Introduction I

Good morning. Those who were in the adult Bible study time prior to this service have already heard this, but we'll repeat it for those of you who weren't able to be here earlier. Something that we're starting two weeks from today that we want to make sure that you're included on.

We're going to be starting two weeks from today, first Sunday in October. some electives in the adult Bible study time, and the theme of these electives that we have here is Growing in the Grace and Knowledge of Jesus Christ. We'll be beginning this in October, continuing through December, that first quarterly elective, and then the next quarter beginning in January, going through March, etc. Initially, we're going to be having an offering of four on which we'd like to poll you, that is, we'd like to get your input. And from those two, we will select two initially. Eventually, we're looking at increasing that the next quarter to at least three and perhaps even more beyond that. But the initial four that we'd like to get your input on, is how to study the Bible, part one, and that would be an introduction to a series on how to study the Bible, how to draw things out of God's work, tools and methods.

The next option there would be marriage and family, part one. You notice the Roman numeral there. That implies that there would be a follow-on class as well, and that would be going through what are the biblical principles applying to marriage and the family.

Next, going through the book of Genesis. Genesis is the seedbed for basically every theme that runs through the Bible. And it's got 50 chapters. We'll be going through it in 13 weeks, so we'll be hitting kind of overview points through the book of Genesis. A real valuable study. And the last one would be Romans. Romans is the flagship of Paul's epistles. It lays out salvation, justification, identity truths, the past, present, and future of Israel and applications in the body of Christ.

So at any rate, among those four, what we would like to have you do in the lobby, there is a clipboard and we'd like to have you sign up for your preferences. First, second, and third choice with numbers one, two, and three. You'll find that in the clipboard in the lobby.

If you were previously unaware of these electives and would like to take those in, those are available for you to choose from. That would be starting two weeks from today. Eventually we'll be having quite a few more electives, and these are some that have been under discussion. The ones that you see highlighted in blue, as I told those in the Bible study class this morning, they're not intended to make you blue. What they're intended to do is to just identify these are kind of the priority or core courses, but there may in fact be others among this list that we would offer as well. So if you're interested in any of those electives, I invite you to let us know on the clipboard so that we can get your thoughts and inputs included.

Now we're going to shift gears again. We're going to be starting in on a study of a book, the last book of the Bible. The Book of Revelation is not a short book. It's going to take some time for us to progress through it. My anticipation is quite a number of months. We're not going to just hit the high spots. We are going to dig through it in detail and draw a lot of the things out of it. I feel like it's my privilege and honor to be able to be with you and be a leading with you as we go through this marvelous and incredible book. The book is about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, with whom we'll spend eternity, and by whose life we're now enabled to live.

Now, I'd like to draw your attention to a few things. There are some contrasts. As you know, one of the things that we do at Holly Hills is make particular focus on the writings of Paul, because Paul makes some unique points, statements, doctrines, teachings that only come from Paul. We will, however, be looking at some contrasts here. Here's one of them.

Paul uniquely tells us about the identification truths that we talk about here. I'll put this up just as a matter of summary. Paul, in these passages and others, points us to these identification truths These are laid out in Paul's epistles and not elsewhere. Now, John does something unique in the book of Revelation, though, that we want to make sure we don't overlook.

And that is that the Apostle John uniquely writes about Christ in the heavenlies in a narrative form. There's about 150 verses of Christ in the heavenlies. See, Paul will tell us we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. John writes this in narrative form about Christ in the heavenlies.

Isn't that exciting? So we'll be taking a look at that. The pattern that you see in John's writing in the book of Revelation is the syncopation where he starts at the earth, then he goes up to heaven, to the heavenly scene, back down to the earth. Back and forth. You see that? It's just an amazing pattern. Back and forth and back and forth. And it's only in this last time on earth where Christ is actually on earth as well. All the rest of the time it's Christ and the heavenlies in a narrative form.

Paul will tell us that the crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated Christ is our life. John tells us in narrative form about the crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated Christ who is our life. Get the contrast there? Paul tells us that we have been seated with Christ. He did that as no other apostle did. John tells us in narrative form about the one with whom we've been seated. You get that?

One of the great values of looking at these heavenly scenes And these descriptions, which we'll get in Revelation, that is incomparable to anything else that's been written, brings us to a growing sense of wonder and awe about the unfathomable and untouchable position that we have in the crucified, buried, raised, ascended and seated Christ. That's the amazing thing about what we'll be studying here. Paul tells us all that is worthwhile and permanent in the heavenlies. John describes all that's worthwhile and permanent.

See that? Paul writes with the undefeatable logic of a lawyer. John writes with the syncopations of a musician. That's why I kept this up there. You see that? It's like a musical score. He's going back and forth, earth to heaven, earth to heaven, back and forth. It's like one crescendo to the next, to the next, to the next. It's a majestic piece. That's what John's laid out for us.

One of the things that astounds me too is that Paul writes with this sophistication in logic. One of the things that you see as you look at the words in the Greek is Paul likes to take compound words out of them, join them together, put a lot of prefixes and suffixes on there, put the engine in the caboose. He likes to see the complexity. John writes in clear simplicity.

Now, as excited as I am about all that, there's other reasons why I think this is a very momentous time for us to take a look at this book. It was written, and we're pretty sure about this date, about 1905 years ago. But in spite of that, it is relevant and current right here today at Holly Hills Bible Church. right here for you and me. And I'm sure as the events of the past two weeks have underscored in our minds, it is intensely relevant because we'll begin to get a sense of what's the bigger context of what's taking place here. One of the things that people in our country struggle with right now is lacking the biblical context. What just happened? How does that fit? Well, we'll get a sense of how that fits. if we take a look at this book.

You see, it speaks of pivotal events in history, and it talks about it in these unparalleled crescendos. It just brings them up to points of maximum. He also, just like a piece of music, if you notice, if you look in the hymnal, it's got a system to it. Yes, there's an art, but it's very systematic. There's all the bars and the flats and the sharps and all the different timings of the notes. All that is a system. And John writes with systematic consistency.

Something else I think to take a note, though the tragic events of September 11th seem riveting to us at the present time, and I don't mean to underplay it, but quite frankly, compared to what's described in the book of Revelation, those events will be like third page news. It is amazing the magnitude of what's described in Revelation. It's the only book of the 66 books of scripture that begins with a promise of blessing.

Would you read it with me? Let's turn to Revelation chapter 1, verses 1-3. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his bondservants, the things which must soon take place, and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near." Get the sense of that? Blessed are those who read and hear.

Now, there are some who look at the book of Revelation and just think of it as an indecipherable mystery. You run into folks like that? Over the years I've seen some folks who have shied away from teaching it and just say, oh no, not that. John Calvin Back in the Reformation days, he wrote commentaries on almost every book of the New Testament. He didn't do one on Revelation. It's like, boy, this is way too confusing. You can't sort it out.

Some have even discouraged others from studying it. How many of you have seen that? People discouraging others from studying it? Some of you. Some have even started to teach it, only to give up. I've seen that testified too recently. One pastor that began it, and after two or three weeks he says, I give up, I'll switch to something else. Now, here's something else, and the reason probably why the pastor switched. Interpretations of the book have varied all over the place. All sorts of interpretations. We'll take a look at that later. But, I don't think there's a reason for any of that. And here's why.

The word revelation, the very title of the book, in the Greek is apokalypsis, and it means to take the cover off. That doesn't sound so difficult, does it? It doesn't mean something that is veiled and mysterious and unclear, but in fact, it's to make something clear and systematic and understandable that wasn't before. That's what it's about. It's not to make things mysterious, it's to make things understood.

That's what the book of Revelation is all about. The very title of it should tell us that. The book of Revelation has been outlined in this form here. As you'll see, just scanning this here, and we won't bother to go into every jot and piddle of detail quite yet, But really the book is kind of systematic.

Every chapter has got a theme. You can identify it there. Sometimes the chapters are coupled that go together and it's quite logical. There's a sequence to it. It has a start and it has an end. It talks about things that are right now. It talks about things that were and it talks about things that are to come. It's got a time sequence. It's got a system sequence. It really makes good logical, systematic sense. It's not really confusing at all. As we'll see in the weeks ahead, it's quite clear. You see, there's no really good reason for all the varying interpretations.

So let's go over it. Here's the reasons why we're not going to be confused as we go through it. Let me make a bit of a promise to you here. I've got to be careful about promises. As we go through this, this will become clear. And it's clear because that's God's intent. It won't be because of me, it's because that's what God had in mind. This is to take the cover off, not to put a veil on. Now, here is how we're going to keep out of trouble with this thing and make sure that we understand it. The first thing, we're going to interpret the entire book literally. What do I mean by that? I mean that if the plain sense makes sense, don't seek any other sense. Okay? You get that? If the plain sense makes sense, don't seek any other sense.

Now, let's take it for instance. If I come up to one of you and I say, Nancy and I love to have people over, by the way. We just can't have all of you over at once because we live in this little apartment. But if we invite you over and we say, hey look, we want you over for dinner. next Tuesday at 6 o'clock. And by the way, this is an example, not an invitation. But we want you all over next Tuesday night for dinner at 6 o'clock, our place.

Now, you don't hang up the phone and think, my heavens, what does Vern mean? What's he talking about? And you don't sit there and ponder six different things I might have meant. When we talk, we intend to convey something, don't we? We really have one intended meaning.

And that's exactly the same thing that John did. John wasn't intending to convey some massive confusion, something that would keep you scratching your head and wondering in bewilderment for decades. He intended to lay out something quite clear. And the truth is, the book of Revelation is quite clear. Let's take a further look at this.

When John wrote the Gospel of John, fortunately he wrote several books in the Bible. Let's turn to John chapter 20. verse 30 and 31. John was, by the way, the only apostle that we are aware of that died of old age. The others died martyrs' deaths. But here John writes in the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verse 30 and 31, Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.

But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." Now, how foggy and mysterious is that? He has told you why he wrote the book, right? And he says, these are written so that what? Believing you might have life through his name. That's not foggy and mysterious.

Well, let's take a look at 1 John 1, 1-4. Let's take a look at another passage there. John's writing in this epistle and he starts off with What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, that indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son, Jesus Christ, these things we write so that our joy may be made complete." Now, is that foggy and mysterious? No. It's clear as a bell.

He is repeatedly telling us it's the things that we've seen. The things that we have heard. The things that we have touched. He's talking about real things. Nothing mysterious. Nothing that you can't comprehend. He's saying, look, we saw, touched, taste, when Jesus served the fish, we ate it. All these things, it's for clarity. He's talking reality, he's talking clarity, he's talking, and what is his purpose? So that our joy may be made complete.

He's told you what he's written, he's told you why he's written it. It's the same thing he did in the Gospel of John. That's the exact same thing he's doing in the book of Revelation. He's telling you, he says, I'm just going to lay out the simple truth. This is what I saw. Here's my description of it. And he's going to lay it out. It's to make things clear. John is not a cryptic writer trying to conceal and make you ponder and wonder and lie awake at night. Okay? That's not the kind of writer he is. He writes clearly. He writes simply.

And one of the things that's clear from these passages we just read, he writes with a purpose. What we'll be studying here in the book of Revelation is not just to say, gee whiz, that's a really great book. But he is writing with intent and purpose. And he starts off with saying, this is a book of blessings for you and for me. He has a specific intent in mind and he's going to follow through on it just as he spelled out in these other books. But let's go on. We're going to take the book of Revelation literally, and there's some reasons why.

Think of it, there are over a hundred prophecies about Christ's first coming. Some have gone through and tabulated every single one, and we won't refer to all those this morning. But take me at my word on this, and you can look it up yourself if you want to. There are over a hundred prophecies of Christ's first coming.

How are those fulfilled? They were fulfilled literally. Literal fulfillment. is the pattern in prophecy. John Walvoord said recently, he said, there are about 10,000 prophecies in the Bible. About 5,000 of those have been fulfilled. The other 5,000, if you go to every little tiny little detail, yet to be fulfilled. The ones that have been fulfilled, half of them, 5,000, they've been fulfilled what? Literally. That's a pretty good test, don't you think? 5,000? I'd say, I conjecture, the next 5,000, they're probably going to be fulfilled literally, wouldn't you think? That's what we're going to see here. There's another reason.

Christ spoke against the Pharisees repeatedly, didn't he? He said at one point, woe unto you Pharisees, and he went down line by line with the various things that he criticized them for. But the one thing he didn't criticize them for was that the Pharisees interpreted prophecy literally. Remember when the wise men came to Jerusalem and they asked Herod, Where is the King of the Jews to be born? And what did they do? They went and looked up the scriptures and said, Bethlehem. What is it?

Literal fulfillment. Literal prophecy, literal fulfillment. There's another reason. And I think it's a matter of just kind of confirmation. Orthodox Jews today, and incidentally up until about the 17th century, all Jews were Orthodox. Today you have Reformed and Conservative and various other groups. Orthodox Jews today, based on just studying the Old Testament alone, exclusive of the Book of Revelation, they believe these things.

They believe that there will come upon the earth a terrible time of tribulation, as has never been before. They believe that the tribulation will last seven years. That's seven Jewish years of 360 days each. They believe that an Antichrist will come and deceive and destroy. They give him the name, in some places, Armilus. At the end of this seven-year period of tribulation, the Messiah will come, defeat his enemies, and rule the earth from Jerusalem for a long time. Does that sound familiar to you?

Based on a literal interpretation of just the Old Testament, and they don't even have the New Testament to refer to, that's the conclusions they've come to. What we have is that basic same outline, but we have more detail we have more information because of what's been revealed in the New Testament. Because we understand that Christ came the first time, and that the Orthodox Jews don't recognize that. So we will have further insights, but the very fact is, just studying the Old Testament and taking it literally, it comes to very much the same conclusions as is taught in this church.

Now, let's continue on. Here's a little bit more about what I mean by interpreting literally. When John uses the word like or as, and when you see that in the book of Revelation, underscore it. When he uses the word like or as, as he does over a hundred times, it must be important. We take that to be a comparison to something that he uses that we can all understand. Let me give you an example.

Revelation 1.16, which we'll be getting to in not very far a period of time here.

Revelation 1.16 says, his face, that's referring to the risen Christ, his face was like the sun shining in its strength.

Now is that mysterious? What is he doing? He's making a comparison to something we understand. Have you seen the sun? Don't look at it too long. But the reality is that's something we can understand, isn't it? Is that so difficult? No, it isn't. He's making a comparison to something we can understand. Not complex at all.

Let's jump ahead to Revelation 8.10. It's another instance.

Revelation 8.10 says a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. You see that comparison? Everybody has an idea what a torch is, and so here's this thing that's burning like a torch.

He makes a comparison to something that we can understand. He does that over a hundred times in the book of Revelation, and using the word as translated in English, like or as. makes it very clear because he comes up with things that we can relate to.

He comes up with things that are common and we can understand. There's something else that helps us understand very clearly what he means. And that's when he explains what looks like to us a head-scratching symbol. It's like, what does he mean by that? He'll explain what it is right in the text. So we know when he explains it right in the text that that's what he means. Unfortunately, I've seen commentators who will take something that he explains right in the text and explain it to something else, and it's like, hey, wait a minute.

He just told you what it was. So let's take a look at an example. Go back to Revelation chapter 1 again, verse 20. As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are, and you get this, The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. So he just tells you right there in the text, this is what it is. Is that mysterious? Not at all. He just spells it right out. And several times in Revelation you see exactly that same kind of wording. This is this. This is this. This is this. Okay?

Helps make it very clear. There's something else we're going to be doing here in order to make sure that we have a clear understanding of what John's wanting to convey. We'll examine carefully the word usage, and we'll take an example of that in a bit. We'll look carefully at the grammar. How I put words together matters, doesn't it? We'll look carefully at how the grammar is structured.

We'll look at the verb tenses. Is that a future tense? Is that a past tense? Is that for right now? Those all spell out for us things we need to take notice of, and we'll be doing that. We'll be examining everything in context. Someone has said a text out of context is a pretext. That means they're ready to do something else with it. And we're not going to do that. We're going to be examining things in context.

What does it say in view of the verses around it, the chapters around it, the things that have gone before? What does it mean in terms of how certain words and phrases have been used elsewhere in Scripture? One of the great contexts of the Book of Revelation, 70% of the Book of Revelation is straight out of the Old Testament. So that means over two-thirds of the Book of Revelation has already been brought up in the Old Testament. What it does is it gives us explanation for it. What it does is it explains further how does this relate to Jesus Christ. What it also does is it gives us Old Testament context to study in as well. So the truth is, the number of tools and the magnitude and the depth that we have to draw from to determine what a passage means is ample. It's all we need. The next thing, we're going to interpret according to history and the culture.

John wrote as a man who had been a fisherman, spent decades as a disciple, and towards the last few decades of his life had to leave his homeland 70 AD, the Romans came and just hit Israel like it was Mercury. The Jews went everywhere. John went from what we know from extra-biblical writings, he went and spent the balance of his years, with the exception of some time in exile, in Ephesus. And so here's John, he is a Jew, having been a fisherman, and spending time in Jerusalem and then going to Ephesus and spending some time there in exile, that gives him that kind of an understanding.

So he's going to write with that understanding, isn't he? He's not going to write about cars and he's not going to write about missiles with the words that we would use. If I come to you and I just look really exhausted and I say, boy, I'm just out of gas, you know what I mean, right? We understand, in our cultural context, figures of speech like that. John will use figures of speech like that, too. And so what we have to do is say, what did that mean in John's context? When John said it, what did he intend to convey by it?

There's something else we're going to look at. We're going to read, Israel is Israel, and the church is the church. We're not going to confuse those two. We're not going to say, if it reads Israel, it means the church. People have gotten real mixed up and confused with that. Something else we're going to do here. We'll differentiate between the Saints of the Church Age and the Saints of the Tribulation. And we'll see why as we go on. That's critical. Not going to confuse the two. We will also take advantage of John's amazing consistency. Looking through the book of Revelation in the Greek, it is Just unbelievably consistent.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean by that. Christ is called the Lamb about 30 times. And where have we heard that before? We've heard it in the Gospel of John a couple of times. And you know what? You pull out the concordance and you look at it, John's the only one who ever calls Christ the Lamb. and he keeps using the term again and again. Can there be any question who the lamb is? It's not mysterious, is it? No doubt about it. We know who the lamb is, and he keeps using that same term again and again and again.

It's as if he wants us to think about it and remember it, huh? The next thing, Christ is said to have a sword in his mouth. He does that five times, and in each case, John uses a Greek word for the barbarian's longsword. This isn't the one like the Romans would pull out and just wave around with skill, of course, but this was a two-handed sword, and they would swing it overhead, and the idea was to keep people at a distance, and this was for hacking off arms, legs, heads. This was a vicious, incredible thing. Five times he uses that specific word for the barbarian sword.

That's the sword that comes out of his mouth, as we'll study further when we get there. The usage of that word for the sword coming out of his mouth and that description drops after Christ executes judgment towards the end of Revelation. The usage drops out. But he's consistent all the way through. Anytime he says there's a sword coming out of his mouth, he uses that word.

Here's another one. The phrase loud voice occurs 19 times. Wow. Here's John. It's about 96 AD. John is getting on in years. You might even think his hearing is a little bit weak. But he describes the voices that he hears here as a loud voice 19 times. It must have been overwhelming, don't you think? And Every time he uses it, it is always from somebody not on Earth.

Isn't that amazing? John has incredible consistency. I went through a list, and I won't go through it now because it's just too much. I went through a list of the consistency of John, and it's as long as your arm. The things that he uses again and again and again. This book isn't mysterious at all.

It's like John said, I'm going to take extra pains to make sure it is absolutely clear what I'm trying to convey. The reason for all these varying interpretations, I can't fathom it. John is so amazingly consistent, as we'll see through here. We're going to use that as an extremely valuable tool, because it's very clear that John is intending to convey something all the way through.

Now, as much as I've been telling you that the book of Revelation is quite clear, there's something we have to recognize, and that's this. There are some things that we will not understand clearly what the application is until the time comes. And some of those things may not come during our lifetime or even during the time when the church is on the earth. What do I mean by that?

If we go back to the Old Testament, Daniel, half a millennia before Christ, made prophecies, and his prophecies included the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire. Daniel didn't know about the subsequent empires, did he, when that prophecy came about? He didn't know about those.

But as time rolled on, as the centuries passed, the people who look back and read the book of Daniel say, oh, now I know what that means. In the same way, there are things that as the prophecy comes to pass, people now can look back and say, oh, okay, I now know what that means.

There were some people in the 1800's and early 1900's who said, based on what I study here in the Scriptures, I think Israel is going to become a nation again. You know what? They were right. And what was it? It was because they could look at the Scriptures and see it sure looks like it. And guess what? How many decades has it been since that came to fruition, that Israel became a nation again?

We can look back and say, okay, everything isn't all done, but God's done something here. God has let us know something, and we have seen how exactly it came about with a clarity that those looking ahead from decades and centuries past didn't see. The same thing, as we look ahead into times to come, There will be things that we look at and we say, you know, we don't have enough information here to make a clear tie to this or that. It's clear, but we still don't have enough. Not enough has occurred in history and comes down to the present where we can say this is precisely what this means. But just like we can look back at those kingdoms that Daniel predicted and say, well, I know exactly what those kingdoms are.

The people living during the coming times will read these things and they will say, oh, there's no doubt. I know who this is. I know what this event is. They will have no doubt what it's about. Matter of fact, they'll start looking at it and they'll be telling the people living contemporaneous with them, this is what's going to happen next. Because it will become so clear to them and very real.

Now, I think it's just kind of a part of a principle we have to recognize. Sometimes it's a matter of waiting until the right time before it became clear. Just like Paul wrote to the Galatians, and he said, in the fullness of time, a baby was born. The Lord has a timing for things. And there will be some things where as clear as we can see it, we still cannot make a definite connection to a real world event or person yet. And that's okay. It's alright if we do that.

Now, I've told you some things that we're going to do. I also want to lay out some things that we're not going to do. We will not try to force everything we read to fit into the current events. That has happened over, you know, church history where people, oh that looks like this, this looks like that, and before you know it they're making connections to things that are obviously not the case. We could go down with a long list of that. We will not take John's intended clear communication and allegorize it. We're not going to take it and just go off into artificial spiritualizing so that it fits something else. We will not set dates. Let me show you something. This is a library of date setters and it's lengthy.

Over 200 dates have been cataloged in here of people who said, the Lord's going to come here. The end is right here. And they've given dates, it's been some of those years, sometimes specific dates. One of them that's even coming up is like 2047, you know, it's like September 20, you know, some odd, at 348 AM.

I mean, even gone to that. We're not going to do that, okay? Even Martin Luther was the one who set a date. Isn't that amazing? We have seen dates set within our lifetime, and there are still dates yet to come. So we're not going to go there. There are some clear reasons why we're not going to go there, aside from a lot of people failing. Turn with me to Acts 1, verses 6 and 7.

So when they had come together, this is the disciples, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? They're looking for this coming kingdom, right? Notice he didn't correct them and say, oh no, we're not going to have that.

But what he did say, it's not for you to know the times or epochs by which the Father has fixed by his own authority. They are going to take place, these things, But the timing of it is not your business. We're going to be looking at outlines, and once things get moving in clockwork, we're going to see that. But exactly how this whole thing is going to happen time-wise, we're not told and we're not going to know. So we're not going to proceed with this date setting. Not just because 200 plus people have failed, but scripture makes it clear, and this is only one of the places, that date-setting is not our business. Now, let's take a look back.

Who are the original date-setters? Remember the book of 1 Thessalonians? What was the reason for writing the letter? Paul wrote to them and he says, I'm writing this to you because somebody is getting you all upset with this idea that the Lord has already come. That was the first date-setter.

It's already happened. All that's happening is people are trying to lock in on some date. There are even people now who say the Lord has already come. And we'll be taking a look at that. They have a name, they're called Preterists. They're basically the same heresy as the Thessalonians were being sucked into. The other thing that we'll not be doing, we'll not be adding to Scripture.

There is, for example, the Apocrypha. There's pseudepigraphy, other books that you can add to it. There's Nostradamus, who back in the 1500s made various so-called predictions. I think a great deal of that is actually fraudulent, because a lot of what he wrote was so spooky and vague that people end up having to put things together to make something.

We won't be fiddling with that. We're not going to be forcing a connection to this morning's or any other morning's headlines. Now, by approaching the Scriptures, approaching the book of Revelation as God intended, we'll find that the book of Revelation is very straightforward and understandable. People have sometimes been stunned when I tell them, interpreting the book of Revelation is a piece of cake. No problem at all. It's one of the simplest books out there.

You see, it is God's Word. It's His capstone. He did promise a blessing with it. How can it be a blessing if it comes off all mysterious and confusing? How can it be a blessing if you can't possibly comprehend it? I say that it is comprehensible. And in fact, what is intended to be understood right now is actually abundantly clear.

He intended that we understand it. He intended that we learn from it. He intended that we grow and be encouraged by it. By it, he intended that we overcome this world gravitational pull. You get the sense of that? Have you ever just kind of come to recognize that this world has a gravitational pull? Revelation is intended to help us overcome this world's gravitational pull. I don't mean you'll all be flying here, but the sense, not the physical world, but just the world system.

The things that we can easily be drawn into and get sucked into. He intended that we grow in a knowledge of Him. You notice it's the revelation of Jesus Christ. Many people get really focused on what does the book of Revelation predict here on planet earth. And you'll notice as we look back at this kind of syncopating chart, yes, there is a lot of description of what's going to happen here on earth, but notice how much of it's in heaven. And notice something else.

Where does it end? See, the focus ultimately is not what happens here on earth. Yes, it describes it. Yes, it gives us detail. It gives us a systematic sequence of what's about to take place. Ultimately, the focus is on Jesus Christ. Ultimately, the focus is heavenly. Ultimately, the focus is where you and I, as Paul tells us, are now seated with Christ, if we put our trust in Him.

That's where He's directing us. Folks, I have to be honest with you, there is little doubt in my mind, and likely little doubt in yours, that the coming weeks and months are going to have some pretty trying times. Just in the sense of the events of the last couple of weeks here. We're in for some, I think, some real shocks and surprises.

But, I think one of the things we can do in taking a look at this book, we can get God's perspective on what's taking place. It isn't necessarily going to announce tomorrow's headlines in every detail. But we'll have a sense of how does God look at what's going on? How does God look at what's happening? Isn't that comforting to get His perspective on what's going on? And you know the reason He can do that? It's because He's sovereign. He's in charge. He knows what's taking place.

There's a movement afoot called Open Theism. And when I was first candidating earlier this year, that was one of the things I had kind of brought up as a problem. It's a growing problem. Only in the last year or so it's been introduced at seminaries where I never thought it would be introduced. It's the idea that God doesn't know the future and he doesn't have complete control.

One fellow even put it this way, God likes surprises. That's just unbelievable. Let me tell you something. God isn't surprised by anything. The book of Revelation is able to tell us these things that will take place both on earth and in heaven, because God is sovereign and in charge of both. And that's comforting.

The thought that God isn't sovereign, the thought that He doesn't know what's happening, is not in the least bit comforting at all. It's also unbiblical. You see, we need God's perspective. We need to see from the pages that we'll be reading in the weeks and months ahead, we need to see God's character.

We need, in the midst of this, to see the glorified Jesus Christ. And that's one of the things that's astounding to me. In the midst of these earthly tragedies that we'll be reading, in the middle portion of the book of Revelation, all the time there's glory to Jesus Christ. All the time there's glory to the Lord. Glory and praise and honor that goes on endlessly. Let me finish by reading again these verses in Revelation 1, 1-3.

I want us to fix this thought in our minds. The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his bondservants, the things which must soon take place, and he sent and communicated by his angel to his bondservant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near."