the futurist view is correct?

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It's what, it's what it says. This is what it says. And these events clearly have not happened yet.

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I mean, this isn't something that you could miss. The events of revelation clearly has not happened.

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Uh, is Jesus ruling and reigning with a rod of iron right now? No, Satan is the

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God of this age. He's the God of this world. It's very clear. Um, this is not the kingdom.

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God's will is not being done on earth right now, as it is in heaven, but just for informational purposes, just so you're not caught off guard, you need to know about these other viewpoints.

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So let me just go through them quickly. And the whole point is to refute them and to show you that the futurist view is the correct viewpoint.

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So the spiritual view of revelation interprets the book. You know, the events are symbolic.

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It's really just one big story, one big poem about good conquering evil.

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That's really what revelation is. They say, you know, in the end, the good guys win.

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God wins. Now that's true. God wins, but the book is more than that. Uh, the historicist view interprets revelation allegorically, claiming that the judgments correspond to events in church history.

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So, uh, Attila, the Han invading Italy, the Protestant reformation, the

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French revolution, all of these things are in the book of revelation. They're just kind of hidden symbolically.

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So you just got to figure it out. Okay. That's the historicist view. Anyone, anyone heard of that viewpoint before?

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Okay. That's pretty common. Uh, the preterist view again, preterism meaning in the past interprets the events of revelation as being pretty much completely symbolic.

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They say it's already happened in the first century. Uh, there is a view called partial preterism that says everything's been fulfilled up until chapter 20.

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We're still waiting for the new heaven and the new earth. Full preterism says we're in the new heaven and new earth.

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Everything's happened. Partial preterist, most of it's happened. Okay. And people who take a preterist view, it's been my experience.

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They, they typically mock the idea of the rapture of the church. I mean, just, yeah, they'll mock that idea.

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So here's the important thing to remember all three, you know, the, the preterist historicist spiritual view, they have one thing in common.

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And what is that? They all look at the events of revelation as being symbolic.

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The one viewpoint that stands out is the futurist view. Our viewpoint, we believe the events are what literal.

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Okay. Now is there symbolism in the book of revelation? Of course there is, but, uh, we, we can figure out, uh, what symbolism and what isn't.

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So the futurist view interprets the book of revelation literally and revelation.

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Let's just look at a few examples, uh, of symbolism. That's easy to spot revelation 115.

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What does it say? His feet were like fine brass as if refined in a furnace.

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You notice those terms were like fine brass, you know, as if refined in a furnace.

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Now the feet of the Lord, are they actually brass? No, that's what they look like to John, but it's obvious.

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That's not literal. It's symbolic. It's easy to pick up. His voice is as the sound is as right.

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The sound of my mighty waters, many waters. So when Christ spoke, that's what it was like.

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It's not what John heard. It was like that. Uh, verse 17, John says, and when I saw him,

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I fell at his feet. What as dead? Did John actually die?

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No, it's as if he were dead. So of course there's symbolism and revelation, but when it, whenever it's used, it's, it's obvious nine times out of 10, it's very clear.

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It's like, if I tell you I am so hungry, I could eat a horse. Well, nobody really thinks that I could eat an entire horse.

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And that doesn't mean that I'm so hungry. I would eat horse meat. I mean, I didn't have to be really hungry to eat horse meat, but if I make that statement, you know what

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I mean? Right? So revelation is the same way. So just take it at face value, read it like you're reading anything else.

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So, uh, back to these terms, why people have gone the Preterist route. When Jesus says,

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I am coming quickly. Now he does mean that, or when he says the time is near or at hand, here's the thing.

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If you look up the Greek words, it can be understood in more than one way. It's not just the proximity in time that it's going to happen like soon in time, rather these events speak of what is called imminency.

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All right. So the time is at hand. It can mean, and I believe it does mean that it's about to happen as in, it could happen at any time.

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So any generation can be the generation that sees these events take place.

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So if you were living in the year one Oh two, you could have seen the return of Christ or you're living in 2023.

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His return is at hand. It's imminent. It could happen at any time. So it doesn't necessarily mean it's like soon, like next year, because obviously

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John didn't see the events. And when Jesus says I'm coming quickly, that doesn't necessarily mean soon because that word quickly in Greek can also mean suddenly.

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Right? So when Jesus comes, what does Paul say that when Jesus comes the day of the Lord, it happens like what?

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Well, it happens like a thief in the night, you know, or it happens like in the twinkling of an eye, but it happens like it's sudden, it's fast, it's quick.

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So it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen soon as in John's lifetime.

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Okay. So you just have to look up those Greek terms. You can see it can kind of go both ways.

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So based on that, we believe that it is the futurist view that kind of solves those potential problems.

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Also, there is some evidence that, because here's something I've run across. A lot of people will say, and again, this is typically from the

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Presbyterian or reformed viewpoint, which I know a lot of Presbyterians and reformed people.

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I don't question their love for the Lord. So I'm not taking shots at them. Please understand. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I've known they'll say things like this often.

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They'll say that, you know, you're just teaching what is called dispensationalism.

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And your views were created in the 1800s. So, you know, we have the truth.

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You're teaching like a modern viewpoint. That's only been around for like 150 years.

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That is not true. Let me prove that. We've been going over in Sunday school, the early church fathers, right?

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Well, some of their writings are still around. So the literal view of revelation or the pre -millennial view that was held by many of the early church fathers.

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So before the Roman Catholic church kind of took over, this is the way people understood the Bible. Once the

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Catholic church took over, then it was, you know, allegorizing the scripture from that point forward.

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But before them, people held to a literal view of revelation.

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So the allegorical, amillennialist interpretation didn't come until, you know, later on.

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So the view of the early church, we call it pre -millennial. That revelation is taken literally.

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Back then, it wasn't called millennialism. It was called Chileism. Anyone heard that term before?

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Chileism. So many of the early church fathers, they took revelation literally.

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For example, the writings of Justin Martyr and many others.

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He took the book of Revelation literally. In a book I have, it's a commentary written by Steve Gregg.

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It's called Revelation, Four Views, a parallel commentary. He says on page 30 that the

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Western fathers of the anti -Nicene church, that is the early church before the fourth century, he says the writings that have survived, they took a literal and eschatological approach to the book of Revelation.

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So eschatological means revelation is a book about the future, about the end times.

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Also theologian Charles Ryrie, he asserts on page 29 of that commentary that pre -millennialism is the historic faith of the

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Christian church. So not only does John and Paul, not only do they teach it,

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Peter teaches it. To me, it's very clear on the pages of scripture, many of the early church fathers held to this exact viewpoint.

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Some more examples. Irenaeus, another person we talked about in Sunday school.

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He was only one generation removed from the apostle John. So he's writing in the second century that God's kingdom would be established on the earth.

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He believed that. He identified the beast of Revelation as the man of sin that Paul talked about.

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So he recognizes that Revelation is talking about the antichrist. He believed that the

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Roman empire, or the revived Roman empire as it were, would rule in the end times.

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And he wrote how it would be divided up into 10 kingdoms. Okay, that's what the prophecy guys back in the 70s and 80s were saying.

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So this is going back to the early church. Hippolytus, who lived in the second and third century, wrote that the two witnesses of Revelation would be

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Enoch and Elijah. I sort of lean Moses and Elijah, but Enoch and Elijah, that's what he thought all the way back then.

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He said that Rome was the harlot of Babylon. And again, he wrote of a restored

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Roman empire in the end times. Then Tertullian, who lived from 155

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AD to 240, he believed in a coming antichrist and a false prophet who would wage war with the saints in the end times until Christ defeats them to establish his kingdom on earth for a thousand years.

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So the point being, bringing that up, the beliefs that we hold to and teach, this is nothing new.

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Again, someone will come along and say, well, you're just a dispensationalist and some guy created that system, those beliefs in the 1830s, and you're just going off of this recents.

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That's totally false. These beliefs go all the way back to Paul, John, and Peter, but certainly they were believed by the early church fathers.

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Who knew that? Who's heard something along those lines? Okay. So again, we have to do a little defending of our position because there's all these people out there that think and say contrary.

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And besides that, it shouldn't even matter because again, I think John's writings are very, very clear.

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So let's just go through some of these verses and we'll get the general idea.

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I don't think there's anybody that can point to every little phrase, every little statement of revelation, just be dogmatic about everything.

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Because again, there is symbolism and I'm not really sure about, there's a lot of things in revelation

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I'm not totally sure about, but I do believe we can understand the book.

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John MacArthur said with this statement about revelation is so hard to understand because there's a guy,

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John Calvin, you probably heard of John Calvin. He wrote a commentary on every book in the

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New Testament except revelation. And a lot of people take this approach. They totally ignore revelation because it's too hard to understand.

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I like what John MacArthur, he said, revelation isn't one of the hardest New Testament books to understand.

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He said, it's like the easiest book to understand. And I said,

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I don't know about the easiest, but again, if you take it at face value, literally it is pretty easy to understand.

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So let's go through these verses, not all of them, but verse four, John is writing to who?

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Okay. The seven churches. So there's that number seven, the seven churches, which are in Asia.

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So this is not Asia. Like we think of it like China and the Philippines and Vietnam, this is

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Asia minor. So this is a modern day Turkey. He writes grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne.

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Now, this is a challenging passage, the seven spirits of God. I bet you probably thought

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God had what one spirit, maybe there's three, but like seven. Well, this is one of those passages, you know, it's hard to be certain what it means, but remember the number seven, it keeps getting repeated.

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Seven year tribulation, seven seals, seven bowls, seven trumpets, seven, seven, seven.

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So seven is symbolic for what? Completeness or fullness.

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So there's seven lamp stands. This would be the menorah. The menorah burned oil.

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Oil is a well -known symbol of the Holy Spirit. So the seven spirits of God probably is a reference to the fullness of the

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Holy Spirit. That's the best explanation that I've found. So talking about the fullness of the

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Holy Spirit. So this is a letter from God, the father, from Christ, from, from the spirit, from the

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Trinity to John, to us in verse five, from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler over the

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Kings of the earth. So Jesus is the firstborn from the dead. What does that mean?

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He's the first to rise from the dead. Now is Jesus, now you're right, but let's clarify.

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Is Jesus the first person to rise from the dead? Eternally. Right. Eternally.

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So you think of in the old Testament, there were a few people who were resurrected or raised from the dead.

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Jesus himself raised Lazarus from the dead before he was resurrected. Jesus is the first in that he never died again.

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So he was resurrected, never tasting death again. All those other people that were raised, you know, like Lazarus had his first funeral, then he had a second funeral.

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So yeah, the only one to be raised eternally to him who loved us, it goes on to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

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So this speaks of the atonement that Jesus made on the cross. A lot of this is easy.

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Verse six, he has made us Kings and priests to his God and father and to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

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Amen. So some translations say what? Kings and priests or what's the other statement?

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A kingdom of priests. So this is a reference to what is called the priesthood of all believers who served at the priesthood of all believers.

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Okay. Because of Jesus Christ, we now all have access to God. We don't need a special priesthood where you, you can't get to God yourself.

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You have to go through the mediation of a priest. Well, no, we, we have the one mediator price.

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So we all, we are all priests in the sense that we all have access to God priesthood of the believers.

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Verse seven, behold, he that is Christ is coming with clouds and what every eye will see him, even they who pierced him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him.

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Even so. Amen. So the idea that every eye will see him, this tells me this is a worldwide event.

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So when Jesus comes back, it's not just going to be something that only people in the Middle East see it. It'll be worldwide.

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When Jesus comes back at the second advent, it says he comes in the clouds. Remember in the book of Acts, he's going to come back the same way he went up.

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Why does that matter? Because next time Jesus appears on earth, it's not going to be a coming where you have to wonder, did

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I miss it? You know, Jesus isn't going to just show up like living amongst them. There's like three or four people right now who claim to be

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Jesus Christ and they're leading cults, different parts of the world. Well, Jesus isn't going to show up like that.

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He's going to come in the clouds. Every eye will see him. There's going to be no question about, is this really him?

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Is this really it? And verse seven, it works against the preterist interpretation. Every eye will see him.

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Well, if he came back in 70 AD, what's the problem? Zero eyes saw him.

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Nobody saw him. So was that Jesus returning in judgment? No, nobody saw him.

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Verse eight, I am the alpha and the omega. These are the first and last letters of the

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Greek alphabet. Alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end says the

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Lord who is and who was and who is to come the almighty. Now this appears to be

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God, the father speaking because he's referring to Jesus as he and not

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I. So God, the father is the alpha and the omega. But if you keep reading,

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Jesus is going to say this about himself a little later on. So just very strong evidence for the deity of Christ.

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Verse nine, I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, John was where he was on the island called

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Patmos. Why? For the word of God and for the testimony of Christ.

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So John, instead of being killed, instead of being a martyr, they didn't put John in prison, they exiled him to this island.

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So he's living alone or pretty close to alone on this island because he was a

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Christian. He's suffering for his faith on this island. Tradition says he got off of there, but it doesn't really matter for us.

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And he says in verse 10, I was in the spirit when? On the

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Lord's day. So again, early church fathers going back to the beginning, the testimony is pretty much universal.

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This is a reference to which day of the week? Sunday, the Lord's day where we set the day apart because Christ rose from the dead.

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This is the Lord's day. He says, I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet saying,

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I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, and what you see, write it in a book.

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And of course we're reading that book right now. Originally would have been a scroll. Verse 12, then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me.

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And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the son of man clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

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And that may symbolize Christ and his high priesthood. Now, when we try to understand something in the

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Bible, we need to let scripture interpret scripture. So verse 20 tells us, what are these lampstands?

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What is this all about? Well, verse 20 tells us that the seven lampstands are what? Yeah, the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

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Why seven? Because there's more than seven churches around. But he wrote to seven, John MacArthur says, the number seven represents completeness.

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So these seven lampstands are representative of all the churches. So why seven?

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Because it's, it is a symbolic way of saying this message is for, for everybody, for all the churches.

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Verse 14, his head and hair were like wool as white as snow.

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His eyes were like a flame of fire. Now, were they really fire? No, it says like a flame of fire.

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This is symbolic. His, his, his gaze, you know, his, he can see right through.

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He sees everything. Verse 15, his feet were like fine brass as if refined in a furnace and his voice as the sound of many waters.

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So these statements seem to represent, uh, authority, power, and judgment.

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So Christ is seen walking through the midst of the candlesticks, uh, walking through the midst of his churches, examining them.

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So Christ is kind of evaluating, uh, his churches.

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Verse 16, he had in his hand, in his right hand, seven stars. And again, verse 20 tells us the seven stars represent what?

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Yeah. The seven angels are the angels of the seven churches. Now here's where it gets a little tricky because angel

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Angelos in Greek, sometimes it refers to an angel. Like you would think of like a heavenly being, but sometimes it just refers to a human being because angel means messenger.

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So it could be an angel like you would think of, or it can refer to a human messenger.

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Most commentators agree. This is probably a human messenger. Someone who's from that church from the church is receiving the message, likely, uh, the, the elder or the pastor of the church, which would make sense because if the pastor of the church receives the message, that's how it was in the new

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Testament. When Paul, John would write a letter, the pastor would read the letter to the church.

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So it's probably a reference to the pastors of the seven churches. Uh, and like I said, verse 19, there is a built -in outline.

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This is really going to help us later on in understanding revelation, the things, right? The things which you have seen, the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.

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So what you have there is past, present, and future. The things that John saw, you saw it in the past, right?

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This is the vision in chapter one, the things which are, this is a message for John's day, the letters to the seven churches, chapters two and three, starting in chapter four, from then on out, it's all future prophecy.

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So this is the book of revelation. It's a book about the future of what's going to happen to this earth.

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What's going to do, and, uh, we are going to get into it in weeks to come.