Good morning, everyone. In January of 2024, I started teaching Sunday school. So that's two years and we've covered a lot. I don't know if you've, think about how quickly we move through things. I know, I think the way it's set up right now, we could survey the whole Bible in like, I don't know, Dave, what is it, like 10 years, something like that? Yeah, 10 years. So that sounds like a long time. Or maybe if you've had a lot of 10 years, that doesn't sound like much time at all. But even just in two years, we've covered a lot. 

We did Joshua, Judges, Ruth. We did the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We did Romans. We just completed, what did we just complete? I'm just, a minor prophets, there it is. There's been a lot. That's not to mention what Will has accomplished in the morning sermons. So, sometimes it feels a little like you're sitting on the receiving end of a fire hose. But, Hey, it's the word of God, what could be better? 

Let's talk about revelation. Or if you're my high school temper issues teacher and Bible teacher, revelations. We are, going to introduce it and get through the first chapter. Now, I'm going to spend a fair bit of time on introductory matters because I I think it's very important to get a foundation down. I almost emailed the teachers, but then I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna end up saying all of this, so there's no reason for me to apply too much pressure. 

This letter is interpreted every way you can imagine and a hundred ways you can't imagine. It is sort of every YouTuber's favorite playground and podcaster's favorite playground. It's wild. So I want to get a good foundation to talk about how we should approach this. In order to do that, we need to figure out the background of the letter. how it presents itself as being, as how we should receive it. It tells us how to receive it, and so then how to approach it. We'll answer some questions. 

There are, we're used to thinking in three main views for end times, right? And if you remember, they all have the term millennialism in them, and it's premillennialism, which is our view, that we are, the time right now is before the kingdom. There's a sense in which the kingdom is now spiritually, because Christ is, he came, he secured the kingdom. We have been made priests. He even says that in this letter, that we rule with him. Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth. So we're not saying that he's not reigning as king now, but there's, the fullness of his kingdom, the, perhaps you call it the political nature of his kingdom, will come into being in the future, and will be for a real 1,000 year period of time, or roughly thereabouts, give or take a few years, doesn't break that. Scripture does that where, if there's, it'll say this many years, it could be, you know, within that ballpark. 

And, That's one view, premillennialism. There's a couple different versions of premillennialism. There's what's called historic premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism. We're in the dispensational category, though some of us in here might sit up straight when we hear that. But historic premillennialism is the view of the early church fathers. Then a guy named George Ladd picked it up in the 20th century. I think it was in the 1900s when George Ladd was writing, and made a different version of it. So that's called Laddian pre-historic premillennialism, if that's of interest to you. 

Then there's another view called amillennialism, which is what's probably represented by your favorite theologian. because everyone's favorite theologian are old Scottish Presbyterians, and all of them were all millennial. And that is that there is no millennium, but really the millennium is just now. A thousand years is meant to signify a long period of time. So we're in the period of the kingdom now. So then at the end of the kingdom period, Christ will come and we'll have great wrath, throne, judgment, new heavens, new earth. So there's not gonna be a political kingdom. And then, and that's actually, that view's reflected in all of our terminology. AD 2026 is Anno Domine, the year of our Lord. The year of our Lord's what? The year of our Lord as king, coming as the king, reigning as king. This is kind of what's baked into that thinking. 

The, and I just find that really, really funny when, there'll be political statements from like the President of the United States from the White House. It'll say, in the year of our Lord 2000 whatever. You don't believe that at all. The final view, and I think probably the loudest view today, is post-millennialism, and that is connected to two main theological overarching ways of viewing the Bible, which can be called, or one main view, sorry, which can be called two different labels, dominionism or theonomism, the theonomists, okay? And you say, I don't know what that means. I'll say that is the theology of the likes of all of the loudest Christian nationalists. Okay, we know that term. So that would be Doug Wilson. That would be Joel Webben. That would be the guys from Ogden. Is Ogden in Idaho or Utah? Utah, which would be Brian Sovey and those guys. They're really loud because they use the internet really well to get their views across. So that's why they're loud. So they're not as represented in books that you'd go find at a Christian bookstore or that you'd hear represented at a conference, that kind of thing. But they're really loud on the internet. And so that is the view. 

that is somewhat, I don't want to say it's dominant. I could see it gaining dominance within the next handful of years amongst just the popular way of thinking, not necessarily coming from the pulpits, but just how people are thinking in the pews. Because people hear from their pulpits a couple hours a week, and then they're online 80 hours a week. And what are they hearing from online? Are these guys who are using online really effectively to communicate their message? So that view is what I'm gonna go after right now, for just a few seconds. And let me do that by getting a blank piece of paper here. Seems wrong to call this a piece of paper, but I'll just go with it. All right, so theonomy. Theonomy post, how do we spell mill? Is it M-I or M-E? It's M-I, right? M-I-L-L. M-I-L-L-E-N-N-I-A-L. Post-millennial. How does post-millennialism play out? Most often is that the gospel is going forth, people are being saved, people are being brought in, they start to behave like kingdom citizens, the kingdom starts to then expand over the world, eventually get to where the world is kingdom-like conditions, and then Christ comes back to reign. So they're in this sort of halfway house between premill and omill, because the kingdom is now, but not really. There's a spiritual aspect of it as it goes forth in the gospel, but there's a real political aspect of it that's coming. And what they end up having to do is hold to a view called preterism, which is that biblical prophecy biblical prophecy came to fulfillment, we can say at least mostly, because there's different, it's kind of like a spectrum. Some people are full preterists, but then they wouldn't even believe in a new heavens and new earth and a resurrection of the dead. So that's not orthodox Christianity. You can't hold that view and be a Christian. So these people don't hold that extreme of a view. They hold what's called partial preterism.

Came to fulfillment mostly around 70 AD. Or AD 70, I think it's supposed to be AD 70, but we'll just, we'll roll with it. What happened in AD 70? Anybody? Temple was destroyed. Temple was destroyed by whom? The Romans, Titus Vespasian, right? And the temple is destroyed. It's the War of the Jews. Josephus talks about it. Really brutal. And as such, the... The whole sacrificial system and everything is just removed from even being a possibility. And so a lot of our modern Jewish synagogue system kind of came as a consequence of that. How do they observe the feasts when there's no temple to go observe the feasts at? They have to come up with ways to do that. And the exiles had to do the same thing when they went to Babylon. So that's really where the synagogues came from, was Babylon and Persia.

They have to say the biblical prophecy came to fulfillment in 70 AD, which means they do something in Revelation. You were wondering how we were getting back to Revelation. Here it is, okay? How does it get back to Revelation? Well, they have to do this, which means then that they're forced to date Revelation before Let's do AD 70, so we're doing it the proper way. AD 70, okay? Because, look at Revelation chapter one, verse one. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his bondservants, the things which must soon take place, which must soon come to be, okay? And at the end of the chapter, verse 19, Write the things which you have seen and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things. This book is about what was future to John. And my argument is it's future to us as well.



But the partial preterists, these people, the loud people on the internet, it sounds like such an insult, it's not, it's more of a statement of fact than, yeah. 

taking the view that Revelation actually came before the 70 AD destruction, and so therefore, Revelation was fulfilled. 

Now, can you think of what that does to how you interpret the book? What does that force you to do? Somebody speak to me. What does that force you to do? 

Spiritualize it. Can you think of places you would have to not take at face value? Can you think of them? What would they be? 

The earth. The earth? OK. Good. What else? 

The four horsemen. The four horsemen. OK. Which are symbols. We don't deny that they're symbols and they stand for something. But yes, that's true. What else? 

All the beasts. The beasts. OK. Those are symbols, though, again. But it's like the horsemen. So they stand for something. 

The destruction of the universe. The destruction of the universe. OK. What did you say? 

The Antichrist, well, they have an Antichrist, I think it's Nero. Armageddon. Armageddon, they would think of that as AD 70. Oh. As the war of the Jews, yeah. 

How about the destruction of the earth? Yeah, and if they're partial protest, they might say, well, everything will melt with fire later. So they might have a way to get around that. 

How about 1,000 years? That'd be one. And how about the return of Christ in Revelation 19? Because did Christ come back in 87? No. But Revelation 19 requires that Christ actually come back from heaven to earth. 

I won't say there's no way to take that spiritually, but they've demonstrated there is a way to take that spiritually. I'm just saying their view isn't as compelling, if we're going to say it graciously. I don't think you should believe it. 

So the way they get here is they have to do a couple things. They say, first off, that this book took place, that the dating of the book, the date of Revelation, is the reign of Nero. 

Okay, we're gonna, we'll slide down in a second and we'll, I'll give you what I think is the real dating. And they, the way they do that is they have to discount the church fathers to where they basically say the church fathers either didn't understand the evidence they'd received No, they say, we don't understand what the church fathers said properly, or the church fathers just got it wrong, is what they tend to say. 

Which is scary to say, those guys just didn't, they just totally got it wrong, because we know better. I think this is probably a problem in every generation, is you think you know more than every other generation that came before, simply because you're the one currently living. And there's a bit hubris in just being alive. 

Yeah, exactly, which is sort of like the illusion of mastery, where you read through a book of the Bible once and you think you've got it, right? And then as you start to read through it again and again and again, there's a point at which you realize you don't know it at all, right? You swing to the exact opposite. 

And I think any of us who've been teachers in here know, have had that experience. You read it through twice and you go, okay, so, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to get out of this, and boy, I could end up speaking for 10 minutes, and then by the time you're done studying, you realize, I couldn't get through this in five hours, just because you realize you don't know enough, and also the Lord starts to put it all together for you, or begin to put it all together for you. 

So, I have discounted the Church Fathers series, specifically Irenaeus, who is in the, He wrote around AD 180. And he was taught by Polycarp, who was taught by the Apostle John, who, interestingly enough, did what? Wrote this book. 

So it's pretty strong. It was pretty strong view and Irenaeus says that this was that we should date it at AD 95. During the latter time of the reign of Domitian and Domitian reigned until AD 96. So scholars put this right here in the somewhere between the 90 to 95 

range. Okay, now if this is true, If AD 95 is the true dating of Revelation, John is on the island of Patmos right here, almost 100 AD, and he sees a vision, which is the things that must soon take place, the future from his standpoint. What does that do to this? It just, yeah, it's not permissible, right? We'll say it that way. It cannot be substantiated by the facts. There's a scholarly way to say, it doesn't hold water. And I think that's the death knell to this view, actually, this preterism view. You could still argue some kind of theonomy, but it doesn't, the preterism doesn't work. The book itself, though, presents itself to us in a way that doesn't allow for taking the symbols to be, that's presented in the book, which there's a lot of them. There's the dragon, there's the beast, there's the false beast, there's the demons that look like locusts, there's the star falling from heaven, which then has a gate to open up the, I don't know, it's almost like in the Greek myths where the Titans are chained. And the star is an angel. Or just in this chapter alone, you've got all this symbolism where you see the Lord, or John sees the Lord, and he's holding in his right hand seven stars, and later on he says the seven stars are the seven angels. And then there's these seven golden lampstands, and these seven golden lampstands are the seven churches that are gonna be receiving this. So there's, all through the book, there's things that stand for other things. Everybody agrees with that. But to use that as an excuse to say, so therefore we can't read any of it at face value, is just really dangerous, okay? And This view, so I think this view fails for two reasons. And that is that the evidence supports a later date than they need for their view to work. Even if it was written before 70, 80, we could still be right. It doesn't have to mean it was fulfilled in 80, 70, if it was written before that. Their view requires that it be written before the events that they think fulfilled it, because it has to be future from the time of its writing, those events. And then the hermeneutic is not sound. Her, I think it's all Es, right? Maybe I got that wrong. hermeneutic, is that supposed to be an A? I'm not sure. Which is how to interpret, is kind of, we'll just say it's squishy, which is a technical term for not consistent. Because they'll say some things are obviously what the book presents them to be, and some things are not. Now, Doug Wilson has a commentary on this book, called When the Man Comes Around. The commentary might be a little too... It presents itself as a commentary. But he doesn't do the things that most commentaries do. He doesn't go into a lengthy introduction about the dating of the book, and who wrote it, and who was receiving it, and the purpose of the book, and what it was addressing, that kind of stuff, which normally fills up a huge portion of your introduction in a commentary. He just launches right in, and he looks at these words, which must soon take place, and says, therefore we know that Well, this is, how did he say, he says, which means the events in the book must occur in the first century. Which is just, which is, he doesn't tell you why. It's just, that's what it is, I guess. I don't, I don't think that's required, but he's trying to get to this. He's trying to get to biblical prophecy being fulfilled in the 70 AD destruction. And he tells you that the men he's most benefited from are the ones who did the most scholarly take of the Preterism view, Kenneth Gentry and David Chilton. So, why should we argue for a date of 80, 95? Well, Irenaeus, says that's when it is, puts it in that time frame, rather. And this is the consensus of the early church. So Irenaeus' dating is affirmed by Clement of Alexandria, who lived 150 to 215 AD. Origen, 185 to 253 AD. Victorinus, who died somewhere around 304 AD. Eusebius, who lived 260 to 340 AD, and Jerome, who lived sometime in the 340s to the 420s AD. So all of those guys looked at Irenaeus' dating and said, he's right. So it's tough to argue against that. OK. So the other thing. with this hermeneutic that people will do is they'll say something like this. We don't interpret literally, interpret revelation literally because it's in the apocalyptic genre. Okay, the, there is I can't overstate this. Revelation is not an example of a Jewish apocalyptic book. So it is, so that would be first and second Enoch, other ones from the Essenes, the desert communities, the, the groups that lived out in the desert where we get the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran community, those kinds of people. They really liked these writing in this apocalyptic style where everything was highly symbolic, similar to what you see here, and talked about current events in a way that sounded like it was future prophecy. That's how they wrote it. I'm not sure why. I don't know if they were just trying to copy the language of Ezekiel or something, or if they were just heavily influenced by that style. I don't know exactly why that was popular. People have looked at the similarities, I'm trying not to do a disservice to the people who've held this view, but they look at the similarities between what's produced by those kind of communities, and the kind of symbolism that's there, and revelation, and say, revelation's just one of these. And they say, no, I don't think so. Why? Because, look at chapter one, verse three. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy. Go to the end of the book and you look at chapter 22, verse seven. Behold, I'm coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy. prophecy of this book. Verse 10, and he said to me, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book. And verse 18, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. And in verse 19, if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, so the words are being used interchangeably, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. So, Revelation, as communicated by the Lord to John, is presented as just one of biblical prophecy. So we don't need to interpret it in its own special category. We will look at it like we look at any other book of the Bible. And if you, just the straight from, How do I say this here? The book itself, it presents itself in a straightforward manner, and it tells us when it's using language that we need to understand as standing for something else, okay? And this is, you can see this really clearly just in chapter one here, where in verse 12, I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. Having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And you say, okay, I don't know what that means. There's seven golden lampstands, that's what he's seen. Wonder what those are gonna be about. And in the middle of the lampstands, I saw one like a son of man, clothed in robe, reaching to his feet, girded across chest with a golden sash, his head, his feet. Verse 16, in his right hand, he held seven stars. So at this point you go, what do these mean? Well, then if you go down to verse 20, it actually tells you what it means. As for the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw, again, mystery in the Bible, mystery in Greek, is not something you can Sherlock Holmes your way to figuring out, right? It's something that you do not have the information you need to make sense of it until it's told to you. Okay, and so we don't know what the seven lampstands are, we don't know what the seven stars are, but if that's all he gave us, you'd probably have 1,001 podcasts giving you 1,001 different views, right? It's the state of the world today, okay? But he tells us, as for the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. That really helps, that tells exactly what it is. There's still questions about what he means by the angels of the seven churches. What does that mean? There's four views, which I'll tell you about. But we're no longer confused about what the stars represent. They represent these angels. Apparently there's an angel that belongs to each church. And the golden lampstands represent these churches. So, We will look at the book. It uses so much Old Testament allusions, even just in this vision of Christ that John has. It goes back to Daniel 7 and 10, Ezekiel 43, it even goes back to Isaiah, and then even to the Transfiguration. So it's just pointing you back to all of the Old Testament, I think, because the point is what the Old Testament prophesied is now coming. Okay, that's what we're gonna see and that's which must soon take place. It's like it's any moment. We're not back in Abraham's day where in order to get to the Eschaton, we have to go through a bunch of different prophetic events. There might be history between us and Christ coming, but there's no longer any prophetic events that need to happen. Christ is coming, and it's like he's right there at the edge of the sky at any minute. That's how this is presented, which is just glorious and exciting and motivates you to make sure you're being devoted to him and walking in a close relationship with him. Anyway. And that's the purpose of the book, okay? The purpose of the book is not just to tell you what's about to happen, again, like some podcaster, you know, prophecy update, you know, where are we in the prophetic timeline, blah, blah, blah. It's like, we're where we were in AD 100 in the prophetic timeline, okay? He's about to come back, that's where we are. At any second, it's gonna happen. But it's to show you the things that are about to happen, to tell you he's coming back and what's gonna happen in order to motivate you to walk closely with him. That's the purpose. And if you look at the end of Revelation, or I guess you don't have to look there. I can just read it to you. But he says this in chapter 22 verse 10. Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the time is near. Let the one who does wrong, this is just. You say, I don't know what to do with this, but we'll leave it to the teacher who gets there. The one who does wrong, still do wrong. The one who is filthy, still be filthy. Let the one who's righteous, still practice righteousness. The one who is holy, still keep himself holy. Behold, I'm coming quickly. My reward is with me to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes so they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city. outside of the dogs and the sorcerers and their moral persons and the murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. The spirit and the bride say, come. Let the one who hears say, come. Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost." So the book has an evangelistic purpose. and a purpose to motivate you to continual trust and obedience and live in a close relationship with the Lord, okay? And I think that's the rich blessing that's promised in chapter one, verse three, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and take heed of the things which are written in it for the time is near. There's this rich blessing promised for you and me, which we're going to experience this week. Trimester, we do three in a year, right? Trimester, okay. And looking at this book, because as we study it and learn from it and then begin to walk with the Lord in light of it, we're gonna find ourselves richly blessed. That's promised, right? That's a biblical guarantee. You can take that to the bank, if you will.

All right, so that being said, Let me not take questions at the present moment, because we're gonna jump into this. The seven churches, okay? Seven churches are all in the Ephesus region. Whoa. John was an apostle to Ephesus. to the, well, he was an apostle serving in Ephesus for, I think it was some 30 years before he wrote this book. And so he would have had influence in this whole region especially. Those are the churches, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, yep. 

And it's interesting that there, They're real literal churches. They actually existed. And the Lord used John who's on Patmos, which is right here. You see that in the bottom left-hand corner. He's on Patmos in exile because of his preaching of the gospel. And he's there worshiping the Lord on Sunday. Verse 10 tells us on the Lord's day. And he is in the spirit. So there's been some kind of preparation done to him so that he can receive this vision. That's not, we don't need to think of that in weird sort of new age terms. It's just that the Lord put him in the spirit so that he would be ready to receive this vision. 

He received this vision. He went and wrote it down. We don't have to say he was dehydrated on a barren rock. And so if you're dehydrated and starving, you're going to hallucinate and see whatever. No, this tells us he was in the spirit. And the Lord revealed this to him. The high symbolism, the... highly prevalent use of symbolism in the book doesn't mean we have to take this to be some kind of weird pagan version of anything. If anything, I would look at those as the demonic world mimicking, trying to mimic the real thing and pass itself off as real. But that's conjecture, so you can take that as far as you want to throw it.

So, in verses one to three, we get the title of the book. We'll call it the introductory portion. In verses four to eight, there's this greeting that looks a lot like what you see in the epistles, where it says, grace and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. And it's just glorious about the Lord. And then verses nine to 20, I'm calling that John's preparation. I'm following Robert Thomas' commentary on that. He was a professor at Masters. I think he taught Will's hermeneutics classes and stuff. So he's kind of legendary at TMS. He wrote an excellent commentary, two-volume commentary published by Moody. Gets really into the Greek, but he deals with everything. It takes forever to get through, because he deals with everything. So it's just really helpful. So I'll reference him here quickly as I blast through this. These are the things that are going to happen soon, and they're communicated by the Lord's angel, the Lord being Jesus, by his angel, to his bondservant, John. So there's some kind of angelic... I don't know if I'd call it mediation. Let's just say ministry happening in the revealing of this vision. We don't get the details of that. We do know that there's oftentimes throughout the book where John is speaking to different angels and the angels are telling him to do things or explaining things to him. So certainly that would be, I think, part of this. 

But at the end of the book, he even says that the Lord says that he revealed this. He sent his angel to testify. to you these things for the churches. So there's, we could just say that the Lord and the Lord's servants, angelic servants, are very active in revealing this book, the contents of this book. 

The author is the Apostle John. There's different views about could this be a different John? I don't think so, because in verse two he says, that having just said his bondservant John, then verse two, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw, and he puts that in the past tense, okay? So he was referring to the fact that he was an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry. 

Then Thomas had pages of showing how the language of Revelation actually fits with the language of all of the Apostle John's other writings. So the way he writes, the style of Greek, where it seems to line up with Hebrew usage a lot, that's then sort of been like brought into Greek. So the Greek is funky and Greek is heavily driven by case. So you're supposed to have words that look the same, connected to each other, like next to each other. And he'll have things that don't look the same being used in a sentence and stuff. And so people say his Greek is horrible and stuff. But it actually lines up with how John wrote. So there's good reasons internally even to say, this is the Apostle John, and to take that verse two at face value that way. 

We talked about the blessing, so I won't get into that. It's written to seven literal churches, which are also mentioned at the end of the book. And we see twice in verses one to three that the time is near, okay? It could happen at any moment. It's imminent, be the way to say it. Near, you could think of that, you might be tempted to think of that as, so it was gonna happen in John's lifetime. When we look at the events of the book, though, we know that that doesn't work. So near, we're not saying it must mean something other than near. We're saying we should understand near as it's about to happen. And it's been in a state of about to happen from our perspective for 2,000 years. 

Well, from our perspective, for me, only, like, what, almost 33 years. or if we're going to cognitive awareness, even less than that. But we think of a long time as, you know, 70 or 80 years, because that's the lifespan, that's the average lifespan of somebody is, you know, less than 100 years.

So the Lord is not slow, as some count slowness. And I'm just pulling from 2 Peter 3 here, and the way he says this. He says, 2 Peter 3 verse 3, notice first of all, in the last days, which is the days from Pentecost until the coming of the Lord, okay? So in the last days, now, mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, saying, where's the promise of his coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.

For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. So he created and he judged. But by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire. kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, a thousand years is like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promises, that's what I was trying to quote just a few minutes ago, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

Right? So Peter throws us back on the purposes of God here. What is God doing? Why isn't he coming? Why isn't this happening? Why isn't the end times here? Why isn't he judging the wicked and saving his people and setting up his kingdom? Why isn't this happening? Well, it's not because he's slow. It's not because he's just getting distracted with some hobby in heaven, you know, and he's got to finish his whittling before he returns his attention back to Earth, okay? No, he's accomplishing salvation purposes here. He's saving people. And when that mission is done, then he'll come, okay? Or maybe you could say when that mission needs to turn back to national ethnic Israel, but then I'm revealing my dispensational cards by saying that.

So we don't need to say that near means not near, because again, the Lord is not, he's not bound by time. One day is like a thousand years, a thousand years is like one day. It doesn't mean that the Lord is bounded by time and he just experiences a thousand years like a day. It means he's not governed by time, right? He's outside of it. So it's not, there's, There's, we don't need to think of a long time from our perspective as somehow a long time from the Lord's perspective. The Lord is ready to come back and until he comes, he's accomplishing a great purpose.

All right, verses four to eight. We see here a, we see a Trinitarian statement here in verses four and five. Grace to you peace from him who is and who was and who is to come. and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, that's the Holy Spirit, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood, and he has made us to be a kingdom, priest to his God and father, to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever, amen. And then behold, he's coming quickly. He's coming with the clouds, which makes you think of the glorious hymn. Lo, he comes with clouds descending.

Look at four and five here and see this. You've got the father first, him who is and who was and who is to come. You say, well, that sounds like the Lord Jesus. You could say those things of the Son, the second person of Trinity. There'd be no problem with that. But when you see that, he then moves to the seven spirits, who I think is a term for the Holy Spirit. I'll explain that in a second. And then he moves in verse five to Jesus Christ, who is the Son, the second person in Trinity.

We should probably take, I think it stands to reason that we should take the one who is and who was and who is to come as the Father, okay? Is to come is in Greek a imperfect participle. It is not in the future. It's actually emphasizing his coming as sort of, as constantly occurring. I don't know how to say it right. It's not so much that he will be in future time as he is, as he is. continue it as we keep going. Which is just, you could say it in future and be fine, but the way it's framed sort of emphasizes his isness, you can say it that way, which is just, it's emphasizing it, this glorious doctrine.

Seven spirits, what do you do with that? I remember seeing Denzel Washington in an interview, you didn't expect to hear that in Sunday school, say that he gets down on his knees and he prays to the seven spirits of God. I don't think he knew what he was saying, because there aren't seven spirits of God. He said, but it says it right here, James. In Zechariah 4, I wrote really small on the margin there, so I had to get close to see that. John is pulling from the Old Testament a lot in this chapter. All through the book, there's imagery that is, it looks back to the Old Testament, probably not, probably for a couple reasons. One might be to give it validity, that it's the same thing as what was said before in keeping, but also because he's seen the same events, the same people, so it's presented in a similar way.

And, In Zechariah chapter four, it's really interesting. Verse two, he said to me, this is an angel who's speaking to him, what do you see? And I said, I see and behold a lampstand, all of gold with its bowl on the top of it. And it's seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps, which are on the top of it. Also two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on his left side. Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me, saying, what are these my Lord? The angel who was speaking to me answered and said to me, do you not know who these are? I said, no, my Lord. Which seems kind of like an insulting question, but anyway. He said to me, this is the word of the Lord to this irrevocable saying, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit. says the Lord of hosts.

If you skip down to verse 10 in Zechariah 4. For who has despised the day of small things? With these seven will be glad when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. These are the eyes of the Lord, which range to and fro throughout the whole earth. So lampstand is representing the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of God that is all seeing and all knowing. It's the Holy Spirit. And there's seven of those on the lampstand. So then, there's seven lampstands. So then you get to the seven spirits here in Zechariah chapter four, and you say, why do you just reach it to Zechariah, James? Why do you just go there and kind of pluck that one out? Say, well, this is what it is. So just cause it's like, seems to fit in your mind. That'll be a good one. That's gonna come up too in, with the sharp two-edged sword at the Lord's mouth in verse 16.

But in Revelation four, you see verse five, you see this, out from the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. It looks exactly like the lamp stand that we just saw in Zechariah. And in chapter five, verse six, and I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders, the lamp standing as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Okay, it just, it seems like it really fits. Okay, so I think we're within bounds to say this is a term for the Holy Spirit. So why seven? because it's, it could be because it's the perfect number, but it could also be that he's trying to make it clear that this is connected to that vision. We see in the same spirit. Yes? Would you, those last two references, would you tell me those again? Yeah, Revelation 4.5, 4 verse 5, and chapter 5 verse 6. 

Okay, since I'm out of time, We knew it had to happen. Let me jump ahead here to this vision of Christ. And I'm going to steal some more of your time, but I'll try to make it fast. I needed to spend that time in the beginning, because if you were to type into the interwebs, What is, insert revelation verse here, you'd get slammed with everything and maybe if it linked you to a Grace To You blog, you might be within the bounds of good. I was making hyperbolic here. But I wanna just deal with that foundation. We're gonna take it at face value. So then if you come across somebody who wants to say, something really crazy, even if they claim to be a dispensation list, because there's been a lot of crazy from that camp too. You can say, well, that's not how the letter presents itself. 

OK, I need to say here, we need to go to chapter 1, verses 9 through 20, which means I have to skip over these glorious statements. But I did that to myself, so we'll just continue. In this section, John hears a voice behind him, verse 10, like the sound of a trumpet. He is told by this individual who's speaking with apparently a mighty voice, he's commissioned to write this book and to send it to these seven churches, okay? Obviously, it's part of our biblical canon. It was recognized to, just like, you know, Colossians is sent to Colossae and Philippians is sent to Philippi. It's recognized that this is to the whole church as well. But those were the churches that needed to hear it, because they had real problems, which we're gonna see in the next, do we handle chapter two and three in one week? No, we do it in two weeks, right? So the next two weeks. 

And he turns around to see who this is, and it's glorious. So let me just give this to you really quickly. In verse 13, one like a son of man, does that make you think of anything? Ezekiel, is that what you said? Daniel, yeah, make sure, both. And the words of the Lord Jesus. He calls himself the son of man. In Daniel chapter seven, verse, if you just put a finger in Daniel chapter seven, and you'll, you'll see how, how just amazing this is. In verse 13, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, and we just saw in verse seven of Revelation, he's coming with the clouds, okay? With the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. and it came to the ancient of days, and was presented before him, and he was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, and all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is everlasting dominion. He will not pass away. His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. 

He's girded across his chest with a golden sash. In Daniel chapter 10, the angel that comes to Daniel, who had been fighting with the Prince of Persia, and then is finally able to come. He, in Daniel chapter 10, verse five, there was a certain man dressed in linen whose waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. So there's all of these indications in this section to tell us that this one is from heaven, and is the Messiah, is the Lord, because he's the son of man. In verse 14 of Revelation 1, his head and his hair were white like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. In Daniel 7, that's said of the Ancient of Days on the throne, where he says, I kept looking until thrones were set up. The Ancient of Days took his seat. His vesture was like white snow. His hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames.

So this individual speaking to him, has angelic imagery, is this servant of the Ancient of Days who's given the kingdom, who is like the Ancient of Days himself in his glorious appearance. His eyes are like flame of fire, that's also said of the angel in Daniel chapter 10. Same with his feet, like burnished bronze. His voice is like the sound of many waters. Looks back to Ezekiel 43, verse two. In his right hand, the hand of authority, the hand where you would It's your strong hand. If there's any kind of imagery or statue of any kings or anything, it's their right hand that's going to be lifted or doing something. And so he has authority. And a sharp two-edged sword is Isaiah 11, verse 4. His face shining like the sun is the Mount of Transfiguration, Matthew 17, verse 2.

So there's just imagery upon imagery upon imagery stacked from the Old Testament telling us how glorious this individual is. It's communicating something about the Lord Jesus. He's the king, we've seen that already in verse five. He has the power of the Lord. He is like the Lord God Almighty, the Father. And he is the judge, from his mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword. It's just stacked on itself, how glorious it is. I wish I could spend more time on it, but I'm already using more time than I'm supposed to.

Now he's, John is commissioned in verse 19 to write these things again by the Lord Jesus, the one who was dead and behold, he is alive forevermore. And he has the keys of death in Hades. I mean, it's pretty clear this one is the one who defeated death, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And in verse 19, when he's told to write these things, it's the things which he's seen, which is probably the vision he'd just had of the Lord Jesus, because he already wrote his gospel, so he doesn't need to write that again. And the things which are, which is probably chapters two and three to the churches that currently are, And the things which will take place after these things, and after these things is that exact phrase is used in chapter four, verse one, after he's written to the seven churches directly, the whole letters to the seven churches, but after he's written to the seven churches directly, he says, after these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And then you get this whole into the world vision. which seems to be what he's told to write about in verse 19 of chapter one, the things which will take place after these things.

Okay, I'll just tell you what I think the angels are, and then we'll end it. The angels are humans in verse 20, okay? Because they can't be, real angels, because they're somehow representative of these churches, and they're told to repent at times. So they can't be unfallen angels who are sinning, because then you're no longer a fallen angel. We're no longer an unfallen angel. You're not a fallen angel. Okay, you're a demon. So it can't be real angels. And it can't also represent the church itself in sort of like a, it's not a person, it's not an individual, it's just sort of the spirit of the church, you know? Would that be the milieu of the church? I don't know. It's because then you'd have, the stars and the lampstands represent the same thing, which there's two different things in the verse. And you would also have the mystery of one symbol explained, but then into one symbol explained to another symbol representing something else, which we're not told about, which just doesn't seem like, if he's explaining the mystery, he's explaining it.

So angelos can mean messenger. So Thomas took this view, I think it's compelling, that these churches, which were probably really indebted to John in serving in the region of Ephesus, it's reasonable to say that these angels, these could be delegates, messengers sent from those churches to John, And even the book doesn't tell us this, but even on occasion of them coming, John receives this vision to then write them this book and give it to them to take back, which I think is compelling. And the word angelos, angel, it can mean messenger. It's a technical term for us, for a spiritual being, but in the Greek word, it means a messenger. So it's a spiritual being if it's a spiritual messenger from God. It's a human being if it's a human messenger. even from God, but from man, operating on earth.

So the churches, you see in 2 Corinthians 8, 23, that the churches were already in some able to and the first century able to establish a delegate from them to go help apostles and stuff. The apostle Paul, when he was in jail, had help from Epaphroditus. So there's no reason to think that these churches wouldn't have sent people to John. So I think that's a compelling view.

The other view you'll hear, and might be the view in your MacArthur Study Bible if you have it, is that these are the head pastors of these churches. The problem with that is we don't know that these churches in the first century even had the concept of head pastor because they had a plurality of leaders who were all engaged in the work of the pastoral teaching ministry. So would there have been a prominent one though? I think that's just human nature is always to have a prominent voice. So could be. Peter seemed to have that kind of function in Jerusalem. Theatrophies had that function in a sinful way in 3 John over his church. So that could be, maybe it's a combination of the two. We don't know. I think it's people though, because they're told to repent.

All right, I took so much of your time that you can feel free to come and ask me any questions you have, or any comments you have too, because I love those. But I'm not sorry I took this time. Okay, because it was glorious, but I'll end it now so that you can go drink some coffee and fellowship.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for this book and ask for you to give us the rich blessing which you've promised for us as we look into it. I ask that you would enable us to understand the book rightly. We know that there's a reason that there are constant debates about what it means because you wrote, you communicated it in symbols and in ways that that allow for some conjecture and some speculation. We ask that you would guide us and enable us to see what you have communicated to us about your plans for the end of the world. We ask that you would send your son quickly. as the book promises, that he would come even this year in 2026, and that we would be reunited with him in the clouds, and that he would begin to judge the wicked, to save his people, and to establish his kingdom on the earth. We ask this in his name, amen.